Dr. Kano

The next few days were tense. Louis spent every day on edge, repeatedly telling Hinami not to go outside.

Louis also asked the system several times for detailed information about the original plot, only to be refused every time.

[The system does not know. The host should find a way to gather information himself!]

Gathering intelligence was a skill in its own right, but it was not one Louis possessed. His memories of the plot were strange, too. Since he had never studied it closely, he could not connect a lot of the events.

For instance, where had Irimi and Koma gone in the end? What had ultimately happened to the manager? Why had Kaneki joined Aogiri Tree, and what had he done afterward...? Louis had no idea.

For now, he could only take things one step at a time.

Fortunately, Touka had given up on taking revenge. That was genuinely good news, as it at least gave him time to rest and recover.

A few more days passed, and Louis relaxed a little. He went out shopping and picked up some ingredients to make himself a few better meals.

That same day, as Louis was about to head home with several bags of ingredients, he spotted Ken Kaneki coming out of a hospital.

"Kaneki?" Louis walked over and greeted him, then glanced curiously at the hospital. "What are you...?"

With a ghoul's ability to heal, did he still need to visit a hospital...?

"Um... I came for a follow-up." Noticing Louis's confusion, Kaneki moved closer and lowered his voice. "After that accident... this was the hospital where I woke up..."

"Huh?" Louis froze. Had they failed to detect that Kaneki was a ghoul here?

Instead of explaining, Kaneki tugged on Louis, motioning for him to follow.

This really was not a good place to talk.

The two of them found somewhere safe.

"Lou, I haven't told anyone what I'm about to tell you." Kaneki looked at Louis.

"When I changed from a human into a ghoul, I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in this private hospital."

"The hospital... couldn't detect that you were... what you are now?" Louis blinked.

"I'm not sure either... Touka told me that RC cell counts are the key to the blood tests humans use to identify ghouls. Ghouls have at least several times as many RC cells as humans." Kaneki shook his head.

"I don't know whether Dr. Kano ever ran a blood test on me, but at least he hasn't exposed me as a ghoul so far."

"It's a little strange, but Dr. Kano hasn't done anything to harm me, so I haven't told anyone at Anteiku."

If someone discovered a ghoul's identity, the ghoul had to kill them. That was one of the rules ghouls lived by.

Since Louis was not a ghoul, Kaneki had decided to share this secret with him.

After saying all that, Kaneki looked up again, only to find Louis wearing a grave expression, seemingly lost in thought.

Kanou...

That name was etched deep in Louis's mind.

In the plot as Louis remembered it, Dr. Kano had only appeared at the beginning and the end. Although he had not had much screen time, he seemed to be someone whose influence ran through the entire storyline.

"Kaneki, have you been looking into why you turned into a ghoul?" Louis asked, snapping out of his thoughts.

"Uh... yeah. Why bring that up all of a sudden...?" Kaneki still did not fully understand what was going on.

Louis patted him on the shoulder. "I'm curious about it too. Once things settle down this time, let's start investigating."

Kaneki took the day off, so Louis ended up taking the bus to Anteiku alone.

On the somewhat crowded bus, Louis could still smell the distinctive scent of ghouls. Conversely, they could smell his unusual fragrance too. Practically every stretch of the journey, a ghoul would approach him and strike up a conversation, inviting him over to their place or something similar.

"Sorry, I'm not into that." That got rid of the male ghouls.

"Sorry, I like men." That got rid of the female ghouls.

"My place is next to the CCG. Want to come along?" That got rid of the ghouls who wanted to visit his home.

In the end, Louis settled on simply ignoring them.

But even when he did not go looking for trouble, trouble always found him.

After getting off the bus, on the final stretch to Anteiku, a young girl dressed like a middle school student grabbed him. She looked only fourteen or fifteen.

Louis sniffed. Once he caught her scent, he could not even be bothered to have the system identify her.

"Please! Please, mister! Help my mom! She passed out over there." The frail-looking, long-haired girl clutched Louis's hand and sobbed miserably, enough to make anyone's heart overflow with sympathy.

Louis did not fall for it, though. After all, there was some truth to the saying that the better a ghoul could act, the crueler they were.

"I don't have time."

Louis answered casually, then turned to leave.

But the ghoul suddenly tightened her grip, forcibly holding Louis in place.

Louis looked at her in puzzlement. Ghouls this brazen were rare.

He glanced around and realized what had happened. He had accidentally wandered into a deserted area... The girl had probably intended to lure him somewhere even safer before making her move.

"Mister..."

Before she could finish, however, the sole of a size-forty shoe slammed into her face. The kick was so powerful that it sent her flying into an alley.

"You've got some nerve, acting so cocky with nobody around. Get lost," Louis muttered, then hurried away before she could recover.

"Is... is that guy even human?" The girl clutched her nose, eyes wide with disbelief as she watched him sprint away.

But remembering his fragrance left her frustrated and regretful again. She had let a delicious meal slip away when it was practically already in her mouth.

It was already evening when he returned to the coffee shop, the time when it had the most ghoul customers.

Louis walked inside. From their voices alone, he could tell that only ghouls remained in the shop. When human customers were present, their conversations were never this "explicit."

A discussion among a few of them caught Louis's interest.

"That Ice Mask really has some skill. He actually fought his way out of that many people surrounding him and seriously injured a Ghoul Investigator."

"Yeah. Thanks to him, things have finally been peaceful these past few days."

"Manager, just tell us who Ice Mask is, will you? Let us pay our respects."

Louis looked at the manager, who was making coffee. The manager merely smiled without answering, keeping his identity secret.

After all, some of these people might have been sent by other organizations to gather intelligence. No one knew whether they were friends or enemies.

Louis glanced at the people in the shop. Without saying a word, he headed straight upstairs.

Since that last battle, many ghouls had started talking about the newly emerged Ice Mask. Some praised his strength, while others criticized him for not killing the Ghoul Investigator outright.

Louis did not care about any of that. What truly concerned him was something one of them had just said.

"We finally got to enjoy a few peaceful days."

He had indeed injured Kureo Mado, but the wounds were not fatal. Given Mado's personality, it seemed unlikely that he would settle down. Besides, there were still the two newly dispatched Ghoul Investigators.

Even if they were wary of the strength of Ice Mask, Rabbit, and Devil Ape, they should not have stopped moving entirely. Instead, it seemed more like they were carrying out some sort of plan.