I see that Touka is confused as she frowns beneath her hood while at the same time I can feel perplexity emanating from her.
"Parasite? What do you mean by...?"
At that moment, the tired-looking man arrives beneath a streetlight that's completely broken. Therefore there's no light, only darkness.
The muscular ghoul takes advantage of that moment.
He moves fast.
He grabs the man in the suit from behind with his huge arms before pressing his hand over his mouth to prevent him from making any sound. The man tries to scream but only muffled murmurs come out.
Then in a blur he violently drags him toward the alley where no one can see them.
Touka, who saw all that happen in a matter of seconds, doesn't finish pronouncing her words. Instead she immediately switches to action mode.
"Let's go."
We both jump from the roof simultaneously, fall several meters and land on our feet in the alley.
We see that the ghoul has already brutally slammed the man against the building wall. The sound of the skull impacting against the concrete resonates in the narrow alley.
—Crack!
The man's head falls limp on his own shoulders.
But I know he's not dead yet. I can hear his heartbeat, and although it's weak, it's a constant sound. It seems he only lost consciousness after his head impacted so violently against the concrete.
The muscular ghoul turns his head toward us. He heard us land because we didn't bother to disguise the sound of our footsteps.
The ghoul's head begins to split.
"What the hell...?"
Touka's eyes open enormously with shock.
The upper part of the ghoul's skull opens slowly. It looks like a flower opening, but instead of petals rows of fleshy tissue are revealed that elongate. That tissue extends more and more before joining together forming thick tentacles with sharp blades at their tips.
What can I say besides that it's disgusting? I don't like tentacles.
"That's not a kagune..."
There's tension in Touka's voice.
I walk slowly toward the parasite ghoul while observing that thing with fascination.
"That's a parasite. And it's using this ghoul's body as a host."
'What Saya said before is really happening.'
I think while analyzing the monster in front of me.
'A parasite that can parasitize even a ghoul.'
But wait...
I look at the parasite ghoul with strangeness and at the same time, I feel curiosity.
Something doesn't make sense here.
The parasitic worm has a sharp head and can probably easily penetrate the flesh and bone of a normal human.
But ghouls are different in that aspect because ghouls have extremely hard flesh. In fact, even a knife couldn't penetrate even their skins. And even if it somehow manages to penetrate their flesh, ghouls have an absurd regeneration rate that would close the wound almost instantly.
So how the hell can a worm enter a ghoul?
Ah! Maybe it entered through his nose or through his eye?
It makes sense when I think about it.
The reason I won against mr. ghoul when I was six was because I had stabbed the splintered bed leg directly into his eye. That's a ghoul's weak point. Their eyes aren't hard like the rest of their body.
This ghoul may have even been unconscious or very seriously injured when the worm entered him.
Or maybe there's another completely different reason why a worm can penetrate a ghoul's body that I don't know yet.
'Well, there's no point thinking about these things that don't have clear answers.'
It'll only make my head spin like when I tried to put together that damn puzzle today.
—Swisshhh!
—Shiiink!
The flesh tentacles begin to move aggressively making air-cutting sounds while the blades at their tips move from side to side.
From the twisted mouth of the ghoul that's stuck near where all the grotesque tentacles join, the parasite ghoul speaks with a distorted voice.
"More... food... More..."
The voice sounds as if it came from very far away.
"This body... is strange... it needs more food... why? Why?"
Touka's sclera turns black and her irises glow in intense red. At the same time, with a tearing sound, behind her back appear her shining wings.
—Splash!
But this time they're different from when she showed them to me before in her house. It seems she can manipulate her kagune so it moves like fluid liquid or so it's completely hard and solid. Before when she showed them to me they moved like flames, but now I can see they've solidified forming hard structures like sharp crystals.
"I don't know exactly what's happening here."
Touka says with a cold voice.
"But we must eliminate this monster that's no longer really a ghoul. It seems dangerous."
Then she directs a narrowed look toward me.
"I have many questions for you after this. And you better answer them all. Tsk, this is exactly why I didn't want to go out tonight. How annoying."
I laugh seeing her click her tongue.
"Fufufu... It's an excellent Christmas night since I'll face a new type of monster I've never seen before. This is exciting."
"Crazy idiot."
As we exchange that kind of conversation, the parasite ghoul in front of us releases the unconscious man and his body falls to the ground.
—Thud!
I disappear from my position using all my speed.
I reappear instantly near the fallen man. It would be a real shame if this poor exhausted man who was just coming from work died here tonight, right?
That's why I give him a powerful kick in the stomach.
—Whaaaash!
His body goes flying far from the alley as I kick him like he's a soccer ball, although I think I've never kicked a ball before. It's a shame. The man's body cuts through the air and lands rolling on the main street several meters beyond.
I feel how some ribs break under my foot from the force of the impact.
But honestly? Well, I don't care much.
By briefly observing the man, I come to the thought that my initial mentality is gradually changing.
It seems my mentality from when I was a human in my previous life only appears sometimes and tells me that doing something bad to innocent humans isn't good.
But if I'm honest with myself, and dig deep into my real feelings, I no longer care much about those moral thoughts.
After all, I'm living in a world full of monsters that eat humans. So I should be a bit crazy too to survive, shouldn't I?
That's not bad, is it?
—Swooosh!
The parasite ghoul reacts when I got to just a few meters distance from him, and seeing I'm distracted, takes advantage to attack me.
He throws me a thick tentacle that whips violently toward me while the sharp blade at its tip aims at my neck seeking to decapitate me.
My smile grows hugely on my face.
I extend my hand and grab the tentacle tightly before it can reach me.
"Heh! Is that all? You're not very different from Mr. Takagi and Mr. dog."
—Clap!
I give him a hard slap on what's left of his distorted face.
All the tentacles stop for a moment. Parasite ghoul seems to be mentally processing the fact that I just slapped him.
Only after several seconds do his tentacles move again. He launches another attack toward me with fury.
But I dodge by moving my head to one side.
Then I slap him again on the other cheek.
—Clap!
"Fufufu... This is fun."
I say while laughing.
"Arata, you big idiot!"
Touka scolds me with an irritated voice from behind.
"Stop playing with him and finish this at once!"
×××
20 advanced chapters on Pa-treon.
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