"How come these two don't say a single thing that makes sense?"
Holding a Bamboo Sword dripping with viscous blood, Ririko stared in confusion at the two cultists on the ground. They had been beaten beyond recognition, yet still mumbled things like "love" and "all living beings suffer."
After that wild beating, her hands had gone numb.
But it seemed to have no effect on them at all. She couldn't extract any useful information.
"—The reason cultists are cultists is that most of them have something wrong with their heads."
A voice devoid of any emotional fluctuation rapidly approached. The two cultists' bodies trembled instinctively, and their constantly moving mouths fell silent.
When they saw the living, breathing Nanjō Emi walk up to them, they stopped acting like lunatics, and their eyes suddenly cleared.
"Looks like I'm pretty famous." Nanjō Emi first curled the corner of her lips, then glanced at Ririko. "You're too gentle. You expect to get information out of them like that?"
Ririko's mouth twitched, but she was indeed left speechless.
There had been something wrong with the way she beat them, but she had no choice. Even after giving it her all, she couldn't defeat cultists with mental problems.
"I heard you two happened to run into these cultists?" Nanjō Emi snapped her fingers, and the Wet Oni, which had just finished cleaning up the Flying Head Monster corpses in the distance, floated over. "You did well, but you were too reckless."
The Wet Oni hovered in midair, staring excitedly at the two trembling cultists. Its eyes were filled with impatience.
Just as Ririko was about to argue, Uesugi Tetsu cut in at the right moment. "I knew what I was doing."
Nanjō Emi paused subtly, then nodded. "That's good."
"Next, I'll teach you two a lesson."
Facing the scrutiny of Uesugi Tetsu and Ririko, Nanjō Emi said calmly, "Mercy toward your enemies is cruelty toward yourselves."
At some point, both exits of the alley had already been covered by a thin curtain of falling rain, temporarily isolating the alley from reality.
Hiyori Bō, who had completed this arduous task, floated over unsteadily and shot into the Wet Oni's white robes.
Nanjō Emi looked down at the two soundlessly trembling cultists with an impassive gaze, just like a chef staring at two ugly, writhing lumps of meat.
"Don't look away. Watch carefully."
She spoke.
—Thirty minutes later.
"Within Arakawa Ward, they select ordinary people with particularly intense emotional peaks, directly lure them into joining the club, or plant seeds in them. It's the same spiel, but the range and numbers keep growing."
"But we got lucky and found another hideout."
Nanjō Emi casually tossed two white gloves covered in scraps of tissue onto the ground, then stretched.
Uesugi Tetsu, however, had no mood to admire that graceful curve. He suppressed the churning in his stomach and exchanged a glance with Ririko beside him.
He asked, "Are we still eating dinner?"
Ririko's face was pale. She took a deep breath. "Of course. Why wouldn't we eat a free dinner?"
Nanjō Emi smiled in satisfaction and clapped her hands. "Okay, okay. The flirting ends here. I didn't interrogate them on the spot for this long just to watch that."
Uesugi Tetsu said, "So, Sister Nanjō, are you saying that Arakawa Ward will become increasingly dangerous in the coming days, and you want us to stay somewhere else for a while?"
"Bingo! Student Uesugi, you really are clever!" Nanjō Emi laughed and ruffled Uesugi Tetsu's hair.
But the next moment, her tone turned serious.
"It's true that Arakawa Ward will be very dangerous for a while, but I've already cleared out more than half of the Friendship Club's branches and cultists, and drawn most of their attention to myself."
Nanjō Emi raised one finger. "But the First Wave is approaching. No one can say for sure whether the other districts, which seem peaceful right now, are actually safe."
She spread her hands. "You can stay and face the known dangers, or leave and meet unknown challenges. The decision is yours."
The First Wave.
This wasn't the first time Uesugi Tetsu had heard that term.
He looked at Nanjō Emi, wanting an answer.
Ririko, meanwhile, had her brows tightly furrowed. She had encountered too many bizarre things today, and this was far more absurd than the mere Supernatural Phenomenon of Kukuri becoming real.
Nanjō Emi no longer bothered to hide it pointlessly. She answered, "Think of it as the demons and supernatural phenomena from historical legends launching a large-scale invasion of reality. The fact that many people on Twitter previously photographed demons and monsters was one of the omens."
Uesugi Tetsu thought that White Brahma's invasion of reality was indeed a fact, but he hadn't expected this not to be survivor bias. It was actually a vast number of individual cases.
Perhaps that Ten Thousand Slayer Fang Xiang really might walk into reality in the future, even bringing the entirety of Edo Castle with him.
Thinking of Laughing Brahma, which had yet to finish upgrading, and the two or three skills in his possession that had only just reached the entry level, Uesugi Tetsu's palms began to sweat, and a sense of urgency rose in his heart.
Aside from the one-use Nanjō doll and Ghost Dad, he currently had almost no means of resisting demons with two stars or more.
—Looking across Nanjō Emi's Shikigami, the Wet Oni had two and a half stars above its head, while the seemingly frail Hiyori Bō also had one and a half stars. Both were of a higher level than the heavily injured White Brahma, and their abilities even complemented each other.
It seemed that once Laughing Brahma finished upgrading and the one-star pool opened, he would have to speed up his progress.
Uesugi Tetsu glanced at the time remaining. The upgrade would be complete at dawn the day after tomorrow. By then, he could use the Soul Ash he had accumulated to make one ten-pull and greatly increase his strength.
"The Wave might arrive in half a month, or it might come within the next few days."
After delivering an amount of information that could only be called terrifying in two sentences, Nanjō Emi showed no intention of explaining in greater detail.
She smoked with profound dark circles under her eyes and said, "I have to work overtime and put in extra hours. Sweat more now, and bleed less in a couple of days. Take care of yourselves."
"If anything happens, call me and explain everything clearly. I'll get there as quickly as I can."
After she finished explaining, the curtains of rain on both sides of the alley vanished. Nanjō Emi hurried away, leaving behind a clean alley and the somewhat bewildered Uesugi Tetsu and Ririko.
After a moment of silence, Uesugi Tetsu asked, "Are we still eating dinner?"
Ririko's stomach rumbled. She slowly nodded. "Of course. Why wouldn't we eat a free dinner?"
After reaching an agreement, the two silently walked out of the alley that might have become a crucial turning point in their lives.
When they reached the street, the people coming and going were no different from usual.
The students chatted about gossip, shoved one another, and played around noisily. Office workers hurried about, busy rushing home after work. Elderly people were everywhere, moving in groups of two or three with slow steps.
The silent rumble of car engines filled their ears. In Japanese society, where everyone was unwilling to cause trouble for others, the shrill sound of car horns was almost nonexistent.
Everything was no different from an ordinary evening.
Just then, a crow's sharp cry suddenly came from the utility pole overhead. A huge flock of crows flapped their wings and scattered into the sky, shrouding the setting sun like a sudden dark cloud.
Watching this scene, Uesugi Tetsu remembered that the time when the sun was setting was called Demon Hour in Japan, and that after it came the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.
He felt himself walking into the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.
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