The Villainous Princess Wants to Live in a Gingerbread House - Chapter 49

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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 Villainess Princess Wants to Live in a Candy House
Chapter 49

The only person who had ever shown genuine interest in Pyotr was Valery, the Emperor’s third son—and Valery was also the one who had demanded that Pyotr break Pavel Marko by any means necessary.
‘Oh, how long does that bastard plan to milk credit from a single bag of breadcrumbs?’
Pyotr stared at a lone envelope sitting in a far corner of the countertop, his eyes sharp with mingled irritation and resentment.
To comfort Pyotr after he’d been wounded by the Emperor’s indifference to his cooking and had stalked off in a sulk, Valery had launched a line of breadcrumbs under Pyotr’s name for use in cutlets.
It was breadcrumbs plastered with advertising slogans like “Trusted by the Imperial Chef!” At first, Pyotr had been so moved by lending his name and receiving substantial coin and a measure of prestige in return that he’d wanted to entrust Valery with his tears and very soul—but then.
‘Damn it, I don’t even use this anymore.’
Since he’d merely lent his name and had contributed nothing whatsoever to the actual product launch, the truth was Pyotr had only tried the breadcrumbs himself after throwing a celebration party where he’d invited everyone he knew. Valery had sent ten whole boxes to the primary force behind the product’s sales, as though it were only natural.
After frying about five cutlets with it, Pyotr had begun secretly mixing other breadcrumbs with the ones bearing his name. He simply couldn’t bring himself to throw them all away. Once he’d exhausted the boxes he’d received, he’d never bought the product again.
Now hardly anyone used those breadcrumbs anymore, and those who did only did so to curry favor with Pyotr, the Imperial Chief Chef—but whenever they brought up the subject, Pyotr felt such a violent surge of rage that he wanted to tear their mouths apart, and no amount of guilt would make him do them any favors.
Long ago, the tears he’d been ready to entrust to Valery had dried up completely, and as for his soul—he’d swiftly reclaimed it and held it close to his chest.
‘How am I supposed to topple Chef Pavel, who isn’t even in the same palace as me?’
That was Valery’s demand, and the scheme Pyotr had wracked his brains to devise was the reception of these Noctis Elves envoys.
‘Damn it, damn it, damn it… Learning that cake recipe is completely out the window now.’
That dark cake with its fragrant sweetness—the kind the Emperor summoned specifically and had brought out. He couldn’t forget the moving sensation when he’d tasted just one bite from the leftover batter. He’d been unable to ask for the recipe outright, so he’d been watching for any opening this whole time, but now…
‘Damn it all—the man puts out a subpar breadcrumb product and still expects the world of me!’
Pyotr opened a small notebook he’d tucked into his breast pocket and exhaled heavily. Inside, he’d written down the cake recipe in rather complex detail—and remarkably, it was a method that used no milk, butter, or cream whatsoever.
If Pavel came to him crying that he couldn’t manage it, Pyotr planned to accept him magnanimously and offer this cake as a replacement.
That thought eased his frustration a little. That way, while he was accepting Pavel’s plea, he might be able to extract Pavel’s dark cake recipe as well.
Pyotr slowly swept away the bitterness that had accumulated in his chest, picked up the sandwich he’d prepared off to one side, and left the kitchen.
He planned to visit the Imperial Knight Order before the evening fell completely.

* * *

“Let’s make a trial batch first. We’ll use Coconut Oil to give the taste refinement—the nutty aroma will pair beautifully with the carrot and walnuts, won’t it?”
Asha spoke and swept up a sack bulging with carrots, wobbling as she carried it over. All the while, Karno remained utterly still.
“Tsk.”
“Excuse me? I could have sworn I heard you click your tongue just now…”
“Oh, no, no. Surely not.”
Asha laughed brightly, then gathered brown sugar, vanilla, flour, walnuts, and cashews.
“Pavel, have you been in contact with Baron Sarato?”
“He seems rather busy these days, doesn’t he? With that cake… preparing the chocolate for it.”
“Ah, he’s working on that, is he… Wait, that’s useful too!”
Suddenly Asha’s eyes lit up.
“Get in touch with him for me, will you? I need something.”
Once all the ingredients were assembled, Asha asked Karno to handle the carrots.
“Karno, roll up your sleeves and grate the carrots on the…”
“I will! I will! Please! Let me do it, I’m begging you!”
But Pavel clutched the sack of carrots to his chest and cried out so earnestly that the task fell through.
“Why, why are you being like this, Pavel? Karno grates carrots well. Will grate them well. Really. Won’t you, Karno?”
“…….”
“Oh, no! Not that he can’t—it’s just that I’m the chef, you see! Please!”
“Do you really want to do this?”
“I want to so badly! I’m dying to do it!”
In Pavel’s eyes burned a desperate plea that such a task as grating carrots could never be entrusted to the sole heir of House Neuschtetler. Asha stared at him for a moment, then shrugged.
“If you want it that badly, go ahead. But if you’re doing it, I’d rather you chop them with a knife instead.”
“Yes! Understood!”
“And then Karno will do this instead of the carrots.”
What Asha handed to Karno wasn’t quite the size of the carrot sack, but it was still a bundle the size of his head.
Inside were cashews in abundance.
“What should I do with these?”
“Grind them in the mortar. And not just once—you grind them and put what comes out back in, over and over until it reaches a butter consistency. Understand?”
“……!”
“……!”
Once Karno removed the carrot grater from in front of him, the cashew mill began to turn. Pavel, who had been watching the scene unfold with an expression of utter disbelief, let the carrot slip from his fingers.
Asha bit back a laugh.

* * *

“Now that a Peace Treaty has come to pass, the Commander-in-Chief must feel a special sentiment about all this.”
Gillhelm lifted his teacup. The Crown Prince before him moved his teaspoon with equal grace.
“I consider it a blessing. A joyous occasion, truly. It is all thanks to His Majesty and Your Highness.”
Without the Emperor and Crown Prince, the war would have ended, but a Peace Treaty would scarcely have followed.
“Is there any hardship that compares to what you endured in the Northern Region?”
“……To call it hardship would be too kind to myself.”
Gillhelm’s words were sincere. The Crown Prince tilted his cup and set it down. Gillhelm gazed at the transparent tremor of the tea before continuing slowly.
“With Sub-Commander Neuschtetler present……everything resolved so smoothly it’s almost embarrassing to speak of hardship.”
“……I see.”
When the Emperor appointed Karno, who had just turned fifteen, as Sub-Commander, everyone said he had lost his mind. They feared the Death Spirit Power he wielded as they would a plague, while simultaneously despising him like a plague itself.
When the officers fumed at this preposterous appointment, Gillhelm offered no particular comment. Rather than maintaining neutrality as Commander-in-Chief, it would be more accurate to say he simply lacked enthusiasm for this war. Gillhelm would not have minded had the Emperor appointed a non-existent five-year-old illegitimate child to the position.
And on the first day in the Northern Region, Gillhelm found himself grateful for that indifference. Everything before his eyes turned pitch black, and when the wind rose, that darkness scattered like ash.
The Death Erosion lasted thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of Karno seated on horseback, his hand extended toward the front.
The reason thirty minutes were needed was only one: Karno’s mercy, granting the Noctis Elves time to flee.
“The bell rang to commence battle, and it ended in thirty minutes. If anything was hardship, it was merely the trying cold.”
“The way you speak of the Northern Region’s notorious cold as merely ‘trying’ speaks volumes of your fortitude, Commander-in-Chief.”
The Crown Prince smiled softly.
“Still, I did wonder if Sub-Commander Neuschtetler’s youth might create distance with the officers, but it seems such concerns were unfounded.”
“No one in the army treated him as a fifteen-year-old boy. Couldn’t have, would be more precise.”
It was a war in which the entire army depended solely on one person to bear all the blood on his hands.
The moment they treated him as merely a fifteen-year-old boy, they would realize they had abandoned a fifteen-year-old child to wage their war—something they understood, deep in their hearts.
And so Karno became the perfect Sub-Commander.
Gillhelm’s smile turned bitter. The war that had relied entirely on him had ended, and they had returned to the capital. Now to expect of him the youth and innocent expression they had lost felt like nothing more than self-indulgent comfort.
Yet concern lingered. The war and the capital seemed little different to Karno. Everyone parted before him, and he collided with no one.
“……Still……he is still underage, is he not? Since we have returned to the capital, I thought perhaps the Sub-Commander might…….”
“Is that why you recommended he take a position as a special lecturer at Bichegda Magister Orum Academy?”
“……You heard of that?”
Alexei laughed, tilting his teacup.
“The students kept complaining about who would clean up after they fainted.”
“……Their concerns are not without merit, I think.”
Even during the war, working side by side, they had not grown close. Teaching students at an academy would accomplish nothing. The students, as they said, could never even meet his gaze.
“So I truly……thought there was no one.”
“No one what?”
“Who could approach Sub-Commander Neuschtetler.”
But there was someone.
At first, Gillhelm thought it was not a person at all.
For a moment he entertained impossible thoughts—’Was this the form of Karno’s spirit?’, ‘Could a spirit take visible shape?’—before dismissing them.
Because for the first time, he saw Karno look at someone and quicken his pace to speak to them first.
She was a small girl with peach-colored hair and pale green eyes. It was then Gillhelm realized the day had come when he would witness Karno asking after someone’s wellbeing.
“To be precise, the Sub-Commander is the one approaching her. I merely…….”
“Asha, you mean.”
Gillhelm quickly recognized it as an affectionate shortening of Anastasia, the Imperial Granddaughter. And from the Crown Prince’s smile, he understood that the Crown Prince had already seen through his intentions.

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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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