Chapter 285: 285: The Origin of Ghouls!

"And the lost kakuhou can grow back through feeding. The regeneration speed depends on the individual ghoul's constitution. Some can recover them in a short time, while others may need several months. But overall, Hinami won't truly lose anything. Instead, she'll gain the strength to protect the people and things she cares about."

"I... I agree."

The moment Ivan finished speaking, a small girl stepped out from behind Ryoko Fueguchi.

Hinami looked nervously at Ivan sitting on the throne and spoke timidly.

"I want to protect them, so... I'm willing."

"Good."

The corner of Ivan's mouth lifted as he looked toward the dark knight beside him.

"He'll take you on a little trip through the underground detention center in Ward 20. If that still isn't enough, I'll think of something else."

With that, Ivan left his clone behind and walked out of the devastated room with Rize Kamishiro.

Once they were outside, Rize frowned.

"What exactly do you gain from turning us into SSS-rated ghouls? I'm guessing you're already a kakuja. With your strength, even if you devoured more high-quality kakuhou, there shouldn't be much room left for improvement."

"Did the Washuu family tell you that?"

Ivan stopped beside a street corner.

"You know about the Washuu family?"

Rize looked genuinely surprised.

The Washuu family had hidden themselves extremely well within Japan. Ordinary ghouls and humans did not merely know nothing about them, most had probably never even heard the name.

"Several hundred years ago, the Washuu family was still based far away in the Middle East. In an underground air-raid shelter, they discovered the first naturally occurring one-eyed ghoul."

Ivan spoke at an unhurried pace.

"They poured an enormous amount of effort into studying the abnormal changes taking place in that one-eyed ghoul. They wanted abilities ordinary humans could never possess. To them, it represented an unimaginable fortune, enough power to rule the world..."

Rize listened with unusual focus.

She understood that whatever Ivan was telling her had to be part of the Washuu family's history, something they had buried and sealed away for centuries.

As Ivan continued, it felt as though an invisible hand was wiping away the dust from some forbidden ancient record.

"Later, after endless research, that one-eyed ghoul underwent even more dramatic changes. Its body became enormous, its appearance grotesque and terrifying. They called it the King of the Underground."

Ivan continued calmly.

"And they gave the process of that transformation a name."

"Dragonization."

The forbidden history seemed to open another page.

Rize felt as though she had touched something she was never supposed to know.

Her breathing quickened.

"One day, the Dragonization process finally reached completion."

"The one-eyed ghoul evolved into what they called a Dragon."

"But something happened that even they had never expected."

"The Dragon began releasing a virus."

"A Dragon Orphan virus capable of turning ordinary humans into ghouls."

"One mistake was all it took."

"The majority of the Washuu family living above that underground shelter were infected almost overnight and turned into ghouls who could survive only by eating human flesh."

The sudden catastrophe left the Washuu family terrified.

Ivan continued.

"So they activated their contingency measures, killed the Dragon of that era, and buried its body inside the cavern."

"A hundred years later, the Washuu family migrated from the Middle East to Japan."

"As the first generation of infected humans, their ghoul bloodline was unusually pure. They began calling themselves 'pure ghouls.'"

"But they never abandoned their research."

"Even back in the Middle East, they had discovered something else."

"When ghouls reproduced with humans whose bloodlines were far removed from ghoul ancestry, the resulting offspring were often stronger than pure ghouls."

"These descendants became what we now call half-ghouls, one-eyed ghouls, and half-humans."

The half-humans Ivan referred to were special descendants who carried ghoul blood but lacked the distinctive kakugan and kagune of true ghouls.

They could not form kakuhou inside their bodies, which meant they could not manifest kagune.

Unlike ordinary ghouls, however, they could eat normal human food while still possessing physical abilities comparable to those of ghouls.

On paper, it sounded almost perfect.

A near-ideal product of humans and ghouls.

Unfortunately, nature had played a cruel joke.

A half-human's lifespan was not even half that of an ordinary human.

"And then?" Rize asked immediately.

"Thanks to the rapid advances of modern medicine, the Washuu family eventually discovered that both ghouls and humans possessed a special type of cell."

"Rc cells."

"Exactly."

Ivan paused briefly before continuing.

"But they discovered that the concentration of Rc cells inside a ghoul's body was far higher than in a human. That extreme concentration was what gave ghouls their unusual abilities. The problem was that these cells naturally died off over time, so ghouls had to consume humans to maintain their Rc cell levels. And if they wanted to strengthen or evolve their kagune, then they had to turn on their own kind."

Ivan looked at her.

"But what happens when there aren't enough ghouls to consume?"

Rize was smart enough to arrive at the answer almost immediately.

"Create a Dragon and turn more humans into ghouls."

"Smart. That's exactly what the Washuu family tried to do."

Ivan continued at an easy pace.

"They used every method they could think of and carried out countless experiments, but they still couldn't create another Dragon."

"Then they discovered that one member of the Washuu family suffered from Rc cell over-secretion syndrome."

"A ghoul with that condition produces Rc cells at a far greater rate than an ordinary ghoul."

"Their appetite is also enormous. A normal ghoul might only need to eat one or two humans a month. Someone with this condition might need three or four humans every week."

"Naturally, the Washuu became extremely interested."

"And what excited them even more was that a ghoul suffering from this condition actually had the potential to evolve into a Dragon."

Ivan glanced at Rize.

"But one more condition had to be met."

"A one-eyed ghoul."

Rize's expression turned cold.

"So that's why I was imprisoned from the moment I was born."

Her voice was full of killing intent.

"They saw me as a breeding vessel for a Dragon."

"That's all I wanted to tell you."

Ivan pulled both hands out of his pockets.

A thin vertical slit opened in the center of his forehead.

Then both sides of his body stepped apart.

The flesh in the middle stretched and twisted like clay.

In the blink of an eye, two identical Ivans were standing where there had only been one.

"So you're raising me for the same reason."

Rize's sclera instantly turned black.

Her blood-red pupils locked onto Ivan.

"You want me to become the vessel that gives birth to a Dragon."

"More or less."

Ivan answered without trying to hide it.

To him, the Dragon's greatest value lay in its overwhelming flesh proliferation.

That ability could compensate for one of his biggest weaknesses.

Stamina.

Just imagine it.

Once his body became large enough to coil around an entire skyscraper, stamina would barely be a concern anymore.

At that point, Soldier Boy's trump card, the chest blast, would become little more than a standard attack in Ivan's hands.

That was the most valuable thing this world had to offer him.

As for kagune and the rest, those were little more than snacks he could pick up along the way.

Compared to special abilities, Ivan cared far more about strengthening his own body and mind.

Of course, if one day he could become some kind of nebula-like life-form, perhaps even a physical body could be discarded entirely.

But something like that was far too distant for him now.

Almost impossibly so.

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