The Cooking Princess - Chapter 52
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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 52
Chloe quickly grabbed the Magic Tower’s proposal and headed to the Imperial Palace to meet Shuel.
However, before she could even meet Shuel, she ran into Claude!
‘What terrible luck!’
While inwardly startled, she calmly greeted him, and he stared at Chloe’s face for a moment before saying this.
“What’s this. You look unusually happy.”
‘Is he here every time I come to the Imperial Palace?’
Unless Claude was stalking her, it must have been pure coincidence, but it felt strangely unsettling.
Moreover, Claude wasn’t the only one there.
“It’s been a while, Duchess.”
As if she had been having tea time, the Empress elegantly lowered the teacup from her lips and acknowledged Chloe.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
The Empress’s expression as she spoke was sharper than ever before.
Cold sweat ran down Chloe’s back as she received the Empress’s piercing question.
‘In this situation, it’s not enough to run into Claude, but I have to encounter the Empress too?’
Thinking of her future of being attacked, Chloe swallowed a sigh and barely managed to answer their questions.
“I have already requested an audience with His Highness Prince Shuel in advance. It was an honor to meet you, Your Majesty the Empress. And Your Grace the Grand Duke.”
Chloe greeted them again with flawless etiquette and turned around.
Just then.
“Wait.”
Claude called out to stop Chloe with a calm voice.
“Yes?”
Wondering what it was about now, she turned around,
Claude smiled brightly with that handsome face, unusually cheerful, and said to the Empress.
“I will escort Duchess Chloe and return, Your Majesty the Empress.”
And he expressed his intention to briefly step away from tea time with the Empress to escort Chloe.
Unable to hide her agitation at the situation unfolding before her eyes, Chloe said to Claude.
“Th-that would be too great a discourtesy to Her Majesty the Empress, wouldn’t it?”
At the same time as those words, Claude’s earlier statement that the Empress saw her as daughter-in-law material belatedly flashed through Chloe’s mind.
‘No way?’
But such sad ‘no ways’ never missed their mark.
“Oh my, our son knows how to consider others too. You’ve grown so much.”
The Empress, adding that it wasn’t just about going to war, seemed even pleased.
Unlike someone who had subtly antagonized Chloe until now, the Empress bloomed with smiles on that pretty face and added this.
“A lady needs delicate escort.”
‘No, I don’t need it at all!’
Whether Chloe’s complexion turned pale or not, the Empress only said what she wanted to say.
“Since there isn’t much time left until the Duchess’s debutante, hurry and escort her to build friendship.”
“Yes, Your Majesty the Empress.”
Since Chloe’s fifteenth birthday had been recently, there should have been three more years until her debutante, but the Empress didn’t care and showed generosity to her son.
Unable to ignore the unilateral favor of an Imperial family member, Chloe barely maintained her smile and escaped from that place.
“Are you really going to escort me?”
“Yeah. While I’m at it, I can also pay my respects to His Highness the Prince.”
Barely swallowing the words that Shuel probably wouldn’t particularly welcome his greeting, Chloe just sighed deeply and quickened her pace.
Claude, who had been watching Chloe’s face expressionlessly, dropped a bombshell statement.
“And that news you’re so happy about doesn’t seem like very good news to me.”
As soon as she heard those words, Chloe was dumbfounded.
“It’s not like that. If anything, it’s His Highness the Prince granting my request.”
At those words, Claude slightly raised and lowered his eyebrows as if something bothered him, then asked Chloe.
“I’m quite curious about the request the Duchess desires. Is it a request that only His Highness the Prince can grant?”
Strictly speaking, it was a proposal that the Emperor, Empress, and even Claude could grant.
But asking her to attend the signing ceremony with the Magic Tower together with Claude?
‘Are you kidding?’
If Shuel happened to refuse, Chloe was planning to gracefully accept her fate and not go.
She would have to adjust the profit distribution of the magic range too.
That’s how much she didn’t want to get involved with Claude.
No matter how much she wanted to participate in the signing ceremony for her own position, she didn’t want to join hands with someone who would even humiliate her parents for that.
Anyway, since it was a favor that Claude himself could grant, not Shuel, Chloe’s answer was delayed for a moment.
“Why. It seems like a request I could grant too, doesn’t it?”
At those words, Chloe flinched and thought.
‘This guy has ghostly intuition.’
While trying to feign composure and pondering how to respond, Claude added.
“I guess I’m right?”
“Pardon? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“If I were wrong, the Duchess would have jumped up in protest.”
Claude’s expression as he said this was confident.
“Instead of managing your expression like now. Isn’t that right?”
Chloe’s response of trying too hard to act nonchalant while managing her expression seemed to have given Claude more certainty instead.
“Since it’s no different from a proposal I’m making to His Highness the Prince, there’s no reason to disclose its contents to Your Grace.”
‘I was so focused on cooking that I lacked political sense.’
Thinking she shouldn’t answer any more here, she rudely closed her mouth and headed quickly toward her meeting place with Shuel.
Claude, who had been watching that scene with an emotionless face, opened his mouth to ask.
“Why exactly are you so devoted to the Prince?”
“Devoted?”
She swore to heaven that what she was doing was nothing more than groveling to Shuel, the male protagonist of the original story.
‘No, in the first place, I’m going to ask Shuel for a favor right now, so where did he get the wrong idea?’
Even aside from that matter, wasn’t it natural to be respectful to Shuel, who was the only one who took her side in front of Claude and the Empress? Was she supposed to be cold instead?
Perhaps Claude also saw Chloe’s dumbfounded expression, as he added somewhat awkwardly.
“Well, now you might be asking the Prince for a favor… but usually, hasn’t the Duchess often helped the Prince instead? I think that’s quite devoted.”
When Claude said that much, Chloe also briefly looked back on her actions toward Shuel so far.
Standing up to the Empress on behalf of the Prince, treating him to delicious food, exchanging gifts, playing together.
Thinking about it, it made sense, so she nodded.
‘To others, I might look like I’m taking good care of Shuel.’
Before Chloe could answer anything, Claude observed her expression and added this.
“He’s more incompetent than me.”
It was a cunning way of speaking.
If Chloe retorted here with ‘What are you saying about His Highness the Prince!’, he could instead corner Chloe by saying ‘So you see the Prince as more incompetent than me, I understand the Duchess’s thoughts well.’
At the intentionally cunning words, Chloe glared at Claude with triangular eyes.
Then Claude brazenly made an incredulous expression.
“You get angry right away when I insult him. See this. After all this, it’s not devotion?”
He had a thoughtful expression for a moment, then added this.
“Is bloodline that important?”
From Chloe’s perspective, having lived in the 21st century, bloodline and status weren’t that important, so Claude was completely wrong.
‘But I can’t say to Claude’s face that it’s not about bloodline, but your rotten personality that’s the problem…’
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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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