The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 90

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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 90
Sizzle.
As the butter melted, it seeped between the meat’s tightly woven fibers, and the muscle strands that had been stiff as steel began to tremble and relax.
She sliced the Black Truffle thin and laid it across the meat.
The deep, earthy aroma of the truffle masked the Kragon meat’s characteristically strong Magical Power scent, settling into a calm balance.
Next, she arranged Root Vegetables around the empty spaces of the pan—specimens that had endured the Northern Region’s harsh cold.
As moisture from the vegetables turned to steam and enveloped the meat, an aroma rose that was incomparably softer and more refined than any ordinary steak.
“Argh! It burst again!”
At the cry from the adjoining prep station, Luciel turned her head slightly.
It was the workspace of some chef who had made a name for himself in the Southern Region.
His meat, having barely finished the initial preparation before cooking began, was now releasing a bluish haze—apparently the toxic blood vessels hadn’t been removed thoroughly enough.
“Dammit…… I’ve grilled steaks a million times, so why……!”
The other chefs beside him stared at what looked like charred lumps, their expressions blank with despair.
Luciel glanced at them briefly, then increased her own pace.
She spooned melted butter over the meat again and again, her movements fluid and unbroken.
The dark-red surface of the Kragon meat gradually coated itself in an appetizing deep brown.
Serion, seated at the head table watching the entire process unfold, twisted his mouth into a smile.
His lips curved unnaturally, yet his eyes sparkled with excitement.
That girl shines alone, as always.
He’d thrown her an impossible ingredient—Kragon meat—thinking she’d breeze through any ordinary task without breaking a sweat.
She hadn’t panicked in the slightest.
If anything, her face had brightened.
As if she’d finally seized a chance she’d been waiting for all along.
Serion glanced around at the other chefs.
Even the celebrated, skilled ones were visibly flustered, beads of sweat dripping down their faces.
The chef called Mellik the Golden-Edged Blade, attached to the Imperial Palace, had managed to look somewhat competent—though that was only because Serion had revealed the theme beforehand and given him time to practice.
Could he break her with that much?
For years, Serion had tried to best Luciel in various ways, and failed each time.
When he heard through Melina that she was in charge of menus for a dessert café in Bellaon, he’d poured considerable support into competing establishments.
He’d tried to interfere with her ingredient suppliers.
He’d even sought out renowned cooks and placed one through Osborn into the Duke’s Residence.
The plan had been simple: if he could break Luciel, the Duke’s Residence would judge her objective value to have diminished, and he would take her as spoils of war.
But none of it had worked.
Every challenge had failed.
Luciel had not succumbed to any interference.
Rather, when she spotted a rival, she came alive, each time elevating her skills to a new level.
Unshaken—whether she knew of his designs or not—she created wonders and released them into the world.
Because nothing she created belonged to him, Serion’s rage had grown and grown.
‘Magical Beasts’ meat wasn’t an exception……?’
Serion watched Luciel glide between the prep station and pantry, his expression darkening further.
‘Nothing goes my way.’
He could try to push her into the mud and grind her down, but she would slip from his grasp and shine all the brighter.
Serion’s gaze shifted, turning toward Bael, who sat among the other nobles.
That one was similar.
When Serion looked at him, a killing intent flickered in his eyes.
Five years ago, meeting Bael and Luciel had left a deep impression, and he’d decided what to do with them.
Even as he’d watched the cooking contest, it had been half-decided; but the moment he’d judged that it was Luciel who held the key to that strange space, the answer had crystallized.
Kill Bael, and take Luciel for himself.
Both prospects seemed equally pleasant.
The problem was he’d succeeded at neither even as adulthood approached.
* * *
‘Last comes the salt.’
Luciel, focused on her work at the prep station, picked up Sea Salt.
As she sprinkled it over the meat, the grains reacted with the minerals on the surface, amplifying the umami in an instant, and a clear, transparent meat juice began to seep from the meat in that fleeting moment.
‘Done.’
Ring.
It was finished.
When Luciel struck the bell before her station and set down the pan, the room fell silent as a grave.
Unlike the others, drenched in sweat from desperately charring the meat over high heat, she remained composed, not a single strand of hair out of place.
The meat still crackling softly on the plate seemed to possess a resilience that would yield cleanly along the grain if only a knife were applied.
Everyone in the hall had fixed their gaze upon her, entranced by the fragrance emanating from her station.
Ring.
Ring.
With only minutes remaining before the deadline, a few other chefs struck their bells.
Ring.
The last to finish was Mellik the Golden-Edged Blade.
Wiping his sweat-drenched face with a towel, he set down his completed dish.
“Hmph.”
The Emperor shook his head slowly.
“Five? Merely five.”
He shook his head as if disappointed, yet appeared pleased with himself for having set such a difficult theme.
“Over a hundred cooks started, and only five finished within the time limit. It shall be a record that endures.”
He gestured to the attendants to remove several participants showing signs of poisoning, then gazed again at the five plates before him.
‘In truth, just two.’
Serion let out a hollow laugh.
Sure enough, the first three plates were worse than inedible.
One hadn’t properly removed the toxins, and blue smoke rose from it; they sent it back untouched.
One had burned it, and the Empress took a bite and spat it out.
The one who’d attempted to interpret the tough texture as a fried preparation had to withdraw after receiving the ambiguous verdict that it was edible, though no match for fried beef or pork.
“Mellik the Golden-Edged Blade…… a stew. Truly, a chef of the Imperial household.”
It was delicious. The first time he’d tasted it that day.
Having boiled it to dissolve the strong texture, the toughness had vanished and the robust meat flavor had come alive.
Yet.
‘……the off-flavor was unavoidable.’
Even if objectively excellent, there was something faintly disagreeable about it to Serion’s refined palate.
He gazed slowly at Luciel’s plate, then picked up a silver knife and carefully drew it across her steak.
Smooth.
The sensation of the blade cutting through the meat felt entirely different from ordinary flesh.
The tough steel fibers had vanished; only a smooth resistance, like parting well-aged fruit, transmitted through his fingertips.
Transparent meat juice seeped from the cut surface like jewels, glistening the pinkish cross-section that retained just the right blush of red.
He speared the carved piece together with the roasted Root Vegetables beside it on his fork.
The deep, heavy aroma of Black Truffle reached his nose first.
‘There it is again.’
That striking scent of pan juices and butter from a single pan, mingling with the vegetables.
Serion brought the fork slowly to his lips.
Crisp, delicate.
The moment it entered his mouth, the surface, basted with butter at low temperature using the Arroser technique, shattered thin and crisply.
And then what enveloped his tongue was an overwhelming meat juice, as if the Northern Region’s harsh cold had been transformed into flavor.
An umami like compressed Magical Power crystallized and bursting—unlike beef or pork.
The tough steel fibers were nowhere to be found; with each bite they fractured cleanly along the grain, creating the illusion that the meat was melting away in his mouth of its own accord.
The Root Vegetables served alongside neutralized the Kragon’s primal Magical Power, finishing the aftertaste with remarkable cleanness and subtle sweetness.
And one thing more.
Serion stopped chewing.
‘No off-flavor……’
The faint fishy Magical Power scent unique to Kragon had been completely refined away through the precise pairing of Northern Sea Salt and Black Truffle.
It wasn’t merely “edible.”
It was a masterpiece—the life force of a Magical Beast sublimated into cuisine, something Serion had never tasted in his life.
The silence around him deepened.
He slowly swallowed the meat and set down his fork.
The victor was already decided.
That girl.
Her again.
Luciel of Bellaon, the chef.

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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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