"Aaaaaah!!!"
The Zombie Devil had no time to react before Asaba Kotone sliced him in two.
Immediately afterward, Asaba Kotone destroyed both the exposed brain in the Zombie Devil's head and the face on his right chest.
With that, the Zombie Devil was dead for good.
Although the Zombie Devil would be reborn in hell, dying there would send him back into the human world through reincarnation. Reincarnated devils lost all their previous memories, and even their appearances could change, making them practically new individuals.
So in a sense, this Zombie Devil really was dead for good. If Asaba Kotone encountered the Zombie Devil again someday, the devil would have no idea who he was.
Now that the Zombie Devil was dead, the zombies no longer received his commands. They became truly mindless walking corpses, seeking out humans to bite on instinct alone.
Not only did their movements become sluggish, but they could no longer use knives either.
That made dealing with these zombies much easier for Asaba Kotone. He casually killed them one after another, cutting them down as easily as chopping vegetables.
After all, the Physique rewards from the catalog had already put his physical abilities far beyond those of an ordinary person.
Once he had finished off the zombies, Asaba Kotone sucked the Zombie Devil's corpse into the Kamui Dimension. It ought to be worth a fair amount of money.
As for the zombies' bodies and severed limbs, he couldn't be bothered to deal with them. Everything he had done was perfectly legal, so he didn't have to worry about the police coming after him.
Zombified humans were no different from devils. As a private Devil Hunter, he had every right to hunt them down.
It was already nine at night.
Normally, Denji would have been asleep long before this hour. With an empty stomach, sleeping was his only way to ease the hunger.
Tonight, however, he couldn't sleep.
For one thing, he had eaten two delicious meals that day and wasn't hungry at all. In fact, his stomach still felt a little full.
For another, the person who had treated him better than anyone else had already left, and his creditors would cut him to pieces tomorrow. That made it hard to sleep.
I really don't want to die after all...
Denji lay curled up in bed, his expression bleak. Faced with such a hopeless reality, even staying alive had become too much to ask for.
"Knock, knock..."
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
Denji jolted. Had Kotone come back?!
But on second thought, that seemed unlikely. It was probably his creditors coming for him.
Denji couldn't help letting out a mournful sigh. They won't even let me get one last night's sleep...
He climbed out of bed and opened the door, looking dejected and resigned to his fate.
But the voice he heard belonged to Asaba Kotone.
"I'm back."
Denji snapped his head up and stared at Asaba Kotone in disbelief.
"...Kotone?! You... why did you come back?!"
"What's with that look? I never said I was leaving. I just went out to take care of something."
Asaba Kotone smiled as he spoke.
At first, Denji was delighted, but then his feelings grew complicated. If Kotone stayed, Denji would only drag him down.
"You should leave first thing tomorrow morning, Kotone..."
"Are you still worried about your debt? You don't have to worry about that anymore. The Zombie Devil killed all your creditors."
"Huh?! They're all dead? The Zombie Devil?!"
"Yeah. I just went to hunt down the Zombie Devil, and it turned out he'd zombified all your creditors. They've turned into zombies, so you don't have to repay your debt anymore."
Asaba Kotone didn't tell Denji the whole truth.
"R-really?"
Disbelief covered Denji's face.
That had been tens of millions in debt, and suddenly it was all gone. Happiness had come so abruptly that he couldn't process it.
"Of course. You'll probably see it on the news tomorrow or the day after. Now, let me take you to rent a better place. You shouldn't keep living here."
Asaba Kotone knew perfectly well that Denji wanted to sleep in a bigger, better bed, play video games in his room, and eat good food...
[Denji's affection +5%] [Denji's affection has reached 60%. Achievement reward obtained: Physique +1]
"Oh! Awesome!"
Denji immediately shook off his despair and dejection.
He didn't have anything to bring. Even the clothes on his back were the same ones he always wore; he had no others.
And so he simply left with Asaba Kotone.
After dealing with the Zombie Devil and the zombies, Asaba Kotone had already found a place he wanted to rent.
He took Denji there and rented an apartment.
It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room-everything they needed. The rent wasn't cheap, but for a Devil Hunter, it was nothing.
Killing a single devil could easily earn hundreds of thousands or even over a million yen, provided the hunter was strong enough to kill devils that easily.
Once their new home was settled, Asaba Kotone took Denji to buy new clothes. He also bought plenty of food and games-the kind played on a television screen.
He bought all the furniture they needed, too.
They did run into some trouble along the way. Bringing Pochita into the shopping mall got them stopped by security and even brought the police over, but fortunately, his identification as a private Devil Hunter cleared things up.
[Denji's affection +5%] [Denji's affection +5%] [Denji's affection has reached 70%. Achievement reward obtained: Physique +1]
Taking a comfortable hot bath, putting on nice new clothes, playing fun games, eating delicious snacks, sleeping in a soft, spacious bed...
All the dreams Denji had dreamed came true that day. In fact, he had never dared to dream of having so much.
Over the course of that night, Denji's affection rose considerably again.
Denji was especially excited that evening, so he didn't go to sleep until very late.
Meanwhile, Asaba Kotone was in the other bedroom. Naturally, Pochita was there with him.
Pochita's affection was no longer easy to raise, so he planned to sleep with Pochita in his arms that night.
He wasn't worried about the chainsaw on Pochita's head. Normally, it was short and didn't spin. As long as he paid a little attention to how he held Pochita, it wouldn't hurt him.
Besides, with his current physical toughness, even an accidental scrape from the chainsaw in its normal state wouldn't be a big deal.
The moment Asaba Kotone hugged Pochita, those characters appeared before his eyes.
[Pochita's affection +10%] [Pochita's affection has reached 40%. Achievement reward obtained: Physique +1]
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