I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 100. The Power of Connections (1)
I thought I’d lived my life simply baking bread, but ironically, that very act had forged countless connections for me.
Even setting aside the connections I’d made as a Witch, I’d accumulated this many phone numbers.
“There really wasn’t a single one before.”
Back then, the only phone numbers I had were my Grandmother’s, the nursing home’s, and the Owner’s—a far cry from now.
“Still, as a merchant, you must have received plenty of calls, right? Owner?”
The bakery stood empty, everyone having left.
Noir, who’d been grooming his front paws, posed the question.
Yes, I did receive many calls back then.
The problem was that those calls weren’t customer inquiries, but rather….
“Credit card companies… loan offers… insurance advertisements, that sort of thing….”
“M-meow… was that really all?”
“I did get calls from marketing agencies too… but I couldn’t afford their services….”
“Meow….”
I decided not to dwell on the past anymore.
It only hurt to think about it.
In any case, the time had come to seek help from the connections I’d built.
“Ye-seul and Chae-eun have already agreed to help willingly.”
The two who’d been venting their anger about my situation in the bakery earlier had volunteered to help before I even brought it up.
I was truly grateful that they’d offered despite both having careers built on reputation.
“But that alone isn’t enough.”
Someone once said it.
Spreading false rumors is easy, but exposing the truth and reversing them is twice as difficult.
If it’s difficult, then pouring in proportional amounts of time, money, and manpower would do the trick.
That’s why the next person I called was PD Jeong Jun-ho, someone I’d built a connection with through delicious meals.
How many dial tones rang before he picked up?
– Yes, this is PD Jeong Jun-ho.
“Hello. This is Han Seung-hyun, who runs Trèfle de bonheur. I’m not sure if you remember me?”
– Of course. I actually saved your number, so I already knew who you were before picking up. Haha! I don’t even need to ask how you’ve been doing lately.
He already knew about what was happening to me.
– It’s something we see fairly often in this industry… but even I think this situation is strange.
“Is it that unusual?”
– Of course. It’s rare to see pressure coming from so many different angles in such a short timeframe. I wonder… if you’ve gotten involved with someone powerful….
“I don’t know either.”
I couldn’t definitively say it was the doing of that karma-laden grandfather who’d urged me to do business at his shopping center before.
I had suspicions, but no concrete evidence.
– You must be going through a lot. So what can I help you with?
“I was wondering if you could help. Since they came at me this way, I thought I’d call the best broadcast professional I know.”
– Haha. I’m not the best. And of course I should help. Look how much has improved since that broadcast.
A long-running program that had always maintained decent ratings—the popular show “A Delicious Meal”.
But the ratings reached their peak during the broadcast featuring Chae-eun—or rather, Hani.
– While Hani’s comeback variety show certainly helped, the viewer forum responses are almost entirely about you, Owner.
“Me?”
– Yes. Chef Han Yeong-gu has an image as a blunt critic, and he asked you to take him on as your apprentice. Haha.
“Ah, I see….”
– Of course, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but viewers could tell your food carries that kind of emotional impact.
Surprisingly, it would be best to keep hidden the fact that Young-gu was completely sincere.
Just yesterday, he sent a lengthy message again.
He said he didn’t need to be taken on as an apprentice, but was asking if I could at least allow him to observe my work….
As my head began to throb, the PD continued speaking.
– And honestly, I feel sorry for capitalizing on someone else’s misfortune, but we were actually planning to reach out to you first because of this situation.
“You were going to contact me first?”
– Yes. A good idea came up. It’s like expanding the scope of what you were originally asking me to help with….
What I had asked him to do was a form of media play.
If they selectively combine words and information to attack us, then we also wanted to have our own speaker. That was the goal.
The PD was the most fitting choice for this, having essentially been in the same boat with us through that single broadcast.
But now he’s talking about expanding it further?
– I looked into it, Owner, and you’re an alumnus of Le Cordon Bleu, aren’t you? Is that right?
“Ah, yes, that’s correct.”
– And from the Paris campus at that… That’s impressive!
“It’s not really that impressive, to be honest.”
Le Cordon Bleu is a culinary school.
So meeting the admission requirements wasn’t particularly difficult.
Academic records just needed to be high school level or above, and you could enroll even as a complete beginner in cooking.
The challenging part was simply having English or French skills to introduce and demonstrate your passion.
Of course, even that required proper financial circumstances.
In my case, my Grandmother supported almost everything.
– Anyway, you did graduate from there, right?
“That’s right.”
– Hmm… I’m asking because of that….
The PD, trailing off while lost in thought for a moment, asked me a question.
– How was your school life?
“My school life?”
Why was he suddenly asking about school life?
I scratched my head and slowly recalled my study abroad days, which felt like ancient history, before answering.
“Well… nothing special, really? It was just like any other study abroad experience.”
* * *
Paris’s 15th arrondissement, the Boulangerie Lab of Le Cordon Bleu’s Paris campus overlooking the Seine flowing majestically below.
The afternoon sun at four o’clock streamed through the windows, but the air inside the lab was a stark contrast to the brightness outside.
“What a bunch of idiots….”
Hot, humid, and above all, a heavy atmosphere that pressed down like a weight.
Chef Olivier paced between the stainless steel work tables like a predator, his brow deeply furrowed.
The French tricolor emblem embroidered on the collar of his white chef’s coat trembled with each harsh breath he exhaled.
French Bread Cup champion, European champion.
Those glorious titles paled in comparison to the pitiful sight before his eyes now.
“Stop!”
Olivier’s shout struck the high ceiling of the practice kitchen and bounced back.
The heavy mechanical sound of the mixer died down, and some twenty students froze, staring at him.
So-called elites who had gathered from all corners of the world to learn “the essence of French bread.”
He approached the nearest work table and roughly snatched the baguette dough a student had been handling.
“What is this? Is this a baguette dough right now, or is it a lump of mud children abandoned while playing?”
Olivier cut the dough with a scraper and thrust the cross-section under the students’ noses.
“The yeast has suffocated, and the gluten has collapsed without form. I told you to achieve a 70% hydration ratio—did I tell you to dissolve flour in water? Is the recipe merely decoration?”
The student kept his head bowed.
Olivier let out an exasperated sigh and hurled the dough onto the work table.
Flour dust rose into the air in a white cloud.
‘Sigh… it’s not like it used to be….’
If it were simply a matter of lacking technique, teaching would suffice.
After all, Le Cordon Bleu didn’t admit new students based on cooking skill.
What was driving him mad was not a matter of technique, but rather the absence of attitude and sensibility.
He moved to another work table.
This time it was croissant shaping practice.
“You.”
The female student Olivier pointed to went pale and stopped her hands. Before her lay several dried croissants.
“Look at the grain of these croissants. It’s as if you crumpled paper. The butter has already melted and seeped into the dough, and the layers have disappeared. How many times must I say that if the practice kitchen temperature is high, you need to extend the cold resting time? Do you really think you could serve such bread on a customer’s breakfast table?”
“But Chef, there simply wasn’t enough time….”
At the student’s excuse, Olivier’s eyes turned cold.
“Time? Do you think customers will understand your lack of time? They only want delicious bread. If you lack time, move your hands faster, arrive earlier than others, or sleep less. A baker is a profession that fights endlessly with the oven, the clock, and oneself. From the moment you put on this chef’s coat, you are no longer an amateur.”
The practice kitchen fell silent like an unlit oven.
Olivier examined each student’s eyes one by one.
Fear, bewilderment, and in some eyes, irritation mixed in.
Nowhere was there fierce passion to create better bread, or the earnest desire to feel the dough’s condition with one’s entire being.
‘Machines… they’re just machines….’
Mere machines repeating the numbers written in recipes, all for the sake of obtaining a diploma bearing the name Le Cordon Bleu.
The daily changing condition of flour, the subtle humidity fluctuations in the fermentation chamber, the living vinegar aroma that natural starter culture releases.
None of it would resonate with them.
“Don’t misunderstand, all of you.”
Olivier’s voice was low but heavy.
“You can wear this chef’s coat if you have the money. But the title of ‘baker’ can only be held by someone who knows how to read the hearts of flour, water, salt, and yeast. What you made today is not bread—it’s garbage. Discard everything, and we start again tomorrow morning at six. That’s all.”
He entered the professor’s private office at the back of the practice kitchen without looking back.
The sound of the door closing echoed unusually loud.
* * *
Olivier threw himself into the chair in his office, loosening his tie roughly as a burning thirst consumed him.
His desk was cluttered with textbooks he had written and trophy awards, yet none of them offered him any comfort now.
“What is the problem….”
He buried his face in his hands and murmured softly.
His chest felt suffocatingly tight, as if blocked by an invisible weight.
The pride of nurturing the generation that would shoulder bread’s future had vanished without a trace, and day after day, the substandard results gnawed away at his very soul.
‘Seung-hyun Han… if only my students possessed even half of his talent… or even a quarter… I would shed tears of emotion.’
A Korean disciple who had passed through this practice kitchen.
It had taken quite a long time to properly pronounce his Korean name, but his bread had captured Olivier’s heart from the very first day.
Seung-hyun was different.
He did not cling to recipe books like the other students.
He was always ‘touching’ the dough.
He felt the temperature of the dough with his palms.
He listened with his ears to the yeast breathing, and gauged the fermentation starter’s condition by its aroma.
The student who arrived earliest to the practice kitchen and remained the latest.
Even when Olivier left work, Seung-hyun was always stationed in front of the oven.
When he arrived at 4 AM, Seung-hyun was already there, drenched in sweat, organizing the breads he had baked through the night.
‘Chef, today’s Levain seems to have slightly stronger acidity than usual. Would it be alright to reduce the secondary fermentation time a bit?’
‘Chef, Paris’s humidity seems unusually high today, and the gluten in the mixer is setting faster than normal. The friction heat might exceed the target dough temperature of 24°C. Would it be okay if I adjust it by increasing the ice water ratio and lowering the mixing speed by one level instead?’
The questions he posed were on a different dimension.
They were not mechanical inquiries, but the product of an effort to converse with a living, breathing entity.
‘And that final piece he created… it was not bread, but a work of art….’
It was perfect in its very existence.
The crust bore a deep golden-brown hue with a pleasant crackle, while the crumb was soft like a cloud yet chewy.
Most of all, that bread emanated human warmth.
Seung-hyun was not baking bread—he was ‘sculpting’ it.
At his fingertips lay love for the person who would eat that bread.
“What would that friend have said if he saw that pathetic baguette that was right before my eyes just now….”
Olivier’s lips curved into a bittersweet yet longing smile.
He missed Seung-hyun.
Not simply because he made excellent bread.
That reckless passion he possessed, that fierce purity toward bread—that was what this parched land where Olivier now stood needed most.
“Where is he now, what bread is he baking….”
It was at that very moment.
His cell phone on the desk vibrated, breaking the silence of his office.
On the screen appeared an international call indicator with a number beginning in +82.
A call from Korea.
Olivier’s heart sank with a heavy thud.
It was a peculiar moment of timing.
He answered the phone with trembling hands, pressing it to his ear.
“Hello?”
A brief silence.
Then, through the receiver came a familiar yet welcome voice.
Somewhat tense, yet still carrying that unwavering resolve—the voice he had longed to hear.
“Good day, Chef. It’s Seung-hyun.”
Olivier’s eyes grew warm.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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