Mistress Albertine's teeth met the delicate, glazed shell of the madeleine.
Crunch.
It wasn't even a second.
The sound was the last thing she heard before the world was erased.
The roaring arena, the judging table, the very light—it all vanished into a silent, absolute void.
A pressure built in her ears, a profound emptiness that swallowed all sensation.
Before the panic could even register, the void itself dissolved, shimmering away like a heat mirage on a summer road.
The world bled back into existence, but it was a world she had never seen.
Her body, which she hadn't felt levitating, landed softly on a solid, yet unearthly ground. She stood in a vast, endless field.
Before her, growing in impossible harmony, were the sources of the very ingredients she had just tasted.
To one side, stretching to a horizon that glowed with soft, pink light, were the Rosaline flowers. But they were not the volatile, dangerous plants she knew.
They were perfect. Their stalks were like wheat, heavy with seed, but each seed was a budding, pale pink flower, topped with a soft, dandelion-like puff that released a gentle, enchanting perfume into the air—the exact same captivating, non-soapy aroma from Ji Hoon's dish.
To the other side, fields of sugarcane swayed, their stalks thick and oozing a palpable, warm scent of molasses and caramel that saturated the hazy air.
She tried to speak, to gasp, but no sound came. It was as if she were submerged in thick, heavy water, the atmosphere itself resisting her voice. The world shimmered, unstable, a dream refusing to fully solidify.
And then she saw it.
A flicker of movement. She turned.
There, among the perfect Rosaline blooms, was a little girl.
Her hair was a cascade of dark brown, not yet crowned with the silver of a lifetime of command.
Her face was unlined, flushed with joy and sunlight, and she was running, her small arms outstretched as she laughed—a sound that was utterly silent in this strange realm, but which Albertine felt echo in the very core of her being.
It was her.
A younger version of herself, from a day she had long forgotten, a memory buried under decades of duty and rigor.
She couldn't believe it. She was not just remembering. She was there, a ghost watching her own lost joy play out in a field that should not exist.
Albertine stared, mesmerized by the ghost of her own childhood joy. She watched the little girl run, a silent laugh on her lips, and the urge to reach out was overwhelming. But before she could move, a figure walked through her.
It was a sensation without feeling—a chill of displacement, a ripple in the hazy air. She turned, and her breath caught.
It was a young boy, composed and walking with an innate authority that belied his age.
His hair was a familiar shade of gold, his face a stoic mask she had seen a thousand times on coins and royal portraits.
His clothes, rich and impeccably tailored, stood in stark contrast to the simple dress of her younger self. It was the younger Emperor, Charles the Second.
Her mind reeled. She watched, a phantom in her own past, as her younger self noticed the boy and began to follow him with a child's curiosity.
The young emperor, seemingly oblivious, reached out and delicately plucked one of the dandelion-like puffs from a Rosaline stalk.
'Wait,' Albertine thought, the pieces clicking into place with dizzying force. Her eyes darted between the laughing girl and the solemn prince. 'Is this the day... the day we first met him...?'
But before the memory could fully solidify, another presence made itself known.
A man emerged from between the swaying sugarcane, walking toward the children. He wore the simple, dignified white uniform of a master cook. It was the same design the ICC contestants wore.
His hair was a shock of dark obsidian, and his posture was tall, his body language open and kind. But as he turned, the sun itself seemed to conspire to hide him.
His face was obscured, not by shadow, but by a brilliant, hazy aureole of light that blurred his features into an unrecognizable glow.
Yet, she didn't need to see his face. Her soul recognized him. That aura, that calming, commanding presence—it was him.
The cook.
The one who had shown her the path. This was the interaction, the exact moment her life had been irrevocably steered into the amazing world of culinary arts.
A desperate, aching need surged within her.
She had to see. She had to know his face!
She tried to step forward, to push through the heavy, dream-like air, her hand stretching out as if to brush away the blinding light from his features.
But as her fingers strained to reach him, her body began to levitate.
The world around her—the fields, the children, the mysterious cook—swirled into a violent, colorful turbulence.
It was like trying to grasp smoke; the harder she tried to hold on, the faster it dissolved.
The vibrant colors bled into grey, the scents faded, and the silent laughter was swallowed by the returning, suffocating silence of the void.
For a single, endless second, there was nothing.
Then, the world slammed back into existence with the force of a thunderclap.
The bright lights of the arena stabbed her eyes, the roar of the crowd assaulted her ears, and the hard wood of the judge's chair was beneath her.
It had all happened in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
She was back.
Mistress Albertine blinked, her gaze sweeping across the faces locked on her. Master Marcus, his stoicism replaced by keen understanding.
Ji Hoon, standing perfectly still, his expression unreadable. Helene, looking confused and a little worried. A nearby clerk, staring in open-mouthed concern.
She became aware of her own rapid heartbeat. "Eh..?"
"Mistress Albertine!" the clerk whispered urgently, stepping closer. "Are you okay? Are you not feeling well? Should we stop the competition?"
The suggestion of halting the sacred ICC proceedings was like a splash of cold water. She straightened her spine, her shoulders pulling back with a visible effort. "I-I'm o-okay," she managed, her voice uncharacteristically thin. "Just a little... dazed."
The clerk's eyes darted meaningfully towards the shimmering lens of the Light Box, reminding her that all of Valeria was watching. The Cook Killer was on air.
Understanding dawned, and with it, a surge of professional instinct. She had a role to play. She cleared her throat, the sound rough.
"My... feedback," she began, turning to Ji Hoon's madeleine. She grasped for her usual critical vocabulary—unrefined, reckless, overly simplistic—but the words that came out were entirely different.
"The... aroma is... profound. The texture is... impeccable."
It was like trying to describe a thunderstorm by calling it 'a bit loud.'
Her critique, usually a scalpel, was a blunt, complimentary instrument. She finished on a half-breath, "...a remarkable achievement."
Her eyes, wide and slightly lost, lifted from the cake to Ji Hoon, studying him as if seeing him for the first time. 'How?' The question screamed in her mind. 'How did you do that?'
The clerk leaned in again. "Mistress, please, you must continue with Contestant Helene's dish."
The reminder was another jolt. Helene. The other contestant.
She had completely forgotten. Her eyes fell upon Helene's beautifully molded Rys Lumbarde, a dish that, moments ago, she would have scrutinized with ruthless precision.
Now, the thought of eating it felt almost sacrilegious, as if it would scrub the lingering, soul-taking feeling of the madeleine from her palate.
With mechanical movements, she raised a spoonful to her mouth. She glanced sideways and found Master Marcus mirroring her action.
Their eyes met for a fleeting second, and in that look was an entire conversation of shared, bewildering awe.
Helene was explaining how the dish held a deep memory of an important person, her voice a distant buzz.
They ate. The spiced rice pudding was fine. Technically sound, traditionally elegant. And utterly, completely unsatisfying.
It was like hearing a whisper after a symphony.
They looked up, their comments brief and hollow. "Adequate," Albertine said.
"The saffron could be more pronounced," Marcus added. The words felt meaningless.
The moment arrived. The scoreboards glowed, waiting for their input. Without a word, without even a glance of consultation, both judges entered their scores.
The Light Box flashed, the numbers blazing for the entire arena to see:
Cassian vs Helene: 20 - 16
A collective, sharp gasp sucked the air from the dome, followed by an explosion of incredulous chatter.
A perfect score from Master Marcus was legendary, but rare.
A perfect score from the Mistress Albertine Simonet, the Cook Killer herself? It was unheard of. It was impossible.
But there it was.
In the contestant's waiting area, Lior and Yuliana stood frozen, their own crushing defeats momentarily forgotten.
Lior's mouth was agape, a slow grin spreading across his face as he processed the numbers.
"He... he actually did it," he breathed, the words filled with a mix of disbelief and fierce pride.
Yuliana, her arms crossed, gave a single, sharp nod, her sharp green eyes fixed on her friend's back.
There was no jealousy in her gaze, only a deep, resolute acknowledgment.
He had ventured where they could not, and in doing so, had redefined the very ceiling of the competition.
Across the way, the trio of Northern prodigies stood like statues carved from ice, their attention locked on the blazing scoreboard.
Ixchel's restless energy was gone, replaced by a still, calculating tension.
Lucius Frost's expression remained unreadable, but his light blue eyes were narrowed, analyzing the data point of a perfect score as one would a complex chemical formula.
It was his sister, Eira, whose composure cracked.
Her usual stoic mask faltered, a faint line of frustration appearing between her brows, a look she didn't have even when she heard she lost, as her gaze darted from the scoreboard to the unassuming boy on the stage.
'How could someone actually get a higher result than my brother...'
The thought was a silent tremor in her mind, the first crack in the foundation of their Northern superiority.
But Ji Hoon saw none of it.
The roar of the crowd was a distant ocean. He looked down at his station, at the tray of humble, shell-shaped cakes.
He reached out and picked one up, feeling its slight weight, its perfect form.
He had done it.
He had brought a ghost from his past life to vivid, tangible reality in this new world.
A slow, genuine smile touched his lips, not of triumph over others, but of pure, unadulterated wonder.
He was truly in another world, and as a cook, he knew this was just the beginning.
The Uncharted culinary world of Terra stretched out before him, an infinite canvas, and he couldn't wait to see what other miracles he could paint upon it.