Chapter 65. Memories of Maggie (2)
“Get away, you little bastard!”
Yukgap kicked the catfish that had latched onto him.
The catfish staggered back, then stared at the plate of food in Yukgap’s hands and opened and closed its gills.
“Gurgurgurgurgur!”
Hearing the commotion, Victoria came rushing over.
“What happened, Yukgap?”
Yukgap pointed at the catfish with a fed-up expression.
“This damn fish isn’t just going after the ingredients anymore. Now it’s trying to steal food meant for customers!”
“Why is it doing that? I clearly told it not to.”
“Do you seriously think a catfish understands you just because you told it something?!”
Yukgap snapped.
Then he gave Victoria a meaningful look.
“Why don’t we deal with it before it gets any bigger?”
Victoria recoiled.
“Deal with it? What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? I bought it as an ingredient, so obviously we cook it.”
Yukgap’s answer was so firm that Victoria suddenly screamed.
“Aaaaaah! You barbarian! How can you look at that adorable face and even think such a thing?!”
“How exactly is a catfish’s face adorable?”
Yukgap stared at her in disbelief.
Victoria refused to back down.
“Anyway, not this catfish! I can train it!”
“Haa... fine. Then please do something about it trying to steal the customers’ food.”
Whether the catfish understood their concerns or not, it simply opened and closed its gills and made its usual bizarre noises.
“Gurgurgurgurgur.”
“Gurgurgurgurgur.”
The catfish waddled across the floor using the mechanical legs attached to its body.
In a strange way, it looked almost majestic.
Yukgap watched it for a moment before quietly calling Robert.
“Hey, scrap heap.”
[What is it?]
“What do you think when you look at that catfish?”
Robert let out a series of beeps.
[I am a golem. I do not experience emotions in the same way humans do.]
“Really?”
[However, the moment I saw that creature, I learned what ‘disgust’ means. It is a disgusting life-form.]
“Pretty much what I thought.”
For once, the two were in complete agreement.
Robert shook his head at the catfish.
[I cannot understand why the Doctor dotes on that thing.]
“She probably got obsessed with that weird song. You know how Victoria gets when she fixates on something.”
Judging by how she constantly hummed that song about Maggie and some grassy hill, she had probably become emotionally attached to the lyrics and, by extension, to the catfish.
As usual, her thought process was impossible to understand.
[Why not secretly throw it away?]
Robert cautiously suggested.
Yukgap recoiled.
“What? If we did that, Victoria would never let us hear the end of it.”
[Yukgap, think carefully. That is an aquatic organism. Do you truly believe attaching mechanical legs to an aquatic creature and forcing it to roam around on land is correct?]
“That’s a surprisingly philosophical question for a golem.”
Robert looked at the catfish flapping its fins uselessly in the air.
[Keeping that cursed creature trapped on land is human greed. A fish belongs in the water. That is the natural order.]
“So, I think we should release the catfish.”
At Yukgap’s suggestion, Victoria stared at him in shock.
“W-What? Release it?”
“Yeah. We can’t keep raising a catfish on land forever. Victoria, do you really think a catfish would be happy after being dragged out of the water?”
“That’s...!”
Victoria could not immediately answer.
The truth was, Yukgap was not wrong.
He spoke seriously.
“I’m fine with not eating it. Let’s just put it back in the water. That’s probably what’s best for the catfish.”
Victoria hesitated for a moment.
Then she nodded.
“Yeah... that might be better. Instead of making it live on land like this, I should release it into a river with a waterwheel.”
“Good. I’ll find somewhere suitable.”
Yukgap was relieved that Victoria had accepted the idea more easily than expected.
Catfish were tough creatures anyway.
He had heard they could survive almost anywhere if released into the right kind of water.
Finding a suitable place should not be difficult.
“Gurgurgurgur.”
Suddenly, the catfish poked its head out from a corner in the distance.
Its black eyes were fixed on them, and its body was trembling.
It almost looked as though it were shaking with betrayal.
“Huh? Was it listening to us?”
“So what? It can’t understand what we’re saying anyway.”
Yukgap snorted.
Victoria gently approached the catfish instead.
“Maggie, we had fun together. Now I’m going to send you back to the water.”
“Gurgurgurgurgur!”
The catfish reacted far more violently than expected.
It even thrashed its body as though furious.
Yukgap and Victoria both stared.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Does it not want to go back to the water?”
The catfish opened its mouth and let out a bizarre cry of protest.
“Gurgurgurgurgur!”
Then it suddenly turned around and ran.
For something using mechanical legs, it was surprisingly fast.
Victoria and Yukgap shouted at the same time.
“It’s running away!”
“Catch it!”
The catfish scurried around, dodging them.
