Chapter 34

The kitchen is a battlefield.

This is doubly true if that kitchen belongs to a royal palace, where meals for hundreds of people must be prepared all at once.

On this particular morning, the spacious kitchen of Luden Castle echoed with the rhythmic thud of men brandishing knives, the sizzling of pans being shaken, and the booming roars of the head chef trying to keep it all together.

“Hey! Salad team! Cut those tomatoes into equal sizes! Stew team, the pepper is weak! Bread team! Don’t change the thickness! You bastards, give it your all!”

“Yes!!”

Whenever the head chef, Georg—a man from Montaigne—barked orders in his broken Ludenese, the men responded with every ounce of their strength, beads of sweat popping on their brows.

Meanwhile, fire swirled under massive cauldrons, vegetables were washed with a rushing sound at the prep tables, and plates flew through the air as if sliding on ice. The kitchen had taken on the appearance of a total scene of carnage.

“Hey, we’ve got no time! The seventh bell is almost here! You there! Don’t dilly-dally measuring the butter! You! The heat is too low!”

“Yes!”

“Chipp…! That’s why I told you not to crack eggs with both hands every single time! What are you, a two-year-old just starting to play house?! Huh?! And don’t cut the sausages so sluggishly—you should be able to slice those things without even looking at your hands!*”

“Oui!”

As Georg finally began reverting to his native tongue out of pure frustration, the cooks scrambled to meet his intensity. They lived in constant fear of the hungry servants who awaited the seventh bell that signaled the start of breakfast. However, at this exact moment, their primary priority was not offending Chef Georg’s temper. As a man who permitted no compromise when it came to his professional duty, he was the kind of gentleman who would shout at people without hesitation—and occasionally get physical.

Perhaps it was the frantic pace that caused the disaster, but one of the cooks failed to pull a slab of weighed butter off the scale properly and ended up splattering it across the floor.

“Hey! What are you doing!”

“Hieee!”

This head chef hated wasting ingredients more than anything else. To make matters worse, the replenishment team had already collected the large butter containers and taken them to the warehouse far from the kitchen. It wasn’t as simple as saying, “I spilled it, so here’s some new butter.”

At this rate, the flavor of today’s breakfast centerpiece—Georg’s signature omelet—would be drastically altered. The cook who made the blunder turned deathly pale.

“I-I’m so sorry…!”

It was over. It had been three years since he left his hometown. Having finished his grueling apprenticeship, he had finally reached the point where he was allowed to handle ingredients in the royal kitchen, but surely that life would end today.

No, that didn’t matter. He truly loved and respected this harsh but noble profession. He respected the job of satisfying the palates and stomachs of hundreds, and he respected the chef who led them. And yet, he had hindered it. Driven by an overwhelming sense of responsibility and his own immaturity, his face crumpled in despair.

But at that moment—

“—Good morning.”

A dignified voice suddenly rang through the kitchen, and the cook whipped around.

“Maid Elma. I heard the kitchen was in a state of melee, so I have come to offer my assistance, if I may be so bold.”

She stood there in her black maid’s dress and apron, wearing thick glasses that caught the morning sun. Her long black hair was tied neatly in a bun, and her expression betrayed no emotion. It was Elma.

“Miss Elma!!”

At the appearance of the bespectacled maid reflecting the sunlight, everyone saw the descent of a goddess of war.

“Miss Elma…! Miss Elma, Miss Elma! Miss Elmaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Thank you so muuuch! Help us… please help uuuus!”

The cooks, who had already been rescued by this maid numerous times, stretched out their arms for help without a shred of shame or concern for appearances.

Elma stepped into the kitchen, dodging them with fluid movements, and offered a greeting to Georg first.

“Good morning, Chef. May I assist here again? I see the menu is quite magnificent this morning as well.”

“Oh, sorry to always trouble you. I was planning on making the omelets that were so popular before, but… I might have to change the menu to fried eggs or something.”

Georg, whose irritation subsided slightly at the appearance of an outsider, knit his brows as he glanced at the butter on the floor. Elma followed his gaze with a “Hmm,” then gave a single, firm nod.

“But some of the eggs have already been cracked, haven’t they? Besides, I would like to cast an enthusiastic vote for omelets over fried eggs. Therefore——”

Allow me to help a little.

The next moment, as she pushed up the bridge of her glasses, it happened.

—Bwah!

A gust of wind swept through the kitchen, and the mountain of eggs on the prep table rose into the air all at once.

“Wha…!?”

In reality, Elma had thrown the eggs up simultaneously, but her movements were so fast her arms couldn’t be seen; it looked like a supernatural phenomenon. Georg and the surrounding cooks gasped in shock, but Elma ignored them. She gave a short, spirited shout of “Hah!” and thrust her hands between the flying eggs, waving them left and right… pa-pa-pa-pa-pa!

—Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka!

The eggs struck by Elma’s hands smashed into the neighboring eggs with such force it was as if they had found their fated partners. Embracing each other passionately, the eggs cracked open on the spot, dropping their contents one after another.

Elma caught them in a giant bowl she had produced out of nowhere. She thrust a massive rod into the bowl—which must have weighed an incredible amount—and then…

Whoosh!

She lifted it like she was using the bowl as an umbrella and began to spin it!

“Wha…! Instead of stirring with a whisk, she’s rotating the bowl itself!?”

“Wait, where did that rod even come from just now!?”

The cooks, now a captive audience, erupted in a roar of confusion. However, Elma tuned them out with intense concentration and finished stirring the eggs in a matter of seconds. Inside the bowl, the yolks and whites were already perfectly blended into a shimmering golden liquid.

She placed the bowl onto the table with a careful hand and secured sausages and tomatoes from the neighboring station.

And then—

“Hah!”

With a flash of spirit, she tossed the ingredients into the air just like the eggs. Out of nowhere, she brandished knives in both hands like sabers and began mincing them.

To-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa!

Without a hair’s breadth of error, the uniformly sliced sausages and tomatoes dived into the egg mixture as if returning to the mother sea. The golden, life-filled sea accepted the return of the ingredients lightly, without even a single splash.

“Sausage and tomato omelets…!”

As Elma began pouring the mixture into a massive frying pan, the realization of her intent left the onlookers breathless. Fluffy cooked eggs were a luxury on their own, but to add the Ludenese favorite—sausages—on top of that…

One could practically start drooling just imagining the grand harmony woven from the savory depth of the meat and the sweetness of the tomatoes as they sizzled and melted away.

However, Elma’s actions were already a step ahead of that imagination.

Just as she solemnly produced a crescent-shaped object wrapped in cloth, she began to grate it—

Sha-sha-sha-sha-sha-sha…!!

She grated it directly into the omelet as it simmered over the heat.

Snow began to fall upon the eggs. This “snow” showered down onto the golden sea that held the flavors of meat and vegetables trapped within; the moment it touched the liquid, its silhouette dissolved into a creamy swirl. Its true identity was—

“Cheese…!”

“It is cheese made with the utmost devotion from Moritz of the Abelhein cattle,” Elma replied flatly to someone’s exclamation.

Soon, after confirming that the ingredients and eggs were cooked through, she rolled them up with a dynamic, unhesitating hand. In the blink of an eye, a massive, hearty omelet was complete.

“Chef. Please, confirm the results.”

Elma—who had learned a great deal about such matters and now understood the proper chain of command—sliced into the finished omelet and offered a piece to Georg.

The moment it was sliced, Georg unconsciously gulped as he watched the golden cross-section, mingled with melted cheese, wobble enticingly. It was cooked to perfection: not too firm, yet not too runny. The colorful appearance was equally appetizing—the tomatoes had deepened in color from the heat, the eggs shone with a glossy yellow, and flecks of white cheese and brown sausage were scattered throughout.

Georg inspected it closely, then placed it in his mouth. His eyes widened instantly. The saltiness and umami seeping from the meat, the acidity and sweetness spreading from the tomatoes, and the richness of the cheese—all of it melded into a single, unified whole. It provided a depth of flavor equal to, no, greater than the missing butter.

‘I see… by adding these ingredients, she covered for the flavor of the butter.’

And, by extension, she covered for the blunder of the junior cook.

“As always… magnificent. Sorry for the trouble, every single time,” Georg muttered, feeling a sense of debt not only to her overwhelming skill but also to the fact that he was constantly being bailed out by her.

Elma replied with a simple, “No.”

“Helping someone in trouble—especially someone who looks after me daily—is a perfectly ‘normal’ thing to do.”

“…”

Hearing her state this with such a serious voice made the corner of Georg’s mouth twitch. It wasn’t that he detected any sarcasm in her words. Rather, it was because—

“By the way, Chef, what do you think? This time, applying the lesson I learned from being scolded previously—‘Don’t crack eggs using air pressure!’—I used my hands and proper cooking utensils to prepare the meal.”

“…”

He knew it was coming: Elma prompting him with that earnest gaze—though it was hard to see through those glasses.

“Ah—well, you see…”

Georg unconsciously adjusted his toque. Even for a man who had been quite popular with women back in his homeland, navigating this situation smoothly was a task of extreme difficulty.

Yes.

Ever since Elma had been talked out of leaving by Prince Lucas, Georg, and the others, she had become obsessed with getting people to testify that she was “normal.” The reason was simple: Felix had provoked her. Just as she was about to make her dynamic homecoming, her plans were thwarted, and Felix had challenged her by saying:

“You don’t seriously think you’ve cleared the task your mother set for you, do you? You think you’re ‘normal’?”

That provocation had made her resolve to stay. As usual, she didn’t quite grasp the essence of what “normal” meant, so she figured if she could just get a certain number of people to evaluate her as “normal,” that would suffice. Thus, she would approach those around her and press them.

“This much would be considered ‘normal,’ wouldn’t it?”

“Ah…”

Georg averted his eyes. Due to the way things had unfolded, he knew Elma was from a prison and that her mother had told her to “learn what a normal girl is like.” However, he never dreamed this meant “Even if you are of the Demon Race, live as an ‘normal’ human.” He took it at face value as a standard piece of parental advice: “Even if you are from a prison, live as a ‘normal’ girl.”

Trying to be normal to honor a parent’s wish despite a misfortune of birth was quite touching. Furthermore, Montaigne men side with beauties. If he could, Georg wanted to say, “Yeah, you’re normal!” just as she wished. But—

‘…No, I can’t abandon my humanity to that extent…!’

He simply could not describe someone who cracks hundreds of eggs with a flick of her finger and wields a knife like a martial arts performance as “normal” in front of his subordinates.

“Ah… well, how should I put it… rather than normal, it’s a little… quite… significantly, abnormal, I suppose…?”

“Eh…?”

“No… look, I mean… the, uh, the method for cracking the eggs has gotten much closer to ‘normal,’ I think, but the, uh… the speed and all that, you know.”

Between his broken speech and his cautious choice of words, his explanation came out in awkward fragments.

“…”

As Elma looked down, her face hidden behind silent glasses, Georg panicked. Having grown closer to her, he understood now. This wasn’t a sign of anger. She was in shock.

“Ah, no. I mean…”

Why? Why did praising someone have to involve breaking into such a cold sweat? Georg, who had remained dignified even when breaking a plate in front of royalty, was completely frozen when—

“Ah, there you are! Elma!”

The kitchen door opened once more, and a lighthearted voice drifted in. It was Irene, Elma’s senior maid colleague, with her slightly wavy blonde hair and cat-like green eyes. Ignoring the stiff atmosphere of the room, she marched into the kitchen and her eyes lit up at the sight of the massive omelet on the cutting board.

“My, what’s this? An omelet? Did you make this, Elma?”

“…Yes. I heard the breakfast preparations were struggling, so I thought I would offer my meager assistance.”

Elma answered mumble-style, her heart still heavy, but Irene’s face brightened as she picked up a tasting knife.

“Chef, would it be alright if I acted as the poison tester? It’s fine, right! Thank you!”

No sooner had she spoken than she popped a bite into her mouth. Immediately, she groaned, “Mmmph!”

“It’s delicious! It’s amazing, Elma! Honestly, this flavor is beyond the normal!”

“…I apologize for not being normal.”

“Why are you apologizing? If it’s not normal, it means it’s special!”

At the word “special” rather than “abnormal,” Elma’s eyes widened for an instant. However, Irene didn’t notice the look hidden behind the glasses, so she continued talking quite casually.

“So, Efma. I haf a meffage for you.”

“…Irene, perhaps you should choose between eating or speaking.”

“And stop stuffing your face with the samples!”

Both sides chimed in with a retort to Irene as she munched on the omelet. The hungry little devil quickly swallowed the omelet, stuck out her tongue playfully, and innocently dropped a bombshell.

“You’re to come to the King’s Chamber immediately. His Highness Felix—no, wait, His Majesty the King—and His Highness Prince Lucas, the King’s brother, are waiting for you.”

“…Again?”

A summons from the King at the pinnacle of the great nation of Luden and his brother. The fact that she let out a weary sigh in response was proof enough that such summons had also become a part of her daily, “normal” life.