>>26206
Graham continued to silently eat his dinner. His silverware could be heard resounding in the room.
"From then on I was absorbed in reading the Phantom Book I'd borrowed and spent day and night polishing my skills. Thanks to this, the kitchen has been entrusted to me and before I knew it, I've earned a reputation as a cook. Then I noticed. The Lord was completely right in firing an incompetent cook - in other words, my father."
Lesley smiled brightly with a triumphant look.
"And most of all, I began to seek for the best cooking myself. But the journey was fraught with difficulties. 'The Book of the Ultimate Contemplation of Cooking' contained many hints to achieve this goal, but the recipe for the best cooking itself wasn't written in it."
Lesley put the book away silently.
She looked contently down to her cookery lined up on the dining table.
"However... at last it has been accomplished tonight. I've made the best cooking."
A sense of fulfillment was contained in her low voice, the kind that only people who have finished a masterpiece have.
"Wonderful..."
Graham mumbled with a full mouth.
"Wonderful... This is the cooking I've been seeking for. More... Let me eat more."
The silverware of the gourmet made woeful circles over the empty plate.
Lesley gripped her favourite knife, opened the lid of the container and vividly cut up fresh pieces of meat. She placed them on the plate with fluid movements and ladled a perfect serving of sauce over it.
Lastly, she served it soundlessly to her employer.
"The teachings of 'The Book of the Ultimate Contemplation of Cooking' were simple. Drawing the taste out of the best raw materials without hurting them. For this, I've polished my techniques and learned how to cook living beings without letting them feel pain. But this wasn't enough."
Lesley said, with a melancholic face.
"It doesn't suffice to just make sure they don't suffer. Rather, they have to find it pleasant. The secret for the best cooking was to let the raw materials feel the greatest of pleasures so they would be fulfilled with pleasurable substances while cooking them."
"...The greatest of pleasures?"
Huey asked calmly back.
"It's gourmet food."
Lesley laughed, looking a bit triumphant.
"Gourmet food is an enjoyment limited to humans. And just imagine the insurmountable delight that the person that took gourmet food to the extremes feels, when he comes across the perfect cooking. The brain at the instant when it's fulfilled with pleasurable substances is the best ingredient in this world."
She put down the knife on the wagon and thoroughly washed her hands in a water bowl. Then she dried them with a brand new towel and again took the Phantom Book in her hands.
"I'll return this book as I don't need it any more-"
Dalian easefully walked to her and accepted the Phantom Book.
Huey gazed wordlessly at her back.
"...I liked your fried bread."
At length, Dalian said so in a slightly sad voice. Lesley inclined her head doubtfully, but Dalian continued,
"Even without the best ingredients, it was a most fulfilled taste."
In this moment Lesley breathed up, almost like she remembered something long forgotten, and her expression froze.
But this was just for a moment.
The young chef nodded immediately as if nothing had happened and applied her attention again to Graham.
Huey and Dalian turned their backs and silently left the workroom.
"Aah... more... let me eat more..."
The gourmet murmured in an enraptured voice. The words changed to the groan of an animal in the middle and couldn't be heard well any more. Even so Lesley smiled brightly.
"Please be at ease, my Lord. There's still plenty."
Putting the freshly cut up meat on the plate, she held it out to the man waiting for her.
Then she gently closed the lid of the container containing the valuable ingredient. This container had once been the skull of the man called Graham Atkinson.
The gourmet, famous in the capital, led a piece of his own freshly cut up brain with relish to his mouth and, with a blissful mien, --- smiled.
