“Ha, ha… If you don’t sell the recipe now, people will research and dig into it and figure it out quickly anyway…”
“What are they researching with?”
Asha asked in a snap. Baroness Saratov gulped.
“What do you mean? Of course, if they eat and taste the cake, excellent patissiers will know the ingredients…”
“What cake and how? A cake made in this kitchen? Huh? I’m not going to make it anymore though?”
“Why aren’t you making…”
“Do I need to make it? I’m not even doing business with it.”
“…!”
“And even if I make it, only the Emperor will eat it. The rumor went around because I gave it to the attendants while practicing. I’m not going to give it to them anymore? So you’re going to ask the Emperor now? ‘Your Majesty, do you know what’s in the cake? Can you tell me?’”
Baroness Saratov’s face turned a little pale and then said.
“…that… twenty million karousas, then.”
“Pavel, can you feel the wind?”
Asha fanned Pavel with both hands. Pavel stood stiffly with an awkward expression.
“No, no more than that…”
“Baroness, this cake is so delicious that it will sell like hot cakes, right? Let’s see, let’s call the cake 8,000 karousas, and if we make a profit of 5,000 karousas per piece, it’s twenty-five million karousas if we sell 10,000!”
“It’s not that easy to sell 10,000 items.”
“If you sell one hundred a day, it’ll be over in one hundred days.”
“That’s not exactly the point. And where is the miraculous calculation of 8,000 karousas to 5,000 karousas of net profit coming from…”
“But if chocolate cake became popular, the baroness would sell a lot of chocolate altogether. But without chocolate cake?”
“…”
“Is the southern trade route okay?”
“Damn it, it’s not okay! I need to get out of this hell! I’d rather jump into the Vichegda River!”
“A golden opportunity to make up for it at once! That’s the fantastic chocolate cake!”
“Fifty million karousas!”
“Good!”
Baroness Saratov slammed the table and shouted curiously, and Asha responded to the cry. Baroness Saratov turned into white particles in an instant and looked alternately at Asha and Pavel with a broken expression.
“…”
“…”
“Wh, what’s wrong? Do you think it’s too much? Is it a little expensive to turn the Baroness’ life upside down?”
“W, who is this, Chef Marka? Is this the Chef’s Spirit? What kind of spirit is this? Is this the spirit you’re contracted with?”
Now Pavel’s face was gradually turning pale, and Asha held back her laughter and brought up another proposal.
“Hmm, but if the Baroness hadn’t got chocolate, there wouldn’t have been that cake, right?”
“Yes! I honestly… Honestly…”
Asha smiled sadly at Baroness Saratov who couldn’t bear to speak about the only item she had obtained from the southern trade routes. It was because the hardships of her heart seemed to be visible in her eyes.
Although it had various uses, it was an unknown ingredient, so she would have been moaning about cacao beans that would not be sold. However, it may have to be said that the feeling of selling it as a cooking ingredient is good.
“Then the recipe is thirty million karousas. Instead, give me half of the net profit from selling the cake.”
“…What?”
Baroness Saratov paused. Asha put her chin on her hand and rocked back and forth on her feet.
“Isn’t it the Baroness who supplies the raw materials? The Baroness will benefit from it, so please do that much.”
“How much must I try to deliver supplies to one store in order to be profitable?”
“It might be like that for now, but you don’t think it will be like that later either, do you? That’s why you came to us.”
Again Baroness Saratov glanced back at Pavel.
“Who is this child, really? Chef’s Spirit? The Spirit of Contracts? Unless it’s the Spirit of Contracts, what, Spirit of Merchant Protection? No, is it the Chef’s Guardian Spirit?”
“No way…”
Pavel sighed deeply and looked at Asha. Only then did Asha open her mouth again when she smiled and nodded.
“She is the first person who made that cake, and the youngest granddaughter of His Majesty the Emperor, Princess Anastasia.”
“Hahaha, even if I set the recipe too low at first, you’re making such a scary joke.”
Baroness Saratov sighed and laughed as she checked where to revise the contract. Nevertheless, when neither of them answered, Baroness Saratov also stopped her pen and raised her head.
“…”
“…”
“Hehe.”
Asha smiled slightly.
“…Chef Marka? That… I want you to make it clear which of the things you said is a joke.”
Baroness Saratov’s face grew tearful. Pavel affirmed.
“Neither is a joke.”
A short scream rang out in the kitchen. Pavel, who met his emotional comrade, smiled happily.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
The coordination of the contract items had been completed neatly. Baroness Saratov left, staggering away as if she had lost her soul. If anything urgent happened, Pavel would receive a call instead. Fresh mayonnaise was given a place in Pavel’s kitchen.
“Hehe!”
Asha walked out of her kitchen, ecstatic. She had the feeling that good things had happened one after another. A sandwich made from leftover egg salad was packed in her basket, and a neatly arranged contract was coming soon.
‘Well, I got a patisserie too easily, but…”
It’s hard to say it’s a dream come true, no matter what. This would be almost a scam if it were a dream come true. It was when Asha smiled happily and moved.
At the end of the corridor came a shadow. Recognizing who the owner of the shadow was, Asha almost fainted standing up.
“Kar, Karnov Neustadter!”
“There must be something interesting going on.”
Karnov, who was leaning against the pillar, stood up. Asha took a breath. She should have screamed as soon as she saw him.
If it was an ordinary person, she would have seen the airflow of emotions even in a dark place, and he would have stood out, but Karnov showed no emotion.
“T, this is… How…?”
“Why? Am I not supposed to come here?”
Karnov, who said so, gathered his brows, looked up and down at her, and said.
“I’ll take you to your room.”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
This time, Asha asked back. Karnov was silent for a moment, then raised his chin and smiled.
“Between close friends, that’s how things got arranged.”
It was an extension of the story at the ballroom.
“You’re just saying that.”
“…”
Karnov remained silent for a moment and then opened his mouth.
“…His Highness Alexei asked for it.”
“Oh.”
No wonder Alexei said he’d just let her go. Asha smoothed the ends of her hair a little, then nodded in agreement.
“But since when have you been here? If you came, tell me that you came.”
“You were always in the kitchen, weren’t you?”
“I’m telling you to come into the kitchen and tell me.”
“…In the kitchen, you mean?”
“What? Yes.”
“Are you serious?”
Asha tilted her head and looked up at him. Karnov’s expression seemed a bit absurd.
“Does the heir of a noble duchy not go into a kitchen…?”
Karnov smiled for a moment. In a cautious voice, the small girl says something obvious like it was a secret of her soul if others heard it.
“N…o.”
“What?”
Then an awkward and deadly silence ensued. Unable to endure it, Asha brought up anything.
“Well, Mister Karnov… Karnov also came out in the middle of the banquet.”
“Yeah, I don’t really have any hobbies like that.”
“Even if you’re the main character?”
“It’s all the more so since it’s a place that’s been called for killing a lot of people.”
This time, Asha also pursed her lips.
‘This person has a great talent for making people speechless…’
Surprisingly, however, Karnov continued to speak first.
“What fun would it be to see the faces who realized what they were inviting to the party after calling them?”
“What… did they call?”
Asha had thought that her intelligence was not superior but not lacking, but for the first time she had some doubts.
‘Is Karnov talking about himself or not?’
Asha tilted her head, Karnov stopped walking. Asha slowly raised her head and looked up at Karnov. The music of the banquet hall, faintly heard from a distance, was buried in the darkness of the outdoor corridor.
In this dark night, somehow she felt like she could only see Karnov’s purple eyes.
“…Nothing.”
Asha took a deep breath and pouted.
“…Is that your specialty? Habit?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not done while talking, but you’re quitting.”
“…Done.”
“Look at this.”
This time again, Karnov smirked, but he did not reply further.
After a moment of awkward silence, Asha took a sandwich from the basket she was holding to change the mood.
“Would you like this?”
“What is this?”
“It’s an egg salad sandwich, and I made it earlier. In the kitchen where Karnov said he wouldn’t come in.”
“…I couldn’t.”
“Wow, I guess saying that is really a specialty.”
“…Please give it to me. I will eat.”
Asha glanced at Karnov and handed him a sandwich. Karnov picked up the sandwich with his fingertips, without touching Asha.
‘Do I have dirt on me?’
Karnov took the sandwich like that, but he didn’t eat it right away. Still, the atmosphere between the two was not bad.
Asha rolled her eyes quietly. Alexei, whom she only feared, was not so cold-hearted. Maybe Karnov…
But when she was almost at the door, Asha noticed that Karnov was still holding the sandwich.
‘Well, eating while walking would be a little too much for the aristocracy, right? He doesn’t even go into the kitchen.’
It wasn’t easy to just carry it around, so Asha decided to take her share of sandwiches from her basket and give him the basket. Because she was going to give the leftover sandwich to Lise.
