The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 94

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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 94
“There’s a pirate among the knights of the 7th Knight Order.”
“……What?”
Before the cooking competition at the Imperial Palace began, Bael had doubted his own ears when he first heard this from Celine and Luciel.
But the two of them spoke with absolute certainty.
“It’s true. At first, when Luciel asked me to look into information about the members of the 7th Knight Order, I only knew that a few of them had changed their names. But when Luciel heard one of the names they originally used, she said it sounded like a pirate’s alias. Right, Luciel?”
“……It did sound like a villain’s name, come to think of it.”
“So I dug deeper, and it turned out there really was a pirate using that name. Apparently, after being betrayed by his own crew, he laundered his identity and joined the knight order.”
Whether they’d simply guessed right from a name alone or if there was more to it, Bael didn’t much care.
Luciel was someone who sometimes saw things that others didn’t.
Just like that vegetable garden where she’d once found his antidote.
What mattered was who this person was.
Luciel had said she needed to find him.
‘To fully launder an identity, creating sworn siblings out of nowhere would’ve been the best approach.’
Three people traveling together inspire more trust than one. That there must be others who entered the order alongside him was a conclusion Luciel and Celine had reached as well.
Bael was certain that the trio before him were false siblings created in that very way.
Their reasons unknown, but they kept faith with one another—three people who, save for each other, had no other family.
They had emphasized being brothers raised together even before being asked, probably nervous that a high-ranking noble like Bael might see through their identities.
‘Of the five commoners from the South Sea, I’d already faced two in earlier matches, but nothing stood out about them…….’
This fight felt more dangerous than any duel he’d had before.
It carried the killing intent only someone who’d gambled with their life since childhood could possess.
Though he still couldn’t tell which of the three was its source.
Clang!
Screech—
As the sword, harpoon, and trident tangled once more, a net flew at Bael from his diagonal rear.
Simultaneously, the chain attached to the harpoon tightened around Bael’s blade.
“Good use of your head.”
Bael let out a small laugh.
But it was all within his calculations.
Whoosh—
Rather than holding firm against the chain pulling at his sword, Bael simply let go.
“Huh?”
Seizing the harpoonist’s moment of shock, he grasped the end of the trident and pulled its wielder forward, positioning him between himself and the net.
Thwack—
“Gah!”
The net caught the trident’s master instead.
Using that opening, Bael stepped back a few paces and engaged the harpoonist again.
Or rather, he seized him by the collar and threw him bodily to the ground in one motion.
“Ugh!”
The tangled harpoon and sword flew apart, and the harpoonist rolled across the floor.
Unlike in the previous matches, Bael didn’t back away. Instead, he pinned the man’s body and drew the dagger from his belt.
Shing—
“Ahhhhh!”
As though truly intent on killing.
A flash of lethal intent crossed Bael’s eyes as the blade descended toward the harpoonist’s throat—
“Noard, no!”
Shing—
A needle-thin throwing star shot toward Bael’s eye.
Ting—
Withdrawing his dagger and deflecting the star, Bael looked up to see the net’s wielder holding three more throwing stars, his gaze fixed on Bael.
“St-stop! We forfeit!”
“Yes, we forfeit!”
At the same time, the trident’s master and the harpoonist, still tangled in the net, cried out together.
Bael’s lips curved slightly upward.
So it was the man with the net after all.
The one who’d been radiating killing intent from the start.
The one whose net had carried such a sharp charge of Magical Power.
The kind of man who, when his sworn siblings’ lives hung in the balance, showed no regard for station and revealed his lethal nature—someone for whom taking a life was always an option, a conviction etched into his very being.
Unlike the other two, who had declared forfeit trusting in the rule that weapons are lowered when a duel ends.
He was exactly what Luciel was looking for.
Bael tossed the dagger aside and slowly rose to his feet, his gaze turning toward Luciel diagonally across the way.
Her lips, too, curved slightly upward.
No explanation was necessary.
She already knew.
* * *
‘That’s him!’
Luciel’s heart pounded in her chest.
That cheat key from the game her mother had mentioned more than once.
Kalick, the Pirate of Betrayal.
“Kalick was a cheat key your mother was particularly fond of.”
“I see. You said that older brother had been betrayed by some other pirates who took money from the Empire, so he turned against his pirate crew.”
“To recruit Kalick in the game, you had to build up your Persuasion Stat. Otherwise he wouldn’t budge an inch. If you persuaded him with ‘Let’s strike down the traitors who killed your crew,’ you could use him to attack pirate ships, or if you said ‘It’s the Empire’s fault!’ he’d attack the Empire instead. He was great as a spy, and honestly, there was no downside to keeping him around—he did every task well.”
“But I’m not very good at that…….”
“Our Luciel is so cute that her face is her Persuasion Stat! But there were actually quite a few ways to persuade him.”
Her mother had said that sometimes Serion could persuade him into serving as his subordinate instead.
And in those runs, she always said the game went downhill.
In this life, where there was no such thing as a player’s Persuasion Stat, Kalick—or Sir Kal of the 7th Knight Order—seemed to have simply struck out on his own from the pirate ship.
He’d found two sworn siblings of no great status, posed as their brother, and entered the knight order.
Without some other controlling mechanism, he’d even let slip his old pirate name.
Enough that Celine was able to uncover it.
‘The reasons don’t matter.’
Luciel watched the three men catch their breath as the match ended.
What mattered was bringing Kal to her side right now.
A master of striking when reasons allowed, a man who knew the depths of the South Sea like his own home.
Asthel’s cheat key, who could do absolutely anything.
‘And perhaps.’
Luciel clasped her hands together without thinking.
‘The one who might help me find Mother, even if not immediately.’
It had been over six years since Mother disappeared somewhere.
‘It might not be that she hasn’t come back, but that she can’t.’
Most crises couldn’t keep Mother bound.
If she truly was trapped somewhere, there was a chance she’d been caught between dimensions or crossed over into another one entirely.
If a treasure in the South Sea that could open dimensions truly existed, Luciel wanted it.
Mother could open dimensions when meeting the Red Moon because she was a Possession Host, but Luciel wasn’t.
‘For now, dealing with Serion comes first, though…….’
In the end, it was the same story.
Serion too wanted to unravel the secrets of dimensions.
Conquest was his life, and he couldn’t bear the thought that a world existed beyond dimensions where his hand could never reach.
Luciel swallowed hard.
Whatever the reason, for now she had to turn this man to her side.
‘Now that I know who he is.’
Mother had said there were many ways to persuade someone.
Luciel knew only one.
“Match over! I’ll give you the hundred gold next time.”
After Bael had finished all the remaining matches with victories, Luciel called out.
Everyone dropped their weapons with disappointed but accepting expressions.
“Well then, Captain, you should probably head back. The exit is that way…….”
Just as they, disappointed, were turning to leave—
Luciel clapped her hands twice: clap, clap.
“If you worked hard, you should eat.”
“Eh? That’s not… Ah!”
Without thinking, a small sound of wonder escaped Alf’s lips.
Because a servant had entered through the Training Ground door, pulling a trolley.
More precisely, because piled like a mountain on the trolley in front of the servant were soft, fluffy desserts.

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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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