Late at night, in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward, an unfinished building stood near the Mita subway line.
Tatara, his short hair white and the lower half of his face hidden behind a mask, entered the fourth floor and found Eto Yoshimura leaning beside a window, gazing at the night sky.
Hearing Tatara's footsteps, Eto Yoshimura turned her head slightly:
"How are things outside?"
"...Very quiet."
After a moment of silence, Tatara chose the word "quiet" to describe it:
"I tried reaching every Ghoul I could contact. I couldn't get through to a single one."
"I also visited several Ghouls whose addresses I knew. Apart from a faint smell of blood, I found nothing. The landlords all told me there were no tenants they knew."
"I see..."
Although Tatara's words surprised Eto Yoshimura, her expression remained calm:
"What about the warehouse?"
Tatara fell silent for a moment at her question before saying:
"It's clean. So clean it's as if nothing ever happened there."
Eto Yoshimura narrowed her eyes. She knew exactly what the warehouse had looked like before.
Over a thousand Ghouls had fought and devoured one another there. The entire warehouse had been a mill grinding flesh and blood. It would have been strange if an ordinary person could enter without vomiting.
And now it had been "cleaned up" overnight?
At that thought, even Eto Yoshimura could not help feeling some admiration:
"It looks like this world's cleaners are very capable!"
Tatara remained silent.
By now, he more or less understood Eto Yoshimura's thinking, and he understood that her approach was the best available solution.
Over twenty thousand Ghouls had been killed overnight, without a single one managing to cause the slightest disturbance.
By the next day, the news media, the streets and alleys, and even the landlords at the murder