【Juliana’s City of Nine Consciousnesses】Chapter 4: Tongue-Consciousness
Juliana’s City of Nine Consciousnesses
Chapter 4: Tongue-Consciousness
The Boundary Between Sweet and Poison
Chapter 4: Where forbidden flavors unlock the gateway to suppressed memories
Food in the Empire was completely nutrition-regulated.
Packaged artificial food. Individual “flavorless" nutritional rations optimized for each citizen’s genetic and neural responses.
They were considered “necessary and sufficient," robbing citizens’ tongues of all sensation.
The moment of discovering the forbidden candy hidden between ancient books
Juliana discovered real taste by pure chance.
It was a package tucked between old books.
Along with a decades-old restaurant receipt, a single piece of candy.
“…Is this real?"
What lay in her palm was a caramel-colored, glass-hard pellet.
Its surface bore faint cracks, telling the story of time’s passage.
Yet somehow, it radiated a fragrant presence.
Suddenly, the white dog growled low.
It sounded like both an urging to “eat it" and a warning to “be careful."
Juliana placed the candy on her tongue.
In that instant—it exploded.
The overwhelming explosion of taste sensations and suppressed memories
Sweet. The aroma of burnt sugar.
And following that, an indescribable warmth.
Multiple layers of flavor dissolving on her tongue. This was not mere “sugar."
A flood of memories rushed through her taste buds.
Birthday cake. Winter cocoa. Father’s burnt pancakes.
More than food, it was emotion itself.
“Taste is the key to memory. And poison, too, has taste."
—Johannes’ voice echoed through space.
“The Empire restricted taste because citizens couldn’t endure true emotions.
Bitterness, sourness, sweetness, spiciness—each shakes the soul and exposes memories."
Juliana realized.
That candy had been engineered with something.
Beneath its sweetness lay a faint bitterness.
Her body grew slightly warm.
Her hands trembled, her vision blurred.
Was this poison? No, this was “memory poison."
Her body knew.
This was the taste her mother once gave her.
On the eve of exile, the last gift her mother had secretly slipped to her.
The moment when taste becomes a cipher, revealing her mother’s survival
The candy contained a cipher.
A sensory passcode that could only be unlocked through taste.
“Sweet → Bitter → Burnt → Sour"—that sequence indicated something.
Staggering to her feet, Juliana input that taste sequence into the wall terminal.
—Katarina Yggdrasil: ALIVE
—Isolation Point: N-Ω256 『Black Zone』
What appeared on the screen was the name of her supposedly dead mother.
That night, Juliana dreamed.
A massive dining table. No one sat in the chairs.
But aromas drifted, and phantom dishes steamed on the plates.
The surreal dining hall where tongue-consciousness reaches its completion
“Taste is truth. But simultaneously, it becomes a 'trap.'"
Someone spoke from across the table.
The face was invisible. The voice was hazy.
Yet Juliana instinctively knew that presence was herself.
“Poison is 'the taste created by humans who couldn’t endure the taste of truth as an escape.'"
“Suffering, love—everything processed into 'consumable’ forms wrapped in sweetness."
On the table, that candy appeared again.
But this time, it was a candy where countless tastes intersected.
Taking one in her mouth, the world inverted.
Behind sweetness lay someone’s “death".
Within bitterness lay someone’s “hope".
Juliana’s tongue-consciousness opened completely.
No longer mere taste.
It had become “an organ that reads emotions and decodes memories."
Awakening, Juliana whispered quietly.
“I remember my mother’s taste."
And she added:
“With this tongue, I will devour the Empire’s lies."
Taste reaches truth.
And truth is both sweet and bitter.
Chapter 4 – Complete
Next Chapter: Chapter 5 “Body-Consciousness – The Threshold of Sensation and Torture"