An ordinary field mouse was generally no more than a dozen or so centimeters long, but the Field Mouse Devil before him was over a meter long.
All four of its limbs were skeletal human hands, with skin stretched tight over bone. Several bulging, bloodshot eyes covered its head, and its enormous ears resembled fan blades. Its tail was short but thick and powerful. If it wrapped that tail around someone, it could surely strangle them to death.
The Field Mouse Devil was using its sharp teeth to wantonly destroy the crops in the field.
Clearly, though, it had no intention of eating the crops. It wanted to cause enough destruction to lure people over.
After all, humans were devils' favorite food. Absorbing human blood allowed them to maintain their strength and heal their injuries.
Unfortunately for it, the ones it lured over were Asaba Kotone and Pochita.
Asaba Kotone was observing the Field Mouse Devil from beside a house not far away. Inside the house, a little girl was trembling beneath a bed, whimpering faintly.
"H-help... Someone, please help me..."
Hearing the little girl's cries, Asaba Kotone prepared to act immediately.
"Pochita, can I use your chainsaw?"
Before making his move, Asaba Kotone asked for Pochita's permission.
"Woof!"
Pochita nodded, showing no reluctance whatsoever.
[Pochita's affection +10%] [Affection progress has reached 20%. Achievement reward obtained: constitution +1]
The sudden increase in Pochita's affection was something Asaba Kotone had expected.
After all, in the original story, Pochita treated saving people as a mission. In his fully transformed Black Chainsaw form, Pochita would come running whenever someone called for help, no matter who it was.
Asaba Kotone immediately grabbed the chainsaw-like handle on Pochita's back, then pulled his tail, which resembled a chainsaw's starter cord.
A buzzing roar rang out, like an engine starting.
The chainsaw on Pochita's head immediately lengthened. Now, Pochita looked almost exactly like a regular-sized chainsaw.
Although Asaba Kotone possessed Kamui in both eyes, his constitution was not strong enough yet for him to use the ability freely.
He planned to use Kamui only when he had no other choice, keeping it as a trump card to save his life.
For ordinary fights against weaker devils like the Field Mouse Devil, using Pochita as a weapon alongside the Mangekyō Sharingan's innate abilities, such as its far-superhuman perception, would be more than enough.
Holding Pochita, Asaba Kotone walked toward the Field Mouse Devil at an unhurried pace.
When the Field Mouse Devil noticed that a human had finally appeared, it stuck out its tongue in excitement.
But it quickly noticed the strange thing in the human's hand. "That thing you're holding... is it a devil? Are you a devil hunter?"
Asaba Kotone did not answer.
"The devil you've contracted with looks pretty weak. Be a good boy and get in my belly! Hahahaha...!!"
The Field Mouse Devil laughed mockingly, baring a frighteningly dense set of sharp teeth.
It thought nothing of the human boy and the tiny devil before it.
Once Asaba Kotone was very close, the Field Mouse Devil lashed its tail at him, seemingly intending to strangle both him and Pochita with it.
The Field Mouse Devil's tail moved fast, but through his Mangekyō Sharingan, it appeared painfully slow.
Before the tail could strike him, he had already leaned his entire body backward. He swept the chainsaw upward, cutting off a section of the tail, which skimmed past his face by mere millimeters.
"Aaaah... It hurts! Aaaaah!!"
Before the Field Mouse Devil could even register what had happened, the pain of its severed tail made it scream.
Seizing the opening, Asaba Kotone rushed toward the Field Mouse Devil and swung the chainsaw hard, sawing its head clean off.
A devil's flesh and hide were generally thick, but before the chainsaw on Pochita's head, they were as flimsy as thin paper.
"This devil's corpse is way too big and heavy. Getting it to the black market won't be easy..."
Asaba Kotone gazed at the Field Mouse Devil's enormous corpse and muttered to himself.
One of the main ways civilian devil hunters made money was by selling the corpses of the devils they killed on the black market.
But devils were generally large, so transporting their corpses required a vehicle.
Asaba Kotone had no vehicle, nor could he be bothered to find one. After some thought, he decided to put it into Kamui's alternate dimension, which he simply called the Kamui Dimension.
The white of his right eye immediately became bloodshot. A vortex formed from that eye, distorting the space before him. The Field Mouse Devil's enormous corpse twisted along with the surrounding space, then was quickly sucked into his right eye.
After using this Kamui ability, Asaba Kotone immediately felt a considerable portion of his strength drain away. His body was much weaker than moments before, and his face had grown somewhat pale.
Using it once was manageable, but if he used Kamui repeatedly, he would completely exhaust his body and end up dead.
Asaba Kotone then put Pochita down and prepared to look for the black market.
The chainsaw on Pochita's head immediately shrank back to its original size, and he followed behind Asaba Kotone like a pet dog.
Since Asaba Kotone did not know where the black market was, he first visited an organization for civilian devil hunters.
It was called the Civilian Devil Hunter Guild.
The guild had been founded by local civilian devil hunters, and similar guilds existed elsewhere as well.
People could register as civilian devil hunters at the guild. Having official identification made things easier in all sorts of situations.
The first floor of the Civilian Devil Hunter Guild was a hall, where quite a few devil hunters were resting, making tea, and chatting...
When Asaba Kotone stepped into the hall, a fair number of people turned to look at him.
"What's with that kid's eyes? Have you ever seen eyes like those? And that thing following him... Don't tell me it's a devil?"
"He might be a fiend. Apparently, fiends all have features on their heads that set them apart from normal people. As for that dog, it's probably some kind of canine devil."
"I don't think he's a fiend. Their head features are more obvious. His eyes might be the result of a contract with some devil."
"Either way, this is the Civilian Devil Hunter Guild. He's got some nerve bringing a devil in here."
"..."
The devil hunters around them were curious about Asaba Kotone and Pochita. A few mistook Asaba Kotone's Mangekyō Sharingan for a fiend's distinguishing feature and regarded him with hostility.
Fiends were devils that had taken over human corpses. They were still devils at their core, and only a tiny minority with a high degree of rationality could get along peacefully with humans.
At that moment, the woman at the reception desk spoke to him from a safe distance. "Sorry, sir, but this is the Civilian Devil Hunter Guild. We don't recommend bringing devils inside."
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