Since the Far East wasn't very large, the Kasugai Crow returned to Xia Xi not long after reporting the mission's completion to the Demon Slayer Corps.
Honestly, Xia Xi had always found it a little unbelievable that the Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters had never been exposed.
This method of communication, with Kasugai Crows flying straight to headquarters...
Had some pretty serious holes in it.
With their physical abilities, demons could easily keep up and follow them all the way to headquarters.
They wouldn't even need a special Blood Demon Art.
After all, the Kasugai Crows didn't stop at relay stations or post houses to hand their intelligence over to another bird.
Every one of them personally delivered Oyakata-sama's secret orders.
Besides, even if the Kasugai Crows had excellent countertracking skills and could detect demons and shake them off...
It would still be entirely possible to estimate a general location based on how far the crows traveled.
After all, the Far East was only so big.
The distance a Kasugai Crow could fly each day was limited, and every trip took it directly from headquarters to a Corps member's location.
All someone had to do was observe the movements of several Kasugai Crows and overlap their ranges on a map. The area with the densest overlap and the most frequent crow traffic would reveal itself.
Then they could investigate the largest estates or businesses in that area.
There was a very good chance one of them would be the Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters' hiding place.
All he could say was that, within the game's setting, the demons had failed to find and kill the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps for over a thousand years. That was genuinely strange.
Either not a single one of these man-eating demons had a brain, from their leader down to the small fry...
Or the Demon Slayer Corps had some undisclosed security measures.
For example, special methods to conceal the Kasugai Crows' movements, or misleading signals in the intelligence chain that only humans could recognize.
Of course, Xia Xi didn't complain to the Kasugai Crow about any of this.
After all, it really was just a crow. Asking it to think about organizational structures and security vulnerabilities...
Would be expecting far too much of it.
A member of the Kakushi had also arrived with the raven.
That's right.
A member of the Kakushi, whom Xia Xi had already associated with [shipping], [logistics], and [inefficient messengers].
As expected, the member was here to deliver something to Xia Xi again.
Only this time, it was his pay as a Demon Slayer Corps swordsman.
After all, in the game, both Xia Xi and the other swordsmen had living expenses.
100 yen.
Quite a bit more than Xia Xi had expected.
And that was only the monthly base salary for a swordsman of the lowest rank.
Killing demons earned additional bonuses.
Those 100 yen were nothing to sneeze at, in an era when the average annual income was less than 500 yen.
That was nearly half a year's income for a wage earner.
It was enough for Xia Xi to buy forty or fifty hens, or take a friend to the movies over a hundred times.
Back when he had trained under Kazami Kōgi, the man's occasional trips down the mountain to stock up on daily necessities had only cost two or three yen.
In fact, most people didn't even use yen denominations in their daily lives.
They used the smaller denominations of [sen] and [rin].
Even a Mizunoto swordsman earned 100 yen a month.
Then what about Kinoe, Kinoto, and even the [Hashira] above them...
Wouldn't a single month's salary be enough for them to buy property in a bustling part of Tokyo?!
Just how wealthy was the Ubuyashiki Clan, to fund the entire Demon Slayer Corps single-handedly?
This was practically... a filthy-rich zaibatsu!
Even though it was a game, Xia Xi still shed tears of envy.
In the game, he was a Demon Slayer Corps swordsman who slaughtered his way through enemies, a top player revered by the gaming community.
Outside the game, he was just an ordinary person scrambling to get by in a big city, unable to afford even a place of his own.
His fixation on having a "home" ran pretty deep.
Seeing the complicated emotions on Xia Xi's face...
The Kakushi member assumed he had simply never seen so much money before and didn't know what to do.
The member immediately explained, "Sir Kurumaji, this is all a token of Oyakata-sama's care for the swordsmen. Please don't refuse it."
Xia Xi: ???
Wait, why would I refuse a quest reward?
It wasn't like politely pushing away a New Year's money envelope from an elder.
"If you find carrying large amounts of money inconvenient, we can also deposit it for you at one of our partner banks."
"The Central Bank, or the newly emerging Mitsui and Sumitomo Bank, are all options."
"You can then present your receipt at the counter of any branch to withdraw your funds."
Xia Xi: ...
How come even in a game, he still couldn't escape the whole deposit-and-withdrawal routine?
And so, Xia Xi instinctively switched into practical mode.
"The base salary is 100 yen. What about the pay for killing demons?"
"Is it paid per kill? How much? Does the commission rate go up when you advance to a higher swordsman rank?"
Xia Xi's barrage of questions left the Kakushi member rather bewildered. This was the first time anyone had asked such things.
Whether they were the [swordsmen] fighting on the front lines or the [Kakushi] responsible for intelligence and locating enemies...
Or the [Butterfly Mansion] providing medical care in the rear, the [swordsmiths] forging equipment, or the [cultivators] training new swordsmen...
Most of them didn't care much about money.
Having some was enough.
A little more was better.
Not much was fine, too.
After all, the vast majority of people who joined the Demon Slayer Corps had a blood feud with demons.
And the Demon Slayer Corps happened to give them both an opportunity and a platform for revenge.
Free combat training, instruction in traditional martial arts, high-quality protective gear, custom-made precious swords, intelligence on demons, and a leader willing to lay down his life for his subordinates.
How much money they received wasn't all that important by comparison.
If the Demon Slayer Corps ever ran out of money, plenty of swordsmen would probably pay out of their own pockets to help the Ubuyashiki Family through the crisis.
Besides, in this era, the "stipend" provided by the Demon Slayer Corps was already remarkably generous.
"P-per kill? Commission?"
After barely managing to understand Xia Xi's questions, the Kakushi member began explaining.
Naturally, the Demon Slayer Corps strongly encouraged its swordsmen to kill demons.
As such, it paid swordsmen a substantial reward after each mission.
However, that reward didn't change according to a swordsman's rank. Whether they were the lowest-ranked [Mizunoto] or the highest-ranked [Hashira], killing the same demon earned them the same amount.
Of course, the monthly stipend for a [Hashira]-what Xia Xi called a base salary-was naturally much higher than that of an ordinary swordsman.
The key factors in determining the reward for slaying a demon were the demon's strength and the swordsman's contribution to the operation.
Designated personnel within the Kakushi evaluated the demons.
The stronger the demon, the higher the reward.
Take the demon Xia Xi had recently slain, for example.
Since it had no Blood Demon Art and seemed very weak, the reward itself wasn't particularly large.
But because Xia Xi had killed it alone, he received all the credit.
The estimated reward was around 2,000 sen, or roughly 20 yen-enough to buy a little over ten grams of gold.
As for the highest-ranking demons, the Twelve Kizuki...
If someone killed one alone...
Not only could they advance to the highest rank of [Hashira]...
They would also receive enough money to spend lavishly for a lifetime in major cities like Osaka or Kyoto.
Before the Kakushi member had even finished speaking...
Xia Xi's eyes had already begun to light up.
Since he was going to spend so many years in this game, buying a big house in Tokyo to live in wasn't out of the question, was it?
This game was so realistic.
Once he finished the main storyline, couldn't he go on an outrageously luxurious vacation?
Drive the best cars, eat the best food, drink the best wine.
Even if the maps beyond the Far East weren't finished yet, he could still spend ten days or half a month splurging at places within the Far East that he remembered as famous destinations, like Hokkaido, Osaka, and Ryukyu...
That would be pretty damn amazing, wouldn't it?
"Um, Sir Kurumaji?" Watching Xia Xi drift off, the Kakushi member called to him quietly.
Xia Xi said, "Where are the Twelve Kizuki? We must rid the world of such vile demons!"
Kakushi: ?
This gentleman seemed awfully fixated on money.
Before you continue