Chapter 04
“……!”
His molars bit into the crispy, fried exterior of the potato.
Then the fluffy inside melted across his tongue, releasing the rich umami of butter.
It was an incredibly refined and elaborate flavor for something as simple as a potato.
What was most astonishing was the seasoning. Between the saltiness of the coarse salt, layers of an unidentified dried herb aroma were stacked one after another.
The combination cut sharply through the greasy richness of the butter while bringing out the potato’s naturally savory flavor to its absolute limit.
Even the Imperial Palace’s chefs were more concerned with pouring in expensive spices than carefully balancing herbs and salt to create such an addictive depth of flavor.
But was it his imagination?
Immediately after chewing and swallowing the potato, Cain felt the flow of magical power within his body vibrate faintly.
“What……?”
Crunch.
Cain snatched the remaining piece and chewed it.
This time, he was certain.
A hot energy traveled down his throat and spread throughout his entire body. His heavy body suddenly felt lighter, and the sensation in his fingertips became sharply heightened.
His physical abilities had been temporarily enhanced.
It was exactly the same sensation he had experienced in that forest ten years ago.
It’s her.
This was unquestionably the work of the person who had made the Castella.
“Child! Wake up!”
When Cain urgently shook Luciela, she slowly opened her eyes.
Her unfocused green eyes wandered through the air.
“Did Chef Nigel make this?”
At his question, tears filled the corners of Luciela’s eyes.
Even in her hazy state of consciousness, she seemed overwhelmed by a sense of injustice as she moved her lips.
“……Mine.”
It was a tiny whisper, barely audible.
“I made it……. My Tornado Potato…….”
Cain was struck by a shock as if someone had hit him over the head with a blunt weapon.
The youthful voice from his memories overlapped with the hoarse voice he heard now.
“Ugly big brother, are you better now?”
Ten years had passed and the child had grown, but that distinctive tone of voice remained.
The person who had made the Castella he had eaten on the battlefield back then wasn’t that mysterious woman, nor was it Chef Nigel.
It had been the child who had been with the woman—the little girl who had stroked Cain’s cheek and asked the woman to save him.
His benefactor who had saved his life was the filthy-looking child standing before him.
Luciela opened her eyes inside a swaying carriage.
As her blurry vision gradually cleared, she saw two figures.
The brown-haired guard she had encountered just before fainting, and the nobleman with thick black hair and vivid blue eyes.
Luciela narrowed her eyes as she tried to get a better look at them.
Up close, both men were exceptionally handsome.
The black-haired man in particular had sharp eyes and finely sculpted features like a prince from a fairy tale.
“Are you awake?”
Perhaps noticing her gaze, the black-haired man turned toward Luciela and asked.
“Where am I……?”
“Inside the Vellaon family’s carriage. You didn’t wake up even after we waited, so Lucan carried you inside.”
“The Vellaon family……?”
At the familiar-sounding family name, Luciela’s eyes widened.
It wasn’t simply because they were the most prestigious family in the Empire.
Vellaon was a family that frequently appeared in the “original story” her mother had talked about.
Apparently, it was the only family in the Empire capable of standing against the Emperor.
They could pressure the Imperial Family with their wealth, threaten the Imperial Palace with their military power, and use their honor to gain the support of the Noble Council.
Luciela slowly sat upright.
“A long time ago, you saved my life. Do you remember?”
But the words that came from the man’s mouth were completely unexpected.
“I did?”
“It happened ten years ago. Do you remember a soldier who had collapsed alongside the corpse of a Basilisk Wyrm in Parsil Valley?”
“……?”
“You and your mother put something called ‘Castella’ into my mouth.”
“……?”
“You were on your way to see a doctor because your head hurt.”
“……?”
“……You called me ugly. Several times.”
“Ah! Ugly big brother!”
A memory suddenly flashed through Luciela’s mind, and she cried out happily.
She couldn’t remember everything clearly, but she could vaguely recall a face.
A face that seemed considerably wider and puffier than an ordinary person’s.
“That was me.”
The man sighed, as though his pride had been slightly wounded.
“I am Cain Vellaon, also known as Baron Vellaon. The man beside me is my guard, Lucan.”
“……Baron Vellaon.”
Luciela craned her neck and stared at Cain’s face.
Cain Vellaon.
He was indeed a character who had appeared in the original story.
Not merely someone who had been mentioned in passing, but someone who had played a role of his own.
A supporting character from The Empire Is Doomed!, the game her mother had loved most before she became a transmigrator, was alive and breathing right in front of her.
According to her mother’s stories, her mother had been an ordinary woman in her twenties living in a country called South Korea.
What had comforted her mother when she was exhausted from working was all kinds of games.
Among them, her mother’s favorite was The Empire Is Doomed!
The plot was simple.
The Crown Prince of the Empire, born under divine blessings, grows up to become a foolish tyrant and ruins the country.
The players had to find a way to save the country, whether by killing him, overthrowing him, or using some other method.
According to her mother, no one had ever successfully completed the game all the way to a happy ending.
Her mother was no exception.
She had tried countless methods.
A straightforward assassination.
Bringing forward evidence of conspiracies to strip him of his position as Crown Prince.
Sending an excellent nanny to reform him.
When none of those worked, her mother eventually decided to overthrow the Imperial Family through rebellion and began looking into families that might have the potential to accomplish it.
But no family succeeded.
Instead, they merely hastened the Empire’s destruction.
Among them, the Vellaon Ducal Family was the only one that had come close to succeeding.
The problem was that the hero of that family died right before victory.
After making several more attempts and still failing to clear the game, her mother became so furious that she started frantically pressing all sorts of buttons on her laptop.
And then she was sucked into the game.
No—she came into it.
She had transmigrated into the body of a maid in the Imperial Palace.
The world inside that game was the very Empire I lived in now:
Esellede.
“That’s how Mommy became a transmigrator. Isn’t it amazing?”
“Mommy stupid. When angry, should stop game.”
“……I didn’t know that the Red Moon would rise that day and open a dimensional gate.”
“Then Mommy coming here was bad?”
“Of course not! If I hadn’t come here, I never would have met our Lucy. Transmigrating that day was the greatest luck of my life.”
“……Really?”
“Of course. Actually, Mommy came to love the Esellede Empire quite a lot from the moment I transmigrated.”
That was why her mother had tried to save the Empire.
Not simply because she was afraid that she would die if the Empire fell.
She had come to love everything about this country—the nature, the culture, the food, and even the nameless people she encountered while walking down the street.
And so, Luciela had listened to her mother’s stories ever since she was little.
Stories about all the things her mother had done after transmigrating in an attempt to prevent the Crown Prince from being born.
Living as a maid and seducing the Emperor to prevent his marriage to the Empress.
Dressing as a man and seducing the Empress.
She had even secretly tried giving both of them contraceptive medicine.
All of it failed.
As a last resort, her mother tried kidnapping the newborn Crown Prince.
But just before she could succeed, she was spotted by a guard.
In an instant, her mother became a wanted criminal, and she fled while pregnant with Luciela.
Her father, who had been a magic scholar, attempted to send her mother back to her original world for her safety.
But he became trapped within a rift between dimensions.
That was why her mother disappeared every time the Red Moon rose—to search for her father.
