The farm

After they crossed the last hill, Mochizuki Village finally came into view.

But the sight before them brought Tanaka to an abrupt halt.

Night had fallen completely, yet the entire village was deathly silent. There were no lights, no barking dogs; even the rustle of leaves in the evening breeze sounded piercing. Dozens of dilapidated wooden houses stood scattered in an orderly arrangement through the valley, every door and window tightly shut. Some had even been nailed shut from outside with heavy planks.

"Wh-why does this place feel so creepy..." Tanaka drew his Nichirin Blade halfway, his voice trembling slightly.

Rokuya's gaze instantly sharpened. He took a deep breath and pushed the frequency of his Thunder Breathing to its limit, amplifying his senses without bounds.

There was no sign of living human presence in the air, only an extremely strange smell-the rank smell of earth mixed with stale blood.

The smell of demons. And it was astonishingly concentrated.

"The people in this village... I'm afraid things don't look good for them," Rokuya said quietly, his right hand already resting out of habit on the sword hilt behind his back.

He stepped onto the village's main road, keeping his guard up. The dirt road was covered in a chaotic jumble of footprints, along with several clear drag marks that stretched all the way to a massive cliff behind the village.

Tanaka followed close behind Rokuya. Though afraid, a trace of greed flashed in his eyes. "If there's no one alive, all we have to do is find the demons' lair and kill them, and this mission will be a complete success! Come on, follow the blood!"

Following the dark brown drag mark, they went around the village buildings and arrived at a natural limestone cave in the mountain behind the village.

The cave entrance was enormous, a full two stories high. Deep claw marks covered the rocks around its mouth, with a few tattered strips of cloth still hanging in places.

A nauseating, blood-reeking gust blew from deep within the cave, nearly making Tanaka vomit on the spot.

"What a disgusting stink! There are definitely demons in here!" Tanaka covered his nose, but excitement blazed in his eyes. "Judging by the size, it's four or five ordinary demons gathered together, at most! Rookie, you're in luck this time. Watch me slaughter every last one!"

Rokuya ignored him. He took a fire lighter from his waist, gently blew it alight, then stepped into the dark cave, which resembled the gaping maw of a monstrous beast.

The farther they went, the wider the space became. Cold droplets fell from the cave walls, their drip, drip echoing through the cavernous space and making their skin crawl.

After walking roughly a hundred meters or more, Rokuya suddenly stopped. He raised the fire lighter, its faint glow illuminating a corner ahead.

His pupils abruptly contracted.

Even Rokuya, with his extremely cold disposition and his familiarity with all kinds of slaughter in games in his previous life, felt a surge of fury rush straight to his head!

Deep in the cave, where the firelight reached, stood an enormous man-made structure. It was a huge fence nailed together from logs thicker than an adult's thigh. The enclosure was divided into several sections, just like the pigpens on a farm!

And inside those "pigpens," over a hundred humans were packed tightly together!

There were elderly people, women, children only a few years old, and strong, able-bodied men. Dressed in rags and covered in filth and excrement, they huddled on the damp dirt like merchandise. A rusty collar had been roughly fastened around every person's neck, each connected to a chain firmly nailed into the rock wall behind them.

Even more horrifying were the wounds on many of their arms and thighs, cut open with sharp blades and then hastily bandaged. The blood seeping out had stained the bandages nearly black.

On a huge stone platform outside the enclosure lay more than a dozen incomplete human skeletons, still bearing scraps of gnawed flesh.

This was a farm.

A "farm" built by demons specifically to pen humans up, bleed them, and feed on them whenever they pleased!

"Oh, gods..."

The moment the firelight appeared, the villagers inside the enclosure raised their heads. There were over a hundred pairs of eyes utterly devoid of light. Numb, hollow, despairing. When they saw the Demon Slayer Corps uniforms Rokuya and Tanaka wore and the Nichirin Blades at their waists, a wave of extremely faint sobbing suddenly rose from the crowd, as though they were grasping at their last lifeline.

"H-help us..."

"Please, swordsman... please save my child..."

A skeletal mother threw herself against the rough wooden fence, her hands clutching the wood as she held an infant, barely alive from starvation, toward Rokuya. Tears mixed with dirt streamed freely down her face.

[Ding! Extreme collective panic and will to survive detected!]

[Current target population: 112.]

[System assessment: if the host successfully rescues the above civilians, an enormous Gratitude Points reward will be granted. Estimated earnings: 3,000-5,000 points!]

The system alerts flashed frantically in his mind, but at that moment, Rokuya had no attention to spare for Gratitude Points.

His fists clenched tightly, his knuckles whitening from the force. Yes, he was a pragmatist. Yes, he killed demons to grow stronger. But first and foremost, he was human!

Penning his own kind like livestock in a lightless cave, regularly draining their blood and cutting off their flesh... this trampling of the very limits of human dignity had crossed Rokuya's absolute bottom line!

"These scum..." Rokuya forced the words through gritted teeth, his voice carrying a chill that could plunge someone into an ice cellar.

Yet Tanaka, standing behind him, saw something entirely different.

"My god! There are actually this many people!" Tanaka stared fixedly at the villagers. There was not a trace of pity in his eyes; instead, they shone with extreme greed. "I've hit the jackpot! The jackpot! Saving over a hundred civilians and destroying a demon stronghold-this is definitely an exceptional achievement! As long as I kill every demon here, I can skip Tsuchinoe and get promoted straight to Hinoto, or even Hinoe! Maybe a Hashira will even commend me in person!"

Tanaka trembled all over with excitement. He abruptly drew the Nichirin Blade at his waist, its edge gleaming coldly in the firelight.

"Hey, rookie!" Tanaka turned, his face twisted with greed. "All the credit here belongs to me! You stand right here, and don't interfere! Do you hear me?!"

Rokuya whipped his head around, his eyes already bloodshot. His right hand seized Tanaka by the collar and hauled the young man, who stood a head taller than him, clean off the ground.

"Are you an idiot?" Rokuya's voice was terrifyingly low. "Open your damn eyes and look at the bones on the ground. Do you think a few ordinary demons could build a human farm this size? The sinister aura here is so thick it hurts just to breathe. They're watching us from the darkness. They're fishing!"

(Provisionally designated the Armor Hashira.)