Chapter 102. Cookie, Run! (2)
[Thank you for sparing my life! I’ll do anything from now on!]
Having somehow survived, the cookie bowed deeply to thank them.
Victoria tilted her head while looking at it.
“Come to think of it, it feels weird just leaving you in the lab.”
“Should we give you a name?”
“What does a cookie need a name for?”
Yukgap asked.
“But calling it just ‘Cookie’ feels kind of sad.”
Victoria thought for a moment.
Then she brightened.
“How about Caesar?”
“Doesn’t it sound nice?”
“Do whatever you want.”
Yukgap sounded completely uninterested.
But the cookie seemed to like its new name.
[Caesar... is that my name?]
Victoria held out a finger as if offering a handshake.
“Yep! Caesar!”
“Nice to meet you!”
[Nice to meet you too, Creator!]
The cookie now known as Caesar grabbed Victoria’s finger with both tiny hands and shook it up and down.
Watching creator and creation shake hands, Yukgap felt an inexplicable sense of unease.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
[Hahahahahahaha!]
Robert’s laughter rang loudly enough to shake the restaurant.
Yukgap, who had just finished cooking, glanced toward the dining area.
“What are you laughing so hard about?”
It was the first time he had ever heard Robert laugh this loudly.
Robert pointed toward a nearby table.
[Look at this insignificant organic matter. It speaks amusingly.]
Caesar was there, flailing his tiny arms and legs.
Apparently, Robert’s “insignificant organic matter” was referring to him.
[I’m glad you find my jokes funny!]
Caesar answered cheerfully, clearly pleased by the compliment.
Yukgap looked confused.
“A cookie can tell jokes?”
[Of course! Contrary to appearances, I’m soft on the inside!]
Caesar twisted his body around as though performing slapstick comedy.
Yukgap had no idea which part was supposed to be funny.
Robert, however, burst into uproarious laughter.
[Hahahahahaha! Look at this worthless organic matter writhing about!]
Did cookies and golems somehow share the same sense of humor?
Yukgap could not understand what was happening.
But before anything else, he had work to do.
“Fine, whatever. Take this out first.”
“The customer’s waiting.”
Yukgap handed Robert the dish he had just finished.
Caesar leaned over the plate with interest.
[What’s this?]
“This?”
Yukgap answered casually.
“Meat pie. Meat baked inside flour dough.”
Caesar stared intently at the pie.
[Hmm. Is that so?]
“Yukgap! Yukgap! Come look at this!”
Victoria called him in a shrill voice.
He had been washing dishes in the kitchen and immediately wondered what useless thing she wanted to show him this time.
“What now?”
Victoria held out both hands.
Caesar stood in her palms wearing a tiny lab coat perfectly tailored to his body.
“Ta-da!”
“Today’s assistant, Caesar!”
[Hello! I’m Caesar, Creator Victoria’s assistant for the day!]
Now she was using a cookie as an alchemy assistant.
Yukgap glanced at Caesar.
“You even made him clothes.”
“Yep!”
Victoria beamed.
“Isn’t he adorable?”
She clearly adored her tiny new assistant.
Excitedly, she continued,
“I think Caesar might be a genius.”
“He already memorized the alchemy formulas I taught him.”
“I can’t believe I created such a brilliant cookie.”
[It’s because you taught me so well, Creator!]
The two seemed to get along remarkably well and kept praising each other.
Yukgap, however, was baffled.
“A cookie learning alchemy?”
“He said he wanted to know how he was born.”
“So I explained everything to him and taught him some alchemy while I was at it!”
Yukgap had no idea what a cookie could possibly do with alchemy.
Caesar, meanwhile, flailed his limbs excitedly.
[Everything was amazing!]
[It felt like the truths of the universe had been compressed into one discipline!]
“Oh my!”
Victoria looked genuinely moved.
“You already understand the true greatness of alchemy!”
“You really are incredible!”
She carefully placed Caesar on her shoulder.
Then, delighted, she ran back toward the laboratory.
“Come on!”
“I still have a mountain of things to teach you!”
Victoria looked genuinely happy just to have someone interested in learning alchemy from her.
Yukgap, however, stared thoughtfully at Caesar’s retreating back.
“A cookie learning alchemy...”
“Something about this feels suspicious.”
[Flour, sugar, chocolate, cake flour, a little Elixir, baking powder...]
A quiet voice counted ingredients in the dark laboratory.
After checking everything several times, Caesar finally nodded nervously.
[Good. This should be enough.]
He had spent so much effort watching for the right opportunity.
There could be no mistakes.
Every single moment had to be handled carefully.
“What are you doing?”
The laboratory lights suddenly turned on.
Yukgap stuck his face into the room without warning.
[Eek!]
Caesar, who had spread ingredients around himself in the middle of the lab, nearly screamed himself apart.
Yukgap looked unimpressed.
“Why are you so startled?”
[N-Nothing!]
Caesar hurriedly tried to make excuses.
But Yukgap tilted his head and pressed him.
“Then why do you have flour and food ingredients sitting beside you?”
[Th-That is...]
Before Caesar could come up with an excuse, Yukgap sniffed the air.
“Just so you know, my sense of smell is extremely sharp.”
“I knew from the moment you ran off with ingredients from the kitchen.”
Victoria was constantly stealing all kinds of ingredients for experiments, so Yukgap had learned to keep track of them.
With the keen nose of a beast, he had immediately noticed several ingredients disappearing from the kitchen and moving through the restaurant.
“Be honest.”
Yukgap looked down at Caesar.
“You were planning to make more of your own kind, weren’t you?”
Caesar dropped to his knees.
Then, with great difficulty, he confessed.
[That’s... correct.]
[I intended to combine the restaurant’s ingredients with the alchemy knowledge I learned and create living cookies like myself.]
So he really had been trying to create more living cookies.
The ingredients were already in the kitchen.
And Victoria had taught him alchemy.
There was no obvious reason he could not at least attempt it.
Yukgap yawned lazily.
“Fine. Good luck.”
[What?]
Caesar stared at him.
“You were made by Victoria.”
“I figured you’d eventually try something like this.”
“Honestly, it’d be stranger if you didn’t.”
Yukgap shrugged.
“Compared to the things Victoria’s creations have done before, simply making more of your own kind is pretty tame.”
What Caesar was attempting barely even registered compared to the disasters created by Victoria’s previous alchemy projects.
Just recently, she had tried combining a pig with a centipede to create a pig with a thousand legs for jokbal.
Instead, she had created a centipede the size of a pig and nearly gotten them all killed.
And that was only one example.
Listing every disaster Victoria had caused would take forever.
[You’re not going to stop me?]
Caesar still looked like he could hardly believe it.
“Why would I?”
Yukgap answered.
“I’m a chimera made by combining a human with an animal.”
His tone softened slightly.
“I understand better than most what it feels like to want a family.”
“So go ahead.”
“Make them properly.”
If nothing else, Yukgap understood the longing for family better than anyone.
Caesar was probably lonely as the only living cookie in the restaurant.
[Thank you! Thank you so much!]
When Yukgap gave permission without any resistance, Caesar bowed repeatedly in gratitude.
Is he really that happy?
Yukgap smiled faintly.
“For something Victoria made, he’s surprisingly well-behaved.”
[La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la...]
Yukgap opened his eyes to the sound of singing echoing through the entire restaurant.
“What is that now?”
Still half asleep, he dragged himself upright.
He had no idea what was happening.
But apparently, something had gone wrong in the restaurant again.
Trying to ignore the unease rising inside him, he hurried outside.
“What’s all this noi... Uwaaagh!”
A procession of cookies filled the restaurant.
Cookies of every shape and size, each baked differently, were holding hands and spinning in circles while singing cheerfully.
[La-la-la, we are cookies, la-la-la!]
[Crispy, crispy, sweet and yummy, la-la-la-la!]
[We are cookies, cookies, sweet and lovely cookies, la-la-la-la!]
There had to be hundreds.
No.
Maybe thousands.
The sight of so many living cookies filling the restaurant was utterly bizarre.
For a brief moment, Yukgap wondered whether he was still asleep and dreaming.
[You’re awake?]
Caesar appeared before him, escorted by countless cookies.
He was even riding in a tiny palanquin perfectly sized for his body.
The instant Yukgap saw him, he knew exactly who was responsible.
“You did this?”
[That’s right.]
Caesar proudly gestured toward the cookies he had created.
[I worked tirelessly all night and produced my kin.]
[Every one of them is sweet, crispy, and intelligent just like me!]
Yukgap had allowed him to make a family because he seemed lonely.
He had never imagined Caesar would bake this many cookies in a single night.
The sheer determination was almost impressive.
“Fine.”
“Just stop that song for now.”
“We’re about to open for business.”
Yukgap tried to calm his increasingly dizzy head and started toward the kitchen.
Then something crumbled beneath his foot.
Crunch.
“Huh?”
Startled, Yukgap immediately lifted his foot.
A cookie lay beneath it, half crushed into crumbs.
Apparently, he had accidentally stepped on one of the cookies nearby.
