I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 128

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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 128. Bearing a Dark Lantern (1)
“This should definitely work, shouldn’t it?”
I had to admit, this ingredient possessed precisely the effect I needed.
The ability to share emotions through tactile sensation, and even the subtle aspect of mutual perception—all of it aligned perfectly.
Though Noir didn’t seem to grasp the full implications.
“What kind of bread are you planning to bake that requires such certainty? Owner?”
“I’ve been wrestling with this problem for quite some time.”
Ultimately, what mattered was orchestrating a situation where those five would have no choice but to acknowledge their guilt after consuming the bread.
But I couldn’t incorporate destructive effects, precisely because these five wouldn’t be the only ones eating it.
“However, if the bread possesses the characteristic of shared sensation, it becomes possible.”
No matter how much I assured myself of avoiding harm, it meant I could detect the subtle greed and deception in others.
It would function like a lie detector powered by collective consciousness.
“But Owner, isn’t Eucharist bread supposed to be made using only water and flour?”
“Times have changed somewhat.”
Traditionally, using only water and flour was indeed correct.
But nowadays, adding anointing oil is considered acceptable.
“I even confirmed this with Rohan to be safe, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“That’s reassuring, but Owner—do you know how to make anointing oil?”
“Of course. Naturally I do.”
I’d attempted making anointing oil multiple times during my studies abroad.
I’d even extracted Rosemary oil myself before.
Of course, this would require swift preparation.
“Then let’s head inside. There’s much to do. Gora, Chohong—can you help?”
“Gora gora!”
“Kyuu!”
“Good. First, let’s harvest the Rosemary.”
Thanks to Chohong’s delicate and swift hands, I managed to harvest the Kitchen Garden’s Rosemary.
The white thorns protruded sharply, resembling a crown of thorns.
I’d tried to touch them briefly, but Chohong made such a fuss that I couldn’t.
“Kyuu! Kyuu kyuu! Kyuuu!”
“They’re quite sharp, you say?”
“Kyuu!”
It certainly seemed to be the case.
But when I tilted my head with a skeptical expression, the creature brought over one of the Gingerbread Men nearby.
The moment the unsuspecting Gingerbread Man, dragged along without understanding why, touched the thorn at Chohong’s insistence—
Ssshhk!
“Kyuu!”
The thorn pierced through the Gingerbread Man’s sturdy arm as if boring through something soft.
I made a decision.
I would absolutely never touch that again.
“I… I’ll need to get some oil first.”
“What kind of oil will you use?”
“Extra virgin olive oil.”
When crafting infused oil, one of the critical considerations is selecting the base oil itself.
If the goal were to preserve delicate aromatics, nearly neutral oils like sunflower or grapeseed would be ideal.
But this time, I was prioritizing flavor and efficacy over fragrance alone, so I chose extra virgin olive oil.
“After washing thoroughly, I’ll remove every trace of moisture….”
Any lingering water could invite mold, so I dried the ingredients completely before preparing a glass jar that I’d sterilized by bringing it to a rolling boil.
“Now I need to choose between two methods….”
“There are two methods? Owner?”
“The infusion technique depends on temperature.”
Cold infusion—slowly extracting essence at low temperatures—yields the purest fragrance possible.
However, it requires one to two weeks of steeping, and since the unleavened bread I’d be making wouldn’t prioritize aroma, I opted for a different approach.
“For rich flavor, hot infusion is the way.”
I placed the oil and Rosemary in a pot and heated them gently over low flame.
This method extracts deep flavor and aroma in a short time through gentle heat.
“The key is controlling the temperature carefully.”
“Can’t you just raise the heat to make it faster?”
“Absolutely not. Never.”
If the oil begins to boil, it’s no longer infusion.
You’d simply end up with fried Rosemary.
Though admittedly, it would taste nutty and crisp….
“And I’ll add just one or two cloves to this.”
“Why cloves?”
“They add a deep, peppery weight that enhances the overall flavor profile.”
Rosemary’s character carries the scent of pine needles mingled with a slightly bitter herbal and woody aroma.
When heated, it releases its distinctive warm camphor note.
What it lacks is precisely that sense of depth and weight.
“Cloves are exactly what fills that gap.”
“If you say so, Owner, I’ll trust you. Meow.”
After steeping gently at around 60 to 70 degrees for about an hour, the oil’s color gradually began to shift.
“It’s coming along nicely.”
As the fragrance emerged, color slowly leached from the Rosemary into the oil.
Once I turned off the heat and let it cool slightly, I’d strain out the Rosemary stems and cloves, pour everything into the jar, and it would be complete.
Under normal circumstances, anyway.
“Is there something else to do?”
“I’m going to add peppermint and let it steep once more.”
If I only added weight, the bread might become too heavy when baked.
By introducing mint’s bright character, I could provide a sharper, more refreshing sensation.
“That’s it. Just add a small amount and let it steep for one more day.”
“Meow. I’m already looking forward to it. I caught a whiff earlier, and it smelled wonderful. Meow.”
“Then I’m glad.”
After storing the infused oils I’d prepared in the refrigerator, I pulled over a nearby chair and sat down.
I’d already mapped out the recipe entirely in my mind.
So surely a bit of rest wouldn’t hurt.
Though I’d said a week, even accounting for needing to finish within three days at most, I still had time.
“It’s been a while since I’ve just sat like this.”
“You work far too much, Owner. Meow.”
“But I do take breaks occasionally.”
“That’s not resting, Owner.”
Noir bounded onto my lap, tail swishing, and spoke with conviction.
“Honestly, I don’t think you know how to rest. How many hours are you sleeping each day?”
“Well… I get about five hours?”
“Yesterday you only slept three hours. A person who doesn’t even properly track their own sleep is far from normal.”
“Hmm…”
He had a point.
But isn’t that just how self-employment goes?
The Korean pub owner I used to know worked until 2 AM, and then did delivery runs after that.
I heard he only slept once every two days.
“That’s abnormal! Meow!”
“All right, all right. But I do rest sometimes.”
“I’m telling you again—rummaging through the warehouse and baking bread is not resting!”
“Ahem…”
Now that I thought about it, I actually had more free time than I realized.
Gora and the Ginger Man Legion were helping with baking bread for the Bakery and running Wichi Food.
And Chohong had taken over the cultivation work in the Kitchen Garden.
All the time I’d freed up went straight into satisfying my curiosity.
“All right. I’ll be more moderate from now on.”
“Good thinking. The Previous Witch ultimately departed on a long journey from which there is no return due to overwork, Owner.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“She traveled too far and had to guard an empty house for fifty years before returning. She said she had some fun watching her grandchildren by the sea. Meow.”
“That was a vacation!”
So she didn’t die from overwork—she just didn’t feel like working and took a fifty-year break instead.
Either way, what he said wasn’t wrong, so I decided to be more careful.
My shoulders had been stiff lately anyway, so I should probably take better care of myself.
I was thinking just that.
Knock, knock.
The sound of knocking reached my ears.
Someone was rapping on the front gate of the Witch’s Cottage.
I instinctively peered out the window, but all I could see was pitch-black darkness.
“A Hunter, then?”
“That’s highly likely. Meow.”
“Probably why the Witch’s Cottage ended up here.”
Creating the Eucharist wasn’t something the Witch’s Cottage had intended.
No, even if it had been, that wouldn’t explain why the Witch’s Cottage chose this place.
Then I’d need to speak with whoever knocked on that door to understand the real reason.
“Chohong. Gora.”
“Meow?”
“Gora gora?”
“Stay inside… No, Gora. Don’t pick that up.”
Chohong was preparing her defenses, which was fine, but Gora picking up the adamantium hammer that Siwoo had crafted seemed a bit excessive.
Though I truly appreciated their intention to protect me.
Knock knock knock.
“Woof woof!”
Along with the knocking came the sound of a dog barking.
When I rose and opened the door, I was greeted by two familiar faces.
Yes, two of them.
“Good day!”
A thick-set man whose shoulders were so broad and muscular that you couldn’t tell where his neck began.
Seung-hyun, who had taken away a large batch of Dragon Claw Cheese Bread before, was one of them.
“A long-awaited reunion. Expression of joy.”
“Woof!”
And peeking out from behind him, waving her hand, was Soo-min, the one responsible for that greeting.
The creature, once a fragment of the Witch but now purified into the form of a puppy, still followed Soo-min faithfully, its tail wagging vigorously at her side.
“What brings you here?”
“We were just passing by… haha…”
“In a place like this?”
“Actually, that’s a lie… We got lost…”
Seung-hyun scratched his head awkwardly, then hung his head in shame.
He flinched under Soo-min’s incredulous stare and hastily added more.
“B-but I really felt like my friend was telling me to come this way!”
“Friend. Incompetent. Seung-hyun also incompetent.”
“That’s not true! My friend is very capable, I assure you! Isn’t that right!”
“Screeeeeeeech!”
Then a massive creature emerged from the darkness.
An elongated body covered in tough, scaly skin.
And at its end, a mouth bristling with countless sharp teeth of indeterminate number.
Each time acidic saliva dripped from its jaws, the cave floor melted away.
“Surely you don’t mean your friend is…”
“That’s right! Yeon-gi! Isn’t he dependable? Hahahaha!”
“I’m expressing considerable regret over my own decision to accompany them….”
I found myself equally bewildered by this pairing of two people I never would have imagined connected in any way.
As I stood there momentarily dazed, staring at the two of them, there was only one thing I could say….
“Come inside for now.”
“Thank you!”
“….”
All I could do was guide the two of them, left without a single lantern in the darkness, into the cottage.
* * *
‘Why did I ever agree to come here with this person! How did things end up like this!’
Soo-min sighed as she sat on a sofa made of candy and gingerbread, boasting a surprisingly plush texture.
She blamed it all on Guild Leader Hwang Chi-ho for how things had turned out.
‘I don’t understand why he suddenly went crazy!!’
Soo-min had returned from the Gate after narrowly escaping death.
Until then, Chi-ho had cherished her like family, devoting himself entirely to her recovery.
Of course, he hadn’t forgotten to visit the families of the other Guild Members who had died within the Gate, offering them compensation and condolences.
It would have been nice if he had remained that warm….
‘But everything changed after this training….’
The Guild Members besides Seung-hyun who hadn’t properly demonstrated their abilities until then.
Chi-ho’s plan for the training he had arranged for them was a resounding success.
Those who had always been a source of concern for the Guild were now established as core members, even earning the epithet Warmagus.
‘That’s when it started.’
From that point on, Chi-ho became firmly convinced that he possessed a kind of foresight.
And what caught his eye was Whitey, who had become Soo-min’s companion monster.
‘Hey. Your magical abilities have really grown a lot.’
‘I was blessed with fortune.’
‘Right. Exactly, exactly. But from what I can see, that mutt….’
‘Whitey.’
‘Yeah. I think Whitey might be just as fortunate, you know? Mages always need support, right? Don’t you think he could provide that?’
Everything began from those words.
She was paired with Seung-hyun, who among Hunters was called by the alias Druid for his emphasis on communion with monsters.
And she ended up entering the A-Rank Gate, the Darkness of Injustice, together, saying she had been planning to make a good friend anyway.
‘And then we got lost in there too!’
It had been a week since they were stranded.
From the moment Soo-min and Seung-hyun took the wrong path until they barely managed to stumble into the Pastry Shop through sheer luck—that was how long it had taken.

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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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