Chapter 91: Jorōgumo Using Gulping Swallow
Shangshan Che turned on the faucet and rinsed for a while before picking up one of them to inspect.
【Ox Demon’s Fang】
【Quality: Normal】
【Effect: Can be used as a normal material for forging weapons.】
An utterly unremarkable material, and now Zashiki is gone too. Next time he goes to buy an armguard, he’ll show it to Katsumi to see if he can recycle it.
As usual, he heated up a half-price Tianjin fried rice bought from a 711 convenience store that even Tianjin people haven’t eaten, and Shangshan Che, who found it tasteless, rated it as at least better than the “Reborn: I Make Fried Rice in XX” from national trend takeout.
After simply rinsing his mouth, Shangshan Che lay down on the bed—
Ice-cold, no shaking.
The nostrils were still filled with the ice-cold, decaying smell of thatch.
It had been a long time since Shangshan Che first came to Edo Castle, but the internal furnishings of this thatched cottage, as the spawn point, remained completely unchanged.
It was as if time had frozen.
This time, Shangshan Che didn’t need to be overly cautious, not even careful about door-opening kills when opening a door.
With his current strength, dealing with normal minibosses in Edo Castle wouldn’t be a big problem, but if he encountered those famous Oni Warriors from the main quest, there was naturally no way.
Shangshan Che, who had personally been beheaded by a three-and-a-half star Oni Warrior, understood that the distance between half-star, one-star, and two-star wasn’t too far. Even some demons that were merely one-star could slay two-star or even two-and-a-half star demons.
For example, him.
But the gap between two-star and three-star was different.
If half-star, one-star, and two-star were compared to ordinary children, boys, and young men, then three-star was a “burly adult male proficient in combat.”
Putting on the mask and girding the sword, Shangshan Che pushed open the rickety wooden door.
Patter.
Fine, needle-like rain fell from the gray sky. Edo Castle was always like this, as if forever shrouded in a muddy curtain of rain.
There was nothing outside the doorway, which was the normal state.
After all, which samurai would loiter around the doorway of an utterly unremarkable thatched cottage for no reason.
“By the way, let’s see if I can figure out the Walker promotion quest.”
Shangshan Che took out the 【broken Walker】 and wanted to observe what changes it had.
The quest required him to deliver this broken token to the “Nameless Swordsman,” but Edo Castle was full of “nameless” swordsmen wearing swords. Without a prompt, Shangshan Che wouldn’t know how to find him.
But soon, after the rain washed away the dust from the surface of the broken token, Shangshan Che saw it emitting a faint glow.
The light was extremely dim; even at close range, one might mistake it for an illusion without squinting.
Shangshan Che thought for a moment, then turned and changed direction.
The glow on the token disappeared.
He turned back, and the token lit up again.
Shangshan Che nodded: “A guiding token that only points in the general direction, huh.”
Then, let’s follow the direction the token is glowing for a while.
—And that happened to be the direction he walked when he first entered Edo Castle.
Putting on the black hooded coat, Shangshan Che stayed low-key and moved silently along the edge of the house.
If he got complacent in Edo Castle just because he had a bit of strength, various two-star and three-star demons would come out in minutes to teach him a lesson.
Shangshan Che had no doubt about this.
—Because just now at the intersection, he saw a stunning woman wearing a silk kimono encounter a group of disheveled, vicious, gregarious grudges called 【Restless Ones】 that pounced and bit at anyone they saw.
Then, the woman smiled seductively, and eight limbs with thick black bristles grew from her lower body, easily piercing all the Restless Ones and swallowing them whole in one gulp.
Only after all this ended did an icon pop up above the woman’s head, who had resumed her pitiful expression—
【Jorōgumo（Three-Star）】.
A three-star demon, perfectly capable of being the hidden super boss at the end of Kisaragi Station, yet casually wandering by the roadside in Edo Castle.
Shangshan Che felt his scalp tingle just thinking about how he had wanted to approach her earlier to greet and exchange intelligence.
Even though he had died so many times, he absolutely didn’t want to try what it felt like to be swallowed whole into a demon’s stomach and digested together with other little brothers.
Thinking about it now, he had to thank those hotheaded Restless Ones.
As Shangshan Che walked, he suddenly felt his foot catch on something.
He looked down and saw a somewhat familiar headless corpse lying in the mud, its neck with an irregular break that Shangshan Che recognized well.
Because that was the one he had chopped with the cleaver.
Shangshan Che had obtained the Ki-Gong Technique Fragment from this corpse; this place could truly be called where the dream began.
“If I have the ability later, I’ll bury him.”
Thinking this, Shangshan Che, unable to find where the head had rolled, stepped over the corpse and saw a shadowy figure staggering from not far ahead once again.
The shadow walked slowly, and soon an icon he had seen before popped up above its head—
【Wandering Samurai（One-and-a-Half Star）】
Subconsciously, Shangshan Che’s neck ached faintly.
“Not the same time, but the same location, huh.”
In the rain curtain, Shangshan Che grinned pleasantly.
He slowly drew his sword: “I don’t know if you’re the samurai who took my second death, but running into me here means you’re out of luck.”
“I’m one to hold grudges, you know.”
The Wandering Samurai, clad in tattered armor, slowly raised his head, a glint of killing intent flashing in his lifeless eyes.
He drew his sword as well, but what he drew was a tachi much longer than Kaga Kiyomitsu.
Once the Wandering Samurai was fully prepared, Shangshan Che, in a central stance, let out a low shout: “Good!”
“Let me teach you what proper sword muscle is!”
Corona Breathing Technique, First Form!
Amid the qi burst sound, viscous mud erupted toward the sky.
Shangshan Che neither used the folding fan nor the terrain advantage; he simply strode forward squarely to face the Wandering Samurai.
Sword draw!
The crisp clash of metal rang out, shaking the Wandering Samurai back two steps with the abnormal force, nearly causing his tachi to fly from his hand.
In the moment when his old force was spent and new force not yet generated, Kaga Kiyomitsu’s blade was about to fall again at the same angle.
The Wandering Samurai couldn’t turn in time and could only hold his tachi horizontally in front of him.
Shangshan Che didn’t evade; he stepped forward directly, white-hot steam bursting from every pore.
Corona Breathing Technique, Fifth Form!
The blade fell like startling thunder and fierce fire!
Severing the tachi, severing the decayed helmet, and splitting the Wandering Samurai cleanly from top to bottom into left and right halves!
The Wandering Samurai’s pupils still held the killing intent of a desperate struggle, but his entire body had been bisected by the blade at the center.
Plop.
The samurai’s sword and body silently fell into the muddy road.
Shangshan Che calmly shook the blood from his blade and sheathed it.
Slaying this Wandering Samurai took him only two strikes.
Just like how the Wandering Samurai had taken his head with only two strikes back then.
Three updates a day at least during this period, meow.
Begging for subscriptions, begging for monthly votes, meow!
