Only My Genre Is Different
It had been a mere three hundred years since monster carcasses first entered humanity’s culinary culture.
Most monsters were grotesque in appearance, and their flesh gave off a stench no ordinary person could endure. Before cooking techniques advanced, a monster’s body was little more than compost, livestock feed—or, when even that proved impossible, plain garbage.
Then, three centuries ago, a great famine swept the continent. The starving multiplied, yet the nobility cared only for their own survival. The ruled classes were driven to such desperation they might as well have been eating dirt.
That was the turning point.
Humanity’s fierce instinct to live dragged monster carcasses onto the cutting board. Research began in earnest—enduring revulsion, enduring the reek—to turn those corpses into food. In the end, monster flesh became a useful source of sustenance.
Of course, to the ruling class, who had never once known hunger, it remained a base and repulsive resource fit only for the lowly.
Which was why—
“Looks appetizing.”
—Elden’s appraisal was impossible to believe.
Unlike the others, who answered while desperately hiding their shock and contempt, his eyes looked sincere. Watching him lick his lips over the monstrous dish of a whole roasted pig-monster leg, she could only conclude he was telling the truth.
It’s a lie.
He’s putting on an act, hiding the shock. Anyone can talk. Once he actually eats it, the horror he can’t conceal will drag him into the opening act of this revenge play. You lot who once amused yourselves feeding me spiders, ants, and grubs—you need to taste that terror too…!
So she pleaded, pouring every ounce of desperate hope into the words.
“…Then I won’t take it the wrong way. Will you try just one bite?”
It was an absurd situation. Truly farcical. That the avenger should have to beg the one she meant to punish.
Yet there was no other way. A final candidate’s declaration of withdrawal was unprecedented in the history of the Marriage War; no clause existed to handle it. There was simply no method to force a withdrawn candidate to give his all in the final evaluation. Sincerity could not be manufactured by compulsion or prodding. All she could do was delay his decision and keep him here by force, as she was doing now.
“….”
Fortunately, he reached for the dish.
Even after she had openly shown favoritism and goodwill, he had remained silent—until now, when he finally moved as she wished. Perhaps the thread of this unsolvable riddle would appear. With that expectation she watched every one of Elden’s movements and reactions.
Contempt and loathing thrashing about inside a mouth could never be hidden by a lie. Deron, Kyle, and Blund proved it; they could not conceal their gagging and other signs of rejection as they forced the meal down.
Of course she had not the slightest desire to revel in their terror. She was not like them. She was no villain who took pleasure in another’s misfortune and fear.
She simply wanted them to remember the evils they had committed. To remember the one who had been their victim. To understand even a fraction of that victim’s pain and sorrow. She wanted nothing more than for them to offer sincere repentance at the face-to-face audience seven days hence.
And for anyone who refused to repent—anyone who discarded the chance—she wanted only that they walk the path of self-destruction.
Therefore, for every one of those hopes to be fulfilled, Elden Raphelion also had to eat the monster cuisine and gag. Even if his vicious nature had somehow changed, he still had to pay the price for what had happened that day.
But—
“It melted in my mouth. Your skill is outstanding, Your Grace.”
Elden offered praise instead.
With eyes full of genuine emotion. With a pure gaze that could not possibly be dismissed as false, he lauded her cooking. What’s more, lingering as if savoring the aftertaste, he sucked the grease from his fingers while looking at the food left on the plate—exactly like a ravenous gourmet.
Smack.
Smack.
She knew he normally would not even glance at monster dishes, and that he disliked cuisine made from the special cuts of livestock. He should have shown at least a faint reaction. Someone who had lived spewing hatred and loathing ought to have displayed even the slightest displeasure the moment it entered his mouth. He should have become a terrified victim, not a hungry food-lover.
What is this? What the hell is this…!
She had declared war seeking the truth and been soundly defeated. She had been forced to retreat a step, sharpen her blade, and drag him back onto the battlefield. This time she would win without fail. Just as they had once forced revulsion and contempt into her mouth, she would force them into his and tear off the mask of deception.
With that vow she had proudly drawn her prepared weapon: monster cuisine.
“Ugh.”
“Hhk…”
“Hup…”
Victory reports rang out without pause as Deron, Blund, and even Kyle took their turns. Yet when Elden’s turn arrived, the report of defeat sounded once more.
She was so furious she thought she might go mad. Beyond resentment—it was enough to drive her insane.
After her private audience with Elden she had set aside her backlog of research and experiments and spent entire days thinking of nothing but him. The riddle he had thrown at her was both fascinating and infuriating. She had dug through books on dark magic and sorcery, erected countless hypotheses, and drafted plans to prove each one—even cutting into her sleep. As a result the face beneath the white-fox mask looked somewhat haggard. Shadows gathered under her eyes, yet her mind remained packed with hypotheses and proofs alone.
“……?”
Why did that once-savage, once-terrifying face now look so damnably irritating? Why did she want to stare so deeply into those eyes that, back in their school days, she had been too frightened even to meet?
Annoying. So annoying.
And infuriating. Infuriating beyond all reason.
Lumiang ground her molars.
In this world no problem could exist without an answer. What seemed answerless merely appeared that way. Uncovering the hidden answer was the basic virtue, the cultivation, the very qualification of a great researcher.
With a sharp scrape of her chair Lumiang rose to her feet.
This revenge had never begun for the sake of savoring their terror. Had they not crossed her path, it would never have begun at all. It was a revenge rooted in enlightenment and guidance. The first day’s message had been delivered well enough.
More than anything—
“……?”
—she could not stand facing that pure, innocent expression of Elden’s any longer. It was a face that kept pouring fuel on a researcher’s craving and deliberately riling her up. Back in school he had tormented her with abuse and mockery; was he now tormenting her with sly tricks instead? How on earth had he seen through this and so cunningly slipped past her revenge play?
I won’t back down. Go ahead—try dodging me to the very end.
Having made that vow, Lumiang swept a final glance over the three candidates still clamping their mouths shut and swallowing their nausea, then left her seat.
“Hmph.”
She left behind only a sulky little snort directed at Elden Raphelion.
And once Lumiang exited the great hall, the three candidates who had been desperately holding back their queasiness bolted after her. Kyle Bellaon, whose stomach was the weakest, fled while still trailing the vomit he could not fully contain.
“….”
In an instant the great hall was empty. Alone in that silent, deserted space, a single yellow mutt nosed around the untouched dishes, then presently followed the others out.
Munch-munch.
Chomp-chomp.
“Hmm. It’s just delicious.”
Roasted front leg of a coatbo that tasted exactly like juicy chicken drumstick. Stir-fried half-worm that tasted of savory silkworm pupae. Grilled black-bat wings that tasted of chewy chicken wings. The gourmet yellow mutt simply could not understand the three humans who had abandoned such excellent flavors and fled.
The yellow mutt.
No—Elden, smacking his lips in lingering regret as he left the great hall, was walking with Rendler.
The butler following behind him asked with a puzzled face,
“Where are you headed, Young Master?”
It was the opposite direction from the annex. More than that, it was a direction the young master Elden would never have chosen. At the end of this path lay the largest library in the entire northern territory.
“The library.”
“…Pardon?”
Rendler hurriedly dug a finger in his ear, then asked again.
“The library… you say?”
“Yeah. Figured I’d look for something to read.”
If he was going to stay in the grand duchy for fifteen days, he needed something worthwhile to fill the empty stretches of time. Besides, the final evaluation matches were not held every single day. One day was spent with the Grand Duchess for the evaluation; the next day was free of official schedules—rest time. Of course that rest time was also meant for the final candidates to hold meetings or attend to personal matters, but a withdrawn candidate needed proper diversions to enjoy the free time completely. He could not spend entire days training with Rachel. When he was tired, when he was exhausted, he needed something comfortable to enjoy while resting.
In this tedious world without game consoles, television, or YouTube, reading material was king. And for Lee Junuw, who had been a web-novel addict even in the modern world, heading for the finest library in the northern territory was only natural.
“T-to think you now seek to nourish even the mind with books… this servant is so overjoyed he might weep—”
“Stop.”
He simply wanted to try the novels of this other world. He was not taking a single step for the sake of “nourishing the mind.” Elden hastily cut the tearful old butler off before the waterworks could start, and entered the library.
It’s enormous.
As befitting the largest library in the northern territory, the place was vast. Because it was open to ordinary nobles outside the grand duchy as well as the ducal household’s servants, it was also crowded.
“If you find any books worth recommending, bring them over. I’ll look for something to read myself.”
“Yes, understood.”
Parting from Rendler, Elden began to wander the library humming under his breath, full of anticipation about what the novels of this novel-world might be like.