The Villainous Princess Wants to Live in a Gingerbread House - Chapter 14

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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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The Villainous Princess Wants to Live in a Pastry Shop
Chapter 14

“Hm?”
“……What was the title of this book you claim to have read?”
Asha looked up at Pavel in some confusion. How was she supposed to name a book that didn’t exist?
“Well…… I don’t remember it very well. It was something I saw long ago…….”
Pavel burst out laughing.
“What? Long ago? You little thing.”
With a frame so small it hardly seemed believable for a ten-year-old, standing there saying “long ago”—no wonder a head chef old enough to have a daughter Asha’s age found it utterly amusing.
Asha herself felt a bit embarrassed by her own words and began nervously plucking at her collar.
“You didn’t see it in a book at all, did you?”
“Hm?”
Pavel’s eyes narrowed as he spoke, but Asha couldn’t grasp what he meant. Just as she was tilting her head in confusion, all the sand in the Hourglass tumbled to the bottom, and a cheerful bell tone rang out.
The Scone was finished.

* * *

The top was golden brown, the sides layered with thin, crispy sheets, and the tall, risen Scone released a rich, savory aroma. Faced with this flawlessly completed creation, Pavel’s eyes widened.
“How did you…….”
“How?”
Still too hot to touch, Asha stood gazing at it contentedly, then lifted her head to look up at Pavel. Behind him, pale yellow particles were bursting forth like fireworks.
‘He’s really surprised.’
Pavel’s eyes narrowed as he looked back and forth between Asha and the Scone.
“How did it rise this much without even fermenting?”
“I added that PiBi Powder, didn’t I?”
“That was something I made as medicine!”
“So you thought it was medicine and let me put it in a pastry anyway?”
As Asha spoke in exasperation, Pavel suddenly seized the Scone and snapped it in half. Asha’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Isn’t that burning hot?”
“How many years have I been a head chef? But more importantly—how did it possibly rise this much?”
“I’ve been telling you the whole time that I added the leavening powder, so can’t you just stop asking about it?”
The Scone was beautifully marbled with butter, bacon, and cheese. Golden-hued Scone studded with brown-tinted bacon sparked the senses with its aroma. Pavel, unable to resist the temptation, took a bite.
“Really, isn’t it too hot to eat?”
“…….”
Pavel made no reply, and Asha didn’t press further. Around him, brilliant yellow and orange particles burst forth with visible force.
Pavel stood speechless, savoring the Scone. The richness of butter, and within it, three varieties of cheese each contributing their own nutty flavors and aromas in harmony.
Yet butter and cheese are both made from milk. Because of this, before the similarity could become tedious, carefully crisped bacon bits suddenly made the taste multifaceted. A perfectly balanced seasoning.
And just before the richness could become cloying, a subtle peppery note lifted the flavor with crystalline clarity, making the Scone endlessly enjoyable. The power of a single teaspoon of ground mustard seed.
“Did you burn your tongue?”
Pavel looked down at Asha, who was voicing her needless concerns, and let out a sigh.
“I didn’t…….”
Only then did Asha extend her hand. Pavel handed her one of the halves he’d divided. As she took a bite, the taste was indeed worthy of Pavel’s astonishment.
Savory and salty with a rich depth, it bloomed with umami before finishing clean and sharp.
‘But for something like that, it seems…… really delicious.’
Is it just because I made it myself? The Fondant au Chocolat from last time—which now went by Asha’s name, Chocolate Cake—and the Brownie both had this same quality. Asha tilted her head, then spoke.
“Next time I make them, I should use less of the PiBi Powder. Maybe just one teaspoon. I think there’s a slight bitterness at the end.”
“To notice even that…… But even with just that amount, it rises this much without fermentation?”
Pavel studied the bottle of PiBi Powder and Asha in turn, his face brimming with wonder. Absorbed in her own delight at how well her first Scone had turned out, Asha suddenly tilted her head.
‘Wait, could it be…….’
Pavel is the head chef of the Imperial Household. Moreover, he alone bears responsibility for the Crown Prince’s kitchen. As a cook, even if not quite on par with the Emperor’s own chef, he represents the second-greatest culinary achievement in the empire. Of course, in this bleak imperial palace, anything other than the Emperor himself is ultimately nothing.
In any case, the Imperial Household has always been at the forefront of all civilization and culture, hasn’t it? That Pavel would marvel to this degree meant, in other words…….
Numbers, charts, and graphs raced through Asha’s mind.
“Asha? What are you thinking about?”
“Ah…… I was just thinking about how to package these Scones. I’d need to wrap each one separately to carry them…….”
“Why? Are you planning to give them to someone?”
“Yeah, to my cousin. I’m not sure if it’ll work, though.”
Pavel brought over some thin paper and began wrapping the scones one by one, tilting his head in puzzlement.
“A cousin? Did you have relatives, Asha? Work how?”
“Yeah. I only saw him for the first time coming to the palace this time, and it seems like my cousin really dislikes me…”
Pavel continued asking with his eyes narrowed.
“So what are you going to do with this cousin?”
“I was thinking of making delicious pastries and feeding them to him.”
This idea had come through Dmitri. Even more than Aleksei, that Dmitri who had looked at her with such distaste—hadn’t he fallen silent after just one bite of her pastry? That little boy who seemed difficult to bear because he disliked her had gone quiet, shooting out sparks like a firecracker behind his back when faced with a decent treat.
Asha’s plan was somehow to feed Aleksei delicious pastries like these, softening his sharp demeanor even a little. After all, sweet treats put people in good moods!
“Hahahaha! That’s the answer. Kids are smooth sailing with good food.”
“It’s not that simple. He must have eaten only the finest things his whole life. Would a clumsy pastry or two really win him over?”
“Your cousin ate only good things his whole life, so why did you, Asha…”
Pavel began muttering something under his breath, then quickly shut his mouth. He wore a slightly flustered expression, waving his hand dismissively and hastily changing the subject.
“That is… well, this is delicious. Really.”
“Really?”
Asha’s eyes sparkled. Pavel let out a small cough, nodded, and pushed the wrapped scones toward her.
“No matter how much he ate only fine things his whole life. Delicious is delicious, you know. And this is, well, how to put it, very… good-tasting…”
Pavel mixed coughs and murmurs to describe how truly delicious the scones were.
Just then, a bell rang out from somewhere distant. It was the five o’clock bell. Asha quickly gathered up the scones, leaving some for Pavel.
“It’s five! Pavel, I’m going ahead! You eat the rest of the scones!”

* * *

When Asha left the kitchen, she didn’t head to Aleksei’s room but returned straight to her own. In truth, there was something that had seized her mind even more intensely than Aleksei.
‘PiBi Powder!’
In a place where baking soda wasn’t even properly recognized, if baking powder—which was more convenient to use than that—were invented, it would be nothing short of a revolution in the kitchen.
It would surely sell like hotcakes. But for PiBi Powder to sell spectacularly, one would first need to produce it spectacularly. And to produce it in spectacular amounts, one would first need spectacular amounts of money.
Money.
‘If I distribute it as a sample through the head chef, word will spread, and at first I’ll make small amounts and sell them at high prices… then mass production… I’ll need to build a factory?’
Asha thought about advertising slogans like “Used by the Imperial Head Chef” and “Approved by the Imperial Head Chef,” and bent down beside her bed. There was a box where she kept her jeweled buttons.
Click!
When she opened the box, she saw only a few buttons.
‘…How… should I work a little harder in the Imperial Palace?’
The small number of buttons seemed to mock her, far too few to start a business. With these, she couldn’t even afford to hire a carriage to get home. Asha pressed her small lips together and stared hard at the buttons.
‘Money! Gold coins! A new house!’
Since things had turned out this way, for whatever reason she had ended up staying at the Imperial Palace.
While she was here, she would bake pastries and somehow secure investment to sell PiBi Powder, earning enough money to build a respectable house…
‘If only I had money.’
Young Asha had no friends.
No matter how hard Yuriye tried to find work, he would face blunt rejections—saying there were no jobs allocated to a “noble young master.” In the end, all he could do was sell his paintings at bargain prices in distant markets.
Her mother Irina taught Sword Technique to neighborhood children, but she often had to hear people say, “Do we really need to charge money for looking after a child between neighbors?”
Her parents scraped together everything they had just to feed and clothe her, and yet they still carefully saved to hire musicians and listen to songs and performances.
Within their impoverished life, their way of seeking solace through small concerts seemed like “foolish affectation” to those around them, and the neighbors didn’t approve.
As a result, Asha naturally drifted away from her peers. The parents around her kept their children away from her, saying it was obvious they’d pick up bad habits from associating with her, and everyone avoided the little girl who couldn’t be categorized as either a commoner or nobility.
Asha didn’t really mind not having peers with whom conversation wouldn’t flow anyway, but Yuriye and Irina were deeply pained—they had never broken under poverty and hardship, but they were deeply sorry they couldn’t provide her with friends.
‘If we could get a decent house and a comfortable life, surely more people would come around, right? Then Mom and Dad wouldn’t have to worry about useless things.’
And if, by some chance, a little more money came in, maybe then she could really open a pastry shop…
Asha thought that far, then quickly shook her head. She couldn’t get ahead of herself and start daydreaming before she’d even started. No matter what she tried to do, without capital and opportunity, there was no way forward. For that to happen, properly adapting to the Imperial Palace came first.
‘Right. So what matters most right now is Aleksei.’
Asha steeled herself and picked up the scones she had brought. Dreams only came to those alive to dream them, and now, with her future departure from the Imperial Palace still uncertain, improving her relationship with her cousin was the urgent priority.

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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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