The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 40

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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 40
Deep, lustrous green leaves had grown evenly in an oval shape.
Fine serrations lined the edges, and when touched by fingertip, a subtle, weighty fragrance seeped into the skin.
The stem was firm, and the soil around the tree was damper and darker than elsewhere.
……Camellia.
That’s what her mother had called it, though simply put, it was a tea plant.
A tree that didn’t exist anywhere in the Empire—one that grew only far away on the Eastern Continent.
It was here!
Luciel rummaged through her journal and found the sketch of the tree.
The location and shape matched exactly.
Then beside it must be…….
“Ha.”
Luciel let out a bewildered laugh.
Finding this here?
What lay beside the tree was a small hexagonal machine.
The device was made of brass-hued metal, roughly the size of two palms pressed together.
On its upper surface was an opening to insert tea leaves, and on its side were two small handles.
One was green, the other red.
If her memory served, turning the green handle would halt the oxidation of tea leaves in an instant to produce green tea, while turning the red handle would precisely control temperature and humidity to produce black tea.
Her father had made it, after her mother had given him a lengthy explanation of green tea’s properties and principles.
Something her mother had shown her once or twice at home when she was very young.
With this, she could make green tea.
The finest black tea, too.
Something understated yet delicious, rare in the Empire, distinctive and fragrant enough that anyone who tasted it once would remember it.
This was the answer.
Tea leaves.
She could make not just rare high-grade black tea available in the Empire, but even green tea, which didn’t exist at all.
The recipes she could create with it…….
Just as Luciel’s creativity was about to explode—
“Found it!”
Aila’s excited cry rang out.
“Samyocho…… Samyocho is here!”
When Luciel turned her head, Aila held in her hands a plant with a blue stem and fruits of various colors hanging from it.
“With this…… maybe it’s really possible for Bael to…….”
Aila murmured, her eyes glistening with tears.
Luciel’s heart too was pounding.
It was really here.
That rare thing, right in this very place.
And there was also a genius physician her mother had recognized—someone who knew how to use that rarity.
Wasn’t this thanks to me?
Aren’t I really amazing?
As if sensing the fullness in Luciel’s heart, Aila pulled her into a tight embrace.
“Luciel, you said you’d saved Cain’s life before, didn’t you?”
“That was when I was young, so the memory’s a bit fuzzy, but it’s probably true.”
A bundle of luck has come to the Bellaon Family. You’ve done so well.”
Aila held Luciel close, absently stroking her hair.
“Will this really work? I heard it was originally a poison.”
“Don’t worry too much.”
As Luciel, her hair now disheveled, asked again, Aila offered a bright smile.
“Physicians mainly study medicine, but I started by learning about poisons first.”
Aila deftly prepared the Samyocho and placed it in her bag as she spoke.
“I’ve even received offers to be scouted as an assassin, so there’s no chance of problems arising from handling poison.”
Cool words contrasted with her gentle tone, touch, and smile—all of which registered with Luciel.
What, she was such a scary person?
Cold sweat suddenly broke out on Luciel’s back.
“Unless we encounter someone who poses a threat to Cain or the Bellaon Family, I have no reason to harm anyone. Least of all Bael.”
“……I see.”
Finding reassurance in her words, yet Luciel came to understand one truth she had overlooked.
“Cain Bellaon and many others in the Bellaon Family are frightening people. If our paths happen to overlap, it’s best to read the situation and avoid them. Your mother didn’t handle that properly in the game and died several times because of it.”
“Right. With low stats, she just recklessly went to the Duke’s Residence looking for Baeri and got killed by Cain.”
“Exactly. Usually she’d fight Cain Bellaon and die from poison.”
“Poisoned……?”
“Yes. Cain didn’t like to spill blood in the Duke’s Residence.”
……”
“There was someone in his vicinity who was incredibly skilled with poison—probably someone close to Cain Bellaon. Your mother never did find out who.”
“She didn’t even know who, and just died like that?”
“Yeah. Multiple times, too. Since her stat values would decrease in strange ways before she died, at first she didn’t even realize it was a debuff. Only later did she learn it was poison.”
“How did she figure it out?”
“The cause of death shows up after you die, right? It said death by toxin accumulation. And that person never used the same poison twice. If that’s not mastery of poison at the highest level in the Empire, I don’t know what is.”
Aila Ruan, Doctor.
‘So that person by Cain’s side was her.’
A genius who had studied both the art of saving lives and the art of taking them.
“Come, Luciel.”
Unaware of what Luciel was thinking, Aila wrapped her shoulders in warmth.
With eyes that were the gentlest and kindest in the world, overflowing with affection.
How fortunate.
Unlike in her mother’s game, Luciel and this woman were on the same side.
“……Let’s go inside the Magic Tower.”
Luciel nodded.
We’ll go save Bael, and that way save the Empire too.
In the world of the game, she was the enemy who killed her mother, but this time, let’s benefit from her abilities.
* * *
The east wing of the Mansion, Osborn’s quarters.
Click—
The door opened and Osborn entered, with Teo following behind.
After the Hunting Competition had ended, the Duke had disappeared to take refreshments and only reappeared much later; Osborn had been entertaining the guests in his stead, but his face bore no sign of fatigue.
He even wore what seemed like a benevolent smile.
He saw his wife Talea and Isolde in the room, but his gaze went first to his daughter.
“You’ve worked hard all day, Isolde. Your horsemanship has improved considerably.”
“Thank you, Father!”
“How’s your stomach?”
“I’m all better thanks to Aila!”
Isolde laughed brightly, and Talea lightly wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders before quietly slipping from the room.
The smile vanished from his face the moment the door closed.
“I provided the funds and connections to obtain a Frost Water Snake, and attached seven men to assist you.
He spoke in a low voice.
“Yet you failed.”
“It’s not my fault! How did that bastard…….”
“Bael caught the Frost Water Snake and claimed first place.”
Teo cried out, but Osborn cut him off with a toneless voice.
“He was the very image of his father.”
……”
“Do you know what Bael’s father was like?”
“I’m not sure…….”
“He seemed to devise strategies that were reckless and uninhibited, yet every one of them worked out irritatingly well. Whenever something didn’t go as planned, he showed no panic and responded with another reckless strategy.”
……”
“In the end, everything always turned out as he had foreseen. In hunting, in studies, in politics, in marriage.”
Osborn’s voice was soft yet carried an edge.
“I called it luck, but your grandfather thought differently. He praised even those seemingly reckless responses as calculated actions made in mere moments. Your grandfather still longs for that magnificent eldest son, recalling the boy in his youth when he won the Hunting Competition.”
……”
“This is why you had to win the competition.”
He spoke with emphasis.
A small fury flickered through the otherwise emotionless voice, and Teo’s complexion paled slightly.
“After several competitions where only Branch Line descendants competed and proved meaningless, this Hunting Competition where multiple Direct Line grandsons competed together for the first time—your grandfather would have overlaid the face of your past brother Cedric upon the winner.”
He paused, then continued in an even quieter voice.
“I explained all of this to you. From the beginning to the end.”
……”
“But it seems you didn’t understand.”
Osborn’s icy gaze met Teo’s.
“Father…….”
“Whether you strike and mock your inferiors, steal from the Mansion, or pick fights with lesser nobles—I don’t care. Those who raise such petty issues can simply be crushed. That much.”
Sensing danger, Teo’s face turned deathly white.
Snap—
In the next moment, the magical power he summoned coiled around his throat.
“Gasp, Father!”

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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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