Nighttime, in a dark alley of some town.
A man dressed in gaudy finery knelt trembling, panic-stricken and desperate, repeatedly begging for mercy.
Who was he pleading with?
Horitake stood about ten meters away, staring at him with an icy expression.
More precisely, he was looking at the person beside the man.
That person was similarly dressed in finery, but now lay on the ground, neck mangled and half-devoured, clearly dead beyond dead.
The kneeling man's body was covered in blood.
What happened was obvious without words.
The man groveled, voice wretched as he begged Horitake from afar:
"I was wrong! I'll never do it again! Spare me just this once! Please!"
Horitake remained expressionless, simply watching him coldly.
"Spare me! Spare me! I beg you, spare me! I'll change! I'll… I'll even help you kill him!"
Suddenly, the man's face twisted into a ferocious snarl. He transformed into a demon and lunged at Horitake, claws bared, intent on tearing him to shreds!
With a soft sigh, Horitake stepped forward.
As he did, he extended the index finger of his right hand. A purple arc of lightning flickered at the tip, and he lightly slashed it sideways.
With that single step, Horitake stood still on the ground. The arc between his fingers vanished.
And the demon?
It froze behind and to the side of Horitake, body rigid, convulsing, eyes bulging like lightbulbs in disbelief.
Then, without warning, its head simply fell to the ground.
The cut at the neck was impossibly clean, so the head dropped naturally.
The demon's body and severed head twitched briefly before beginning to disintegrate into ash.
Thus, Horitake's strength had clearly reached a new level.
Before, to kill these ordinary demons, he needed to crush their skulls with a lightning-charged palm or draw his unsheathed blade to sever their heads.
Now, he didn't even need the sword at his waist—just one finger, one arc of electricity, and he could slay a demon with ease.
Once the demon had fully turned to ash, Horitake stood in place and shook his head helplessly.
"Leopards really can't change their spots.
Expecting you demons not to eat people is like expecting me to go vegetarian!
In this world, the only demons who truly don't eat humans are Nezuko and those three…"
At that moment, a kasugai crow flew through the darkness, wings flapping as it delivered new orders:
"Lord Horitake! Lord Horitake!
New report about demons! New report about demons!
Proceed to the Northern Mountains! Proceed to the Northern Mountains! Hunters say a man-eating bear has appeared in the mountains recently!"
Horitake stood calmly and glanced at the sky.
Clouds obscured everything—no moon, no stars, just pitch black.
"How do we know it's a demon?
It's winter now. Wild animals can't find food. If a bear encounters humans in the mountains and gets desperate, eating people isn't exactly unheard of.
If I recall, several people get eaten by bears in Japan every year."
The crow landed on a nearby rooftop eave and shouted its explanation:
"According to the mountain hunters, the man-eating bear has already killed over a dozen people! And the death toll is still rising!
A bear this season should hibernate after eating a few humans, yet it keeps attacking. Clearly abnormal.
Please, Lord Horitake, investigate the Northern Mountains."
Horitake nodded.
"Over a dozen people?
Yeah, that's definitely not normal.
Alright, I'll head to the Northern Mountains."
With that, he prepared to set off.
Suddenly, a thought struck him—this mission felt strangely familiar.
Wait. This sense of déjà vu… could it be from the original story?
No, that doesn't add up. At this point in the timeline, Tanjiro should still be training on Sagiri Mountain. There shouldn't be any major plot events happening now!
But the Northern Mountains… a man-eating bear… it felt extremely familiar.
Whatever. I'll head to the Northern Mountains first. Once I'm there, everything will become clear.
Following the crow's directions, Horitake set off toward the Northern Mountains.
As the name suggests, the Northern Mountains were a vast, unbroken range in northern Japan.
And since it was winter, the climate was frigid. The entire range was blanketed in thick, pristine snow.
Snow, the north, winter—was this basically Hokkaido? Hard to say for sure.
After traveling for some time, Horitake changed into thicker clothing before stepping onto the snowy peaks.
Once properly bundled up, he plunged straight into the barren, leafless snow-laden forest.
He trudged through the snow all day—deep steps, shallow steps—observing the state of the mountains as he went.
It really was cold. The snow really was heavy.
In conditions like these, bears almost certainly hibernated.
Even if one woke up hungry and attacked a few humans, it wouldn't kill dozens. That was far beyond normal.
The crow had said the man-eating bear here had already claimed over a dozen lives. Yeah, that had to be a demon.
After trudging another stretch through the snow, Horitake looked up at the sky.
Clouds still covered everything, but they seemed to be thinning. Snow might fall again soon.
In weather like this, even if a demon moved during the day, it wouldn't be strange—there was no sunlight at all.
Wait.
Horitake suddenly remembered something.
At the very beginning of the story—Tanjiro returning home from selling charcoal, finding his entire family slaughtered, Nezuko turned into a demon.
That day… it was daytime, wasn't it? And the ground was covered in snow. And it was in the mountains!
Could it be…
Could Tanjiro's home be in these very Northern Mountains!?
It wasn't impossible!
With that thought, a flood of ideas rushed in.
The most important one: the blue spider lily.
In his previous life, Horitake had seen two main theories online about the blue spider lily.
The first was the one he'd mentioned to Tanjiro's family: it came from Tanjiro's mother's hometown, mixed in with wild greens, brought home, cooked, and eaten by the family.
The second theory was simpler.
It claimed the blue spider lily simply grew near Tanjiro's house.
Tanjiro and Nezuko, as children, might have accidentally eaten it while playing nearby.
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