Right after the curse caster's ambitious prison break plan was vainly thwarted.
The cold gazes of the guards gathered on the curse caster, whose head was slammed onto the dining table.
At the center of those gazes, the curse caster did not say a word.
Then, the chief guard who was quietly observing the interrogation approached Yulian and carefully whispered.
"Professor. Will you proceed with the interrogation like this?"
"Yes. Please wait just a little longer."
After answering like that, Yulian gestured to the guards.
As if telling them to let the curse caster go.
The guards who had slammed the curse caster's head onto the desk stepped back again with expressions full of complaint.
With the thought that on the day he enacted his prison break from here, he would curse their families first.
Whether he knew of the curse caster's inner thoughts or not.
Yulian continued the interrogation.
"Looking at the hair, I can guess the principle of the curse you were trying to use. You were planning to use contagion magic of the sympathetic magic lineage."
"..."
"Since a doll would be hard to find in a space like this, a curse like driving nails into a doll would be impossible. Instead, were you preparing an incantation where smashing your own prosthetic eye would also cause the owners of the hair inside it to lose their eyesight?"
"!!!!"
The curse caster's eye widened.
As if asking how he knew that.
At that reaction, Yulian smiled as if somewhat satisfied and spoke.
"Because I did not earn the position of black magic defense arts professor through luck."
Saying so, he briefly looked at his watch.
"It's time for the cooking to come out."
As soon as he finished speaking, Ding! With the sound of a bell, Erika pushed a cart and entered the interrogation room.
She placed a tray covered with a cloche (*a dome-shaped iron cover placed over dishes) in the center.
Before opening the cloche, Yulian spoke to the curse caster.
"Regarding the homeopathic magic Mr. Otma was trying to perform, coincidentally, this meal might be quite closely related to that homeopathic magic."
"..."
"Since ancient times, our ancestors believed that by eating certain foods, they could gain health for the similarly shaped body parts."
The curse caster did not react, but he agreed with those words.
Eating a tomato because it looked like a heart,
Eating walnuts because they looked like a brain,
Eating seaweed because it looked like hair.
Whether it actually had an effect or not was unknown, but seeking out and eating such foods was also, in a broad sense, similar to homeopathic magic—the principle of black magic.
This was also one of the basic principles of chimera arts.
To gain the arm of a bear, one would peel off the skin of their human arm and spend several months wrapped in the bear's pelt.
To gain a snake's tongue, one would scrape off the protrusions on their tongue and wrap it in snake innards.
The basic principle of chimera arts was like this.
Taking it a step further, one could become a shapeshifter by searing off all their facial skin to achieve a state of 'nothing determined', meaning a canvas-like state.
In other words, the homeopathic magic Yulian was explaining was something the chimera sorcerer sitting opposite the curse caster knew better than anyone.
At Yulian's tone that seemed to hint at that fact, Otma felt a slight admiration.
'For a human from The Legitimate World, he knows black magic really well.'
At the same time, it was a pity.
Why hadn't a human who knew this much joined their cause.
While Otma lamented Yulian's knowledge like that, Yulian revealed the cooking.
"In that sense, these meals might be the cooking you all need."
He opened the cloche and introduced the cooking.
"Today's course. I have prepared the course in the Eastern style. First, the sakizuke is jelly ponzu."
Yulian omitted saying it was made with a shark eyeball, thinking it might ruin their appetites.
The curse caster ate the jelly with a spoon, feeling uneasy about the previous explanation.
And his eye became moon-faced.
"It's... delicious."
"I'm glad you like it."
Jelly ponzu.
It was a cold dish made by separating only the gelatin and fat from the eyeball.
For the chimera sorcerer who had become half-idiotic, a guard spoon-fed him instead.
Even though he had become an idiot, the instinct to swallow food that entered his mouth remained, so he ate well on his own just by bringing the spoon to his lips.
Even though he smeared a lot of sauce around his mouth.
"Umm... Delicious... delicious..."
Looking at his regressed colleague with pitying eyes, the curse caster felt a sense of sorrow.
But that was only for a moment.
He focused on the meal for now.
Because for food so excellent that comparing it to prison food would be an insult, a fitting respect was required.
Curse Caster Otma ate the appetizer with such piety.
He bowed his head deeply to Yulian and spoke.
"Although we met like this, goodwill should be followed by proper respect. I truly express my gratitude."
Although he wouldn't open his heart and spit out information because of this.
Otma was at least willing to offer a formal greeting befitting the goodwill, according to his own convictions.
After that, the cooking continued to come out.
"This time, it is soup and an appetizer."
Otma's expectations swelled to the fullest due to the food that had just come out as an appetizer.
A slightly warmer dish than before was placed in front of him.
With just that, Otma, who had once served as a noble's servant, could roughly guess the flow of this full course.
'A course meal that starts cold and slowly gets warmer? The cooking is also very standard and of high quality.'
The next dish was the soup.
It was shark head ushiojiru.
It was a clear soup dish made using the skull, jawbone, and cartilage of a shark.
Otma savored it without even guessing the ingredients of that dish.
'Hah...'
It was delicious.
If he had known the expression savory flavor (umami), he would have said that this was the very essence of savory flavor (umami).
Before he knew it, he had forgotten that he was talking about 'homeopathic magic' with Yulian just moments before, and waited for the next dish.
He already had no room to think about why Yulian brought up such a story.
For someone who had been eating cold, hard bread, this gourmet food was more violent than torture.
"What on earth is this, really..."
"Sister Jenny. Is this method really correct?"
"...Umm... Let's wait just a little longer."
On the other hand, beyond the surveillance magic tool substituting for the magic mirror.
The soldiers and the Sisters observing the interrogation process were growing increasingly anxious.
Because it seemed like it would just end with pampering the black mages like this.
"Next is the cold appetizer."
The cold appetizer was kelp-cured shark cheek.
It was a dish where the cheek meat was lightly seared like sashimi, with kelp placed on top.
And it was a dish whose flavor was enhanced by accelerating time using black magic to age it.
"Delicious... Umm... Hehehe..."
"I can't help but agree."
The chimera sorcerer was originally an idiot to begin with.
Now, forgetting everything, the curse caster also enjoyed the banquet.
Soon, right before the main dish.
The warm appetizer, corresponding to the start of the full meal, was served.
And the curse caster, having checked the identity of that warm appetizer, lost his words.
"..."
"Are you not eating?"
The warm appetizer was exactly shark eyeball arani.
It was an Eastern-style stewed dish that retained the shape of its ingredients while floating in a clear broth.
It was also a dish of the poor in the Eastern slum, highlighted by a shark eyeball bobbing in the steaming brown broth.
Yulian had just elevated it slightly to be more high-class.
A dish utilizing an eyeball, just like the appetizer.
However, this dish had a difference from jelly ponzu.
While jelly ponzu transformed into an ordinary jelly shape during the cooking process,
Arani was a dish where the eyeball shape remained intact, right down to the black pupil.
"..."
The curse caster made eye contact with the shark eyeball floating in the broth.
Serving a soup dish made of an eyeball to a curse caster who lost one eye.
What on earth did that mean.
Before that, cooking with an eyeball?
Only then did the curse caster recall the fact that throughout the meal, Yulian hadn't explained the ingredients of this cooking in detail.
It seemed the curse caster wasn't the only one thinking that.
The soldiers observing through the surveillance magic tool.
Even Jenny, who had proposed this method.
Even while thinking there was no way,
Even though they had clearly watched the cooking process from the side,
The conversation just shared and the atmosphere of the meal seemed to point to a single fact.
And in that silence, the curse caster spoke with a trembling voice.
"Th-This eyeball... Where did you get it?"
If I actually said it was from a shark demonic beast, wouldn't he feel nausea like the other students?
Worried about that, Yulian glossed over it somewhat vaguely, within the boundaries of not telling a lie.
"I'll just say I barely managed to obtain what was being thrown away."
It wasn't a wrong statement.
Usually, most special parts, including innards, were always thrown away anyway.
From the start, even if you searched this world, the number of people who specifically cooked with innards like Yulian could be counted on one hand.
It was just that Erika and Freya had gotten used to it; there was no one else cooking with innards.
Because of that, those words of his came across to the curse caster with a somewhat different meaning.
His own eyeball that was subjected to surgical removal before it rotted a several days ago.
The prosthetic eye that was smashed during the first conversation.
A soup containing an eyeball of the exact same color and size as that one.
The conversation about the principles of homeopathic magic shared right before the meal.
"..."
He wanted to believe it was his own mistake.
However, it seemed the curse caster wasn't the only one feeling such anxiety.
"Ugh..."
Some of the guards who had been keeping silent in the interrogation room started to experience nausea.
Unlike the soldiers, it was because the guards had not seen Yulian's cooking process.
"Heuk... Huk..."
He gasped for breath.
Meanwhile, Yulian was putting a straw into the idiot chimera sorcerer's mouth to let him drink the broth.
Moreover, with a sweet tone, as if soothing and coaxing a child.
"That's right. Suck it all up. Like a good child."
Slurp.
The chimera sorcerer, with a face soaked in ecstasy, absentmindedly drinking the broth.
From that sight, the curse caster felt an inexplicable wave of nausea.
But Yulian didn't care and brought out the next dish.
Like that, the main dish finally made its appearance.
It was ostrich liver steak and pancreas sweetbread.
It was the most explicit offal dish even among the special parts.
Seeing the steak, the curse caster felt a moment of relief.
With the thought that the eyeball was just a coincidence, and Yulian had no such intention.
But the sense of relief did not last long.
"Smells... good..."
"It'll be good for your body too. You might need this dish even more."
Yulian sliced the steak on the chimera sorcerer's plate with a soft smile.
Seeing the cross-section of that cut steak, the curse caster let out a gasp.
'...Liver?'
What was seen upon cutting the steak was a smooth liver tissue, instead of the marbling and muscle grain seen in lean meat.
And the cross-section of the sweetbread placed next to the liver steak was that of a pancreas.
It was by no means a mistake or anything of the sort.
A black mage who had conducted research with the innards of countless people couldn't help but know.
'Liver... and pancreas...?'
A streak of cold sweat dripped down the curse caster's forehead.
An offal dish itself wasn't something rare.
Because the poor with nothing to eat sometimes ate even those things.
When nobles took the fresh lean meat,
People barely cooked and ate even the innards thrown in the slaughterhouse trash cans.
Dishes made from liver were a part that commoners or the poor could eat quite often.
The problem was that he couldn't understand the intention of a noble like Yulian specifically using innards instead of lean meat.
'Why on earth innards...?'
The liver was at least somewhat better.
But the pancreas and eyeball?
These were parts that even the poor wouldn't willingly eat.
What's more, the intention of specifically modifying it with noble-style recipes to cook it, claiming it to be 'gourmet food', was even more incomprehensible.
The curse caster forgot to even pick up his utensils and fretted anxiously to figure out Yulian's intention.
Opposite him, the chimera sorcerer let out a foolish laugh and enjoyed the liver dish.
"You're eating well. As the one who cooked, this is rewarding."
"Wine... Wine..."
"You must be thirsty. Here, this is wine."
Yulian helped the chimera sorcerer drink by putting a straw in the wine with a pleased smile.
For someone interrogating a black mage, he looked entirely too proud.
Watching that scene, the curse caster could finally be certain of Yulian's intention.
Yulian, who should hate them—why on earth was he rejoicing at seeing them eat the cooking so deliciously?
And why give an eye dish to the one who lost an eye, and a liver dish to the one who lost his liver?
There was only one way to explain this.
'No way... these are...'
It was then.
As if adding certainty to the curse caster's anxiety, Yulian muttered.
"The liver is an organ among biological organs that can return to its original state even if half of it disappears. Baltazan, that means you also have plenty of potential to recover."
That was the decisive blow.
That voice speaking as if in expectation was as if...
As if it were a tone wishing for the chimera sorcerer to recover his liver as soon as possible.
"Hehe... I'll... get better... fast..."
"You should. Because only then will you be able to fulfill your usefulness."
Because only then will he spit out useful information.
Yulian swallowed the latter half of his words and wiped the chimera sorcerer's mouth.
Beside a colleague who had gone mad.
A black magic professor who was grotesquely kind.
To the curse caster, that sight came across as far too terrifying.
"Ugh..."
As nausea surged up, his reason returned.
His returned reason urged his stomach.
To quickly throw up everything he had eaten.
That this was neither poison nor food.
That this was an insult and malice thoroughly trampling on human dignity.
Unable to overcome reason's plea to vomit everything he had eaten, he spilled the contents.
"Uweeek...!"
"Ehehe..."
Curse Caster Otma shed thick tears and pleaded with Yulian.
The chimera sorcerer looking at that sight with glee, like a child who found poop.
Everything was bizarre.
This space was too bizarre.
In the end, losing even the will for resistance amidst that bizarreness, the curse caster shed thick tears and pleaded with Yulian.
"Please! Let me tell you everything I know. Please..."
"What is the matter? There is still the next main dish and dessert..."
"Please... I want to stop..."
The curse caster pleaded.
Because he desperately did not want to eat the next dish with his own mouth.
Eyeball, liver, and pancreas had come out in order.
If so, whose body part would the next dish overlap with.
He felt like he knew without even looking.
Beyond the iron bars leading to the waiting room, he looked at the blood mage woman who had lost her arm.
The woman, who was gagged to prevent her from interfering with the interrogation, watched this scene and was desperately trying to say something.
"Mmph... Mmph...!"
The blood mage woman was shedding tears, desperately appealing for something.
The curse caster's gaze turned, albeit briefly, to that empty-looking arm.
She knew too.
That once this meeting ended, it would be her turn to dine next.
Among sane humans, there was no human who could eat this calmly.
Naturally, a human who could feed this to them was an existence even further from being sane.
This wasn't a human's way of thinking.
It was an idea possible only if one were broken down to the level of a demonkin at least.
Only then did the curse caster realize.
The reason why Yulian in front of him had been selected by the Imperial Court as the black magic defense arts professor.
Why The Military was carrying out a promotion of Yulian as if he were the natural enemy of black mages.
"Please... I am sorry... I absolutely cannot eat this... Please, have mercy..."
Having finished his thoughts, the curse caster lay face down on the dining table and pleaded.
"Next... Next..."
In contrast to him, the chimera sorcerer opposite him swayed his body side to side, expecting the next dish.
That sight seemed to represent the madness of this place.
Surely, in a situation gone mad, this place would be a paradise to a madman.
Therefore, the chimera sorcerer fit in better than anyone else in this place.
However, the curse caster did not have the courage to jump on the bandwagon of this bizarreness and madness.
"Please... I will tell you whatever you ask... Please... Stop..."
In the end, all he could do was beg the monster in front of him for mercy.
Even the guards who had been sending disgusted gazes at the black mages were now looking at the pleading curse caster with pity.
The guards and the black mages in the waiting room weren't the only ones pitying the curse caster.
Beyond the surveillance magic tool, the soldiers and Jenny, who were watching this whole situation, also covered their mouths.
"Good heavens..."
"Uh... Umm..."
Jenny also smacked her lips.
This wasn't what she intended.
She had expected an interrogation that cornered them as if he knew everything.
In reality, Yulian had broken the black mage's spirit in a different way.
The sergeant who accepted this operation covered his mouth with his hand and spoke.
"Lady Jenny, was this what you intended?"
"..."
"Why are you quiet... By any chance, were the rumors heard among the students true too?"
"..."
Jenny, unable to bring herself to say no.
She hadn't understood why her peers oddly wouldn't accept Yulian's second invitation.
Now she felt like she knew.
'Come to think of it, I was scared when I first met him too.'
It was hard to explain, but it was like his atmosphere was just like that.
It was just somewhat like that.
While eating with Yulian, she felt her blood run cold the more she conversed with him.
Every time, she would needlessly fiddle with the revolver in her arms.
If he wasn't Charlotte's fiancé, she might have run away from the second invitation onward.
Because of that, she could fully understand why the rumors surrounding Yulian were like that.
However, since it was also a bit weird for the soldier to misunderstand Yulian like this, she made a correction to the rumors.
"It's true that the professor cooks with weird ingredients, but it's not like the source of those ingredients is something one shouldn't eat."
"So you don't deny that the ingredients are weird."
That was the truth, so...
However, there was a part Jenny was curious about too.
"Let's say the ingredients are just that. But why do you consider the source to be humans and not demonic beasts of all things?"
"Did you not know? I heard the place the professor lives now used to be a graveyard."
"..."
Why did he have to choose such a place of all the mansions he could have chosen?
Jenny let out a sigh, receiving the impression that the rumors were constantly being exaggerated.
"It is demonic beast meat. The guards might not know, but we saw the process of the professor cooking it himself in the kitchen, didn't we."
"That... was really demonic beast meat, right?"
"Probably."
And in the middle of all this tragedy.
The individual concerned who caused this misunderstanding was...
'This is why I hate black mages. What on earth don't they like about my cooking that they're throwing up like that again.'
Feeling displeasure at the fact that his cooking was subjected to denial, he put down his utensils.