"Eat." Kirishima Bupai kept it brief, setting down the spatula as though he had merely swung his blade in passing.
There was no need to urge them. The believers who had been like walking corpses during the day now erupted with an astonishing will to survive.
They scrambled toward the huge pot, stumbling and crawling. This time, Murata forgot all about appearances and charged over with a howl.
As a result, his Kasugai Crow, which had just been about to land on his shoulder to deliver a report, missed him entirely.
Kirishima Bupai raised a hand to catch the Kasugai Crow, gestured with his lips, and looked at it indifferently. "Speak!"
"Caw-! Caw-!"
The Kasugai Crow froze for a moment. Faced with that overwhelming killing intent, it nearly forgot what it had come to say.
"Caw-! Mount Natagumo! Unexplained disappearances have occurred on Mount Natagumo..."
Flapping its wings, the Kasugai Crow finally gathered its words. "Since the Void Hashira is here, headquarters would like to send Murata to investigate..."
Kirishima Bupai nodded silently, looking speechlessly at Murata as he stuffed himself. "Is that so? Fine, understood. I'll tell him in a bit."
"Caw-!" The Kasugai Crow saluted with a wing and flew away.
By then, the villagers had all received their portions of the assorted hot pot.
The instant that first mouthful of piping-hot, delicious food, bursting with layers of flavor, entered their mouths...
"Wuh... sob... sob..."
A gaunt, middle-aged believer suddenly stopped wolfing down his food.
Tears poured out like a breached dam as he cried indistinctly around his food. "It's... it's... the feeling of being alive! This taste is... is wisteria?"
With the revival of their taste buds, their long-suppressed emotions erupted completely.
"Delicious... so delicious... ten thousand times better than that damned 'Divine Grace'!" another villager cursed indistinctly as he frantically crammed food into his mouth.
The fanaticism in his eyes was completely replaced by a survivor's pure craving for food and a trace of clearheaded anger.
Only frantic chewing and satisfied sighs remained in the clearing.
Murata held a bowl larger than his face, eating until grease covered his mouth and hot tears filled his eyes.
Ah, he was different. His tears came from being scalded by the hot pot...
Watching the surreal transformation before him, from madness and despair to the warmth of ordinary life, and the Void Hashira standing there like an unshakable anchor...
Murata's admiration surged on like an endless river.
He swallowed the food in his mouth, summoned every ounce of strength, and shouted himself hoarse in Kirishima Bupai's direction, voicing what every clearheaded villager felt:
"Long live the Hashira-!"
Kirishima Bupai put his spotless white-and-gold cloak back on.
His satisfied gaze swept over the villagers gathered around the pot, exhausted but finally with light in their eyes.
"Murata! Leave these villagers to the Kakushi Squad. Go to Mount Natagumo and investigate the disappearances!"
Having said that, he cast one final glance at Murata, who was nearly fainting with excitement, and the Kasugai Crow, which was still licking the bottom of the pot.
Rolling his eyes, Kirishima Bupai seemed to let the corners of his mouth twitch upward ever so slightly. "Next, it's time to have a look at the town center!"
He stretched, turned, and headed into town, his figure merging into the deepening night.
"What... what is this?"
[Item: Vibrating Fascia Gun] [Points required: 200]
With nothing else to do along the way, Kirishima Bupai browsed the System Shop.
After scrolling past the food section, he came across this surprising item.
"Ah, does it have that many functions? This System Shop..." Kirishima Bupai smacked his lips, marveling inwardly.
As he browsed the dazzling array of merchandise, he unknowingly entered the town center, where the sights were even more appalling.
Most shops lining the streets had their doors and windows tightly shut, leaving a scene of desolation and decline.
Many believers in white religious robes lay collapsed beneath the eaves at filthy street corners, like discarded rag dolls.
They stared blankly at the gray sky, their breathing faint and their chests barely rising, like walking corpses.
Yet whenever someone whispered "Eternal Paradise Cult" or "Lord Doma" into their ears...
Their dead-fish eyes would instantly flare with a terrifying light.
Strange, rasping sounds would rise from their throats as they struggled to crawl up.
Their mouths, seemingly beyond their control, would incoherently repeat those absurd doctrines, as though they had been injected with a stimulant.
Outside a shop bearing a "Rice and Grain" sign, a middle-aged man crouched on the threshold, crying.
He covered his face, his shoulders shaking violently as muffled sobs escaped in fits and starts.
Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned and saw Kirishima Bupai, with his extraordinary bearing and conspicuous cloak.
In that instant, like a drowning man grasping at a final straw, he lunged over and grabbed Kirishima Bupai's trouser leg.
"Sir! You're from the Demon Slayer Corps, aren't you? Please! Save us! Save my family!" Tears and snot streamed down the man's face, his voice hoarse and desperate.
"My wife... my daughter... they've both gone mad! That damned Eternal Paradise Cult has bewitched them!"
"They took all the food and savings in our home and donated them to the Church!"
The more he cried, the harder he cried; the more he spoke, the angrier he became, nearly grinding his back teeth to pieces.
"All they do is run to that white den of evil! They kneel there praying... without eating or drinking... no matter how I plead or pull at them, they refuse to come home!"
"If this goes on... they'll die! That man-eating cult will kill everyone in town!"
Hearing this, Kirishima Bupai pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed with utter disdain.
His gaze swept over the man sprawled at his feet, whose hands, covered in tears and dirt, kept a death grip on his trouser leg.
The rotten, sweet fragrance in the air mingled with dust and an even deeper air of despair, making it nauseating.
He did not kick the man away. His voice was simply ice-cold. "Where is this den of evil?"
At that, the man jerked his head up as though grasping a lifeline, a final glimmer of hope bursting from his bloodshot eyes.
"Behind the town! The Old Trading Company's former warehouse!"
"They... they painted it a ghastly white and covered it with flags! It looks lifeless during the day, but once night falls..."
At this point, he shuddered, the fear on his face deepening. "It becomes... becomes something that doesn't belong in the human world! Please! Save them!"
Kirishima Bupai pressed his lips together and gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.
He strode in the direction the man had indicated.
His white-and-gold cloak traced an incongruous path through the dim yellow dusk and desolate streets.
The Kasugai Crow on his shoulder had stopped chattering. Its little head turned warily, its purple scarf fluttering gently in the evening breeze.
The closer he drew to the outskirts, the clearer the eerie cluster of white buildings became.
It was indeed a "church" converted from an old trading company warehouse.
The walls had been hastily covered with a glaring, lifeless coat of white paint, resembling an enormous skeleton in the dim light.
More crimson flags stood along the walls and rooftops, their distorted images of a deity billowing in the wind like blood-dripping tentacles.
An even stronger, dizzyingly cloying fragrance drifted out from within the walls.
Several equally gaunt believers in white robes prowled back and forth like ghosts before the tightly shut, heavy iron gates.
At the sight of Kirishima Bupai approaching, their cloudy eyes instantly lit with sickly fanaticism, and they crowded around him like crows scenting carrion.
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