I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 94

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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 94. What to Gain and Lose (4)
‘This… what on earth is this….’
The bread was unmistakably shaped like a knot.
Moreover, it was ‘that’ knot she had been researching recently.
This was specialized knowledge that only a Mage Hunter who had awakened magic-series skills and conducted research could possibly understand.
‘Of course, you could find it through a search, but implementing it is an entirely different matter!’
You think you can just copy it by drawing the same way?
I’d like to see someone try.
Maintaining tight spacing while continuously listing knots with different meanings.
And even if you could, how would it be possible to recreate that in the form of bread?
Yet there it was before her eyes—bread that contained all of it.
‘Of course, since it was made from dough, the smaller knots couldn’t have been implemented. But… wait. These cracks are surely….’
Her suspicion was correct.
Yeon-gi, who was chattering away in front of her, had ingeniously implemented the small knots that couldn’t be rendered in dough by utilizing the surface cracks that formed as the bread baked.
‘That section uses non-Euclidean topological boundaries to impart entropy reversal, and over there, you’ve twisted tensor values at each nodal point of the multi-layered knots to fix the vectors?’
The more she examined each component, the more absurd the methodology became.
On top of that, she had even transformed the topology by specifying the curvature relationships and intersection correlations of every single knot existing throughout the whole structure.
The astonishment didn’t end there.
‘That was… definitely a failed knot, wasn’t it?’
A knotting technique that doubled the effects of existing magic.
Soo-min had merely presented the possibility of realization through countless calculations and trials-and-errors, not the completed form in her thesis.
But this bread was different.
The subtly altered knots from her own design seemed to be saying something.
It looked like it could actually be implemented this way.
‘Who could this Hunter possibly be….’
A Hunter? A Mage?
This person couldn’t be categorized by such terms.
There was no way this was just a Mage.
Setting aside whether it was even possible to draw such intricate knots on bread, implementing knots of this caliber would be impossible without someone who had devoted at least decades to magic.
‘S-rank? But among magic-series Hunters, only Guild Leader Hwang Chi-ho is S-rank.’
The natural progression of her thoughts yielded only one conclusion for Soo-min.
An unregistered Hunter.
A being possessing power and experience rivaling S-rank, yet unregistered for some reason.
What could that reason possibly be?
‘Usually it would be illegal activity….’
Though even that couldn’t explain it adequately.
That was the nature of S-rank.
Unless the matter was grave, the state would turn a blind eye to such illegal activities for national interest.
So that’s why Chi-ho could confidently walk the streets with that nature of his.
There were only a few reasons why someone could remain an unregistered Hunter despite being S-rank.
‘Unless it’s mass murder, overthrowing the state, or terrorism on that scale, there’s no reason for it….’
Without being a villain significant enough to earn a place in history books, there was no need for someone with S-rank power to build and live in a pastry shop like this.
Thinking logically, she should have fled this house immediately in that moment.
There was nothing closer to death than facing off alone against a dangerous person she couldn’t even match.
But….
‘If I implement this as is, I can definitely activate it….’
The Mage’s yearning seized her wrist.
If she abandoned that and fled from here, where else could she ever witness such a miraculous knot?
With the dream of a lifetime right before her eyes, I couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.
“Ugh….”
“…Are you listening?”
“Oh! Y… yes….”
Yeon-gi’s voice, audible only after I regained some semblance of consciousness.
When the distorted voice—impossible to tell if male or female, old or young—rang in my ears, I found myself uttering a lie without thinking.
I had no way of knowing what would happen to me if I said I hadn’t heard.
“… I’ll explain again.”
Fortunately, Yeon-gi noticed my state and showed kindness.
“Simply put, you choose between two breads. The Fondant Chocolat is a bread that perfectly annihilates the wolf covered in black substance when fed to it. And the Hwadugu bread allows you to directly consume it to endure the cold and gain 5 times your magical output.”
“5 times….”
It sounded absurd, but that knot was certainly plausible.
A knot that was natural yet flawless, without a single error.
It was a revolution in magic.
“If you choose the former, you’ll be able to eliminate the mutant monster for certain. However, you’ll lose two things.”
“Question. What do you mean by losing two things….”
“If you choose the latter, you’ll obtain only one of the things you desire.”
No answer came to the question.
Yeon-gi simply maintained silence after finishing what needed to be said.
It was an ambiguous and dangerous statement.
If I chose the first bread, I could certainly dispose of the mutant monster, but the price would be losing two unknowns.
The second bread was more dangerous.
Obtaining one of the two things I desired was attractive, but there was no explanation of how much I would lose.
“The choice is yours, Soo-min.”
And so the moment of choice arrived.
Before Yeon-gi, whose very existence urged the choice, I deliberated for a long while before reaching out my hand.
‘Then I’ll make this choice.’
* * *
‘I don’t know if it was the right choice.’
The moment I stepped outside, the pastry shop vanished as if it had been an illusion, and I questioned myself once more.
I had no regrets about the choice.
Because of that, I accepted the two prices Yeon-gi presented and paid them.
As a Mage who paid mana as the price for spells from the beginning, I harbored no resistance to the concept of compensation.
‘That he would desire the eye here is something I cannot comprehend.’
It was also because the price was absurdly small compared to the opportunity granted.
‘And that he would seek me out again whenever he pleased after the hunt ended is equally incomprehensible.’
I could not fathom why he had offered such a price.
Mages, like myself, were mostly twisted in their nature.
‘Moreover, the other Yeon-gi behind him glared at me with such ferocity.’
Unlike the Yeon-gi that had taken humanoid form, the one behind it bore the shape of a quadrupedal beast.
Similarly, I could not discern its features, but Soo-min felt it boring into her with its gaze.
It likely was.
Otherwise, she would not have felt the killing intent she had only experienced on the battlefield.
‘Phew. He said this one should be eaten directly.’
What she withdrew from her pocket was none other than Hwadugu bread.
Even upon second inspection, it was extraordinary bread that could be said to have condensed the very essence of magic.
But the true nature of bread was to be eaten.
Had not Yeon-gi also told her to eat it?
After carefully memorizing the circuits drawn on its surface, the moment she took a bite of the bread—
‘W-what is happening?’
The world twisted.
The sprawling snowy plains swirled into lattice points, and the driving blizzards traced spirals with anomalous curvature.
And when finally even the sky took the form of a cube, she understood.
‘This is a knot.’
It was not an illusion.
She was simply perceiving it.
Mana, one of the energies that sustains the world.
A world of knots where that mana was naturally arranged.
How was such a thing even possible?
Yeon-gi had never mentioned that the bread had such an effect.
‘He said the cold debuff would disappear… and it truly has.’
The bitter chill that had been bearing down with the force to freeze her to the bone was no longer felt.
Her skin, which had taken on a bluish pallor, had regained its healthy complexion.
But that was not the important matter.
I extended my foot and stepped on the snow.
Crunch.
The sound of the snow compressing was suffused with mana.
Mana that deformed irregularly yet maintained consistent knots as it advanced.
As the snow compressed and changed form, the knots ceaselessly transformed their appearance.
‘Then the sky must be…’
I looked upward.
The falling blizzard changed its curvature with each shift in the wind’s direction.
That one is 0.1, that one is 13, and that one is 3.14….
A movement like random numbers that shifts unpredictably whenever countless variables change.
But that was a rule.
Within a predetermined rule, like fate itself, it was a single equation.
I had been mistaken.
There was only one variable.
“Haha… hahaha….”
I could see it.
I felt it.
I could understand it.
How this world was arranged, and thus what direction it moved toward.
I found the coefficients that had been missing from the function.
The knots weren’t meant to be tied that way—they could only be tied that way.
Naturally.
In that direction.
Only then could I understand.
My own skill, ‘Invisibility,’ was also placed on the same continuum.
“[Invisibility].”
As I cast the skill, knots stretched upward from the extremities of my body.
The angle of light incidence was distorted, and vector values were adjusted so that photons and other mediums flowed in different directions.
That was my invisibility until now.
But now that Soo-min had glimpsed this new world, her vision had become far broader….
‘This is far too inefficient.’
The knots woven against the natural flow were screaming.
Toward the knots bearing a load that seemed ready to burst at any moment, Soo-min reached out her hand.
Ting!
She immediately grasped the severed end of the knot and, this time, changed the junction point to create the knot anew.
‘Ah….’
Magic stabilized in an instant.
In this moment, she grasped all the flaws her skill possessed.
She could now understand why Chi-ho had perceived her skill so easily.
And simultaneously, she resolved it.
“Haha….”
Soo-min’s form vanished.
Even her presence disappeared cleanly.
But Soo-min herself knew this was not all.
She stepped forward once more toward the Snowy Plains.
…
No sound could be heard.
Not even a footprint remained.
I had succeeded not in concealing my presence, but in erasing myself entirely from the world.
I had deceived the world itself.
‘It’s remarkable. Truly….’
Yet despite this, I could not comprehend the intricate, labyrinthine knot that enveloped me.
A knot that resembled the epitome of inefficiency at first glance, yet shattered the very rules of the world itself and maintained stability by imposing my own rules.
It was an effect born from the bread Yeon-gi had given me—a technique that nullified the cold debuff.
‘Even with this perspective… I cannot grasp it.’
The pinnacle of magic lay far beyond what she knew.
The dream remained unreachable, distant beyond measure.
I had failed to obtain the one thing I desired, losing it instead.
But it did not matter.
‘There are more paths ahead for me to walk.’
It was at that very moment I resolved to steel my heart and press forward once more.
Auuuuuu
A bone-chilling cry echoed from nearby.
The Mutant Werewolf Monster that had annihilated the Death God Guild’s elite strike force stood beside me.
A black tar-like substance writhed and undulated from its head.
As if rejecting any knot of mana, it distorted mana itself.
Yet…
“Target entity—self-identification impossible confirmed.”
The creature, unable to perceive me standing right beside it, merely flared its nostrils and released an irritated cry.
Even as Soo-min raised her hand to stroke its fur, the creature gave no response.
Having confirmed this much, Soo-min’s actions were decisive, without hesitation.
Scritch
Soo-min drew a short blade from her inner pocket and drove it into the creature’s eye.
“【Krraaaaaaagh!】”
As the creature shrieked at the sudden assault, the world made its declaration.
An existence that would strike down her enemies without even allowing them to understand why they died, right until the moment of their demise—the Silent Grim Reaper had emerged into the world.

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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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