Bon Appétit

The way to break the curse is to eat the food of a loved one.

“Hoho, that’s what the other witch said?”

The first time the butler heard these words, he let out a sad laugh. He has been trying so hard to find a way to break the curse, and this is the way it is. Isn’t it like embodying a scene from a fairy tale?

“Is there any chance that the witch told a lie?”

“I don’t like that person, but he didn’t seem to be lying.”

“Is that so?”

The butler unconsciously frowned. Then it meant that the duke still had no one to love.

‘I thought he loved Luana, but he didn’t?’

He sighed and searched his memory thinking that the duke had been acting foolishly.

They eat together every time, and he only eats the food that Luana makes. He calls her in whenever he sleeps, and they sleep in the same bed. When working in the office, he would look out to the window, looking at her.

‘Hm?’

The butler paused to think for a moment. No matter what he thought, it seemed like his action was like someone who was in love.  However, as other witches said, the duke might not love her, and the butler began to confuse. The doctor who is hearing the same story seems to thought the same. The two briefly exchanged glances.

“But it’s a relief that there’s a way out.”

The doctor coughed in vain. However, the answer returned was not positive.

“But there is one problem.”

“What is the problem?”

“He said it was the dish of the person I love, but I don’t know what love is.”

For a moment, the butler and the doctor were at a loss for words. That was definitely a big problem!

‘How old are you and you still don’t know love?’

When he was young, he tried to build his skills because of people around him who were seeking his position, and when he grew up, he often went to war in other territories. As for the banquet, he only participated multiple times and avoided all the flower-like young ladies. It was not unreasonable for him not to know.

“Love is a beautiful thing.”

The senator pretended to know and spoke up. He certainly seemed to have heard rumors that he had a passionate love affair with his wife when he was young.

“Beautiful?”

“That’s right. I always want to be with that person, and that person looks the most beautiful in the world. When we are together, we feel happy.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that an abstract concept? I want to know more specifically about the concept of love.”

“If it’s specific, how do you say it?”

“How to fall in love? What symptoms do you get when you fall in love? It’s like a way to win love from your partner.”

“Normally, love doesn’t approach that way. It happens naturally, just like a bud grows into a flower.”

The doctor tried to persuade the duke but to no avail. The duke still looked at him with a stern look.

“Let’s find an expert.”

It was the butler who resolved the situation.

“There’s no expert in that field!”

This is how people who haven’t even been in love properly. The doctor clicked his tongue, but the butler seemed to have already lost his hearing. He confirmed his will with a stern face.

“I trust the butler.”

“Yes, trust me!”

After saying that, the duke turned his head out of the window. For several days after Gerald returned, Luana had not been seen. That didn’t mean she left the mansion. She was hiding as she was cooking.

She occasionally showed her face, but when the duke tried to approach her, she disappeared again. She didn’t seem capable of doing that to him, so there was only one culprit.

‘Gerald.’

Grit-

He gritted his teeth, but it was already too late.

‘What the hell did he say to Luana that she was just hiding?’

The duke was very annoyed by it. While she was hiding, the meal constantly came, but she did not come to his bedroom at night. At this rate, he was worried that she might run away again later.

‘I must catch you today.’

Without knowing why the duke was motivated to catch Luana.

***

And for a few days. Luana was still not caught, and the butler came to see a self-proclaimed love expert.

He was a weak-looking handsome man with long, light brown hair. He looked completely the opposite of the duke.

“Is the self-proclamied expert really an expert in love?”

When the doctor asked with a suspicious face, the butler nodded and answered confidently.

“That’s right. He’s a man that has been carefully selected. He says he’s confident that any woman will fall in love if he’s given time. So, I did some experiments, and it worked as promised.”

Surprisingly, that sleazy man knew how to win a woman’s heart even with just one step. He thought it would be easier to fall in love once the duke was able to capture a woman’s heart. That’s why he persuaded the man he didn’t like with money and power and brought him here.

“At first, I didn’t want to come here.”

The man scanned the duke up and down.

“I understand why you called me. Phew, great. If this is the will of heaven, I will help.”

The truth was that there was too much money on the table to refuse.

“Well, I’ll teach the Duke how to love you!”

The man, Vyan, shouted proudly and placed his hand on his waist.

That was so annoying.

The duke felt an impulse to violence that he was not aware of. However, he was not the first to be invited as a teacher. He resisted the surging urge.

That’s how the class to know love began.

“Do you want to know love? Do you want to love? It’s not difficult. First, remember this. Every woman is a flower. Say it with me!”

“Every woman is a flower.”

The duke followed the words with a blank face. He doesn’t know why women have something to do with flowers, but he decided to believe in him because the butler chose him after a hard time finding an expert. 

“How do you feel when you see flowers? Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you want to see it with your eyes, touch it, smell it?”

“I’ve never done that.”

“That’s the problem!”

Vyan screamed and banged the desk. The duke looked down at him indifferently. But he didn’t care and continued his words.

“If you want to fall in love, you have to look at women differently!”

“What kind of look?”

The duke’s eyes gradually darkened. However, Vyan, absorbed in his words, did not seem to notice.

“With lovely eyes. If you want to be loved, you have to love yourself first. Now, Your Highness the Duke, look at my eyes.”

The duke almost raised his hands and stabbed Vyan’s blue eyes. It was because his eyes were teary, and he looked at him with sadness.

“How is it, isn’t it lovely? Most women would fall in love after that part. Well, you should try it, duke!”

The duke covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. Somehow he thought this wasn’t right.

“Are you really a love expert?”

“you’re right. If not me, who else would be an expert in love?”

“I don’t know.”

“Love is Vyan. Vyan is love!”

The room was starting to get colder. He felt like he wanted to kick him out right away. But as he continued to listen, he seemed to be correct. Because he didn’t know what real women were like. The place he has always been in the bloody battlefield, and love is his most irrelevant emotion.

So the duke, who was about to rise from his seat, sat down again.

“Come on, try it!”

The duke took a deep breath and tried to copy Vyan’s gaze. But his gaze did not turn out to be the same as Vyan’s. His sharp, piercing gaze sank deeper and became a look that seemed to want to catch a person. Facing those eyes, Vyan shrank unconsciously.

“Uh, I don’t think that’s right.”

“Isn’t it similar?”

The butler objected, but Vyan desperately shook his head.

“No. With those eyes, 100 out of 100 woman would all run away! Where are those lovely eyes? Isn’t that the gaze like when you want to catch people?”

Then he demonstrated again.

“Hah, let’s skip this one. What I want to know is the about the theory.”

“But this is especially important, but you can start with the theory. What are you curious about?!”

Vyan became calm in an instant at the gaze.

“What is love?”

“Oh, love is about respecting women.”

“Not that abstract concept.”

Vyan scratched his head at his remark. No wonder the payment was too high, it turns out the difficulty of this job was great, too.

‘Can you explain love theoretically? How could a theory explain all those beautiful emotions?’

Thinking hard, he came up with a way.

“Then why don’t you try this? Read books about love.”

“Is there such a book like that?”

“There are a lot. There are a lot of people in the world who longed for love and want to feel satisfaction. After reading the book, if there is something you still don’t know, I will teach you.”

“It doesn’t sound like a bad way.”

As soon the duke said that the butler moved again. He bought many books about love that Vyan told him. And the duke began to read them slowly, one by one.

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TL’s Note: I’m stopping the daily update for a while because I’m working on Bon Appétit’s manhwa and uploaded the first 5 chapters on a certain ‘b website’! check it out if you’re curious with how the manhwa adaptation turns out! I’ll be back updating the novel once I catch up with the manhwa’s raw! (it might take 2-3 days). Thank you~