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Looking back, It was this kind of thinking that probably led to me having few friends in my previous life... Looking back, I realize that my friendships were always shallow, just on the surface.

It\'s not that I didn\'t have friends. I did have friends, but for some reason, the relationships naturally faded away after graduation...

Until high school, I managed to have friends to talk to during breaks, so that was enough to get by. But the real problem was in college.

All I had were "Yo-friends," the kind of people you just greet with a "Yo!" when you see them. Come to think of it, I wasn\'t in any clubs, and I remember trying to keep my relationships at work strictly professional. How did I even end up that way? I wish this could all be a bad dream.

But it\'s not a dream. This was my reality.

No wonder I didn\'t have many friends. It\'s a little sad to think about, really.

But now that I\'ve been reincarnated, I already have a friend my age, Aya-chan, right?"

So, when I start elementary school, I want to make more human friends. I mean, it\'s not like I don\'t have any friends in this life, but honestly, my first friend in this world was my diaper, and I think I can aim a bit higher now.

How many friends should I aim to make in elementary school? A hundred might be too ambitious for someone like me. I\'ll start with ten. Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

"Itsuki, Hina. We\'re getting off at the next stop," my mother called, pulling me back to reality from my thoughts.

We were on a city bus, heading to a store to buy a school backpack. Since our family only has one car, and my father had taken it to work, we were using the bus.

"Hina, press the button!" Hina excitedly pressed the bright red stop button.

With a soft chime, the announcement played.

I remember wanting to press the button when I was little too. Why do kids love pressing buttons so much? I used to race to press the call button at family restaurants.

"Itsuki, over here," my mother said.

Hina was being carried by my mother, so naturally, I had to hold my mother\'s hand as we got off the bus.

We headed toward the store that my mother had looked up beforehand. Instead of a department store, she chose a local bag shop. The explanation she gave me was something like, "Leave mochi-making to the mochi shop, and bag-making to the bag shop." It kind of made sense, but also didn\'t.

As we walked, I realized that this might be the first time we were doing something so... normal as a family. Usually, when we went out together, it was for events like "Shichi-Go-San" or for "work."

It felt oddly strange to be doing something so ordinary.

"Wow, look, Santa! Big Brother, it\'s Santa!" Hina exclaimed, pointing straight ahead.

As we entered the shopping street on our way to the bag shop, we found it all decked out for Christmas. A huge Christmas tree stood in the center, and there was a Santa standing in front of the stores.

"Wow, it really is Santa! Do you think there\'s a reindeer?"

"No reindeer! Reindeers are near the sleigh!" Hina explained confidently.

"Oh, I see," I said, while inwardly groaning. Oh right, it\'s almost Christmas.

When you stay at home all the time, you lose track of the seasons...

But considering that "Shichi-Go-San" was about a month ago, I guess it\'s that time of year.

"If you\'re good, Santa will come to see you too, Hina," my mother said.

"Yeah! I\'ll be good!" Hina replied.

"And he\'ll visit Itsuki too," she added, and I nodded.

What did I get last year again? I think it was some kind of candy assortment pack...

I mean, sure, I want things too, right?

But everything I want is based on having internet access, and since we don\'t have any at home, I have to ask for something else. So, naturally, I end up asking for candy or something more childlike.

"Hina, what are you going to ask Santa for?" my mother asked.

"Secret! I\'ll write a letter!"

"To Santa? Then we need to get a letter-writing set," my mother said.

My mother tried to subtly find out what Hina wanted, but she failed. However, she recovered gracefully, as expected of a skilled healer. She\'s good at bouncing back into action.

Just as I was being impressed by my mother\'s recovery skills, I suddenly felt the temperature drop by one or two degrees.

"...?"

Wondering why, I looked around and saw it. A monster, dressed in thick winter gear, with a knit cap on its head and a scarf wrapped around its neck. It was staring intently at Hina with its single, large eye set in a face that seemed to be molded from darkness.

"Oh, delicious...!" it mumbled, clearly struggling to speak. It was probably a "First-Rank" monster. My father had recently explained to me that a monster\'s intelligence generally correlates with its rank—the higher the rank, the smarter the monster.

That said, this doesn\'t apply to all monsters. Some, like the one that attacked Hina\'s home, had intelligence comparable to humans even at the "Second-Rank." That\'s why you should never let your guard down.

"I\'ll take you now...!" the monster hissed.

Like I\'d let that happen.

As soon as the monster reached out its hand, it disappeared. A steel thread I created using "Shijutsu: Blade Transformation" had sliced it off.

"Eh...?" the monster tilted its head in confusion as its own head fell to the ground.

The scarf made it clear where its neck was, making it easy to cut.

In the next moment, the monster dissipated into a black mist and vanished. As I watched the wind carry it away, my mother asked curiously, "What\'s wrong, Itsuki?"

"Nothing," I replied, shaking my head and pretending nothing had happened.

My mother can\'t fight, and Hina has deep emotional scars from monsters. There was no need to bring it up.

So, I smiled and answered as if nothing had happened.

After all, since nothing really happened, there was no need to say anything.

With that thought, I continued walking with my mother toward the bag shop.

Nowadays, school backpacks come in all sorts of colors, but I chose a simple black one.

In reality, the mechanism behind the emergence of "demons" is still not well understood. However, some exorcists who have studied this phenomenon have found that there seems to be a correlation between population density and the frequency of demon appearances.

This makes Tokyo one of the top "demon" capitals in the world.

However, nearly 90% of these are "First-Rank" demons. Therefore, exorcists have established cooperative relationships with the police, working together to prevent harm to the general public.

"...It\'s a strange thing, Souichiro," Renji said.

"What is it, Renji?" Souichiro responded.

The two of them were in the suburbs, in a rural area about two hours\' drive from the city center.

Their missions had happened to overlap, and after both had finished their tasks early, they decided to grab lunch together and were looking for a nearby restaurant when Renji brought up the topic.

"Five \'Second-Rank\' demons, and three \'Third-Rank.\' That\'s a lot to appear out here in the countryside, don\'t you think?"

"Yeah, even for a regional city, that\'s a bit too concentrated for a single day," Souichiro agreed.

"Hey, Souichiro, did you know? Since Itsuki-kun defeated that \'Fifth-Rank\' demon, the number of demon sightings has suddenly spiked."

Souichiro listened to Renji\'s words and replied, "Yes, I noticed that too."

Souichiro hadn\'t left without telling Itsuki just to avoid worrying him. The truth was that he had suddenly received a work call.

He would have liked to go home immediately, but knowing that Itsuki and the others were out buying a school backpack, he decided to have lunch with Renji instead, since there would be no one home if he returned right away.

"So, Renji... Are you saying that nothing is over yet?"

"Not only is it not over, but that might have been the beginning," Renji said.

Again, it\'s important to note that the mechanism behind the emergence of demons is still poorly understood. However, there are a few things that are somewhat understood.

One of these is that when a large demon appears, smaller demons tend to start emerging naturally, as if drawn to the bigger one. It\'s like the foreshocks that come before a major earthquake.

"Hmm..." Souichiro mused.

Hearing those words, Souichiro recalled the "Hyakki Yagyo" (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) from the past. He responded quietly.

"...Whatever happens, we\'ll just do what we have to do. That\'s our way as exorcists."

That\'s the life of an exorcist.