Possession

Let me give you one warning. Never, ever date a woman who writes romance-fantasy novels.

That is, if you don't want to die and wake up possessed in a romance-fantasy novel someday.

‘……What was this about again?’

After piecing together the original owner's memories and the fragments of a manuscript I'd skimmed long ago, I realized I had transmigrated into the romance-fantasy novel my ex-girlfriend had written.

I couldn't properly remember the title.

It was something about black roses or red roses, and it was the new novel by my ex-girlfriend, who had been a fairly popular web-novel writer.

The problem was, I hadn't actually read it properly.

When she asked me for feedback, I only skimmed the beginning and stopped.

In my defense, I really was busy then.

I had a restaurant in Cheongdam-dong bearing my name, and every day had been a war as I struggled to maintain two stars for several years.

To other people, my life probably looked like the glamorous life of a successful chef, but in reality I was coming back from the dawn market to check sauces, being dragged to cooking-variety-show shoots after lunch service, and arguing with the person in charge at night over the sauce thickness for meal-kit samples.

If you asked whether someone like that had the time and emotional energy to calmly read his girlfriend's debut manuscript, the honest answer was no.

Still, I pretended to read it.

Maybe that was the problem.

In a relationship, sometimes pretending to make an effort is a greater sin than being honest.

I told her the atmosphere was good without even reading the whole manuscript, and she somehow immediately realized I'd only skimmed it.

Looking back, the fire of our breakup had already been set to low heat by then, and I was obliviously sautéing onions.

When I thought we were about to break up, I bought her a designer handbag on a whim, but she asked with a sad smile whether I'd kept the receipt and told me to go return it.

…….

Now that I think about it, what a fucking pain.

Anyway, I didn't remember much about this novel, but one thing was certain.

The House of Baron Monbel, where I now belonged, would go bankrupt in Chapter One.

The fallen noble lady who had been the original heroine's friend took her remaining fortune to a gambling house, got wiped out, and that incident was apparently used as a device to show the heroine the cruelty of the world.

Even after reading that part back then, I hadn't given it much thought.

At the time, my concerns were less about how thoroughly fucked the fallen noble in the manuscript was than about the condition of the sea urchin roe arriving the next morning and whether the menu for the TV shoot looked too blatantly pretty.

But once I actually became the household's cook, my perspective changed.

My name was Kyle Prat, the private chef to House Monbel.

Calling me a private chef was funny, actually, because I was the only cook in this house.

The family was so fucking broke they couldn't afford to hire anyone else besides me.

In my previous life, my name had been Kang Do-hyeon.

I had been the owner-chef of a restaurant in Cheongdam-dong, a man who'd been juggling two stars, TV appearances, and a meal-kit business all at once until one day he collapsed right there on the kitchen floor.

The thought that came to me just before I died was pretty pathetic.

‘Fuck, which asshole didn't clean up the piece of onion that fell under that workstation?’

That was my last thought.

They say that right before death, people think of their parents' faces, their first love, or the regrets of their lives, but I thought of food scraps.

If you called that a chef's end, you'd be right, but it wasn't very romantic from my perspective.

And when I opened my eyes, I was here.

An old wooden bed, patched curtains, a cracked water jug—a room far too plain for a noble family's private chef.

When I raised myself, the calluses on my palms were the first thing I felt.

They weren't like my original hands, but I could tell they belonged to someone who had spent a long time working in a kitchen.

The marks from gripping a knife and burns from moving hot pots were much the same, no matter the era.

A rough knock sounded from outside the door.

“Kyle! If you're up, come downstairs! The young lady has barely eaten her breakfast!”

I answered reflexively.

“Uh, coming!”

After answering, I let out a hollow laugh.

Even after dying and coming back to life, I still responded to a summons right away.

Apparently, being a cook was a profession that got etched into your soul.

After changing clothes and stepping into the hall, the state of the House of Baron Monbel was immediately apparent.

Dust had settled on the portraits hanging on the walls, a small crack ran through the window at the end of the hall, and the maids moved so quietly they seemed to be sparing even their footsteps.

Strangely, you could tell a house had no money from the air alone.

People didn't laugh loudly, took needless care even when setting things down, and whenever something broke, everyone inhaled at once.

The kitchen was worse.

The brazier's flames were uneven, the knives had gone dull, and deep, old cuts scarred the cutting board.

Thick burn marks covered the bottoms of the pots, and from the pantry drifted a mixture of damp flour and drying herbs.

I was staring at the lump of meat on the cutting board when I asked Maid Marie, who happened to come in carrying a basket of vegetables.

“Marie.”

“Hm?”

“What is this?”

“Goat meat that came in yesterday. It's supposed to be served to the young lady for dinner tonight.”

“...This?”

“Why?”

Marie looked at me as if wondering what was wrong, but I didn't explain further.

If I'd seen this meat in my kitchen in my previous life, I would've thrown it straight in the face of the asshole who bought it.

‘Ah, but I have to somehow save it, fuck…’

The moment I picked up the knife, my fingers grew frustrated.

A dull knife was always a nuisance.

Still, I first separated what had to be discarded from what could be salvaged, then thinly sliced the onions and sautéed them slowly.

Of the withered herbs, I picked out only the leaves that still had some fragrance, and I soaked the potatoes in water to draw out some of their starch.

I even found some goat's-milk cheese in one corner of the pantry.

I had to cut away the edges without hesitation, but the inside was still usable.

Compared to my previous life, the ingredients, equipment, and kitchen were all thoroughly fucked, but at least it was a relief that I wasn't in a situation where cooking was completely impossible.

‘And I guess it's lucky I ended up in a romance-fantasy novel. If this had been the Middle Ages, I think I would've just killed myself.’

This world wasn't devoid of ingredients.

In fact, judging from things like the ingredients and preservation techniques, it wasn't all that different from the modern world.

The problem was that the way those ingredients were handled was crude.

It was a world where people believed that large cuts of good meat grilled over a fire, copious amounts of expensive spices, and silverware were enough to make a meal high-class.

It seemed to reflect, to some extent, my ex-girlfriend's wretched diet of nothing but ramen and Coke Zero.

I hurriedly made a stew.

I had no proper stock, butter, or wine, but I suppressed the meat's gamey smell with the sweetness of onions and the fragrance of herbs.

The potatoes gave the broth more body, and I stirred in just a little cheese to soften the finish.

In Korea, it would've been disappointing even as a staff meal, but at least it was close to the best I could put out of this kitchen right now.

Marie tasted a spoonful and her eyes went round.

“Kyle, why is this so delicious today?”

“People change a little when they nearly die.”

“There you go saying something weird again.”

“It isn't weird.”

I gave a rough laugh and turned down the fire under the brazier.

My mind was already doing the math.

A house on the verge of ruin, the remaining ingredients, an old but still usable mansion, the vanity of high society, and the last of the money about to be carried into a gambling house tonight.

As in the original, this house would collapse today.

Even though I hadn't properly read the original, this one event was etched clearly in my memory.

Elysia de Monbel, heir to House Monbel and the young lady of this house, would gamble away every last bit of the remaining fortune and go completely fucking bust.

After that, House Monbel would fall, and the people of the family would scatter.

I had no intention of quietly following that course.

In my previous life, I had worked myself to death.

In this life, at least, I wanted to live in my own kitchen, on my own terms.

For that, it would be a problem if this house went under.

Just then, the old butler Bernard entered the kitchen.

The old man's shoulders, which would normally have been ramrod straight, were noticeably slumped today.

“Kyle.”

I wiped the grease from my hands and straightened up.

“What's the matter, Uncle?”

He glanced at Marie for a moment, then said in a low voice,

“The young lady has ordered us to open the safe.”

“The safe?”

“She says she's going to take out all the money left and go to the Golden Deer Gambling House tonight.”

The kitchen fell silent.

Marie froze with the spoon in her hand, while the old butler wore the face of a man who had already tried and failed to stop her several times.

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them.

“…I'll go try to talk her out of it.”

Apparently, I might be fated to open a fine-dining restaurant one more time here, too.