OHNIR – Chapter 67
Chapter 67: Culinary Skills
Gloria’s bedroom was just as Kelusta remembered from her last visit: neat, clean, and quaintly antique. It was exactly six in the afternoon when they entered. The short heels of their boots made crisp tapping sounds against the wooden floor, and the pendulum of the oak grandfather clock was chiming the hour, dong by dong.
Kelusta rubbed her stomach, reached out to grab Gloria’s intricately embroidered lace sleeve, and asked pitifully in a pleading tone, “Lux, I’m so hungry—it’s already this late. Can we please eat first and settle the score later?”
Gloria glanced back at her, patted the fingers on her cuff, and said with a smile, “How hungry?”
“The kind of hungry where my stomach feels like it’s stuck to my back, it’s growling, and I’m about to faint if I don’t eat something soon,” Kelusta said without hesitation.
She remembered that after Gloria had gotten drunk last time, she had brooded for quite a while about not being able to cook for her personally. So, she was confident that this young lady, who had always wanted to compete with Wend, would definitely agree to Kelusta’s obvious request to stall for time.
Besides, Gloria had been in the bedroom taking care of her high fever since the morning… Kelusta figured that even if the silver-haired girl appeared nonchalant on the surface, she was probably in the same state as Kelusta—either starving now or past the point of hunger.
So, settling scores… that could wait. Dinner was more important.
Just as Kelusta expected, Gloria couldn’t bear to let her go hungry. After hearing her pitiful act, the smiling noble girl patted her head and immediately compromised indulgently, “Alright… to prevent you from fainting in my room, it seems I really should fulfill the obligation of—‘feeding you until you’re full’?”
The words she emphasized sounded ambiguous and vague, like a spoonful of thick, stringy cocoa sauce—sweet, rich, yet its intense aroma would always aggressively permeate its surroundings.
Kelusta: “…?!”
She could even make that kind of joke?
She stared at Gloria, who looked completely natural, as if she had no idea she’d just said something so risqué. Kelusta pursed her lips, trying to fire back with a suggestive comment of her own, but due to her limited repertoire, she couldn’t come up with anything more impactful for a long while.
The amusement in Gloria’s eyes deepened, but her expression remained perfectly composed as she stared at Kelusta with a look of pure innocence.
Suspecting a joke but having no proof, the brown-haired girl couldn’t think of a new way to tease her back. She could only accept the loss helplessly. Maintaining the innocent face of a pure magic academy student, she pretended not to understand and said matter-of-factly, “…Of course. I’m a guest. You have no reason not to treat me well.”
Seeing that her words failed to score a point back but were delivered with a confident tone, Gloria could only shake her head helplessly. Her eyes curved into crescents as she reined in the glimmer of temptation and anticipation that had inadvertently appeared in them. In a thoroughly gentle voice, she asked, “Alright, my esteemed guest, I will of course do my utmost to host you… So, what would you like to order today?”
The brown-haired girl, who loved to push her luck, immediately said with a grin, “I want to eat fish.”
After speaking, she deliberately paused, as if getting revenge for being secretly teased just now, and said quite wickedly, “Mr. Wend’s roasted sea bass last time was truly stunning. I still can’t forget the taste—but this time, I hope to taste an even more delicious fish. You absolutely cannot lose—to—him—oh, my dear Miss Chef.”
She deliberately dragged out the words “lose to him,” precisely conveying a provocative tone, which successfully made the girl opposite her’s face fall. Gloria narrowed her eyes, her gaze turning dangerous as she looked back at Kelusta.
“…”
Gloria wasn’t smiling anymore.
All the gentleness vanished from her exquisite face, leaving it expressionless, which instead gave her an imposing air. The silver-haired duke’s daughter let out a soft huff, a hint of disdain in her eyes. She looked up at the brown-haired girl who was covering her mouth to stifle a laugh. Although she knew the other was deliberately provoking her, she still took the bait and said, quite displeased, “I taught Wend everything he knows about cooking. There’s no way the student can surpass the master. Don’t you dare compare him to me.”
Hearing these slightly willful words, Kelusta couldn’t help but blink, her own face still wreathed in smiles. Her brilliant golden eyes were filled with specks of light from the lamps, resembling a bottle of honey mixed with glitter—sweet and dazzling, captivating anyone who caught a glimpse.
She moved closer to Gloria, tilted her head up slightly, and said teasingly, “Why are you so petty? Are you even jealous of your own brother?”
“…It’s not jealousy, it’s a matter of acknowledging skill,” Gloria said stubbornly. She curled her finger and rapped Kelusta on the forehead. This time, she didn’t hold back, making the brown-haired girl cry out in pain. Only then did she retract her hand in satisfaction. “Go sit over there. Stop being an eyesore, you little brat.”
“Hey!” Kelusta pouted and threw a tantrum of her own. She threw her arms around Gloria’s arm, successfully stopping her from walking towards the kitchen. “You call me Little Ruth when you’re happy, and ‘brat’ when you’re not—confess, are you tired of me!”
She huffed and clung even tighter to Gloria, feigning anger. “You’re not going anywhere until you explain yourself. We can all just starve together!”
“…” Gloria looked at her roguish behavior, tried to hold back for a long time but couldn’t, and suddenly burst out laughing with a “pfft.” She sighed softly, and the cold expression she had deliberately put on shattered in an instant.
When it came to being unreasonable, she was no match for the experienced Kelusta. So, she had to be the first to soften her tone in surrender. “Alright, alright, how could I ever get tired of you… Forget it. We’ve each provoked the other once, so we’re even. Now, would the guest please be a good girl and sit down in the chair? Let go, and let me go make dinner first—is that okay?”
“After dinner is ready, you have to come and invite me to eat!” Kelusta said, sticking her neck out, looking determined to be willful to the very end. “You must say the word ‘please’ respectfully, understand, Miss Chef?”
Gloria shook her head with a smile, retreating again and again under her assault. She couldn’t help but pinch the brown-haired girl’s cheek and sighed, “…Fine. I will obey the guest’s command. Once it’s ready, I will immediately come to ‘invite’ you to dine.”
“That’s more like it,” Kelusta magnanimously released her, her eyes curving into crescents, finally satisfied. “Go on, go on, and be quick about it! Your guest is starving to death.”
A whole fillet of pan-fried cod glistened with a light sheen of oil under the lamp. Dishes soaked in butter always whet the appetite, and this one faintly exuded a unique aroma combining sea salt and white wine. Golden-brown sear marks were imprinted on the snow-white fish, accompanied by a deep brown black olive sauce. The striking color combination was a feast for the eyes, making one’s mouth water just by looking at it.
Five freshly cut slices of lemon were arranged on top of the cod, following the grain of the fish. Their fresh fragrance seeped into the cod with the juice, neutralizing the richness of the butter. A sprig of rosemary was placed right in the center of the lemon slices, like a dividing line splitting the fruit in two. The contrast between the deep green and golden yellow was so vivid and exquisite that it was almost more eye-catching than the fish itself.
However, Kelusta, having been invited to the table, resisted touching the delicious-looking cod main course. Instead, she picked up her spoon and curiously tapped the puffy, golden-brown pastry crust on a porcelain bowl beside her, asking in surprise, “What’s this?”
Gloria, sitting opposite her, took a small sip of the drink beside her and made an inviting “please” gesture with a smile. “Why don’t you try it and find out?”
Kelusta blinked and tentatively applied a little pressure. With a “crack,” the golden pastry immediately collapsed from the center, falling into the creamy mushroom soup in the porcelain bowl.
“Oh,” Kelusta had never seen such a novel preparation. She let out a gasp of pleasant surprise, looked up at the calm-faced Gloria, and praised her sincerely, “Amazing!”
The piping hot, milky-white soup blew a thick bubble, enveloping a small piece of the crispy pastry that had fallen in. Kelusta scooped up a small piece of white mushroom with her spoon and blew on it for a long while before daring to put it in her mouth. The moment the soup touched her taste buds, the smooth richness of the cream filled her entire mouth, followed closely by the earthy aroma of the white mushrooms and the buttery fragrance of the small piece of pastry. An otherwise ordinary soup was now bursting with several completely different flavors.
The brown-haired girl gently crunched the pastry and looked at Gloria, moved. With her mouth full of rich flavor, she said, “I never thought cream soup could be this delicious! This kind of soup, neither salty nor sweet, has never been my favorite, but now… it’s amazing. Lux, honestly, I feel like I could have another bowl.”
“Really?” Gloria raised an eyebrow. After the other girl nodded eagerly, she changed the subject, reminding her, “But I think that after you finish that fish fillet, you probably won’t have any room left for a second bowl of soup.”
Before she had even finished speaking, Kelusta, reminded of the main course, quickly grabbed her knife and fork. With a gentle slice, she cut off a neat, firm piece of the pan-fried cod.
Gloria also took a sip of her own soup, watching with a smile as the brown-haired girl ate nonstop, finishing half the cod in no time.
“Unbelievable, my dear Miss Chef,” the girl from Seaside Town, who was used to eating seafood, put piece after piece of fish into her mouth. Sighing with satisfaction, she looked up and asked curiously, “You were Wend’s cooking teacher, so who was your teacher? After all, the skills of you two can truly be called a rare delicacy on the continent of Nobili.”
Gloria’s eyes shifted slightly. Instead of satisfying her curiosity first, she gazed at Kelusta and slowly asked the question that had been lingering in her mind: “How does my cooking compare to Wend’s?”
Taking another bite of the lemon-infused fish, Kelusta narrowed her eyes like a cat that had successfully begged for a treat and said without hesitation, decisively, “Of course, you’re much better!”
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