The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 69

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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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Episode 69
“Then let’s start with the most important question. What does your wife enjoy?”
“Hmm.”
Debron sank into thought, his expression more serious than Luciel had ever seen it.
“If we’re talking about food, it’s northern cuisine. The kind that uses meat, potatoes, and vegetables in balance—not particularly refined or sophisticated, but wholesome and nourishing, the sort anyone would appreciate.”
“Mother has a special fondness for pheasant! She used to lament that so few in the capital knew how to prepare it properly.”
“Pheasant, you say……”
Luciel nodded slowly.
By good fortune, it was a specialty of hers.
Fresh ingredients happened to be on hand, and since the Nor Territory’s head cook hailed from the north, if nothing else, his Pheasant Cooking was exceptional.
Denied her wages, she’d watched his technique carefully enough to make it worthwhile, gleaning his methods in the process.
“And is there anything else she’s particularly fond of?”
“Well, that’s… all there is to the cooking. Except——”
Debron hesitated before continuing.
“There’s something I mentioned before. Loren has a particular weakness for Winter Roses.”
“Flowers?”
“Yes. They’re not food, of course, and they can’t be obtained in the capital either…… but it’s the only thing that comes to mind when I recall what Loren would say constantly.”
“One could decorate with similar flowers or craft a dessert in that shape. What sort of bloom is it?”
“I’ve never seen one myself. Only heard of them. They’re flowers from the north that bloom and fade in a short season.”
Debron closed his eyes briefly, gathering the memory, then opened them again.
“In the Peyton Territory, there are roses that bloom in late autumn. To look at them, they’re the usual striking sort—red petals and green stems. But they have certain peculiar properties.”
He continued.
“As you know, winter comes swiftly in the north. On the day of the first snow, ice forms around the roses. The inside is red and blue, they say, with ice forming like glass all around it.”
“So that’s where the name ‘Winter Rose’ comes from.”
“No. Outsiders hear rumors and assume that, but the true Winter Rose appears afterward, or so I’m told.”
A small smile played at Debron’s lips as he recalled his conversation with Loren.
“The rose blooms in the cold, but once frozen solid, it melts immediately.”
“Once it freezes…… it melts again?”
“Yes. It becomes liquid inside the ice. Whether it’s due to the peculiar Magical Power flowing through the territory’s soil or some inherent property of the flower itself, I couldn’t say.”
“So the rose freezes, and the flower inside melts, and then……”
“Yes. The moment the thin ice cracks even slightly, what was the rose simply falls cleanly to the ground. So what remains?”
“An ice…… shaped like a rose?”
“Exactly. That’s what northerners call the Winter Rose—an ice flower that announces the beginning of winter and shatters in an instant, fragile and beautiful.”
“……How lovely.”
Luciel murmured before she could stop herself.
Not a flower, yet a flower.
A miraculous, beautiful phenomenon that occurs only in the Peyton Territory.
The sort of romantic sight one would wish to show to those they love.
But then.
“This is damnably difficult.”
She spoke with a sullen expression.
After speaking of it as though it were merely a simple meal.
They’re outright con artists, aren’t they?
“Ah, I know! It’s probably impossible, right? But it’s the only thing that might make her smile…… still, if it’s truly impossible……”
“No.”
Luciel drew a long, weary sigh and murmured.
“Difficult doesn’t mean impossible.”
The problem is I’ll have to work myself to death for it.
She surveyed her two short-term disciples once more.
Swearing silently to extract repayment for this debt without fail.
“I’ll give you credit for the idea. Since it’s difficult, I’ll handle the execution, but I will need your help.”
“Just name it!”
Edwin answered with enthusiasm.
His expression brightened noticeably, as if hope had appeared.
“First, Debron, I need you to go find Melina and get this from her.”
Luciel scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Debron.
“The cooking starts after that.”
“Will… will Melina actually listen to me?”
“You’ll need to either beg her most pathetically or pay her. One or the other.”
“I’ll do both!”
“And Edwin.”
“Yeah?”
“Peel potatoes.”
“Huh……?”
“Sit here.”
She pressed a peeler into his hand and set a large sack of potatoes before him.
“All of them?”
“No.”
Luciel answered firmly.
“We’ll have Potato Chips as a snack.”
“Wait, you’re saying you’ll eat……?”
“Is that a problem?”
Edwin’s eyes wavered for a moment.
The Duke’s eldest grandson.
The heir to the Earl Riamond title and the only nephew of the Marquess of Peyton.
For a boy who had known nothing but a nobleman’s life, being ordered to peel potatoes as snacks by a fourteen-year-old cook was enough to cause a momentary crisis of identity.
“N-no problem! I’m great at peeling potatoes!”
Yet Edwin was a boy with considerable adaptability.
“Sit down and relax! I’ll do an amazing job.”
With fierce determination, his hands set to work on the potatoes.
* * *
Eight o’clock in the evening.
Because the Duke’s displeasure had not abated, the household’s formal dinner was forgone, and the servants had long since finished their meal.
Debron and Edwin wiped sweat from their foreheads.
They had given their best efforts for hours since midday.
Despite Luciel’s tiger-like instruction and the subtle enjoyment Melina took in tormenting her brother, they persevered.
They were jostled about while the cooks prepared their meal, yet they never left the station Luciel had assigned them, their hands never resting.
The dishes were ready, and now it was time to await the results.
“Don’t just stand there—clean the counter for me, would you? I’ve only just finished the dessert.”
At Luciel’s voice, both men’s shoulders flinched reflexively.
“Right away!”
“Of course.”
The two moved with wind-swift obedience to her command.
That terrifying girl.
Edwin swallowed hard.
Usually she smiled carelessly, chattering about butter and chocolate, looking harmless enough.
But actually working alongside her in the kitchen revealed she was nothing short of a sorceress.
She would assign three tasks at once, and if even one went wrong, she’d make them start from the beginning.
She spoke of how poor timing degraded the value of the entire dish.
The irritating thing was that her inhuman training actually worked.
His skill had grown noticeably in mere hours, and the finished dishes before him were genuinely, remarkably satisfying.
Just as he and Debron were scrubbing the counter with cloths,
Creak——
the kitchen door swung open, and a familiar face rushed in.
“Edwin! Where is Edwin?”
Loren burst in with an alarmed expression, calling his name, before her eyes met theirs.
“What…… is going on here?”
Upon spotting Debron, something cold kindled in her gaze—the slow ignition of anger.
“I came because I heard Edwin was injured, but why was he brought to the kitchen of all places?”
Loren’s expression hardened as she looked between the two men.
“He doesn’t look like he’s unconscious from a sudden Monster attack, so what in the world is this?”
Her piercing gaze fell upon the maid standing nearby.
“You betrayed me? You?”
“That was no betrayal, my lady.”
Sophia met Loren’s eyes unflinchingly.
“If leaving this place entirely were truly what you wished, I would never have listened to Debron.”
“Then what?”
“You were crying alone in your room. I heard it all.”
“……!”
“I’ve long harbored reservations about what Debron has been doing, but…… if you were to end things without a proper conversation, I felt there would be lingering bitterness in your heart. After nearly twenty years of marriage, shouldn’t one at least achieve a proper resolution?”
“But using the boy as a pretext……!”
“Had your heart truly been set on leaving, you wouldn’t have rushed here at the news that Edwin was injured.”
Sophia’s voice remained calm as she faced Loren’s anger.
“I am the one who knows you better than anyone. Whether it’s a quarrel or a conversation, divorce or reconciliation—you are not the sort who can live peacefully without seeing things resolved cleanly.”

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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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