3- First Fight

While watching Tanjiro helping some old man tally his field, for the second time this day... Nade fell in thoughts.

The journey until now was... Mostly awkward. Or rather, his own circumstances were awkward.

Sure, Tanjiro was an eager, easy going and kind to a fault person. And that made travelling with him all the more easy and comfortable. But this zealous attitude made it obvious to be his way of coping for those in the known.

Hence Nade's inner awkwardness.

But Tanjiro's situation was only one of the factor contributing to it.

A New world, new customs, backward technology, new life...

Heck, he wasn't even japanese to begin with!

For him, everyone looked as if they were just naturally talking his langage with no exception. Something, when asked was revealed by his assistant to be one of the famous basis of his system. The universal translator.

Wasn't a perk nor even a skill, simply a basic function of his system in particular.

Anyway, with how out of his depth he was. Every inane interactions with the people of this world was a pain. That's why he let Tanjirou do the talking.

From the time they set out from Tanjirou's house to here and now, it had been around 3 days. Days which he had spent grinding on the road and during their breaks.

As a result, his body hurted like a bitch and he had bruises everywhere. Mostly from his Resilience training.

It fucking sucked, and it left him tired as all hell. But still, his eyes couldn't help but lit up when he saw what he had gained from all this pain.

[-Two daily quests~ strength has been completed! +2 STR

-Two daily quests~ dexterity has been completed! +2 DEX

-One daily quest~ resilience has been completed! +1 RES

[PHYSICAL SUPREMACY SYSTEM]

NAME: [erased]

Level: 0

STATS:

Strength: 7 (5)

Dexterity: 9 (7)

Resilience: 4 (3)

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 7

Free stats: 0

PERKS: {Physical Supremacy (modified)} {Feed}

SKILLS: {Blunt Damage Resistance LVL 13}, {Pain Tolerance LVL 20}, {Fear tolerance LVL 6}, {Hard knuckles: LVL 11}

{Blunt Damage Resistance LVL 13: Mitigate blunt force damage done to the user by 0.5% x LVL. Current -> 7.5%x(1.50)= 11.25%}

{Pain Tolerance LVL 20: Increase the threshold of pain the user can withstand, resulting in a small increase in willpower for each level.}

{Fear Tolerance LVL 6: Increase the threshold of fear the user can withstand, resulting in a small increase in willpower for each level.}

{Hard Knuckles LVL 11: Increase the damage dealt by bare handed attacks done by 0.5% x LVL. Current -> 5.5%x(1.50)= 8.25%}

TITLES: {Lady's fooder}

[...]

He hadn't been able to do the STR and DEX one for three day straight as they augmented radically in difficulty every next days if he accomplished the one from the day before.

As for the RES one, he just wasn't able to hit himself over his sensitive welts at full strength. The pain of doing so was so intense he would literraly just become paralized for a second or two and drops the stick he had in hand.

Needless to say Tanjirou had asked questions the first time he had seen the state of his poor flesh.

Questions he had answered vaguely because he had no true response to why he was torturing himself besides: Daddy system told me it would grow my numbers if I did...

He also had gained some skills, all pretty self explanatory. The couple of Levels in blunt damage resistance and hard knuckles came from no more than one session, so it would be understatment to qualify the skill improvement as fast. For the pain one, he was currently hurting everywhere for more than three days. So yeah...

As for fear, that was just him sweating over the fact he hadn't feed the Lady a single soul yet.

From these two tolerance skills, he could see there was something strange going on with willpower. But his only guess was that maybe it was a hidden stat or something of the sort.

It was after having that thought that without any prompting, his assistant spoke up within his mind.

"Gather more of the Lady's favor to unlock the functions of the system she locked away."

Of fucking course there would be something like that.

~~~~~

Some time later at night, Nade and Tanjirou were threading over a sinous path through the woods. When suddenly the later caught the scent of blood coming from above them.

"It's dark and the steps are slippery! Someone could have fallen and hurted themselves!" Was all the words Tanjiroo said as he dashed ahead and toward the temple that was lying up the mountain at their right.

Saying nothing, Nade simply hefted his axe carefully and followed after his running companion.

Arriving at the shrine at the top of the mountain and not seeing the source of the blood yet, Tanjirou didn't stop and sprinted toward the opened door shrine present in their view.

Closely behind, Nade grip tightened around his axe when he came across the sight of a demon feasting upon the previous residents of the shrine.

"Mmmh, were you hungry? That explains why you followed the scent. Even so, this is my hunting territory. Fuck off." His back to them, the demon groused while licking his hands clean of blood.

"Wait, you guys smells weird." Turning his head to look in their directions, the demon looked amused, yet a bit confused.

"Humans? Delivering themselves to me? This is my lucky day."

Immediatly, the demon launched himself at Tanjirou.

And while Tanjiro didn't seem able to react to the demon's speed. Nade could see his trajectory clearly, yet he could only premptively slash hazardly in the demon path with his axe before it bodily tackled Tanjiroo outside.

"Oh? Oooh? That's surprising." Standing atop Tanjirou, the demon touched his side where a large gash had just been made.

"But that's no use, I heal fast." With a hand raised ready to take Tanjiro's life, the demon retreatred instinctively as the boy slashed its throat with his recently retaken axe.

"You two are quite feasty prey... But this just make the hunt more interesting!" With a savage snarl, the demon changed target and appeared before Nade, his long nails aiming at his throat.

"Nade!" Tanjirou cried out in a panic.

As for the target itself, he was as surprised by the move. But since he could somewhat keep up with the demon speed, In a burst of adrenaline fuelled boldness. He advanced toward the demon in place of retreating, using the the momentum of the demon and his own to accurately spartan kicked him in the chest.

In an impact that rattled his bones and hurted his calve. Nade's kick stopped the monster right in its track and made him stumble back a couple of steps.

For a few moments, the world seemed frozen as everyone looked surprised at the development, even Nade himself.

"You-! You mere human! How dare you-" In an instant, the monster' head went flying as Nezuko suddenly jumped from the inside of the shrine and kicked it like a soccer ball. Separating it from its body with her demonic strength.

Hitting the tree, it took the head a few seconds to shake out the dizziness before it - to only Tanjirou surprise - began to talk again.

"You're not a human! You're a demon! I knew it! But what's a demon doing with humans!?" It's tone accusating the head yelled at Nezuko, who simply blankly gazed back at it.

"No matter! I'll still devour you all - wait what are you doing? Don't come closer, I bite!"

"Yeah, no." Fast so that the demon couldn't generate arms at the place of his ears and take remote control of his body and beat them up some more. Nade grabbed up the head and tied a bunch of its hair to the handle of his axe before embedding it in a tree, making the demon's face the bark.

And true enough, the head sprouted eerily looking muscular arms and tried to wrench itself free. But it's hair and the axe in the way, it could only keep kissing the tree.

"You-you knew it would do that?" Approaching the head, Tanjirou asked Nade bewildered.

"No, but if something that can regenerate in seconds can live with its body seperated from its body. Better prepare for the worst." Nade lied, bringing up an explanation out of his ass.

"Very sound logic, now kill it." An older voice suddenly coming from behind scared the craps out of them.

Whirling around, the two came face to face with a figure in a blue kimono wearing a red mask with a big nose.

Nade knew who the man was, but he just couldn't remember his name.

"Kill it?" Hearing the man's words, Tanjirou eyes hesitantly flitted to his axe.

"No. You can't kill a demon with that."

"Then with what?"

"Do I really have to tell you? Think with your head for a bit." The man crossed his arms and looked to be judging the boy.

This scene definitely rang a bell in Nade's mind.

Though he wasn't sure what his current role was in it.

Or rather, what it should be.