Chapter 2

“The lord said that any dish made with this tastes like heaven. No matter how much you complain about the fishiness or whatever else, there’s no way the lord, who can no longer forget this taste, would ever take your side—”

“So you were the thief.”

Luciela spoke in a low voice.

“What?”

“That belongs to me. To me and my mother.”

Luciela pointed at the bottle Nigel was shaking.

“Do you have any idea how much work I put into getting the proportions right for a single bottle of that powder? I tasted it down to the decimal point so many times that my tongue practically went numb.”

“W-What?”

They always say that things hidden right beneath your nose are the hardest to find.

And it really had been.

“The diary, too. Hand it over.”

“……”

Nigel rolled his eyes, seemingly caught off guard for a moment.

But after a few seconds, his expression changed as though he had suddenly figured something out.

A vile smile crept across his lips.

“Hmmm… So that mysterious blonde-haired librarian who suddenly disappeared was your mother, huh? Now that I look at you, I can see the resemblance around the eyes.”

As though deliberately provoking Luciela, who was glaring at him, he slowly pulled an old notebook from inside his clothes.

A worn brown cover, its edges darkened from years of handling, with a leather strap wrapped tightly around it to keep the book shut.

One glance was enough for Luciela to know.

It was her mother’s.

“But I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was written in this thing.”

Pretending not to have heard her, Nigel snickered as he flipped through the pages.

Of course he couldn’t understand it.

The writing inside wasn’t in the Empire’s common language.

It was Korean—the language of the world her mother had originally come from.

There were only two people in the Empire capable of deciphering those letters.

Luciela’s mother.

And Luciela herself, who had learned everything from her.

“I was thinking of throwing it away, but if you need it that badly…”

Nigel waved the diary in front of her with a smug expression.

“Then beg me for it. No, wait.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Swear that you’ll work like a dog for another three years, just like I said earlier. Otherwise, I’ll burn this worthless bundle of paper right now and—what’s with that smile?”

He stared in confusion at the corners of Luciela’s mouth, which had curled upward slightly.

“Of course I’m smiling. Now I can finally leave this place without having to hold anything back.”

And she meant it.

Luciela had no reason to endure this anymore.

That pig-like face.

That irritating way of speaking.

That sleazy, disgusting grin telling her she had to remain an unpaid worker for three more years.

She had had enough.

Luciela gathered every last bit of mana she had left.

Almost all of it had already been drained into the tornado potato.

Then she snatched up one of the venomous thornfish’s spines and scales that she had cleaned early that morning and which had fallen onto the kitchen floor.

“Hey, what are you doing? What are you planning to—wait, you can use mana?”

“Of course I can. Whose daughter do you think I am?”

In truth, she could only use a tiny amount.

But Luciela decided to scare Nigel as much as possible.

A faint blue glow of mana flickered at her fingertips.

She guided the direction of the projectile with her mana, then put all the strength she had left into throwing the venomous spine.

Thud—!

The scale shot through the air and struck Nigel squarely in the forehead.

The venom-coated spine pierced his forehead, cheek, and chin, and his face instantly turned a swollen bluish-purple.

“Ugh?”

With a short groan, he collapsed onto the kitchen floor with a heavy thump and passed out.

Luciela gasped for breath.

Now, not only her mana, but her physical strength was completely exhausted.

She staggered over to Nigel and picked up the bottle of MSG and her mother’s diary from the floor, clutching both against her chest.

“…Ah.”

Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly remembered something and turned around.

Then she carefully slipped the pouch of gold coins hanging from Nigel’s waist free.

“You only follow the law when you have the luxury to do so. If you see something you need to survive, just take it.”

“Wouldn’t that make me a criminal?”

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, but Mommy is already a wanted criminal. And look at me. I’m still living happily with such a beautiful daughter.”

That was what my mother, who had once had the highest bounty in the entire Empire, had taught me.

Luciela gathered the pouch and her belongings and walked away.

“Is that it up ahead, Lucan?”

A man in his mid-to-late twenties dismounted from his horse and gazed toward the lord’s castle.

He was a handsome young man with refined features and thick black hair neatly swept back.

“Yes. That is the Lord of Nor’s castle.”

The tall guard following behind him dismounted as well and answered.

The black-haired man, Cain Bellaon, narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the castle walls.

“Is it there…?”

He muttered under his breath.

For a brief moment, his throat instinctively bobbed.

She might be here.

The person who had saved him when he had been on the verge of death ten years ago.

The miraculous taste he had experienced ten years ago flashed through his mind once more.

“We should hurry and—”

“Yes, Baron—huh?”

The two men stopped at the same time as they were walking toward the lord’s castle.

The massive iron gates guarding the castle suddenly creaked open on their own.

And from within, a tiny foot stepped outside.

“Who…?”

It was a girl.

No, she was so young that she didn’t even look fifteen.

Cain narrowed his eyes once more and examined the girl from head to toe.

Messy blonde hair that looked as though it hadn’t been washed in several days.

An apron covered in flour and all sorts of sauces.

Hands swollen bluish-purple, with the skin looking as though it might split and bleed.

In those hands was something that appeared to be a potato, strangely sliced into a spiral and skewered on a stick.

Worn-out clothes and shoes.

In a word, she looked absolutely filthy.

Cain first experienced the “taste of miracles” about ten years ago, in the middle of a hellish battle to exterminate monsters.

At the time, the Empire was suffering from a severe manpower shortage after years of continuous monster extermination campaigns.

As the daily lives of the Empire’s citizens deteriorated to the point of becoming unbearable, the Imperial Family sent one of the distant members of the imperial bloodline into the extermination campaign and ordered the nobles to do the same.

The message was simple.

The Imperial Family had set an example, so the nobles were expected to follow suit.

Most nobles did.

In other words, just as the Emperor had brought in a distant nephew of his and made a show of sending him to the battlefield, most nobles either paid money to avoid service or hastily sent an adopted son in their place.

The House of Duke Bellaon had done something similar.

But it hadn’t been the duke’s intention.

Marceus Bellaon, Duke of Bellaon.

A man once hailed as a war hero and the Sword of the Empire.

As a proud knight, he had believed that at least one of his direct children would volunteer for the Imperial Army.

However, every one of his children refused military service, each coming up with one excuse after another.

“I raised those brats as my children, and this is how they repay me…! If only Cedric were still alive…”

His close nephews were no different.

And eventually, the turn came to Cain, the son of one of his cousins.

Deeply disheartened, the duke summoned Cain—the only member of the Bellaon family who hadn’t run away and had willingly accepted military service.

“You said your name was Cain? How old are you?”

“Sixteen, Your Grace.”

“You’re not even an adult yet… If you come back alive, I’ll grant you a title. I’ll treat you better than I would my own children.”

The duke arranged for the sixteen-year-old Cain to enter the Imperial Army at a middle rank rather than as a low-ranking soldier, ensuring that he would be able to stay relatively safe.

Under normal circumstances, Cain would have fought somewhere in the middle of the formation and eventually returned home.

But then the officers above him began fleeing one after another.

Before he knew it, Cain had become the commander of the remaining extermination forces.

At sixteen years old.

In the very first battle he had ever fought.

Cain gritted his teeth and continued fighting.

There was nothing else he could do.

Miraculously, he managed to command the knights and drive a swarm of Basilisk Wyrms into a valley.

He then blew up the valley using flaming arrows and barrels of oil.

And, finally, he even managed to enter the ruins alone and drive an arrow straight into the heart of the Basilisk Wyrm Queen.

Having accomplished the extermination force’s objective and secured victory, Cain collapsed after being drenched in deadly poison.

For a long time, no one came.

Just as he was about to give up on everything and accept his impending death, unfamiliar voices began to reach him through his fading consciousness.

“Oh my, what is this? Why is the Basilisk Wyrm Queen here? According to the setting, she wasn’t supposed to die until now…”

“Basilisk! It sprayed pooooisooon! It did!”

They were a woman and a child.