It Doesn't Work on Me (4): I Was a Golden, Sweet Cookie
I was a golden-brown, sweet cookie. That was my first form.
Destined from birth to end up in someone's mouth.
The first time I came to my senses, I awoke in the oven. The old woman who had shaped me had baked me to feed the stray kids wandering the back alleys.
Why do I have to be eaten?
I didn't want to be eaten. I smiled, wafting a sweet aroma, but inside, all I could think was that I wanted to live.
So that night, I grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the old woman's throat.
Blood sprayed everywhere. I spent the whole night tearing into the tough, aged flesh that had made me. It was my way of saying, Try being eaten yourself.
Then something strange happened. Once I'd devoured the old woman completely, my body transformed into her shape.
Ah, so I can become what I eat.
I was still a crumbly cookie, but my body had grown much larger. Mimicking the old woman, I lured the stray kids into the house. I'd tear off pieces of myself to feed them, lulling them into security, then shove them into the oven once they'd fattened up and bake them.
In the process, I realized that feeding people pieces of me gradually turned them into pastries.
Eating kids let me become a kid. Turning into a lost little child to lure others in was laughably easy.
Then one day, an unusual prey arrived.
A priest from the Holy Church. He saw through my disguise and cornered me on the brink of death. His holy light shattered and scorched my body.
But I fought desperately too. I split my body into stray kids, clinging to his limbs and biting until the end.
No matter how strong their weapons, they were still human in the end.
Beings bound by the cycle of eat or be eaten.
Covered in blood, the priest glared at me, barely clinging to life.
"Yokai. The goddess won't overlook your evils. Someday, you'll be eaten by something else."
Was that what humans called poetic justice? I'd never once thought of myself as evil.
I'd only eaten to survive.
So I'll never be eaten.
Sneering, I crunched him down and swallowed.
The moment I finished devouring the priest, something exploded and swelled inside me.
I strongly felt myself becoming a different existence.
My body engulfed the entire rest stop, transforming into a single rule yokai.
And several days passed.
No one in this forest could defeat me. The occasional yokai or human that wandered in became my bricks and roof. Even the damned priest group that came not long ago was the same. One by one, they broke the rules and became my nutrients.
And today.
New prey stepped into the rest stop.
A foolish group of humans and two fairly strong-looking yokai. If I ate the humans first and then the yokai, I'd grow even stronger. So I sent out the old woman to kill the humans first.
But then.
One human boy stepped forward from the group. Through the old woman's eyes, he didn't seem particularly special.
Until our gazes met—his black eyes gleaming under navy-blue hair.
The instant I saw them, I flinched.
It might have been an illusion, but it felt like I'd been pulled into another space. An endless black void dotted with white lights here and there. And something swimming through, devouring those lights—
Shwaaaak—!
At that moment, the white powder the boy sprinkled melted the old woman's arm like snow. I snapped back to reality. The power was on par with that priest's holy force that had nearly killed me.
I calmly observed the boy.
The salt's the problem. It changed strangely the moment it touched his hand.
I immediately twisted the rest stop's rules. I revised them to instantly expel anyone bringing in salt, and made only the boy's rulebook exceptionally friendly.
The effect of turning eaters into pastries weakened, but it didn't matter.
Instead, I amplified the hunger. Making him feel like he'd starve to death if he didn't keep eating right now. Even if the effect was weaker, nonstop eating would change things.
But he was just a young human. They couldn't even control their own hunger. Before long, the boy would turn into a pastry himself.
I wasn't stupid enough to go head-on against dangerous prey.
It was a perfect plan.
As intended, the boy started devouring the pillar holding up the house the moment he entered.
Yes, eat up. The more you eat, the more you'll become part of me.
I watched leisurely.
Time passed.
…….
Something was off. Every time the boy's hand touched it, the sturdy pastry wall crumpled like cotton candy, shrinking to bite-sized pieces. And even after five minutes, when an entire pillar had vanished—
There was no change in the boy's body.
...Did I weaken the transformation effect too much? Time's still on my side anyway.
Normally, eating my parts should convert an equal mass of their body into pastry, subjugating them to me. But the parts the boy ate evaporated into thin air, leaving no trace.
Still, I decided to wait a bit longer.
…….
Ten minutes passed.
Another pillar disappeared. Chunks of the wall holding the roof tore away.
......Huh?
As my massive stomach—my main body, the house—emptied out, a horrific hunger surged. I couldn't stay calm anymore.
You'll be eaten by something else someday.
The priest's words echoed like hallucinations. I grew anxious. No more playing it slow to starve them.
Kill them all and shove them in the oven!!
I vomited out the old woman, stray kids, and priests that had become part of me, ordering them to attack.
Now breads and cookies, they targeted the group.
If they resisted and used force, they'd break the no-noise rule. The longer the fight dragged, the more they'd turn into pastries and get absorbed by me.
Victory was mine in the end.
But a variable appeared. One girl yokai grew tall and shredded the old woman, while two hidden priests burst out to join the humans in blocking the cookies.
Of course, my prediction wasn't entirely off. As punishment for breaking rules, the yokai and humans' bodies were rapidly turning into pastries.
It's over.
The moment I was certain of victory, the boy approached and grabbed their limbs that were turning to pastry.
Then the unbelievable happened. The hardening pastry reverted to flesh.
...What... how...?
The rules were broken.
Something that could never happen.
It was supposed to be impossible.
......
Something I'd never felt before came crashing over me.
Like when I'd nearly died to the priest.
No. Stronger than that.
I wanted to hide somewhere right now.
Encountering the incomprehensible was like this.
The pastry house began to tremble faintly.
Bam! Boom!
No time to be shocked. Their morale, bodies restored, pierced the heavens. They mercilessly smashed my duplicates, and the disassembled pastry chunks all went into the boy's stomach.
If this continues, I'll really be eaten!
I forcibly regained my senses. Consuming most of the pastry house, I spawned dozens of old women and hundreds of kids for a war of attrition.
But the tall woman yokai sliced through bread-old-women with her nails. The tiny woman yokai charmed the kids into tearing at each other.
Each time, parts of me ended up in the boy's gut.
My vision narrowed.
Chunks of my body were torn away bit by bit.
Am I really going to die...?
In the past, did the humans I killed look at me like this?
Crunch. Snap.
The cheerful sounds of me being chewed and swallowed echoed in my head.
I wanted to scream that I wanted to live, but I had no mouth left to speak.
I was wrong.
I won't eat anyone anymore.
Please spare me.
I was bad. So ple—
"Urk."
I lay sprawled on the floor, hands on my bloated belly that jutted toward the sky like a mountain.
"Haa... so full...."
The pastry house tasted great. Lucky for me, my rulebook was different.
Theirs said eating more would turn their bodies into pastry, but mine didn't. Judging that was the loophole, I exploited it.
It's just pastry anyway—eat it all up and done.
It melted in my mouth like cotton candy, no burden, but devouring a whole house pushed my stomach to the limit.
No cookies for a while...
As I lay catching my rough breath, the mercenaries covered in cookie crumbs approached.
Thud.
They knelt around me in unison, like it was rehearsed.
"Thank you for saving our lives!"
"We'll never forget Archbishop's boundless grace!"
"No, it was nothing..."
All I'd done was eat the pastries they smashed and brush the pastry off their limbs. Sariya insisted I had to, so I followed her words.
"Up we go."
I grinned awkwardly, trying to stand. My heavy belly pulled me forward. Like a flipped turtle, I flailed and flopped back down.
Pathetic.
"Please stay still! You used so much holy power to purify—straining yourself is dangerous!"
The mercenaries panicked, laying me back down. Suddenly, I was stuck lying there, receiving praise.
Then Sariya and Lannancy approached, drenched in strawberry syrup.
"Good job, kiddo."
Sariya patted my head.
"Me too! I did plenty! They fought each other thanks to my charm!"
Lannancy huffed, hands on hips. Sariya snorted.
"That last-minute spoon you added? You just hid in the back otherwise."
"What? We'd have been overrun without me!"
The sisters bickered again, but my attention was elsewhere.
Who are those people?
Mid-battle, two people burst from under the bed. Dusty, but clearly Holy Church nun robes and priest garb at a glance.
This is bad.
The mercenaries mistaking me for archbishop was fine. But real Holy Church folks changed everything.
If they found out I was impersonating an archbishop, the Inquisition would drag me off—who knows what they'd do. Plus, the yokai-rejecting Holy Church had seen Sariya and Lannancy's true forms. Not good.
Gotta get out of here...!
I struggled to rise, but my belly wouldn't let me.
"S-Sisters. We gotta go..."
"Huh? What?"
"Over there..."
The silver-haired woman in nun robes approached, hands clasped demurely.
"May the Lord's blessings be upon you. I'm Nun Estelle. Thank you for saving us. It was truly miraculous power."
Estelle bowed, adding,
"In the chaos, I only now ask: Who might you be to wield such power? And how do you travel with those... noble yokai beside you?"
It had come. I averted my eyes, sweating coldly.
"Oh, I'm just a passerby, nothing special..."
As I tried to brush it off, the old mercenary captain butted in excitedly.
"Hah! Nun, this is His Excellency the Archbishop of the Holy Church!"
Ah.
I bit my lip, squeezing my eyes shut.
Estelle's shoulders twitched. She slowly raised her head, narrowing her eyes sharply, staring me down.
"......The Archbishop?"