In the evening, Amane took her Nichirin Blade and walked to the entrance of the company to explore the interior.
The company doors were locked.
Although the city had returned to normal, still no one was out and about at this late hour.
"I might as well come back to explore tomorrow. Going back this late will probably make Maigo worry."
As she turned to leave, she suddenly noticed someone in a small alley and walked over.
The person made a move to run, but Amane was already standing behind them, picking up a package of medicine from the ground.
"You dropped something."
The person turned back to look at Amane and reached out a hand, gesturing for the medicine to be returned.
This person was wearing sunglasses, a face mask, a hat, and a backpack late at night, and was even wrapped up in a scarf.
Amane handed the medicine back to the strange person, who grabbed it in a rush and made to leave.
"Let me walk you home. It's not safe for you to be out alone this late."
The person waved a hand, indicating that they didn't need Amane's escort and wanted to leave.
"N-no need."
The person spoke with a slight stutter.
Amane realized it was probably her carrying the Nichirin Blade that had frightened her.
"This is just a toy, it's fine. Let me walk you home, it's too dangerous for you like this."
Reluctantly, the person finally allowed Amane to escort them back, and Amane followed along.
"What a coincidence, my house is around here too. You're dressed so heavily, are you sick?"
The person walked up to the building.
"I-I'm home. You can... leave now. Thank you... for your help."
Amane immediately knocked the person's sunglasses flying to the side, her gaze turning stern.
The eyes beneath the sunglasses were precisely the eyes possessed only by demons, and the "home" the person had spoken of was right at Amane's front door!
She drew her Nichirin Blade and slashed down at the demon. While dodging the blade, the demon had her backpack knocked off, spilling a great variety of medications and a pink cell phone all over the ground.
Ignoring the medicine entirely, the demon turned and bolted at high speed, and Amane chased after her.
"(Water Breathing - Second Form: Water Wheel)"
As she prepared to cut off the demon's neck, the demon turned back to look at Amane, tears streaming from her eyes.
Amane instantly changed direction, swung into empty space, and crashed into the wall. Seeing this, the demon grabbed a random few bottles of medicine and her phone and ran.
Staggering up, Amane touched her head.
"Why did that demon just cry? Why didn't she attack me?"
When she got home, Maigo was sleeping with her head pillowed on the table, but lifted her head to look at Amane upon hearing the door open.
"Why are you back so late? I've already finished my homework, and why are you so dirty?"
"I had a little fall on the way back, it's nothing."
"That bag you're carrying has so much medicine in it. Is your company running some kind of new hire event?"
"No. Go on to bed, you have classes tomorrow, and I have to wake up early too."
Late in the night, lying in bed, Amane recalled how that demon had actually cried.
"(Why did that demon shed tears just now? It gives me a strange feeling.)"
The next morning, Amane arrived at the company very early. None of the other employees had arrived yet, so she hid her Nichirin Blade in the storage room and glanced around casually, spotting some scattered documents on the floor.
She picked up the documents, which were written in a messy, scrawled hand that was hard to make out, and noticed coffee powder on the floor as well.
Someone walked over and placed a hand on Amane's shoulder—an elderly woman who, judging by her clothing, looked more like a cleaning lady.
"(She appeared behind my back without a sound. I didn't even notice her.)"
"Amane, you don't need to panic. I'm here to help you. Leave the company's troubles to me, you just focus on finding the demon."
"How do you know my name?!"
"My name is Zuoye Linzi, and I am the wife of Kotsuyuu Qinxiu. I'm here to assist you."
Amane let out a sigh of relief.
"If there's any work in the company you don't know how to do, just hand it over to me and I'll finish it. For now, there haven't been any disappearances or casualties in this company yet, but we still need to be extra careful."
After a while, the company held a meeting to assign tasks and began the workday.
"Manager, I heard this one is the new hire. Should we stir up some trouble for him?"
"Sure. The last new guy didn't last long before he quit."
The two walked up to Amane, putting on frantic expressions.
"Friend Yejing, the manager has an urgent matter. Could you go buy some coffee for us? Sorry to trouble you."
Amane agreed and went downstairs to buy the coffee, taking the opportunity to hand the work task USB drive over to Ms. Zuoye.
When she reached the cafe downstairs, the staff inside were frantically tidying up in a fluster.
"Excuse me, what happened here?"
"We are so sorry, our coffee isn't selling anymore, it's really a total mess right now."
Amane looked over at the coffee powder scattered all over the ground along with the processing materials, realized the coffee on the floor was the same as the one she had seen upstairs, and then headed back up.
"There's no coffee left downstairs."
"What a pity. Could you help me go make some copies of these documents?"
Taking the documents, she headed to the copy room.
"We should leave the new guy some work to do. If he turns out like the last one, it won't mean anything."
The manager instantly reacted to something, his expression turning vicious.
"Wait, no! Why did you assign that new guy to the copy room? If he finds out about anything, you're done for!"
As Amane walked into the copy room to copy the documents, a ventilation duct caught her attention.
She closed her eyes and used her Breathing Style to search for the demon's trail. Just as Amane was about to use the Breathing Style to explore, the manager flung the door open.
"Get out of here right now!"
Amane had no choice but to stop and walk out of the copy room, and the manager immediately locked the door behind her.
By dusk, some people in the company had left one after another while others were still working overtime.
Confirming that the manager had left, she walked to the door of the copy room and pushed the doorknob.
"Looks like it's locked."
Back at her desk, Ms. Zuoye was cleaning up. As she passed Amane's desk, she stealthily tossed the copy room key under Amane's desk. Amane noticed the key on the floor and picked it up.
Zuoye wiped her sweat and rubbed her aging lower back.
"All right, time to get off work."
Then she glanced sideways at Amane, and Amane understood that her real working time had just begun.
Zuoye took the trash bag and headed downstairs. With very few people left in the company, Amane made her way toward the copy room. Just then, someone brushed past her smelling strongly of coffee; paying him no mind, Amane pressed on to the copy room.
Amane regulated her breathing once more to sense the aura, then looked up at the ventilation duct.
"(Very small build, wriggling around, and there are several of them.)"
"These aren't demons, they're mice."
Suddenly, a scream rang out, and Amane immediately dashed to the storage room to retrieve her Nichirin Blade, rushing toward the source of the noise.
When she arrived at the scene, a female colleague was terrified out of her wits by the appearance of this monster, sitting paralyzed on the ground and unable to move.
"Run! That thing is a demon!"
Everyone else fled outside, leaving Amane alone to face it. The demon sat in front of the computer with a ferocious expression, continuously stuffing coffee powder into her mouth while hammering away frantically at the keyboard.
Amane drew her Nichirin Blade and aimed it at the demon, but the demon paid her no mind, muttering constantly to herself.
"No time, there's no time left! I didn't make the deadline for this job again, what do I do, what do I do!"
Then, in a rage, she smashed the computer in front of her. Amane still hadn't figured out what was happening.
"You little punk! Are you here to mess with my work? Bastard! Don't come messing with my work!"
Suddenly, the company's temperature sensors began spraying water.
"Blood Demon Art: Heat."
The demon struck a running pose and charged directly at Amane.
Amane dodged out of the way. A lightning-fast figure flashed past; even though she had dodged, Amane could feel a scorching heat radiating from the demon's body as she sprinted by.
"Getting touched by that would be bad. Good thing we're in the hallway; if we were in an office, who knows if it would cause a fire."
The next second, the demon's attack came again.
"(Water Breathing - Third Form: Flowing Dance)"
Using fluid, water-like footwork to evade the demon's attacks, she landed numerous slashes on the demon during the dodge.
"(Just now, it looked like a thread was connected to the demon's neck. Was I seeing things?)"
The demon was slashed down to the floor, rolling around and curling into a ball.
"I was wrong, don't hit me anymore."
"What is your name?"
"Don't look down on me! I'm very strong!"
The bone marrow on her back began turning completely crimson, and the fluid streaming from her eyes was like molten lava.