Chapter 64

Chapter 64. Memories of Maggie (1)

“Hmm. What’s wrong with this thing now?”

Yukgap tilted his head as he glanced at the dish dryer.

For some reason, the machine was not working properly.

Had it broken?

Without thinking much about it, he reached toward the dryer.

A scorching wave of heat hit his hand.

“Ah! Hot!”

Yukgap reflexively pulled his hand back.

He had only touched it for a moment, but the inside of the dryer was unbelievably hot.

“This thing is seriously broken. At this rate, it could cook a person.”

Yukgap muttered while looking at his burned hand as it slowly regenerated.

It was fortunate that he was an Archon with terrifyingly fast recovery.

Anyone else would have suffered a serious injury.

“Victoria! Victoria! Come here for a second! I think the dish dryer is broken!”

He called for Victoria out of habit.

But there was no answer.

What was she doing?

Yukgap stepped out of the kitchen to look for her.

“Long ago, on the grassy hill, where Maggie and I used to play... I hear the sound of the waterwheel, Maggie... The waterwheel has fallen silent. Maggie, my beloved Maggie...”

He spotted Victoria sitting in a corner of the dining hall, sniffling.

She was watching television while tearfully humming along to a song.

“What are you doing?”

Victoria wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

“A really touching song came on TV, and I ended up singing along without realizing it.”

Then she murmured with admiration,

“I wonder what kind of memories this person had with Maggie to write such a beautiful song.”

Yukgap answered indifferently.

“Fine, but come fix the dryer. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but it’s insanely hot. Someone could get cooked in there.”

At the moment, Yukgap cared far more about the dish dryer than some song.

But Victoria did not seem to hear him.

She simply kept staring at the television and singing along.

“The sound of the waterwheel has stopped... Maggie... my beloved... Maggie...”

“Up we go.”

Yukgap set a fish tank down inside Restaurant Shelley.

Victoria tilted her head curiously.

“Yukgap, what’s that?”

“It was cheap at the fish market, so I bought it.”

Yukgap opened the lid of the tank.

Victoria casually looked inside and found herself staring directly at the creature within.

A long, dark body.

Smooth, glossy skin.

And several long whiskers around its head.

It was a catfish.

“A catfish?”

Victoria immediately showed interest.

Yukgap explained casually,

“Yeah. Apparently they can smell a little muddy, but they’re supposed to taste good fried or boiled. I figured I’d try developing a new menu with one.”

Victoria recoiled.

“So you’re going to kill it?”

“What are you acting shocked about? Did you forget what animal I was fused with?”

Yukgap had been combined with a carnivorous cheetah.

If he empathized with every living thing people ate, he would starve to death.

“Poor catfish. Poor Maggie... playing on the grassy hill...”

Victoria, however, could not take her eyes off the catfish.

“Huh?”

Yukgap stared at the tank in confusion.

The catfish was supposed to be inside.

But the tank was empty.

“There’s only one person who would do something like this.”

Yukgap immediately stormed toward Victoria’s laboratory.

He shouted furiously,

“Victoria! How many times have I told you not to mess with my ingredients?!”

Victoria greeted him with a perfectly calm expression.

“Oh, Yukgap. You’re here?”

In front of her, the catfish was writhing around on enormous mechanical legs.

Yukgap had no idea how they had been attached, but the machine-like limbs seemed fused to the fish as if they were part of its body.

The catfish clattered around the room while flapping its fins.

The sight was so difficult to describe that Yukgap screamed on instinct.

“Aaaaaaaaaah! What the hell is that?!”

“A catfish.”

Victoria’s answer was painfully simple.

“What did you do to the catfish?!”

Yukgap asked in horror.

Victoria spoke with deep emotion.

“I was listening to ‘Memories of Maggie,’ and suddenly this poor catfish looked so pitiful. So I modified it a little to protect its memories of the grassy hill. What do you think?”

“No matter how I look at it, I’m pretty sure the Maggie in that song wasn’t this catfish.”

The catfish suddenly thrashed its body and made a bizarre sound.

“Screeeee... Gwoooooorgh!”

It was an indescribably strange noise.

Yukgap recoiled.

“It can make sounds now too?”

“I modified its gills while I was at it. It can’t really speak, but it can produce simple vocalizations!”

Yukgap stared at her in disbelief.

“Why did you give a fish legs in the first place? And why modify its gills? It can’t even survive outside water!”

Victoria smiled confidently, as though she had been waiting for him to ask.

“Hehehe. Don’t worry. I already solved that too.”

She pointed at the catfish’s slick skin.

“Catfish can breathe through their skin, and they naturally produce mucus, so they can survive on land for a limited time.”

Victoria continued proudly,

“So I strengthened the mucus through genetic modification and made it capable of breathing on land!”

“Screee. Gurgurgurgur.”

The catfish twisted and flopped as though answering her.

It was an utterly grotesque sight.

Yukgap did his best to ignore both of them and held out his hand.

“Fine. Now give it back. That’s an ingredient. I already prepared everything else.”

“Gurgurgurgur!”

The moment it heard him, the catfish flapped violently and let out a strange cry.

Victoria immediately scolded Yukgap.

“Cruel! Are you really going to trample all over the memories of the grassy hill like this? Look at the poor catfish’s face!”

“A fish’s face looks like a fish’s face.”

Victoria hurriedly stepped in front of him.

“Anyway, you can’t have this one! It’s my masterpiece!”

“Then what are you planning to do with it?”

Yukgap asked skeptically.

Victoria answered firmly,

“I’m going to take responsibility and raise it.”

“What? Say something that makes sense!”

Naturally, Yukgap was dumbfounded.

But Victoria had already made up her mind.

She smiled brightly at the catfish as it stumbled around on its mechanical legs.

“Don’t worry. For the sake of the memories of the grassy hill, I’ll protect you!”

“Ah! Hot!”

Yukgap touched the dish dryer out of habit and immediately jerked his hand back.

His hand was already red from the heat.

[What is wrong?]

Robert had heard his shout and glanced over.

Yukgap showed him his slowly regenerating hand.

“I forgot the dish dryer was broken. I don’t know what happened, but it’s ridiculously hot. At this rate, it could cook someone.”

[Heh heh. Has the rebellion of the Machine Empire finally begun?]

While they were talking, the catfish with mechanical legs wriggled past them.

“Gurgurgurgurgur.”

Robert stared at it in silence.

Then he asked in a trembling voice,

[Yukgap... what is that cursed life-form?]

“Ask Victoria. She got obsessed with some weird song and made another monstrosity.”

Despite being an aquatic creature, the catfish seemed to have adapted surprisingly well to land.

By flapping its body, it could control its mechanical legs with unexpected skill.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

Victoria warmly greeted the catfish.

“Gurgurgurgur.”

Like a dog or cat, the catfish rubbed its head against Victoria’s leg.

Victoria placed various ingredients in front of it.

“I prepared all this for you! Eat as much as you want!”

“Gurgurgurgur.”

The catfish began gobbling down the ingredients as though sucking them into its huge mouth.

Yukgap watched with concern.

“Is it okay to feed it things like that?”

“Of course! Catfish are omnivores. They’ll eat almost anything.”

Victoria smiled proudly.

“And depending on the species, some can live for several decades. That makes it a pretty good pet, if you think about it.”

“Gurgurgurgur!”

The catfish opened and closed its gills happily.

Robert watched it closely, then whispered into Yukgap’s ear.

[Yukgap. I have a bad feeling about this. That cursed lump of flesh is going to cause trouble.]

“You thought so too?”

It had been a long time since the two of them agreed so strongly.

Victoria, meanwhile, simply stared at the catfish with overflowing affection.

“Hehehe. So cute.”

“Huh?”

Yukgap looked around inside the refrigerator.

It should have been packed with the ingredients he had bought yesterday.

Instead, it was completely empty.

“Where did all the food go?”

Then he noticed the catfish smacking its mouth in one corner of the kitchen.

Smack, smack.

The fish was chewing on something with its enormous mouth.

Pieces of yesterday’s ingredients were stuck around its mouth and on the floor beneath it.

Apparently, the culprit behind the refrigerator robbery was the catfish.

“Hey! Why are you eating that?!”

“Gurgurgurgur!”

When Yukgap shouted, the catfish flapped its fins angrily as though yelling back at him.

Then, apparently deciding the situation had turned dangerous, it scurried away.

“You little...!”

Furious, Yukgap chased after it.

For an aquatic creature, the catfish moved absurdly fast.

Then it darted behind Victoria, who happened to be coming the other way.

“Don’t think you can hide!”

Yukgap shouted.

Victoria immediately stepped in to stop him.

“Yukgap, why are you bullying that poor catfish?”

“I’m not bullying it! That thing ate everything in the refrigerator!”

Victoria looked impressed.

“Wow. I’d heard catfish were intelligent, but I didn’t think it could even open a refrigerator door.”

“This is not the time to be impressed!”

Victoria waved him off.

“Oh, let it go. It was probably hungry because it got bigger.”

Yukgap paused.

Something about those words bothered him.

“Now that you mention it... was it always this big?”

When he had first brought it home, the catfish had been about as long as his forearm.

Now it was nearly as thick and long as his thigh.

It had definitely gained weight and grown larger.

Victoria examined it closely.

“I heard some species can grow to several dozen meters. Maybe this one can too?”

“Gurgurgurgur.”

The catfish flapped its tail as though answering her.

It was going to get even bigger?

Yukgap imagined an enormous black catfish walking around Restaurant Shelley on mechanical legs while wagging its tail fin.

A chill ran down his spine.

“I really don’t want that.”