Ch.205Side Story: Cooking? – 2

The chicken that entered my mouth first dissolved my teeth and tongue.

Not content with just dissolving my teeth and tongue, it then completely destroyed the roof of my mouth and the mucous membrane of my cheeks. The mushy flesh mixed with blood flowed out of my mouth.

I placed the chicken leg in my hand back on the plate and looked down at the chicken legs turning crimson red with my blood as sauce. I still couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

Soon after, my lower jaw melted away. The slimy flesh and blood that had pooled in my mouth poured down onto the chicken. The plate was instantly stained with blood.

‘What… is this?’

Was I actually under some hallucination spell, and what I thought was meat was actually toxic waste? What kind of chicken leg completely destroys your lower jaw the moment it enters your mouth?

Though my pain receptors had been dulled after numerous suicide attempts, feeling no pain and dying were two different matters, so I immediately used healing magic.

If I left the wound untreated, I would surely die from excessive bleeding or something similar.

A green light circled around my neck, and sensation returned to my melted jaw and mouth. Only after moving my mouth around to confirm that the recovery was complete did I turn my attention back to the plate.

“…?”

Somehow, the plate was now empty except for a few bloodstains.

I blinked. I wondered if I was still dreaming. Until just before I used the healing magic, all four chicken legs, including the one I had been eating, were still intact.

Judging by the teeth scattered around the plate and the blood-stained tablecloth, what had just happened—my lower jaw melting away—was definitely not a dream.

Then, where had the food on the plate gone?

I raised my head with a questioning look. Serena, Charlotte, Christine, and even Olivia who had brought the food were all chewing on something, their lips moving slightly.

“…”

I seemed to understand what was going on.

“Olivia.”

“Yes, Abel?”

“Why on earth are you eating that?”

“Eating what?”

Olivia feigned innocence and looked away. At least she had enough conscience not to look me in the eye while lying.

“Serena.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Did you do it too?”

“…Yes.”

Serena, seemingly unable to lie to me, nodded while trembling. When I directed my questioning gaze toward Olivia, she subtly avoided my eyes.

“Christine.”

“Yes, my god.”

“You… never mind. Of course you did.”

“Indeed. How could I not consume the holy blood that you have spilled, my god?”

Christine was the type who would obviously have done so, so I didn’t really need to ask, but as expected, her answer came back without a hint of shame.

“Charlotte.”

“Indeed I did.”

“I haven’t even asked yet?”

“You were about to ask if I ate the food that was placed before you. What need is there to deny the truth? It is true that I took the meat soaked with your blood, and it is also true that I savored it carefully. And am I the only one who did so? Everyone here has savored the flesh soaked with your blood.”

Charlotte was not only more brazen than Christine, but she also grandly exposed the truth that everyone else had done the same. Well, Olivia was the only one who had lied so far.

At this internal whistleblowing, Serena and Olivia’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but when they met my gaze, they quickly composed themselves. Especially Olivia, whose lie had been exposed.

“Well, I don’t really mind you eating it…”

I had no intention of questioning or scolding them for eating food soaked in my blood. It was something they had been doing for a long time, and I had become quite accustomed to it.

Since I would heal anyway, there was nothing to be concerned about. Christine had even pulled out my heart and squeezed it to drink my blood, and Charlotte had literally chewed on me occasionally.

And that wasn’t all. Sucking on my fingers diligently before cutting them off and swallowing them was almost a daily occurrence.

Not to mention Olivia, who had cooked her own body and fed it to me. Among them, Serena was the most normal.

“Still, it’s covered in blood, so it’s dir—”

“It’s not dirty at all, Abel.”

“It is absolutely not dirty, my lord.”

“How can the holy blood spilled by my god be called dirty?”

“I have never thought so, so do not worry about it, my dear.”

“…”

Well, when the very people who ate such strange things say it’s not dirty, what can I say? Though I still don’t understand why they do such things.

“So, Olivia?”

“Yes?”

“What exactly did you cook?”

There was a brief interruption due to their impulsive behavior, but this was what I had initially wanted to ask. What kind of cooking would make my jaw melt the moment it entered my mouth?

It wouldn’t have been strange if she had served assassination poison rather than food. If I had been an ordinary person, I would have died instantly.

Olivia looked indignant.

“Abel, what I cooked was really just ordinary chicken. You checked yourself what was in the subspace, didn’t you?”

“Then?”

“There’s the culprit.”

Her finger pointed to the seat beside me, where Charlotte sat with an ambiguous smile.

“The culprit?”

“Yes. You can ask her if you want. No, you should definitely ask her what she did to the food.”

Thinking that Charlotte was quite capable of such a thing, I turned my gaze to her. The accused was resting her elbows on the table, hands clasped together supporting her chin, smiling as she looked at me.

Such an expression was as good as half-admitting that she had done it.

“Why did you do it?”

Not “did you really do it,” but directly asking why she did it. Charlotte, noticing that I was certain she was the culprit, answered confidently without hesitation.

“Would not the woman who fell for it be a fool? I cannot understand how someone who cannot even detect such a simple prank can claim to support her husband.”

Before I could respond, stunned by her answer, Olivia cut in.

“Oh, so you deliberately did that to mess with me? What kind of behavior is this? Huh?”

“I said it clearly. The woman who fell for it is a fool. One should never let their guard down anywhere if they wish to properly assist their husband, but falling for such a light prank means you are severely lacking in qualification.”

“How terribly must you have lived to worry about being poisoned while eating at home? Why don’t you try living kindly like me?”

“Kindly? You dare speak of goodness? To commit the absurd act of trying to steal my husband and then claim to be kind—such nonsense is not even worth refuting.”

Olivia and Charlotte began another round of verbal sparring. I let them fight. There was no reason to intervene as long as they didn’t start throwing punches.

Sadly, I had long given up trying to stop the four of them from arguing. It seemed more likely that the sun would rise in the west than for that to happen.

And if I were to say such a thing out loud, they might actually make the sun rise in the west.

“Who was next? Christine, was it?”

“Yes, my god. Please wait a moment.”

Christine bowed her head slightly and trotted into the kitchen.

As far as I knew, Christine didn’t really know how to cook. Since becoming elevated to something like an apostle who worshipped me, she had acquired a body that was far from normal life activities.

She essentially had no need to eat, drink, sleep, or rest. If she did such things, it was merely imitating human behavior.

If there’s no need to eat, there’s no need to cook. Christine was the person who most embodied this statement.

“The cooking is complete, my god.”

Christine emerged from the kitchen with a plate, claiming the cooking was done in what felt like less than 20 seconds. I stared at the plate in Christine’s hand, dumbfounded.

On it was a single raw carrot.

“Um… Christine? What is this?”

“It is cooking, my god.”

“Cooking? This?”

“Yes, my god.”

Even Olivia and Charlotte, who had been growling at each other as if they wanted to kill each other, stopped fighting and looked at the plate together, equally stunned. How could an uncooked carrot be considered cooking?

At first, I thought she was joking, but Christine was standing in front of me with a very serious expression, waiting for my evaluation. I reluctantly picked up the carrot.

The texture in my hand and the smell in my nose were both that of a raw carrot, making me wonder if she had given up on cooking, but when I bit into it—

“…?”

The carrot tasted like spaghetti.