The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 4

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

Chapter 4
“……!”
Her molars crunched through the golden-crisp exterior of the Potato.
Then the fluffy interior melted across her tongue, releasing the rich umami of butter in waves.
The flavor was far too intricate and refined to call it merely a Potato.
Most striking of all was the perfect seasoning. Between the coarse salt’s bite, layers of unidentifiable dried herbs unfurled in ascending complexity.
The pairing cut sharp against the butter’s richness while amplifying the Potato’s earthiness to its absolute zenith.
Even the Imperial Palace’s own chefs merely threw in rare spices lavishly, never achieving this level of precise orchestration—this addictive umami that emerged from such careful calibration of herbs and salt.
But was it a trick of the mind?
Just after swallowing the Potato, a subtle vibration ran through her body’s mana flow.
“What……?”
Crunch.
Cain seized what remained and chewed it down.
This time there was no doubt. A warm current descended through his throat and spread across his entire body; his heavy frame grew light, his fingertips suddenly keen and alive.
His physical abilities had been temporarily enhanced.
The sensation matched exactly what he’d felt ten years ago, in that forest.
It was her.
The craftsmanship of the one who made that Castella Bread was unmistakable.
“Child! Come to your senses!”
Cain shook Lucielle urgently, and she opened her eyes to the merest sliver.
Her unfocused green gaze wandered through empty air.
“Did the chef Nigel make this……?”
At the question, tears welled up at Lucielle’s eyes.
Even through the fog of her consciousness, indignation broke through; her lips trembled.
“……It’s mine.”
The words came barely audible, a whisper.
“I made it……. My Whirling Potato…….”
Cain felt as though he’d been struck on the head by a club.
The young, innocent voice from his memory overlapped with the hoarse whisper now before him.
“Ugly brother, are you better now?”
Ten years had passed and the child had grown, yet that distinctive timbre remained.
The one who’d made that Castella Bread on the battlefield then was neither the unknown woman nor the chef Nigel.
That child who had been with the woman, the little one who’d stroked his cheek and told him he would survive—
His lifesaver was this grimy child standing before him.
* * *
Lucielle opened her eyes inside the swaying carriage.
As her vision cleared, two figures came into focus.
The brown-haired guard she’d glimpsed just before losing consciousness, and beside him a nobleman with deep black hair and piercing blue eyes.
Lucielle narrowed her eyes to study them more closely.
Up close, both men were quite handsome.
Especially the dark-haired one—he possessed the chiseled features of a prince from a storybook, with a sharp, penetrating gaze.
“You’re awake?”
The black-haired man turned toward her as if sensing her stare, and spoke.
“Where am I……?”
“Inside House Bellaon’s carriage. When you wouldn’t wake, Lucan brought you aboard.”
“House Bellaon……?”
Lucielle’s eyes widened at the name of a house she’d heard of many times before.
Not simply because they were the most honored family in the Empire.
House Bellaon appeared frequently in the Original Work that her mother had spoken of.
The only house in the Empire capable of standing against the Emperor.
A house that could pressure the throne with wealth, threaten the Imperial Palace with military might, and command the Nobility Assembly through prestige.
Lucielle slowly raised herself into a sitting position.
“Long ago, you saved my life. Do you remember?”
But the words that came from the man’s mouth were entirely unexpected.
“Me?”
“Ten years past. In Parsil Valley, with the corpse of a Basilisk Worm and a fallen soldier—surely you remember?”
“……?”
“You and your mother placed something called ‘Castella Bread’ in my mouth.”
“……?”
“You were on your way to see a doctor because your head ached.”
“……?”
“……You told me I was ugly. More than once.”
“Ah! Ugly brother!”
A memory flashed suddenly across Lucielle’s mind, and she cried out in delight.
The image wasn’t perfectly clear, but there was a face that brushed the corner of her memory.
A face that looked far broader and puffier than an ordinary person’s.
“That was me.”
The man sighed, his pride apparently wounded, as he spoke.
“Cain Bellaon, also called Baron Bellaon. The man beside me is my guard, Lucan.”
“……Baron Bellaon.”
Lucielle craned her neck forward, studying Cain’s face intently.
Cain Bellaon—indeed, a character from the Original Work. Not merely mentioned in passing, but a figure with an actual role in the story.
A supporting character from the game her mother had loved most before the Transmigration, , was standing alive and breathing right before her eyes.
* * *
According to her mother’s account, she had been an ordinary office worker in her twenties living in a country called South Korea.
What soothed her mother’s exhaustion from work was every sort of game imaginable, but her mother’s greatest favorite had been .
The plot was simple.
A Crown Prince born into blessing grows into a foolish tyrant and destroys the nation.
Players must find some way to kill him, depose him, or save the country by any means necessary.
According to her mother, no one had ever successfully completed the game and seen the happy ending.
Her mother was no exception.
She had tried every conceivable approach.
Straightforward assassination, conspiracy to remove the Crown Prince from power, sending an excellent tutor to reform him.
When nothing worked, her mother resolved to flip the Empire through open rebellion and investigated which families might accomplish it.
But no family succeeded, and instead they only hastened the Empire’s collapse.
House Bellaon alone came closest to victory, her mother had said—the problem being that the family’s great hero died just before success.
After several more failed attempts, her mother, furious that she couldn’t complete the game, hammered every button on her laptop in rage and was sucked into the game world—or rather, pulled into it.
She arrived through Transmigration into the body of a palace maid.
That game world became the Empire I lived in now, Esselred.
“And so your mother became a Transmigrator. Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Mother is foolish. You’re supposed to pause the game when angry.”
“……She didn’t know the Red Moon would rise that night and open the Dimensional Gate.”
“So mother came here because of that?”
“It couldn’t be otherwise! If she hadn’t come, I would never have met our Luciel. That day was the greatest stroke of luck in your mother’s entire life.”
“……Really?”
“Truly. In fact, from right after the Transmigration, your mother came to love Esselred quite deeply.”
That was why, she had said, her mother had worked so hard to save the Empire.
Not merely from fear that she would die if the Empire fell, but because she had come to love everything about this nation—its nature, its culture, its food, even the nameless people she passed in the street.
And so I have listened to my mother’s stories since childhood.
How much effort she made after Transmigration to prevent the Crown Prince’s birth.
Charming the Emperor as a maid to thwart his marriage to the Empress.
Seducing the Empress in male disguise.
Even secretly feeding them both contraceptive pills.
When everything failed, her final attempt was to kidnap the infant Crown Prince, but she was spotted by the guards just before success.
My mother became a fugitive overnight and fled while pregnant with me.
My father, a mage scholar, attempted to send my mother back to her original world to ensure her safety, but became trapped in the dimensional rift instead.
That is why, whenever the Red Moon rises, my mother disappears to search for my father.

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