I had a fondness for eating potato chips. On my days off, without bothering to change out of my pajamas, I would lounge around during the day and have potato chips as a substitute for lunch.

With my age catching up, thoughts of gaining weight and whether this kind of lifestyle was acceptable would sometimes give rise to guilt. Yet, that sense of forbidden indulgence acted as a tantalizing seasoning.

“I should probably cut back on this,” I muttered to no one in particular. Naturally, there was no response.

“I wonder how many calories are in potato chips,” I mumbled meaningless words. Of course, I had no real interest in the calorie content of potato chips, but with idle hands, I found myself looking it up.

A single bag contained several hundred kilocalories. It was more than a bowl of rice, but in the grand scheme of daily basal metabolic rate, it was like a negligible error. At least, that’s what I tried to justify to myself internally.

Out of curiosity, I glanced at the ingredients and noticed a peculiar string of characters amidst the familiar ones like oil, potatoes, and salt.

“Marusenariko”.

I wondered if it was some kind of seasoning.

Intrigued by the unfamiliar combination of characters, I decided to search for it on the internet.

No search results appeared.

I thought it was unlikely that something like that would be included in food, so I looked closely again and searched for the same characters on the internet.

Still nothing.

I tried searching on social media.

Still nothing.

Was it a typo? Feeling like I had stumbled upon something unusual, I took a photo as a memento and threw the package in the trash.

Three days later, there was a flurry of news about a missing person found dead.

“Today, the body of a woman in her 20s, who had been missing for a week, was found in 〇〇 City, Niigata Prefecture.”

So, such a gruesome incident had occurred in the city where I lived…

“The body was severely damaged in parts, with noticeable marks as if something had been scraped or shaved off.”

Marusenariko…?

“The deceased has been identified as Marusena Riko, a resident of the city.”

Marusenariko… where had I heard that name before?

With trepidation, I opened the photo app on my smartphone and looked at the picture from three days ago.

Clearly written on the potato chip package in that photo was “Marusenariko.”

What on earth did I eat?

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