How much time had passed?
With no window, there was no way to tell whether it was day or night.
The drowsiness crashing over me could have been my body's rhythm remembering sleep time, or it could have been the unfinished wound at the back of my head. I only figured the odds were good that it was night.
"Kehhee...."
That was because the Ghoul with the insect mask—whatever he was called, the foreman or something—was asleep, hanging upside down from the ceiling.
Both feet were buried deep in the ceiling, both arms left to gravity as they dangled long and loose, and the saliva leaking from his mouth dripped down over his cheeks, forehead, and hair before falling to the floor.
The drool that fell in drops pooled on the ground.
If that bastard slept on a regular schedule, then this had to be night.
Since the time Minami kidnapped me had been after 9 a.m., about twelve hours had probably passed.
For the record, the person who had kidnapped me wasn't here.
He had gone on and on about disassembling my body and turning it into a work of art, then shouted, "The inspiration won't stop~!" and left the room. He still hadn't come back.
"Kekekek! Keheee~…."
Even the snoring was bizarre. The foreman only made those weird laughing sounds when he was awake, but the sound he made while asleep was somehow even worse.
I barely held back a grimace.
It was disgusting to hear, but the bastard was in a deep sleep, and there were no other eyes watching me.
This was a perfect chance to move.
Clink…!
Carefully, making as little noise as possible, I tugged at the chain and examined the shackles binding both my hands.
They were a murky black, shaped like three pairs of police handcuffs stacked together. Looking closer, I figured out what that murky color really was.
Blood.
The shackles had been painted over so many times it no longer looked like the original color. The reason was in their shape.
They looked like overlapping U-shaped iron horseshoes.
The overlapping sections had ridges, making them impossible to remove once locked.
The only way to get these off was to blow one wrist completely apart.
The moment I realized these shackles had been built from the accumulated deaths of countless innocent people, they felt even heavier.
"Now then, what do I do?"
It was impossible to unlock these shackles, not even with a keyhole. So I shifted my target from the shackles to the iron stake embedded in the wall.
It was a dark room, but when I felt around by hand, I could tell the wall was full of cracks. It was definitely an old building.
With both arms stretched wide, I felt along the spots where the iron stakes had been driven in on either side.
I could feel concrete crumbs flaking off at my fingertips.
I had no idea how many humans had been locked up here as sacrifices. But they hadn't just given up and waited for death.
They would have struggled to live. The bastards had left them alone because they knew it was pointless. Maybe they had even enjoyed it.
But it hadn't been completely pointless.
What had piled up in this room wasn't only death. The desperate struggle for life left behind by the victims who had trembled and died here had now become a sliver of light for me.
Kreee….
The iron stake connected to the shackle on my right hand moved, if only a little.
There was no way I could have done this alone. Because the previous victims had been yanking the shackles around so much, the stake's hold had loosened slightly.
I offered silent condolences to the victims before winding the chain around my hand.
Once the chain was wrapped and the back of my hand pressed against the iron stake, I pulled hard, straight upward.
Clang…!
It only twitched a little and refused to budge. I flicked my eyes up to check the foreman bastard.
"Kehhehehehe!! Smack, smack...."
Whatever tasty thing he was eating in his sleep—human, most likely—he kept smacking his lips and dozing. No sign of waking. Taking that as my opening, I yanked on the chain several more times.
At first it seemed useless, but the more I repeated it, the more debris fell to the floor. The stake began to shake noticeably, and it was definitely sticking out farther than before.
I was just deciding that one more push might be enough to pull it free when—
Step. Step.
"...Tch!"
I clicked my tongue. Of all times, I could hear someone walking outside the door.
Not one person. At least two or three.
"Hey~ The company dinner yesterday was fine, right, chief?"
"That second round at the karaoke place, the woman's meat we ate there was exactly my taste. Can't we get something like that again?"
"Don't worry, section chief. I'll get it soon and have it ready for the next dinner."
"Hoho! Now that's something to look forward to. Will you be joining us too, manager?"
"Hmm. I already gorged myself last time, so I'm good. More than that, about that karaoke place we went to...."
...There were landmines in odd places, but the conversation sounded like something ordinary office workers might exchange.
Was it true they really ran this place like a company? I'd thought it was just roleplay.
I quietly put the chain back where it had been and sat still. Then the door rattled open, and three men walked in.
A short, slight man; a tall man with a horse-like face; and an old man with a splendid beard and a plump build that made him look like some chicken shop mascot.
"This is the new 'material' we brought in this time."
The slight man pointed at me as soon as he entered, introducing me like I was merchandise.
Then the plump old man stroked his mustache and let out a small groan.
"Hmm. The body looks sturdy enough, so he's clearly trained, but there's nothing especially satisfying about him. Isn't he a bit too plain?"
"Manager. Isn't it our job to take something plain like that and turn it into a presence that spreads through people's hearts?"
The horse-faced man rubbed his hands together as if flattering him.
The words "What the hell have you added to my plainness, you bastards?" rose to the tip of my tongue, but I forced them back down. I was the kidnapped one, and they held the power of life and death. Provoking them carelessly would be dangerous.
"So these are the 'superiors' Minami was talking about...."
I had expected as much from the moment they talked about turning people into works of art, but they really weren't normal.
Whenever I felt their gaze on me as prey, pain flared in the scar Eto had left on me long ago, and I knew it instantly.
I didn't know why that happened, but maybe my subconscious was picking up on the difference between gazes I couldn't consciously tell apart and warning me.
But with these people, that gaze was weak.
They were definitely looking at me, definitely planning to hurt me, but it wasn't for the sake of eating me. It wasn't for survival.
It was just amusement. A ridiculous pleasure-killing dressed up like some noble mission.
Three pairs of eyes wondering how to take me apart and reassemble me so I'd look more beautiful. In a sense, they were even worse than other Ghouls.
"Hmm, I suppose we can think it over slowly. By the way, is the foreman asleep? He said he'd come with Minami a little while ago, so where is that guy?"
Judging from the conversation, the old man who seemed to be the manager looked up at the foreman sleeping from the ceiling. Then, as if he had been waiting for his cue, Minami's voice rang out.
"Yeees~! It's the Minami everyone's been waiting for~☆"
Beyond the wide-open door, I saw Minami sliding across the floor as he appeared.
He had a thick stack of papers in one hand and a tray in the other.
On the tray were four mugs for the old man. Steam curled up from them, carrying the rich smell of coffee.
Minami danced between the three Ghouls, handing out what looked like coffee he'd prepared himself.
Then he thudded the tray down on the table and placed the stack of papers on top of it.
"Now, now, now~! Drink your coffee and listen up~. This Minami has come back with an absolutely brilliant proposal~."
"What? You finished it in less than a day after bringing in the material?"
"Well, the moment I saw our Koma-kun, something just went ping! straight into my chest~! Inspiration shot right up, so how could I sit still~? Ah, section chief, would you like some sugar cubes made from bone?"
The room, which had been suffocating under the strange pressure of the three men, grew even more chaotic with Minami's arrival.
What was this? The mood-maker every company supposedly had one of? Though this was definitely not a good mood.
"You're awfully impatient. Wait a bit. This time I'm not going to slap together some half-baked thing like last time; I'll put together a proper proposal. We'll have a meeting then. First, let's identify the subject. Hey, you. What's your name?"
The slight man, apparently the section chief, came over while drinking coffee and nudged me with the tip of his shoe.
Between his attitude and the way he looked down at me, being kidnapped was bad enough; now it was insulting too.
But I couldn't afford to deal with each one individually.
These guys were clearly the rank-and-file, the section chief, the manager, the department head, and the foreman.
By rank, the foreman was the highest, but he was still asleep and couldn't communicate.
Besides, how was a guy who kept shouting nothing but "Kehhehe" supposed to be a foreman? What was the standard for assigning ranks here?
Anyway, the foreman was out of the question, so I looked at the old man who seemed to be the second-highest and said, "Um, sorry, but could you just send me home? Like you just said, wouldn't turning such a plain guy into a work of art be an insult to art itself?"
"Hmm, I do agree with that part, but one of our mottos is 'Let's recycle any trash into a work of art.' And we can't just let someone who knows about us walk away."
"I've heard this kind of thing a lot, but I absolutely won't tell you anything. I'm not just saying that. If necessary, I'll even do it here... Agh!!"
Mid-sentence, a scream burst out. Heat spilled from the top of my head and ran down under my chin. It was so hot it felt like my scalp was going to peel off.
The liquid running down from my head touched my lips. I licked it with my tongue. Bitter. Coffee.
"Can't you read the room, trash? You're here as 'material.' A material doesn't get to talk however it wants."
It was the section chief bastard.
He had poured freshly boiled coffee over my head.
It was as if he were saying, Who do you think you are, ignoring me like that?
"Section chief~ You shouldn't hurt such precious material, should you?"
"Hmph. Shut it. As long as the bones are fine, there's no special problem, is there? Or what? Are you defending him because he's the same species as you?"
"Not at all~ And I told you, I want to be treated as a Ghoul~."
The sound of Minami's screw-loose voice fitting together with the section chief's voice reached my ears.
"Material," huh... I'd thought the bottom rung of fallen human dignity would be slavery, but apparently there was something even lower.
I lowered my head and spoke.
"...At least let me use a phone."
Crash!!
An empty mug smashed down on my head and shattered. It was that section chief bastard again.
"I told you not to babble carelessly, didn't I?"
"Please. I need to contact my daughter right now...."
"You little—!"
Pow!!!
My jaw was knocked sideways. For a Ghoul, he'd held back on the force, but it was enough to send the thread of consciousness flying out of my hands.
Even as my vision went dim, I ground my teeth.
I had to contact Eto somehow. By now she'd probably realized something had happened at home.
The most dangerous thing right now wasn't resisting these people. It was leaving that child alone.
"If this keeps up... that kid's going to go berserk, you idiots...!!"
I wanted to say that, but my mouth only opened and closed soundlessly. Then my consciousness cut off.