The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 76

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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 76
“Treason! Protect His Highness!”
One of the attendants cried out, and all five waiting knights drew their swords, eyes sweeping the room.
For a moment, their bloodlust seemed to envelope the Duke, but his voice scattered it just as quickly.
“Admit the knights!”
In rushed the blue-uniformed knights, swords in hand.
Their numbers seemed to double the attendants’ strength.
“What is this…! Is Bellaon truly attempting to assassinate the Crown Prince?”
The attendant who had shouted treason stared wide-eyed, but the knights did not lower their blades.
“This is rebellion! Do you wish to see your entire house destroyed?”
“Rebellion, is it.”
The Duke spoke.
His voice remained remarkably composed.
His bearing suggested he had witnessed such incidents throughout his entire life.
“You came to my mansion as guests, and you drew first. Should the knights of Bellaon appear so incompetent as to let an outsider point a blade at their lord?”
“That is because Your Highness was coughing up—”
“Since when does treating a man who coughs up blood require a sword? Or do you have proof in hand that I was attempting to assassinate His Highness just now?”
The Duke stepped forward and took a bite of the apple pie the Crown Prince had left behind.
“Your scheme is transparent, Your Highness.”
“An old fox indeed, they said.”
Serion coughed up blood again, laughing.
“But whether the scheme is transparent or not will become clear once you examine my body.”
The Duke’s brow furrowed at his words.
“Did you truly consume poison? Not merely feign it?”
“It is deadly poison—the kind that could rupture my Magical Circuit at any moment.”
Serion spoke in barely a whisper.
“You would use that as proof of treason?”
“No.”
He shook his head and met the Duke’s gaze directly once more.
“Bring the child from the adjoining room.”
“…!”
“They’re listening from in there, aren’t they? I read it in the movement of their eyes.”
He smiled slightly, another thread of blood dripping from his lips.
“A most interesting child. Bael of Bellaon seized me by the throat to protect them, and you blocked my path with your entire body—as if I might touch them.”
“…”
“Summon that child. Take me back to their dimension to receive treatment. If I am to recover from my injuries here, it will take months at minimum. Unless you wish Bellaon to bear the suspicion of having attempted to assassinate the Crown Prince, there is no other way.”
Serion’s eyes gleamed with a wild light.
A ruthless one.
The Duke muttered beneath his breath.
Not mere blackmail—he had truly harmed his own body.
Raised from birth as Crown Prince, surrounded by those who treated him as if he were made of glass, and yet…
He had to acknowledge that persistence, at least.
The only problem was where those eyes were directed.
“How base. More than any predecessor.”
“My predecessors never encountered a child such as this one.”
Their gazes met once more.
Several seconds passed.
“Try it.”
The Duke let out a hollow laugh.
“…What?”
“Pin your accusations—treason or whatever—and see if they hold.”
“Duke.”
“I acknowledge your audacity. But when using such methods, you must know your opponent.”
“…Cough, are you jesting now?”
“Throughout the ages, many emperors have sought to break Bellaon. Had even one succeeded, the house would not have endured.”
“Duke!”
“Let us test ourselves.”
The Duke called for the servants once more.
“Take His Highness to the upper bedroom. Summon Aila and the other physicians to administer Detoxification—”
“Did you not hear me say deadly poison? Bring the child at once—”
“So it is deadly poison. Take him upstairs, at once. Attendants, why do you stand idle?”
“Cough!”
Serion, straining to resist, coughed up more blood.
At the mention of physicians, the attendants had no choice but to cooperate in moving him upstairs.
“You will regret this.”
Even as he was carried away in a knight’s arms, Serion’s eyes burned with fierce intensity.
Thud—
When all was done, the Duke opened the door to the room where Luciel waited.
“I agreed to your request and allowed you to remain here, but now things have unfolded in such a way that I wonder if it was wise.”
He regarded her with a stern gaze.
“This is an order. Go to your room and do not emerge. Not until all of this is finished. You four are to take the child and depart.”
At the Duke’s gesture, servants surrounded her, and she followed them without resistance.
‘The Duke held firm after all.’
The situation had unfolded in a way that was astonishingly close to what she had foreseen.
Serion had harmed himself, and the unyielding Duke had stood his ground.
The pattern had not been entirely clear from the start.
Her understanding of Serion had crystallized only after Melina and Debron declared their alliance with Luciel.
And after Luciel had returned to her room and read her mother’s diary from beginning to end.
Everything her mother had experienced in the game, every story Luciel had forgotten—it was all recorded there.
—Playthrough 21: The Crown Prince unleashes hunting dogs on a neighboring kingdom’s bastard prince, escalating a dispute. The king kneels before his son’s blade reaches his throat.
—Playthrough 33: The Crown Prince turns assassins to his advantage. He deliberately takes a blade to amplify the crisis, then traces the conspirators. He arranges matters so they cannot escape—leaving the blade to pierce his own vital points.
—Playthrough 101: The Crown Prince attempts self-harm to blackmail a nobleman, falsely implicating them in treason.
Luciel had synthesized this information to predict Serion’s next move.
She had also anticipated the Duke’s response.
He despised being swayed by the Imperial Household’s shallow coercion more than almost anything else.
‘I received so much help from Mother.’
Inside her room, Luciel smiled softly.
Now it was her turn.
She wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to the servant guarding the door at the Duke’s command.
“Please deliver this to Debron.”
“Hm?”
“Just deliver it.”
The servant hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
Though he was called incompetent, Debron had held complete authority over the mansion until recently.
The servants still respected his word.
Letting one girl slip away unnoticed by the Duke was nothing to them.
Luciel took a deep breath.
Now it was time to cook. Swift and invisible to the Duke’s eye.
‘He’ll discover it eventually, but that’s all right.’
She steadied herself with those thoughts.
‘I’m the chef most beloved by the Duke in all of Bellaon, after all.’
* * *
Serion blinked several times.
‘Has my eyesight failed me?’
He wondered if it was the poison’s influence, but it was not.
The physician Aila had forced something bitterly medicinal into his mouth, and his cognition remained intact.
The poison’s traces were still present, but the pain had nearly vanished.
But what in the world was this before his eyes?
“You said you wanted to taste my cooking?”
Luciel extended a tray toward him, speaking softly.
Bright golden hair and eyes of matching green. Even in repose, her eyes seemed to smile.
It was her.
“Please. The food there—by the way, it was made using those gloves Your Highness was so interested in. My sincerity and Bael’s went into every detail.”
Serion swallowed hard.
Before him lay something he had never seen before in his life—an ornamental object.
A glass sculpture of a pomegranate, delicate and precise, carved as if from a colossal ruby, luminous red.
“…This is food?”
“It’s made with sugar and fire.”
Serion’s eyes narrowed.
Sugar, was it?
That object, which recreated a pomegranate in perfect form, was dazzlingly beautiful. Along its smooth curves flowed transparent crimson light, vivid as blood.
It was exactly the color he favored.
She had brought this…before him? Alone?
Where had she found such courage?
“You break it with a spoon to eat it.”
She spoke again.
“You enjoy breaking things, don’t you?”

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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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