Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.41

041

“I went down the mountain where that god lived, and I set my sights on a high school girl walking alone at night—to be honest, anyone would do.

“They were emergency rations.

“Yeah, yeah, of course I know. That way of thinking was opportunistic—really, growing old sucks. I understand why you’re silent here, Kissshot—were you disappointed at my way of thinking?

“If you ask me if I really wanted to bend my policy as a gourmet just to make myself look good, I can only say that I really did at the time.

“That’s why I incurred a punishment.

“If I was going to throw away my policy anyway, I should have thrown it away completely, but I stubbornly clung to my pride as a gourmet.

“Because I still thought in my head that they were just rations for the sake of emergency, I failed to carefully inspect my food.

“I figured I’d eat noncommittally, halfheartedly, without being choosy—if I chose, it would make it seem like that food was ‘special’ to me, y’know?

“I didn’t want that.

“But even though I didn’t want that, I also didn’t want to eat something reluctantly—the ideal scenario would be the food jumping in when I opened my mouth, so that I had an excuse to eat food not in accordance with my will, not measuring up to my level, and not consistent with my beliefs.

“Yes, former thrall of the former Heartunderblade. Just as you treated me to the soup from the Blood Pond Hell—I heard that’s how you ‘reverted’ me, isn’t that right? You have a complex expression on your face.

“Well, once you’ve tasted nectar like from six hundred years ago, you can’t hope for anything better—no matter what you eat, it’s bound to be tasteless.

“Once you know the best of the best, there’s nothing you can do but settle for less—I knew that, but I couldn’t help but still obsess over it.

“So, even if it was for the sake of dressing up, if I went about choosing my food, I would inevitably compare it to ‘Princess Beauty’.

“I guess it was also putting on airs to try and minimize the angle at which I bent my policy? I wonder if it’s like getting old and trying to straighten out your bent back?

“Well, whatever it was, in hindsight, I didn’t exactly have much respect for my food.

“In this country, you have table manners where you say ‘Thanks for the meal’ and ‘It was delicious’, right? I just don’t really get those, y’see.

“There isn’t a phrase that makes me less thankful than ‘Thanks for the meal’… And saying ‘It was delicious’ is practically the opposite of delicious.

“That was what I thought.

“Just didn’t understand the feeling of gratitude towards my food—or the idea that it’s great to eat with gratitude, that it’s impolite to leave leftovers, or that we shouldn’t kill living things for reasons other than eating them.

“Originally, at its best, eating is supposed to be an act of toying with life—it’s entertainment.

“So that’s why, for me.

“Eating wasn’t living.

“Eating was loving.

“At that time, I should have said ‘Thanks for the meal’. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. That was what I should have done.

“Nevertheless, in an unprincipled way.

“I sank my teeth into a high school girl as if I was sampling food, like a dieter saying, ‘This doesn’t really count as eating, okay?’—and so I incurred a punishment.

“The result was food poisoning.

“Thanks to the poison of that high school girl.

“Somehow or other, it seemed I’d died again.”