Ren Kuroda had absolutely no idea how a giant, square stone wall was physically capable of doing a dogeza, but that was exactly what happened—Tsuchibake simply dropped to his knees.
Kuroda blinked. The Rat King he had fought before had left him with the impression that yokai were notoriously stubborn, the kind who would rather lose a limb than bow their heads. He'd even planned out multiple strategies for subduing this one.
Yet before any of those plans could be used, Tsuchibake had folded like wet paper.
"You surrendered… just like that? You're a yokai with C-rank power! At least pretend you want to fight me before giving up! Where's your basic demon dignity!?"
Ren felt cheated. He'd thought this tank-like yokai would be the perfect training dummy to test his swordsmanship. But instead? The guy crumpled the moment he was scratched.
"He took one slash and immediately surrendered? Aren't yokai supposed to think humans are beneath them? What kind of pathetic Nurikabe even are you?"
While Ren stood there baffled, Tsuchibake's inner monologue was a storm of panic.
He wasn't stupid—far from it. He'd lived long enough to know who he could afford to antagonize. And Ren Kuroda, who casually unleashed sword strikes powerful enough to carve him up like tofu, was definitely not ordinary.
Just that one strike had left him full of cracks, and judging from Ren's stance, he clearly had far more devastating attacks waiting in reserve.
Tsuchibake did the math quickly:He couldn't defeat Ren.He couldn't outrun Ren.
Continuing the fight meant ending up as gravel. Surrendering, on the other hand, meant living another day.
Tsuchibake wasn't one of those yokai with big ambitions or hunger for domination. If he were, he'd have devoured humans to build power long ago, like so many others. Instead, he collected the bare minimum "Fear" necessary to survive, and he did it carefully—never stepping on the toes of powerful humans who could squash him with a finger.
And still an onmyoji had shown up—an extremely powerful one at that.
His plan had been simple: hide his strength, quietly gather fear from late-night workers, and as long as no humans were harmed, the onmyoji clans would consider him harmless. They'd probably send some rookies to handle the report.
Apprentices were manageable—Tsuchibake was confident a C-rank monster could "barely" overpower one, then relocate and repeat the cycle elsewhere.
What Tsuchibake never expected was for the onmyoji to send someone as terrifying as Ren Kuroda from the very beginning.
Because Ren had been concealing his aura with "Demon Power Suppression," Tsuchibake sensed nothing spiritual from him—but he wasn't foolish enough to think Ren was weak.
That earlier sword strike alone proved Ren was a prodigy among humans.
As for why he couldn't sense Ren's power?Clearly, the young man was deliberately hiding it—baiting naive, honest yokai like himself.
Everyone knew humans were the most cunning creatures alive.
And then, right as Tsuchibake pressed his forehead to the ground in full surrender, Ren's system chimed: the quest had been completed. One hundred human reputation points and three hundred demon reputation points flowed into his account.
A new section appeared on his status page: [Demon Affiliation], and Tsuchibake's name appeared as the very first subordinate.
"My lord, everything I said earlier is true! You onmyoji need shikigami to fight, right? Don't be fooled by my constant kneeling—I'm actually very durable!"
The moment Tsuchibake saw Ren fall silent, he panicked, assuming Ren was weighing whether or not to kill him. He immediately started promoting himself, his voice quivering with desperation.
Ren, watching this stone-wall yokai refer to him as "my lord," couldn't help being amused.
This thing… was really something.
But since Tsuchibake had become his first subordinate, and Ren did need someone to guard his family, the yokai's defensive abilities were extremely convenient. There was no reason to keep attacking him.
When Ren slowly sheathed his sword, Tsuchibake knew he was safe. Maybe enslaved, maybe stripped of freedom—but alive.
And to Tsuchibake, life far outweighed freedom.
"What are you kneeling there for? Since I've decided to take you in as my underling, you're going to enjoy a comfortable life under me.
"But listen carefully—if you ever do something behind my back that I can't forgive, I'll kill you instantly."
Tsuchibake had been waiting for Ren to approach and form a shikigami contract. But upon hearing Ren's words—words that were clearly meant as a threat—the stone wall yokai lit up with pure joy.
Ren stared. "Why does he look happy? …Is this guy a masochist?"
Tsuchibake immediately sprang to his feet and transformed into the most shameless bootlicker in existence. Ren visibly recoiled, inching away in disgust.
Regret settled in.This yokai definitely had a masochistic streak.
Ren had beaten him half to rubble earlier—and after being threatened again, Tsuchibake actually looked grateful.
But Ren was unaware of a crucial misunderstanding.
Tsuchibake believed Ren was an onmyoji who had accepted his surrender. In yokai society, surrendering to an onmyoji meant one thing: becoming a shikigami.
And becoming a shikigami meant losing all freedom. Their yokai power would be converted into spiritual power, binding them completely to their master.
A shikigami's fate was tied to the onmyoji's. They wouldn't vanish from lack of fear anymore, but if the onmyoji died, they died too—unless the master passed them on to their heir.
In short, a yokai who became a shikigami became a tireless, around-the-clock servant. Permanently.
So most yokai would rather die than submit.
When Tsuchibake knelt before Ren, he had fully expected to be put under a binding contract and doomed to serve forever.
But this young "onmyoji's" attitude blew past all of Tsuchibake's expectations.
Ren Kuroda showed absolutely no intention of enslaving him.