Chapter 429: Dogeza
Before Tanjirō could even ask what his benefactor had meant by "disorienting," every scrap of scenery around him vanished, replaced by a blank, pitch-black void — he genuinely thought something had gone wrong with his eyes.
A wave of violent dizziness rose up out of nowhere, and he felt the overwhelming urge to be sick. Then he actually was — he couldn't hold it back.
Once he'd brought up most of what he'd eaten down at the mountain's base that evening, he finally started to feel somewhat steadier.
The dizziness had eased, at least a little, though his head still felt fogged over, as if someone had clubbed him from behind with a blunt object.
Looking down at the mess he'd just made, Tanjirō silently apologized to the ground — he hadn't meant to waste food, or foul up the surroundings.
Wait — hold on. He could see again. That blank, pitch-black void was gone!
Grimacing through the lingering dizziness, he blinked and scanned his surroundings, and his gaze finally landed on a thatched-roof cottage.
A cottage tucked into the mountain forest, and one that looked immediately, achingly familiar. This was... this was his own home, wasn't it?
A powerful stench of blood suddenly flooded his nose, and Tanjirō's pupils contracted sharply. His sense of smell was as sharp as a dog's, and in that state, the smell hit him like a blow.
Underneath it, he caught another scent — something revolting, like rotten herring stewed with durian — faintly reminiscent of the demon he'd fought earlier, yet not quite the same. A contradictory, disorienting smell.
When his gaze fell on the bloodstains along the ground, his bewildered expression slowly hardened, and surprise gave way to panic.
His mouth fell open, but no sound came out. He stared at everything in front of him, the bodies on the ground delivering a blow he couldn't absorb.
Tanjirō's inner world was like a glass cup — and in that moment, that glass cup hit the floor and shattered into countless pieces.
Overwhelming grief flooded through him. His eyes welled up, red veins spreading across the whites.
Refusing to believe it, he stumbled toward the bodies, lowered himself into a stiff crouch, and ignored the sharp smell of blood entirely.
Under Ryū's quiet gaze, Tanjirō reached out with trembling hands and gently turned one of the bodies lying face-down in the snow.
The familiar face made his breath catch. He turned his head, staring blankly toward the open doorway of the cottage.
His family's bodies lay there in silence — his younger brother, his younger sisters, his mother...
Every single one.
No survivors at all!
Ice crystals clung to his hands where he'd touched the bodies — the blood had frozen into frost in the bitter cold, the corpses already stiffening.
The tears finally broke free. They slid down his exhausted, disheveled face and dripped off his chin onto the ground.
He opened his mouth, but only a faint, barely audible cry came out.
After ten-some seconds of silence, a voice reached his ears. "If you want them alive again — if you want to take revenge with your own hands — you need to keep your emotions in check."
"Once you join the Dimensional Chat Group, you'll be a member of it. I'll preserve your family's bodies properly until the day you're strong enough to bring people back."
That sudden voice felt, to Tanjirō, like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.
He turned quickly toward Ryū. Still just a boy, his eyes were lost and blank — but behind that blankness flickered something like hope.
Ryū wasn't finished. "Your younger sister, Nezuko, didn't die. She's alive right now, and she may be your only remaining family."
"She's turned into a demon, though — something like the one you met earlier. She's far nicer to look at than that thing, obviously, and she's special. You don't need to treat her like a malicious demon."
He paused briefly, then continued. "If you get up right now, wipe your tears, and search the area carefully, you'll find her. Er — hold on, I wasn't finished!"
Tanjirō had already scrambled to his feet and bolted off to search, and Ryū could only shake his head, resigned.
His gaze settled on the bodies on the ground, and something cold flickered behind his eyes.
Doing this to the family of a future Dimensional Chat Group member had genuinely irritated him, as Admin.
But he wouldn't take revenge on Tanjirō's behalf — Tanjirō had to do that himself, if he was ever going to come to terms with his own inner demons.
That said, the bodies couldn't just be left lying around. Ryū privately messaged Yukari, asking whether she had anything for preserving corpses — ideally something that would stop decay entirely.
For a youkai sage with her collection of belongings, of course she did. And even if she hadn't, someone in Gensokyo certainly would have — borrowing one shouldn't be a problem.
Before long, Yukari sent over the items via red envelope: several transparent coffins, radiating an unsettling chill.
Strange, twisting inscriptions covered the transparent lids, and among them, warped vertical-slit eyes, giving the whole thing an ominous feel.
Not that Ryū cared about ominous. As long as something worked, he'd use it — hand him a Cthulhu statue and he'd happily put it to use, maybe just listen to Big C rap a bit as a side effect.
He laid the bodies carefully inside the eerie ice coffins. Looking at the savage wounds marking each one, he murmured, "Wonder if a Senzu Bean could fix these wounds up. If not, the Ancient One could probably try the Time Stone."
Just then, Tanjirō — who'd gone off to find Nezuko — came back into view.
He looked far better than the near-collapsed state he'd been in earlier. Nezuko lay asleep on his back, and he stood staring blankly at the row of ice coffins on the ground.
He turned to Ryū, pressed his lips together, and gently, carefully set his sleeping sister down.
Then he dropped to his knees in front of Ryū and pressed his forehead to the ground in a full dogeza, his voice hoarse and worn out.
"Please, benefactor — teach me how to take revenge!"