Chapter 35: Take A Good Taste For Poison!

For the time being, it would be rude not to sit down since the greetings were already finished and I was invited to a seat. Victoria and I sat down and Helmut stood behind me. Isabella also accompanied us to the royal castle, but she is currently away due to her work. It’s an important job because what Isabella is bringing is the most important thing for this meeting.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Aunt,” Dietrich said to Victoria, as soon as we sat down. “Are you in good health?”

“!?!!” I went.

Shocked, I look at Victoria and she has a cool expression.

“Your Grace Dietrich, those words are a waste for a commoner like myself,” Victoria said.

They got me!

Yes! They set me up. No doubt.

Since Victoria is Isabella’s sister, there’s no way she’s related to the Duchy of Kreff. Nevertheless, if she’s Duke Dietrich’s aunt, then the blood relative must have been with the former chairman of Victorian Trading Firm, her deceased husband.

No wonder Victoria’s company should be doing so well for itself. If it were a firm with the backing of a ducal family, it would surely have a fairly high scale and power even among the other Merchant’s Guild members.

And I should have realized this meeting was set up from the beginning. It just isn’t possible, that I requested a visit today and then King Wilhelm would be in Ludwig’s room because he so happened to be free, and the Duke came to visit with his son, too. It was designed from the beginning to be like this from the moment I asked Victoria to mediate the sale…

Moreover, I owe Victoria, and now I have to owe even the royal family. There is no other way but to say that the two of them had been scheming behind the scenes and set me up to make me indebted twice fold. A person pretending to be an intermediary is connected to the client behind the scenes and gains a profit. It’s a common scam trick. I was completely taken in by their tactics.

What’s the goal with these guys? I don’t know the royal family’s intentions, but if it’s a trading firm, it might be easy to understand. Normally, the company thinks about profit. Do you get profit by dealing with my goods? Or is it the purpose to crush me, so that new producers will not be released because it will be a problem if my products go up on the market and compete with theirs? Or maybe the goal is to take away the rights to the new products from me and sell them independently. Whatever it is, it probably won’t be very good for me.

And above all, what I don’t understand the most is the expectations of the royal family. I don’t know what they want me to do, like giving me an unnecessary name or putting me into their debt by doing such a roundabout scheme.

To begin with, the royal family interfering with my debut is why all of this happened. This is a great place for a match-pump scheme. 1

“It’s okay if you aren’t so formal because both I and Dietrich are present,” Wilhelm said, grinning. “You may speak with Ludwig to your heart’s content.”

He said all this as I desperately worked out the scheme in my head. Can he guess what I’m thinking? If he wants me to dance in the palm of his hand, then I’ve no choice but to dance as the King wishes.

“Aah! Don’t worry about Father. So what is it that you wanted from me?” Ludwig asked.

I wonder if he’s been itching to pull this scheme since yesterday. Ludwig’s eyes have slightly dark bags underneath them. Was he so excited that he couldn’t sleep? What does he want me to do? Is that a little too self-conscious? I’m sure Ludwig has a lot of things to do, and I’m too self-conscious to think that any of that is related to me specifically, I feel uncomfortable saying it myself.

“Actually, my purpose for coming to the castle today was to present you with new food,” I said.

No matter what their intentions are, since we’ve come this far, we can’t leave it without achieving at least our original goal. I can’t take the option of flipping the table here and going home, so I have to do something, at least…

So let me tell them why I came here. The presentation of the food is a pretext. The true purpose is a strategy to make people eat dishes using my products and buy ingredients and seasonings for making them! For this strategy, after entering the royal capital, Helmut and Isabella had to buy a number of ingredients that had to be procured locally because we could not bring them with us. As soon as I got them, I started preparing them, and it takes a lot of time and effort to do so.

“New food? What’s it like?” Ludwig said, holding back his tongue.

In this country, it’s not normal for a high-ranking aristocrat’s daughter to cook. That’s why no one thinks I made it. Of course, even though I made it, there are some that I just came up with ideas and got help from Damian, the head cook at my family’s manor. Not everything is handmade by me.

“I’m certain they’re tasting it for poison right now,” I said. “When the test is over, they will be brought to Your Highness Ludwig.”

That Isabella isn’t here is because she’s sending the food I’ve brought over to be tasted for poison. There is no way I could bring food to the royal family and ask them to eat it on the spot. There is also the fear of assassination, so it is normal to not give food to the royal family so recklessly.

Still, I decided to let Ludwig eat the food. If Ludwig dies from this, I’ll be suspected and I’ll be in trouble, but if I want to increase my consumption of ingredients and seasonings, the trick is to teach them dishes that use a lot of them and feed them to the royal family as soon as possible.

Isabella accompanies the poison taster so that she can keep an eye on them to make sure someone doesn’t put poison in the food I delivered. There’s a danger of a third party poisoning someone else’s meal and pinning the blame on them, so there’s no way you can carelessly trust the taster and leave everything to them.

“What are you saying!?!” Ludwig cried. “I don’t fear any poison! Tell them to bring it right away!”

At that, the butler waiting at the door made a troubled expression. I’m sitting with my back to the door, and even though I can’t see it, it’s not hard to imagine. As Wilhelm nodded, the door opened and I heard someone leave.

The King trusts me too much, doesn’t he? Maybe I really put poison in what I feed Ludwig, don’t you think?

“Prince Ludwig, you really shouldn’t eat the food brought by this country girl. Let me eat it instead,” Rutger said.

“Hold right there!” Ludwig snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous! Flora brought it for me!”

Even though he wasn’t invited, Rutger interjected and caused a stir. Why do these two have such a strange rivalry, or are they just fighting in vain?

From there, the conversation got lively, and even though I was forced to participate in it, Ludwig and Rutger made me talk with the two them. I couldn’t be any less than completely formal with these three adults watching.

This Prince Manly Man Rutger seems to be the same age as Ludwig. From my perspective, the 2 of them are a year older. I’m almost 10 years old, so these two will be 11 years old this year.

The ducal families are relatives of the royal family, and perhaps because they are the same age, Ludwig and Rutger are rivals in a good way. Even though they are rivals, they are not on bad terms, rather they are close enough to talk casually like now. It would be good to have a rival who spurs you to work hard and surpass each other.

However, this Rutger doesn’t like the fact that I’m Ludwig’s fiancée, and he lashes out at me every time something happens. “I won’t take your beloved Prince Ludwig, so why don’t you marry him instead?” I want to say. Of course, if I were to say such a thing in a place like this, they wouldn’t be satisfied with just taking my head in retaliation, so I’m keeping quiet…

“Sorry to disturb you,” a butler said. “I have brought the gift from Lady Flora.”

“Oh! You’re finally here! Where is it, where is it?” Ludwig said.

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For a while, we three children chatted, or, well, I was just being swept up in the conversation, but… while that was going on, the food, or rather, the sweets, had finally arrived from the poison tasting. I thought it would have been later, but it was a happy miscalculation that it arrived sooner than expected thanks to Ludwig’s request to have it brought over immediately.

“What is it indeed? I don’t think I’ve seen these before?” Wilhelm said as he looked over my gift.

“Hmm… I’ve never these before, either, have I?” Dietrich said as he did the same.

It’s not unreasonable for them to be ignorant, because it’s all rare or non-existent in this world.

What I brought were cookies, donuts, pound cakes, pancakes, and plenty of whipped cream. Of course, all of them are knock-offs and different from those in modern Japan. I don’t know the detailed classification or how to make it official, so I just made something like them through trial and error.

Cookies and donuts have been around for a long time. However, it was only after the 18th century, after the early modern period, that it took on its current form…

There was something similar to a cookie, but I added a lot of sugar, added butter, and mixed meringue, and then finished it to resemble something close to a modern cookie. The original cookies also contain sugar, but sugar is expensive and you can’t put it in large amounts, so it’s not very sweet, it’s hard, and it’s not very tasty. It has low moisture content and can be kept for a long time, so it is like a portable food for traveling.

Sugar, butter, and eggs are also added to the donuts for a modern twist. However, it may be different from what is fermented by adding yeast, so it may be closer to satta made with ghee than modern donuts. A knock-off is just a knock-off.

And although I call it a hotcake, it might just be bread. In modern times, a very convenient thing called hotcake mix is sold, but there is no such thing here. I’m not sure if I can call it a hotcake or a pancake just by cooking it similarly.

I just make whipped cream and put it on top. With plenty of berries, it might look like a pancake that is popular in modern Japan.

My goal is to please the royal family and convince them to buy the large amounts of sugar, oil, eggs, and dairy needed to make them.

“This is a cookie. This is a donut. And this is a pancake. And that one over there is a pound cake,” I said.

None of them are as delicious as those in modern Japan. I think it’s probably because the flour and yeast are different, but I can’t prepare something like that with my knowledge. Even with wheat flour, it’s not just a matter of variety, but there are various types such as strong flour and light flour, but I don’t know how to make it or compensate for that.

Skip over that and add sugar, butter, cream, eggs, etc., and just mix things from the original world and this world. Still, it’s much tastier than the original sweets in this world. Rather, there aren’t many sweets in this poor world. These sweets are the ultimate luxury in this world.

“Delicious! What is this?!” Ludwig said.

“Mmm… this a little too sweet…” Wilhelm said.

Father and son are chowing down. Hey……. is it okay for the royal family to do that? I don’t think it’s right to take a mysterious item from a stranger and put it so carelessly into your mouth… I don’t know what I would do if I was brought these instead… I thought it would be hard just to feed them more than one, but I never thought it would be this easy.

“Dietrich, Victoria, you should try them as well,” Wilhelm said.

“Fa-Father! This is what Flora gave me! I don’t mind if everyone eats it, but I’m the one who says so, yes?” Ludwig said.

What’s up with, you Ludwig? … Don’t get hung up on trifles. The King is the greatest, and as far as I’m concerned, anything is fine as long as the royal family eats it. I just thought that Ludwig would be the easiest to visit, so if the King would also eat it, it would be quicker and easier.

However, I do not understand Ludwig’s feelings. I didn’t think he would be so upset if his father gave it to the people around Ludwig when Ludwig was the original recipient.

“The tartness of the berries softens the sweetness and makes it easy to eat,” Dietrich said.

“These ones seem to lean to older diners, doesn’t it?” Victoria said.

They join in and compare the various foods. At first, people in this world who are accustomed to unsweetened things felt that it was too sweet, but they gradually got used to it and it would generally be well received. That is my goal.

Sweet things are addictive. In this world where there isn’t much sugar, hardly anyone is addicted to sugar, but if you eat a lot of sugar like this, you’ll soon crave it again. But there is no convenient sugar, oil, butter, or eggs. It’s hard to reproduce these sweets made with ingredients that are not in this world. Or at least, ones that aren’t easy to get.

How-e-ver! Anyone can reproduce the recipe if they buy the ingredients from my farm and ranch. TO SUM-MA-RIZE: If you want to eat these things in the future, you have to buy the ingredients from me! It’s a perfect strategy!

“Hey, Country Girl!” Rutger said. “Who’s the cook who made these? Let me meet ‘em!”

“Some of these treats have a long shelf life, so we made some with the help of our head cook, but there was a possibility that the texture would change during transportation, so most of them were made by me here.”

“……… Huh?”

The hands of the four men who had been grabbing and eating sweets up until now stopped as one. Victoria is giggling to herself because she knows we’ve been cooking them since I rented her kitchen last night. What’s so funny?

I wonder if they think that Helmut and Isabella made it for me. Unfortunately, most of them were made by me. I had some help with the preliminary preparations, but I didn’t teach them much about modern earth’s cooking, so almost no one other than Damian could reproduce my cooking. Damian may have taught his disciplines, but I don’t know about them.

Even so, it’s rude of them to stop as soon as I say it’s handmade by me. I washed my hands properly and they shouldn’t be dirty… maybe?

“I see! Flora made it by hand! I’m moved by your love for me, Flora!” Ludwig yelled.

No, no,… what are you talking about? Since no one but me can make it, there’s nothing I can do but make it myself… I have no feelings for you, Ludwig?

“Hmph! I’ll give you a little credit for trying!” Rutger huffed.

And Rutger, are you aiming to be a tsundere as well? Who benefits from a male tsundere? At least I don’t want to get too close to such a troublesome man.

“I see… you can make these yourself… perhaps it was you also who came up with the recipe, Princess Flora?” Dietrich said, a twinkle in his eye.

If he had glasses or something similar, it would have looked great. He seems to be the type to calmly say all manner of things while making his glasses shine and turn opaque.

The King and Victoria say nothing. She just looks at me and her surroundings with a grin. For the time being, the plan was to get them to eat sweets that used plenty of my ingredients and make them want more of them, so it succeeded… or maybe not?

Footnotes

Also known as a “create a problem, sell the solution” scam.

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