City of Witches
chapter-285

1.

The kitchen, which had previously been cleaned up by the Gemini Household’s chef, was now in a mess, as if an earthquake had just occurred.

With excited hearts and confident expressions, the twins placed the large guinea fowl inside the oven.

“Since we added more things compared to the recipe…let’s roast it for twenty minutes more!”

Odile, who had been changing the recipe as she pleased, glanced at the clock as she placed all the trash into the trash can.

Meanwhile, Odette, who had been squatting in front of the oven, watching the red flame rising from beneath it, stood up while grabbing the hem of her skirt.

“Cooking is fun, isn’t it?”

“Yes! It feels like we’re in an alchemy class!”

“Right, but it’s way more fun than that! With alchemy, if things go wrong, it might explode, but it isn’t the case with cooking!”

The twins dragged two chairs for them to sit in front of the oven, waving their legs as they saw the guinea fowl being roasted to a golden brown color.

Since it would be boring if they just stared at it without doing anything, they brought some wine with them.

They shared a glass of wine with each other, as if it was their aperitif.

“Sis.”

“Yes, Odette?”

“You know, there’s something that bothers me.”

“What is it?”

“Sharon unnie.”

“What’s wrong with Sharon unnie?”

Earlier tonight, they received a message from Head Maid Galina that Sharon had regained consciousness.

The twins knew that their household had been taking care of Sharon in the guest room for quite a while now.

Back when they visited the Modern World, Sharon had been treating them as if they were her little sisters, and the twins also liked her.

While she could be a little fierce and love to tease others, she was really kind, unlike other witches they had met.

They would occasionally visit her in the guest room whenever they were bored, wondering ‘Will she wake up today?’ while sending her a gaze filled with concern.

The twins thought that if she were to wake up, they could talk with her and ask her how their dear Mr. Assistant was doing

“What do you think of Sharon unnie?”

“Hm… I think she’s pretty and kind. She must have helped with Mr. Assistant’s loneliness too, so he should like her quite a bit, no?”

“Maybe. Also, her chest is big.”

“It is. Even bigger than our masters’...”

Then, Odette decided to drop all the pretenses and said what she wanted to say.

“Do you think that… Mr. Assistant and Sharon unnie…have become lovers at some point?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

Odile’s eyes, which originally looked bored, widened at her sisters’ words.

“But, Sharon unnie said that they are just friends when we asked her, though!”

“Yeah, she did say that she’s living together with him in exchange for teaching him magic, but do you remember what happened back then, Sis?”

“Just tell me everything straight! I don’t even know what you are trying to tell me!”

“When Mr. Assistant comforted Sharon unnie by hugging her and when I tried to go to them, you stopped me…”

“Ah…!”

It was back when Duchess Tiphereth attacked Siwoo because of a misunderstanding.

Seeing Siwoo and Sharon sharing a hug, Odile promptly dragged Odette to give them some space.

Truth to be told, she wanted to be hugged by him too, but she decided that she wasn’t ‘the person he needed’ at the time.

Because she thought that what he needed was someone who he could always rely on, a friend who’d always stay by his side.

The problem here was that she thought Sharon and Siwoo’s relationship wouldn’t progress just because Sharon declared that they were just friends.

This just showed how inexperienced the twins were when it came to the delicate relationship between a man and a woman.

In fact, even though Odette was the first one to question it among the two of them…

She only began feeling suspicious after she had a talk with Pecha, one of their maids.

“Could it be…they slept together?”

“Nonsense! You saw that they sleep in different rooms, didn’t you?”

By now, they already knew what it meant if a man were to sleep with a woman.

Odette’s bold assumption made Odile jump in surprise.

She shook her head aggressively, trying to emphasize that such a thing shouldn’t be possible.

“No, Sis! Listen to me first! So, I asked Pecha about this the other day and she said that even if they’re friends, a man and a woman don’t usually live in the same house!”

“Huh? Why?”

Odile furrowed her eyebrows deeply at that.

It felt like there was a deep anger in her voice, but Odette ignored it and continued.

“Think about it. What do you think would happen if you were to live together with Mr. Assistant, Sis?”

“I’d love it?”

“No, not that! Like, what would you do with him if you two were to live together?”

“Uh…”

Odile’s mind wandered.

Then, a certain scene began to unfold in her mind.

Mr. Assistant, with his clothes off, wearing only a towel around his waist, poured a huge amount of bath salt into the bath, while Odile herself was enjoying her bath.

For some reason, even though this was the start of her imagination, they were already naked.

‘I’ll attend to you, Ms. Odile.’

‘Alright, since you’re Mr. Assistant, I’ll let you clean every nook and cranny of my body.’

Siwoo politely bowed his head and began to attend to her, meanwhile Odile let out a giggle while joking around with him.

After he rubbed through her soft skin with the soap, he suddenly threw his towel away.

‘...Mr. Assistant, what are you doing?’

‘As you’ve said, I’m going to clean every nook and cranny of your body.’

Then, he proceeded to apply some lube onto a certain object that was too big to even fit into her imagination.

After that…

‘M-Mr. Assistant…! You don’t have to clean that place!’

‘No can do, Ms. Odile. I said I will attend to you, so I will clean every part of your body thoroughly! Now, show me that cute butt of yours!’

‘A-As expected of Mr. Assistant…! You always have the knack for this kind of thing…aaah…!’

Then, their bodies overlapped with each other.

As he cleaned Odile’s body down to the deepest part…

She ended up getting dirty again due to the hot white fluid…

“Sis?”

Seeing Odile’s face turning bright red, Odette tilted her head.

She could even feel the heat on her sister's face from where she was sitting. Maybe if she were to put a teapot on top of her head, she could boil some good tea with it.

“A-Anyway! A-Are you trying to say that Mr. Assistant cleaned every inch of her deepest parts?”

“...What?”

Odile, who was dragged out of her imagination so suddenly, started talking nonsense before shaking her head aggressively.

It took a bit of time for Odette to understand what kind of stupid nonsense her sister imagined.

“...I understand what you meant now.”

When a man and a woman lived in the same house, there were occasions when both of them involuntarily let their guard down and came to see each others’ naked body.

Not to mention that in Siwoo’s and Sharon’s case, they lived in that small officetel room where their rooms were only five steps apart from each other.

It was like a dangerous laboratory where the slightest misstep could cause an explosion!

“See?”

Hearing her sister agreeing with her, Odette clapped her hand happily, but in the next second, she realized that this wasn’t something to be happy about, so she wore her serious expression again.

“This requires further discussion! Alright, after our Culinary Research Society’s meeting ends for today, we will go back to our room and go to ‘Assistant Shin Siwoo’s Special Protection Task Force Headquarters’!”

“I’m calling dibs for the leader position!”

“You’re already the leader for the Culinary Research Society! It’s my turn to be the leader now!”

“Why is it always you who got to be the leader of the cool groups?! I got stuck with the Oyster Research Club, the Horse Riding Club or the Tea Party Club! Meanwhile you got to be the Head of the Magic Potion Laboratory, Ancient Book Library, and now Assistant Shin Siwoo’s Special Protection Task Force? I was the first one who discovered how urgent the situation was, you know?!”

Well, those groups they mentioned were just part of their play pretend, so they didn’t actually exist, but Odette still protested anyway.

Her wick raised, she pressed on and argued with Odile.

But, when it came to sophistry, Odile was a level ahead of her.

As Odile was about to put Odette in her place, a strange sound interrupted her.

-Pong!

“Huh?”

“Hm?

-Pong! Popong! Pong!

The sound was similar to how bubbles from fireworks that went off inside water popped.

It was an unfamiliar sound to the twins, so out of curiosity, they bent over to look toward the source of the sound at the same time.

They found out that the sound came from the oven that had been warming their feet.

The fowl they had roasted was a little bit too full.

Some of the ingredients they put inside the fowl were filled with moisture. When those ingredients met the high temperature of the oven, the moisture turned into steam and that same steam tried to burst out of the fowl through the gap on the fowl’s crotch that the twins had sealed with a thread.

This created a strange sound, as if the fowl was crying in tears from the netherworld after seeing how its body ended up in this state.

“Oh no, what should we do?!”

“Quick, Odette, how much time before we can take it out of the oven?”

“Thank God, we can take it out now!”

Odette hurriedly turned the heat off and waited for the noise to die down.

After the intermittent explosion noise died down, the twins carefully opened the lid and checked the insides.

“...”

“...”

The fowl, which was supposed to showcase the twins’ creativity to its fullest, managed to retain its shape, but the shape was the best thing about it. Overall, it looked disastrous. One couldn’t even use ‘appetizing’ to describe it even as a flattery.

With oysters sticking out of the fowl’s crotch, the name ‘Guinea Fowl with Oysters Straight from Hell’ fit the dish perfectly.

The pieces of cheese and vegetables amidst everything only added to its grotesqueness.

At the very least though, the smell wasn’t horrible.

“So…”

“So…”

The twins glanced at each other, and…

“Why don’t you try it first, Sis?”

“Why don’t you try it first?”

Immediately showcased their sisterly bond.

Neither of them wished to be the taste tester of this spawn of hell guised as a food.

“No, I mean you worked so hard after all, Sis, you deserve this. From now on, I’ll concede the leadership of whatever group we’ll form in the future to you, so, make sure to eat a lot!”

“No, Odette, as the Head of the Culinary Research Society, you have the right and responsibility to be the first person who tastes the dish.”

“No, no, Sis, you see? I’ve already decided to resign from my position as the Head of the Culinary Research Society. I’ve realized the honor of being a head of an organization is worth nothing. You can wait for my resignation speech later in our room.”

“No, no, Odette, you got it wrong. Honor doesn’t come from authority, it only comes when one is deserving of another’s respect.”

As they exchanged such words, refusing to back down…

The door to the kitchen opened.

-Thump, thump, thump!

They could hear the sound of footsteps.

The twins, who had been fighting, turned stiff, then let out a sigh of relief when they realized who it was that approached them.

It was Lena, the one who had been helping them to prepare for the dish.

“Lena!”

“You scared me! Why didn’t you knock first? I swear I thought it was Head Maid Galina who—”

Before she could continue what she was about to say, Odile’s face turned pale.

The reason was because the exact person she was talking about was right behind Lena.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Miss Odile.”

Even though she was already over 60, the glint in Head Maid Galina’s eyes still seemed extremely sharp.

She swiftly moved to cut off the twins’ escape route.

“S-Sorry… I-I really tried to hide it…”

“You said you needed the kitchen to make some jam, so I allowed you to use it. That was all a lie, hm, Lena?”

“I-I am sorry… M-Ma’am Galina…”

“You will hold responsibility for this, but that could wait for tomorrow. Go back upstairs.”

“Y-Yes… I’m really sorry…”

Lena glanced at the twins, as if trying to apologize to them with her eyes, then ran upstairs.

The messy kitchen was reflected on Galina’s round eyeglasses. She folded her arms in front of her chest.

Although Odile had tried to clean it up, the place still looked as if it had gone through a war.

The twins’ thin shoulders trembled like twigs being blown by a strong wind.

“Now, will you two explain what happened?”

““E-Eek!””

Like a pair of rabbits being stared down by a snake, the twins jumped in fright.