A Town on the Brink of Riot (Seeking Readership)

After leaving Sakonji Urokodaki's hut, Dan Lei didn't actually head straight for the locations of the clearly marked Upper and Lower Moons from the original story.

Dan Lei was well aware that one must walk step by step, eat bite by bite, and training had to start from the basics.

The demons within dozens of miles of Sakonji Urokodaki's hut had mostly been captured by Kojiro Sasaki, all turned into Dan Lei's lab rats, ultimately dying from various lethal experiments.

So now, if Dan Lei wanted to find demons, he had to travel farther.

Fortunately, finding demons was still relatively simple—just go straight to the police station and ask.

Dan Lei could manage basic suggestion magic, more than enough to control ordinary people.

The Taisho era already had telephones. The higher-ups at the police station could just ask friends around, and Dan Lei would learn which places were experiencing ongoing disappearances or sudden multiple vanishings.

Once he knew the location, using the identity papers issued by the police station and the money contributed by the fat, corrupt police chief, Dan Lei could just take a train to his destination.

Dan Lei wasn't worried about running into Enmu, Lower Moon One, here.

Leaving aside whether his Blood Demon Art would even work on Dan Lei, who had mental defenses, even if it did, Kojiro Sasaki was right there.

On the train, Dan Lei certainly wouldn't buy a ticket for Kojiro Sasaki; he could just stay in Spirit Body form and follow along.

If a demon ambushed Dan Lei and he actually got caught, Kojiro Sasaki would naturally deal with them.

At worst, he could definitely carry Dan Lei and run.

Of course, Dan Lei wasn't that lucky—just hopping on a random train and bumping into Enmu.

Dan Lei's several train journeys during the Taisho era went smoothly, without encountering a single demon.

As for those villages with missing persons, two-thirds turned out to be human trafficking, fully proving that in any era, humans are scarier than demons.

When he encountered human trafficking, Dan Lei didn't waste words—he wiped out the entire group and pocketed anything useful for magic rituals, like gems.

As for the trafficked people, he just split the money and let them scatter on the spot. Whether they lived or died afterward, Dan Lei didn't care.

The remaining few demons all became dead souls under Dan Lei's blade.

Just as Kojiro Sasaki said, after several real close-quarters battles with demons, his swordsmanship had indeed gained insight, and he began combining Type-Moon Magecraft to try building his own unique Magic Swordsman fighting style.

But the pressure these demons gave was too small. Honestly, even without using Breathing Techniques, he could toy them to death with Magecraft Threads alone.

After wandering around Japan like this for over half a year, Dan Lei hadn't encountered any decent demons.

So, unable to find strong demons, Dan Lei started thinking about just going straight for the ones whose locations were clearly shown in the anime.

Since he hadn't fought a Lower Moon yet, Dan Lei planned to head to Mount Natagumo.

But just when Dan Lei had given up on finding demons, on his way to the train station, he passed by a town that had no missing person reports in the police records.

As soon as he entered the town, Dan Lei felt something was off. Judging by the number and condition of the houses, this town had a sizable population, with many utility poles along the roads—clearly a relatively modern town.

Yet in broad daylight, there were very few people on the streets, and those he saw had their faces covered with cloth, walking hurriedly.

Moreover, Dan Lei could sense many hostile gazes shooting out from the surrounding houses, as if they wanted to rob him.

This town seemed to have a plague, and the residents' emotions were extremely unstable. This wasn't normal.

To be safe, Dan Lei added an air filtration magic to himself, just in case he accidentally messed up in some strange place.

After that, Dan Lei headed straight for the town's restaurants, only to find them all closed.

With no other choice, Dan Lei, following the principle of turning to the police for help, visited the town's police station.

But in this large town, the police station was completely empty. And after scanning it with detection magecraft, Dan Lei was certain that the last time a living person had entered this building was at least four days ago, with clear signs of ransacking.

However, in a corner of the room, Dan Lei found some non-human hair. This place had a demon.

Keep in mind, during the Taisho era, a town police station would have at least a dozen people.

There was no news of any incident here, meaning all information had been cut off. Those dozen or so police officers had likely met with misfortune.

Eating over a dozen people in one go without making a sound—this demon didn't seem weak.

Just then, Dan Lei heard a noise at the police station entrance, so he went downstairs to check.

The one making the noise was a young woman. Seeing Dan Lei come down from upstairs, she was a bit flustered but didn't run. Instead, she asked nervously, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

Clearly, this woman was a local, and she knew everyone at the station, so she immediately saw that Dan Lei wasn't one of them.

Dan Lei thought, isn't this a perfect source of information? He threw a suggestion magic at her and asked sternly, "I'm a special inspector from the prefectural police station. Do you know where all the officers from this town have gone? Not a single one here in broad daylight—this is outrageous!!"

Under the influence of the suggestion magic, the woman didn't doubt Dan Lei's words at all. She immediately ran over and said anxiously, "My name is Ono Yunako. I'm the wife of Officer Taro Hirata from this station. My husband has been missing for five days without reason, and the town is suffering from a plague. I'm at my wit's end. Please, sir, help me find my husband."

Dan Lei felt that Ono Yunako was telling the truth now, so he continued questioning, and under the suggestion magic, she told him everything she knew.

At this point, Dan Lei roughly understood the situation in this town.

Five days ago, a sudden flu broke out in the town—a terrifying plague. Infected people would cough violently within hours until they coughed themselves to death.

The town doctor said the water source was contaminated, and many inexplicably dead animals were found by the river, so now no one dared drink the local water.

But at the same time, the town's police force had collectively disappeared, and the external phone lines had been cut.

The small town had sent people out to seek help and buy water, but so far, not a single one had returned.

Ono Yunako had actually come to the police station five days ago, but found nothing at the time.

Today, she came hoping to find some self-defense weapons in the station. Five days had passed, and the water shortage had pushed the town's order to the brink of collapse. As a young woman alone in an empty house, she was terrified.

After understanding the situation, Dan Lei immediately felt he had stumbled onto something big.

It was now basically certain that the town's police personnel had been killed. The reason for targeting them first was most likely to ensure that when chaos erupted later, no one would be left to stop it.

The town was surrounded on all sides by dense forests that blocked out sunlight. Even during the day, a ghost could move within them to intercept and kill anyone who went out to seek help.

This ghost clearly had grand ambitions. For now, it had only consumed the police station personnel and those sent for help, but its goal was probably to plunge the town into riot, then fish in troubled waters and devour people.

If a major riot broke out in a small town due to plague, a fire could be set, a few hundred people could die, and incomplete bodies would be normal—no one would likely blame it on a ghost.

However, there had to be an inside agent within the town government, otherwise how could it precisely intercept every single person sent out to deliver the news?