Old Acquaintances Meet Old Acquaintances

"Hey, Uesugi-kun, what is that thing?"

Seeing the man behind her treat his head like a detachable part, Ririko felt a chill and gripped her bamboo sword tighter.

"Rokurokubi, also called Flying Head Monster," Uesugi Tetsu said after staring at the opponent's head for a moment. "It's not very strong."

No wonder he and Ririko were discovered; a head had been floating in the sky watching them the entire time.

"But be careful, its head and body can stretch or separate at any time, and I'm not sure if its body can still move after the head is detached."

Ririko glanced at him in surprise, seemingly wondering why Uesugi Tetsu knew so much about the suddenly appearing demon.

However, she didn't say anything, just asked coldly, "Which one should I deal with?"

"Those two, I'll handle the Flying Head Monster."

"Okay."

Ririko and Uesugi Tetsu pressed their backs together, changed direction, and then she noticed he had stuffed a strange-looking cloth doll into her pocket.

"What is this?"

"Don't worry about it!"

The moment the words fell, the two, as if telepathically connected, dashed towards their respective opponents.

"Hiss!"

The Flying Head Monster roared, its jaw stretching exaggeratedly at the base, revealing red muscles and a terrifying expression fiercer than an Evil Ghost.

The piercing sonic wave swept past. Uesugi Tetsu, enveloped in a thick aura, remained expressionless, adopting a flat-eyed stance, crouching low and rapidly closing the distance.

He thought this battle was coming at the perfect time, a perfect opportunity to practice the new swordsmanship techniques that had appeared in his mind.

Meanwhile, two members of the Friendship Club... no, perhaps they could be called members of the Friendship Cult, sighed in unison.

"Why must it come to this..."

The young employee standing beside them seemed frozen in fear, staring motionlessly at the battle unfolding before them.

The two cult members wore expressions of pity and simultaneously took out their prayer beads, beginning to chant some unintelligible phrases.

"Putting on a show."

Ririko snorted coldly. She only felt a faint, insignificant rustling sound brushing against her sword heart.

"The Sound of Bewildering Dreams doesn't work?!"

The two cult members' voices held undisguised shock. They watched Ririko rapidly approach. One of them, with a cruel look, pulled out a dagger, while the other violently snapped his prayer beads.

The cult member holding the dagger had cold eyes. He raised the sharp weapon and lunged towards Ririko's chest.

At the same moment, a cacophony tens of times larger than before surged into Ririko's mind, only to be crushed into fragments by her sword heart without obstruction.

Ririko furrowed her brows and roared, "Cultists, is that all you've got!?"

Her front foot landed, her Ki-ai Technique erupted, and the bamboo sword in her hand seemed to transform into a falling thunderbolt, striking the cult member's hand, chest, and head in three places in an instant.

All-out effort, three strikes in one second!

In the blink of an eye, the cult member's dagger was knocked flying to the wall. He himself had his nose broken by the downward swing of the bamboo sword. His vision went black, and he collapsed on the ground.

"Hand! Body! Head!"

Amidst the roar, Ririko pushed her Ki-ai Technique to its limit. Her face was as furious as a Vajra, but her eyes were colder than a Siberian winter.

Before the still stunned cult member could react, Ririko, now at close range, released her bamboo sword and delivered a swift groin kick, critically hitting him.

The cult member's face contorted, and he cried out in pain, "Ah!"

This cry was immediately swallowed by Ririko's flying elbow strike.

"--Sounds like things are going smoothly over there."

Facing the roaring Flying Head Monster, Uesugi Tetsu stopped, maintaining his flat-eyed stance. In a single breath, he thrust his blade forward.

Fang Thrust!

Kaga Kiyomitsu's blade emitted a faint blue light. The sword tip, which had already blurred into afterimages, accelerated further.

The Flying Head Monster hadn't even seen the trajectory of the sword before its crown was pierced straight through by Kaga Kiyomitsu, turning it into a skewer in mid-air.

One-hit kill!

[You have killed the Half-Star Demon "Flying Head Monster", Soul Ash +25]

Seeing the notification pop up, Uesugi Tetsu was about to turn around to check on Ririko's situation when he felt a chilling wind whistling from both sides.

--An ambush!?

Uesugi Tetsu's pupils contracted. Almost instinctively, he wanted to transform into Laughing Brahma, but thankfully, his state of mental clarity told him there was no need to use this troublesome trump card yet.

After a clumsy forward roll, Uesugi Tetsu, with two gruesome bloody gashes on his back, regained his footing and stared at the two heads with ferocious eyes before him.

Why weren't these two Flying Head Monsters supporting their teammate from earlier?

Actually, Uesugi Tetsu didn't know that the speed at which he killed the first Flying Head Monster was so great that the remaining two simply didn't have time to react.

"But it's fine..." Stimulated by adrenaline, Uesugi Tetsu felt his blood boiling. "Just two weaklings."

The aura emanating from these two Flying Head Monsters was nowhere near as strong as the first one.

The "Zero-Star" marking on their heads also indicated this.

The Flying Head Monsters danced in mid-air, their gaping mouths revealing sharp teeth that glinted coldly.

Uesugi Tetsu simply moved forward silently.

Two swift sword slashes flashed and disappeared, cutting off the Flying Head Monsters' hoarse roars.

[You have killed Zero-Star Demon "Flying Head Monster", Soul Ash +12]

[You have killed Zero-Star Demon "Flying Head Monster", Soul Ash +13]

Their four-part heads clattered to the ground, emitting a foul stench. If left unattended, they would be discovered and reported within a few hours.

But Uesugi Tetsu had already notified Nanjō Emi when he was waiting outside the barbecue restaurant. Calculating the time, the Special Affairs Division should arrive in less than two minutes.

[Your skill, Incomplete Ki-ai Technique, proficiency +21!]

[Your skill, Tennen Rishin-ryū, proficiency +28!]

Perhaps it was because Tennen Rishin-ryū had just reached the beginner level and was being used in actual combat for the first time, the proficiency increased more than in normal battles.

And if he included the practice during his fragmented free time, the proficiency for Ki-ai Technique had become [Incomplete Ki-ai Technique (151/300)], already exceeding half.

Sheathing his sword, Uesugi Tetsu walked towards the other side of the alley. "How's that guy..."

"You're injured?!"

Ririko interrupted him, pulling Uesugi Tetsu over and turning him around. After carefully examining the wound on his back for a while, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Just a minor injury."

As he spoke, Uesugi Tetsu unceremoniously took the doll back from Ririko's pocket and turned around again. "Rather than worrying about me, worry about that guy first."

After both cult members were knocked unconscious, the young man seemed to snap out of his daze, and for a moment, he spoke in Chinese, "Thank you... did you just save me?"

Ririko scratched her head, not understanding what he said.

Uesugi Tetsu, however, raised an eyebrow and asked in the broken Henan dialect he learned online, "Fellow countryman? International student?"

The young man was stunned for a moment, then exclaimed with surprise and incoherence, "Holy crap, brother, your girlfriend just now was f*cking awesome!"

Girlfriend?

Oh, she meant Ririko.

Without correcting these minor details, Uesugi Tetsu affectionately put his arm around the young man's shoulders and said in Chinese, "Brother, can you tell me how you ran into these two guys?"

The young man laughed heartily upon hearing this. Although he was laughing, Uesugi Tetsu felt a sense of melancholy.

"We met by chance. I was about to get off work when they walked in and said something about love and redemption to me, so I vaguely followed them... Does that sound stupid?"

Vaguely.

Uesugi Tetsu glanced at the scattered prayer beads on the ground, guessing it was likely some kind of Yin-Yang technique that hypnotized or affected the mind.

The laughter gradually faded. The young man took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and closed his eyes tiredly. "Sometimes I wonder if deciding to study abroad in Japan was really the right choice."

"When I first started working part-time, I couldn't even speak fluently, and I couldn't understand my classes. By the time I started to get the hang of things, everyone started wearing masks. Although I'll be graduating next year, my family said their business ran into problems, and I have to figure out the tuition for two more semesters myself.

Today, I was even almost abducted by a cult... I'm tired, really tired."

He looked enviously at Uesugi Tetsu and Ririko standing beside him, offering him a cigarette. "Brother, you should cherish your girlfriend."

Uesugi Tetsu took the cigarette and asked, "What are your plans now?"

"I'm going home," the young man exhaled smoke and sighed deeply. "Go back to my hometown, then farm and raise some livestock in the countryside. Even though I lost my job, it's not hard to add a couple of extra mouths to feed at the table."

Uesugi Tetsu thought about the recent events in Tokyo and felt that it might be a good choice for the young man to return now.

So he didn't say anything further. The remaining questions could be asked to these two cult members.

The young man looked up, quietly gazing at the modern city full of skyscrapers, as if reminiscing about every moment since he came to study abroad.

After a long while, he seemed to have made up his mind and left without looking back.

After seeing the young man's back completely disappear, Ririko, who hadn't understood a word, asked curiously, "What did he just say to you?"

Uesugi Tetsu stared at the unlit cigarette in his hand and said after some thought:

"He said he misses home."

Ririko didn't understand, but she could clearly feel the heavy atmosphere pervading the air, so she looked at the two cult members on the ground who were showing signs of waking up.

Ririko decided to use the Great Memory Restoration Technique on them.