Shinobu Kocho's internal screaming didn't register with the young girl named Mitsuri Kanroji at all. Having always struggled with deep-seated insecurity, she was genuinely overjoyed to meet someone who praised her as beautiful and lovely the very moment they met!
"Mr. Li Ke really is a wonderful person!"
In her excitement, she grabbed Li Ke's arm and began hopping up and down. The motion caused her enormous, incredibly soft breasts to press and rub vigorously against his arm. They were absurdly large — heavy, full, and perfectly round, easily dwarfing even Shinobu's already impressive chest. However, Li Ke also noticed the sheer strength in her embrace; those powerful arms didn't feel like those of an ordinary human at all.
Li Ke instantly realized something.
Mitsuri Kanroji was completely different from Shinobu. This girl was built incredibly solid!
The moment Li Ke made this realization, the smile on his face grew three times more genuine, causing Mai Shiranui to shoot him another look of pure disgust from the sidelines.
Meanwhile, Tengen Uzui shared a similar outlook to Shinobu. However, he didn't see anything wrong with Li Ke's behavior. In his mind, Li Ke was incredibly powerful yet remarkably easy to talk to, so there was no need to worry about anything strange happening.
It was just that...
"Isn't she being just a little too enthusiastic?"
Watching Mitsuri continuously cling to Li Ke's arm and bounce around, Tengen felt she was being far too uninhibited.
Li Ke, however, didn't share that sentiment. While Mitsuri's so-called "uninhibited" behavior might be scandalous in this Taisho era—where people still adhered to a mountain of bizarre, outdated rules—it was practically nothing to a modern person.
Granted, laughing and jumping while randomly grabbing a man's arm was certainly lacking in modesty, but girls with this kind of personality definitely existed. In fact, it was quite a charming trait, wasn't it?
Caught under the collective gaze of everyone present, Mitsuri finally realized what she was doing. A look of deep embarrassment flushed across her face, and she immediately bowed her head to apologize to Li Ke.
The moment she bowed, a soft, fragrant cleavage instantly took shape, swaying enticingly.
As the pale, smooth contours shifted against each other, they put on a mesmerizing display of soft, alluring curves.
While those fair, sacred peaks were certainly eye-catching, Li Ke's gaze was entirely drawn to the deep, plunging valley between them.
Bound tightly by the dark fabric of her uniform, the tops of the peaks swayed gently, moving with a hypnotic, pendulum-like rhythm.
That deep crevice parted just enough to reveal a sliver of the smooth expanse beneath, instantly sparking the imagination.
The narrow pathway looked deceptively accessible right now. But Li Ke knew that once she stood back up, the shifting peaks would press together tightly once more. The accessible path would vanish entirely, locking away any view of what lay beneath.
It was a hidden passage that practically begged to be explored.
"I'm so sorry, I got way too carried away..."
Mitsuri Kanroji fidgeted uncomfortably, feeling that she had been incredibly reckless and improper.
"Don't worry about it. Honestly, I think a little lively energy is great."
Li Ke offered Mitsuri a warm smile. While he had met plenty of girls who enjoyed a bustling environment, someone as genuinely cheerful and uninhibited as Mitsuri was still a rare find.
Well, setting aside Toph—that girl was a total social menace and a bit too lively.
"Right?! I think so too! Everyone around here is just way too gloomy!"
Mitsuri's excitement flared right back up as she looked at Li Ke with sparkling eyes. This was the first time anyone had ever validated her perspective. Once again, she began bouncing happily in front of him, waving her hands enthusiastically.
"Exactly. As long as it doesn't get in the way of important matters, there's nothing wrong with being happy and having a little fun."
Li Ke couldn't help but laugh along with her. This girl was genuinely adorable. On a whim, he raised his palm and gave the enthusiastically waving Mitsuri a high-five.
Looking at her bright, endearing face, Li Ke actually found himself looking past her chest for the first time. Caught up in her contagious smile, he subconsciously blurted out, "Yeah!"
"Yeah!"
Mitsuri cheered right back, looking at Li Ke with a newfound sense of wonder. Initially, she had pegged him as a dependable, older-brother figure because of his tall, muscular build and grounded presence. She truly hadn't expected him to be just like her—completely indifferent to stuffy formalities and eager to share a genuine laugh.
"Mr. Li Ke really is the best!"
She squealed with delight, grabbing the sleeve of his coat and tugging him toward the city gates.
"I'm going to treat you to some sakura mochi, Mr. Li Ke!"
In her excitement, she inadvertently channeled her superhuman strength. Li Ke had no intention of resisting, allowing himself to be pulled right along into the city. However, just as he was about to let her lead the way, a sobering reality flashed through his mind.
Kyojuro Rengoku's entire unit had been wiped out.
Halting his steps, he gently stopped the girl who was already happily brainstorming which sakura mochi shop to visit. He gave her pink-haired head a soft, playful tap.
"Let's take care of business first."
Mitsuri pouted, looking slightly slighted after the gentle bonk on her head. Even though it didn't hurt at all, being treated like a scatterbrain didn't feel very nice.
But the moment she turned around and saw the battered, solitary figure of Kyojuro Rengoku being carried in, her vibrant smile vanished instantly. A thick layer of tears welled up in her eyes.
"Everyone... they really didn't make it...?"
She had known for a long time that in this increasingly perilous world, a Demon Slayer's life was more fragile than ever. Yet, looking at Rengoku being brought back alone by the vanguard, the sheer joy she felt over her comrade's return plummeted into a profound, heavy sorrow.
"Yeah. We were a step too late."
Li Ke didn't elaborate. He wasn't fond of dwelling on tragedies, but the brutal reality remained—those Demon Slayer Corps members were truly beyond saving.
The lively atmosphere at the city gates suffocated instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence.
Right at that moment, the previously comatose Kyojuro Rengoku finally began to stir. His arms flailed wildly into the air before he abruptly bolted upright on the makeshift stretcher.
"Ugh... Everyone!"
The usually fiercely passionate man bolted up, throwing his eyes wide open as he frantically scanned the crowd for familiar faces. However, the heavy, somber look on Tengen Uzui's face and the dead silence of the onlookers instantly brought a grim realization.
"...Is everyone... dead?"
His head slumped forward as his weakened body began to sway. A wave of intense vertigo assaulted the newly conscious Kyojuro Rengoku, leaving his mind feeling increasingly chaotic and disoriented. His confusion only deepened when his gaze drifted over to Li Ke, a man he had met only once before, standing quietly among them.
"Just rest for now, Kyojuro. It's all over."
Tengen gently pressed Rengoku back down onto the makeshift stretcher. He knew exactly what Rengoku was feeling; it was a profound despair that every single one of them had been forced to endure repeatedly during this recent crisis.
In truth, if Li Ke hadn't suddenly appeared out of nowhere, Tengen might not have even managed to reach Rengoku's location in time. His own vanguard would have likely been entirely wiped out too—a stark contrast to their actual reality, where they had only lost a single slayer's ability to hold a sword, forcing him into early retirement as a farmer.
Regrettably, the dragon fire wasn't some miraculous cure-all.
Without Li Ke, the Demon Slayer Corps would have lost two of its Pillars in one fell swoop. Any future subjugation missions would have become an uphill battle, likely demanding a staggering toll in human lives before the threat could be contained.
Furthermore, those bizarre, unnatural abominations were absolutely not something that ordinary flames could ever hope to deal with.
"So, everyone..."
Rengoku was still desperately clinging to a final, fading shred of wishful thinking. But Tengen knew that in a moment like this, feeding him false hope would only be a cruelty.
"They've all gone to a better place."
Rengoku fell completely silent. Once again, a crushing sense of his own powerlessness washed over him. He threw an arm over his face as tears quietly traced down his cheeks, a sickening surge of survivor's guilt eating away at him. Why was it that he—the one who was supposed to hold the line and protect them—had been the sole survivor? If he had just allowed the other slayers to stay back instead, could they have held out long enough for reinforcements to arrive?
He blamed himself relentlessly, his heart filling with a deep hatred for his own inadequacy. Yet, even through the agonizing self-loathing, he didn't forget a vital detail.
"Was it you who defeated that monster? Thank you so much, Tengen! Thank you so much!"
Though his thoughts were still muddled, Rengoku vividly remembered the absolute, suffocating despair he felt when facing that abomination.
They had already established a secure base camp when the monster suddenly materialized right in the middle of their perimeter. The mere sight of the creature's grotesque form had triggered an overwhelming, primal urge within him—a sickening lust that screamed at him to throw himself at the beast and mate with it.
Forcing his mind awake through sheer, self-inflicted pain, Rengoku had immediately engaged the beast in combat. Early in the fight, his Flame Breathing techniques had successfully forced the monster to give some ground. But when he confidently slammed his blazing blade down onto its flesh, he was horrified to discover that neither his flames nor his steel could leave so much as a single scratch on its body.
What followed was an absolute, one-sided massacre.
The fluids spraying from the creature's body caused countless tiny parasites to erupt from the very soil it stepped on. The moment his slayers were bitten, their bodies would rapidly mutate into writhing, maggot-like monstrosities before violently exploding.
Following the rupture, the slime coating their bodies proved to be exceptionally corrosive. Any slayer splashed by the residue would instantly collapse, only to morph into yet another insectoid horror.
Worst of all, the vast majority of the unit couldn't even summon the will to fight the creature. Their minds had been entirely overwritten by a singular, frantic urge to breed.
Fortunately, those horrific sights eventually jolted the rest of the unit awake, igniting their desperate desire to fight back.
Yet, Rengoku knew from the start that winning was an absolute impossibility.
That was why he ordered his remaining men to flee while he stood alone to face the abomination. Though he had no idea how much time he could actually buy them, he desperately hoped that at least one person would manage to escape.
But he couldn't even hold the line for very long. The creature shattered his Nichirin Sword, and then—
And then, he was knocked unconscious.
He didn't wake up again until the monster dragged him onto a grotesque altar, peeling away his skin and carving out his organs to conduct some bizarre, otherworldly ritual. It was during those final, fleeting moments of his fading life that he heard Tengen Uzui's thunderous roar.
"I'm sorry, but I wasn't the one who defeated that monster either. It was Mr. Li Ke, a newcomer who just joined our Demon Slayer Corps... Honestly, counting this time, he's essentially saved my life twice now."
Tengen's emotions were a tangled mess. But before he could dwell on his complicated thoughts any further, Rengoku began frantically struggling to stand up, desperate to offer his gratitude to Li Ke.
"I must... go thank my benefactor!"
Rengoku thrashed continuously on the stretcher. In his eyes, Li Ke—who had avenged the fallen members of the Demon Slayer Corps—was his absolute benefactor. Now that he knew the truth, failing to show immediate gratitude would make him lower than a beast.
"Just lie down and stay quiet."
But Shinobu stepped in. With a swift, precise strike to the side of Rengoku's neck, she forcefully knocked the struggling Flame Pillar out cold.
"Injured soldiers should act like injured soldiers."
Despite her stern words, as Shinobu stared down at the unconscious Rengoku, her eyes were filled with nothing but profound pity and deep empathy.
She understood this exact feeling all too well—this agonizing torment of being too weak to protect anything.
Li Ke watched Rengoku slump back down, then glanced at Shinobu's sorrowful expression, shaking his head with a soft sigh.
Standing nearby with a heavy heart, Mai Shiranui felt a flicker of curiosity. She couldn't understand why Li Ke would choose to shake his head in a somber moment like this, so she asked bluntly, "What are you shaking your head for?"
"I'm just marveling at how these people don't seem like the Japanese I'm familiar with at all. Their moral standards are remarkably high."
Li Ke replied quietly. His words instantly rubbed Mai Shiranui—a Japanese national herself—entirely the wrong way. She stomped viciously on Li Ke's foot. But just as she was about to turn on her heel and storm off, curiosity got the better of her, and she snapped back, "And just what kind of people are the Japanese in your mind?"
"Baka, Banzai, Shira Shira Di. Throw in chasing after pretty girls, seppuku, gekokujo, bowing in apology while stubbornly refusing to admit any actual fault, protesting being defeated rather than protesting the war itself, being completely dominated by corporate zaibatsu, and obsessing over rigid etiquette while completely forgetting the actual purpose of being polite."
Mai Shiranui's prominent, heavy chest heaved violently in sudden fury, but it slowly deflated as she took a deep breath.
"As infuriating as that is... I surprisingly can't find a way to argue against it..."
Mai felt incredibly frustrated and deflated. Even though she knew Li Ke's critique was entirely accurate, it still left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Yet, she knew deep down that he was right.
The descendants of sinners shouldn't be punished for the past, but if they shamelessly act as if nothing ever happened, they become the most despicable cowards.
If a nation refuses to even acknowledge its historical crimes, how can it ever expect forgiveness or freedom from retaliation?
Burying your head in the sand like an ostrich and pretending that forgetting a crime makes it vanish without consequence is pure cowardice. When you refuse to even admit your wrongs, you leave the victims with absolutely zero psychological burden when they finally choose to exact their revenge.
"It's only natural to feel that way. Nobody likes hearing people talk trash about their own country, unless they don't consider themselves a part of it anymore. It's just..."
Looking at the deeply principled Mai Shiranui and the grieving Demon Slayer Corps members, Li Ke held back the thought he wanted to say most.
"Just what?"
Mai stared at him, her curiosity piqued.
"Nothing."
Li Ke smiled easily. He wasn't about to tell her his actual thought: 'It's just that the characters in Japanese fictional works are always written with such immaculate, noble virtues, and your culture goes to such lengths to project an image of championing morality and order.'
After all, if they got too bogged down in deep, philosophical geopolitical debates...
He wouldn't get to watch Mai Shiranui's breasts bounce anymore.
Besides, Mai Shiranui wasn't like the real-world Japanese nationals he was talking about; she was the "idealized Japanese woman" born entirely out of creative fiction.
They were completely different species.