Iseki spoke quietly of Kōen's terror.
"Right when we realized how dangerous it had gotten and started to flee... it was already too late. A great swarm of Nue appeared and began trampling the monks underfoot. It was hell on earth.............."
"Nue?..."
Iseki's gaze drifted far off into memory, while Yasutaka couldn't shake his unease over one detail in particular: a horde of Nue, appearing all at once.
"I happened to be training in swordsmanship with Heizō there at the time, so I managed to cut down a handful of Nue and get out alive. By the time the subjugation force arrived, the countless bodies of the monks had already risen as Shibito, walking corpses. They say the things attacked using dharma power."
"Ugh.............."
Yasutaka's face darkened.
Shibito, of course, were zombies: rotting corpses that walked.
They carried over whatever abilities they'd had in life, which made them a genuine nuisance.
At that point in the tale, Onihei picked up the thread.
"The moment I got word from Iseki here, I threw together a subjugation force and struck Kan'ei-ji Temple. We got thrashed for our trouble. The monk-Shibito were slinging hōjutsu at us, and on top of that there was a whole swarm of Nue. There was no cutting through all of it."
Onihei's face soured at the memory.
"We managed to pull the shogun out of there after he'd gotten cut off, but an outrage like that, one that gutted the shogunate's prestige, wasn't something we could just let slide. A proper army was raised at once, but Kōen was so monstrously strong we couldn't put him down.............."
Onihei's expression stayed sour.
"In the end, it was the Yokozuna-class Kabuki Squad 'Rokumatsu' that finally brought him down. Cost us dearly, but we managed it."
"I see.............."
One thing, at least, was clear: the damage had been horrific.
That much he understood, but...............
"So, in the end, what kind of yōjutsu did Kōen actually use?"
That was the real question Yasutaka had come to ask, but the moment he said it, both Onihei and Iseki's faces turned grim.
"That's the thing.............. we never did find out."
Onihei answered, looking troubled.
"I struck him with my Oni's Adamant Body and couldn't so much as cut him, but for some reason a kunai went in. Buried deep, too. Slash him with a naginata, club him with an iron rod, run him through with a spear, put an arrow in him, nothing so much as scratched him, but kunai worked like a charm.............. so in the end we swarmed him with kunai and shuriken and somehow managed to finish him off."
"That was a true mystery, that one.............."
Iseki tilted his head, puzzling over Onihei's account.
"That's... something else."
Yasutaka tilted his head too, equally baffled.
Normally, if kunai and shuriken could hurt an enemy, a sword would hurt them even more.
There were also foes hard to cut but vulnerable to a good clubbing, and just as many the other way around.
But an enemy that no blade or blunt weapon could touch, only for a kunai to sink in? That made no sense at all.
Granted, it wouldn't be so strange if cutting and clubbing failed while stabbing succeeded.
What was baffling was that every conventional weapon worth the name had failed utterly.
"Afterward, we asked around among the Shinjin and Genjin, the ones said to have lived since the Coral Age, and every one of them told us the same thing: 'Never seen it, never heard of it.'.............. In the end, it stayed a mystery."
"That's... even the Shinjin and Genjin, the ones who've lived since the age of the primordial civilizations, had never seen anything like it?"
This world was home to certain races blessed, or perhaps cursed, with eternal life: the Shinjin and the Genjin.
Naturally, they were living witnesses to ages long past, stretching back to time immemorial. So what manner of monster could stump even them?
Onihei went on.
"According to them, it might be that a new Demon God has appeared."
"...............Huh?"
Yasutaka's face went pale.
"To begin with, the Demon Gods were never native to this world of Toyoashihara. The Desert God, Sabara, who wiped out the Fish-folk Civilization, was originally a god of the Kibutsu world, and he tried to remake this world into something more to their liking. The Necromancer God, Fuon, who destroyed the Insect-Forest Civilization, the Plague God, Shikotsu, who ended the Dragon King Civilization, the Hungry Ghost God, Gajin, who wiped out the Terror Bird Civilization, and the Panic God, Kyōsatsu, who destroyed the Beastfolk Civilization, they're all said to be gods who came from other worlds."
"...............Then this god behind the Yōjin running wild right now, what is it?"
"Most likely, a new Demon God freshly arrived from another world."
Both Yasutaka and Mōha went pale.
Against a completely unknown god, there was simply no way to prepare.
In this world, every art and technique traced back to some god.
Technique equaled god here, so naturally, a new god meant an entirely new kind of technique too.
Even among the countless gods, they split into several great god groups:
the Wave-Flow God Group, centered on the fish gods,
the Yin-Yang God Group, centered on the gods of tree and insect,
the Qi Power God Group, centered on the dragon gods,
the Sacred Hymn God Group, built mainly around the bird gods,
the Transformation God Group, centered on the beast gods,
and the Buddha God Group, centered around the buddhas,
such were the divisions among them.
The Evil Gods, for their part, formed their own small separate group, and each of them wielded a distinct technique all its own.
Which meant that if a Demon God with some utterly unknown, incomprehensible technique was running loose, there was no telling how anyone was supposed to deal with it.
They'd only just heard all this the night before, or rather, they'd come here specifically to learn how to deal with it, so it was little wonder both their faces had gone white.
Onihei let out a hearty laugh.
"Sorry about that. You came here wanting to slay the Demon King, and I couldn't help you a bit."
"...Ha ha ha..."
Yasutaka and Mōha both forced pained, placating smiles.
((We never said that! We just came here to ask a question!))
They'd only come to look out for their own safety, yet somehow the conversation had drifted into talk of them wanting to go hunt down a Demon King.
Still, the man across from them was some bigwig of the shogunate, so there was no correcting him.
Onihei gave Yasutaka's shoulder a couple of hearty pats.
"You know, it's possible you're the reincarnation of Umabuki no Riheiji..."
"...Umabuki no Riheiji?"
Yasutaka tilted his head at the unfamiliar name.
"Had a man like that under me once, years back. Lost him to my own carelessness... Got to thinking maybe you're his reincarnation, that's all..."
"...Uh, sure."
The conversation had taken an unexpectedly mournful turn, and Yasutaka wasn't sure what to do with that, but...
(Then actually listen to what you're saying!)
(Wait, aren't you about to carelessly send the reincarnation of a man you carelessly got killed off to fight a Demon King?)
Onihei's story didn't add up, and both Yasutaka and Mōha were left at a loss.
Then Iseki gave a wry laugh.
"Heizō. That makes five now, doesn't it? Just how many reincarnations does this man have?"
"Is that so? Ha! Hahaha!"
Onihei covered with a booming laugh.
((Are you seriously just saying whatever pops into your head?))
Both Yasutaka and Mōha stared in disbelief at Heizō's slapdash attitude.
Iseki laughed harder still.
"Besides, Riheiji died five years ago, didn't he? The numbers don't add up at all."
"Guess that's true too! Hahahaha!"
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..."
Yasutaka and Mōha laughed along with Onihei's booming mirth, but inside, they were both thinking the exact same thing.
((Somebody just let us make the obvious joke already!))