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Chirp chirp.

If it was like the usual, I would have appreciated the wonderful chirping of birds, but today was not the day.

“Ah…”

I grabbed ahold of my head and buried it deep into the pillow. Did I drink too much spirits and beer? After drinking a few cans of beer and feeling the buzz, even though Katalina tried to stop me I ended up pulling out a few bottles of cognac and drank all of them completely.

“I must be crazy…”

As someone who can’t even handle soju and beer mixed together, not dying after drinking way too much beer and spirit together was something I was thankful for.

“Mmmh.”

Because of my movement, Katalina who was sleeping by my side moved as well while moaning slightly. Seeing her sleep with her mouth agape due to being drunk out of her mind last night still didn’t make her look too terrible in shape.

Is this what they call the power of drunk cute? She was actually looking cuter than usual, so I take a photo to leave a bit of evidence of how she looked. With drool coming out of her mouth as well.

“Hehe.”

I smiled evilly, stretched my arms and opened the blinds. As the blocked sunshine flooded the room, the previously slightly dim room brightened up.

“My eyes…”

Not sure if it was just her sleep talking, but Katalina whined as she turned her body around. She then lifted the blanket over herself and showed no sign of movement after that.

“Looks like she doesn’t want to wake up.”

Looking at the clock, the time had just passed 8 a little bit. It was definitely a little late to wake up but considering how we were both drunk last night, I had woken up quite early.

Realizing I was wearing only underwear, I changed to everyday clothes. When I opened the door and went to the hallway, many employees were already busily moving around the place.

“Oh my, my lady, did you wake up just now?”
“Yeah. Did you also have a good sleep, Sara?”

As I had adapted to the situation somewhat, my reply to her came naturally. It meant that I had escaped from speaking way too formally to everyone all the way.

“Yes! My lady, should I inform them to prepare breakfast right away?”
“Breakfast? Hmm. No, I’ll take care of breakfast myself.”

I was already feeling a little sick inside so I felt that if I ate English food on top of that, I may end up making a huge mistake.

“Are you all right? You seem uncomfortable.”
“Ah, I just had a bit of a drink last night…”
“My goodness! My lady, drinking alco… Mmph!!!”

I was scared that someone may hear her, so I quickly closed up her mouth with my hand. The strict butler of the house would tell me off if he were to hear that I did drink.

“Shh! Don’t say anything unless you want to see me getting told off by the butler.”

Finally realizing the reason why, Sara nodded her head.

“Phew! Sorry!”

As I pulled my hand away, Sara bowed her head and asked for forgiveness. I’m sure it’s because she knows just how terrible the butler’s lectures are herself.

“No, it’s fine as long as I don’t get caugh…”

I couldn’t complete my sentence.

With his long handsome mustache, scholarly monocle and fastidious looking expression, the imposing old man’s face came into my view.

“Ahaha…”

I tried to awkwardly laugh it off.

“My lady. Could you see me for a moment?”

His businesslike and dry tone sounded terrifying to me. While repeatedly asking for my forgiveness, Sara slid away from the scene.

Ahh…

“… Which is why I hope that you wouldn’t do this kind of thing again, my lady. You are the sole owner of the Duke Kent’s family title after all.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“You’ve promised.”
“Of course!”
“I will believe in you then, my lady.”

In the end, the butler went into a 30-minute long lecture. Some people may say 30 minutes isn’t too long of a lecture, but trying to avoid answering with the same reply in the whole 30 minutes makes one go crazy. Every time you answer twice with the same reply the lecture goes on a little bit longer, so considering that, I had achieved a very difficult goal.

“Ugh… I’m already super tired from the hangover, and now even my energy has all been sucked out.”

I felt my headache got worse. I think I definitely needed a special cure for this situation.

“I guess Hae-Jang-Gook would be the best, right?¹” Coming to a conclusion, I nodded my head. If someone saw me like this, they would think I may have gone quite insane but it’s my own home so whatever.

The fact that I came to the conclusion of needing to eat Hae Jang Gook is fine, but the problem is the type of soup. The breadth of choices I had was very small since there was only bean sprout soup or blowfish soup, but it was still pretty difficult to choose between them.

“All right, I’ve decided! Let’s go with beansprout soup.”

My personal preference won over the selection in the end. That taste of delicious beansprout soup with the perfect amount of spice, it sounds so great!

“Hoo…”

Even just thinking about it made me feel like my hangover was going away. Since I thought that far, I started to go towards the kitchen that was located in the dining room.

“Welcome, my lady. Is there a particular meal that you are looking for? Is that why you’ve come here personally?”

The friendly-looking rotund chef greeted me with a warm smile. I heard that the chefs usually don’t like it when people that aren’t associated with the kitchen come inside their kitchen, but I guess this person is the exception.

Or perhaps he’s just trying not to show contempt since I indirectly hired him.

“Ah, sorry to trouble you like this, but I’m wondering if you have some particular ingredients.”
“Ingredients?”

He assumed that I would ask for a meal, and seeing that I was asking for particular ingredients instead, he asked me again.

“Yes. Do you have anchovies, kelp, bean sprouts and also ‘Aekjut²‘?”
“Mmmh… The other ones we do have, but we do not have ‘Aekjut’ or bean sprouts here. Are they an overseas ingredient perhaps?”
“They’re ingredients from a country called Korea.”
“Oho, I see. Ah! Speaking of which, there was a small supermarket that sells Korean ingredients to my knowledge, would you like me to tell you where it is if you wish?³”

Hearing that he may provide information that I never even thought I would hear about here in England, my depressed expression immediately brightened up.

“Really? Please do tell me.”
“Then I’ll write down the address.”

The chef then wrote the general direction and address of where it is in a small note. He even wrote in detail the name of the shop as well.

“Thank you.”
“Not at all, I’m happy to be of help.”

Walking out of the kitchen with the chef warmly smiling at the back, I quickly headed towards the garage with the single goal in mind of needing to buy those ingredients as fast as I can.

“Good morning, my lady.”
“Yes, good morning.”

Greeting the bodyguards that saluted every time they saw me, I arrived at the garage. My most precious Ferrari sparkled and shined as it showed off its magnificent appearance.

Perhaps due to the fact that I haven’t really driven it more than a few times, the amazing feeling of driving a new car still didn’t go away as I got in⁴.

Vrrrm.

The sound of the powerful 660 horsepower rang out as the engine turned on. At the same time, the garage door slowly opened as it had detected that the engine had been turned on⁵.

Vwiiim, ka-chunk.

After the garage door completely opened, I drove my Enzo around the road in the middle of the garden. Soon, the enormous front gates came into view, and a few bodyguards came over.

“Oh! My lady, are you here to go out for the day?”
“Yes, I’m planning to buy some food ingredients.”
“Food ingredients?”

I felt confusion on their faces, but I didn’t feel particularly bad about it.

“I had a meal in my mind that I wanted to eat.”
“Ah, sorry I’ve overstepped my line in questioning you, my apologies.”
“It’s fine.”

What better feeling was there than being able to eat whatever you particularly wanted? As the gate opened, a few black BMW cars started to come right behind me.

“Probably bodyguards.”

It was painfully obvious. It wasn’t just one but three BMW, and a van on top of that, so it seemed like dozens of them were following me.

The fact that I was driving a Ferrari was already enough to catch everyone’s attention, so the cars following behind me wasn’t that eye-catching to anyone. As expected of a wealthy neighborhood, everyone just glanced once before minding their own business again.

It was definitely the first time I was seeing this neighborhood, but perhaps my body had remnants of memories planted within it since I felt extremely familiar with the surroundings and easily understood the directions on the paper.

Without even needing navigational help, I was able to arrive at the supermarket. And from there, I bought bean sprouts and aekjut. It was unbelievably expensive, but I didn’t have any choice since I wasn’t able to buy this anywhere else. Making up my mind to buy the items, I made sure to buy a hefty amount of them so that I won’t need to come back to buy them again soon.

After my short trip outside was over and I was back home, I asked the chef for a favor and borrowed one corner of the kitchen. While remembering how I used to cook it in the past, I cut the shallots and put adequate amounts of salt and aekjut into the pot with boiling water.

Bubble bubble.

Soon the bean sprout soup started to boil. I was half expecting it to be great or terrible, so I had to summon up the courage to have a taste of the soup with a spoon.

“Tastes great!”

People say that making bean sprout soup is the easiest after all. The particular taste of the soup came to life completely. I wouldn’t say it was perfect in every way, but it at least carried the natural flavors of the bean sprouts.

“Everyone has their own ideal amount of spice in a dish after all…”

I was particularly worried about Katalina’s reaction to it in the end, so I decided not to put spice flakes into the whole pot of soup itself. Then I poured the soup into two dishes and put them onto the tray. I also added some spice flakes in a separate bowl so we can add them to taste. Lastly, I grabbed two sets of utensils and asked for the chef who was looking at the whole cooking process curiously to take care of the cleaning up as I brought the tray to my own room.

“No, my lady! We’ll take it for you.”

Surprised that I was lifting and bringing the tray myself, the employees requested to take it for me up to the room, but I said its fine and brought it to my room by myself.

It had already passed 9 am by quite a lot, but Katalina was still not awake.

I was wondering if I should eat it alone but that defeats the purpose of cooking it in the first place, so I put down the tray on the table and went to Katalina.

“Let’s eat breakfast!”

I lifted off the blanket a bit and whispered into Katalina’s ear⁶.

“Nngh, I can’t be bothered.”
“Even though it’s a meal that I cooked myself?”
“Really!?”

Katalina bolted up as if she was wide-awake this whole time. She rubbed her eyes as she was barely able to keep them completely open.

“Yeah, go and wash your face first.”
“Okay, okay!”

Finally, Katalina came back after literally only washing her face and spoke up when she saw the tray laid on the table.

“Hmm? This is the first time I’m seeing this kind of meal.”
“It’s called bean sprout soup.”
“I knew it! What country is the dish from?”
“It’s from Korea, and it’s famously known as a hangover cure.”
“Wow. Since when did you learn how to cook overseas dishes? I don’t even know how to make simple dishes.”

Did I just get the information that she can’t even do basic cooking?

“There’s spice ready on the side so put as much as you want to your taste.”
“Hmm? So it’s like pepper? The fact that it looks red makes me think it’s spicy.”
“It really is spicy.”
“Eeep…”

Katalina’s expression looked to be scared once she heard my answer.

“Why, you don’t like spicy food?”
“I really can’t handle very spicy stuff. Though I’m fine with adequately spicy stuff.”
“It will be fine if you just put in a little bit.”

And so as I spoke, I spooned up a particular amount of spice flakes with my spoon and put it in my soup. Then using the spoon I stirred the soup.

“Hmmm~”

Katalina watched with interest in her eyes.
Finally, I started drinking the soup.

“Ah~ That’s so great.”

Honestly, I had a big grin on the face as I was awash with feelings of nostalgia and the hometown cooking taste. Katalina seemed to be inspired by my expression, as she scooped a spoonful of her own beansprout soup up to her mouth and drink it.

“Mmh…”

Looking at her expression, I studied it as if I was a student waiting to receive the test.

“Wow… How should I explain it? Although my insides feel it is disgusting, it goes down my throat really well. I’ll say it has a clean and refreshing taste.”

It wasn’t an overwhelming praise, but a very satisfying answer for me regardless. It was because I knew just how picky and high-class Katalina’s tongue is on the usual.

“If you put the spice flakes in, it will taste even more refreshing.”
“Refreshing?”

Just as I thought, she didn’t understand that in Korea the word ‘refreshing’ can mean several kinds of taste. As the commonly used English definition, ‘refreshing’ is for when things are cold, so it wouldn’t be understandable to call the warm soup broth to be ‘refreshing’.

“Yeah, Koreans often say refreshing to indicate when it feels great for the body to eat the meal. As it is a Korean meal, I tried describing it in a Korean way.”
“Aha, I see, I learned something good.”

Finally, Katalina very carefully scooped a bit of the spice flakes, put it in her soup and then carefully had a taste of it. She seemed to enjoy it much better than she thought since she smiled widely and completely finished a whole bowl of the soup.

“Ellie! Make it for me again when we drink too much next time.”

Aside from feeling that I had practically chained myself into being her slave to make this dish for her every time, it was a fun morning.⁷

1. Translator’s note: Hae Jang Gook is a dish best known to relieve hangovers. A hearty broth soup meal.
2. Silva: //Aekjut is an anchovy sauce / base used commonly in Korea
3. Robinxen: As expected…the big chapter is a shopping trip…
4. Robinxen: OI WAIT AREN’T YOU TRYING TO CUTE A HANGOVER?! THAT IS NO TIME TO BE DRIVING!
5. Silva: Wao, automatic door, noice
6. Robinxen: The fluffy wuffy couple energy is high.
7. Robinxen: Was this chapter just subtle nationalism for Korean cuisine?