Chapter 08
The person I needed to be loved by was obvious.
The butler? The head maid? The servants?
No.
It was only Duke Aubrey and the Duchess.
“W-What are you talking about…?”
“My father is the one who brought me here. Are you doubting my father?”
I tilted my head while cupping my cheek with my palm.
“I’m a genius, so I can tell Father everything I just heard.”
I spoke innocently with my eyes curved into crescents, and only then did the three servants’ faces turn deathly pale.
“S-So this was your true personality all along…! If they find out you’re like this, they’ll surely find you disgusting!”
“So?”
“Y-You could be thrown out!”
“Really? Mother cares about me that much, and Father would throw his own daughter out? And he’d believe you instead of me?”
“You might not be his real daughter….”
“Oh, are you saying you doubt Father?”
“W-We were only worried about the Duke!”
“Fine, then. I’ll tell Father and ask him whether I’m the one getting thrown out or whether you three are. This should be fun! Don’t you think?”
As I spoke innocently and tried to walk past them, the three servants hurriedly ran over and blocked my path.
“What’s this?”
“P-Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
I blinked and asked.
“W-We were wrong. We overstepped our bounds. Please, p-please don’t tell the master.”
“Hm? With nothing in return…?”
I opened my eyes wide and tilted my head, making their faces turn even paler.
“W-What do we have to do…?”
They clenched their lips tightly as if apologizing to me was terribly humiliating.
“There’s a proper way to apologize to someone. Do I have to keep looking up at you?”
At my words, the servants’ faces flushed bright red as they slowly knelt down.
“I’m sorry….”
“I apologize.”
“We were wrong….”
I blinked once.
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you. I guess I’ll just tell Father….”
I muttered softly and tried to walk past the three of them.
Only then did their voices grow louder.
“I’M SORRY!”
All three shouted at once.
I grinned and nodded.
“Okay. I accept your apology. Then I’ll go talk to Father and explain everything nicely.”
“W-What! You said you wouldn’t tell him if we apologized…!”
“When did I say that?”
I tilted my head and asked with my eyes still wide open in an almost infuriatingly innocent expression.
“I never said anything like that.”
“A-Ah….”
The servants stared at me with bloodshot eyes, their expressions as though they had just been struck from behind.
“I only taught you how to apologize. Well, I might not tell him right away. That depends on how you treat me from now on.”
“W-What does that mean…?”
“I don’t like looking up at rude people.”
I reached out and grabbed the shoulder of the maid standing in the middle as hard as I could.
In truth, my grip was so weak that it probably felt more like a tickle, but if it was threatening enough, that was all that mattered.
“From now on, kneel whenever you see me.”
“W-What…?”
“What’s your answer? Ah, of course, I don’t mind if you don’t answer. But Father does seem like a rather frightening person.”
As I tried to continue walking, the three servants spoke.
“W-We’ll do that. Please, just don’t tell the Duke….”
After hearing their answer, I didn’t respond. I simply smiled sweetly and leisurely walked past them.
‘Of course, I’m not actually going to tell him.’
I didn’t want to tattle about something like this and make the Duke find me troublesome.
‘Still, things should be quiet for a while.’
They wouldn’t dare attract attention because they wouldn’t know when I might tell him, and they probably wouldn’t sleep well at night either.
Being thrown out of a noble household over some disgraceful incident meant carrying the label of a “problematic person” when looking for another job.
The butlers of noble families regularly exchanged information, so news like that would spread instantly.
At the very least, they could forget about getting another job in a noble household anytime soon.
I immediately headed to the kitchen and peeked through the slightly open door.
“Hello.”
The cooks, who had been squatting together around a large basin while busily preparing ingredients, all turned their eyes toward me.
Perhaps because they were cooks, most of them were large men with heavily muscled forearms.
“Could I borrow the kitchen?”
As I asked with a smile, the cooks began communicating with one another through their eyes.
Then the largest man among them stood up from his crouching position and approached me.
“I don’t know who you are, but no. It’s dangerous. If you’re a maid apprentice, you should go back and—”
“Miss, what brings you all the way to the kitchen?”
At the sudden voice, I turned my head.
A slender man was standing there with his arms full of ingredients.
He had ordinary light-brown hair, dark-brown eyes, and a small beauty mark beneath one eye.
As soon as he arrived, the cooks who had been preparing ingredients immediately stood up.
“Welcome, Sous-Chef!”
The man looked particularly young compared to the other cooks. He wore round glasses and a spotless white chef’s uniform.
“Miss…?”
The man who had been trying to send me away muttered softly.
“This is the young lady who returned yesterday. Be careful not to be rude.”
The sous-chef was slender and delicate-looking compared to the burly cooks, making him seem almost harmless.
Yet strangely, none of the cooks dared move after hearing a single word from him.
“Can I borrow the kitchen?”
“You can speak comfortably with us, Miss. We are the ones serving you.”
Seeing his innocent smile, I immediately smiled back and nodded.
“Oh, o-okay! Can I borrow it?”
“No.”
The sous-chef, who looked incredibly soft-natured, refused with a smile.
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous. This isn’t a place for playing. If there is a particular food you want to eat, we can prepare it for you.”
He was treating me completely like a child.
That wouldn’t work.
Duke Aubrey had money, fame, power, and even a brilliant mind, so there weren’t many ways to earn his favor.
But that’s what the novel had said.
He didn’t reject people who worked hard and produced results.
Because he appreciated their efforts.
However, that effort had to come from the person themselves.
Which meant I needed to make the food with my own hands.
‘…Huh? The novel?’
I suddenly stopped moving.
Strange memories had been popping into my head from time to time lately.
The information I thought I had acquired from newspaper articles was much deeper than I had expected.
There was no way Duke Aubrey, who didn’t particularly like drawing attention to himself, would have allowed something like that to be published in a newspaper.
‘No, this isn’t the time to reason about that.’
I quickly brushed the strange thought aside.
‘There’s no helping it. I’ll have to use my trump card.’
I raised my head and spoke.
“Instead, I’ll teach you a new cooking method.”
“Pardon?”
“A way to get rid of the smell of meat completely.”
It would become a common cooking method about three years later, when an envoy from the barbarian tribes attending the Peace Conference introduced it to everyone.
But for now, no one in the Empire knew about it.
“We already know how to get rid of the smell of meat. If you use good-quality meat and make the seasoning properly, that’s enough.”
“What if it also makes the flavor richer?”
“We already have methods that can do that….”
“You can get that flavor even from cheap meat worth 100 derk. And I’ll also teach you how to make it tender.”
The sous-chef flinched.
His eyes widened at my final words.
Even though he looked at me doubtfully, he couldn’t hide the glimmer of curiosity in his eyes.
Perhaps thinking that showing such interest would be disrespectful, he quickly lowered his gaze.
“…May I ask what you intend to do in the kitchen first?”
“I want to cook something for Father.”
I didn’t need Duke Aubrey to love me.
But it was always useful to build goodwill and trust.
After all, Duke Aubrey had only adopted me because he needed to stabilize his wife’s mind and body.
‘Well, it’s good to earn some points with him.’
I needed Duke Aubrey if I wanted to secure the initial funds for my revenge.
‘If I tell him about Combination Magic Stones and get even a small share….’
Yes.
That would be enough.
And for some reason, I had an uneasy feeling that I absolutely needed to earn as many points as possible.
Like the calm before a storm.
Gulp—
Somewhere, I heard someone swallow.
I could practically feel their hunger for knowledge.
“If you want, bring me all the ingredients I tell you to! I’ll make it for you. Of course, cheap meat is fine too.”
I grinned and listed the ingredients.
The sous-chef carefully wrote everything down, then crooked a finger.
The cooks immediately began moving in perfect coordination.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
At the exceedingly polite knock, Duke Aubrey, who had been looking down at documents, answered in a somewhat indifferent voice.
The door soon opened slightly, and a small figure entered the bleak study.
The Duke was so focused on processing documents that he didn’t notice.
However, the old butler standing beside him widened his eyes slightly.
The first thing that caught the butler’s attention was the tray the child was holding tightly in both arms.
The tray had a round, dome-shaped cover, and it was obvious that there was food underneath.
“Master, how about taking a break and having a snack?”
The quick-witted butler casually suggested it to his master, who still hadn’t taken his eyes off the documents.
“Pedro, you know I’m not in the mood to rest right now… You….”
Duke Aubrey raised his head and stopped when he saw the child.
Anisha smiled brightly and held out the tray she had brought.
“Father, have a snack!”
“…A snack?”
He frowned and crossed his arms before letting out an arrogant scoff.
‘In other words, she’s come here to tattle.’
Remembering what had happened in the hallway earlier, Shacol Aubrey narrowed his eyes.
