I was far too complacent.
I never imagined that Eto would go so far as to hide her own hunger. For a ghoul, the period when they begin to require "meat" typically starts in infancy, the moment their first teeth emerge. Initially, a small amount of finely minced meat, much like baby food, was sufficient. As Eto grew, I increased the portions accordingly. My method was simple: I would provide the usual amount, and if she expressed further hunger, I would increase the dose. Based on the knowledge of ghoul children I had once obtained from my father, this was the standard procedure.
But last night, I realized that even that method was flawed. As she grew, her nutritional requirements far exceeded my projections. I had noticed she hadn't been asking for extra meat lately, but to think she was forcibly suppressing her hunger... I felt pathetic for failing to see through a mere child's performance.
I knew why Eto hid her hunger. It was for my sake. She had begun to sense, bit by bit, what "procuring" meat truly cost me. While I was grateful for her consideration, it was a dangerously naive decision for a child. If Eto's suppressed hunger had finally reached its breaking point, it would have invited an irreversible catastrophe.
I took every scrap of "meat" I had been rationing in the refrigerator and gave it to her. Now, the need for a fresh supply had become urgent.
𝘉𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘱...
𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬.
I silenced the phone alarm and rose much earlier than usual. It was 3:00 AM. Though it was summer, when the days are long, dawn was still a distant prospect. I looked out the window; a thick, murky barrier of fog obscured the city skyline. They had predicted a misty rain for the early hours, and this must be it. It was perfect weather for moving unnoticed.
Eto was still asleep. After pulling the covers back over her—she'd kicked them off in her sleep—I gathered the backpack and the large guitar case I had prepared the night before.
"...."
Before leaving, I stared at a small cylindrical case resting on the shelf. It was small enough to fit easily into a pocket. I hesitated, wondering if I should take it. I wanted to resolve this without using it if possible... but I couldn't afford to fail this time. I took it.
Slipping the case into my pocket, I stepped out the front door, moving with extreme caution so as not to wake Eto. I headed down to the first floor and retrieved my bicycle from the storage rack. I secured the backpack to the rear carrier and tightened the guitar case strap across my shoulder so it wouldn't shift.
"𝘍𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘧𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩..."
𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘱!!
I took a deep breath and slapped both cheeks hard. The sting sent a ripple through my senses, jolting my dormant brain awake and sharpening my gaze.
"Alright. Let's go."
I murmured to myself, treading the pedals as I dissolved into the silence of the sleeping streets.
Ghouls eat human flesh. Without it, they cannot survive. This fact applied even to Eto, despite her being only half-ghoul.
It wasn't that she was entirely unable to eat human food. Unlike ordinary ghouls, who experience an unspeakable, nightmarish flavor the moment anything other than human flesh touches their tongue, Eto could consume human food.
That was the extent of it, however. While she could swallow the food, she derived no nutrients from it, and it possessed no "taste." According to Eto, it felt like chewing on an alien substance with a bizarre texture and no flavor whatsoever. At the very least, this meant she wouldn't draw suspicion by being unable to eat in front of others. One of the primary ways a Ghoul Investigator identifies a subject is by confirming their ability to consume human food, after all.
Eto needs human meat. But to simply find a random human and kill them? As someone raising a ghoul, I shouldn't be the one to say this, but I lacked that kind of stomach. If it came to the absolute worst-case scenario, perhaps... but I didn't even want to imagine it. I could not commit murder.
I once considered approaching the Yakuza—they say members have to cut off their fingers when they leave the organization, so I wondered if I could obtain those. But I quickly realized that asking such a thing would likely result in them cutting off 𝘮𝘺 fingers with a sashimi knife first.
Ultimately, I settled on obtaining the flesh of "those who had discarded their own lives."
Strictly speaking, it wasn't my idea. I was merely following the example of Mr. Kuzen, who, out of love for Ms. Ukina, had become hesitant to kill and instead sustained himself on the bodies of suicide victims.
𝘍𝘭𝘪𝘱.
I spread out a map. The red circles marked on it were "suicide hotspots" I had discovered by scouring online forums. There were three locations I could reach by bicycle and four that required long-distance transport like the train. There were more than I expected. Or perhaps the world was simply full of people so disillusioned that they chose death.
My plan was to check the three sites accessible by bicycle first. If there were no bodies, I would take the train at daybreak to check the remaining locations.
The first location was a steel-truss bridge spanning a large river. I had positioned myself downstream, where the entire bridge was visible. They say that bodies falling from the bridge are carried by the current and typically wash up along a specific stretch of the bank.
Upon reaching that bank, I immediately covered my nose and grimaced.
"...This won't do."
There was a body. However, it was far too old. The decomposition was so advanced it was difficult to tell who the person had once been. Based on the clothing, it might have been a woman. The water surrounding the rotting corpse was stagnant and murky. Just taking a few steps closer made me gag. Likely, a park ranger or sanitation worker would find it eventually, but it seemed discovery had been delayed this time.
"...!"
Whether picked clean by birds or fish, the empty, hollow sockets where eyes should have been were filled with nothing but darkness. I felt a chill as if the gaze of death itself were fixed upon me. I immediately left the spot and got back on my bike.
That body was unusable. Just as humans require fresh food, the freshness of meat is vital for ghouls. If Eto ate that, it would only make her sick.
With the first location a failure, I headed straight for the second. The second site was a small, abandoned house located in a slum district. It was riddled with holes, looking as if a single typhoon would topple it. Whether the land was cursed or haunted, it was said that bad things had happened there for a long time. It was a famous spot for group suicides coordinated online.
Coincidentally, it seemed they had held a "gathering" today. The reason I knew was...
"You can't do this here!!"
"Let me go!! I'm going to die here!!"
"That's right! We will die and be saved by Alkarma, the God of Death!!"
"Don't go dying in a residential area! You're being a nuisance to the neighbors!"
"I don't care what happens to this world!!"
"Just let us die!!"
"The landlord called us because you're driving down the property values!!"
...Because the aspiring suicide victims, who had already lit their charcoal briquettes, were currently being dragged out by the police. I happened to lock eyes with an officer who gave me a strange look, as if asking, 'Are you here to join them?'
"You've got your work cut out for you," I said, greeting them as if I were a completely unrelated bystander, before pedaling furiously away.
"...There is one."
I hit the jackpot at the third location. I had obtained meat here once before; it seemed I shared a grim fate with this place.
Atop a sheer cliff sat a lone car in a deserted parking lot. Seeing it, I hurried down the path to the base of the precipice.
And there I found him. He was a man dressed in a sophisticated suit, as if he wanted to go out looking sharp. I couldn't tell his age. The face required to make such a judgment simply 'did not exist.'
He must have fallen head-first; everything above the neck was gone. In its place, brain matter, bone shards, hair, teeth, a tongue, and a crushed eyeball were scattered about, forming a grotesque abstract painting. Even after his head had been obliterated, the force of the fall remained; his spine was snapped, and his limbs were twisted into impossible angles. From his torso, bent at a sharp right angle, his intestines spilled out like links of sausage.
I could see blood that hadn't yet dried. He was fresh—likely alive until the moment I had passed the steel bridge.
"𝘜𝘨𝘩..."
If I hadn't come out on an empty stomach, I would have added my own vomit to this horrific scene. The last time it had been a man with only a ruptured abdomen; compared to this, that previous sight seemed almost pristine. Even though I had seen corpses several times while procuring meat for Eto, I could never grow accustomed to 'death rendered in visual form.' I didn't want to get used to it, anyway...
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. The stench of a corpse was bad enough; adding the smell of vomit would make it a true hell. Though I suppressed the bile, my head continued to spin, and my mind refused to settle. My breath came in ragged gasps as if I'd run a marathon, though I'd done no such thing. As the colors of the world began to warp into sickening hues, I scrambled.
Ah, this is bad.
I could feel my body's physical reaction reaching a critical threshold. I rushed back to the bicycle and pulled out a bottle of water from my backpack. Then, I took the cylindrical case from my pocket and tossed two pills into my mouth.
𝘎𝘶𝘭𝘱! 𝘎𝘶𝘭𝘱!
To an observer, I would have looked like a madman waterboarding himself. Well, thanks to the corpse, I felt half-mad anyway. I poured the water down so frantically I couldn't tell if it was going into my mouth or my nose, but I finally managed to swallow the pills.
"𝘏𝘶𝘧𝘧...! 𝘏𝘶𝘧𝘧...!"
I sat leaned against the bicycle for a while until my breathing finally steadied. The first time I tried to harvest meat from a corpse, it had been much worse. I had given up and gone home several times. If I hadn't seen Eto suffering from hunger, I never would have succeeded.
"Whew... Okay."
Feeling the dizziness recede, I steeled my heart once more and set down the guitar case. Upon opening it, it wasn't a guitar that was revealed. Inside were a transparent plastic raincoat that could cover me from head to toe, a mask, rubber gloves... and a double-edged saw.
These were my work tools. The raincoat and gloves would keep blood from splattering onto the clothes I had to wear home. The mask was to block the metallic scent of blood and the various stenches emitted by a dead body.
As for the saw... well, no explanation was necessary.
"...Shall we begin?"
Fully clad in my work gear, I let the saw dangle from my hand and walked back toward the corpse.