Demon Slayer: Rewriting Tragedies with Super Vision — Chapter 188

Chapter 188: Everyone, I Found a Little Pig, and He Wants to Follow Me Home

One of the men was unnaturally huge, a towering mountain of muscle and prayer beads. The other wasn’t quite as exaggerated in his build, but he still stood tall and carried an aura of quiet, unshakable strength. At least to Inosuke, they looked exactly like the type of people who had never gone hungry a day in their lives.

Based on his incredibly simple, feral logic, following these two strangers would inevitably lead to a hearty meal.

Deep down, Inosuke actually felt a tiny twinge of guilt about constantly begging that one kind family at the edge of the mountain for scraps. So, he locked his sights on these two new targets and trailed them through the dense foliage.

Speaking of which, they moved ridiculously fast. They looked as though they were merely strolling through the woods, chatting leisurely under the dappled sunlight, yet Inosuke had to scramble over roots and rocks just to keep them in his sights. He almost lost them twice.

Suddenly, the two men stopped dead in their tracks. Inosuke instinctively dove behind the thick trunk of an ancient oak tree, pressing his bare back against the rough bark. With his years of experience hunting and surviving in the unforgiving wild, he was absolutely certain those two couldn’t possibly see him.

He held his breath, waiting for the crunch of footsteps. After a long, tense moment, he carefully peeked around the mossy wood to check their position.

His breath hitched. The tall, dark-haired one had completely vanished.

He was absolutely certain he hadn’t heard a single snapped twig or rustle of leaves. For a frantic moment, Inosuke darted his gaze through the dense canopy and the surrounding underbrush, but he couldn’t find a single trace of the missing man. To avoid exposing his position to the giant who remained, he shrank back behind the safety of the oak.

Then, he turned his head.

A figure stood right in front of him, close enough to touch.

“Waaaah—!”

Having his blind spot breached so silently, Inosuke let out an instinctive, startled yell. He scrambled backward, pressing himself flat against the tree trunk while wildly flailing his arms and legs at Akira.

“I am Hashibira Inosuke, the Master of the Mountains!” he bellowed, puffing out his chest beneath his hollowed-out boar mask. “You who have trespassed into my territory, hand over the food in your hands! Do that, and I might just overlook the offense committed by you and your giant companion!”

Beneath that ridiculous boar head, Akira knew he was dealing with a youth around the exact same age as Tanjirou. He possessed a face as delicate and striking as a young girl’s, though his voice was unusually gruff and raspy from a lack of proper use. If one completely ignored his slightly trembling legs and the subtle shake in his aggressive tone, it would have indeed been a rather potent threat.

However, from those very words, Akira easily deduced the true reason for the boy’s relentless stalking. He just wanted food.

The reason the wild child hadn’t jumped out earlier to ambush them was likely due to his beast-like intuition, honed over years of surviving in the harsh wilderness. His instincts had warned him that Akira and Gyoumei were absolutely not to be trifled with, forcing him to wait in the shadows for a safer moment to strike.

This perfectly explained why the intense gaze Akira had felt boring into his back earlier held a deep, desperate longing, but absolutely zero killing intent. Inosuke was simply starving and craved a decent meal, but he harbored no desire to commit murder. The kind old man who had helped him in the past—and whom Inosuke unilaterally considered his personal subordinate—had firmly taught him that humans were his own kind, not wild beasts to be slaughtered. Killing them recklessly was wrong.

Of course, the current Inosuke wasn’t pondering the moral philosophy of taking a life. He was entirely focused on figuring out how to save his own skin.

When wild animals encounter a predator they perceive as overwhelmingly dangerous, they instinctively try to make themselves look larger and far more threatening. They puff up their fur, bare their fangs, and flash their claws to intimidate the opponent into backing down.

Simply put, it was a desperate bluff.

That was exactly the tactic Inosuke was employing right now. Unfortunately for the boar-headed boy, this survival instinct was often entirely ineffective against highly intelligent species.

For instance, when facing a seasoned human swordsman.

Akira didn’t respond to the loud demands. He merely stood there, his posture relaxed, watching the feral boy in quiet amusement. In his mind, the gears were already turning as he calculated the best way to kidnap… no, trick… no, politely invite this wild child to join the Demon Slayer Corps.

Growing up in the unforgiving mountains had gifted Inosuke with an extraordinary, almost terrifying talent for combat, especially when it came to raw, life-or-death struggles. Akira noticed a prime example of this the moment his gaze wandered over the boy’s bare, muscular torso.

Because Akira made no effort to hide where he was looking, and Inosuke possessed an unnaturally sharp perception of a predator’s focus, the boy instinctively reacted. To Akira’s absolute fascination, Inosuke actually shifted his vital organs beneath his skin.

Slipping effortlessly into the state of the Transparent World, Akira watched with his own eyes as the boy’s heart physically slid from the left side of his chest over to the right. When Akira’s piercing gaze tracked the movement, the beating organ jumped up toward his collarbone, then rapidly sank deep down into his abdominal cavity, hiding among his stomach and intestines.

It gave an entirely literal meaning to the phrases ‘having his heart in his throat’and’putting his heart in his belly.’

Even Akira, a master who could perceive the inner workings of the human body with crystal clarity, couldn’t shift the positions of his own internal organs so effortlessly without severely disrupting his normal physiological functions. If any conventional doctor were to witness this bizarre biological anomaly, it would likely shatter their entire medical worldview into a million pieces.

But this bizarre display only fueled Akira’s intention to take the boy with him. The more absurd and brilliant Inosuke’s raw talent proved to be, the more determined Akira’s resolve became.

‘Everyone, I found a little pig,’Akira mused to himself, a dry smile tugging at his lips.’And he wants to follow me home.’

For now, though, Akira suppressed the overwhelming urge to abduct the boy. Instead, he continued to let his gaze lazily track the frantic movements of Inosuke’s heart, treating the feral youth as if he had just discovered a fascinating new toy.

After a few exhausting minutes of this silent game, Inosuke finally gave up struggling.

Through the penetrating vision of the Transparent World, Akira could perfectly see the boy’s utterly speechless expression hidden beneath the hollowed-out boar head. Inosuke was glaring at him with a look usually reserved for village idiots.

‘Is there something wrong with your brain?’ the boy’s exasperated expression seemed to scream.

Forcing his heart to play hide-and-seek throughout his chest cavity consumed a massive amount of physical energy. Already starving and running on fumes, Inosuke was now completely drained. If he hadn’t been heavily leaning against the sturdy oak tree, his trembling legs might have given out completely.

At least, that was exactly how he made it look on the surface.

Akira’s enhanced vision easily pierced through the deception. He could see that even though the boy painted a perfect picture of exhaustion, his muscles were tightly coiled. He was secretly gathering every last ounce of his remaining strength, preparing to launch a desperate ambush the second Akira stepped into his striking range. Whether the wild attack would actually work or not didn’t matter; Inosuke was absolutely not going to surrender his territory without a vicious fight.

Seeing the stubborn tension in the boy’s frame, Akira reached into his uniform pocket. He silently pulled out two thick, heavily spiced pieces of dried meat and casually waved them in the air right in front of the boar mask.

The sound of Inosuke gulping down his saliva wasn’t particularly loud, as he tried his hardest to control it. However, in the heavy, excessive silence of the deep woods, the wet swallow echoed like a gunshot.

“This is all the food I have on me right now,” Akira said, his tone mild and conversational. “But if you want more, you can follow us down to the nearby town. We happen to be staying there for the night.”

A distinct, wet slurp came from beneath the boar snout.

Inosuke violently jerked his head to the side, struggling immensely to pull his gaze away from the savory jerky. He forced out a tough, raspy response. “Hmph! You think you can get This Great Me to leave my mountain territory with just this pathetic little bit of food?”

Akira merely stepped forward, moving the fragrant meat a few inches closer to the snout. Inosuke’s hidden eyes darted back to the food, completely unable to resist the temptation.

“I see,” Akira said, deliberately lacing his voice with a heavy, contemptuous sigh. “You’re actually just afraid to come with me, aren’t you?”

It was a painfully simple, almost childishly unintelligent provocation. But for dealing with someone as fiercely proud and competitive as Inosuke, it was an absolute masterstroke.

“Who are you calling afraid?!”

Just as expected, the feral boy swallowed the bait whole. Inosuke, a creature whose joints and internal organs were incredibly flexible and yielding, possessed a stubborn mouth that absolutely refused to back down from a challenge.

Facing the boy’s loud, blustering stubbornness, Akira said nothing at all. He merely stood his ground, staring down at the boar mask with a calm, knowing half-smile playing on his lips.

That infuriatingly calm expression made Inosuke’s blood boil even hotter.

The two of them faced off in silence for a long, tense moment. Finally, unable to take the quiet mockery any longer, Inosuke lunged forward. He snatched the thick pieces of jerky right out of Akira’s hand, spun around on his heel, and shouted over his shoulder.

“Fine, let’s go! This Great Me wants to see if you can actually produce enough food to satisfy my mighty hunger!”