Since the wound was on his shoulder, examining and bandaging it required him to take off his shirt, so everyone in the family except the middle-aged man temporarily left the room.
"Tsk, poisoned too..." After briefly examining Kanzaki Kumo's wound, the man frowned slightly, then turned to rummage through a cabinet nearby.
He opened drawer after drawer, took out several herbs Kanzaki Kumo did not recognize at all, crushed them together, and mixed them with herbal juice into a paste. Finally, he spread the paste over a small piece of white cloth and pressed it onto Kanzaki Kumo's wound.
"Hiss-"
The instant the medicine touched his wound, Kanzaki Kumo sucked in a breath from the pain. Still, that proved the medicine was working; at least sensation had returned to the area around his wound.
"You can feel pain. Looks like it's working." The man nodded, then turned to fetch a roll of bandages and began wrapping the wound.
"Try it. Can you move your shoulder normally now?"
Kanzaki Kumo gently moved his shoulder as instructed. Although the wound still hurt, the numbness from the poison had completely disappeared.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. First, tell me what exactly happened outside just now. And what do you do?" The man waved a hand and looked at Kanzaki Kumo solemnly.
A young boy, moving alone at night with what looked like an expensive blade in an era when carrying swords was officially prohibited-however he looked at it, there was nothing ordinary about him.
Besides, for some reason, he kept feeling that the boy looked familiar.
Normally, given his temperament, he would certainly have kept his distance from someone so clearly involved in serious matters. But this time, his daughter had been dragged into it, and he could not feel at ease without getting to the bottom of things.
"Simply put, I was hunting a man-eating monster called a 'demon' that comes out at night. Your daughter opened the door after hearing us fight, and the demon tried to take her hostage. I killed it in time, but I was wounded in the process."
Kanzaki Kumo briefly recounted what had happened, then took advantage of the man's stunned surprise to throw out another string of information.
"The organization I belong to is called the Demon Slayer Corps. It's a civilian organization dedicated to hunting demons, and demons have existed for over a thousand years..."
"Stop, stop, stop!" By the time the man realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
A kind of monster that had existed for at least a thousand years, a "civilian organization" dedicated to fighting those monsters and capable of equipping its members with such fine weapons-and virtually none of this information circulated among ordinary people.
Putting all those details together, the man looked at the boy before him with his harmless smile and felt like crying, but had no tears.
Kanzaki Kumo: You asked, all right? Now I don't even need to come up with another reason to pack up this whole family and take them with me.
"May I ask your name, doctor? Our Demon Slayer Corps is rather short of skilled physicians like you. Interested in joining? The compensation is generous." Seeing sweat begin to bead on the man's forehead, Kanzaki Kumo winked at him.
Do I look like I have a choice? The man did not say it aloud, but his helpless, somewhat resentful gaze clearly conveyed his thoughts.
"Sigh..."
"Don't sigh like that. You actually have a bit of a connection with these 'demons'-or rather, with me." While the man was treating Kanzaki Kumo's wound, he had already remembered where he had seen him before.
"Nearly two years ago, at the temple in town. An injured blind monk, two gravely wounded little girls, and a little boy with a wound on his forehead. Does that ring a bell?"
At Kanzaki Kumo's words, the man also understood why the boy before him looked familiar: he was that little boy from back then.
After all, there had been far too many memorable things about that house call. First, a towering man covered in blood had carried him the entire way at a run. Then he had seen a scene whose implications he dared not dwell on. Someone had even come to his door the next day specifically to tell him not to reveal what he had seen.
It was also because of that incident that he, who had originally had a home in town, had moved back to the village with his family and only went to the clinic in town to see patients during the day.
"There was a human-shaped crater in that temple that day. Was that left by the monk fighting a demon that had broken into the temple?"
"Exactly. It seems you remember now. So, have you given any thought to joining the Demon Slayer Corps?"
"Rest assured, physicians enjoy a high standing in the Demon Slayer Corps. And because tonight's demon was rather special, successfully killing it will give me a certain amount of influence within the Corps. At the very least, protecting your family won't be a problem."
"Whew-" The man took a deep breath, then nodded. "I'm willing to join."
"Good. Let's introduce ourselves properly. My name is Kanzaki Kumo." Kanzaki Kumo held out his hand.
"Butterfly Zemu."
The man-Butterfly Zemu, the father of the Kocho Sisters in the original story-also reached out and briefly shook Kanzaki Kumo's hand.
"Then let me give you a brief introduction to the Demon Slayer Corps."
While the two males spoke in the room, Kanae Kocho was in another room, being questioned by her mother, Kocho Delia, and her younger sister, Shinobu Kocho, about what had happened.
"Oh my, I don't really know the details either. I'd only just opened the door when a human-looking monster with a vicious gaze appeared right in front of me. Its claws were about to reach me, and I hadn't even had time to react, but the very next instant, the boy in that room cut its head off."
"And the monster disappeared soon after it was beheaded. Then I saw that he was injured, so I brought him inside and asked Father to treat him."
"Him? He doesn't even look as old as you, does he?" Shinobu Kocho's first reaction after hearing this was disbelief. The person in that room looked barely older than her and could still be called a little boy. How could he possibly have instantly slain a monster her sister could not even react to, as her sister had described?
"Oh, you can't judge people by their looks." Kanae merely rubbed Shinobu Kocho's head without explaining further. After all, she herself found tonight's experience rather fantastical. Yet the boy who had slain the monster under the moonlight and saved her life had already left his mark on her heart.
Perhaps she would never forget that blazing white lightning, like a roaming dragon.
"Mmm..." As her sister rubbed her head, Shinobu Kocho narrowed her eyes and nuzzled against her hand, no longer dwelling on what her sister had said. Whatever the case, her sister was safe, and that was what mattered.
Before long, she fell asleep in her sister's arms. She had been woken in the middle of the night to begin with, and now that everything was fine, naturally she would go back to sleep.
Time slowly passed amid Shinobu Kocho's soft breathing. Even Kanae Kocho grew a little drowsy, but she was still concerned about her savior's injuries and roused herself again.
Kocho Delia glanced at the neighboring room from time to time. Having spent many years at her husband's side, she naturally had some ability to judge these things. From her initial assessment earlier, treating the boy's injuries should not have taken long, yet almost an hour had passed, and she had no idea what was happening inside.
And so, after Kanzaki Kumo briefly explained the Demon Slayer Corps to Butterfly Zemu, along with the possible arrangements for his family going forward, the two finally stepped out of the room together under the gazes of the Kocho mother and daughters.
Before you continue