TOYLCG 39 🍒

Chapter — 39

Fried food tastes good even if you fry shoes.

That was just another way of saying that it’s hard for fried food to taste bad.

“First of all, even our head chef approved this. Please try it.”

Rosebell cut white bread into long strips, fried them once, then coated them with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon powder before serving them.

The three of them looked at Rosebell with some doubt. But she shrugged and said that the real charm of street food was eating it with your hands.

Crunch.

All three pairs of eyes widened. The crispy texture, combined with a nutty sweetness and a gentle cinnamon aroma, was a completely new taste.

“It’s delicious!”

“Eating with my hands feels a bit strange, but this is a flavor I’ve never had before.”

Daniel and the Count gave honest reactions. Without worrying about the oil on their hands, they immediately took another bite.

Aren casually picked one up with his hand, then frowned slightly.

“It tastes good, but the oil getting on my hands is a bit annoying.”

“Really? Then wouldn’t it be good to give thin, pointed sticks with it? We could even sell two versions.”

“Two versions?”

“Pointed sticks could be dangerous for little kids. So we could sell one you eat with your hands, and for people who don’t like getting their hands dirty, we could give them a small wooden fork.”

Watching Rosebell talk excitedly, Aren let out a small laugh. It was fascinating how she immediately came up with a solution whenever someone pointed out a problem.

“That doesn’t sound bad.”

“Right?”

Rosebell felt a slight pang of guilt about using knowledge from her past life, but she decided that as long as it was delicious, it was fine.

Everything they made experimentally turned out quite successful. For recipes she didn’t remember clearly, the head chef and cooks figured things out on their own.

“Now that the menu is roughly decided, I’ll take care of the rest myself.”

“I trust you’ll do it without overexerting yourself!”

“Of course. I exist for the happiness of the people who live here.”

Rosebell smiled as she looked at the Count, who now seemed fully himself again. She wasn’t asking for blind sacrifice for others.

She only wanted him to work with a minimum sense of responsibility as an administrator and the one in charge of the territory.

Of course, this didn’t apply only to the Count. It was also a mindset she herself needed to learn and maintain without changing.

That was what the head of a family was meant to be, and the proper attitude for someone who governed a territory.

Feeling her body move again after a long time made Rosebell excited.

She had felt stiff and uncomfortable, but everyone had stopped her from doing anything. The barley field she visited after so long was still vividly green.

The difference from before was that now the grains of barley were clearly visible.

“Daniel!”

“Hm?”

“Fire! Let’s light a fire, quickly!”

Rosebell, full of excitement, looked around for a place to start a fire. Aren shook his head as he watched her.

She had been bedridden for three days—he wondered if it was really okay for her to be moving around like this all of a sudden. Still, Rosebell silenced all three of them with a single, confident “I’m fine.”

And then she said something outrageous.

“I want to roast barley and eat it!”

The three of them were speechless, but since she insisted on doing it, no one could really stop her.

The Count couldn’t stop smiling at her pure, childlike behavior. He was worried, but at the same time, he felt like he was getting a taste of what it might be like to have a daughter.

“Miss, it’s dangerous near the field, so let’s cut some barley and go back home.”

“Ah… I guess you’re right.”

“If it were harvest season, we could light a small fire at the edge of the field, but now isn’t the time.”

“Okay! Then I’ll just cut as much as I want to eat!”

Smacking her lips, Rosebell rolled up her sleeves. Aren instinctively stepped in front of her, seeing how she looked ready to pull out more than a bundle.

“You should eat in moderation. You’ll upset your stomach.”

“…I wasn’t planning to take a lot.”

“If we don’t stop you, who knows what you’ll do.”

At Aren’s words, Rosebell wondered if she was really that bad—but her hands were already reaching for the barley.

Barley that hasn’t fully ripened yet has a unique chewy texture. Of course, harvesting and steaming it is also delicious, but this was a special treat you could only enjoy at this time.

“Okay, okay. I’ll take just a little. You’ll fall in love with it once you try it. It’s really good—kind of like chewing gum!”

“Chewing… gum?”

Seeing Aren’s confused expression, Rosebell realized she’d misspoken again.

“They say that in a faraway country, there’s a custom of chewing something instead of brushing teeth to keep them healthy. That’s called gum.”

“Oh… is that also written in books?”

“You know our library has tons of books, right? If you read them all, you might end up like me.”

Aren hadn’t seen Rosebell read that often, but listening to her explanations, she was clearly very knowledgeable.

“I’ll read more diligently from now on.”

“Good! Now let’s go!”

While talking with Aren, she kept her hands busy, and soon her arms were full of barley. Aren looked at her in disbelief, but Rosebell ignored him and started walking.

The baggy work pants she wore for the first time in a while were incredibly comfortable. She couldn’t understand why people abandoned something this good to wear dresses, but she supposed it was just one of the fixed rules among nobles.

Crackle, crackle.

The sound of the barley husks burning and breaking crisply was pleasant. Shaking off her stray thoughts, Rosebell waited until the husks were fully burned, then blew on the barley to cool it.

She placed the barley on her palm and rubbed it. The husks peeled off easily, and she blew them away.

“Hey! You’ll burn your hands like that!”

“I’m fine! Hurry and try it too!”

Without waiting for the others, Rosebell tossed the barley straight into her mouth.

The grains popped softly as she chewed, becoming chewier with each bite. The nutty flavor mixed with a fresh, grassy taste that felt refreshing.

It was a flavor you could only enjoy at this time, which made it even more precious since it was hard to come by.

“Later, when we harvest the barley, it might be nice to steam it and make it into a salad.”

“Barley… as a salad?”

“Add some vegetables, a bit of fruit, some croutons, and maybe a little meat…”

“That’s not really a salad anymore—that’s a full meal.”

“Exactly! A full meal. It’d be a hit with noble ladies trying to lose weight, don’t you think?”

“But nobles probably wouldn’t look kindly on that…”

At Daniel’s words, Rosebell muttered, “Is that so?” and popped more barley into her mouth.

Nobles were people who staked their pride on being special. Putting all kinds of food together in one bowl might indeed be seen as vulgar.

“They’d call it vulgar. But you need to eat a lot of vegetables to lose weight. If you only eat flour, you just gain weight. And since their staple food is meat, they’re probably lacking vegetables. Salad isn’t just a pre-meal appetizer!”

As she roasted more barley, Rosebell let out a sigh.

“By the way, you said that traveler asked for directions to Ritten…”

The sudden change of topic caught the two men off guard.

“Right…”

“Daniel, did you notice anything different in Ritten?”

“Not really. It’s a very small town… and other than regularly delivering flour and bread, we don’t have much reason to go there.”

“I see…”

As she chewed the barley, Rosebell kept thinking. If this wasn’t just a coincidence, then things like this could keep happening.

And wasn’t this world inside a novel?

For the story to move forward, incidents had to happen. Normally, when something like this occurred, the female lead should appear—but Rosebell had taken care of it herself. She worried that she might be messing up the story.

In other possession novels, the possessed person often became the strongest in the world—but that wasn’t her.

Her dream was simply to quietly tend her apple orchard and become the head of the ducal family.

That, too, was just one way for her to survive.

But if the choices she made to survive ended up twisting the story, then it was a different matter. If things like this kept happening, there was a strong chance she’d have to step in again.

If so, she couldn’t keep collapsing like this every time. She needed special training—and she also needed to carefully manage Aren’s sense of self-blame.

“There’s going to be a lot more to do from now on.”

“Oh, your orchard will get busy too, right?”

“Yeah. Work is about to increase a lot. And soon, I think I need to meet Marchioness Ophelia.”

“You’re going to see her?”

“Probably. I’m thinking of going together with my father.”

She didn’t just need paper—she needed information. She needed the experience of the only woman who had become the head of a family.

“Well… since you said you want to become a family head, it might help. But the Marchioness is famous for rarely meeting people, so think it through carefully.”

“Ah… really?”

It felt like a big problem had already appeared before she even went. Still, it was something she had to face.

And on the way back to the ducal territory, she decided she would stop by Ritten one more time.

She needed to find proof that this wasn’t just a coincidence. Of course, it would be great if it truly was—but in a novel, coincidences didn’t exist.

There might be foreshadowing at play, something she didn’t know yet.