a story of a strong demon

Now, I (Yochiro) go to meet the Demon King, 'Keto.' I tell him that the rumor is false – the girl who could kill him is not in the cursed village. He replies, "Alright, you can go." I leave and head toward where the upper-rank demons are. There, Shangshu approaches me and says he needs to talk to me alone. I follow him.

Shangshu asks, "Were you at the cursed village today?"

(The cursed village is the same village where I, 'Suka,' was killed by a demon. Originally, it was called 'Village Pond,' but since the demon appeared, people have started calling it the cursed village.)

I respond, "No, I wasn't there. I am looking for the girl who can kill 'Lord Keto.'"

He says, "Okay, but today I was drawn to the blood of a girl. When I went to kill her, a demon fighter appeared who, like you, uses a sword. When I attacked the girl, she used some strange 'technique' that formed bizarre lines around her, blocking my attack while simultaneously attacking me. She wounded me quite badly in just a few seconds. When I increased the power of my attack, both of them disappeared."

I ask Shangshu, "Yesterday, by the way, what were you doing at the cursed village when you met that girl? Was she in the middle of the village?"

"No, Yochiro. She was in the forest outside the village. As I passed by, her blood attracted me. I attacked her to consume her."

"You didn't tell me what you were actually doing," I said. Shangshu replies, "I was searching for the girl who could kill Lord Keto in another village."

I ask, "Did you find her?" He replies, "No."

I say, "Oh! I forgot to tell you something very important. The girl who can kill Lord Keto is not in the cursed village. I investigated the village two days ago."

The villagers told me, "The girl was born here, and she lived here until a few years ago, but she suddenly left for another village." When I asked which village she had gone to, they said, "No one knows, not even her parents." They said she mysteriously ran away one night with a demon fighter. Her parents and the villagers searched for her, but she was never found. She was our only hope against these demons, but now she is gone."

(At that moment, I understood the villagers were lying to keep her whereabouts a secret. She is still here, and it's none other than Shushi. But I didn't tell Shangshu.)

Shangshu asks me, "What did you say to them that made them tell you all this?" I reply, "I told them I'm a demon fighter searching for the girl who can defeat the demon king, Lord Keto. Since I resemble a demon fighter to some extent, they trusted me and gave me this information."

"By the way, how do you gather information, Shangshu?"

Shangshu says, "I listen to the villagers' conversations, and if someone knows more, I catch them at night, extract the information, and eat them. Since, like you, I can't go out in the sunlight, it takes me more time to gather information."

Now I tell Shangshu, "I'm going to sleep," and leave.

Shangshu begins to doubt me, thinking, "No one else uses a sword like Yochiro, but there might be a new demon fighter. I haven't fought any demon fighter who could block an upper-rank strongest attack so easily except for Lord Keto. I even think Yochiro might be a demon who sides with humans. Also, the demons Lord Keto sent to the cursed village that night… could Yochiro have killed them?"

"But it seems like Yochiro is a demon above normal level whose job is to gather intelligence, and he is weak in battle because he can't consume humans much. He only extracts information and tells us, and we do the rest. I don't think Yochiro can block an upper-rank attack, and if he tries, he'll die. If that happens, Lord Keto will be very angry because Yochiro is the only demon like a human, and he extracts information so easily. He's very useful to Lord Keto, and to me too, because he makes my job easier. And Yochiro can't use that strange technique." (The strange technique refers to the sword technique style.)

End of the first day's training.