The Cooking Princess - Chapter 14

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Princess Who Cooks

Episode 14

I thought he would have some resemblance since he was from a branch family, but it was fascinating how completely different he looked. Chloe offered a handshake and briefly introduced herself.

“Hello, my name is Chloe Garnet. Starting today, I’ll be working alongside you to teach you the job. Let’s get along well.”

“Y-yes…”

The ten-year-old child seemed overwhelmed by Chloe’s energy and stammered without being able to say much.

Chloe immediately grabbed Pierre’s arm and shouted.

“Then let’s start with hands-on practice right away!”

With the ambition to teach him work as quickly as possible and make good use of this free labor, she took the boy to where Eshir was resting.

And she brought up the question she had thought of earlier to Eshir. Whether potato improvement could be accelerated through magic that makes plants grow faster.

“…It seems possible.”

And fortunately, there really was plant growth magic that Chloe wanted!

“Let’s try it right now!”

Hearing Chloe’s expectant shout, Eshir glanced and pointed with his eyes at Pierre, who was standing restlessly behind her, and asked.

“More importantly, who is that guy?”

“My cousin!”

He wasn’t really her cousin, but she found it bothersome to explain in detail so she glossed over it.

The explanation was instead given by Pierre, who was startled by her statement.

“Hello, um… I’m Pierre Letter. I’m from a branch of the G-Garnet Family. We separated and became independent from the Garnet Family 120 years ago.”

“Ah, a branch family.”

Eshir looked at Pierre with pitying eyes for a moment, then said to Chloe.

“What are you doing? You need to show me the location so I can cast the growth magic.”

Chloe planted potatoes in the estate land she received from her father, and Eshir cast growth magic on the potatoes.

And Chloe was confused.

“They’re the same?”

She examined the quality difference between potatoes cultivated quickly with magic and potatoes cultivated normally without magic, but there was almost no difference between them.

Since they were cultivated using the shortcut of magic, going against nature, she naturally thought there would be a quality difference and planned to attempt improvement taking that into account.

She was puzzled by the fact that the quality was the same even when cultivated with magic.

“But why hasn’t this been used until now?”

To Chloe’s question, Eshir answered curtly as if asking whether that was even a question.

“Would proud mages use magic for such things?”

It was the same reason why only young Eshir had responded to the call of the prestigious duke.

There was a strong perception that using magic for daily life rather than combat was a waste of manpower.

So mages who were better at non-combat magic also felt ashamed of their talents and tried to learn only combat magic.

“I don’t understand it.”

For Chloe, who was both a realist and pragmatist, it was truly puzzling.

“Normally, I wouldn’t have done it either.”

Eshir grumbled.

“You can make potatoes taste as good as milk, right?”

“Of course!”

Thanks to Eshir’s growth magic, the potatoes multiplied rapidly to an almost copied level, and Chloe tasted each of the cultivated potatoes bit by bit.

As the work expanded, Eshir alone became insufficient. Chloe now hired several mages to research the magic needed for seed improvement.

And she taught Pierre, whom she had brought, work in his spare time, helping him learn improvement methods, principles, and management techniques.

Finding mage personnel also became easier than before. As Chloe’s story gradually spread by word of mouth, non-combat mages who had been ignored by combat mages began to show interest.

Not only were they attracted by the high salary offered by the Garnet Estate, but they also began to hope that working with Chloe would allow them to achieve decent results and gain recognition.

For some reason, Eshir seemed a bit displeased and showed signs of reluctance to meet other mages.

But Chloe didn’t care because she was burning with ambition to succeed in wheat and rice farming as well, starting with this potato improvement.

Of course, just because the number of mages increased didn’t mean Chloe’s work decreased.

Chloe didn’t trust the taste buds of people in this world who could live normally eating such food.

So it was more comfortable for her to taste all the improved potatoes one by one herself.

“Ugh.”

Of course, unlike her mind, her tongue wasn’t comfortable.

Some potatoes were too bitter, and some potatoes were salty and had a strange taste even without seasoning.

Her only consolation was the fact that she wasn’t the only one tasting these terrible failed improvement potatoes.

“How does it taste?”

“…It’s really bad.”

That’s right.

Pierre, who came to learn work from Chloe, also had to be forced to eat the bad-tasting potatoes from her failed improvements.

After months of countless failures and successes repeating.

“Oh, ohh…!”

As always, taking a bite of each tasteless potato and making disgusted faces…

Really at some moment.

The ‘familiar’ potato taste of the 21st century spread throughout Chloe’s mouth!

She forgot even her dignity and kept exclaiming like a primitive tribe.

Pierre’s green eyes also widened as he ate a small piece of the same potato as Chloe.

“Potatoes could taste like this…”

Perhaps sensing their unusual energy,

“What are you doing?”

Eshir, still blunt, or rather somehow more unpleasant since recruiting other mages, asked.

Chloe didn’t add any words and just shoved the potato she was eating straight into Eshir’s mouth.

“Why are you giving me what you were eating mmph, this is gro… ss?”

At first, he blushed and was disgusted that Chloe had pushed the potato she had bitten into his mouth.

But after being forced to chew the potato, he unconsciously muttered with a mysterious expression.

“It’s… delicious?”

As expected!

This potato wasn’t just delicious to her and Pierre’s taste buds.

As could be seen from how everyone enjoyed the hamburger steak and milk shaved ice, people in this world didn’t have strange tongues.

The standards for taste weren’t different; they just didn’t know what to do with these terribly tasteless ingredients and foods.

“Right!”

Chloe shouted without hiding her flushed face.

“Let’s mass-produce this potato seed from now on!”

“I understand you’re excited because this succeeded, Princess. But giving someone what you were eating goes against etiquette—”

“Then please cast growth magic evenly on these seeds so they can be unified to this taste as much as possible. Please! Thank you always!”

“Hey! Listen to me!”

Eshir shouted and nitpicked without knowing the grace of being shown delicious potatoes, but it wasn’t Chloe’s concern.

Because there were mountains of crops to improve besides potatoes, there was no time to rest.

Some crops had to be improved with difficulty like potatoes, but there were also cases where they grew well with similar taste to her previous life but were treated as weeds because people didn’t know how to cook them.

Perilla leaves were a prime example.

Perilla leaves, which were enjoyed mainly in Korea in her previous life and treated as ‘devil’s grass’ in Western countries, were here also just used as insecticide to repel bugs with their strong smell.

Even such perilla leaves were very delicious when made into pancakes with minced meat coated in egg batter.

‘I want to eat wrapped in leaves. Pork belly wraps.’

For that, she would need to improve meat quality, find rice, and to make ssamjang, start from making soybean paste.

‘It’s a long road ahead.’

However, there was a problem.

Just because potato improvement succeeded didn’t guarantee that improvement of other plants would also succeed.

From now on, she would have to find and improve seeds by tasting each crop like this.

“This is complete manual labor, isn’t it?”

Chloe knew herself too well.

If she repeated this process while only improving plants, her interest would quickly fade and at some point she would be moderately satisfied and give up.

Although she had taught Pierre quite a lot of work know-how.

‘Can this gentle and kind kid really produce plants of the quality I’d be satisfied with?’

As she thought this and met Pierre’s eyes, he smiled brightly and exclaimed, completely unaware of what Chloe was thinking.

“Princess, you’re truly amazing. How can potatoes taste like this…? If I hadn’t seen the improvement process with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Thank you!”

Chloe responded with a cheerful smile to Pierre’s praise and fell back into thought.

To maintain her interest, she would need to start developing fish and meat varieties as well.

‘But meat will be even more difficult.’

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