13 — Chapter 13

“Fufu. I’ve taken your Rook.”

“You’re awfully obsessed with the Rook today.”

“Well, Gilbert… if this were reality, don’t you think bringing down a castle is far more satisfying than simply shooting down a King?”

In a room within Waltzer Prison as dusk approached.

In a living room more lavishly decorated than even the royal castles of great powers, a man and a woman—Gilbert and Heidemarie—were enjoying a game of chess, as they did every day.

Heidemarie’s playstyle was bewildering.

At times, she would mow down Pawns like a berserker; at others, she would obsessively hunt her opponent’s Bishops.

Regardless of her method, the fact that she always emerged victorious in the end was a testament to her brilliant skill.

Heidemarie pressed a kiss to the captured Rook and flashed a smile at Gilbert across from her.

“Tell me. Do you think our lovely little girl has seized control of the Royal Palace by now?”

“…I was under the impression we weren’t sending an agent or an assassin, but simply letting our daughter leave the nest.”

“Oh, don’t be like that—it’s just a figure of speech. For instance, if a chef captures the stomachs of everyone in the castle, one could say that person has ‘seized control of the Royal Palace.’”

Heidemarie’s retort, delivered with a slight pout, was as charming as it was beautiful, giving her the aura of a young girl.

Losing his motivation to counter-attack, Gilbert gave a light shrug and focused on the board, searching for his next move.

Just then—

“I’m coming in.”

With barely a knock, a massive man stepped into the living room.

He possessed a long, muscular frame topped with a ferocious face that looked capable of making the weak-hearted faint with a single glare.

His name, despite the ill-fitting white apron he wore, was Isaac.

He was the Berserker who had once defeated a thousand-man army single-handedly—yet was so feared even by his own troops for his cruelty—and was eventually exiled from his home country on the grounds of having tortured a Holy Beast to death in a forbidden zone.

“Elma… isn’t here, so I have no motivation. This is all there is for today’s meal. Eat.”

Hailing from Montaigne, known as a land of gourmet food, he could not speak Luten—the official language of Waltzer Prison—fluently.

Because he had thoroughly taught Montaigne to Elma, his surrogate daughter, he’d never lacked a conversation partner; consequently, his disjointed speech had shown no improvement even after fifteen years.

Hearing those characteristic, chopped-off words, Heidemarie and the others knit their brows in exasperation.

“…Whole grilled Kraken again?”

“…At least make those Kraken dough-balls… the ones rolled in wheat and fried until crisp…”

“It is the taste of summer. Enjoy it.”

Isaac was utterly dismissive.

After quickly serving the grilled Kraken, he sat down heavily on a nearby sofa with a bored expression.

“Just when… that Eastern seasoning called ‘Miso’ was almost finished. Elma and I… were discussing having a full-course dragon meal for the summer solstice.”

Despite his appearance, the man who served as the prison’s chef was someone who deeply valued seasonal flavors and festive menus—provided his “beloved daughter” was there, of course.

“Wait, did you go and hunt a dragon again? Please stop. No matter how much everyone in the prison eats, there are always massive leftovers. I refuse to keep eating dragon meat day after day.”

Dragons, often described as large enough to cover the sky, were simply too massive and substantial to finish easily.

Incidentally, Isaac’s skills were the real deal; Heidemarie knew that in his hands, dragon meat tasted like high-quality chicken, so she had no objection to the dragon itself appearing on the table.

“Hmph. If you binge-eat… a beast like that can be cleared in a day.”

“…As expected of you.”

It was Heidemarie who had dubbed him “Gluttony” due to his near-infinite stomach, but being confronted with his sheer intensity like this made her feel like she was developing heartburn.

As she gave him a lukewarm response with a strained expression, Isaac scowled even more fiercely and let out a grunt through his nose.

“Ah, how boring. Honestly, the residents here lack respect for food. They don’t praise the preciousness of the creatures that became their sustenance, nor do they challenge themselves with unknown flavors. They just eat whatever is served and complain.”

Born with a naturally massive stomach and struck by a severe famine immediately after birth, a piercing sense of starvation had been ingrained in Isaac. He was obsessed with eating.

If he saw a nut, he ate it. He ate weeds. If he saw a living creature, his first thought was to eat it.

While hunting, he discovered the exquisite flavors of things called magical beasts or monsters, and from then on, he became a captive to those tastes, inadvertently honing his martial arts in the process.

The fact that he came to be praised as a warrior worth a thousand men was merely a side effect.

“Isaac, really now. You were stripped of your title as a warrior and thrown into prison precisely because you let that appetite and curiosity get the better of you, slaughtering Holy Beasts indiscriminately in the forbidden zones. You never learn, do you?”

“…In my own way, I took care not to eradicate the species. It’s strange that hunting magical beasts gets you praised, but hunting Holy Beasts gets you blamed. If I could have made those flavors known across the land, I would have been hailed as a ‘Saint of Food’ by now.”

A man who dreamed of becoming a Saint of Food while tearing through the viscera of Holy Beasts, magical beasts, and monsters.

That was the true identity of “Gluttony,” Isaac.

Appeasing his hunger and his interest in food was no ordinary task.

He could hunt and cook for himself, but that lacked the element of surprise, and he would grow hungry while shaking the frying pan.

Elma, who would hunt ingredients that even her mentor Isaac didn’t know and cook for him before his hunger could peak, was an irreplaceable existence to him.

Isaac let out a pained, yearning sigh and grumbled in his mother tongue.

『A combat style that kills in a single strike, and mass-cooking techniques that can serve hundreds at once. There aren’t many geniuses as gifted as Elma… If my hunger continues to worsen like this and I awaken to cannibalism, what on earth am I supposed to do?』

It was a monstrous statement delivered in a dejected tone.

Despite it being in Montaigne, Heidemarie and Gilbert caught the unsettling gist and exchanged exasperated glances.

“Cannibalism is forbidden. If you absolutely must eat, ask ‘Greed’ to provide you with some of the corpses from his experiments.”

Ethically speaking, that was also highly questionable.

However, Isaac’s point of contention seemed to be elsewhere.

“If it’s something ‘Greed’ has his hands on, wouldn’t it just be a piece of worthless trash? Besides, they’re pumped full of drugs. My cooking prides itself on quality ingredients, peak freshness, and being pesticide-free.”

“Then just endure it.”

Her tone was like a mother scolding a child who was about to cry from hunger.

Gilbert watched silently as Isaac shut up and pouted, but eventually, he looked up as if noticing something.

“Come to think of it, where is ‘Greed’? I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“Who knows. I imagine he’s coistered up in his underground laboratory again.”

Heidemarie replied, elegantly picking up a piece of the whole grilled Kraken with her delicate, white fingertips.

She nodded once at the sight of the fragrant, grilled tentacle and popped it into her mouth with poise.

“Look, losing a ‘little sister’ is something of a sore spot—a trauma, even—for that boy. I think he’s working energetically on his experiments to sublimate his suffering.”

“Good grief. Perhaps we shouldn’t have let Elma out of here after all.”

When Gilbert raised his eyebrows, Heidemarie laughed like a cat.

That bewitching smile felt as though it could melt the brains of anyone who saw it.

“No. We have to make sure that girl sees the world properly.”

Her eyes narrowed.

Beyond her gaze, the Black Queen stood firm on the chessboard, as if glaring down at the countless pieces surrounding her.