Chapter 2

“They said any dish made with this tastes like heaven. Fishy flavors, bad ingredients—it doesn’t matter. No matter how much you complain, do you really think the lord, who can no longer forget this taste, would take your side—”

“So you were the thief.”

Luciella muttered in a low voice.

“What?”

“That belongs to me.”

She pointed at the bottle Nigel was waving around.

“It belongs to me and my mom.”

Luciella stared at the powder.

“Do you have any idea how hard I worked to perfect the ratio for that powder? I tasted it down to the decimal point until my tongue went numb.”

“W-What?”

So the culprit really had been hiding right under her nose.

“The diary. Hand that over too.”

“……”

Nigel’s eyes darted around for a moment in surprise.

But after a few seconds, a sly smile spread across his face as if he had realized something.

“Hmmm… so that blonde librarian who suddenly disappeared was your mother?”

He slowly pulled an old notebook from inside his clothes, deliberately provoking her.

A worn brown cover.

A leather strap wrapped tightly around it to keep it closed.

At a glance, it was unmistakably her mother’s.

“But honestly, I couldn’t understand a single word written in this thing.”

Pretending not to hear her, Nigel chuckled as he flipped through the pages.

Of course he couldn’t understand it.

The diary wasn’t written in the Empire’s common language.

It was written in Korean, the language of the world her mother originally came from.

There were only two people in the Empire capable of reading it.

Luciella’s mother.

And Luciella herself, who had learned everything from her.

“I was about to throw it away. Is it really that important to you?”

Nigel waved the diary lazily.

“Well then, beg for it.”

He rubbed his chin.

“No, better yet. Swear you’ll work like a dog for the next three years like I said earlier. Otherwise, I’ll burn this worthless stack of paper right now—wait, what? Are you smiling?”

He stared at the corner of Luciella’s mouth curling upward.

“Of course I am.”

She smiled.

“Because now I can leave this place without any regrets.”

She meant it.

Luciella no longer had any reason to endure.

Not that pig-like face.

Not that irritating tone.

Not that disgusting smile telling her to continue working unpaid.

She gathered every last drop of magic she had left, most of which had already been spent buffing the tornado potatoes.

Then she snatched up one of the poisonous thornfish scales she had cleaned earlier that morning.

“H-Hey, what are you doing? Don’t tell me… you can use magic?”

“Of course.”

Luciella smirked.

“Who do you think my mother is?”

In truth, she could only use a tiny amount.

But she decided to scare Nigel as much as possible.

A faint blue glow flickered at her fingertips.

Using her magic to guide its trajectory, she put all her strength into throwing the poisonous scale.

Thud!

The scale shot through the air and embedded itself directly into Nigel’s forehead.

The venom-coated scale pierced his forehead, cheek, and jaw.

His face instantly turned a sickly blue.

“Ughk—!”

Letting out a short scream, he collapsed onto the kitchen floor and lost consciousness.

Luciella breathed heavily.

Now she was completely drained.

Not only of magic, but of physical strength as well.

Staggering over to Nigel, she picked up the bottle of MSG and her mother’s diary from the floor and tucked them into her belongings.

“…Ah.”

Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly remembered something.

Turning back, she quietly removed the pouch of gold hanging from Nigel’s belt.

“You only follow the law when you can afford to. If you see something necessary for survival, just take it.”

“Wouldn’t that make you a criminal?”

“My sweet girl, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your mother is already a wanted criminal. And yet I’m still living happily with my beautiful daughter.”

That was what her mother had taught her.

The woman who once had the highest bounty in the Empire.

With the gold pouch added to her luggage, Luciella headed for the exit.

* * *

“Is that the place, Lucan?”

A man in blue clothing dismounted his horse and looked toward the lord’s castle.

He appeared to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old.

A handsome young man with refined features and neatly combed black hair.

“Yes. That is Nor Lord’s Castle.”

The tall guard riding behind him dismounted as well.

The black-haired man, Cain Bellaon, narrowed his eyes as he studied the castle walls.

“Could it really be here…?”

he murmured.

For a brief moment, his throat bobbed unconsciously.

She might be here.

The person who had saved him from death ten years ago.

The miraculous taste he had experienced a decade earlier resurfaced vividly in his mind.

“Let’s go insi—”

“Yes, Baron— huh?”

Both men stopped walking at the same time.

The castle’s massive iron gate creaked open by itself.

Then a small foot stepped out.

“Who…?”

A girl.

No, a child who looked younger than fifteen.

Cain narrowed his eyes and examined her carefully.

Messy blonde hair that looked as though it hadn’t been washed for days.

An apron stained with flour and various sauces.

Swollen blue hands that looked ready to bleed.

And in those hands was a strangely sliced potato skewered on a stick.

Worn-out clothes.

Worn-out shoes.

In a word, she looked utterly shabby.

* * *

Cain first experienced the “taste of miracles” about ten years ago, in the middle of a hellish monster-subjugation campaign.

At the time, the Empire was suffering from a severe manpower shortage due to years of continuous monster hunts.

As the lives of ordinary citizens grew increasingly miserable, the Imperial Family decided to send a distant branch prince to the battlefield.

Then they ordered the nobility to do the same.

The message was simple:

The Imperial Family has set an example. Follow it.

Most nobles complied.

Just as the Emperor had sent a distant relative while making a grand show of sacrifice, most nobles either paid money or hastily adopted someone to send in their place.

The Bellaon Ducal House was closer to the latter.

It wasn’t the duke’s intention.

Marseus Bellaon.

A man once known as a war hero and the Sword of the Empire.

A proud knight, he had assumed at least one of his direct descendants would volunteer for military service.

Instead, every single one of his children refused with one excuse or another.

“I raised those brats for this…! If only Cedric were still alive…!”

His nephews and nieces were no different.

Eventually the responsibility fell upon Cain, the son of one of his cousins.

Deeply ashamed of his family, the duke summoned the only Bellaon willing to serve.

“So you are Cain? How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“You’re not even an adult yet…”

The duke sighed.

“If you return alive, I’ll grant you a title. I’ll treat you better than my own children.”

To make things easier for him, the duke arranged for sixteen-year-old Cain to enter the Imperial Army as a mid-ranking officer rather than a common soldier.

Under normal circumstances, he would have fought somewhere in the middle ranks and returned safely.

The problem was that his superiors started fleeing one by one.

Before he realized it, Cain had become the commander of the remaining subjugation force.

At sixteen years old.

In his very first battle.

Grinding his teeth, Cain continued fighting.

There was nothing else he could do.

Miraculously, he succeeded in leading the knights and driving a swarm of Basilisk Worms into a canyon.

He detonated the canyon with flaming arrows and barrels of oil.

Then he entered the wreckage alone and managed to drive an arrow straight into the heart of the Queen Basilisk Worm.

Having achieved the expedition’s objective and secured victory, Cain finally collapsed, covered in deadly poison.

For a long time, no one came.

Just as he was giving up everything and preparing to die, unfamiliar voices drifted through his fading consciousness.

“Oh my, what’s this? Why is the Queen Basilisk Worm here? According to the story settings, it wasn’t supposed to die yet…”

“Basilisk! Spit poison! Ptoooot! Sun came up!”

A woman.

And a small child.