The Gospel of Pork Back-Bone Stew
That evening, in the main building’s living room, Ivona lay stretched across the sofa. Her face was deathly pale, yet her beauty remained so radiant it seemed almost sacred. Veronica stood beside her, fingers tracing the strange pattern etched across the saintess’s chest as she clutched her own head in despair.
“What am I supposed to do… What the hell am I even supposed to do…?”
A princess and a saintess. Two women who stood at the absolute peak of continental power had somehow ended up together in this cramped mountain stronghold. One had come voluntarily. The other had been “picked up while catching a chicken.” If the Holy See ever learned the truth, this would no longer be a mere kidnapping. It would be the opening act of a full-blown religious war.
“Mr. Rodin, what exactly are you planning to tell her when she wakes up? Are you really going to say you picked her up while catching a chicken?”
“It’s the truth, so what’s the big deal? Besides, her stomach’s been making weird noises for a while now. Sounds like some demonic beast set up camp in there.”
Rodin tilted his head and leaned down, pressing his ear against Ivona’s abdomen.
Grrrrrrrr—!
A thunderous rumble shattered the quiet of the living room. Veronica’s eyes widened in utter disbelief.
“Don’t tell me… the saintess actually collapsed from hunger?”
“Yep. Her insides were completely hollow, like a cabbage that shriveled up after running out of fertilizer. Hey, Dagan! Any stew left in the kitchen?”
“You can’t be serious! The saintess is very particular about—”
Veronica’s protest hadn’t even finished before Rodin and Dagan were already in the kitchen, lighting a fire under the pot of richly fragrant stew.
The living room soon filled with the deep aroma of meat broth and fresh vegetables. The eyelids of the woman who had lain there like a corpse began to twitch.
Ivona’s eyes flew open.
The moment she regained consciousness, what savaged her olfactory nerves was not the sacred incense of the Holy See. It was a heavy, primal scent so rich it stirred the most basic carnal desires in her blood.
Oh Lord… Is this fragrance truly the sulfurous stench of hellfire sent to judge me? Or is it the heavenly anointing oil meant to soothe a lost lamb’s soul?
Like a woman possessed, Ivona sat up. Her legs trembled from seven full days of fasting prayers, yet the sharp, savory smell tickling her nose forcibly kick-started every nerve in her body. She crawled toward the kitchen like a zombie, arms outstretched toward the source of the aroma.
There, a massive man wearing a dusty apron stood before a giant pot.
“You’re up? Hellfire my ass. You were mumbling some serious nonsense in your sleep.”
Rodin stirred the pot with a ladle, completely indifferent. Inside, large chunks of meat bubbled away in a vivid red broth, radiating an almost majestic presence.
“Just some pork backbone boiled down with dried radish leaves. Think you can eat it? You’re a saintess, so maybe this kind of worldly food isn’t to your taste.”
Ivona swallowed hard as she stared at the “miracle” swirling inside the pot.
“Pork… backbone… dried greens… Ohhh, even the name itself is sacred.”
“You sure have a way of making everything sound complicated. Here, it’s hot so be careful.”
Rodin ladled the pork back-bone stew—bones and all—into a generous tin bowl and held it out. A wild gleam flashed in Ivona’s golden eyes. It was far closer to a predator’s frenzy than any holy yearning.
With trembling hands, Ivona lifted the spoon. She took a careful sip of the red broth thick with perilla powder. The moment it touched her tongue, the endorphins in her brain detonated like fireworks.
The savory depth of the perilla, the sharp kick of chili oil, and the profound umami of the meat broth bombarded her taste buds in a full-scale assault.
“Oh, my God…!”
Ivona suddenly slammed her hand on the table with a loud bang. Thick tears rolled down her cheeks.
“This is a miracle! The reliquary of the Holy See should not hold old holy bones—it should hold this broth!”
“Hey, you’re gonna break the bowl. Eat a little more gently. People are going to think I starved you.”
Rodin recoiled in disgust, taking a step back. But Ivona no longer seemed to hear him. She seized a massive backbone with both hands.
“How can this meat be so tender? It is as if God’s mercy itself is melting upon my tongue! And these greens… Ahhh, truly the blessing of the earth!”
“Those are just the outer leaves of the cabbages from our field, dried out. I gave them plenty of fertilizer, so they aren’t too tough.”
“Delicious! This is divine revelation! All this time I have followed false teachings. The true God was never in the invisible heavens above—He has been inside this very pot all along!”
Ivona had thrown every last shred of dignity, etiquette, and saintly grace into a grinder. She paid no mind to the broth splattering across the sleeves of her white holy vestment as she eagerly sucked the marrow from between the bones.
Slurp. Crunch. Gulp. The sounds filled the entire kitchen.
It was a bizarre and unholy spectacle: the legendary saintess in perfect harmony with a pile of pork bones.
“Your Holiness! Leon has arrived! You impious bandit scum, release Her Holiness at once!”
With a deafening crash that shattered the mountain stronghold’s peace, the kitchen door exploded open. Holy Knight Commander Leon stormed in, silver armor gleaming, sword already drawn. Veronica followed right behind him, one hand pressed to her forehead.
“Your Holiness! Are you unharmed?! I shall rescue you from this filthy den—huh?”
Leon’s heroic voice faltered and died.
The scene before him was not the tragic sight of a tortured saintess. It was Saintess Ivona desperately devouring her meal, red broth smeared around her mouth like a grotesque beard, teeth scraping the final bits of cartilage from between the bones.
“Your Holiness…? What is that hideous, grotesque bone you’re holding? Could these wicked bandits possibly be forcing you to commit cannibalism—!”
“Cannibalism? I already told you it’s pork. Our pigs would be offended if they heard that.”
Rodin waved his hand as if shooing away a fly. Leon, completely ignoring him, stared at Ivona in pure horror.
“Your Holiness! Put down that unholy object immediately! How could the noble saintess of the Holy See engage in such vulgar—”
Ivona’s shoulders twitched. She slowly turned her head. The light in her eyes was no longer holy. It was the cold, predatory glare of a beast whose meal had been interrupted.
Leon pointed his sword at Rodin and roared again.
“You wicked fiend! What sorcery have you used on Her Holiness?! Draw your weapon!”
At that exact moment, Ivona’s brow furrowed with terrifying intensity. The greatest crime in her eyes right now was not blasphemy. It was the unforgivable rudeness of interrupting her just as she was about to savor the deepest, most hidden marrow in the bone.
“Commander Leon. Are you interfering with my holy ritual?”
“Ritual?! That is nothing but a dirty bone! Please rise at once! We must return to the Holy See and summon an army to purify this demonic lair—”
“Silence, you ignorant fool!”
Whoosh—!
Ivona swung the massive pork backbone like a boomerang. The bone sliced through the air with a vicious whistle and flew straight at Leon’s face.
Thwack!
A heavy, wet impact echoed through the kitchen. The backbone struck dead center on Leon’s silver helmet, denting it inward and snapping his head back violently.
“Ugh… Your Holiness…?”
“This place is a sanctuary! If even one drop of this broth spills because of you, I will hand you over to the heretic inquisitors myself! Go outside right now and repent with those stray dogs!”
When Ivona picked up the largest remaining bone from the table, Leon felt raw instinctive terror. He stumbled backward, tripped over the threshold, and tumbled outside in a rolling heap.
The dignity of the Holy Knight Order crumbled like a dry pork bone before the saintess’s physical inquisition.
Once the chaos had settled, Veronica stared at the empty cauldron and the mountain of bones piled on the table and let out a hollow laugh.
Not only had the imperial princess fallen, but now even the Holy See’s greatest saintess had mortgaged her soul to Rodin’s red broth.
“Mr. Rodin… you really need to break that habit of picking up everything you find. Are you trying to start a religious war with the Holy See?”
“I didn’t pick her up. She was blocking the road, so I moved her. Hey! Saintess. If you’re done eating, take your subordinate and go back down the mountain. Don’t make this any more annoying than it already is.”
At Rodin’s command to leave, Ivona wiped the broth from her mouth with her holy vestment sleeve and shouted back.
“I cannot go. No—I will not go! The Lord has commanded me to spread the gospel of cabbage and pork back-bone stew in this place! This is none other than the Garden of Eden, the true paradise!”
“Gospel my ass! You just want to squat here and eat free food every day, you gluttonous saintess!”
When Veronica snapped at her, Ivona proudly puffed out her chest.
“Free food? Perish the thought! I shall repay you with labor. A saintess’s blessing is more effective than any fertilizer. In the fields where I pray, the crops will receive God’s grace and grow with divine frenzy!”
Rodin’s ears twitched with interest.
“…If you bless them, will the cabbages grow better? No pests either?”
“I guarantee it. In fields touched by my prayers, golden cabbages emitting a sacred glow shall grow! The harvest will increase at least threefold!”
“Oh… That actually sounds pretty good. Hey, princess. Can’t we just put her to work? We’d save on fertilizer costs.”
Veronica clutched the back of her neck in disbelief. This man truly seemed to view the saintess as nothing more than a living fertilizer dispenser.
Under the soft glow of moonlight in the mountain stronghold’s courtyard, Holy Knight Commander Leon knelt in a corner, his badly dented helmet resting beside him.
“I failed to understand the profound will of the saintess… That bone clearly carried deep theological significance…”
Tears streamed down his face as he offered an all-night prayer of repentance.
As Rodin walked past, he asked Veronica, “Do we have to feed that dented-helmet guy too? He looks like he eats a lot.”
“Absolutely not. Our food budget would collapse.”
At that moment, Ivona poked her head out the kitchen window.
“Lord Rodin! Will tomorrow’s breakfast be meat soup or fresh cabbage stew? Personally, I would prefer a little more meat!”
“This is such a pain in the ass… Hey, princess. Maybe I should just pack up and move to another mountain. There are way too many people here now.”
At Rodin’s grumbling, Veronica grabbed his sleeve tightly.
“You can’t! If you’re going anywhere, you’re taking me with you! Forget the saintess and everyone else—let’s just run away together, the two of us!”
In the mountain stronghold wrapped in dawn mist, the saintess’s voice planning tomorrow’s menu and the princess’s desperate cries to defend her position as the true lady of the house echoed noisily through the air.
Rodin adjusted the rusty pickaxe on his shoulder and gazed toward the distant mountains. It seemed his peaceful life as a simple farmer had already sailed far beyond the horizon.