The man’s wife let her shoulders drop.

“It’s just curiosity because it’s new.”

“It’s been over two months. Why don’t we try lowering our prices?”

“Shut your mouth, woman! Use that time to clean the shop instead of flapping your gums. Look at those stains on your apron! Mind your own business!”

The man, Denis, barked and brushed off his own apron.

“Why are you taking it out on me?!”

His wife swallowed her rising anger and shifted the child in her arms.

“Waaah!”

The child, who had been looking back and forth between its mother and father with wide eyes, scrunched up its face and burst into tears.

Denis let out a sigh and spun around.

He stood with his eyes wide and his jaw clenched.

‘A rookie baker playing the expert……’

Denis fumed, squeezing his thick fists.

Getting shown up in front of his wife by some slip of a girl.

‘Ha…… how do I bring in more customers?’

He stood in front of his shop with a drooping mouth, arms crossed, one leg bouncing.

Just then, a young woman’s humming drifted over from somewhere, and he looked up.

His eyes narrowed as he peered into the distance.

‘Isn’t that the rookie baker?’

Shiloh had just finished her day’s business and come out, and her bright expression and light step grated on him.

She was wearing a yellow linen dress and came over to give a polite bow.

“Hello. I’m Shiloh, the one running the confectionery in the alley. I’ve been so caught up in things that I haven’t had the chance to introduce myself properly. I’m sorry.”

“……”

Denis glanced at her and turned his head without much of a response.

Shiloh blinked her wide eyes, pressed her lips together, gave a brief bow, and slowly turned away with her shoulders drooping.

She knew Denis was the baker who ran the large bread shop.

No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t recall doing anything to offend him.

‘Does he think I’ve been stealing his customers?’

Denis’s voice came from behind her without warning.

“Miss, who did you apprentice under?”

“Pardon?”

Shiloh stopped and turned around.

“Who was your master?”

“……”

“There’s no one in the baker’s guild who claims to have taught you.”

His sharp voice made her lower her head and fidget with her hands.

Shiloh hadn’t obtained her baker’s license through a formal training program, so there was no way her baking master could exist in this world. Her skill surpassed most licensed bakers, but that was beside the point.

“……”

When Shiloh failed to give a proper answer, Denis stepped in front of her.

His gaze sharpened further.

“Miss, do you have a license?”

Shiloh recalled the imperial physician’s advice and answered in a small voice.

“My license…… I lost it and applied for a reissue. My master…… probably isn’t someone you’d know even if I told you.”

“I have fifteen years in this trade and you think I wouldn’t know? Cheeky. And not being in the guild is suspicious too.”

As he pressed further, Shiloh shrank her shoulders.

“I’ve been so caught up in things…… I was planning to do it soon.”

Denis circled around her and asked.

“How much is a rye loaf at your place?”

“Fifteen bronze.”

Shiloh’s voice stiffened slightly under his interrogation.

“And an oat loaf?”

“Also fifteen bronze.”

“So people go for the cheap price. That figures.”

Denis smiled with petty satisfaction.

“I wouldn’t normally say this. But I have to give a young miss like you a piece of my mind!”

Shiloh bit her lip.

“Ahem. I don’t know what kind of inferior ingredients you’re using to keep prices that low, but I, for one, make it a principle to use only good ingredients.”

“……”

“As a baker who’s been at this far longer than you, let me give you some advice. I’m saying this because I’m worried about you, so take it to heart.”

“……”

Something about this had felt ominous from the start.

“A baker is a sacred profession that takes responsibility for what people eat. Chase money and you’ll invite disaster! You have to stay true to the basics! The basics!”

Denis lectured with spittle flying.

Shiloh’s expression hardened. There were aspects of her situation she couldn’t be proud of, but it was unfair to have her genuine love for bread twisted into something it wasn’t.

She raised her head and spoke.

“I feel the same way. I’m most careful about choosing ingredients precisely because I want to give customers healthy bread.”

“……”

“I lowered the prices so customers can enjoy my bread without feeling the burden, even if it means less profit. I’m grateful they’ve recognized that sincerity and kept coming back.”

“……”

Denis found himself at a loss for words.

“I’m glad we feel the same way as bakers.”

Shiloh’s composed voice made Denis’s face cycle through shades of red and purple.

“I don’t know what you’re on about. Really……”

He suddenly started digging at his ear and turned back into his shop.

Shiloh watched the closed door for a moment, then sighed and turned away.

‘He must be worried about his shop because of me.’

The fact that he was coming after her now meant her business was doing well enough to threaten his livelihood.

A flicker of unease came over her.

She didn’t know what might happen if someone like Denis got hold of a weakness. And she had a significant one, the fact that she hadn’t yet received an official license.

It was hard to believe that a woman who had never even jaywalked in her previous life had ended up entangled in something illegal after transmigrating into a book.

But to pay off the enormous debt that had fallen on her out of nowhere, baking was the only thing she could do right now.

‘Will the imperial physician actually issue the license?’

Shiloh stopped walking and bit her lip.

*

That evening, Kyle quietly summoned the Minister of Food and had him bring the baker’s registry.

“When is the baker’s registry next revised and updated?”

“We’re planning a full review next week.”

Kyle felt a small measure of relief at the minister’s answer.

“Leave it here for now.”

A thick binder was placed on Kyle’s desk.

After the minister withdrew and Kyle was alone in the room, he took a small vial of transparent solution, made by the mages of the magic tower, from his drawer. He turned through the pages until he found the right one and let a few drops fall onto it.

The solution had the ability to erase brushpen writing, but it left a visible stain that could be seen with the n*ked eye. In the palace, when documents were amended through proper procedure, the imperial seal was stamped beside the stain as proof.

In the space where the name of the deceased baker, Bread Johnson, had been erased, Shiloh’s name was written in brushpen.

Kyle stared at her newly written name for a moment, then narrowed his brow and murmured.

“What were you thinking, operating without a license?”

From everything Shiloh had said and done, it genuinely seemed like she hadn’t known. He let out a quiet laugh at the thought of someone naive enough to start a business without checking the basics first.

Kyle recalled what he had been told by his trusted captain of the imperial guard.

A few days earlier, the captain had delivered a full report: that Shiloh’s birth father, Baron Hamford, had committed investment fraud and gone into hiding, that the house they had lived in had been auctioned off, and that she was running a confectionery while covering her ailing mother’s hospital expenses.

‘Any connection to dark magic or the underworld?’

‘She attended the Magic Academy, but there was nothing suspicious beyond the bakery work.’

‘And?’

‘Her maternal family line is the Cygnus comital family……’

‘Cygnus?’

At the time, the word ‘Cygnus’ had made Kyle flinch.

Cygnus was the family of Elinore, the mage who had shared a legendary love with the first emperor Bernar before disappearing.

In other words, Kyle and Shiloh’s ancestors had been lovers.

The love story of Bernar and Elinore was known to every citizen of the Amondi Empire. Their tragic romance, between Bernar, who had suffered severe burns across his body and turned violent, and Elinore, had even been adapted into a stage play.

“What a strange connection.”

Kyle stroked his chin, lost in thought, and let out a quiet, amused sound.

The plan to issue Shiloh a baker’s license proceeded without a hitch.

With her name entered into the baker’s registry under Bread Johnson’s record, she would receive her license as a disciple of Willy, the master baker of the neighboring country Belmae. Willy passed bakers on their examination based on skill alone, regardless of how long they had trained. Bread Johnson himself had gone to study in Belmae and been recognized as a baker by Willy within half a year.

Kyle had heard that Willy had recently lost his memory to dementia and was in critical health. He felt sorry for the man, but the risk of anyone discovering that Shiloh’s license hadn’t gone through proper channels was very small.