This Is Practically a Scam

"You, you, you..." The village chief stammered in shock, unable to speak for a long time. Anxia Niaozi was equally stunned.

Everything he said was true.

He was not joking. Perhaps he really could save the village.

Giyu ignored what they were thinking. He picked up the rope from the ground and handed it to the village chief, saying expressionlessly:

"Please tie me up. Thank you!"

Village chief: "???"

He quickly realized a serious problem: he had sold this young man's sword.

At the thought, the village chief wanted nothing more than to slap himself a few times.

"But without a sword, how will you fight?" the village chief asked guiltily. Giyu was still tying himself up when he glanced at Tsutako.

"Help me out!"

"Remember to tie a slipknot. The Demon can't notice it, but I need to be able to escape at a critical moment."

"Oh, oh, oh!" Tsutako did not quite understand why Giyu insisted on tying himself up. Maybe it was to lower the monster's guard. He had his reasons.

In truth, Hiruma had instructed him to do it. There was no other purpose; he simply wanted to play a prank.

As for the village chief's concerns, they were not a problem for Giyu at all. Once he was tied up, he glanced at the village chief.

"My sword must be with my friend now. Let's go!"

Friend?

The village chief immediately realized he meant that generous young man from the daytime. So everything had been under their control all along?

Whether he believed it or not, he could only do as Giyu said now.

Thus, the procession delivering the sacrifice set out in grand fashion. Their destination was a karst cave two kilometers from the village.

The cave entrance was several meters high, dark and pitch-black. Seawater flowed backward into it, and mournful gusts of wind howled from within.

From afar, the black cave resembled a terrifying open mouth, enough to make one's skin crawl.

The villagers placed the prepared raft onto the water at the cave entrance, then carried Giyu onto it as he had instructed.

Anxia Niaozi walked onto the raft herself. She wanted to go with Giyu.

"Get off. I don't need you!"

"I won't~" Tsutako turned her head away and ignored Giyu, so he said nothing more.

As a wave surged toward the shore, the raft drifted with the current and was gradually swallowed by the cave.

"Sigh!" The village chief sighed. In the end, he still could not persuade that child Tsutako. And the young man from the daytime had yet to appear, leaving him uneasy.

Just then, Hiruma's voice rang out. If he had not revealed himself, no one would have noticed his arrival.

"Village chief, long time no see!"

Thinking of all the money he had taken from this young man, the village chief felt too ashamed to show his old face and did not dare meet his eyes.

What he did not know was that Hiruma had been there ever since the ruined temple. He had roughly figured out what had happened.

All he could say was that kind people had taken the wrong path. In the end, the Demon had forced them into it.

"Don't worry. Leave everything to us!"

"Do more good deeds from now on!"

Without looking back, Hiruma rushed into the cave along the narrow path beside it.

Inside the karst cave, the raft drifted deeper with the current. The torch in Tsutako's hand flickered on and off, as if it could go out at any moment.

Beyond the torchlight, strange rustling sounds constantly echoed.

The cold, damp air felt like a mountain pressing down on her, making it hard to breathe.

Suddenly, a foul wind blew past, extinguishing the torch. Though Tsutako trembled all over in fright, she stubbornly did not cry out.

Then footsteps sounded in the distance. The only thing she could tell was that they were getting closer and closer to the raft.

"Giyu, there's danger!"

Tsutako hurriedly shielded Giyu with her body. In her panic, she had forgotten how strong he was.

Just then, the footsteps vanished. Then, a bright beam of light appeared out of thin air on the raft. A head hung above the beam, and a sinister voice rang out.

"Wuwuwu, I'm going to eat you all!"

"Do you like Giyu?"

In an instant, Anxia Niaozi's mind went blank. She answered unconsciously, completely failing to notice the personal agenda slipped into the question.

"Like..."

The words had barely left her lips when Tsutako came to her senses. Hiruma was playing a prank on her.

"What the heck!" Tsutako's face turned bright red. She wanted to jump into the river and drown herself immediately, and she shot Hiruma a fierce glare.

Giyu heard their entire conversation. He untied the knot and silently accepted the Nichirin Blade.

Hiruma tossed the two of them the old-fashioned flashlights he had prepared beforehand, then sat beside Giyu with a mischievous grin and whispered:

"Hey! You heard that, right?"

Giyu shook his head, indicating that he had no idea what Hiruma was talking about.

Hiruma: (￢_￢)

After the brief farce, the raft continued drifting deeper into the cave. Nothing dangerous happened along the way.

About half an hour later, the raft floated into a wider cavern. The currents converged there into a small lake, and in the middle of the lake stood a twenty-square-meter islet.

The cavern ceiling was not completely sealed, but connected to the outside. Moonlight streamed through holes in the ceiling like bright stage lights, illuminating the entire cavern.

The beams fell upon the islet, where a gaunt figure sat in the middle with its head lowered, as still as an old monk in meditation.

It was so thin that it was nothing but skin and bones, with only a thin layer of skin wrapped around its skeleton. Its ribs protruded from its chest, clearly visible, as though they could pierce through its skin at any moment.

Its body was a cold silver color. Under the moonlight, three lowered heads could vaguely be seen, creating an eerie, unsettling sight.

This was the Demon that had attacked the villagers and demanded sacrifices five years ago. It had not stepped out of the cave once during those five years, not because it did not want to, but because it could not.

Sensing Hiruma's group, the head in the middle of the Demon's body sprang upright like a switchblade. At the same time, its deeply sunken eyes slowly opened.

Golden words were carved into its gray-white right eyeball—

Lower One.

"Hehehe!"

"There are three sacrifices. I'm so happy!"

The Demon's shriveled mouth split open. Its piercing voice penetrated the three of their eardrums like sharp knives stabbing into their brains.

Staring at the Demon in the distance, Hiruma's mouth twitched, and he could not help bursting into curses:

"Scam! This is a complete scam!"

"You think you can screw me over just because I don't have an anti-fraud app, huh?!"

"What kind of Lower Rank are you supposed to be, you bastard?!"

"You ****!"

He pointed at the baffled Demon in the distance and cursed at it for a full two minutes. Even the Demon was confused, feeling the helplessness of being cursed at by the food in its own pot.

Of course, Hiruma could not be blamed for this. Besides the words Lower One in the Demon's eyes, there was a blood-red "×." It had long since been expelled from the ranks by the boss.

The boss had no other reason. He simply disliked this fellow.

Still, as a former Lower Rank One, even though it had not eaten humans for five years, its strength could still rank around the lower-middle tier among the current Lower Ranks.

But no matter what, it was no longer a Lower Rank. That was a fact.

Anxia Niaozi looked at Giyu in confusion and asked weakly:

"Is your friend always like this?"

Giyu shook his head. He had truly never seen or heard of Hiruma getting angry.

But one thing was certain: this Demon must have done something to wrong Hiruma.

It really deserved to die.