Demon Slayer: Breath of Desire

"My retirement pension?!"

The mood at the table turned strange.

Urokodaki caught a hint of scheming on Marcus’s face, and the anguish it had shown a moment ago vanished instantly.

"What do you want money for?"

"To finish off Muzan!" Marcus blurted without hesitation.

"Finish off Muzan?!" Urokodaki was baffled. "With money?"

"Of course!" Marcus was dead serious. "Master, you know me better than anyone; if I want to finish off Muzan, the first thing I need is women."

"..."

Urokodaki just stared at him.

Hearing that irritated him so much his hands were itching. Even though he knew it was the truth, he sought out Tanjiro’s gaze to locate his sword.

Sensing the danger, Marcus grabbed his master’s face to force him to look at him.

"I’m being serious with you, don’t get distracted on me. Think about it: in Yoshiwara there are three or four thousand women, and that’s enough for me to cut off Muzan’s head. And what if in the future there are seven or eight thousand, ten thousand, or forty thousand? Even if ten Muzans came at once, they wouldn’t get out alive!"

"Forty thousand?!" Urokodaki was dumbfounded. "You mean to support forty thousand women?"

"Why would I be the one supporting them? They’re going to support me!" Marcus rolled his eyes and explained his idea of building a huge entertainment district. "By then I’ll open massage parlors, geisha houses, and courtesan houses. If one establishment has fifty women, a hundred establishments will have five thousand, and a thousand establishments..."

"STOP!" Urokodaki cut him off with a frown.

"You’re talking about a thousand establishments! Why don’t you just turn the whole country into one!?"

Marcus’s eyes lit up!

"No wonder you’re my master! My spiritual pioneer!"

"You’re absolutely right! I shouldn’t limit my vision to just Yoshiwara — I should make the entertainment industry flourish in every corner of the country!"

"..."

In the middle of the silence, Urokodaki slapped himself on the mouth for having suggested it.

"When the utopia of my dreams stands erected across this country," Marcus rose to his feet with a gleam in his eyes, "Muzan won’t have a single place left to hide!"

"HASHIRA-SAMA, I SUPPORT YOU!!!" Zenitsu sprang up, his face red with excitement.

"Support, my ass! All you do is cause chaos!" Urokodaki shot him a withering glare that made Zenitsu sit back down.

Then he turned on Marcus. "And you — watch your mouth!"

He didn’t want yet another title added to his list of unwanted ones.

"Aren’t I watching my mouth?" Marcus blinked.

Seeing Urokodaki staring at him without the slightest expression, he let out a faint sigh of being misunderstood.

"The ideas of geniuses are never understood by the world at first."

Urokodaki flew into a rage. "Your idea of genius is turning this country into a brothel?!"

"How is it a brothel?!" Marcus got impatient. "Do you understand what tourism is? Entertainment? I want to turn this country into a world-class tourist destination that gathers the most beautiful women, an artistic kingdom full of romance and beauty."

"Hmph. In that case, work for it on your own." Urokodaki sneered. "For a plan that ’grand,’ there’s nothing I can help you with."

"Master... you’re going back on your word!" Marcus protested.

Urokodaki shot him a stern look. "If you keep talking nonsense, I’m leaving!"

Seeing that his master was starting to get annoyed, Marcus dropped the games and turned serious.

"All right, let’s set the ideals aside and talk about realistic things. I need to turn Asakusa into a safe haven for us, just like the Demon Slayer Corps headquarters or Muzan’s Infinity Castle. Only then can I guarantee our safety and have the freedom to act. But I’m short on money, and I need your support."

After the earlier madness, this plan sounded a lot more sensible to Urokodaki.

After all, it was only ONE red-light district; if that got his disciple to settle down and stay safe, it was acceptable.

He kept silent for a few moments and shook his head in resignation.

"I knew all that kindness wasn’t going to bring anything good!"

Marcus threw an arm around his shoulders, laughing. "Master, that’s where you’re wrong. At first I wasn’t planning to ask you for money — wasn’t it you who brought up the Ubuyashiki? You’re not going to let your dear disciple, an admirable young man who bears Muzan’s thousand-year grudge all alone, sit here waiting for death, are you?"

With things put that way, Urokodaki sighed. "Tell me, how much are you short?"

Marcus grinned from ear to ear.

First he held up a single finger, but after thinking about it for a moment, he changed it to three.

"If it’s three million..."

"Thirty million!" Marcus corrected him.

"What?!" Urokodaki went pale. "You... you... you... say it again! How much?!"

"Thirty million!" Marcus repeated, staring straight at him.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!!!" Urokodaki refused at once with a wave of his hand. "Where do you expect me to get thirty million? An old man like me doesn’t have that!"

Marcus silently regarded the seventy-year-old man who had devoted his entire life to the Demon Slayer Corps.

"Master... you told me you served the organization for fifty-five years."

"So what?"

"You also told me you knew five generations of Oyakata-sama, and that you never asked for a single cent more than your due."

"..."

Marcus raised his cup. "To your selfless devotion!"

How could Urokodaki not understand what he was scheming?

This rebellious brat wanted him to go collect old debts from the Ubuyashiki family!

HOW EMBARRASSING!

But the words had already slipped out of him earlier, and in fact, he really had been planning to ask the Demon Slayer Corps for help.

It was just that that amount...

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Throw your stones, drop them ALL! 💎

And don’t forget to comment, I wanna know if you liked the Chapter 👀

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And if PS aren’t your thing but you still want more Chapters...

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