The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 28

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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 28
“Hey, what are you looking at? The Sapphire was discovered last year in a mine owned by our family…….”
Lucielle wasn’t listening.
Her finger reached out carefully toward the decorative stone.
It was small and rough, no different from any pebble you’d find on the ground.
Its only distinguishing feature was the three black lines that ran across its center.
Found it. Found it.
Lucielle muttered to herself, suppressing the urge to bounce on her feet.
The Jeongbak Crystal.
With this, I can go to Mother’s Secret Garden!
* * *
Mother had created the Secret Garden hidden in the folds of space back when she was a handmaid at the Imperial Palace, after she met Father, who was a Mage Scholar.
She said they needed a place to go on dates.
In the game, it was an item you could obtain if you were lucky, but it required rare magic to make—something Mother said she couldn’t do alone.
“Wait, was Dad a Great Archmage?”
“No, a Great Archmage has to be meticulous and skilled in many areas among Mage Scholars. Your father was a genius with a screw loose. Our baby inherited that from Dad, which is why she’s so adorable.”
“……Is that a compliment?”
“Your father had his specialty. He was one of the few Mage Scholars who studied dimensions.”
“Mom, is that actually a compliment?”
“Your father…….”
The Secret Garden, to be precise, wasn’t something that existed in the empire itself—it was a space created by opening a separate dimension.
Since Mother had been born into this world as an Esselred, I thought it would be impossible for her to cross between dimensions and had given up on the idea.
But when Father heard the explanation, he spent several nights poring over magic texts and came up with a solution.
He said it could be done using Mother’s blood as a Dimensional Traveler, complex incantations, and some kind of stone-like material.
“The Jeongbang Crystal?”
“Jeongbak—honey, let’s work on your Korean. It’s a jewel that fixes dimensions in place. It looks like this.”
“Why is the picture all black? Crystals are supposed to be clear, aren’t they?”
“……In person, it sparkles like obsidian. It’s a little prettier than ordinary stone.”
In any case, Mother succeeded, and the two of them went there without interruption to date as much as they pleased.
True to the quest reward, rare plants grew abundantly in the Secret Garden, and thanks to its unique energy flow, they even built a few devices that would be difficult to make or preserve outside.
Various material concentrators using Mother’s knowledge of food engineering and Father’s technique, sauce makers, containers that could preserve food for years on end.
After Father disappeared, Mother went there sometimes alone, sometimes taking me with her.
The problem was that I couldn’t go alone.
“You said that if I let go of Mom’s hand, I can’t get back in. Did you hurt yourself hitting the dimension wall? My goodness, you have a bump on your forehead.”
“……I hate it here. Mom won’t let me in by myself.”
“Since Mom is the Creator, she can just enter freely. But for you, besides inheriting Mom’s blood…….”
“I know, the Jeongbak Crystal. That’s what you used to make the Secret Garden back then.”
“Right. It disappeared.”
The Jeongbak Crystal was difficult to find—extraordinarily difficult.
It wasn’t a matter of expense.
It wasn’t a matter of high demand either. If anything, the opposite was true.
The only function of the Jeongbak Crystal was to open a passage to another dimension, but even among Mage Scholars, few believed that other dimensions existed at all.
Even fewer researched it. Father was almost the only one, or so Mother said.
Which meant that to most people in the empire, the Jeongbak Crystal was simply a pebble that happened to roll around.
If you were searching for a large, ornate diamond, you could easily have found where it was kept.
Everyone’s attention would be on it.
But there were no merchants who dealt in “three-lined, glimmering black pebbles,” and no one remembered seeing such a thing anywhere.
Since I couldn’t borrow the eyes of others, I had to search myself, but unfortunately the Jeongbak Crystal didn’t exist in large quantities.
After Mother disappeared, Lucielle tried several times to obtain a Jeongbak Crystal.
She asked the peddlers who came and went from Lord’s Castle, wandered through the markets, and later just dug up the ground here and there.
Naturally, she found nothing.
The merchants thought her strange, and no matter how much she searched through Lord’s Castle, no such stone existed.
Just when she thought it would be faster to find Mother than the Jeongbak Crystal, it appeared before her eyes.
“……Are you listening to me?”
Melina asked again, her expression exasperated.
“I’m asking if you heard how skilled the craftsman who carved this jewel is.”
“Craftsman……Who’s that?”
“Ethan Mael. He only takes exactly twenty commissions a year.”
Melina answered as if she’d been waiting for the question.
“There are so many counterfeiters making fake gems that he places different small stones or beads in every jewelry box as a marker to authenticate them.”
Ah, so that’s it.
A small stone used as a counterfeit-prevention marker.
A lapidary searching for a suitably shaped small stone had happened to discover a Jeongbak Crystal rolling around.
After various twists of fate, the Jeongbak Crystal had come into Melina’s hands and now sat embedded in a dark wood box, radiating its dull shine as if that had always been its purpose.
“……That’s incredibly beautiful.”
Lucielle spoke as if entranced, her eyes glazed over as though she were seeing something wondrous.
“Of course it is.”
Melina nodded with satisfaction at last.
“Only people who win the competition can have it?”
“That’s right. Like I said before, this year my daughter Selene will be its owner.”
“Lucielle.”
Bael, who had been watching her, slowly opened his mouth.
“Do you want that?”
“Yeah.”
I want it so badly.
Lucielle nodded.
Melina’s expression froze in shock.
Cain looked at Lucielle with surprise as well.
Lucielle’s gaze didn’t waver from the box containing the Sapphire.
I want it so much.
If I just had this.
If I just had this, I could go to Mother’s Secret Garden.
There’s a blue plant in the Secret Garden that Aila’s been looking for.
If we had it, Bael’s treatment could be completely finished.
“Uncle, give me a bow as a gift.”
“……I’ve prepared one.”
Bael made the request with an expression of resolve, and Cain nodded with an expression of exasperation.
“…….”
Melina, who had been quietly watching them, made no attempt to hide her shock as she slowly closed the box and slipped it into her pocket.
Gulp.
She swallowed hard.
It seemed she had grown excited without even realizing it.
She’d recognized it from the moment she faced the Duke—a young and audacious girl.
But put another way, she was a formidable schemer.
Impressive enough to draw admiration even from Melina.
At merely fourteen years of age, to dare covet this brilliant Sapphire, a work of Ethan Mael himself.
To have her master in Horseback Riding and Archery, intending to take possession of it.
What’s more, in a short span of time she had pushed Bael and Cain to the limit, getting a sickly boy to participate in the Hunting Festival.
Now that she thought about it, it was also this girl who had helped Bael learn to ride.
‘Was there a plan from the very beginning?’
The corners of Melina’s mouth curved upward slightly.
She liked schemers.
She herself was one, and so was her daughter, who was her mirror image.
Was it this child?
The person who had remained hidden despite all the searching.
A bold, clever, and ambitious child qualified to serve as an excellent friend and rival to Selene, and as a stimulus to her—was it this child?
But right now, this child belonged to…….
Melina’s eyes darted back and forth between Cain and Bael.
Complex calculations began to bloom in Melina’s mind—strategies to pry Lucielle away from both their hands.
* * *
Bael sat atop Estelle and pulled on the reins.
Cain lifted targets into the air with his magic, spacing them at regular intervals.
Six of them.
As Bael galloped through the wind, his gaze remained steady.
His bowstring hand, his eyes fixed on the targets—unwavering.
Whish—
Four targets fell in rapid succession, arrows striking their centers.
Just as Bael was about to draw his bowstring for the remaining two,
Whish-whish—
Two arrows flew from another direction, piercing the targets clean through.
Bael slowly turned his head.
Two figures stood at the entrance to the Training Ground.

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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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