Why can't humans do it too?

"Unlike the monsters of hundreds of years ago who could move mountains and overturn seas with their own power, all the monsters that have survived in the outside world in the last few hundred years have been gradually weakening. Many monsters born with great difficulty are even unable to manifest a basic body. In a way, this can be considered an ability that we have evolved to become stronger and protect ourselves in this difficult environment."

“Each yokai’s fear has a different ability, and it can even change with their personality and emotions,” Nurarihyon grinned. “Most importantly, fear can be stacked—which provides us, the barely surviving guys, with the power to survive against those onmyoji among humans and those so-called experts on the supernatural who have emerged in recent years.”

"That is why those yokai who can gain the trust of other yokai and share their fear, and lead them to survive in this world, are called the Lord of Yokai, and this is known as the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons."

“The Nura Clan is precisely such an existence,” Nura Nurarihyon said, draining his cup of sake in one gulp. A glint of light flashed in his aged yet sharp eyes. “And leading the Nura Clan is none other than myself—the Lord of Demons and Monsters.”

At that moment, the aged monster seemed to regain its former vitality. Suer did indeed feel the aura of a monster lord from him, but this feeling disappeared without a trace the next second because of his actions.

"Of course, this all happened after great yokai like you stopped appearing in the world. I have long since retired and retired," Nurarihyon suddenly reverted to his previous decrepit old man appearance and casually shrugged, saying, "Although I don't know why you both chose to go into seclusion at the same time, the chaos in the world always needs to be quelled."

The old man was trying to justify his claim of being the Lord of Demons and Monsters, the veracity of which remains to be seen. It's clear that he was a very unrestrained person in his youth, but Suer didn't care about this empty title.

He roughly understood that these monsters living in human society had indeed silently changed their nature over a long period of time. Putting aside whether this change was evolution or degeneration, it had at least helped them survive.

Chapter 108 Nature's Gift

Think of fear as a superpower. Each monster has a different superpower. Most importantly, they can share their power with a monster they trust, just like in superhero movies, so that the power of the two monsters can be combined. This makes it easy to understand.

"The human side... I mean, the human power hasn't weakened after all these years?" Sull asked curiously, noticing the two words in Nurarihyon's words.

Onmyoji is easy to understand, but what about a weird expert?

"Of course there's a decline, but those Onmyoji can summon their ancestors as henchmen with spiritual power, isn't that really unfilial? Haha, anyway, that's something we yokai can't compare to," Nurarihyon scratched his head and said, "As far as I know, the Keikain family in Kyoto is like that, and as for the experts in supernatural phenomena... well, I'm not quite sure how to describe them either."

“Those guys have only been around for a few decades. I only heard about them when I was visiting other yokai,” Nurarihyon seemed troubled as well. “They act strangely and their purposes are uncertain. Even the methods they use to exorcise yokai are closer to rituals. But those rituals… are like a game, yet they are effective enough. I really can’t understand them.”

“If you’re interested, you can look for them later… or you can choose not to, they’ll come to you on their own,” Nurarihyon said rather bluntly, no longer dwelling on the matter. “Anyway, you won’t be harmed by your abilities, but I must warn you that those experts in supernatural phenomena often use very bizarre methods, and each of them seems to have their own taboos, so it’s quite troublesome.”

"Yes, I'll be careful," Suer nodded, then thought for a moment and continued, "Thank you for today."

“Not at all. In this world, monsters can’t survive without helping each other,” Nurarihyon sighed, a sentiment typical of the elderly. He then refilled Soul’s sake cup, stared at the two cups for a few seconds, and suddenly looked up. “Would you like to drink a toast with me?”

Suer: "?"

What do you want to do?

"No, never mind, I was just kidding," Nurarihyon laughed again before Xin Ke could even peek out, finishing his drink. "I knew I wouldn't be satisfied unless I said something like that once, hahahahaha."

Seeing the old monster's sudden, seemingly erratic reaction, Suer fell silent.

What sudden, serious illness?

This guy's idea of ​​drinking from the same cup... is it even serious?

Looking at Nurarihyon's current disrespectful behavior, Sull could roughly guess what kind of wicked character he must have had when he was young... Did he really let him go in the past?

Could it be because of our current relationship?

"I understand," Suer nodded in understanding and said seriously, "Don't worry about what happened today. I will definitely hold back in the future."

Nurarihyon: "?"

A few drinks were served, and the snacks that Nurarihyon had ordered earlier were brought over from the kitchen. If Sue wasn't mistaken, the human woman carrying the dishes was Nurarihyon's daughter-in-law, and also the mother of Nurarihyon, who only had one-quarter yokai blood.

It was the human woman surrounded by monsters that Suer and Xinke had seen on their journey.

She was gentle in both speech and manner, and it was probably because of this gentleness that those monsters were able to accept a human as their mistress.

Sull didn't care about the Nura family's affairs, but he had to admit that seeing such a group of non-human monsters fighting and joking around all day in this modern society made him feel somewhat at ease. He didn't know when these non-human beings had become an indispensable part of his life... simply because of that unusual feeling.

Sora became a regular visitor to the Nura family—because although most of these yokai were a bit ugly, they were indeed very energetic guys and not inherently bad. Although there was a yokai called Gyuki who looked like a serious company CEO, he was surprisingly talkative when Sora chatted with him.

Going to work was just for fun. There was no high mortgage to worry about, nor was there anything deadly chasing after him that forced him to keep going. So Su'er lived a quiet life.

He and Xin Ke had become regulars at the cinema, watching everything from large cinemas to private cinemas, from romance films to horror films, from art films to commercial films, at a rate of almost one or even several films a day.

Even though they had promised to watch a movie together during the most difficult time of the last world, even Suer himself couldn't help but wonder if seeing this was a bit too much. However, Xinke seemed to be enjoying it, and recently she even developed a hobby of writing movie reviews to criticize those trashy movies.

His words were so sharp they could make a child cry at night.

"A hamburger."

"Okay, just one hamburger? How about trying our new one—ah, here we go again, Yuukawa," Su'er's already fluent words almost couldn't be stopped, and her businesslike smile and voice suddenly dropped.

"Hey, even though he's your friend, you'll get yelled at by the manager if he sees this attitude, won't you?" Maou Sadao muttered under his breath, glancing sideways at what was happening around him.

"Thank you, Mr. Maou," Hanekawa Tsubasa said with a kind smile, then looked at Sue and said, "One hamburger."

"...You're still a student, right? I remember you had to work part-time. Is it really okay to spend money on junk food like this?" Su Er muttered under her breath, somewhat speechless.

"Sul?! What are you saying to the customers?!"

Before Hanekawa Tsubasa could reply, the door to the store manager's office at the end of the corridor on the other side of the counter was suddenly pulled open, and Kizaki Mayumi poked her head out, threatening her with a fierce look.

“…There’s nothing there,” Suer was even more speechless. This was definitely an ordinary human, right? How come it was like it had super hearing, or was this just a woman’s intuition?

"Pfft, this shop is always like this," Hanekawa Tsubasa chuckled, covering her mouth as she waved to Kizaki Mayumi and said, "It's alright, Kizaki-neechan."

"Ah, it's Hanekawa Tsubasa. Welcome. And... don't listen to Sue's nonsense." Kizaki Mayumi's fierce expression finally softened a bit. She greeted Hanekawa Tsubasa with a smile, then glared at Sue before closing the door.

Drop drop drop.

"Don't girls generally dislike high-calorie foods? And if you keep eating hamburgers, your finances won't keep up, right?" Unable to persuade Hanekawa Tsubasa, Su could only sigh and place the order according to the customer's request.

"Hmm, maybe it's because I haven't reached the point where I need to lose weight yet?" Ignoring Sue's reaction, Hanekawa Tsubasa simply smiled and said, "As for the financial situation, it seems there's no need to worry, after all, we seem to have been lucky enough to receive nature's bounty..."

Chapter 109 Vampire Rumors

He emphasized the words "gifts of nature" and stared intently at Suer.

On the way to the city library, he was stopped and questioned by a stranger—he took the stranger to the library—he was invited to dinner, and during the meal, he also asked the stranger many detailed questions—after returning home, he found a gold nugget larger than his fist in his bag.

She easily connected the dots; it wasn't difficult for Hanekawa Tsubasa to do that. Naturally, she also guessed who had secretly slipped the gold nugget into her bag without her knowledge.

It's a bit magical, but not particularly magical.

However, although Sull later contacted Hanekawa Tsubasa again by phone after earning money from his part-time job to buy a cell phone so that he could ask her some questions, and at Hanekawa Tsubasa's strong request, he revealed his current work location, Sull denied the gold nugget incident when Hanekawa Tsubasa came to his door with her bag.

It was that blank look in his eyes, that "Huh?" "Uh?" "Hmm?" "Ah?" reaction, that made Hanekawa Tsubasa laugh.

Since the man deliberately chose to know nothing, Yuukawa Tsubasa didn't force him to do anything. However, from that time on, she developed the habit of coming over from time to time to buy a hamburger and support Suer's business.

"Here's your hamburger," Sue said, placing the tray in front of Hanekawa Tsubasa and sitting down opposite her. "This water is on me. Don't drink cola; it's bad for your bones."

"Um, thank you," Hanekawa Tsubasa said politely, slowly unwrapping the hamburger, sniffing it lightly before taking a bite and chewing slowly. "If I just sit here and don't go to work, Kizaki-neechan will scold me, right?"

“It’s okay, there aren’t many customers at this time, and there’s also Zhen’ao watching over there,” Su’er shrugged. “But you, eating hamburgers at this frequency is really accumulating calories at a high intensity… If this continues, you might be called Fat Wing one day.”

Hanekawa Tsubasa suddenly stopped chewing, but Suer didn't seem to want to change his mind. Rather, it was more like he was deliberately saying something that would be considered a crime against a girl.

Although I haven't inquired directly, based on what Suer observed, Hanekawa Tsubasa's family situation didn't seem to be very good. Despite being a student, she often worked part-time, and even on weekends, she would wear her school uniform. Putting aside the possibility that she was crazy about school, it was more likely that she didn't have extra money to buy clothes.

In this situation, you should just keep your money in your bank account... why are you eating hamburgers here?

Suer sighed.

“That makes sense.” Even though she was being teased and called “Fat Feather Wing,” Hanekawa Tsubasa didn’t seem angry. She just nodded thoughtfully. “Looks like I need to be careful… By the way, Sue, do you know about that rumor?”

Ah, see? I knew you still cared... You owe me one~

Seeing that Hanekawa Tsubasa was starting to change the subject, Xin Ke snapped her fingers in Su Er's mind—these two boring guys had even made a bet beforehand about Hanekawa Tsubasa's possible reaction.

Suer believed that Hanekawa Tsubasa, a girl with a good personality, would be completely unaffected, while Xin Ke thought that even if she didn't curse at her to her face, Hanekawa Tsubasa would change the subject—she won.

After all, she is female.

—Xin Ke.

'Fine, fine, I owe you one... It's like I haven't fulfilled any of your requests...' Suer muttered to himself.

You didn't fulfill my request to disassemble and study a few monsters.

Xin Ke directly slapped her in the face.

"...I'll go to another place and catch a few for you afterwards. Stop focusing on those well-behaved little monsters from the Nura Clan all day. It's too shameful to bully those harmless creatures, isn't it?"

Recalling the times Shinka had urged him to do something big at the Nura mansion, and her restless curiosity, Suer couldn't help but roll his eyes discreetly.

[Heh~]

"Rumors?" Pretending not to hear Xin Ke's sneer, Su Er turned to Hanekawa Tsubasa and asked, "Are they those urban legends again?"

I don't know what she imagined because of what happened when she met Sue, but whenever the two of them talked, the topics initiated by Sue were mostly about small etiquette and customs to pay attention to when living in Japan, while the topics initiated by Hanekawa Tsubasa were mostly about urban legends and various mysterious events.

It was as if they were subtly probing for something.

“No, this time it’s not like the urban legends of twisting and turning or Kisaragi Station and the little old man,” Hanekawa Tsubasa shook her head. “Compared to those urban legends with all sorts of different details, this one is closer to rumors, and even a bit too real, and the description is too detailed, as if someone really saw it.”

Clearly, Hanekawa Tsubasa herself knew the true nature of those urban legends circulating among people, which is why she was taking this rumor so seriously now.

“…Tell me more,” Suer asked, squinting slightly and resting his forehead on his hand.

Unlike Hanekawa Tsubasa, who was unaware that monsters and other supernatural beings distinct from monsters truly existed in the world, Sue knew that there were indeed creatures lurking in the shadows that devoured innocent lives, and therefore took things even more seriously.

He didn't want his peaceful life to be disrupted by some random guy.

"Do you believe in vampires, Sue?" As if asking if you believed in calculus, Hanekawa Tsubasa even put down her hamburger to ask.

"I believe...and I don't," Sue responded ambivalently. "Aren't those Western demons? Why would they appear in Japan?"

"Pfft, you demon... You've only been settled in Japan for a short time, but you, Sue, speak more like a Japanese person than an ordinary Japanese person," Hanekawa Tsubasa couldn't help but cover her mouth and laugh.

Suer: "..."