Hazel knew the perfect dish that would boost her energy: potato pancakes.

She decided to cut these newly harvested potatoes into thin slices, then make pancakes with them. She would pair it with some cheese and a fresh herb salad, and to celebrate her first meal, she’d open a new bottle of apple wine.

Hazel grew happy at the thought of this wonderful lunch. But that wasn’t all. There was something she needed to prepare first for the perfect meal, and that was dessert. A good meal was always followed by cravings for something sweet. And whatever she baked, it needed to be cooled down to room temperature for it to be extra tasty.

Now, what would be a good dessert?

Pie. Hazel wanted pie.

There was still a slice of bushberry pie in her kitchen cabinet, but she’d smelled it so often while she was baking, it felt like she’d eaten her fill too. Then what kind of pie should she bake?

Hazel looked out the window. The guards had removed the temporary wall and instead erected a fence around her property as though her home was a quarantined area. Beyond the fence, she had a clear view of the Grand Garden. Hazel suspected she’d be able to find more wild fruits to use in her pie.

She put her straw hat back on and picked up her basket. The occasional aristocrats and officials she ran into on the walking path still pretended like she didn’t exist. Not bothered in the least, Hazel roamed freely around the garden.

She passed the neat flowerbeds and gigantic fountain until she arrived at the forest. Actually, there were only a few dozen trees—hardly enough to be called a forest... But that wasn’t the point here. What mattered was that she saw a tree with green fruits dangling from its branches, just next to the statue of a lion.

Hazel was ecstatic—these were mayapples.

Most people would just pass them by, thinking they were too unripe and inedible. But if you knew how to cook them right, these fruits turned out to be absolutely delectable. Hazel excitedly filled her basket with apples and brought them home. Then she opened up her bag and took out her favorite knife.

Back when she was at the night market at Rochelle, she had come across a display stand run by a foreigner who couldn’t even speak the language of the empire. The seller had been so surprised to see Hazel pick up the knife before anything, that he’d given it to her at a discounted price. This small knife was extremely sharp and sturdy, perfect for prepping ingredients in the kitchen.

She cut the firm mayapples into slices, peeled the skin, and carved out the seeds and core. She was hard at work on the little fruits when suddenly she felt a chill run down her back.

Hazel’s hand froze.

She could sense an energy much sharper than the blade of her knife, coming her way. Something had appeared outside.

With an ominous feeling washing over her, Hazel headed outside. Beyond the fence, she saw a group of knights in pitch-black armor marching along the walking path leading to her house. With each rigid and disciplined step they took, their capes—black with blood-red lining—fluttered forebodingly behind them.

Their faces were pale and cold like wax figures, yet their eyes had a menacing gleam. Although their footsteps didn’t make a sound, their presence seemed to crush down on their surroundings. Hazel finally knew how she would describe their aura: murderous.

The knights grew closer and closer, their capes looking like bloody fog shrouded in darkness. They were from one of the four Holy Guards defending the empire, the Holy Fire Guard led by Louise Gallardo.

As the name suggested, they were an order of knights that harnessed the power of holy fire, consisting of vampires, mixed-blood vampires, and humans who possessed powers comparable to their vampiric brethren. Everyone knew that these knights were excellent soldiers that devoted themselves to the empire. However, their lifeless porcelain-like faces and cold gazes gave anyone watching the shivers. And now they were here at Hazel’s farm, stepping soundlessly through the wide-open door, one by one.

The old house that was falling apart here and there now looked like a theater stage for a horror play. It wouldn’t be surprising if something terrifying happened right this very moment.

Hazel asked in a fluster, “Excuse me, but what are you doing here?”

Of course, the knights of the Holy Fire Guard didn’t bat an eye. They merely stood around Hazel’s kitchen, emitting cold bloodlust, deathly still like ghosts.

Hazel gaped at them, profoundly taken aback. “Oh, I see,” she finally said. “You’re trying to chase me away by pressuring me like this, aren’t you? Well, it’s not going to work. This farm is legally a salon...”

Then she came to a sudden realization. A salon was a place that was always open. Anyone could come in. And that included vampire knights too.

“Oh... right,” Hazel mumbled to herself.

She had no choice but to ignore them and tend to her own work. She picked up her knife again. Now that the atmosphere in the kitchen had changed, the perfectly normal knife now felt somewhat scary. Her reflection on the pot lid looked like a woman who’d just resolved to commit murder.

Trying to shake the silly thoughts from her head, Hazel turned her focus back to the mayapples. She peeled and cored the rest of them, then cut up the juicy and tangy flesh into slices. This would be the filling for her mayapple tart.

Hazel took out a large pan and filled it with apple slices before adding a cup of apple wine. Then she squeezed some lemon juice into it and poured in a generous amount of sugar before bringing it to a boil over the fire.

The knights watched all of this without a word, coldly and expressionlessly.

“Could you stare at the apple wine instead, please? To help it cool down faster,” Hazel said, speaking nonsense without thinking. What does it matter anyway? They can’t hear me, because I’m invisible to them.

She opened her kitchen cabinet, but the moment she did, it fell off with a loud bang. Dust rose from the peeled lime-wash walls. With so many eyes watching, she couldn’t help but feel a bit sheepish.

“This house isn’t falling apart, it’s under repair,” she explained. “Though I know it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Hazel took out a few eggs she’d wrapped in straw. She cracked them into a bowl and added some flour. Then she added a pinch of salt and stirred well. When the dough was done, she took it out and flattened it on the counter.

Now she had to let the dough rest for about an hour. In the meantime, she decided to cut her potatoes. She glanced at her pocket watch and saw that it was already one o’clock. It seemed the fearful atmosphere had slowed her down a little.

But why aren’t those knights going for lunch?

Just then, she felt something stir outside. She looked out the window and saw yet another group of knights coming toward her. These ones looked much younger.

“Sir!” one of them called.

“Are you done with your morning training?” a knight replied from the kitchen.

“Yes, sir. You can go eat now. We’ll handle it from here.”

“All right.”

The knights who’d come to intimidate Hazel turned around and left, only to be replaced by the younger knights. Were they planning to stand here all day and pressure her? Lost in her own thoughts, Hazel continued to peel her potatoes when she heard an abrupt sound piercing through the silence.

Grrr.

Hazel flinched, and her head snapped up before she could stop herself.

The young soldiers of the Holy Fire Guard were standing still like statues. She couldn’t tell where the sound had come from, because they all stood solemnly like nothing happened.

But she had definitely heard someone’s stomach growl. It was only natural—from the looks of it, they’d come straight here after training. Weren’t they at an age where they had raging appetites? And with all the rigorous training on top of that, surely they were ravenous.

Let’s think of it this way! Hazel thought, once again using a tactic she absolutely needed for her mental health. Those knights are standing here without permission. That means I don’t need their permission either, to think however I want. They’re just my houseguests, that’s all. I simply have one, two, three... nine whole guests in my home. And the reason they’re staring at me like that is because they’re hungry.

Once she began to see it that way, all her fear disappeared. Hazel liked having guests. Having a house full of guests was something she’d always dreamed of. So what should she serve them?

The idea came to her right away.

She stopped slicing her potatoes and placed a big pot of water over the fire. Then she lugged the entire sack of potatoes over and scrubbed them all clean. She dumped all the potatoes into the pot and boiled them with some salt.

Once the potatoes were soft enough to break apart, she poured some cream over them, then dropped in several large knobs of butter. And finally, she seasoned them with salt and pepper, along with a bit of some powdered herbs like Aunt Martha used to do.

Her traditional country-style mashed potatoes were done. Hazel was pleased with the result, but she wasn’t finished just yet. Her guests today were hungry young knights, after all.

She went over to the bag she’d brought from Rochelle and opened it up. Then she took out a long log of meat wrapped tightly in paper. Nothing rejuvenated a tired person like meat. This pork was tender and subtly flavored, smoked just the way Aunt Martha had taught her. Hazel was confident anyone would enjoy it.

Now it was time for serving.

She took out all the bowls from her kitchen cabinet and counted a total of ten. The wooden spoons and forks left behind by the previous family were also enough to go around.

Hazel filled each and every crooked bowl with mashed potatoes then added thick slices of smoked pork. Lastly, she decorated the food with fresh herbs handpicked from her garden, thus completing a mouth-watering lunch—farmhouse style.

The knights were still standing intimidatingly in silence, but Hazel ignored their icy glares.

“I made this for you,” she said brightly. “Of course, technically, you’re not supposed to be able to hear me, nor can you see me. But this food is obviously here, isn’t it? You all know that fairytale, right? About the bowl of porridge placed in an empty house for hungry guests to eat.”

Nobody reacted.

“Uh, um... Are you not hungry, then? Well, suit yourselves. I’m starving after cooking a meal for ten, so if you’ll excuse me...” Hazel sat down on the house’s only chair. She picked up a spoonful of potato and took a big bite.

“Oh, this is delicious!” she cried.

One of the knights standing around the kitchen, a black-haired young man, couldn’t help but stare fixedly at the food.

Julien Lafayette was so very hungry. He’d overslept this morning, and gone to work without even eating breakfast. On top of that, today’s training had been an especially brutal, real-life battle simulation. He’d been eagerly looking forward to lunchtime, nearly dying of hunger. But the news had come to him like a bolt from out of the blue—the senior knights were skipping lunch to carry out an urgent task under the commander’s order.

How could the newer knights dare eat first, before their superiors? Which was why they’d come to take over the shift.

The “urgent task” was to crack down on Lot 79. In other words, they were supposed to pressure the woman on whom His Majesty had declared a prohibition order, and make her surrender and stop insisting on staying on the land.

Psychologically pressuring people was a specialty of the vampires. And so, they’d stood in for their senior knights with confidence. There was just one problem.

Hunger.

Julien’s growling stomach had nearly ruined the intimidating atmosphere. He’d been clenching his teeth to make sure it would never happen again, when suddenly...

The woman had begun to cook.

Julien was a typical aristocrat. For him, every meal was a splendid feast served readily on time. This was the first time he’d ever seen the whole process of cooking. Frankly, at first, he hadn’t even known this was cooking. The woman had just scrubbed dirt-covered lumps of something, then cut it into mush and sliced up a log of meat.

He’d been observing her, wondering what on earth she was up to... But when the woman they were supposed to intimidate ate a big spoonful of that mush, her eyes lit up and her cheeks glowed pink. And now she was happily exclaiming to herself, eating with a fervor. She washed the food down with a sip of apple wine.

Watching her chew on the meat sliced from that log, Julien could tell it was tender and juicy. She made all the food seem truly, truly delightful. A violent storm was churning inside Julien’s stomach.

Hazel gave him a quick glance.

“Stop being so stubborn and eat already,” she said. “It’s just food that happens to be on a salon table, right? This is for salon guests.”

Then she crammed more meat and potato into her mouth until her cheeks were bulging. When she swallowed, Julien found himself gulping at the air along with her. He was beginning to feel giddy. The next moment, he faintly leaned forward and grasped the table.

Ah, to hell with it. I’ll die if I don’t eat now.

He didn’t care if this suspicious-looking food was just a lump of starch and a log of wood. He needed to survive. Losing all control of himself, he frantically picked up a wooden spoon and took a heaping bite.

And then... Julien was shocked to his core.