"What nonsense. Just as there are good and bad people, yokai can be good or evil as well.Humans with twisted hearts are often far more terrifying than yokai.
Have you ever heard of zashiki-warashi or ubume?Do you really think yokai like that deserve to be exterminated?"
Ren Kuroda felt a chill crawl up his spine as he listened to the onmyoji girl beside him. As a half-demon himself, her words struck uncomfortably close to home, and he immediately corrected her flawed way of thinking.
That "Ryuji-nii" she mentioned was clearly an extremist—basically the same type as Akainu from One Piece.In his worldview, everything was either black or white. There was no such thing as gray.
Zashiki-warashi were yokai that brought fortune and happiness to households.Ubume actively protected and cared for abandoned or mistreated children.
As an onmyoji from the Keikain family, Yura naturally knew all of this.
After thinking for a long moment, she realized she couldn't find any words to refute Ren's argument, so she fell silent.
But soon, the girl noticed something was off.
Even if yokai could be divided into good and bad—how did Ren know that those yokai were "good"?
In response to her question, Ren answered honestly: he didn't know whether they were good or evil.What he did know was that he absolutely couldn't defeat such a massive group of yokai.
Hearing that explanation, Yura puffed out her cheeks in frustration once again.
She felt like she'd misjudged him.This Ren-senpai clearly wasn't the fearless onmyoji she'd imagined—someone who would charge straight into danger without hesitation…
"One has to know how to adapt," Ren said calmly."Sometimes, being a coward is the correct choice. Even if we'd rushed in, the only thing that would've changed is a few more unnecessary deaths."
"And the sheer difference in strength matters. The fact that they chose to leave instead of attacking us proves they weren't truly evil yokai."
This explanation finally convinced Yura.
After dealing with the Old Rat Group, Ren was ready to head home—only for Kana and Saori to grab his sleeve, asking him to escort them back.
At this point, they didn't bother with formalities anymore.
What they had witnessed that night had completely shattered their understanding of the world.
They'd never imagined that yokai and onmyoji truly existed—much less that they themselves would be attacked by monsters.
If not for Yura and Ren, they didn't even dare imagine what might have happened to them.
There was no way they were going home alone now.
Besides, their teacher was a legendary onmyoji capable of slaying demons—why wouldn't they want him to take them home?
Even though Ren offered to let Yura accompany them, all three girls shook their heads vigorously.
It wasn't that they doubted Yura's strength. On the contrary, they were extremely grateful to her—after all, she'd saved their lives.
But after witnessing the battle, they realized something unsettling.
Yura might be powerful, but her practical experience as an onmyoji seemed… lacking.
And perhaps she was a little too stubborn.
Faced with an army of yokai, she'd seriously planned to fight her way through alone.
The same thing had happened earlier with the rat demons—once the battle heated up, she'd practically forgotten about them entirely.
Kana and the others were scared.
They worried that if they ran into more yokai, Yura might once again abandon them to chase after monsters.
Compared to her, Ren—also an "onmyoji"—was clearly more experienced, both in strength and judgment.
So, after the terror they'd endured that night, it was only natural that they wanted Ren to protect them and escort them home.
Because of the overwhelming sense of security Ren gave off, the girls finally calmed down.
Once the lingering fear faded, they even started to feel that the night's events were… strangely thrilling.
After all, what they had seen and experienced wasn't something ordinary people ever encountered.
As they chatted excitedly, they learned that Yura would be transferring to their school—and the girls quickly became friends.
"You have no idea how insane it was last night!That rat demon leader was five or six meters tall after transforming!"
"And then there were tons of other demons—so many of them looked absolutely terrifying!We were scared half to death, right, Natsumi? Kana?"
During recess, the classroom was as lively as ever, and today's hot topic was still—demons.
What puzzled everyone, however, was that today's speaker on "demon lore" wasn't Kiyotsugu, the school's usual yokai fanatic.
Instead, it was Saori.
This left everyone confused.
In the past, Saori had always been the least interested in Kiyotsugu's passionate lectures about yokai culture—yet today she was unusually animated.
Some students even wondered if she'd been possessed by Kiyotsugu.
After all, the wealthy Kiyotsugu was normally the biggest yokai enthusiast.
But it soon became clear that while Saori talked about yokai, what she truly admired was onmyoji culture.
Unfortunately, whether it was yokai culture or onmyoji culture, most students thought it was nonsense—just something to laugh about.
And it wasn't surprising.
What Saori described was simply too outrageous.
A giant rat demon five or six meters tall.A handsome man leading a hundred demons through the night.
Even more absurd—Saori claimed that their cheerful, good-looking new teaching assistant, Ren Kuroda, was actually a powerful onmyoji.
At first, people could treat her stories as harmless fantasy.
But once Ren was involved, the classroom burst into laughter.
Everyone teased Saori, saying she must've had a wild dream—or worse, a romantic fantasy.
Her praise for onmyoji power, especially when centered around Ren, combined with his handsome appearance and gentle demeanor, made it all sound like the delusions of a lovestruck girl.
Seeing that no one believed her, Saori felt helpless.
She was naturally chatty, and after receiving Ren's acknowledgment the night before, she'd been excitedly sharing the story with everyone.
But no one was willing to believe news that explosive.
Honestly, it didn't matter much.
Even Saori herself felt like the whole night had been a dream.
Still, after confirming everything with Natsumi and Kana, she knew—without a doubt—that it had all been real.
It wasn't entirely true that no one believed her.
At least one person did.
That person was Kiyotsugu, the die-hard yokai fanatic.
After hearing Saori and her friends' story, he was filled with nothing but regret.
The previous night, he'd inexplicably fainted during club activities, been carried home by Jirō Shima, and slept straight through to morning.
He wasn't scared by their story.
He was jealous.
As the founder of the Kiyotsugu Paranormal Detective Club, he'd dedicated himself to searching for yokai for ages—yet he hadn't seen a single one.
Meanwhile, Saori and Natsumi, who had zero interest in yokai, had not only seen a giant rat demon…
They'd witnessed the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.
They'd even seen a battle between yokai and an onmyoji.
It was everything Kiyotsugu had ever dreamed of.
Why had he fainted?Why wasn't he there?
The resentment nearly drove him mad.
As for whether Saori was telling the truth—others might doubt it, but Kiyotsugu didn't for a second.
Did yokai exist?
Of course they did.
Otherwise, why would he—an absurdly wealthy second-generation heir—found a club solely dedicated to finding them?
Unfortunately, his dream still hadn't come true.
And yet Saori and her friends—who didn't care about yokai at all—had experienced everything he longed for.
Unable to accept this injustice, Kiyotsugu immediately declared that the Paranormal Detective Club's next activity would be a nighttime stakeout.
They would investigate the exact location where Saori had encountered the Old Rat Group and the Hyakki Yagyō, hoping to meet yokai and onmyoji again.
His proposal was immediately rejected by everyone except Jirō Shima.
Although Saori and the others had gained unforgettable experiences from last night, they clearly had no desire to relive that terror.
As for Rikuo's reason for refusing—it was even simpler.
He was exhausted.
That morning, he learned from the crow tengu that Kana and the others had been targeted by the Old Rat Group entirely because of him.
The realization terrified him.
To prevent ordinary people like Kana from being dragged into the Nura Clan's succession conflict again, Rikuo desperately wanted Kiyotsugu and the others to stay far away from such dangers.
If Ren and the onmyoji girl hadn't arrived in time, things could have ended very differently.
According to the crow tengu's intelligence, the Old Rat Group had attacked Kana and the others to pressure Rikuo into giving up his position as heir.
In other words—
There was likely a traitor within the Nura Clan.
Someone had been manipulating the Old Rat Group from the shadows.
And once daylight arrived, Rikuo reverted to his weak, cowardly human form—irresponsible, hesitant, and eager to run away.
The night before, he'd made bold declarations and even led a hundred demons to cleanse the area of troublemakers.
But now, in the bright morning light, doubt flooded his heart once more—
Who was he, really?
..
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