Well over a week had passed since Eto was thrust into my care.
Introducing an entity like her into my solitary existence had completely upended my daily life. First of all, the reading material I opened most frequently had drastically shifted from light novels to beginner parenting guides.
Aside from the glaring fact that they consumed human flesh, a Ghoul infant was entirely identical to a human one. Music and games beneficial for infant development, checking their health via their excrement, tracking physical growth milestones and adapting my parenting methods accordingly... There was an endless mountain of things to learn. Finding books insufficient, I scoured TV programs and internet parenting forums for any scrap of knowledge I could find.
I didn't know Eto's exact birthdate, but judging by her developmental progress, she seemed to be just past the three-month mark.
"Let's see... 'Around the three-month mark, an infant's sense of smell becomes sharper, and their leg muscles develop, significantly increasing their kicking strength.' ...Is that right? Are you really getting stronger? Eto, try giving me a kick."
Reading a tip off someone's online parenting diary, I leaned my head closer to Eto. Whether she actually understood my words or it was just a coincidence, Eto let out a bright giggle and swung her little leg.
WHAM!!!
...I had overlooked a crucial fact.
Ghouls possess physical strength several times greater than that of an average human.
Apparently, this rule applied just as strictly to Ghoul infants.
Thud!!
Catching Eto's kick squarely to the jaw, I was sent sprawling, left to crawl helplessly on the floor for a good while. It was an incredibly vicious blow.
The next thing that drastically changed after my daily routine was the landscape of my apartment. A crib, rattles and other toys, a baby carrier for outings, diapers, baby powder... The chaotic domain of a high schooler obsessed with video games and novels was rapidly being devoured, overwritten by the undeniable footprint of a household raising a baby.
Well, assuming the astronomically low odds of me actually getting a girlfriend somehow occurred, bringing her back to my place is officially a lost cause.
Accumulating all these childcare supplies was necessary, but it brought about an entirely new crisis.
"...I need to start keeping a budget ledger."
How much money could a high schooler living alone possibly have? My father sent me a steady allowance for living expenses every month, but it wasn't exactly a fortune. Up until now, I had been surviving by cracking open the savings I'd hoarded for new video games to buy baby supplies. But even that was running dry; my absolute bare minimum living expenses were now severely threatened.
Should I ask my dad to send a bit more cash? ...No. He might give me the money for now, but the second he sniffs out anything suspicious, he'll show up at my door. I absolutely cannot let that happen.
But since I couldn't leave Eto alone and had nowhere to drop her off, getting a part-time job was out of the question. Was there really no impossibly convenient part-time job out there that would let me bring a baby to work?
"This is giving me a headache~!"
After racking my brain for a while and coming up empty, I threw myself onto my back in total surrender. Amused by my dramatic sigh and sudden collapse, Eto crawled over to me and began enthusiastically slapping my forehead with her tiny palms.
"Baa~!"
"...Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for the vigorous encouragement, Princess."
Getting aggressively patted on the head by those tiny, fern-like hands was weirdly therapeutic. Recovering a bit of energy, I sat back up, determined to find some sort of breakthrough.
Hoping I might stumble upon some useful information, I turned on the TV to the news channel. The same anchor I always saw whenever I flicked the channel on was reciting the daily headlines in his usual, robotic cadence.
"Today, around 8:00 AM, a mutilated corpse, suspected to be the victim of a Ghoul attack, was discovered on ☆★ Street in the 7th Ward. The victim has been identified as 55-year-old Nakajima Shioto, who ran a local bakery. It is believed he was attacked last night while returning home from work. In response, the Commission of Counter Ghoul, the CCG, has dispatched Ghoul Investigators..."
"Gah. That's right in this neighborhood."
The fact that a Ghoul was openly hunting humans nearby was a massive problem in itself, but the news that CCG Investigators were being dispatched to our ward was basically dumping gasoline onto my already blazing mountain of anxieties.
The TV screen cut to an interview with a middle-aged man introduced as an active-duty Ghoul Investigator. Clad in a stark white overcoat and gripping a metallic briefcase in one hand, he was the textbook image of a CCG operative.
Ghoul Investigators.
They were the professionals trained to hunt down and exterminate the Ghouls hiding among humanity. They were known to stand toe-to-toe with monsters possessing physical capabilities vastly superior to their own, without giving a single inch. While their official protocol allegedly involved attempting capture when possible, they operated under a merciless directive: at the slightest hint of danger, they were authorized to exterminate the target on the spot.
I didn't know what kind of treatment a Ghoul infant would receive, but I absolutely never wanted them to find out. A dry chuckle escaped my lips at the bitter irony of my situation: I was far more terrified of the Ghoul Investigators fighting on the side of humanity than the dangerous Ghoul prowling my neighborhood.
I sat Eto on my lap, pointing at the TV screen.
"Eto. You can never, ever go near people who look like that, okay? They're extremely scary."
"Boo?"
Eto just sucked on her finger, staring blankly at the Investigator on the screen. This child had zero concept of danger. She couldn't possibly comprehend that the ordinary-looking middle-aged man on the screen possessed a weapon capable of ripping open a ferocious Ghoul's stomach and spilling its guts in a single strike.
Therefore, it was my job to detect the danger for her and keep her as far away from it as possible. I doubted an Investigator possessed the superhuman ability to identify Eto as a Ghoul just by looking at her, but I figured it was best to avoid going outside for the time being.
Ding-dong~
"Hm? Who is it?"
I wasn't expecting any guests, nor could I recall ordering a package. Even if I had, it was incredibly rare for someone to visit at this time of day. Feeling a prickle of suspicion, I walked over and peered through the peephole to check the visitor.
"......!?!?!?!!!!"
I had once heard that when a person is truly, utterly horrified, they become incapable of making a sound. I never thought I would personally verify that fact. My mouth opened and closed like a dying fish, desperately trying to emit some kind of noise, but my brain went into overdrive, violently clamping down on my vocal cords to prevent even a single gasp from leaking out.
In the very next second, I pushed every muscle in my body to its absolute limit, tearing across the apartment in a frenzied blur.
I frantically swept up the mountain of baby supplies scattered across the room, violently stuffing them into my closet. When I ran out of space, I shoved the rest deep into the trash can. Adhering to the wisdom of 'hiding a tree in a forest,' I slipped the parenting guides between the pages of the adult magazines I used to frequent. Weeping tears of blood internally, I hurled the baby clothes I had bought for Eto straight out the window into the courtyard below.
The thought of having to retrieve and wash all of it later made me want to pass out, but I bit my lip and kept moving.
Finally, I scooped up Eto and looked wildly around the room.
Where? Where?! I just need to hide Eto!
Driven into a corner, I realized there was only one terribly compromising place left. I hid her there. Right before stashing her away, I whispered a desperate plea.
"You got that, Eto? You have to stay absolutely silent and still! Daddy... Daddy has to go fight the battle of his life right now!"
"Baa?"
Eto tilted her head, completely clueless. Obviously. Giving a dramatic speech to an infant was entirely pointless. Racking my brain to remember the exact moments Eto was at her quietest, I grabbed the blood bag and the baby bottle.
"Paa~!"
Eto's eyes sparkled. She clamped her mouth over the bottle and began to happily suck down my blood.
Okay, this should keep her quiet for a while.
I hurriedly shoved Eto into her hiding spot and yanked the front door open.
Having just survived a micro-war, I was completely drenched in cold sweat, my chest heaving raggedly. The man waiting outside the door stared at me with intense suspicion.
"...What exactly were you doing?"
"I was indulging in some private, solo recreational time. Extremely common for a young bachelor living alone."
"...Right. Never mind."
Nodding slightly, the man before me seemed to begrudgingly accept the excuse with the unspoken understanding shared between men.
Deep wrinkles etched into his face like the rings of a tree, marking him as a man well past his forties. A stark white overcoat draped over his shoulders, and a heavy steel briefcase locked in his grip.
The visitor standing at the door of my apartment was a CCG Ghoul Investigator, identical to the ones I had just seen on the TV.
And...
"So, what brings you here? ...Dad."
And... he was my father.