Ghoul

The Manager jolted awake from a nightmare, his eyes snapping open. His consciousness was still mired in the entanglement of the nightmare until a soft call by his ear slowly dragged him back to reality.

"Manager, Manager... you're finally awake."

Ken Kaneki let out a long sigh of relief. When he saw Chen Nuo dragging The Manager back earlier, his heart had almost stopped from fright, thinking The Manager had already kicked the bucket.

"Kaneki... you're alright."

The Manager looked at him with relief. At least the worst hadn't happened; as long as people were alive, there was always hope. At this moment, that was the only way he could comfort himself.

As he spoke, he looked down at his current situation.

Well, his hands and feet were tightly bound, and his body was firmly confined to the bed board, much like how a psychiatric hospital treats its patients.

This wasn't actually the key problem.

A restraint device like this shouldn't be able to hold an SSS-Rank Ghoul, but the problem was that the kakuho in The Manager's body wouldn't respond to his will, as if it had fallen into a deep slumber. Even his body had become weaker than ever before because of it.

It could be said that The Manager was now just a somewhat strong old man. This situation left him feeling deeply powerless; forget escaping, even breaking free was a difficult task.

"I'm fine, it's just that I might be a little anemic..."

Ken Kaneki said sheepishly. His face looked a bit pale, but his spirits seemed decent enough.

"How is Touka?"

The Manager looked around but couldn't find Touka Kirishima, which made him a bit nervous.

"She's fine too, it's just..."

Ken Kaneki hesitated, not knowing how to start. Fortunately, Touka Kirishima walked in at that moment and answered for him.

"Touka? Why are you dressed like that?"

The Manager's eyes widened. Thinking he was hallucinating, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, only to confirm he hadn't misseen.

Touka Kirishima was currently wearing a black and white maid outfit. Her slender, straight legs were wrapped in white stockings, and she wore black high heels, appearing both pure and seductive.

"Manager..."

Touka Kirishima tugged hard at the lace edge of her skirt, looking like she found it hard to speak. She kept her head down, not daring to look at anyone, the blush on her cheeks spreading all the way to her ears.

The Manager understood Touka Kirishima's personality. Unless she absolutely had no choice, she would never have put on this outfit. He couldn't help but offer a word of comfort.

"It must be hard for you, child."

"...Actually, it's alright."

Touka Kirishima's nose felt a bit sour, but she pretended to be fine.

That damn Investigator had insisted she wear this shameful outfit before he would grant her this limited freedom; otherwise, she would have been bound tightly just like Ken Kaneki.

Originally, Touka Kirishima would have rather died than submit, until she needed to use the bathroom. She really couldn't hold it anymore and could only choose the lesser of two evils.

"Hey, hey, hey, I just had you change your clothes, I didn't do anything else to you,"

Chen Nuo said, knocking on the door with a bit of annoyance.

"This is between us, it has nothing to do with The Manager,"

Touka Kirishima said, her tone urgent as she saw Chen Nuo.

She accepted the rules of Anteiku. Since she had chosen to attack Chen Nuo, she would bear all the consequences herself. Compared to the worst possible outcome, her current situation wasn't unbearable.

"It originally had nothing to do with him, but the moment he chose to attack me on your behalf, the situation changed."

As Chen Nuo spoke, he pulled out a syringe as thick as a forearm. Ken Kaneki, seeing the thing, shuddered in body and mind, clearly suffering from deep psychological trauma.

"Take my blood instead, The Manager is old."

Touka Kirishima stepped forward and rolled up her sleeve, revealing her snow-white arm, but she was brushed aside by Chen Nuo.

"What value does an underdeveloped Ghoul like you have compared to the SSS-Rank Owl?"

"SSS-Rank?"

Touka Kirishima looked at The Manager in shock, completely unexpected.

The seemingly kind and approachable Manager was actually an SSS-Rank Ghoul?

But now wasn't the time to think about that. Although Touka Kirishima didn't need to be bound, she had been injected with an Inhibitor, making her no different from an ordinary girl; she couldn't stop Chen Nuo's actions at all.

"It's alright, Touka, it's just a little blood,"

The Manager said comfortingly.

However, with the activity of the rc cells in his body severely suppressed, his blood regeneration ability was also heavily weakened. Losing a large amount of blood would still cause him physiological discomfort.

But this bit of negative impact was within The Manager's range of endurance.

"Investigator, what exactly do you want to do?"

The Manager asked curiously. He really couldn't understand Chen Nuo's motives and stance, so he could only try to communicate to gather more information.

"Just call me Nuo, Manager,"

Chen Nuo said after storing the still-warm blood.

"Ghouls need to consume humans to maintain the activity of the rc cells in their bodies. But from a biological perspective, this specialized diet doesn't fit natural evolution. The genetic similarity between Ghouls and humans is as high as 99%, so it's theoretically impossible for such biological traits to have evolved naturally."

These words caught the attention of the three people present, making them briefly forget their current predicament.

"And humans actually possess rc cells as well, it's just that the concentration is vastly different from Ghouls. But if the concentration of rc cells in a human body were raised to the same level as a Ghoul, what would happen?"

Chen Nuo turned to look at Ken Kaneki, whose heart immediately leaped into his throat as if he understood something.

"The human would become a Ghoul?"

Touka Kirishima whispered to herself.

"No, in most cases, they would fail to adapt and die instantly. Kaneki's case is an exception, but it does indeed support the possibility of a human turning into a Ghoul,"

Chen Nuo took over the conversation and corrected her.

"And what does that prove?"

As a poor student, Touka Kirishima was a bit frustrated. Chen Nuo's words seemed to be revealing the truth of the world to her, but her lack of knowledge and experience prevented her from deciphering the answer.

"In the development of human civilization, there have been many instances of cannibalism. The original Ghouls might have been born from that."

Chen Nuo revealed one possible origin for Ghouls. After all, in modern times there are methods to significantly increase the RC value in a person's body, even without transplanting a kakuho.

But the original Ghouls appeared a long time ago in the Middle East, a time when there was no related rc cell extraction technology.

And in the past, in the Middle East, there was no shortage of large-scale human cannibalism.

"There is no reproductive isolation between Ghouls and humans. Strictly speaking, they are the same species. It's just that in the evolution of humanity, Ghouls took a different path, and this path was tainted with original sin from the start, so it carries inherent genetic defects."

Chen Nuo finally provided a summary.

"Then how can the genetic defects of Ghouls be solved?"

Ken Kaneki broke the few seconds of silence and asked.

He was the one among the three who most urgently wanted to change all this. After all, having once been human, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, his heart still longed to change back.

Touka Kirishima and The Manager didn't speak, but their eager and hopeful gazes explained their inner thoughts.

As long as the issue of cannibalism was rooted out, there would be no fundamental conflict between humans and Ghouls, and coexistence would naturally become possible.

"Simple. After another thousand or eight hundred years of evolution, maybe Ghouls will self-correct this defect. After all, how long have humans been evolving, and how long have Ghouls been evolving? It's normal to have some bugs."

Chen Nuo's answer made Ken Kaneki's breath hitch, leaving him unsure of what to say for a moment.

Touka Kirishima had already started grinding her teeth. If she hadn't already tried biting Chen Nuo before, she wouldn't have been able to resist pouncing on him now.

"Then what if there is human intervention? Could it help Ghouls overcome this genetic defect sooner?"

The Manager was much more mature and found the key to the problem.

"What I'm doing right now is exactly that,"

Chen Nuo said indifferently.

Every world has its own suitable path. Clearly, Ghouls were the 'meta' answer for this world, it was just that the process of solving the problem was bound to be accompanied by various thorns and hardships that he needed to overcome.

Hearing this, the resistance and rejection in Touka Kirishima's heart dissipated a great deal, and her perception of Chen Nuo underwent nearly a 180-degree turn. But then she felt something was wrong.

"What does that have to do with you making me wear a maid outfit?"

"None, but it makes me happy."

Chen Nuo winked at Touka Kirishima, and in response, she tried to stomp on his foot with her high heel.

She missed and almost sprained her ankle.

Touka Kirishima was exasperated.

"Try this."

Chen Nuo pulled out a lollipop with a flick of his hand.

"Why should I?"

Touka Kirishima said huffily. Setting that question aside, as a Ghoul, she couldn't eat sugar anyway.

That bodily rejection would distort the original taste of all food, making it extremely difficult to swallow, and forcing it down would even cause damage to a Ghoul's body.

"To prove what I said,"

Chen Nuo looked at Touka Kirishima calmly, with a silent, indescribable charisma that unconsciously made people want to believe him.

When Touka Kirishima subconsciously popped the candy into her mouth, she suddenly realized—why was she listening to him? But then, the faint sweetness from the tip of her tongue made her forget everything else.

After being stunned for a long time, a strong wave of emotion surged into her heart.

Is this what sugar tastes like?

"Well, it seems the experiment was a success."

Chen Nuo took a small notebook from his pocket and wrote it down.

The Inhibitor he developed didn't just simply suppress the activity of rc cells; it was more like putting the rc cells into a deep sleep. Without the urgent need for evolution, the rc cells naturally wouldn't distort the original functionality of the human organs.

The theory was sound, but the actual operation was extremely difficult. This required not only a brain boosted by the Power of Seven Nuos but also the support of Biotechnica from various worlds.

At this point, he still had to thank the deceased Akihiro Kanou. Without the data he had accumulated over the years, Chen Nuo wouldn't have been able to produce results so quickly.

And there was Furuta Nimura; his Half-Ghoul remains also gave Chen Nuo a lot of inspiration. If there were a chance, he could add their names to the acknowledgments list.

"Can I have a taste too?"

Ken Kaneki said a bit urgently. He was almost forgetting the taste of candy now.

"It's useless for you to taste it; what you were injected with wasn't the latest Inhibitor."

Chen Nuo waved his hand, making Ken Kaneki feel a bit depressed.

He had noticed long ago that this person actually had a serious gender bias. Just look at the treatment of the three current captives: only Touka Kirishima could move freely.

Even the syringe used for her blood was several sizes smaller.

And don't tell me it's because she's wearing a maid outfit; it's not like nobody else could wear one.

"Alright, the ideological lecture is over. From now on, you'll have to cooperate with my work honestly."

Chen Nuo clapped his hands, drawing the attention of the three.

It was clear that the resistance and defiance in their eyes had lessened significantly.

However, establishing full trust would still take enough time to cultivate. After all, the beginning of their acquaintance couldn't exactly be described as friendly.

The Manager said no more, silently watching Chen Nuo. He adjusted his posture slightly to make himself a bit more comfortable, feeling that he would be lying here for a long time to come.

Yet The Manager felt an unprecedented sense of anticipation. His only worry was that his sudden disappearance would surely have a significant impact on Anteiku.

However, for a prisoner, a person lying on a bed being experimented on, such considerations were somewhat redundant.

Regardless of how gentle Chen Nuo's tone was now, it couldn't change the fact that their current relationship was unequal.

One must remember that the slap Chen Nuo had landed earlier still caused a phantom pain in the back of The Manager's head.

What truly made this SSS-Rank's heart submit wasn't just Chen Nuo's rhetoric and ideology—he wasn't as naive as Touka Kirishima—it was primarily the other's matchless power.

With such power, he could fundamentally carry out his ideology.

As for whether The Manager would place his bets on Chen Nuo later, that would depend on whether his actions matched his words... On the other side, the people in the Anteiku cafe had been waiting for The Manager's return, and one by one, they were starting to panic.

After all, The Manager was the backbone of Anteiku and their strongest combatant. Without such a pillar, the few of them couldn't even reach a consensus.

It should be noted that before Anteiku was established, the "Black Dobers" led by Irimi Kaya and the "Enma" led by Koma Enji were enemies. They were only forcefully reformed and brought together by The Manager.

Even though their relationship was indeed good now, there were still significant differences in their ideas and philosophies on how to handle things.

Especially without The Manager's suppression, the temper between the two was like a powder keg, nearly leading to a fight on the spot.

In the end, they parted on bad terms, each taking their own action.