"Those bastards really set up a meticulous encirclement."
Spreading the map out once more, I couldn't help but grimace.
The map was littered with X marks drawn in a massive circle; it looked as though they wouldn't let so much as an ant slip through. Every single mark represented the position of a Ghoul Investigator.
In the end, there was no weakness in the perimeter.
No matter which direction we turned, a wall of investigators blocked the way. If a battle broke out, the surrounding units could shift flexibly, seizing positions to surround us in an instant.
Whoever was in charge was clearly a capable commander.
That meant there was no way to slip the Ghouls out through a gap in the line. Consequently, the method we devised was a "back route."
Of course, if such a route already existed, the investigators would never have overlooked it.
Our goal was to carve out a back route where none existed.
"Found it."
While I was studying the map, Enji's voice drifted over. Eto, Kaya, and I, who had been scattered around the room, gathered at the sound.
We were currently hiding inside a building that had been shuttered for a long time.
Apparently, it had once served as a Ghoul research facility, but one day a captured Ghoul went berserk, plunging the place into utter chaos.
After the incident was brought under control, the laboratory was shut down to bury the memories of the tragedy.
When the facility closed, they supposedly sealed every passage connected to the underground sewers with concrete.
People had wondered why it was necessary to block the sewers just to close a lab, and suspicions arose that the tunnels had been used to dump something unsavory. The research facility remained silent, and eventually, the closure was dismissed as a minor commotion.
One of those concrete-sealed passages happened to connect perfectly to the sewers of Ward 7.
Eto had been the first to discover this route, suggesting that if we used it, the investigators likely wouldn't be able to reach us. The rest of us agreed.
Though the passage was closed, the sewer leading to Ward 7 was in a location that would be difficult for both investigators and Ghouls to access.
"Hup!"
Boom!
With a short grunt, Enji drove his fist into the concrete wall, blowing it apart.
Concrete fragments flew outward, but we didn't hear them hit the ground. The four of us peeked through the collapsed wall.
There was nothing there.
Only darkness.
In the middle of a wall so massive its scale was hard to fathom, the hole we had made was the only opening.
I clicked my tongue, recalling the rumors about the closed research facility.
"Seriously. They really did build the sewer in a weird place. Maybe the people who were here before really did dump something there, just like the rumors said."
"Maybe it really is a path that leads to Ward 24."
"Ward 24?"
At Kaya's mutter, I turned toward her. Eto also looked intrigued, as if she'd never heard of such a place.
That was because the wards in this city ran from Ward 1 to Ward 23. There was no such place as Ward 24.
Kaya gave a brief explanation.
"It's a district said to exist deep underground beneath the city. But the route leading there is unknown, and the suspected paths are blocked by a wall of kakuhou, making them impassable. Rumor has it that all kinds of ominous things abandoned by the city flow there."
"Sounds like an urban legend."
Why did the unknown pull so strongly at people's hearts? For a moment, I almost wanted to see Ward 24 for myself, but I quickly shook my head.
The reason the unknown drew people in was fear.
Uncertainty was fear itself, and because people felt that fear, they tried to alleviate it by seeking out the unknown.
I didn't know what a wall of kakuhou was, but just imagining it made me feel that I should stay far away.
Some kind of warning sign, perhaps? As someone who desired a peaceful life, I had no business ignoring warning signs and walking right into danger.
"So don't let your curiosity get the better of you, Eto."
Jolt!
Eto flinched and looked away. She was at an age where curiosity and impulsiveness ran high.
"Where's the other passage?"
"Hmm...."
At Enji's question, I unfolded the map again.
According to the map, there was a passage leading in from Ward 7 directly across from us, beyond the bottomless-looking floor.
But no matter where I looked straight ahead, the wall on the other side was smooth.
There wasn't a single hole that looked like it led to Ward 7.
"On the map, it's right in front of us, but it looks like the Ward 7 passage has also been sealed with concrete."
"If we know the direction, that's enough."
Kaya stepped forward and deployed her Kagune.
Her Kagune was an Ukaku.
Several wing-shaped shards shot forward like bullets, slamming into the wall in front of us.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-BOOM!
The six volleys struck the wall at regular intervals. A visible crack formed at one point before the entire section caved in, revealing another passage leading to Ward 7.
Now that a route had been secured to safely extract the subordinates, Enji and Kaya both looked relieved.
"We'll take it from here on our own."
"You sure? The path deeper into Ward 7 is still complicated."
"I've memorized the map, so it's fine."
Enji suggested they split up, and Kaya eased his concern by noting she had memorized the map in short order.
"And didn't you say you'd only dip a toe in and then pull back? It's going to get pretty deep from here, so it's better if you don't come."
"Fair enough."
"Then let's meet again alive."
After a brief farewell, Enji and Kaya leapt into the passage and disappeared. I stood there, staring in the direction they had gone.
"Aren't you going?"
"It won't take that long."
Eto spoke when I showed no sign of turning back, and I answered calmly.
Eto sighed and looked in the same direction as me, as if she couldn't help it.
"You're worried, aren't you?"
"If you stop reading a novel at an ambiguous point and go to sleep, do you think you'd be able to rest easy?"
"That's true."
Eto admitted it lightly.
I sat down in a suitable spot, and Eto took a seat beside me. Then, she pulled something out of her pocket.
A small rectangular snack. Chocolate.
Unlike other Ghouls, she could eat human food, but since she couldn't taste it or derive any nutrition from it, there was no way she had brought it for herself. She had brought it for me.
"Want some chocolate?"
"You expected me to hang around here?"
"I've been living with Dad for years. I know you too well."
With a proud little shrug, Eto handed me the chocolate, and I let out a dry laugh as I took it.
As I accepted the treat, I noticed something else remaining in Eto's pocket: a hard candy wrapped carefully in plastic.
"...."
"Just in case."
Under my gaze, Eto smiled awkwardly.
It wasn't an ordinary hard candy. It was one I had made for Eto previously.
The ingredients were simple. I had finely ground bones taken from a suicide victim's corpse, mixed them with my blood, and hardened the mixture into a round candy.
Eto's fighting style apparently burned through energy at an extreme rate. That energy included stamina, but also the nutrition she gained from eating humans.
When she fought the Artist, a single piece of human flesh had brought Eto back from the brink of death and turned the tide of battle. Using that experience as a reference, I had made this candy so it could help her if she ever found herself in dire danger.
The reason Eto had brought the Ghoul-only emergency candy was obvious. She was preparing for the worst.
"...I hope you never have to use it."
"Yeah."
I lifted my phone and checked the time.
12:15. Midnight had already passed. It wouldn't be strange for the investigators to move at any moment.
I turned my head again, looking toward the direction Enji and Kaya had disappeared, and muttered, "Whether you're Ghouls or investigators, come back as safely as you can. I'm not in the mood for another nightmare tonight."
"He's a strange one."
As they crossed the passage together, Kaya muttered the words under her breath. She didn't name anyone, but Enji, who could guess without needing to be told, agreed.
"He is strange."
The person they were talking about was Koma.
No matter how you looked at him, he was an ordinary human. He wasn't strong like a Ghoul Investigator or anything of the sort.
And yet, that man was raising a Ghoul daughter and had a Ghoul Investigator as a friend.
Even knowing that Enji and Kaya were Ghouls, he hadn't been afraid of them; instead, he had extended a helping hand despite barely knowing them.
To them, Koma was a strange human.
That was why they couldn't look at him the way they looked at other humans.
He was now a benefactor who had helped them and their subordinates.
"When Yoshimura-san sent us to him, I thought he was simply handing us over."
When they had first gone to see him because he was Kuzen's friend and discovered he was human, they had been stunned beyond words. But now they understood a little better why Kuzen had chosen to keep Koma as a friend.
"But that wasn't it. Yoshimura-san was entrusting us to him."
"...."
Kaya didn't answer, but she was already in agreement.
They had lived miserable lives without parents, eventually forming a group of their own. To people like them, the way Koma and Eto lived brought an inexplicable warmth to some corner of their hearts.
It was the feeling a child had toward a parent—something they had never once possessed.
After running for a long while, they saw the path ahead blocked. That must have been the final concrete sealing wall.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-BOOM!
Enji and Kaya smashed the wall in front of them together, swinging fist and foot in unison.
Leaping through the flying debris, Enji grinned and said, "Looks like our benefactor doesn't want anyone dying today."
"I'll let it slide just for today."
En and the Black Doberman.
Two old enemies who had been desperate to kill each other had formed a temporary alliance under the shared enemy of the CCG and the strange human named Koma.
"Commence the operation!"
At the commander's radio call, the investigators gripped their weapons and began entering the sewer.
For the first few minutes, nothing happened, but soon noisy reports began pouring in from all directions.
"Engagement in column 16A!"
"Ghoul sighted in 14C! Identified as B+ rank Ghoul 'Mole'!"
"Casualties in column 21D! Unable to identify the opposing Ghoul, but estimated to be A-rank or higher!"
"'Badger' spotted in 6A! Injured and fleeing!"
"Multiple Ghouls including 'Mantis' and 'Ptarmigan' spotted in column 10B! They're moving as a group and attacking the investigators!"
"Any upper-rank investigators with room to spare, support column 21! I'm heading to column 10 with the quasi-special class!"
Once it started, the heat of battle burst forth from every direction like a waterfall, and Hitokawa frowned. No matter how many times he experienced it, he never grew accustomed to that intensity.
"It's started."
"I-is it okay?"
"Don't worry. The investigators on the front line aren't weak enough for you to be concerned about."
The sounds of fighting were brutal, but Hitokawa knew very well that his allies wouldn't go down easily. What bothered him more was something else.
"Mole, Badger, Mantis, Ptarmigan... those are all just the identification names of Ward 7 Ghouls, aren't they? We definitely confirmed the presence of En and the Black Doberman, so why?"
What caught Hitokawa's attention were the two Ghoul groups that weren't colliding directly with the investigators.
If they were going to escape this place, now—while the encirclement was even slightly shaken by clashes with other Ghouls—should have been the perfect chance.
Were they planning to hole up inside? Or was this some kind of trap?
While Hitokawa wore a suspicious expression and Hoshino remained tense during her first large-scale battle, the boy named Arima standing behind them was looking in a completely different direction.
"...."
A faint glint passed through his eyes, which were not focused on the battle before him.
========================
The website for reading paid chapters is available on my Patreon. The number of chapters on Patreon: 120
Link: patreon.com/UltraMagnus_T