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Chapter 01
At exactly twelve years old, Chloe Garnet regained the memories of her previous life.
There wasn’t any special trigger.
The trigger was simply… a horrifying taste tormenting her tongue.
The moment she took a bite of that food, her head spun.
‘This tastes… absolutely awful!’
Even so, Chloe still tried somehow to eat the food given to her.
Why?
Because it was a cake personally baked by her mother, Duchess Millenia Garnet, who had woken before dawn to celebrate Chloe’s twelfth birthday!
‘I can’t spit it out.’
Thinking that, Chloe desperately tried to force the food in her mouth down her throat.
But despite her efforts, what had entered her mouth was truly, unimaginably disgusting…
After eating the very first ambitious dish her mother had ever attempted to cook, Chloe committed the unfilial act of getting a nosebleed!
Drip.
“Eek, Miss!”
And not just a regular nosebleed—both nostrils were bleeding profusely.
The maids and attendants panicked at the sight of bright red blood streaming from Chloe’s nose.
The situation didn’t stop with Chloe merely getting a double nosebleed.
“Tastes… bad…”
Feeling her consciousness fading, she barely forced out her last words like a dying message before collapsing unconscious.
While Chloe was unconscious, the ducal household descended into chaos.
Was there poison in the food? How could poison get into something the Duchess made herself? Then why had the young lady collapsed? Questions flew everywhere.
Not only doctors but even investigators visited the estate, yet no evidence of poisoning was found.
Naturally—because the reason Chloe collapsed wasn’t poison.
The food was simply too terrible.
“What? Are you saying my wife’s cooking was that awful? Enough to make my daughter faint?”
“My deepest apologies! But no poison whatsoever was detected in the young lady’s body!”
The only clue was Chloe’s final words before collapsing:
“Tastes… bad…”
Everyone desperately searched for another explanation to preserve the Duchess’s honor, but there was nothing else.
So they had no choice but to accept the truth:
Chloe Garnet had fainted with a double nosebleed because the Duchess’s cooking tasted too awful.
“I’ll never cook again…”
“Madam…”
Duke Grania Garnet, trying to comfort his wife, ignored everyone’s attempts to stop him and personally tasted her cooking.
Apparently his palate wasn’t much different from Chloe’s.
The shocking flavor caused even him to briefly lose consciousness.
After that, he could no longer encourage his wife.
With the Duchess depressed and the Duke burdened with worry, Chloe finally regained consciousness after an entire day had passed.
***
As soon as they heard Chloe had awakened, the Duke and Duchess rushed to her room.
The moment the Duchess saw Chloe awake and unharmed, tears welled in her eyes and she pulled her tightly into an embrace.
“Oh, my baby!”
During the short time Chloe had been unconscious, the Duchess seemed to have suffered greatly; she looked noticeably thinner.
“From now on, I’m absolutely never cooking again. Because of a selfish wish to feed you my own cooking, Chloe, I even caused you to faint. I was careless.”
…The Duchess had clearly been deeply shocked too.
She swore repeatedly she would never cook again.
Chloe didn’t offer empty reassurances.
If she fainted again after eating her mother’s food, it would only hurt her mother more.
And frankly, she had no desire to experience food-related trauma ever again.
“It’s okay. But I think you should be careful with cooking for a while.”
“Yes, my precious daughter. I’m just so relieved you woke up safely.”
The Duchess hugged Chloe so tightly she could barely breathe, but Chloe accepted the embrace generously.
It was true she’d fainted because of her mother’s cooking, but thanks to that…
‘I remembered my past life.’
To think the trigger wasn’t falling from a tree, getting hit by a carriage, or nearly drowning—
—but because her mother’s cooking tasted too bad.
Even Chloe found the situation absurd.
Still, after recovering memories of her previous life, it somehow didn’t feel impossible.
Remembering the foods she’d eaten in her former life made her realize all the more how horrifying that cake had been.
‘Urgh…’
Just recalling it made her feel like fainting again.
Desperately trying to distract herself from the taste still haunting every corner of her tongue, Chloe forced herself to think about something else.
The fantasy romance novel she had read in her previous life:
.
The name Chloe Garnet.
Luxurious wavy red hair.
Deep green eyes.
Parents who adored their daughter endlessly.
She was undeniably a character from that novel.
If she had remembered only that much, she wouldn’t have been troubled.
But the “Chloe” in her memories had definitely been a villainess.
That was the problem.
A foolish villainess, at that.
That was the real problem.
The more she recalled her actions in the original story, the more her expression twisted.
So I’m destined to appear as the final villain’s lackey, doing arrogant and idiotic things before being cast aside?
If I hadn’t recovered my memories, I might have repeated that fate this time too!
‘Chloe Garnet, born with everything, couldn’t tolerate that the one thing she lacked—the Crown Prince—belonged to the heroine, Shuria.’
If events followed the original story, then fittingly for a villainess, Chloe would try to harm Shuria, incur the imperial family’s wrath, suffer a horrific punishment, and drag her entire house into ruin.
‘Then isn’t the solution simple? I just shouldn’t become interested in the Crown Prince.’
The fact she was destined to be a villainess bothered her somewhat, but still—
As long as she didn’t obsess over the Crown Prince and behave disgracefully, who would dare criticize Chloe, daughter of a ducal house?
Chloe decided she would stay far away from both the Crown Prince and Shuria and live gratefully as the child of parents possessing immense wealth and power.
So after recovering her strength, she sat happily at the family dining table.
Recovering memories of her past life made even moments like this feel precious.
And then she saw it.
On the ducal family table sat roasted whole potatoes, steak, grilled fish, bacon, bread, and cheese.
At first glance, it looked like an appetizing meal.
But Chloe noticed something.
‘…Why is everything roasted?’
There wasn’t a single salad or pickle.
Only foods cooked whole over heat.
At the sight, Chloe’s thoughts froze.
These were meals she had eaten without any issue before fainting.
But after regaining memories of her previous life, she understood.
‘If this is the standard meal in a ducal household… what on earth does everyone else eat?’
Even the steak had no sauce—
It looked like they had simply grilled a chunk of beef and put it on a plate.
Chloe tightly shut her eyes.
“Oh dear. Our daughter must still be very sick. What should I do, my baby?”
“No, I’m fine!”
Hearing the Duchess’s worried voice, Chloe stopped thinking and put a piece of roasted potato into her mouth.
‘…Dry.’
She didn’t even dislike roasted potatoes, so why did this taste so bad?
‘Don’t tell me they literally just roasted it?’
It was bland enough to make her question whether they’d used salt at all.
And without butter or anything else, it left her mouth feeling unpleasantly dry.
The Duchess’s cooking might have been exceptionally terrible, but even ordinary meals were hard to eat.
Groaning inwardly, Chloe forced the potato down her throat.
Thinking steak might be better, she cut off a small piece and tasted it—
Only to find it tougher and drier than the potato.
Next she picked up grilled fish, something she’d enjoyed both in her previous life and before regaining her memories.
“Ugh.”
The moment it touched her mouth, a sound of disgust escaped her.
‘Fishy. It’s fishy!’
