"...A Demon King, I wonder? The old man at the North Town Inspection Ground was saying something about it, but is it true that a Demon King has revived?"
"You mean that thing's somewhere nearby?"
Mōha's face stiffened despite himself.
Time and again, Demon Kings had risen to shatter entire civilizations.
The Fish-folk, the Forest-folk, the Insect-folk, the Dragon-folk, the Bird-folk, and the Beast-folk: every one of them had once ruled the world as a mighty civilization.
Yet even they had fallen before the Demon Kings.
King Drought and King Parch dried up the seas and destroyed the Fish-folk Civilization.
Mōrō, the Haze King, possessed spirits to nullify shikigami and destroyed the Insect-Forest Civilization.
Orochi raised the dead to devour one another and destroyed the Dragon King Civilization.
The Self-Exalted One severed the bonds between gods and men and destroyed the Terror Bird Civilization.
The Mad Ravager sent every craft and technique berserk and destroyed the Beast Civilization.
Every one of them was a Demon King monstrous enough to take on the whole world and annihilate a civilization outright.
And even short of destroying a civilization, lesser Demon Kings crop up now and then, plenty capable of wiping out a nation or two along the way.
When a yokai of that magnitude appears, the scale of disaster it brings is nothing to scoff at.
Yasutaka's whole body trembled as he grumbled, looking thoroughly terrified.
"If a monster like that ever showed up, all we could do is run."
"Hey now. You can't go talking that weak, can you?"
"Of course. I could never let Tacchan do anything so dangerous."
"Is that really okay with you?"
"Of course it is. No woman approves of her fiancé doing something dangerous."
Mōha was taken aback by how faint-hearted the two of them sounded.
Granny Moon answered quietly.
"To fight when there is no hope of victory is mere recklessness, not heroism. Are you not a shinobi yourself? This old woman had thought you would take a more realistic view of things."
"Well sure, that's how it is for us ninja, but you two are samurai, aren't you?"
At that, Granny Moon laughed, bright and unbothered.
"That is the fruit of this old woman's teaching, is it not? I lived long as a Kabukimono myself, you know, and I have seen my share of braggarts who talk bold and brave, only to be the first ones running when the battle actually comes. Better to say nothing at all than to carry on so and then flee, that is what I taught."
"Huh. Makes sense."
Coming from someone who had lived it firsthand, Granny Moon's lesson carried real weight.
Yasutaka propped his chin on his hand and grumbled.
"Still, if you ask me what I'd actually do with the thing standing right in front of me, I doubt it'd let me off easy enough to run... Same as this time around. Guess I better start thinking about how to get away when things go bad."
"Yeah, if you two hadn't been there, we'd have been in real trouble..."
"And if Shinnosuke hadn't shown up either, we'd have been wiped out for sure..."
The two of them recalled the day's events with bitter faces.
It had all happened because the fellow looked so odd at a glance that they'd been slow to sense the danger.
"We let our guard down completely. Figured it was just some Kuzuyo cleanup and didn't take it seriously."
"The Southern Magistrate's Office says they're raising the danger rating and the pay for it too. Guess even they figure nobody's tackling a Nue that nasty for base pay."
The two of them kept right on grumbling, but Mani asked a question.
"Come to think of it, what exactly was that 'Kōen' you mentioned this morning?"
"A Yōjin. One of the demon-folk who answered the Demon God's whispers and took up worshipping it."
"I see."
"Hey, that reminds me, something I've been wondering for a while now. Why does worshipping the Demon God turn people into that? I don't get what the yokai transformation's even about."
Yasutaka looked genuinely puzzled.