Asha quickly grabbed his shoulder and shook it gently.
“Karnov, you can drop me off now.”
“…”
Karnov did not respond to Asha’s words, but only after leaning her body so much that Asha would fall off, he let out a sigh and put her down.
After waiting a long time for the long line to shrink, Asha could see the sign in front of the store.
<Crispy on the outside
Inside is sweet and moist
melted sauce flowing
‘Asha’s Chocolate Cake’>
“This… What is this?”
It was a signboard with a nice handwriting and a nice picture of fondant chocolate. If the front wasn’t full of people, passers-by would have stopped once just by looking at the picture. Karnov couldn’t hold back his laughter at Asha’s stunned voice.
“Oh, my God. ‘Asha’s chocolate cake.’ You came to a place that sells these things as a ‘customer.’”
“Be quiet, Karnov! H,How did this happen?”
<Didn’t you tell the head chef about this name?>
‘Well, yes, but…!’
Recently, she had been feeling like she had been messing with all the naming of her pastries. Asha, who was confused and embarrassed for a moment, took a deep breath and hit the smirking Karnov.
“For now, order… order it first.”
Asha couldn’t bring herself to verbally say ‘Asha’s Chocolate Cake,’ so she pushed the menu towards Lise.
Lise, who had a faint smile on her face, seemed to already know about the cake’s name since she had been observing the customers earlier. She placed an order for three while Asha quickly added two more.
“I was going to go and see Sophia’s face. But she seems too busy, doesn’t she? I’ll see her next time.”
Lise, of course, had an expression on her face that said, ‘The servant should come out if you call,’ so Asha hurriedly grabbed her again.
“I’m sure she’ll be delighted.”
“Oh, no. Absolutely not.”
Asha wondered if there was anything more irritating and burdensome than the shop owner coming around and scrutinizing while she was working. She knew she wasn’t the owner of the shop, but she felt like she was someone who caused even more stress. Just as she was about to bring up the topic of leaving, something unexpected happened.
“Phew! No! W,What is this taste?!”
In the midst of the crowd, someone’s cry rang out. At the same time, there was the sound of something being thrown on the floor. Everyone’s eyes were focused on it.
The frowning woman, wearing seemingly decent but ill-fitting clothes, began to complain in a loud voice about what she had just spit out.
“What the hell is in this?! It’s not even rotten waste! Ugh! Selling something like this for money? Are you out of your mind!”
“Um, customer, if the cake doesn’t suit your taste…”
“It’s not about the taste! You’ve put some strange filth inside!”
The employee who was taking the order rushed out and tried to calm the woman down, but the woman ran wild. People around her began to talk, and people who lined up in front of the store slipped out.
Asha, too, was so surprised at first that she only looked at her with a blank face, but only came to her senses when Lise tried to block her view.
“Wait!”
Attention was drawn to the woman’s screaming voice, the employee’s expression of embarrassment, and the childlike voice that resonated among the gossipers that played like background music.
Asha pushed the embarrassed Lise away and ran toward the cake that the woman threw away. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she took the top of the cake off the floor and thrust it into her mouth abruptly.
“Ah, lady!”
“What are you doing…! Spit it out quickly.”
As Asha was mumbling, Karnov put his palm to her mouth. At the thought of spitting in his hand, Asha pushed Karnov away with a more frightened face.
‘Spit it out?’
‘Don’t say nonsense!’
Asha finished the conversation with Karnov through her eyes, gulped down what she put in her mouth, and looked at the woman.
“There’s nothing wrong with this cake, what’s wrong with you?”
When Asha asked, the woman faltered. Although Asha’s clothes were simple in design, they were made of very luxurious materials, and there was a woman who seemed to be an attendant and a boy in fancy clothes by her side, making her look like a noble.
But she hesitated for a while. The woman raised her voice in a hurry.
“You… What are you! I don’t know what you ate, but what I ate…!”
“I just ate what you threw. The same thing you ate. Why are you yelling when it’s delicious?”
Asha raised her voice without losing. From the cake thrown on the floor, the embarrassed employee and the murmuring people, all of this was setting Asha on fire.
“The part I ate was like trash! It’s not even made by a patissier, they hired a veteran who escaped from the war, so it tastes like this…”
The woman seemed to be trying to shout something louder. Perhaps if Asha hadn’t exerted all her strength to push her back, it would have happened. As nobody around expected Asha to resort to physical force, short screams echoed from various directions.
Caught off guard by the unexpected turn of events, the woman stumbled back and fell down. However, Asha couldn’t muster the energy to yell any louder. As Phoebe let out a menacing chirp, Karnov lifted her up and handed her to Lise.
“Calm down.”
“I’m so! So!”
Asha never imagined that not knowing proper curses could backfire like this. As Asha pointed her finger at the woman and pursed her lips, Karnov turned his back and approached the fallen woman and held out his hand. The woman stood up holding the hand and pointed her finger at Asha.
“What, what an impolite little brat…”
“How much did you get?”
“What, what do you mean?”
“I won’t ask who you got it from. It means how much did you get paid to come here and do this.”
At first, the woman’s face, who raised her eyebrows as if she did not understand Karnov’s words at all, flushed for a moment.
The woman, hearing a ridiculous insult, tried to shake off Karnov’s hand as if he had lost his mind, but she couldn’t do as she pleased. Karnov’s hand was firmly strengthened.
“You don’t want to talk?”
“T-t-this… le-let…”
The woman twisted her wrist, but she couldn’t escape. Then, at that moment, black powder began to scatter from around the woman’s hand.
The audience around didn’t notice the woman’s gloves turning into ashes in an instant. But the woman holding onto Karnov’s hand immediately understood. That death was just at her fingertips. As she witnessed an inexplicable phenomenon, the color slowly drained from the woman’s face.
“This… What is…”
Karnov let go of the hand, and snatched the other wrist. With that clean hand she had touched the cake.*
[T/N: This is more of a statement, as in accusing her. ‘If she touched the cake with that hand then why were her hands clean?’]
“This hand is not wearing a glove.”
There were no gloves to turn to ashes. Then what will be the ashes?
In an instant the woman’s face turned blue. She desperately tried to pull out the arm he caught, but it didn’t work. Karnov, who looked quietly at the face that could not even scream, leaned down and whispered.
“Tell your employer. It’s pointless.”
And then he let go of that hand. The woman fled through her crowd, half-staggering, with her opposite hand clasping her wrist, which had held her captive.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
As soon as the woman ran away, Karnov cleared the area around them and called a carriage to pick up Asha and Lise. This was because the attention of the people around them began to zero in.
Even in the carriage, Asha huffed for a long time. And when the fever was over, she pulled Karnov’s hand and murmured in a melancholy voice.
“Sophia must have heard it, right?”
Karnov tried to avoid Asha as she suddenly tried to grab his hand, mumbling something unrelated. However, his movement was a bit clumsy, and before he knew it, he was caught by Asha.
Asha, with a gloomy expression, spread Karnov’s hand as if folding and unfolding the laundry, and gently swept away the dust-like ash powder attached to his hand with her sleeve. Karnov flinched but did not shake Asha’s hand.
“What would Sophia listen to.”
“What she shouted…”
– The part I ate was like trash! It’s not even made by a patissier, they hired a veteran who escaped from the war, so it tastes like this…
Pastries can be tasteless. It may not suit your taste. But how could she say that?
“Sophia must have been very upset, too.”
“It’s not true that Sophia left the military. Is there a reason to pay attention to that?”
“Even if it’s not true, it hurts when you get stabbed.”
“You shouldn’t be stabbed by words that aren’t true.”
“…”
Asha glared at Karnov and thumped his hand hard. She brushed off the last ash powder and shook off his hand with a flick. Karnov looked at Asha with a voice that seemed to hold back his laughter for some reason and said.
“Well, what can I do to make you feel better?”
“What… What do you mean?”
“To ease your mood, what can I do?”
Asha opened her mouth wide at his question, then shot him a look, and finally turned her head.
“I don’t know why Karnov can’t figure it out by himself.”
“It’s really tricky.”
“Don’t talk like Alyosha.”
“Does Alexei always pamper you like this?”
“Then is Karnov trying to pamper me now?”
“Partly?”
“Hmph. It’s useless.”
Asha said so and turned her head to the other side again.
“And, and! I’m not throwing a fit right now, you know?”
In truth, Asha couldn’t help but think that her words lacked conviction. How would a ten-year-old girl with an angry expression look? However, unexpectedly, a serious voice was returned.
“I know. So I said partly.”
“…Hmph.”
“Alexei may not let you go out again if you go back all fired up.”
“Alyosha wouldn’t do that.”
Asha grunted in response, but as she fidgeted with her cheek, she struggled to relax her expression. However, the faint gloom on Asha’s face did not completely disappear until the carriage arrived at the imperial palace.
As Asha said, Karnov couldn’t make her feel better.
