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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Mabel's Triumph
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I wondered if I'd done something unnecessary.
“W-what do we do?”
Mabel's atmosphere had sunk heavily.
May and Bell's faces turned ashen.
I was debating whether to pretend to be crazy and flip the table.
“The fifth evaluation paper is leaf shape, leaf shape, leaf shape.”
“!”
“Yes!”
May couldn't hold back and shouted before clamping her mouth shut.
I'd nearly cheered myself, so I had no intention of scolding her.
“The sixth evaluation paper is leaf shape, flower shape, leaf shape.”
“Waaah!”
The Mabel employees let out screams of joy.
Pam's relaxed expression slowly stiffened.
“No, wait! Don't tell me?”
“Huh? Really?”
A murmur spread among those checking the scores.
That's when I realized it too, belatedly.
All the scores...
“It's a tie.”
Under everyone's tense gazes, the judge picked up the final paper.
“The final seventh evaluation paper.”
He unfolded the last one, but as someone who knew how to proceed, the judge's silence dragged on.
Everyone in Mabel held their breath.
Pam's face was rigid.
May and Bell were on the verge of hyperventilating.
The customers were watching with interest too.
My heart felt like it would burst.
Finally, the judge's mouth opened.
“The last one is leaf shape, leaf shape, leaf shape.”
“!”
A powerful shock settled over the interior of Mabel.
“N-No way. There's no way I, I could lose...”
Only after Pam's mutter leaked out.
“Waaah!”
The Mabel employees erupted in cheers.
And that's when I fully grasped it.
It was Mabel's victory.
‘Y-Yeah! Of course May and Bell would win.’
I'd believed it, but now that the results were out, my heart was pounding like crazy.
The emotions surged even more intensely because it was a comeback win.
I wanted to hug May and Bell tightly and celebrate, but I couldn't, which was frustrating.
The two of them wore expressions of disbelief.
Unlike Mabel's side, which was openly joyful, Marigold's atmosphere had completely deflated.
They had dazed looks, unable to accept their loss.
And this result shocked the customers too.
“Marigold lost?”
“The capital's top shop lost.”
“Does that mean the desserts here are tastier?”
“Shouldn't the original be better?”
“Yeah. If these are tastier, can they really say you stole the recipe? There's no way something stolen could taste better.”
“Then it must not be stolen.”
As the murmur spread among the customers, the faces of those who'd come with Pam turned pale.
And when they couldn't refute it, the customers' speculation gained even more momentum.
“What? So it's a frame-up?”
“Wow, Pam's supposed to be an authority in the dessert world. For someone like that to pull a frame-up.”
“I knew it from the moment she came in causing a scene. If she was confident, she would've called them out quietly and lectured them.”
“Marigold being the best is old news now.”
“The top spot's about to change soon.”
“It's all lies!”
As the customers' clamor grew louder, Pam shrieked hysterically.
“You rigged it, didn't you? There's no way my desserts taste worse than hers!”
Pam was too caught up in her emotions to scream properly.
So she didn't notice the door to Mabel opening and a new person entering.
‘Huh? That's...!’
The new customer frowned at the chaotic atmosphere inside.
It was embarrassing to be seen in such a state by this person.
But after a moment's thought, it might actually be a good opportunity.
I swallowed a triumphant smile and stepped forward in front of Pam.
“Enough already. Just accept the results gracefully. It was a fair match, wasn't it? Don't you think that behavior is unsightly?”
I'd deliberately mixed in provocative words to rile up Pam's temper.
“Unsightly? Who are you to call me unsightly? You colluded with them and cheated!”
Pam reacted just as I'd expected, exploding.
“When did we collude? From the beginning?”
She pointed accusingly at the judges.
Her rudeness left the judges—former employees—with incredulous expressions.
“Come to think of it, you were suspicious from the moment you first suggested the contest!”
At the employee's added remark, Pam's eyes lit up.
“Right! You were the one who suggested the match, weren't you? You'd prepared it from the start, right? You schemed to beat me!”
With her claim backed by a hypothesis, Pam grew bold.
It was something that could have ended quietly if she'd just accepted it.
But she denied it to the end, blowing it up.
It was exasperating.
“The judges were chosen by your side, weren't they? Are you saying I bribed every single customer here, knowing you'd react like this?”
I'd asked her to come up with possible hypotheses.
“Th-that... Yeah! How do we know you didn't bribe them all? If it was premeditated from the start, you could have!”
She just doubled down stubbornly.
“Has anyone here met me before?”
I openly asked the judges.
“No.”
“First time.”
“Of course not.”
They all said they'd never seen me before.
“You know it's nonsense yourself.”
I calmly summarized the situation.
“You lost.”
May stepped forward.
“Just admit it gracefully and go home.”
Bell drove the nail in.
At that, Pam's eyes truly went wild.
As if all her previous antics had been tame.
“I didn't lose! There's no way my dessert tastes worse than that brat's!”
Pam bellowed repeatedly.
Was it really that hard for her to accept?
It had gone beyond stubbornness into outright disruption.
Even the people who'd come with Pam were flustered by her ugly display.
“P-Please calm down.”
“Head pastry chef, let's go back first.”
Some employees tried to stop her as she got overly excited, but it only fueled her anger more.
“Go where? You want me to leave after this humiliation? Are you crazy?”
At Pam's outburst, the employees backed away with grimacing faces.
Bell's ex-fiancé, unable to watch any longer, stepped up and grabbed Pam's arm.
“Pam. That's enough. Let's go outside and talk...”
“Don't touch me!”
Slap!
Pam sharply swatted away her ex-fiancé's hand.
“Is this the time for you to say that? When she's humiliating me like this, you should step up! Don't you have anything to say for me?”
“P-Pam...”
“Or do you still have lingering feelings for your ex-fiancée? What, feeling guilty now?”
Pam unleashed relentless criticism at him as he showed his shock.
“How dare they say my dessert is worse than hers? Did these people even taste it properly? No, seeing them call this cheap stuff tasty, it makes sense—they have cheap tastes.”
Pam seemed oblivious to the reactions around her now.
Lost in her own emotions, she spewed insults.
“What would they know about taste to judge properly? Just cheap tastes for cheap customers!”
The atmosphere turned icy in an instant from her reckless barrage of insults.
And I'd been waiting for this moment.
“Watch your words. The desserts here aim for the highest quality. And the customers are the best too.”
I coldly cut off Pam's words and deliberately praised the customers.
The customers' chilling mood eased with just that one sentence.
Pam's temper must have twisted even more in contrast.
“Watch my words? What, upset that I called cheap people cheap?”
‘That's exactly what I was hoping she'd say.’
“Is that... about me?”
A voice laced with chill echoed through Mabel.
On any other day, Pam might have sensed the shift in atmosphere and been cautious.
But in her highly excited, reason-lost state, Pam didn't notice.
“Yeah! Everyone here is chea—”
Pam, mid-pointing finger, locked eyes with the voice's owner and couldn't continue.
At the tip of her finger stood an elderly woman with a dignified expression.
“So, that was directed at me?”
Ophelia Bennett.
My ace in the hole had arrived.
“Th-that...”
Pam couldn't continue.
She probably didn't know Ophelia Bennett's exact identity.
She wasn't someone who appeared publicly often.
But from the attire and the formidable number of maids and escorts surrounding her, Pam could guess she was no one to dismiss lightly.
As if regaining her senses, Pam paled and bit her lower lip.
Her eyes darted wildly, her mind in turmoil.
Pam feared the damage to her reputation from Ophelia Bennett's reproach more.
The reason Marigold held the capital's top spot was its many noble customers.
High-spending regulars.
But offending a high noble meant losing them all at once.
Knowing this, Pam desperately sought a way out.
And the path Pam would choose was set.
“N-No, not you. The other customers here...”
Desperate denial.
“Me too!”
But she had to shut her mouth at Ophelia Bennett's forceful shout.
Ophelia Bennett glared sharply at the terrified Pam.
“I'm a customer who came to eat desserts here.”
“Th-that...”
“Looks like you run a dessert shop nearby?”
Pam couldn't answer under that gaze implying, ‘So that's why you're so arrogant.’
She knew answering would spell disaster, so she clamped her mouth shut and just shook her head.
As if Ophelia Bennett couldn't figure it out.
“The owner of the shop across the street, apparently. Quite famous in the capital.”
A maid who seemed to be Ophelia Bennett's closest aide stepped forward to report.
From the moment they'd entered and spotted the commotion, the maids in the back had quietly investigated the situation.
Ophelia Bennett nodded slightly upon hearing the maid.
“What a shame.”
What? As the thought crossed her mind.
“You won't see those glory days anymore.”
Pam collapsed at Ophelia Bennett's gaze, which seemed to say, ‘After all the effort to climb that high.’
I Thought I Was the Protagonist
