The Flori Festival is an annual festival held only in the village of Seiren to bless the year’s flower harvest.
The flowers grown here are sensitive to changes in the weather, so better the weather, the better the harvest, and the better the exports, the better the state of the village as a whole.
If the flower business, the main industry in the village, is successful in a particular year, the Marquis of Seiren is always generous enough to give incentives to all of the villagers.
It is also a great opportunity for the merchants, too. During the festival, they hold a contest, choosing the finest flower-related products.
The first place prize is allotted either one year’s worth of one raw material of their choice for their business at half-price, or a half-year’s worth of that material for their business for free.
And being able to sell goods at no cost meant that profits would skyrocket.
‘We have to win first prize!’
I immediately set my sights on winning that competition.
If we could win first place at the Flori Festival, we could sign a deal to get butter for free!
‘And then the savings will come pouring in…!’
* * *
Slowly but surely, ten days passed since I’d arrived at David’s bakery.
But… somehow he never made any money.
But he also didn’t have a lot of customers.
At first, I almost fainted, seeing the horrible hygiene of the kitchen.
On that first day, David and I scrubbed the kitchen and the store all day long. The kitchen was only worth stepping inside after all that effort.
‘Back home, this place would’ve been closed down by the authorities if they’d have seen this…’
Even after the kitchen had been cleaned, however, I couldn’t go immediately to put the recipes lingering in my head out into the world.
Buying butter here was more expensive than I thought it would be.
Butter was expensive in Korea, too, but it wasn’t quite this unreasonably priced.
No wonder people in this world didn’t put butter on their bread.
All I could do with what was available was a ciabatta or a pain de campagne using olive oil.
I didn’t dare to even imagine attempting a butter-scented financier or madeleine.
Even if I had made it, it would’ve been impossible to sell at a fair price.
So, the first thing I knew I had to do was find a way to get my hands on some free butter.
“Irene… could we take a little break?”
“There’s no time for rest! You have to whisk it until it turns white!”
“What is all this? I thought we said we would bake some bread for the competition!”
“We have to make a meringue!”
“What the hell is a meringue?”
Because we couldn’t rely on the rich taste of butter due to its insanely high price, we had no choice but to infuse our product with some blood, sweat, and tears to win the competition.
Just a moment ago, I handed David a bowl of egg whites.
He dutifully stirred it as hard as he could until it had become a beautiful meringue.
There weren’t any electric mixers, so we had to do everything by hand.
Seeing his work, I checked the lavender petals, now freshly and finely ground into a faintly purple powder. A fragrant and cozy smell rose from the bowl.
‘Lavender meringue cookies!’
The primary flower being harvested from the village this month was lavender. Fortunately, it seemed to be the exact same as the lavender flowers I’d used in the bakery from Korea.
I had to process the flowers before they could be eaten, so I finely powdered them. After all, it‘s always best to cook with natural ingredients.
But it seemed as if there was nothing I could do to inspire David, who was struggling now with the meringue.
“Oh, wow, Mr. David! You’re soooooooo cool! Your muscles are no joke, huh!”
David’s whipped meringue was solidifying, slowly but surely.
David, now proud of himself thanks to my compliment, mustered up one final spurt of effort to put into his task.
I took his bowl, added the purple dust, turning the pure white substance to a pale purple.
I swiftly shoveled the meringue into a coated paper bag and squeezed the contents out into the delicate shape of a flower.
I could feel David’s admiration from the side.
“Wow…that’s beautiful. Irene, where did you say you worked again?”
“…Paris Bagu…ette…”
“What happened to that place? I’ve never seen baking like this in my life. I mean, this doesn’t even have flour in it!”
“Haha… sure doesn’t. It’s hard work, but we’re going to win first place.”
I laughed awkwardly.
“I really think that this could win… wow… my first time winning the competition! I wonder if we’ll get a trophy!”
‘…If I had ever been Commander of the Order, my life itself would have been one big win.’
David was pretty different from how I thought he’d be, based on the person I’d read about in the book.
I thought he would be a bit more combative, since he’d seemed quick and clever in his daily quarrels with the crown prince.
But he listened to me quite well.
The one thing that I was disappointed about was that he never wanted to work.
“We’re open for the day, so let’s rest!”
“We sold a loaf of bread, so let’s rest!”
“The weather is nice today, so let’s rest!”
“The weather isn’t so great today, so let’s rest!”
It seemed like the only thing that occupied his brain was the desire to rest.
But I couldn’t get on the same wavelength. I had no intention of missing the best opportunity to reset my life.
‘I’m going to get rid of the crown prince and David so I can just live my life in peace!’
I had slaved away day in and day out. Which, of course, meant that working hard today for the Flori Festival was even more important.
According to the book, the day the crown prince first came to the village of Seiren was the day of the Flori Festival.
And, that was the same day he’d tear this bakery apart.
“But Irene, why do you want me to close the bakery today? I’m sure there will be a lot of customers today.”
“I cleaned this place until it shined! It can’t just become a mess again.”
“Huh? What do you mean? Who would be making a mess in our bakery?”
“…I just have a bad feeling. Every time a celebration comes, crazy strangers come along with it.”
It took three days to whip David and this dirty bakery into shape.
I couldn’t just let the crown prince waltz in and make a mess of the bakery.
“It’ll be time for lunch soon, right?”
“Yes. Do you want me to get you something?”
“First, we need to put the meringue in the oven.”
I gently placed the tray of meringue cookies into the oven, then I sighed deeply.
‘It’s only been a week since the emperor died…’
The reason why the crown prince had come to Seiren at all was because his father, the emperor, had passed away.
The crown prince was unfortunately suspected of killing the emperor, who had been killed in the crossfire of the archduke’s plot.
The people of the Imperial Palace had evacuated on the day the emperor died.
But the coming war against the archduke was inevitable.
He’d come to the village in hopes of persuading the neutral Marquis of Seiren, neither a declared Imperialist nor Nationalist.
‘And then he’d come to try to acquire a fake job here, at this bakery…’
The crown prince, who had only ever been cared for in his lifetime, certainly couldn’t be a particularly good coworker.
He was extremely reluctant to go out to social gatherings, too, since he had only ever lived in the palace.
He was known as a brat by the servants, and as a pampered child by the adults of the palace.
‘In one word, he must be…a pain…’
This would be the first time that such a sheltered prince had even come out of the palace alone, nevermind that he’d be out for a place to stay, too!
David, too, had no intention of hiring the objectively lazy crown prince.
However, the crown prince wasn’t one to simply step down. Instead, he had destroyed everything in sight within the bakery’s walls.
[“It’s certainly a lot to ask. I don’t have much money on me, so I’ll pay you with my body.”]
David was essentially forced to hire him.
‘If I were you, I would have sued him right away. But I suppose that David is also quite the patriot.’
David eventually recognized the crown prince as his leader.
David’s previous sense of duty to his country may have taken over, allowing him to pledge his allegiance to the crown prince.
‘But that’s still no excuse to wreck the bakery!’
I knew that protecting the bakery came first.
So, the crown prince wouldn’t be coming to the bakery, but I was going to find a way to meet him.
‘The crown prince will be coming to the Flori Festival…’
In the story, the crown prince had gone to see the Flori Festival to meet the Marquis. However, the Marquis had already been called to the Imperial Palace.
I planned to meet the crown prince there, at the Marquis’s, and help him to land a job at the bakery.
Anyway, he planned to take advantage of the Marquis’s absence to get close to his daughter, the Marquis’s weakness.
‘Well, the crown prince won’t have anywhere to stay, so he certainly won’t turn down my offer…’
“Is anyone there?”
Right then, I heard a low voice. David, who was standing next to me, tilted his head, confused.
“Did you… lock the door?”
“…No… I didn’t lock the door…?”
“Then… how did people know we were closed today?”
“…they could just tell…maybe?”
David smiled awkwardly. I closed my eyes tightly and opened them.
‘So there wasn’t going to be a single customer today…?’
On the one hand, I was decently upset. But there was something more important…if this person wasn’t a customer, then, of course…
“I said, is there anyone there?”
Who else would say that?
“Are you testing my patience?”
I came out of the kitchen alone.
I was greeted by precious red hair and green eyes that seemed to reflect the vibrance of the forest itself.
A clear, pale face.
But, unexpected of his sculpture-like appearance, a feeling of bad luck accompanied him.
‘He’s just as handsome as described in the novel…’
Goosebumps ran down my back.
As soon as I saw him, I stiffened up, gluing myself to the spot.
The crown prince walked slowly towards me.
His dark green eyes were looking clearly at me.
“…Are you the owner of the bakery?”
“…um…”
“It’s cleaner in here than I thought it’d be.”
“…um…”
His eyebrows rose. He looked down at me, sweeping his red hair across his forehead.
“Can you say anything other than “um”…?”
“Irene, who is it? Are they here to buy bread?”
Then David came out from the back. David looked at the crown prince, and then at me, and then back at the crown prince again. He tilted his head.
“Who are you?”
“Are you the owner of this place?”
“…yeah?”
“I saw this.”
The crown prince took out David’s crude flyer from his pocket.
David chuckled.
“You’re kidding, right? You want to work here?”
“Why would I be kidding?”
There seeds of war were blooming between the two.
I couldn’t even think of a way to ease the tension.
“Look at yourself. Do you look like someone looking for work? You could fade into the darkness, looking like that…”
David looked the crown prince up and down.
The crown prince’s clothes were all black. The clothing alone exuded a feeling of despair.
“And… are you from here?”
At David’s words, the crown prince pulled his hand to his waist. In his waistband rested a sharp dagger.
Knowing this, my hands covered my mouth in astonishment.
‘Is this how I’m going to die?????’
I broke out in a cold sweat. David let me hide behind him, perhaps worried about me.
“So this is the kind of place that judges people by their clothes?”
“You know that’s not what is going on here, don’t you?”
“I said, I came for work.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t need any extra hands. I’ve already found enough help.”
David pointed towards me with a smile. The crown prince’s gaze narrowed in onto me.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was bone dry. He glared at me with a piercing look. His poisonous glare made me feel as though I’d turned to stone.
“I see. I’ll be going, then.”
‘What?’
“Mm, hurry on, then.”
David crossed his arms and pursed his lips, and the crown prince turned around without any more reservation.
The crown prince, who was supposed to have gone to the extent of breaking things just to work, was…stepping down?
I was taken aback.
“He-hey!”
As if my body had made the decision on its own, I called for him. He turned his head.
“What?”
“Well, you really… are you sure you don’t want to work here?”
“Yes.”
“Wh-why?”
“Why?”
He strode towards me with a strange smile.
“That’s a funny question.”
But he stayed and continued.
“Well, if you can’t figure it out on your own, I’ll tell you. There’s no way he could hire two people for such a teeny bakery.”
“…hey, I could hire two people if I wanted to.”
David refuted the crown prince’s words with a slight blush rising on his cheeks.
“But if I could get rid of the first person you took in…”
“Wh-what?”
“What? You’re crazy!”
The crown prince’s face was serious. Now I knew why he had been staring at me just now.
‘Is he thinking about killing me right now???’
Frustrated, I pulled my hair away from my face. The crown prince stared at me, unmoving.
“Well, I’m a little too tired for that.”
“……”
“I think my questions have been answered, so I’ll go now.”
He turned back around and went out the door.
I began to think that he would never come back.
‘But… is that okay?’
The crown prince needed David.
Because of his father’s untimely death, he had been put in a situation where no one believed him.
Except for David, who he met in Seiren, who became his strongest supporter.
‘What if… he doesn’t win the war?’
‘All because of me…’
Panic suddenly rushed through my body. As quickly as I could, I ran out of the bakery.
I saw his red hair in the distance. I ran as fast as my legs would take me toward the crown prince.
“H-hey!”
“…what? Did you come after me?”
“Work with us! You said you were looking for a job! So, do it. Work with us!”
“…what?”
“You can. We…we’re going to… expand! We’re going to expand our store.”
He stood before me with dubious eyes.
I held back my gasping breath as much as I could and laughed awkwardly. He kept staring.
“Dismissed.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I don’t want to.”
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･:.｡..｡.:･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*
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