I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 143

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

Chapter 143. Wind Upon the Castle Walls (2)
Lee Geum-rye.
It was a name I could never forget.
The woman who took me in and raised me after I became an orphan, having lost my parents to the Gate Break.
Even amidst everything, she supported my dreams and spared no effort in helping me achieve them.
And that name belonged to my beloved Grandmother, who now battled an illness of unknown origin and lay admitted in a nursing home.
“H-how is this possible…?”
“How, you ask. I must confess, I too find the current situation rather bewildering. We have indeed found ourselves in quite a difficult predicament.”
While I stood frozen, my mind paralyzed by the shock of the moment, this woman—my Grandmother… or was she the boy… or something else entirely?
Unable to determine what to call her, she pouted her lips slightly and tapped her index finger rhythmically as she continued speaking.
“How much time has passed?”
“Time, you say…?”
“No, there is no need to burden you with such questions. Butterfly, answer for me.”
“Meow… I’m not sure what standard I should use to measure it… but many decades have passed since the war ended.”
“So much time has truly elapsed. That dreadful war has finally ended.”
With hands clasped behind her back, the boy gazed indifferently at the distant shadows committing slaughter as she murmured.
When she spoke of war, she must have meant the Korean War.
If this being truly was my Grandmother, that is.
My Grandmother had always spoken of the war she experienced in her childhood.
“And tell me—is the other me dead?”
“Still alive. Meow.”
“How remarkably long her thread of life has proven to be. By now, she should have become an old woman for whom death would be no surprise.”
Something felt wrong.
The coldness in her manner of speaking about herself.
It was as though she were saying that this version of herself and the one in reality were fundamentally different.
As if they were never the same being to begin with.
“It would seem an explanation is warranted…”
Yong-jin, who had been listening quietly, rose to his feet.
In his hand appeared a long, slender rod—though I could not recall when he had created it.
“Though my learning is shallow and I cannot fully comprehend your conversation, I can deduce that something of great significance has occurred.”
“What an impatient youth you are. Here I am, reuniting with my grandchild, and you cannot spare a moment’s patience?”
“I too am a hunter ranked at the highest tier in the Association. How can I speak of patience in such matters? I beg your understanding.”
Yong-jin began channeling his energy into the rod he held.
With each surge of power flowing through it, the rod grew thicker and darker, approaching a deep black hue.
“If you will not explain, then I shall have no choice but to extract the truth directly!”
“Dressed like a gentleman, yet…”
“Wha—?”
“Your conduct is no different from a common ruffian.”
The rod that had been in Yong-jin’s hands now rested in the boy’s grasp.
Bewildered, Yong-jin’s eyes darted between his own empty hands and the rod held in the boy’s hands.
Regardless of what he thought, the Boy deftly spun the staff—which appeared taller than himself—with practiced ease before speaking.
“How does this old woman’s sleight of hand appear to a refined young master such as yourself?”
“Ugh….”
It was a familiar pattern.
My Grandmother had often taken things I possessed through inexplicable hand movements.
There was even a time when she took a coin I’d been clutching in my fist and said, ‘This is the magic this old woman uses.’
I never imagined it had actually been real magic.
“I’ll explain, so stay quiet. There’s much to discuss anyway. Especially….”
The woman who had silenced Yong-jin through some inexplicable method turned her gaze toward me.
“I need to hear in far greater detail how my grandson became a man and then a Witch.”
Ah, so that was what she was curious about.
* * *
The library of a crumbling Ancient Castle.
Within it, we had to share countless stories.
First, what needed to be clarified was the identity of the Boy I was conversing with.
This could be confirmed directly from the person in question.
“So your name is really Lee Geum-rye?”
“That’s what I said. Who does my grandson take after to be so suspicious?”
“So you’re… really my Grandmother?”
“To be precise, it’s better to think of me as a mass of consciousness left behind by your Grandmother. That crazy woman.”
To put it simply, the Boy was my Grandmother, but not my Grandmother herself.
It seemed she was a sort of duplicate consciousness entity created when my Grandmother, during her time as a Witch, had been experimenting with baking bread.
“That old woman suddenly took me, who had just been born, and abandoned me here. Well, I understand that too. I probably would have done the same. Having something that looked exactly like me speak and walk around would have been terrifying. And I wasn’t even young.”
“So you’ve been here ever since then….”
“Time flows differently in this place than in reality. It’s caught in the gaps between worlds.”
It was already astounding that my Grandmother had been a chosen Witch since childhood, but to think she was capable enough to even duplicate her own consciousness.
Of course, the conversation didn’t end there.
“But how did you know I was your grandson?”
“The wavelength of magical power is the same, isn’t it? Unlike that thunder-struck young master over there.”
“Thunder-struck! How dare you be so rude!”
“Respect your elders. You fool. How can you demand courtesy after showing such disrespect to an adult?”
Thwack.
“Ugh!”
Yong-jin, struck on the head with the staff he’d lost, closed his mouth while swallowing his anger.
She was certainly a strange person, but this wasn’t what I had hoped for.
“Anyway, such things are not difficult. What this old woman is curious about is something else.”
“What is it?”
“How did a male creature become a Witch?”
“Ah… that’s….”
From that point on, I calmly laid out everything I had experienced so far.
I had spent all these years running a bakery where flies were the only thing that thrived.
Then at some point I awakened and gained a skill—which turned out to be the Witch’s Cottage.
I met Noir there, and since then I’ve been baking bread.
And Grandmother’s reaction upon hearing all this was simple.
“My grandchild… you’ve been swindled.”
“No… I wouldn’t call it being swindled exactly….”
“It’s a swindle alright. No matter how scarce successors are, the Witch’s Cottage has never chosen a man as a witch before.”
“Meow! That’s unreasonable! There have been cases like this before!”
Noir sprang up at Grandmother’s words and began defending herself.
“Gender isn’t that important in becoming a witch! What matters is how thick the bloodline runs! Besides, the very word ‘witch’ itself originated from a translation error by humans!”
“You said before that only women could inherit the power.”
“Uh… meow….”
“See? It’s a swindle. It’s true that only women could inherit the witch’s power.”
Grandmother chuckled, pointing at Noir with her shoulders drooping.
She continued speaking while naturally stroking the creature’s head.
“It’s true that only those with thick witch’s blood can become a witch. And it’s true that gender doesn’t matter. But it’s also true that everyone who has held the position of witch so far has been a woman.”
“Why only women….”
“Because the Witch’s Cottage and this creature chose only women.”
“What?”
“Uh… meow….”
Noir tried to avert her gaze, but there was no escaping everyone’s eyes in this place.
“I… I’ll admit it! But what can I do about it! The Witch’s Cottage always chooses only women!”
“No… why specifically only women….”
“…It was an extremely personal reason—not wanting men inside herself….”
….
A witch truly operates on her own whims.
The more I heard, the stronger that conviction became.
Even if there was a man with the thickest bloodline at the same time, she would wait and choose a woman with even thicker blood when one appeared.
“Could it be that the Witch’s Cottage has changed….”
“This one said nothing, Owner….”
“That’s why it’s a swindle. A creature like that wouldn’t have chosen at all if there were no ‘woman’ to become a witch.”
“That means then….”
“Yes. It means there was a special reason you had to become a witch. It seems Butterfly doesn’t know that either, though.”
“Meow….”
The more we talked, the more unknown things kept surfacing.
Had I been thinking about this too favorably all along?
What exactly was this witch, and what was this witch’s power?
As my thoughts deepened, it was Grandmother who broke the silence.
“I think we should stop here. Time is almost up.”
“Time?”
“They’ll gradually push their way here.”
“Surely not….”
Grandmother’s words proved true.
The shadows that had not dared approach this vicinity until moments ago were now creeping steadily toward the castle.
Countless creatures in their path perished.
Creatures that met gruesome deaths, pierced by black spikes, simply for having stepped upon a shadow.
Grandmother, her brow furrowed as she observed the sight, spoke.
“This place was never like this originally. Such things did not exist here.”
“Pardon? What do you mean….”
“These strange creatures began appearing around twenty years ago.”
Twenty years ago.
Why did this feel so familiar?
Something.
I tried to focus my mind on that sensation—as though something I had forgotten was about to surface—but there was no time for such contemplation.
“You thundering fool of a young master.”
“I beg you not to call me that!”
“Very well. You simpleton.”
“I am no simpleton… Ugh!”
As Yong-jin responded, a staff suddenly materialized in his hand, and Grandmother spoke to him calmly.
“You cannot read that book from the start. It is a tome permitted only to witches.”
“Which means….”
“So buy us some time, will you? Surely you can manage that much? Come now. Let us go. The book is this way.”
“Wait! You there!”
Grandmother seized my hand and pulled me deeper into the shelves.
Behind us, I could hear Yong-jin’s voice calling out desperately, yet our footsteps did not falter.
“Do not worry, Owner. Is he not said to be S-rank?”
“Even so, our first meeting was far too….”
“You need not worry overmuch.”
“Grandmother?”
Swiftly navigating between the bookshelves, Grandmother located the tome without hesitation and spoke.
“I entrusted him because he is worthy of trust. Having consumed something so extraordinary, there is no reason he cannot accomplish this.”
* * *
‘Sigh. It is difficult to follow what is happening here.’
Left standing alone before the door leading to the library, Yong-jin adjusted his hat and contemplated.
What would happen if he reported everything that had occurred today to the Association?
‘Yeon-gi is a witch, and this is an existence that has continued through generations….’
If that were true, would not all existing hypotheses be overturned?
Since she was discovered within a Gate, the Association’s internal speculation that she was a monster, or at least connected to Gate phenomena, would be entirely wrong.
And indeed, according to their account, witches existed long before Gates ever appeared.
‘The history of Gates may need to be rewritten.’
That mysterious boy-shaped existence claimed it had been abandoned.
And it also said this place hadn’t always looked like this.
‘Twenty years ago, perhaps… Doesn’t that align perfectly with when Gates and Monsters first began appearing?’
If so, then this space—different from reality—had existed from the beginning, and through some event thereafter, it had transformed into Gates and Monsters.
With so much information flooding in at once, Yong-jin closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, already…
“Hah… to have come this far. Shall I grant you time to think?”
Shadows drenched in blood, having reached even to his feet, surrounded him.
But the Yong-jin of now was no longer the Yong-jin of the past.
“I confess, having taken a blow to the cheek and vented my frustrations in a stern place, guilt weighs heavily upon my heart, yet it seems this too is something I must accept now.”
With each word spoken, the color of the staff grew ever deeper.
When at last the staff had turned a complete black.
“[Ten Thousand Peak Ascending Staff (萬岳冉上棒): Open].”
From the ground where Yong-jin struck with his staff, ten thousand mountain peaks rose skyward.

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