Tastes Are Made
The Iron-Blooded Empire of Ignas.
A great power that had swallowed half the continent through a relentless string of conquests—unquestionably one of the mightiest nations on the Rodoros Continent.
In the imperial house that inspired both longing and resentment, awe and contempt in equal measure, there lived a bright-spirited princess.
Roxanna El Ignas.
Bearing a middle name taken from the mother she loved most and the surname of the empire itself, the child could hardly have grown up anything but spoiled.
Beautiful things. Kind people. Delicious food.
Raised in an environment more abundant than anyone else’s, Roxanna blossomed just as brightly in return. So much so that she was more often called by her nickname—“the little flower of the imperial house”—than by her given name.
It was no coincidence that she came to believe being born into such a world was a blessing.
“Your elder brother is dead.”
On the day she turned ten, that was the news of blood that reached Roxanna’s ears.
The occasion that should have been filled with birthday gifts and blessings from all sides transformed, in an instant, into hell. When the grief and rage, the wailing and shouting, finally cooled, only one stark fact remained.
The First Prince—hailed as the empire’s rising sun and the most promising candidate for the throne—was dead.
The cause: poison.
At once the emperor purged the imperial kitchens, holding them to account for allowing poison to reach a dish the crown prince would put to his lips.
Even a girl too young to understand much of the world could grasp it then. For all its outward splendor, rivaling any castle, the imperial house was a place where people killed and died in secret struggles every single day.
Naturally, after living through that, Roxanna could no longer bring herself to eat properly.
If I eat this, will I die like my brother?
The lavish dishes she had once accepted so eagerly now summoned only thoughts of poison at a glance. Putting such food in her mouth felt no different from tasting an unknown mushroom found in the forest—an ordeal of swallowing, day after day, something that might as easily be deadly as edible.
In the end she managed a few bites only after her personal guard tasted every morsel first to reassure her. Even so, for her, a meal remained pure torment.
Her second elder brother died five years later.
The cause of death was the same: poison.
Despairing that no amount of replacing the kitchen staff ever changed the outcome, the emperor reached a conclusion.
The imperial house was dangerous.
And so she was all but shoved, fleeing, to St. Celestia Academy. The official reason was academic achievement—study at the continent’s finest academy. In truth, it was closer to exile. The emperor simply could not risk losing his last remaining bloodline, and so he had to spirit Roxanna out of the palace.
Yet sending her away as she was would not be safe enough. To raise even slightly her odds of survival, the emperor devised a ruse. Publicly, he never announced the death of the Second Prince; instead he draped that identity over Roxanna’s personal guard, while Roxanna herself assumed the guard’s station—a simple switch.
That the emperor would stoop even to such a shallow trick only proved how desperate he was.
“The world is truly cruel.”
Looking back, it had been a life walked along the edge of a blade. The gentle world that had surrounded her had always concealed a reverse face ready to turn and stab her at any moment.
Inside the carriage bound for the academy, Roxanna thought it for the first time: perhaps being born an imperial princess was not purely a blessing after all.
It was a life of doubting every kindness before her eyes, of hunting for hidden meanings even in the lightest words, of digging for poison that might be mixed into delicious food. The price of the goodwill she had once believed the world bestowed for free was far too heavy.
And that, perhaps, was why her present life felt all the more joyful.
The new identity granted her was a kind of liberation. A life free of responsibility, status, and danger. To Roxanna it was utterly new—and welcome.
For the first time in her life she stepped outside without a single escort. She chose a restaurant of her own will and ordered whatever she wanted. Not one of those things had ever been possible even in dreams inside the imperial house.
Paradoxically, only now that she possessed nothing at all could Roxanna be free.
“The main dish is corn cheese, you see.”
Thus Roxanna, tasting her first real rebellion, found herself staring at a thoroughly unfamiliar dish.
“Corn cheese…? I’ve never heard of that in my life.”
“Well, it is a dish from the place I once lived. Anyone not of that origin would find it strange—that is only natural.”
Could it even be called a dish, really?
Instead of the familiar plate, Carmilla set the still-hot pan straight from the kitchen down on the table with a solid thunk. And she called it a dish.
By rights a dish meant food finished cooking and arranged on a plate. No one had written the rule, yet Roxanna’s experience told her it was common sense. This lay entirely outside the frame she knew.
“Whoa… it’s still this hot… Can I even eat it?”
“Yes, as much as you like.”
Encouraged, Roxanna took up her fork like a weapon and began a careful exploration of the dish. The mingled scents of fragrant butter, savory cheese, and sweet corn were quite alluring—yet the places browned and stuck in places still looked somehow foreign.
“Still… maybe just one bite…!”
What moved her was anticipation. The rusk she had tasted moments earlier had been delicious, yet the owner of this place—Carmilla—had declared it nothing more than an appetizer. Then how wonderful must the main course be?
Savoring the swirl of expectation, anxiety, and excitement, she boldly stabbed her fork in and lifted a generous bite.
“Waaah…!”
The cheese stretched in long, silken threads; she gasped before she could stop herself. Cheese appeared in imperial cuisine as well, yet never as the star. She had always believed its true worth emerged only when it accompanied expensive ingredients—yet here it revealed its presence as if it were the protagonist itself.
“Heeh, there’s so much cheese…”
She nearly drooled without noticing. Cheese had always been a side player. She knew its flavor, yet the sight of it poured on this thickly was entirely new. What would happen if she put this shameless mountain of cheese into her mouth? The thought was easy to imagine and yet somehow refused to land, and that very quality pricked her curiosity.
In the end Roxanna could not resist the irresistible lure. She brought the heavily loaded fork to her lips.
“Hup…!?”
Her mouth filled with warm cheese melting away. Between that texture, kernels of corn burst with little pops. With every chew, the fragrant oil of cheese and butter seeping out carried a familiar acidity that somehow sharpened her appetite.
The moment she swallowed, there was only one thing she could say.
“It’s ridiculously delicious……!!!”
It was a taste she could not possibly deny. She had expected something good—and it had surpassed the expectation. At a glance it looked like nothing more than a simple combination of ingredients, yet their harmony was no joke.
Having already begun, she stabbed her fork in again as if she could not afford to waste even a second.
“This time… the brown toasted edge that’s been bothering me since the start…”
She guided her fork toward the scorched cheese crust—likely created when the cheese itself browned—and stabbed again. Scooping a generous portion along the rim of the pan, she put it in her mouth…
Crunch. Crunch.
The cheese she had expected to be merely soft held a proper shape and chewed with real resistance.
“I can’t believe it… what an incredible delicacy!”
The shock of the unexpected was always strong. That cheese crust, chewing with surprising presence, held a concentrated umami several times richer than the white melted cheese. The impact was so great that, after immediately targeting only the edges and devouring every last bit of crust, she even felt a vast regret—it was like pure compressed flavor.
“Munch munch… I can’t stop, this…!”
After that it was nothing but an unceasing storm of forkwork. As if determined to finish the entire corn cheese before it cooled once she had tasted it, she worked her fork at a terrifying pace. One bite, two… the corn cheese shrinking by the second was almost painful to watch.
Yet she could not stop. She wanted to enjoy this flavor that had pierced a preference she herself had never known for as long as she possibly could.
Bring me more of this. No—bring me all of it!
She swallowed the urge to shout and kept forking.
“Heh… so good…”
And so, in barely ten minutes, Roxanna emptied the pan and finished every scrap of the corn cheese. Limp with pleasant fullness, utterly satisfied, she stroked her rounded stomach and murmured absently,
“I ate so well.”
What was happiness?
When she was little her father had often asked that. She had never known the answer then, but if they met again she could reply now.
It was eating delicious food, comfortably and to one’s heart’s content.
That this simple act could grant such enormous happiness left Roxanna almost speechless. The conditions leading to happiness had been far too simple.
As she savored the lingering butter on her tongue, a thought suddenly arrived.
Have I eaten anything this delicious recently—no, in the last few years?
No.
No, that isn’t quite right. This satisfaction is something beyond mere taste…
What is it?
I don’t know. But I can say this with certainty: this is an experience beyond simple gourmet dining.
After further silent questions and answers with herself, Roxanna had no choice but to conclude.
Carmilla de Valin.
This woman was dangerous.
She had solemnly declared as much before coming here, yet the meaning was somehow different now.
If I do not secure her as my personal chef this very moment, someone else will certainly snatch her away.
Leaving such a talent neglected in a humble little restaurant was no different from leaving her exposed to the danger of being stolen at any time. The greed she felt was that intense.
Greed…? Me? The one who once had everything?
Only after tasting that unfamiliar word did she understand. In the imperial house she had grown up never knowing what lack was. Whatever she wished for came into her hands; whatever she wanted was brought at once. Therefore this was an emotion she had never had reason to feel.
There are things you can lose if you do not take them now.
“Hmm, from the look of things you seem rather satisfied.”
While she was still rather startled at her own greed, Roxanna’s gaze toward the Carmilla who appeared before her had already changed. In a strangely serious tone she began to ask,
“Carmilla, there are a few things I would like to ask… but first, let me start with this.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Have you… by any chance… gotten married?”
In the next instant Carmilla froze solid as stone. After the sudden question forced her to sort her thoughts for a while, she finally had no choice but to ask,
“What in the world are you saying?!”