Demon Slayer: Upper 0 seems to be a waste

Chapter 317 Go die a good death.

The entire Infinite City is a battlefield, so the sounds of fighting will never stop, whether they come from closer or farther away, and right now they are coming from closer.

The entire night was so noisy, the battle never stopped for a second, it was still going on. When would it end? Rin asked himself as he breathed. He didn't know the answer, he could only guess and speculate.

A conjecture without any basis.

Does the death of all the Pillars mean the end? No, it doesn't seem like it; it sounds far from over. Then, does killing all the Demon Slayers mean the end? That sounds more like it. Will everything end after killing the Demon Slayers? Will he no longer have to kill more people? I don't know. So when will all these Demon Slayers be killed? How many Demon Slayers are there? Are they all in the Infinity Castle? Are there any missed? If not, how long will it take to kill them all?

Rinko didn't know; he was just wondering if one night would be enough. It should be enough, after all, the Demon Slayer Corps only had a limited number of members.

So, does that mean everything is over once we get through this night?

I don't know, there's no answer.

It seems no one can answer this question, not even demons. Muzan only said he wanted to wipe out the Demon Slayer Corps tonight, but is it over once all these people are killed?

But didn't Kokushibo do something similar so many years ago, slaughtering everyone in the Demon Slayer Corps, including the head of the Demon Slayer Corps at the time? Yet the Demon Slayer Corps still exists today.

Rinko didn't want to think anymore; thinking was pointless. He should stand up, he should join the battle, he had to do something, he had to play a role. Tanjiro was there, Muzan was there, he shouldn't just lie there, he shouldn't just stay here and waste time.

But he couldn't stand up, he had no strength, and his body was completely immobile.

Why? I don't know.

How strange, why can't I stand up? Why won't my body obey me?

His eyes could see, see the ceiling, yet he could barely turn. His ears could hear, the sounds nearby—first conversations, then the clash of knives and thorns, the sounds of buildings being destroyed, walls collapsing, the ground being torn apart, thorns lashing, the wind ripping, knives swinging, again and again, the clanging sounds ringing out, relentlessly, making his eardrums itch.

The battle was very close to him, very close.

How close is it?

When the thorns swing, they lash across the floor, instantly sending splinters of wood flying. The resulting wind blades and debris graz him as he lies on the ground. The wind brushes against his cheeks, creating the shallowest scratches. His skin is broken, and the cool wind constantly passes over his body, blowing his hair and clothes.

He always wore clothes that were too big for him because they were given to him by Muzan, and he always cherished them. Even so, they inevitably got dirty or torn. But this time was the worst. The sleeves wouldn't be a problem anymore, because they had broken off along with his arms and were lying somewhere on the floor. The same went for his pants. Even the parts that weren't damaged were stained with blood. There was no way he could save those clothes.

it's a pity.

The wind brushed against my cheek, causing a slight sting, so light, almost like being rubbed by rough fabric.

Muzan actually threw him in a relatively safe place, not far behind him, but the situation was indeed special.

Rinko thought that the situation he was facing now was probably what they called the safest place could also become the most dangerous place.

This should have been a very safe place, but Muzan was busy dealing with those endless demon slayers. Tanjiro kept rushing forward, and someone seemed to have joined the battle. Who it was, he didn't know. He couldn't hear clearly. The thorns were too close as they scraped the floor, and he started to feel a little ringing in his ears.

There was no other way. Muzan needed to protect himself, so causing some damage was only out of necessity, and his position was indeed in an area where he would be affected.

What was happening before his eyes in that instant gave Rinko a feeling—how should I put it, what's that word—a sense of disconnect? Or perhaps a sense of absurdity.

Or perhaps Rinko still feels that "unreal" is more fitting and easier to understand.

He lay there, motionless, in the center of the battlefield, facing only the noise of the fighting, the ringing in his ears, and the occasional splinters of wood blasting and scraping his face. Meanwhile, on the same floor where he lay, right beside him, a real battle was taking place.

The noise, shouts, clamor, collisions, friction—all the sounds came from that not-so-distant place. The intersection and boundary between life and death had never been so clear. Here, everything was peaceful, but at the edge of his perspective, which he could not turn around to, someone could die at any moment.

So he should get up.

Even if it's just to move slightly, shift a little, move an inch, move a little away from here, to get away from the danger zone, from the very center of the battlefield, so as not to become an obstacle, not to become a burden to Muzan, even if it's just to move a little.

Rinko blinked slowly once.

what.

Yes.

He should hide.

Just like he always did, just like he was good at, he ran away from danger, away from the battlefield. He just ran, kept running, with his back to danger, just running, running to a safe place. What place was a safe place? In fact, Rinko never knew. He just ran, ran far away, found a place to hide when no one noticed him, hid himself well, and then just stayed there, not caring about anything, closing his eyes, covering his mouth, and quietly waiting, until everything was over, until he was safe, until someone came to find him.

Before that, they had just been hiding in that place.

Isn't that what he should do? That's what Muzan has always asked of him: just stay alive. If you can't beat someone, don't fight. If you can't win, don't fight. If you're not good at something, then do what you're good at. Just run away and hide. Since you can't win, then don't fight. Just don't become a burden. Run away and hide.

After all, Muzan always manages to find him.

No matter how well he hides, where he hides, or what corner he hides in, it doesn't matter if he falls down.

Muzan will eventually find him.

I'll catch him eventually.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Muzan's rage was almost beyond measure.

Those damned, ungrateful demon slayers, why do they keep pestering us like insects, like cockroaches that we can never get rid of? One after another, there's Tamayo and that little devil whose identity we don't know. They're demons, so why do they choose to stand on the side of humans?

Speaking of Tamayo, that woman is ungrateful. She said she wanted to live, yet she ate her own child and her husband. Wasn't she happy when she ate people? Didn't she eat the child's body in big bites? Didn't she easily break her husband's bones? She continued to eat people after that. Was he forced to? No, but this woman said it was all his fault.

What an ungrateful bastard!

Even those Upper Moons were useless. They were only tasked with killing the Pillars, but one by one, none of them were of any use. They were killed by a few children? Did they get poisoned because they carelessly ate people? And Akaza was also inexplicable. He had clearly overcome the weakness in his head, but inexplicably gave up on his own?

What on earth are these guys doing?!

In the end, they didn't manage to kill all the pillars; instead, they all died themselves?!

The building began to move without warning, and everything around it began to move. The walls began to crack, the ground began to shake, and all the surrounding buildings were moving—no, not just the surrounding buildings, but everything, including the ground beneath his feet.

The battle was forced to a temporary halt in that instant, and everyone was thrown into chaos. The building rose rapidly, and the immense pressure forced him to focus solely on maintaining his balance. The feeling of weightlessness and oppression made him dizzy one thing after another. The floor beneath his feet continued to rise, and the walls and floors kept crashing down on him, or more accurately, he kept crashing into them. He brandished his thorns, but he had no time to deal with the sudden outburst of the demon created by Tamayo that appeared out of nowhere.

He crashed into the wall, smashed through the door, and shattered the floor. He was deeply hidden, and at this moment, he also endured an immense sense of oppression that kept rising until finally everything stopped.

Thick layers of garbage piled up overhead, and thorns lashed out, destroying everything in their path, turning shattered stones into dust.

When Muzan stepped on the floor, he was truly consumed by rage. This guy or that guy, they were all either useless or traitors.

Even that brat Rinko was completely useless. He couldn't even kill a single Pillar. He was entangled with Tanjiro for so long, but in the end, neither the black-haired kid nor Tanjiro got rid of him. Instead, Rinko almost lost his own head to Tanjiro.

Ultimately, that kid was like this from the beginning—incredibly weak. No matter how much blood he was given, he didn't improve and couldn't beat anyone. Instead, he was always being targeted by everyone, who kept causing him trouble. But compared to those useless, dead guys, Rinko at least made a small contribution in his final moments.

The time that the corpses on the ground had given him was enough to recover, enough for him to break down the poison and devour Tamayo as well.

In any case, the greatest use of Rinko to him is that guy himself. As long as the kid is alive, that's enough. As long as he's alive, he can stay by his side and deal with any unforeseen needs.

But even with such a simple request, the kid could never seem to get it right.

In the chaos, he didn't have time to pay attention to the kid. Anyway, he was a ghost, so even if he crashed into something like this, he wouldn't die. He sensed that the kid wasn't dead, he was just temporarily unconscious.

I've told him so many times that eating people will make him stronger, but this kid just won't listen to a word. He keeps eating random things and he's still this weak and frail.

What a spineless coward.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Rinko didn't like this feeling—the dizziness, the suffocation, the weakness in his body. He didn't like it.

He doesn't like it.

My body is still intact, all my limbs are intact, nothing is broken, but I can't move. All I can see is black, pure black, I can't see anything clearly. My ears are ringing constantly, I can't hear anything, I can't hear anything at all. The noisy, fragmented sounds seem to come from a place too far away.

I can't move my hands, arms, shoulders, torso, legs, anywhere.

It felt like something was pressing down on me, so heavy and unbearable, I couldn't move.

Was a bone broken somewhere? He couldn't tell. His body was perfectly intact, but why was it out of his control? Did it hurt? No, it didn't hurt. He just couldn't control it.

It's as if my whole body is made of cotton, and now the cotton is soaked in water, so I can't lift it up at all.

When I tried to breathe again, my lungs felt immense pressure, and pain appeared, emanating from my lungs. Blood rushed into my trachea and into my lungs, and when I coughed, it felt like my lungs were about to explode, causing pain throughout my entire body.

There was a brief feeling of suffocation, which only existed when he coughed, but the more he coughed, the more the suffocation intensified. Why did this feeling seem so familiar to him? Was it because he had been eating human food in the past, which led to vomiting?

No, no, it's not because of that, it's a different feeling, something else.

Everything was black before his eyes, his body was numb and powerless, and he had lost control of everything.

He had experienced this feeling before, a long time ago, so long ago that he had no recollection of it at all; only his body retained the memory.

When is it

Where is it?

So heavy, so tiring, so hard to breathe.

So cold.

so cold...

Is it...cold?

Why does a ghost feel cold? Why does it feel so cold? Everything around its body is so cold, its body is sinking downwards, and it can hear a soft, creaking sound traveling through the floor. No, this isn't the floor; it's soft, cool, and the sound is from snow.

Is he on the snow?

Why is it on the snow?

Why did it get stuck in the snow?

It's so dark, I can't see anything. It's so cold, my body is completely numb. I can't stop coughing, I can't breathe, until the cold seeps into my body, even my breathing slows down, and my lungs feel like they're frozen.

Why? What is this?

Whose memory is this?

These are your memories, Rinko. Have you forgotten them already? Those days when you were powerless, unable to do anything, and all you could do was be disliked, hated, lectured, and scolded. There was only pain, cold, and exhaustion. Nobody liked you.

The sound was so clear, every word was audible.

But no, that's not right, this isn't his memory.

No, and it can't be. His memories begin one night, from beside Muzan.

No matter how much you say, he won't get confused. He knows very well that this isn't his memory; the snowfield in his memory wouldn't be this cold.

Have you forgotten being abandoned on that winter night?

Too close, too close, so close it felt like someone was whispering in his ear.

You're just something nobody wants, something useless.

It's so cold. Why is even the wind blowing in my ears cold?

Nobody wants you anymore.

So cold, so tired, so painful.

They're everywhere.

But no, that's not it, that's not how it works.

That wasn't his memory. He wasn't the one who was disliked, reprimanded, or scolded. He wasn't the one who endured pain and coldness. He wasn't the one who was abandoned.

Something nobody wants, something useless.

Nobody wants it.

It wasn't him.

No matter how many times you say it, it's useless.

"So, those who are dead should just die peacefully, Rinyo."