Chapter 140. My Name Is Victoria Frankenstein (3)
When Mary suddenly shouted at her, Victoria froze in fear.
“Mom...”
“Why are you just eating this?”
Mary demanded.
Victoria carefully repeated what she had been told before.
“You said I shouldn’t be picky and that I should eat whatever I’m given.”
Her mechanical answer only made Mary shout louder.
“I put three whole spoonfuls of salt in that!”
“A normal person would find it too salty to eat!”
Victoria could not understand why Mary was so angry.
Still, reading the mood, she pushed the salad away.
“Then I won’t eat it.”
Something about that reaction seemed to strike Mary.
She asked sharply,
“Victoria, do you understand the feeling of something being ‘delicious’?”
Victoria searched through what she knew and answered,
“Taste includes sourness, sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness. Astringency is a sensation of pressure, while spiciness is a form of pain, and different ingredients and seasonings are combined to create...”
“That’s not what I mean by taste!”
Mary cut her off with a shout.
“Everyone has flavors they like and flavors they hate!”
“My daughter Victoria loved sweet snacks, but she hated sour fruit!”
“She was so picky that she could barely touch salad unless it was drenched in dressing!”
“M-Mom... why are you suddenly acting like this...?”
Victoria could not understand why Mary had suddenly become angry and started cornering her.
But Mary no longer had enough composure to explain.
“I always thought something was strange.”
“Why do you eat everything I give you without complaint?”
“There has to be food you like and food you hate!”
Victoria tilted her head.
“What do you mean by food not having flavor?”
“Every food has flavor.”
Mary’s face stiffened.
Then, as if realizing something, she grabbed the salt shaker and poured a large amount over the salad.
She pushed it toward Victoria.
“Eat.”
Victoria looked frightened and unsure of what to do.
Mary barked,
“Hurry!”
Victoria cautiously took a bite of the heavily salted salad.
She chewed without hesitation.
Like a machine.
Mary stared at her and demanded,
“How is it?”
“The salty taste is much stronger than usual.”
“And?”
“...I don’t know.”
That answer made Mary realize something important.
She asked in a hollow voice,
“You don’t understand what it means for something to taste good, do you?”
“You can sense flavor, but you can’t feel that something is ‘delicious.’”
“That’s why you eat anything without complaining.”
“Unlike my daughter Victoria.”
Victoria immediately panicked.
“I am your daughter Victoria!”
“You told me!”
“You said that no matter what anyone says, I’m Victoria Frankenstein, your daughter!”
“My daughter is dead!”
Mary screamed.
“I brought her back.”
“I brought her back, but... you...”
“No matter how much I think about it, you’re not my daughter.”
Mary raised both arms and embraced empty air.
She looked lovingly at a daughter who was not there.
“My Victoria was afraid of blood.”
“She was such a coward she couldn’t sleep alone.”
“She only ate the foods she liked.”
“She hated vegetables.”
Mary’s face was filled with affection as she looked at the daughter who existed only in her memories.
Victoria hurriedly answered,
“I-I can do that too!”
“You still won’t be my daughter.”
Mary replied firmly.
She stepped backward, staring at the being she had created with disgust.
“Why didn’t I realize it?”
“No matter how perfectly I revived the body, the soul could never come back...”
“Why... why did I...”
“Why did I do something this foolish?”
“Mom...”
“Don’t call me Mom!”
Mary screamed hysterically.
Tears poured down her face.
“Every living thing understands what ‘delicious’ means!”
“An elephant doesn’t eat meat, and a lion doesn’t graze on grass!”
“But you don’t understand what ‘delicious’ feels like!”
Then the next words flew from Mary’s mouth like a blade.
“You’re not alive.”
Victoria trembled.
After a moment, she asked in a shaking voice,
“If I learn what ‘delicious’ means... will that be enough?”
She was desperate.
The person who had given her a name, alchemy, and love was denying her existence.
Victoria grabbed Mary’s hand and pleaded.
“I’ll try!”
“I’ll figure out what ‘delicious’ means!”
“I’ll become the perfect person you want me to be!”
“No.”
Mary violently shook off her hand.
“This was a foolish idea from the beginning.”
“Bringing a dead person back to life...”
“It was impossible from the start.”
“My husband was right.”
“The dead Victoria will never come back.”
Then Mary stared directly at the being in front of her and declared,
“You are not Victoria.”
“You are merely ‘something’ made from my daughter’s corpse.”
With that, Mary ran out while sobbing uncontrollably.
The next day, she was found hanging in a corner of her laboratory, cold and lifeless.
Her suicide note contained only one sentence.
[I’m going to see my daughter Victoria.]
[Even Doctor Mary never discovered exactly where things went wrong.]
Robert calmly explained what had happened.
[However, the revived Victoria could not experience the sensation of something being ‘delicious.’]
[She could feel hunger.]
[She could feel fullness.]
[She could detect ordinary flavors.]
[But she had no preferred ‘taste.’]
“That can’t be true!”
Yukgap immediately objected.
“When I first met Victoria, she said the food I made had an incredibly intense flavor!”
Hadn’t she eaten the strange lump of food he made back then and commented on it?
Robert asked,
[She said it was intense.]
[She did not say it was delicious.]
[Yukgap, has the Doctor ever said that any particular food was delicious?]
Yukgap searched through his memories.
Then slowly shook his head.
“No.”
“She just ate whatever I gave her.”
Victoria had always eaten his food without complaint.
She had never asked him to make something because she liked it.
Nor had she ever told him not to make something because she disliked it.
[The Doctor does not have foods she likes or dislikes.]
[All food is essentially the same to her.]
[She merely adds or removes nutrients according to what her body requires.]
Like a machine refueling, she only consumed whatever nutrients she needed at the moment.
It was an unnervingly mechanical way of eating.
[The Doctor is highly intelligent.]
[Although she cannot feel the sensation of ‘delicious,’ she learned what kinds of tastes people tend to prefer.]
[She has simply been acting out the appropriate responses.]
Robert continued.
[Doctor, you should come inside now.]
[It is cold.]
Robert cautiously addressed Victoria.
She was standing silently in the pouring rain, staring at Doctor Mary’s grave.
The gravestone read:
[Mary Frankenstein, gone to join her beloved daughter Victoria.]
After silently staring at her mother’s grave, Victoria finally spoke.
“Robert.”
“I’m not the Victoria you think I am.”
“You don’t have to call me Doctor.”
“The doctorate belonged to the ‘real’ Victoria, not me.”
[Doctor, to the eyes of a golem such as myself, you are the same.]
Robert continued in his stiff tone.
[Changing parts or replacing brain circuitry does not mean I cease to be myself.]
[The same principle applies here.]
[From a golem’s perspective, the previous Doctor Victoria and the current Doctor Victoria are the same model with different parts.]
Perhaps only a golem could offer comfort in such a way.
[No matter what anyone says, you are Victoria Frankenstein.]
“Thank you.”
The tears Victoria had been holding back finally spilled from her eyes.
The affirmation she had desperately wanted.
The one thing she had longed to hear.
Even though it came from a golem made of cold metal, it was exactly the comfort she needed.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for calling me Victoria.”
Victoria collapsed to her knees and sobbed for a long time.
Robert remained silently by her side.
Then he calmly said,
[The lawyer came and went.]
[Legally, you are still Doctor Mary’s daughter.]
[You have inherited all of her assets.]
Robert held out a map.
[These are the workshops Doctor Mary hid around the world.]
[All of them now belong to Victoria Frankenstein.]
Victoria wiped her tears and unfolded the map.
There were workshops throughout Europe.
The United States.
South America.
Africa.
And even in a distant eastern country called Korea.
So many.
Spread across such a vast world.
Victoria stared at the map for a long time.
Then she spoke with determination.
“Robert.”
“I’m going to travel the world.”
[The entire world?]
Victoria nodded firmly.
“Yes.”
“Somewhere out there, there might be food that can make me understand what ‘delicious’ feels like.”
“The world is huge.”
“And there are countless kinds of food.”
After saying that, she looked once more at the cold grave where her mother rested.
A voice filled with tangled emotions rose from her throat.
“If one day I finally experience that feeling...”
If she ever tasted food so delicious that it truly moved her.
If she could finally understand the feeling Mary had called delicious.
“Then...”
“Then maybe I can become the real Victoria Frankenstein too.”
Victoria swallowed the grief rising inside her while clinging to that faint hope.
Robert silently moved closer.
[I will accompany you.]
“You know I’m going very far, right?”
[It does not matter.]
[With Doctor Mary deceased, Doctor Victoria is now my master.]
Victoria thought for a moment.
Then she smiled brightly.
“All right.”
“Let’s go together.”
And so, the alchemist and the golem took their first steps into the vast world.
Hoping that somewhere along their journey, they would find a food that could finally teach Victoria what delicious truly meant.
