The Villainous Princess Wants to Live in a Gingerbread House - Chapter 31

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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 Confectionery House
Chapter 31

“Ha, haha… If I don’t sell the recipe now, people will just research it and figure it out soon enough anyway…….”
“Research it how?”
Asha’s voice came sharp and clean. Sarato swallowed hard.
“How… well, obviously if skilled pastry chefs taste the cake, they can identify the ingredients and such…….”
“What cake? Made in this kitchen? But wait—we’re not making it anymore.”
“Why… why wouldn’t we…….”
“Do we need to? We’re not selling it here anyway.”
“……!”
“And even if we did make it, only His Majesty would eat it. The rumors spread because I shared samples with the attendants while practicing, but I won’t do that anymore. So now you’ll ask the Emperor? ‘Your Majesty, do you know what went into that cake? Would you mind telling me?'”
Sarato’s face went a shade paler, and after a moment he spoke.
“……Then… twenty million Karus.”
“Pavel, do you feel the breeze?”
Asha fanned Pavel with both hands. He stood stiffly, looking uncomfortable.
“No, this is really…….”
“My lord, this cake is so delicious it’ll sell like hotcakes, right? Let’s say the cake costs eight thousand Karus, and you keep five thousand Karus profit per unit—sell just ten thousand, and that’s twenty-five million Karus!”
“No, ten thousand don’t just sell that easily, and…….”
“If you sell a hundred a day, a hundred days and you’re done, right?”
“It’s not that simple. And where does this miraculous accounting come from—eight thousand Karus with five thousand in pure profit…….”
“But if Chocolate Cake becomes fashionable, you’ll sell enormous quantities of chocolate too. But without the Chocolate Cake?”
“…….”
“How’s the Southern Trade Route?”
“Good heavens, it’s not fine! I’ll die! I should jump into the Bichegda River!”
“This is your golden chance to turn it all around! The one and only phantom Chocolate Cake!”
“Fifty million Karus!”
“Done!”
Sarato slammed the table with a bang and cried out enthusiastically, and Asha matched his fervor. For a moment Sarato looked as though he might crumble into white powder, his eyes darting between Asha and Pavel.
“…….”
“…….”
“What is it? Does it seem like too much? Too steep a price for overturning a man’s life?”
“I… Chef Marka, who exactly is this person? Is she your spirit? What sort of spirit? The spirit of the contract?”
Pavel’s face was growing ashen, but Asha bit back her laughter and offered another proposal.
“Hmm, but would there even be a cake without you distributing the chocolate in the first place?”
“That’s right! I was the one… the one…….”
Asha watched Sarato falter, unable to finish his thought, and smiled with genuine sympathy. His years of worry were written plainly across his face.
He must have agonized endlessly over those Cacao Beans—a raw ingredient with countless uses but still unknown to the world, impossible to sell. Yet the ambition to try peddling it as a culinary ingredient was worth crediting, at least.
“So the recipe costs thirty million Karus. In exchange, I get half the net profit from cake sales.”
“……What?”
Sarato faltered. Asha rested her chin on her hand, swinging her feet back and forth.
“You’re the one supplying the raw materials, after all. You’ll make profit there too, so give us that much.”
“Even if I supply one shop, how much margin is there?”
“For now, maybe not much. But I don’t think it’ll stay that way later, do you? That’s why you came looking for us.”
Sarato whirled toward Pavel again.
“Who exactly is this person? Are you a spirit, Chef Marka? The spirit of contracts? Or perhaps the guardian spirit of merchants? Or… a baker’s guardian spirit?”
“That hardly seems likely…….”
Pavel heaved a long sigh and glanced toward Asha. When she nodded with a smile, he opened his mouth again.
“The original creator of that cake and the youngest granddaughter of His Majesty the Emperor—Anastasia, Imperial Princess.”
“Haha, even if I set the recipe price too low to begin with, you could spare me such a terrifying jest.”
Sarato marked corrections on the contract with a mixture of sighs and laughter. But when neither of them answered, he set down his pen and looked up.
“…….”
“…….”
“Hehe.”
Asha let out a soft laugh.
“……Chef Marka? Of what you just said, I’d very much appreciate clarification on which part was the joke.”
Baron Sarato’s face grew increasingly forlorn. Pavel spoke with finality.
“Neither of them is a jest.”
A short scream rang out from the Kitchen. Pavel, having found a kindred spirit, chuckled with satisfaction.

* * *

The contract negotiations concluded cleanly. Baron Sarato shuffled away as though his soul had departed his body. They arranged for Pavel to handle any urgent matters should they arise. In exchange for serving as his proxy, Pavel’s Kitchen would always be stocked with fresh Mayonnaise.
“Hehe~!”
Asha emerged from the Kitchen brimming with delight. It felt as though good fortune were cascading down upon her. The basket was packed with leftover sandwiches made from Egg Salad, and soon the neatly prepared Contract would arrive.
‘Well, a patisserie fell into my lap rather easily, but……’
It hardly counted as a dream come true—not by any honest measure. To call this the realization of a dream would be bordering on fraud. Asha moved forward with a contented smile when a dark silhouette materialized at the end of the Corridor.
The moment Asha recognized who cast that shadow, she nearly fainted where she stood.
‘K-Karno Neuschatter!’
“Something amusing seems to have happened,” Karno observed.
He pushed off from the pillar he’d been leaning against. Asha drew in a sharp breath. She should have screamed the moment she saw him.
With an ordinary person, even in shadow, the currents of emotion would have been visible, betraying their presence somehow. But from Karno emanated not a ripple of feeling.
“H-how did you……?”
“Why? Is there somewhere I’m not permitted to be?”
As he spoke, Karno drew his brows together and looked her up and down, then said flatly:
“I’ll escort you to your room.”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
This time Asha questioned him back. Karno fell silent for a moment, then lifted his chin and let out a dry laugh.
“That’s the sort of thing close friends do for each other, isn’t it.”
It was a continuation of something he’d said at the Ball Hall.
“That was just something I said in passing.”
…….
Karno fell silent for a moment, then spoke.
“……Your Highness Aleksei asked me to.”
“Ah.”
That explained why Aleksei had said he’d send her off. Asha ran her fingers through the ends of her hair, nodded in understanding, and accepted it.
“But when did you arrive? You should have said something when you got here.”
“You were in the Kitchen the entire time.”
“I mean you should have come into the Kitchen and told me.”
“……Come into the Kitchen, and tell you……?”
“Yes? Yes.”
“Are you being sincere?”
Asha tilted her head and looked up at him. Karno’s expression was one of barely concealed bewilderment.
“A noble ducal heir doesn’t enter places like a Kitchen……does he……?”
Karno gave a hollow laugh. A small girl speaking words of unmistakable sarcasm in the most careful of tones, the kind only he could hear.
“No……forget it.”
“What?”
Then an awkward, deadly silence fell between them. Unable to bear it, Asha blurted out whatever came to mind.
“Um, Karno……you must have stepped out of the Banquet Hall too.”
“Yes, I have no particular interest in such gatherings.”
“But you’re the guest of honor?”
“I was invited as someone who has killed many people, so all the more reason.”
This time Asha’s lips parted and closed without sound.
‘This person has a real talent for leaving me speechless……’
Yet surprisingly, Karno continued speaking first.
“I find little enjoyment in watching their faces as they realize, too late, what they’ve actually invited to their party.”
“What……did they invite?”
Asha had always believed her intelligence to be adequate, if not exceptional, but for the first time she began to doubt herself.
‘Is Karno talking about himself, or not?’
As Asha tilted her head, Karno stopped walking. Asha slowly lifted her gaze and looked up at him. The faint sound of music from the Banquet Hall, drifting from far away, was swallowed by the darkness of the open Corridor.
In the pitch-black night, it seemed as though only Karno’s violet eyes were visible to her.
“……It’s nothing.”
Asha drew a deep breath and pouted.
“……Is that your specialty? A habit of speech?”
“What do you mean?”
“You start speaking and then just stop with ‘never mind’ or ‘it’s nothing.'”
“……That’s done.”
“Look at this.”
Again, Karno let out a quiet chuckle, but he said nothing more.
After an awkward silence stretched between them, Asha reached into the basket she’d been holding and withdrew a sandwich to break the tension.
“Would you like some?”
“What is it?”
“An Egg Salad Sandwich. I made it just now—in the Kitchen, the one place Karno said he wouldn’t set foot in.”
“……That’s fine.”
“Wow, so turning people down really is your special talent.”
“……Please. I’ll eat it.”
Asha glanced sideways at Karno and handed over the sandwich. He took it with just his fingertips, careful not to let their hands touch.
‘Do I have dirt all over me or something?’
Though Karno had accepted the sandwich, he didn’t eat it right away. Still, the air between them wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
Asha’s eyes moved quietly. Aleksei, whom she’d thought of only with dread, wasn’t as cold as all that. Perhaps Karno wasn’t either…….
But as they neared the door, Asha noticed that Karno was still only holding the sandwich, untouched.
‘Of course—eating while walking wouldn’t be proper for a nobleman’s dignity. And coming from someone who won’t even enter the Kitchen……’
She decided it would be awkward to let him leave carrying it like that, so she took her own sandwich from the basket and offered him the basket to hold instead. She’d been planning to give the remaining sandwiches to Lis anyway.

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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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