CHAPTER 04…..
One Loaf. I Opened a Bakery. Let’s Be Baek Jong-won (3)
It was a huge success.
It had only been two months.
Ellie’s bakery had captured people’s hearts in just two months.
Word spread, and now people even came from outside the neighborhood, lining up to buy her bread.
No matter how many bakeries there were, Ellie’s bread could only be bought here. If you sold something found nowhere else, and it was addictive on top of that, it would be harder not to succeed.
“Kyaaa…!”
Ellie let out a squeal of happiness.
I knew this would happen! Damn, I knew I’d succeed!
Even though she didn’t have a dough mixer and had to knead everything by hand until her shoulders and forearms felt like they were about to fall off, she was glad she had trusted her youth and pushed through—since she wasn’t dead yet.
Indeed, a teenage body was sturdy. The physical “shields” she had built up in her body over time also helped with her strength.
Those shields had been expensive, forged with both money and years.
“Ellie, one baguette!”
“Yes, would you like me to slice it?”
“No, just give it as is.”
The woman left the store waving the baguette like a stick, smiling from ear to ear.
“I’ll take a campagne. What’s in it today?”
“I put in some preserved fruit.”
“Anything from Ellie is delicious. Give me two.”
“Thank you.”
“Your bread is so good, I think about it all day—it’s a real problem.”
Without even having to say it aloud, it was clear the bread was delicious. Ellie wrapped the loaves for the vegetable shop owner, who left hugging them like they were her own children.
That careful, baby-like embrace was very much to Ellie’s liking.
“How can bread be this soft? What have I been eating all my life until now?”
“Shall I give you two? That’ll be one silver.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to sell it this cheaply while using such good flour?”
“I still make plenty of profit. Don’t worry.”
She was only able to price it this way because she had a steady money source.
The customer smiled brightly, reassured, while sweeping more bread into her basket despite her supposed concerns.
Ellie had priced one baguette at 5 coppers—about 5,000 KRW. With 5 coppers, you could eat a meal at a restaurant, so the price was roughly equivalent.
She had loosely pegged it as: 1 copper = 1,000 KRW, 1 silver = 10,000 KRW, 1 gold = 100,000 KRW.
One loaf costing as much as a meal meant it wasn’t exactly cheap, but Ellie’s bread still sold like hotcakes. Korean bread was expensive anyway.
“This is a revolution…!”
“If you say that, I’ll get arrested.”
“A revolution—no, a miracle…!”
“Is it okay for a priest to say that…?”
She backed away from the priest who, in his robe, called a loaf of bread a miracle. She had no desire to be arrested for blasphemy.
If anyone found out that, instead of a pig’s head, I’d set up a statue of the goddess for a ritual on opening day, it wouldn’t just be blasphemy.
That was a secret she would take to the grave.
“Today I also have peach jam that I made myself.”
“Oh? How much is it?”
“This one’s a bit expensive. It has a lot of sugar in it.”
The priest’s eyes glistened strangely.
Ellie felt like she could see right into his mind. He was probably trying to calculate how to fit it into the budget the temple allowed him. But Ellie had no mercy, not even for a servant of God.
“It’s three silvers.”
That was a whopping 30,000 KRW.
“That’s too expensive!”
“I can’t help it. Sugar is pricey.”
“But still… still…!”
“Even without jam, you can enjoy the bread. Shall I wrap it up for you?”
Unlike bread, which didn’t store well, jam could be kept for a long time, so there was no rush to sell it. When Ellie smiled sweetly, the priest clutched his chest and crossed himself.
“Oh Lord, is there a devil before me?”
“Should you really be eating bread made by the devil…?”
“No, no! You’re not the devil! The devil was within me! You’re innocent, Miss Ellie!”
The silly conversation was quite entertaining.
Ellie chased out the priest, who left in tears after buying only bread, repeatedly glancing back at the jam with lingering regret.
“That’s it for today!”
It was a happy day’s work.
Before the morning was even over, she had sold out of everything she’d prepared.
Ellie only sold enough for one or two days’ worth per person, at high prices. From the start, she couldn’t make large quantities, and no matter how tasty, bread grew stale and lost its flavor if kept too long.
At first, people balked at the price, but after tasting the free samples, they changed their tune. Some customers even got angry, asking why she only sold so little each day.
I knew they’d get hooked after one bite.
It was a little scary to see a manic gleam starting to appear in customers’ eyes, but it was all part of the plan. Carbs and sugar could enthrall anyone.
“Aigoo, my aching body…”
Not exactly something a 19-year-old should be saying, but it slipped out naturally.
This was hard labor.
She woke up at 3 a.m. to knead, proof, and bake the bread.
It was tougher than she had expected. Baking required not just skill, but stamina. The repetitive work of loading and unloading the oven was exhausting. Her whole body felt like it was breaking—but what did pain matter? She was so fulfilled.
Ellie looked proudly at the empty display case and flipped the sign on the door from “Open” to “Closed.”
Now it was time to rest her weary body.
After business hours, she would lie in bed all day, barely moving, to recover her strength for kneading the next day’s dough.
In truth, Ellie had never been especially passionate—not in her past life, and not now.
In other words, she was lazy.
For bread, which she loved so much, she was willing to wake up early and work hard. But for anything else, she couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger.
Safety and happiness came first in life.
Happiness was just delicious bread and a small space to herself. Safety came from lying low and avoiding the dangers of the original story.
Saving the country or fighting in a war—those were someone else’s problems. That was the heroine’s job. She was just a small fry, and it had nothing to do with her.
Long live the small fry life!
Life outside the spotlight had its own quiet pleasures. Ellie planned to enjoy them to the fullest.
Her life had restarted in this little bakery.
That was all that mattered.
Just then, there was a knock on the closed door.
“We’re closed!”
“It’s me.”
Who’s “me”? Ellie grumbled as she opened the door.
“Didn’t you miss me?”
Standing there was Morris.
“If you’re here to talk nonsense, get lost.”
“So you did miss me? I missed you too.”
“Ha. We’re not having the same conversation here.”
Morris glanced at the empty display and smirked.
“Looks like I’ll have no trouble getting my investment back.”
“Is that why you came? To check up on me?”
“No, to collect interest.”
“And you say you’re not a loan shark?”
“You’re the one profiting more here. How much could I even eat?”
The “interest” was scones.
“I’ve contracted a disease where I’ll die if I don’t eat one of these scones every day.”
“That’s quite the serious illness…”
He came every day asking for scones, with an obsession bordering on mania.
Ellie called him the “Scone Lunatic.”
Whenever he tasted one, he looked like he was in ecstasy. At first he had popped the whole thing into his mouth without appreciating it, but now he savored each bite like it was precious.
Ellie asked in an exasperated voice:
“Don’t you have work to do? You travel a lot, don’t you? What are you doing, coming here every day for two months?”
“If it’s for a scone, I’d cancel every appointment without regret.”
“You lunatic.”
“Ellie, you said that out loud.”
“Won’t your merchant guild go under before you get your investment back?”
Ellie was starting to speak more casually to him.
Seeing him every day for two months had made her a little attached. If he went bankrupt, she wouldn’t feel great about it.
Reason for bankruptcy: scone addiction…
It actually seemed plausible, which made her laugh.
Morris burst into laughter too.
“What, are you worried about me?”
“I’m worried my money source might dry up.”
That was the truth.
“I have to* eat scones every day, so just sell more at once.”
“I only have one body, you know.”
“And right now?”
Morris looked at her, as if to say she was free now.
“I’ve been working since three in the morning, okay? I need to rest.”
“…”
“I have to prepare tomorrow’s dough too. Do you even know how much my shoulders hurt? Baking is physical labor. I knead, divide, round, proof, carry, and bake all by myself…”
Ellie poured out two months’ worth of pent-up pain.
Leisure showed in one’s skin. Morris’s handsome face was smooth and glowing—he clearly ate and slept well. Meanwhile, she had been up before dawn every day with little sleep.
She saw pity in his eyes.
Ellie let him believe that, given her status, it must be hard to do physical work when she’d been raised so delicately.
In reality, she hadn’t been raised delicately at all.
She had spent her days in the kitchen and by the oven, developing recipes, while enduring insults, contempt, and neglect.
“Why don’t you hire someone?”
“I don’t have the money.”
Morris replied as if it was no problem.
“You’ve got me—your money source.”
“Oh.”
A little while later, the money source left and a worker arrived.
