Chapter 12

“Hmm. I got a castle.”

“You’re all about castles today, aren’t you?”

“Because of Gilbert. If this was real, wouldn’t it feel a lot better to bring down a castle than to shoot a king down?”

A room in Walter Prison in the dark of evening.

In the most extravagant living room comparable to that of a great Royal Castle, a man and a woman – Gilbert and Heidemarie – were playing chess again today.

The way Heidemarie’s pieces were set was disorienting.

There are times when she reaps pawns like a madman, and other times she paranoidly goes after the opposing bishops.

But in any case, her skill was brilliant as she ended up winning the match.

Heidemarie dropped a kiss on the castle piece that she had taken and glanced over and smiled at Gilbert across from her.

“Hey. I wonder if that cute little girl is in control of the castle by now?”

“…… I thought we didn’t send spies or assassins; we just sent our daughter out of the nest.”

“Oh, no, it’s only an expression. For example, if there was a cook who charmed the entire castle’s stomach, then we could say that he ‘took control of the royal castle.’”

Heidemarie, who replied a bit sulkily, was beautiful and at the same time charming like a girl.

Distracted from fighting back, Gilbert lightly shrugged his shoulders and looked at the board in search of his next move.

And right then.

“I’m coming in.”

As soon as he knocked, a big man stepped into the living room.

A vicious face rides on his long, muscular frame that would make the faint of heart pass out with a single glance.

Wearing an unworthy white apron, his name is Isak.

He had once defeated a thousand armies by himself but was feared even by his own army for behaving so brutally – and was a madman who had been banished from his own country for torture and killing a holy beast in the forbidden area.

“Elma’s gone, so I have no motivation. This is all we have for dinner tonight. Eat.”

A native of Montaigne, a country known for its gourmet cuisine, he was not fluent in Luden, Walter prison’s official language, and his daughter, Elma, had been taught to speak the same language.

Heidemarie and the others raised their eyebrows in exasperation when they heard the characteristic bumping words.

“…… Are you roasting the Kraken again?”

“……Or did you at least roll it up in wheat and fry it as roasted Kraken dumplings……”

“It’s the taste of summer. Enjoy it.”

Isak has nothing to cling to.

After quickly serving the roasted food, he sat down on the handy sofa, completely bored.

“I was just about to perfect this spice of the Orient called Miso. And I was talking to Elma about a full course of dragons on a Midsummer’s Day.”

In this prison, he served as a chef, and despite his appearance, he valued the flavors of the four seasons and the seasonal menu – if only he had his “beloved daughter.”

“Hey, have you been hunting dragons again? Please stop doing that. No matter how much everyone in prison eats, there is still a huge amount of leftover. We don’t want to eat the same dragon meat day in and day out.”

Dragons described as beings that covered even the sky were huge and worth eating anyway.

Incidentally, Heidemarie had no objection to dragons being on the table, as she knew that Isak was a skilled chef and that in his hands, dragons would taste like fine chicken.

“Hm. I could eat a lot of that stuff in one day.”

“…… I’m impressed.”

With his infinitely empty stomach, it was Heidemarie who named him [Gluttony], but when he was shown the awesomeness of it like this, he felt like he was going to get heartburn.

When he was ministering with a subtle expression, Isak frowned even more on his gruff face and sniffed with a huff.

“Oh, it’s boring. It’s just that people here lack respect for food. They don’t respect the importance of living things; they don’t respect the value of life; they don’t challenge the unknown; they eat what they eat, and then they complain about it.”

He was born with a powerful stomach, and a strong sense of hunger was instilled in him by famine soon after he was born.

When he saw a nut, he ate it first, then a weed, and when he saw a living thing, he ate that too.

As he hunted, he discovered the strangeness of the demonic beasts and monsters, and from then on, he became a prisoner of it, unintentionally honing his martial skills.

It was a bonus that he came to be praised as a one-army warrior.

“Isak, it’s you. Because of your appetite and curiosity, you slaughtered a holy beast in a forbidden area, you have been stripped of your warrior’s name and chained within a prison. You never learn, do you?”

“…… In my own way, I was careful enough not to eradicate the species. Hunting a demonic beast is a cause for celebration while hunting a holy beast is a cause for blame. If I could get the whole world to know that taste, I would be known as a food saint.”

A man who dreamt of becoming a food saint while tearing out the entrails of holy beasts, demonic beasts, and monsters.

That was the identity of [Gluttony] Isak.

It was no mean feat to appease his hunger and his interest in food.

He could hunt and cook it himself, but that would make it less of a surprise, and he would be hungry while he was stirring the pan.

Sometimes his student, Elma, would hunt for ingredients that even her master, Isak, didn’t know about and cook for him, and that’s why she was invaluable to him.

Isak let out a wistful sigh and mumbled in his native tongue.

“The art of one-shot fighting, the art of mass cooking for hundreds of people at a time. There are not many gems as amazing as Elma. What am I going to do if I wake up hungry and resort to cannibalism?”

It was an outrageous statement. It is made in a sluggish tone.

Heidemarie and Gilbert, who picked up on the disturbing content, exchanged a dismayed glance.

“You are not allowed to eat a family member. If you must eat humans, ask [Greed] to give you a whole corpse after one of his experiments are completed.”

Ethically, that was hardly a good idea either.

But that didn’t seem to be the point of Isak’s comment.

“[Greed] only deals with waste; it’s not worth it. Moreover, it has been pickled in a variety of drugs and medicine. My specialty is high-quality ingredients, fresh with no added chemicals.”

“Then be patient.”

She sounded like a mother chastising her child, who was crying out in hunger.

Gilbert watched silently as Isak fell silent and huffed, but eventually, he looked up as if he suddenly realized something.

“’Come to think of it, I wonder where [Greed] is. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Come on. I think he’s holed up in his basement lab again.”

Heidemarie replied as she gracefully plucked a piece of roast Kraken with her delicate, white fingers.

She looked at the flagrantly baked tentacles, nodded at one, and elegantly chewed on it.

“See. Losing his 'sister” was like reverse psychological trauma for him. I think he’s actively experimenting with sublimating his anguish.”

“Oh, dear. I knew I shouldn’t have let Elma out of here.”

Heidemarie laughed like a cat when Gilbert raised his eyebrows.

That enchanting smile seemed to melt the brains of all who saw it.

“No. We need to show that girl the world properly.”