Cause of death in previous life: The Leader.
Doesn't make sense? I don't get it either.
That was absolutely not a flow leading to being eaten. But then a sudden sharp drift at the last moment. Who would have thought such cornering would come, a development that would surprise even Initial D. It was so unexpected I died without a chance to react.
I was reassured by them saying they wouldn't let me become demon food or that they'd save me, but then an unexpected blackout, and reincarnation. Gaining trust then eating me? Is this a mafia game, you jerk.
What's most incomprehensible is that all of the Leader's lines were sincere. There was no sign they were trying to deceive me. In other words, every single word was sincere. Not a joke, that person really killed me to help me. Huh?
Anyway, because there was absolutely no malice, I'm left with a feeling of having nowhere to go. If it had been a lie to eat me, I could have honestly resented them—'You deceived me! I'll kill you!'—but since it wasn't, even the anger and sadness of being murdered are buried under question marks of 'why,' leaving no room for such feelings.
Because of that, even the shocking event of having a single-digit age of death twice in a row fades into the background—a part I'm not sure whether to call fortunate or unfortunate.
After pondering, I just let it go, treating it as having had interstellar communication with an alien. It's so incomprehensible it even feels frightening. The only thing I can say is, I absolutely cannot forgive being eaten without permission.
"Hey, kid, stop dawdling and finish up quickly!"
"You're right, sensei, since you're so bald and smooth."
"I'm not talking about my head, you idiot!"
A palm slapped crisply and coolly onto my head as I was grinding medicine with a mortar and pestle. In this life, I'm living under the care of this clean-headed grandfather sensei. We're not related by blood. This sensei is the person who took pity on me when I collapsed on the street and took me in as a disciple.
As you might have guessed, this life's family environment was also the worst. An environment as hopeless as my previous life. First, there was no father, and the mother was a low-class courtesan who sold her body in a shabby hut to make a living.
A child is just a burden in an environment where you can't even properly feed yourself, so there's no way I'd be welcomed. I was an unwanted being born by mistake. There was no love in this birth.
Perhaps I used up all my mom gacha luck by pulling the rainbow-colored, ultra-rare, smart, kind, gentle, beautiful, and too-beautiful-for-words beauty mom in my life before last.
The white hair and red eyes being viewed with discomfort and treated as a monster is template. Being hit and kicked is basic, and ultimately driven from the old hut, I was meaninglessly discarded on the street. Everyone pretended not to see the child rolling on the ground. The worst ones laughed and even threw stones.
This world is rotten… Just as I was falling into despair, the aforementioned sensei picked me up, and now I spend my days grinding medicine with a mortar and pestle day and night as this person's assistant and disciple.
Being able to become a doctor's disciple was a lucky break in my misfortune. While absorbing specialized knowledge, I could also research medicine to turn demons back into humans, even if it was without hints.
Oh right. Speaking of medicine, the 'blue spider lily' the Leader mentioned in my previous life also bothers me.
It was definitely the name of the medicine that turned Muzan-kun from human to demon. The ingredients the doctor mentioned were… wrong, I only remember that blue spider lily was used. I should have listened more properly back then.
No, but back then, my mind was filled with 'You prescribed THAT medicine to Muzan-kun?? Huh???' so I had no room to pay attention to anything else. Thinking about it now, I should have punched him.
From what the Leader said, Muzan-kun seems to be looking for it. Probably the ingredient rather than the medicine itself. If it's an ingredient for medicine that turns humans into demons, maybe hints for turning demons back into humans are hidden there too. From the name alone, it smells like a legendary-grade item, so it probably won't be easy to find, but I'll keep it in a corner of my mind.
And the news that Muzan-kun is looking for a white-haired, red-eyed child. Hearing this, I thought 'Is this a hidden route to meet Muzan-kun? If I walk night roads and ask a demon I encounter to take me to where Muzan-kun is, that should work?' but upon careful thought, maybe not.
If white hair and red eyes are being searched for as meaning premium ingredients, recklessly revealing myself before demons is dangerous. Even if discovered by a lower-ranked demon, there's no guarantee I'd safely reach where Muzan-kun is.
Being premium ingredients sought by the demon leader, there's also the possibility of being gulped down in a moment of impulsive desire to taste. Demons basically have no reason, so that could happen. It's entirely possible.
Alright, I'll go with hiding this appearance. Let's hide it until at least I'm strong enough to fight demons. When I asked sensei for something to cover my face, I received a hood that covers down to my neck.
In my previous life and the one before, I died without even a whiff of the Demon Slayer Corps, so in this life, I will definitely join the Demon Slayer Corps and properly find out Muzan-kun's whereabouts.
Medicine to turn demons back into humans won't be completed overnight either, but if I progress the research, it might somehow help when I reunite with Muzan-kun. The fact that he's looking for the medicine ingredient blue spider lily means Muzan-kun is also researching some kind of medicine.
Alright, now that I've decided, it's special training right away in this life too!
Late at night, when an urgent patient came up and sensei left the house, I seized the chance, grabbed a suitable tree branch, and rushed out to the yard.
Here I go, full concentration──.
"Coughhhhhhh?!"
The moment I took a breath, I coughed spectacularly.
I dropped the tree branch. My lungs ache dully. Wait, I can't stand. I fell to the ground beyond kneeling. Uh, for real? I feel like I'm going to suffocate and die.
And so, until sensei returned, I was a dying caterpillar in the yard. They say hearing is the last sense to remain when dying—that was true. What I heard in my fading consciousness was sensei's loud shout. After that, I was helped up, laid on a futon, given medicine, and the moment my breathing finally eased, I cried.
"Your lungs are just a little weaker than others. It's not a fatal illness!"
Sensei comforted me like that as I clutched the futon and shed tears, but no. No, sensei.
I can't use Breath. I can't cut a demon's neck. Then I can't become a Demon Slayer.
I can't move properly. I can't hone my swordsmanship. Then I can't become a swordsman either.
Things I could do, things I believed I could do, suddenly become impossible. In the great despair of being able to walk until yesterday but suddenly unable to, I could only cry.
Muzan-kun grew distant. To lose the power to face demons, the techniques I learned from my master, in this way. It was frustrating and pathetic, but with this powerless body, there's nothing I can do except cry.
"Tch, a man shouldn't cry! How pathetic!"
The familiar line stopped my tears. I once heard the same words from my master. When I was sniffling from jealousy and resentment toward Tsugikuni Yoriiichi, he told me not to cry, how pathetic.
Right. As sensei, as my master said. It wasn't the time to show a pathetic appearance. Time won't wait even if I cry, so crying time is precious too. Time is finite.
What you're born with can't be changed, so instead of lamenting what you can't do, let's do what you can. It's okay, as long as you're alive, something will work out. I'll go with the spirit that as long as you don't die, it's all good.
Mom was like that too. If you can't find the medicinal herb you're looking for, you can substitute it with something else. It's the same principle. If you can't hold a sword, you can supplement it with something else.
If I can't cut a demon's neck, then, well. How about feeding them poison and making them collapse.
If decapitation is impossible, then euthanasia! The first thing I made after changing direction was poison made by crushing, filtering, and boiling down wisteria flowers. A simple poison, but when I used it on a demon that attacked sensei and me on a mountain path one night, it worked surprisingly well. Though it made them suffer excruciating pain far from euthanasia.
But I don't sympathize. Because it was a guy who grinned with a villainous face saying "I'll just eat the kid and kill the old man."
I think humans who have become demons are pitiful, but I'm not kindly disposed toward guys who enjoy demon life and run wild. Sorry, but I'm the type who clearly distinguishes that. If I let my guard down, I'll be killed.
For sensei, who had his first encounter with a demon, the non-human creature's corpse was fascinating. When I briefly explained that this is a demon, it eats humans, and originally was human, he gave a novel interpretation: "I see, so it's a new disease." If it's a disease, it must be cured, so sensei took the demon corpse back and investigated various things like its internal contents and blood characteristics. Basing our research on that information, we both immersed ourselves.
But no matter how many times we tried to make medicine to turn demons back into humans, all we completed were failures. Whenever we tried to make medicine that removes demon components, no matter what method we used, we only created poison that kills demons. It's because demon blood has permeated the human body too much.
The research is fraught with difficulties, but thanks to sensei, it seems to have progressed considerably. To bring it this far from zero clues, sensei is truly amazing. Thank you.
But that sensei passed away when I was 15.
"I leave the Shabana signboard, passed down through generations, to you."
"You must create medicine that overcomes the demon disease."
Leaving those final words, he collapsed. Since he was already quite elderly when he picked me up. He was a blunt-talking, strict sensei, but more than that, a kind person. He didn't view my white hair and red eyes with discomfort, picked me up and raised me, and even generously passed on skills and knowledge, so no amount of gratitude is enough.
After sensei's death, I've been living as a doctor, inheriting the Shabana signboard as per his will. For a while, patients left because I was still young and a suspicious guy who was fully armed even in summer with the excuse of a skin disease, but fortunately life isn't too difficult since they eventually returned, saying they can't do without Shabana's medicine. After about a year, the villagers got used to the hood and started calling me Shabana-sensei.
Shabana-sensei who gives yōkan candy as a reward for taking bitter medicine is quite popular with the village children.
Though I hear nasty talk behind my back from jealous competitors as the bamboo shoot doctor living in the bamboo grove. For reference, "bamboo shoot doctor" means a doctor more clumsy than a quack.
I know living in the village would be more convenient than a remote bamboo grove and I could respond immediately to critical patients, but to make demon medicine, I need to bring defeated demons for research, so I absolutely couldn't open a clinic in the village.
And when I'm in the bamboo grove, my condition is really good. I can even use Breath a little. Even if it's not at a level usable in actual combat, a little formal practice is okay.
Even if becoming stronger is impossible, being able to hold a sword, being able to not forget the techniques I learned from my master, that makes me truly happy. It felt like being saved. Thank you, bamboo grove. Thank you, old bamboo cutter.
Now, I'm getting along well enough to have small talk with the villagers like this, but I have one concern lately. That is the wide-ranging meddling of aunties and uncles, sometimes even children, who nag me every time they see me: "Aren't you getting married?", "Isn't there a good person?", "Who will continue the Shabana line if you keep this up?", "Shabana-sensei, still no bride?"
I think marriage is still early since I'm only 16. But probably because I have weak lungs and cough often, they think I'll die early. It seems the villagers can't rest easy unless I prepare a successor by marrying and having a child or taking in a disciple to continue Shabana before I suddenly die.
When I complained they should arrange a match if they're going to say that, I was flatly rejected: "Who would marry such a suspicious hooded guy, find one yourself." What do you want me to do? It's the same with a disciple. No one wants to become the disciple of a suspicious hooded young man.
Since it's come to this, maybe I should pick up an orphan somewhere and raise them as a disciple. But I don't want just anyone. Being a doctor is quite tough, so a persevering child would be good. And Shabana's medical arts and medicine preparation methods are absurdly difficult, so the child must be smart. The reason my predecessor had no other disciples besides me was precisely because there was too much to memorize and it was too strict.
Even though it's work dealing with human lives, it was Spartan education that I might have run away from at any time if I didn't have a firm goal.
A good child who won't run away, is reasonably smart, and has a reason to study hard—I wonder if such a child isn't rolling around somewhere.
One day, while vaguely thinking such thoughts, I was visiting Yoshiwara.
No, I didn't come to play with girls. It's for work, of course.
The brothel owner, a patient inherited from my predecessor, had a bad heart, but fortunately it was an illness that could somehow be managed with medicine, so I regularly go to Yoshiwara to prescribe medicine for the owner.
Usually, I'd finish the examination and return home immediately, but that day, for some reason, my feet headed elsewhere.
Sensei and I met in this village. Lost in memories as I walked, I naturally reached the riverside of Rashomon. Since this is where I was born. As I walked dazedly through the place that still had a terrible smell, I thought, oh right, I definitely collapsed around there, and when I turned my eyes that way.
"Brotherrrrrrrrr!!! Waaaaaaah!!! Don't dieeeeeee!!! Brotherrrrrrrrr!!!"
A boy who looked under ten years old collapsed on the ground. And a girl clinging to that brother, pouring out tears and snot, crying at the top of her lungs.
"Shut up! Quiet, you damn brat!"
Irritated by the girl's crying, a resident came out under the eaves and threw a stone. Seeing the stone hit the boy with a *thud*, something in my head also got hit with a *thud*.
Cicadas were crying in the distance, surrounded by people's mocking laughter. Come to think of it, that day was summer too. It was a day with strong sunlight like this. The face of my predecessor, who lifted me up saying I'd be okay when I collapsed on the street, flashed through my mind. That boy overlapped with myself.
Unable to bear it, I ran toward my past self.
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