System and Small Goals

"What in the world?! Who dares sneak up on me?! Come out!"

Inosuke's face formed a vigilant, massive scowl as his sharp eyes zoomed around the forest valley in search of the uninvited attacker. The mysterious, random voice inside his head.

His pores and senses, which had been fine-tuned in the wilderness of the mountains, went into overdrive!

Because he couldn't read, he couldn't make out what seemed to be a language, but he could hear that inner voice that boomed and chimed like ringing bells.

What was mind-blowing and irrational was that the blaring words came from inside, but he was not the one speaking them!

It was completely outrageous! Disrespectful, even!

Inosuke, his muscles tense and ready, searched the trees and high grass for any sneak attacks or sudden bursts of activity.

His gaze darted around the area some more.

But there was nothing at all…

The threat and sneak attack, actually, were only coming from within.

When Inosuke thought he was finally beginning to grasp, accept this incomprehensible fact, something happened that caused him to collapse to his knees, groaning in pain.

It was something even more mysterious, more inexplicable… Not until the process was over.

'I reincarnated…'

Inosuke stopped contorting himself in pain and thought.

For a few seconds in the real world, glimpses and memories from his previous life on Earth in the twenty-first century whizzed and swirled through his brain. Like a parade. But at the helm of his consciousness and deep down somewhere in his soul, it felt like two lifetimes had passed.

Counting his previous life, which lasted about fifteen years, and this one, it was the equivalent of thirty years.

His early experiences in this second life were now vividly remembered! Not a piece of memory was amiss!

Because this was the case, instead of simply jumping for joy at having reconnected with his memories from the past, Inosuke did something else first.

He began to weep.

For his dead mother.

He never could have predicted that he would one day identify with an anime character so strongly and even cry for their lost family members.

But now, Kotoha was his mother. His mother had been killed.

There was no other Inosuke in this world.

He was Hashibira Inosuke.

'You were a victim of your own weakness, Mom… But do not worry, I, the great Inosuke will find a way to bring you back to life one day, I promise! I successfully activated this system thanks to you!'

Inosuke made a vow.

He was not worried about the feasibility of his vow because the Multiverse was vast and resourceful.

He realized he had survived Doma because of his mother. Although she had thrown him off a cliff into a river, there was no other option for her at the time.

Weak people don't have many choices. 

Even if they are called stupid by a demon who ate them, they cannot refute it.

Recalling the manga of Demon Slayer, Inosuke sneered.

'Doma, you will pay for your cold wrongdoings one day, count on it. Your end will be more miserable than in the manga this time…'

In his previous life, he was a normal person living peacefully, but in this one, he could begin by slaying demons.

It was a nice world to enter gradually and grow in strength.

There were even brothels and enjoyable entertainment.

Now that Inosuke had recalled how families are formed and children are born, he was very interested in these types of activities and entertainment.

The Multiverse function was still restricted and crossed out, so it was skipped over.

In fact, the function was related to the nature of Halos that Inosuke could currently obtain.

Anyway, Inosuke's system was a Halo extraction system. Inosuke needed creatures' DNA to use it. It made no difference whether the creatures were dead or alive to the system. Any type of DNA, not just blood, could be extracted.

Those halos could be of any kind and were frequently associated with the specificity of the person from whom the DNA was extracted. Nonetheless, as long as Inosuke remained in the world of Demon Slayer, he could only obtain healing and defensive halos for unknown reasons.

The Halos could stack, level up alongside Inosuke's strength, so their power was limitless. Although, there were not many defensive or healing Halos he could obtain in this world.

The same type of Halo could not be equipped or extracted from the same person more than once.

This was the essence of Inosuke's system, which was extremely powerful but severely limited in the world of Demon Slayer.

He wouldn't be surprised if he could only accumulate and level up two or three types of halos in this world.

Maybe more but less than ten, his estimate was low anyhow.

There were weaker worlds than Demon Slayer, but it was undoubtedly one of the weakest of the main worlds of popular Shōnen Verse.

It wasn't too surprising for such a result to be the case.

Not disappointed, Inosuke only wanted to have fun here; and if he could get an immortality halo, that was more than fine with him!

Thinking so, he decided to take the demon slayer exam first. There would definitely be demons there.

'It doesn't seem to matter which kind of demon I extract halos from; I'll most likely get some branch or main variant of Muzan's blood.'

The goal was to become a Hashira first. Anything else he wanted to do was superfluous and could be accomplished once this first goal was met.

If he were a Hashira, he would most likely be able to take Zenitsu and Tanjiro under his wing later, which would be useful for a variety of reasons.

Inosuke didn't instantaneously succumb to the urge to rush to the Entertainment District and base his main operations there. He couldn't be so reckless in his hunt for demons before obtaining even one Halo.

Because of course, he was only planning to go and live there to hunt demons responsibly.

Obviously.

Inosuke left after he had finished thinking and had fully become accustomed to his memories from his previous life.

With some chance, he would be about to take the same exam as Tanjiro and Zenitsu, and if not, he would clear the unfriendly field in the demon slayer's corps before Tanjiro and Nezuko arrived.

Since he was reborn in the world of Demon Slayers, he would simply dethrone the Rock Hashira as the strongest.

Kibutsuji Muzan hadn't been afraid of demon slayers or Hashiras since Yorichii Tsugikuni's death, and it was time to change that.

Inosuke was happy to dish out anything that would make Muzan more anxious.