“Does the food here really have to be ‘eating raw flesh and drinking blood’?” She muttered to herself, her voice laced with exhaustion and a trace of grievance she hadn’t even noticed.
This was still the diet inside the Demon King’s Castle. As for the remote, backward regions—what on earth were the people there eating?
In the past year, her craving for normal food had never burned this fiercely through her nerves.
A sudden idea flashed across her mind—the Giantwing Demons!
Those fellows who frequently traded with humans, dim-witted and often cheated, yet somehow always managed to bring back strange and wondrous things.
The thought instantly lifted her spirits!
It wasn’t as if she had never considered improving the food before, but when she first arrived, her own survival was in question.
She had been consumed by the constant internal torment of her body being “rewritten,” compounded by Movira’s overwhelming pressure.
Where would she have found the energy to care about such things?
But now was different from the past.
She had gradually grown accustomed to life here—though she herself would never admit it—and thoughts of food had slowly risen on her list of priorities.
These days, she had also figured out Movira’s habits: as long as she didn’t try to escape or openly defy her will, she could do pretty much anything.
…Er, secretly sitting on the throne… that was probably still off-limits, right?
“No, no, no—definitely not! Stop thinking about that!”
Just the thought made her heart race with lingering fear.
“Someone!” She summoned the maid waiting outside the door. “Send word to the Giantwing Demons.
Tell them to procure as large a batch as possible of food ingredients and seasonings from the Human Empire—cookbooks too, if they can manage it! And let them know: if they do this well, I will compensate part of their previous losses from the royal treasury.”
The maid bowed and departed.
Seraphina leaned back in her chair, a long-forgotten sense of anticipation blooming in her chest.
The ancestors of the Giantwing Demons had been a malformed offshoot of the dragon race—the dumbest minor branch, to be blunt.
They had been rightfully… exiled by true dragons.
That was precisely why the Giantwing Demons were wealthy: it was all inherited from their ancestors!
By now, everything else had degenerated—except for one thing: their love of money. In that regard, they were second to none in the entire Demon Realm; no one dared compete.
So the moment they heard Seraphina would reward them with gold and treasures, their leaders’ eyes lit up like lanterns.
With the attitude that even a single hair pulled from Seraphina’s leg would be thicker than their own waists, that very same afternoon—
The Giantwing Demon representative flapped his enormous wings and flew straight from the distant border, hugging several sealed crates preserved with special freshness magic and a few thick rolls of parchment, arriving drenched in sweat but beaming.
When they respectfully stood before Seraphina, she felt her heartbeat quicken.
Trying hard to remain composed, she ordered the crates opened under the pretext of inspecting freshness. Inside lay glistening rice, plump wheat, all kinds of mushrooms, and vibrantly colored vegetables.
Suddenly, she felt as though entire lifetimes had passed. Wasn’t she just like that woodcutter who went up the mountain, watched a game of chess, and came down to find the world changed?
After a whole year, even the bitter melon she used to hate looked utterly endearing in this moment.
The final rolls of parchment were covered in human script and simple illustrations, detailing dozens of dishes and their preparation methods.
“Very good. You have done exceptionally well.” Seraphina forced her voice to stay steady, yet every tiny movement betrayed her true feelings.
She could not wait to taste real food again!
She immediately ordered the more dexterous maids in the kitchen to strictly follow the recipes and attempt the simplest dishes.
All afternoon, a faint, unfamiliar yet intimately familiar fragrance seemed to drift through her book room.
As a result, Seraphina could not concentrate on her documents at all. Her attention kept drifting away—despite having no idea where the kitchens actually were.
Lina noticed the unusual atmosphere.
She didn’t know what Seraphina was anticipating, but watching her fidget restlessly, a flicker of confusion passed through Lina’s eyes.
At dusk, when a maid finally entered carrying a tray, Seraphina nearly leapt from her seat.
On the tray was no longer bizarre chunks of meat.
Instead, there was a bowl of rich golden broth and a piece of bread baked to a perfect crisp, wafting with the fragrance of wheat!
The aroma was so foreign, yet it awakened some deep memory buried in her soul.
She stared at the food before her. At some point, tears had welled up in her eyes.
Compared to the coarse, gamey demon food, this was the difference between heaven and earth.
She took a sip of the vegetable soup. The warm, smooth broth carried the natural sweetness of the ingredients, sliding down her throat and spreading warmth all the way to her stomach.
“Mmm… mm.”
Suddenly—a sharp, entirely unfamiliar surge of sour bloating shot up from her lower abdomen.
The pain struck so fiercely that the spoon in her hand fell with a clatter onto the floor.
“Your Highness?! Are you all right?”
The maid hurriedly picked up the fallen spoon.
“Urgh… it’s nothing.” The pain was like a summer storm—intense for a moment, but short-lived.
With both the maid and Lina present, she could not show weakness.
She gently pressed her abdomen, blaming it on eating too quickly.
Once the pain faded, an indescribable mix of gratitude and grievance crashed against the fragile walls of her heart.
At last, inside this cage of despair, she had grasped a fragment of her former human life.
“…Come, both of you—try it… No, have them make more. Let every maid in the entire Demon King’s Castle taste this!”
Seraphina’s voice trembled with emotion as she pointed at the food on the tray and spoke to Lina and the maid.
She needed someone else to confirm this wasn’t a dream.
Lina showed little reaction—she had never held the same intense awe toward Seraphina as others.
The maid, however, froze. In the strictly hierarchical Demon Realm, servants could never share their master’s table.
“Your Highness… no, this is against the rules.” The maid tried to refuse in panic.
“This is an order.” Seraphina lifted her head, schooling her expression, though the faint redness in her eyes had not fully faded.
“And Lina… tell me honestly—is the flavor right?”
Seraphina felt her taste buds had been nearly assimilated by demon food; she had even begun doubting her own senses.
Under her insistent gaze, Lina calmly broke off a small piece of bread and placed it in her mouth.
The wheaty aroma made her eyes light up instantly, though upon closer tasting she also detected a slight roughness.
“It is… and it isn’t. But compared to demon food, it already counts as exquisite.”
The maid timidly sipped a little soup as well; her expression could not hide her astonishment.
Seeing their reactions, the last of Seraphina’s doubts finally settled.
She let out a soft breath, savoring the long-absent feeling of satisfaction in her stomach.
“Urgh… hiss…”
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.