The Villainous Princess Wants to Live in a Gingerbread House - Chapter 45

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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 Cake Shop
Chapter 45

Asha wanted desperately to stop the Emperor from summoning a healer in haste, but she could do nothing. Only one thing was clear to her: the identity of the voice that had helped her. It was Shamal, the Wind Spirit King bound by contract to the Emperor.
Shamal had shifted through countless forms behind the Emperor, whispering to her all the while.

* * *

‘Well, I mean… a spirit can talk if it wants…’
“What in the world is happening? You exchange words with His Majesty and then your ankle gets worse—”
‘I’m just as confused as you are…’
The chick chirped frantically, as if possessed by madness itself, while Lis descended into chaos. Asha surveyed the pandemonium around her and sighed shortly, only to catch sight of tears gathering at the corners of Lis’s eyes and quickly waved her hand.
“No, wait! Lis! Really, nothing happened! I just got so happy that I jumped up without thinking—”

“You must be careful, miss. Look—even Your Highness’s chick is so worried about you.”

Asha found it a pity that she couldn’t tell Lis that the yellow chick’s violent chirping was less affectionate concern and more along the lines of profanity.
“Really… nothing happened. The Emperor listened to my request. That’s why I’m so happy.”
“What request did you make?”
“I asked him to make Iven a commoner.”
“Yes… yes!?”
Lis’s eyes widened in shock. But Iven, the very subject of this news, simply stood quietly in the corner of the room without a word. Even as Lis glanced back and forth between Iven and Asha, he remained silent.
“So what I wanted to ask is… could you find Iven new lodgings somewhere else?”
Asha wanted to say ‘somewhere decent’ rather than ‘somewhere else,’ but she held her tongue.

‘What kind of—’

Asha sighed and shoved the violently chirping chick into its cage.
“And while we’re at it—if Iven has any interest in something, wouldn’t he want to learn it?”
Asha looked between Lis and Iven. Iven’s expression remained unchanged, but Lis’s face grew quite serious.
“Learn? What would you like to teach him?”
“What Iven himself wants, I mean. Poetry or literature would be nice, or he could study Baking with me. Or maybe he could take up Swordsmanship and become a knight?”
“Swordsmanship…”
Lis’s voice grew distant.
Asha had her reasons for raising these possibilities now. For a week straight, she’d been hand-baking Scones for Iven each morning, and the locked door to his heart seemed on the verge of opening. She believed that appropriate exercise or joyful hobbies might accelerate his transformation, and Pibi had agreed with her reasoning. Asha turned to Iven and asked again.
“What do you want to try?”
“…I will do as you wish.”

‘People don’t usually think about breathing in the first place.’

Asha ignored Pibi’s comment and turned back to Iven.
‘When the mind is busy, moving the body works best.’

‘Even without thoughts, it’s the same. Once the body moves, the mind finds room to think.’
“Iven, then let’s make you the finest knight in the Empire! After training, I’ll bake you a Cake in the evening.”
Asha squeezed both of Iven’s hands tightly and declared it. Lis let out a small, delicate cough.

How could anyone else fix something like that? Really? Reading Asha’s thoughts, Pibi opened the cage door and flew to her shoulder.
“Chirp!”

‘But…….’
She’d heard that he could do it with his own strength, and she believed as much, yet her heart remained unsettled.
‘Lis will do well by him, won’t she?’
Even though he’d become a commoner, finding someone willing to teach Swordsmanship to a boy born into slavery—his skin bearing that eerie pallid blue—had been a source of worry.
But she was counting on Lis’s promise to observe him with sincere care. Still, days later, Asha learned that Iven wasn’t the only problem.
Asha treated Lis’s ankle until she was satisfied. Once the injury had fully healed, she rushed to the kitchen of Taimyr Palace clutching the Recipe Notebook she’d been sleeping with, only to find the kitchen buried under a thick haze of gray gloom.
“P-Pavel?”
“……Why do you look even more troubled than I do……?”
“Pavel, why are you…… so distressed?”
Pavel only sighed heavily.
“The Noctis Elves are coming, aren’t they?”
“Ah…… yes, that’s right.”
Asha bit her lip. The problems entangled with the Noctis Elves were more than a few. Iven was apparently half-Noctis Elf, and Alexei, who was busy preparing to receive the elf delegation, had offered to assign Carno to her side…….
‘Surely Carno isn’t actually coming?’
While Asha entertained this stray thought, Pavel let out another deep sigh.
“I’ve been assigned to handle the desserts for the delegation’s reception.”
“Isn’t the reception being held at the Main Palace? I thought you were just in charge of Asha here at this palace…….”
“It was supposed to be that way, but the Main Palace’s head chef is handling the main course, and I’ve been assigned the desserts. The Main Palace head chef specifically…… asked for this…….”
“Isn’t that a promotion?”
But Pavel’s face looked utterly bleak. Asha sensed something was wrong.
“Do you know of the Noctius Festival?”
“The Noctius Festival?”
“It’s like…… a founding myth of the Noctis Elves. The first Noctis Elves apparently arrived in the Northern Region riding a cow. So they have a kind of…… faith venerating that cow…….”
“Hmm. I’m starting to have a bad feeling about this.”
Usually, one doesn’t eat what one venerates. Asha swallowed hard, and Pavel’s expression darkened as well.
“They eat it normally. How cold is the Northern Region? They can’t afford to be picky. But during the festival period when they honor their ancestor spirit, they won’t eat anything related to the cow…….”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Hehe…….”
“Don’t tell me that now is exactly when?”
“Ugh…….”
Pavel finally buried his face in his hands and wept. As the burly middle-aged chef shuddered, Asha’s lips moved silently.
“Really? Truly? They don’t eat…… anything related to the cow? Milk…… milk too?”
“Strictly speaking, they don’t eat Dairy Products…… anything milk-related. The milk of the sacred cow should be drunk by the gods alone……. And as that expanded, they won’t touch the cow at all, so during this festival period, they don’t eat meat, of course, but also broth, milk, butter, cream cheese, yogurt—nothing, absolutely nothing…….”
“……But Pavel was assigned to handle the desserts?”
“…….”
Pavel had seemed troubled these past few days, and this was apparently why. Was it even possible to Bake pastries without Dairy Products? As Asha traced through to this realization, she gripped Pavel’s arm with a serious expression.
“Pavel, no matter how I look at it, isn’t this harassment?”
“……No, it’s not.”
“You said you had no friends. It wasn’t just that—they were deliberately bullying you, wasn’t it?”
“I told you it wasn’t. And calling them ‘kids’ doesn’t fit—they’re all old enough to have children at home…….”
“Should I go scold them?”
“H-how would you do that?”
“I’ll swap the salt and sugar labels.”
“……!”
From what she understood, the Emperor ate simply and didn’t leave food on his plate, so the other kitchen’s head chef would lose sleep seeing a badly seasoned dish return empty. But her dream was quickly shattered by Pavel’s emphatic head-shaking.
“Why? You don’t want me to?”
“Something terrible might happen…….”
Pavel clutched his head.
“So I have no idea what to do about this.”
Preparing desserts without milk, butter, or cream…….
“But wouldn’t the elves coming as the delegation also just say they don’t need dessert and skip it?”
At Asha’s words, Pavel banged his forehead on the counter, then looked up and wiped it with a cloth.
“Even if they say they won’t eat it, we still need to prepare something.”
Pavel only wore a sorrowful expression, repeatedly banging his forehead on the counter and wiping away.
After watching this for a while, Asha bent over beside him on the counter.
“……But you know what? If you put out an impressive dessert in this situation, you could really rub those Main Palace kitchen folks’ noses in it, couldn’t you?”
“……Really?”
“Right?”
“But you can’t use cooking to compete against others…….”
“If you can’t use it to compete against others, then what?”
“To make someone happy… that’s what sweets should be made for…….”
“But you’re not happy right now. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Well, that may be true, but…….”
“All right then. How about I try making sweets in a way that makes you happy?”
“How…… how would that work?”

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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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