Chapter 9. A Warm Taste of Mother’s Cooking (2)
“What the hell? Why did it grow arms and legs?”
Yukgap asked in alarm.
Victoria explained casually.
“It’s constructing its body based on the information contained in the cells I injected. Of course, I can’t recreate an identical human being, but I can create something with a similar structure.”
Then she brought out a large tank.
It was filled with a reddish-orange liquid.
“And now it goes into my special alchemical cultivation fluid!”
Even at a glance, it was clearly no ordinary liquid.
Yukgap looked into the tank.
“What is this?”
“Elixir. You could call it the ultimate miracle substance of my alchemy.”
Pride filled Victoria’s voice.
“Elixir?”
The word was unfamiliar to Yukgap.
Victoria suddenly asked him another question.
“Do you know the ultimate wish and goal of every alchemist in the world?”
Yukgap answered lazily.
“Uh... make gold and live like royalty?”
“That’s just a misunderstanding spread by ordinary people.”
Victoria immediately corrected him.
“The reasons people become alchemists differ, but the final result we all pursue is only one thing. Alchemy itself is simply a process, a path used to reach that destination.”
Now Yukgap became curious too.
“So what’s the destination?”
“It has many names. ‘Crystallized Truth,’ ‘Perfect Matter,’ ‘Ultimate Element’... but there’s one name everyone knows.”
One phrase came from Victoria’s mouth.
“The Philosopher’s Stone.”
Victoria looked toward the tank filled with crimson liquid.
“And this Elixir is the substance that exists one step before the Philosopher’s Stone.”
She dropped the gradually growing homunculus into the tank.
“Gueeeeegh!”
The homunculus suddenly splashed around inside the Elixir, breathing rapidly.
Yukgap frowned uneasily.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Relax. Nothing will happen.”
Victoria tried to reassure him and pressed a button.
A large cable descended over the tank and connected to it.
“Now I just stimulate the cells with electricity to activate division. That’s all. Simple, right?”
Victoria looked at the homunculus in the tank with a satisfied smile.
“Now, my creation! Open your eyes! Recreate the taste of a mother’s cooking! Muahahahahaha!”
Victoria activated the electrical device while laughing like a mad scientist.
Crackle!
Bluish electricity with an ominous glow slammed into the tank.
“Ghoooooo!”
The homunculus’s scream filled the laboratory.
But the dramatic cell division Victoria expected did not happen.
Yukgap peered into the tank.
“...Looks like nothing happened.”
“Then I’ll just keep shocking it until something does.”
Without hesitation, Victoria activated the machine again.
Another violent current surged into the tank.
“Ghoooooo!”
“Muahahahahahaha!”
Victoria’s mad laughter and the homunculus’s screams continued echoing through the laboratory.
On the promised day, the elderly gentleman returned to Restaurant Shelley.
“Can I really taste my mother’s cooking again?”
His face was full of excitement and anticipation.
He looked almost unable to contain himself.
Victoria smiled warmly.
“Of course, sir. Thanks to your cooperation last time, we were able to prepare the finest ingredients.”
“Ah... finally...”
Tears welled in the elderly gentleman’s eyes.
Soon, Robert arrived carrying a dish.
It was Restaurant Shelley’s special menu created exclusively for him.
[The organic matter intended for you has been completed, lump of flesh.]
The plate contained only a thick, unidentified porridge-like substance.
The elderly gentleman, who had expected his mother’s cooking, looked confused.
“What is this?”
“It’s a dish that faithfully recreates your mother’s touch. Please try it.”
Victoria confidently encouraged him.
The elderly gentleman looked doubtful.
“It doesn’t look particularly special.”
He scooped up a spoonful of the strange porridge.
Then he placed it into his mouth with trembling hands.
His eyes immediately widened in horror.
“T-This taste!”
Victoria leaned forward expectantly.
“What do you think? How does our special dish made just for you taste?”
The elderly gentleman nearly screamed.
“It’s horrible! What the hell did you put in this?!”
Victoria glanced at the plate.
“Can’t you tell?”
With trembling hands, the elderly gentleman stirred the contents with his spoon.
Something floated to the surface.
A human hand.
It had been boiled until the joints and bones were visibly exposed.
“Whaaaagh! That’s a human hand!”
The elderly gentleman screamed.
Victoria immediately nodded.
“Correct. More specifically, we recreated ‘your mother’s hand’ using cells derived from your body.”
Her eyes sparkled as she pointed at the hand floating in the dish.
“And then we simmered that hand thoroughly to create a true mother’s touch. Do you like it?”
It was, literally, soup created by boiling a reconstructed mother’s hand.
The moment he realized what he had eaten, the elderly gentleman immediately started retching.
“Bleeergh!”
“Eek! Why are you throwing up? We worked really hard on that!”
Victoria looked completely confused.
The elderly gentleman roared.
“Shut up! You made me eat something like this! You people are insane!”
Yukgap quietly spoke from the side.
“See? I told you this probably wasn’t what he meant.”
Even while cooking it exactly as Victoria instructed, Yukgap had strongly suspected something was wrong.
Victoria, however, still seemed unable to understand what she had done wrong.
“B-But it really is his mother’s hand. Maybe we should’ve boiled the foot too?”
The elderly gentleman glared at her.
He hurled every insult he could think of.
“You lunatic! How could you feed a person something like this?! Forget it! I’m the idiot for expecting anything!”
He stormed toward the restaurant exit.
Victoria quickly stepped in front of him.
“Where are you going, sir?”
But the elderly gentleman was completely disgusted with Restaurant Shelley.
“Move! I don’t want to see another thing your restaurant makes!”
“I expected that, so we prepared another dish. You should at least taste that before leaving.”
Victoria tried to stop him.
But after what had happened, there was no chance he would listen to her.
“No! I don’t want to eat anything you people make!”
“That isn’t something the customer gets to decide.”
Victoria answered firmly.
Then she quickly called,
“Robert!”
As if he had been waiting for the signal, Robert opened the armor plate on his chest.
[Sleep deeply, lump of flesh.]
Pshhk!
A tranquilizer round fired from Robert’s chest.
It cut through the air and struck the elderly gentleman perfectly in the neck.
“Whaaaagh!”
The elderly gentleman screamed and collapsed.
The tranquilizer left him unable to move.
“Good. He’s definitely down.”
Victoria checked his condition and nodded.
Apparently, she had expected this and had given Robert instructions in advance.
“This is insane. What are you planning now?”
Yukgap asked with concern while looking at the trembling man on the floor.
Victoria sighed.
“Since things have gone this far, how can we just send him away? For the honor of Restaurant Shelley, we have to let him experience the real taste of his mother’s cooking.”
Victoria looked down at the unconscious elderly gentleman with a crazed smile.
“Don’t worry, sir. Restaurant Shelley always strives for customer satisfaction... whether the customer wants it or not.”
“Ahhh... delicious... so delicious...”
Tears of emotion streamed down the elderly gentleman’s face.
As though hypnotized, he continuously ate the food in front of him.
Victoria gently asked,
“Sir, do you like it?”
“Of course I do. I never thought I would taste this again... Ah... Mother...”
The elderly gentleman nodded with a blissful expression.
This was it.
The exact taste he had longed for.
The taste of his mother.
That warm, nostalgic flavor now spread before him once again.
Lost in memories and longing, he trembled with emotion.
“Victoria, are you sure this is okay?”
Yukgap asked uneasily while watching.
Victoria shrugged.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“But this is a little...”
Yukgap could not bring himself to finish.
Several wires were attached all over the elderly gentleman’s head.
Those wires were connected directly to Robert’s body.
[Do not worry, lump of flesh. Adjusting the primitive human brain is not particularly difficult for me.]
Robert spoke casually.
Victoria continued explaining.
“Taste is ultimately just an abstract concept created through electrical signals in the brain.”
She looked at the wires connected to the elderly gentleman’s head and smiled with satisfaction.
“In other words, if you stimulate the brain correctly, you can make someone experience any flavor you want!”
Under Victoria’s orders, Robert was currently sending electrical stimulation directly into the elderly gentleman’s brain.
The man had no idea what was happening to him.
He remained trapped inside an illusion created by those electrical signals and kept crying tears of joy.
“Ahhh... Mother... Mother...”
“Making him remember the taste of his late mother’s cooking isn’t particularly difficult.”
Victoria said it as though it were nothing.
But the sight of the elderly gentleman eating some unknown food while wires hung from his head was disturbing enough to make Yukgap uncomfortable.
“...I still feel like this isn’t okay.”
Yukgap muttered.
Victoria remained completely confident.
“What’s the problem? Look at how happy the customer is. As the restaurant owner, I simply satisfied the customer’s needs.”
“Ahhh... I’m so happy...”
As if agreeing with her, the elderly gentleman kept murmuring in bliss.
Victoria looked genuinely moved.
“Seeing a customer enjoy the food this much really makes me proud. Don’t you think?”
“No matter how I look at it, Victoria, I think you’re insane.”
Yukgap answered with complete exhaustion.
Victoria did not even blink.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. You have to be crazy about something if you want to succeed!”
