I've Tried Going Back to Life After Dying - Chapter 8

“Huh? Hildegard, are you already done? Weren’t you hungry?”

Atrey looked at her with a worried expression.

Hildegard’s heart fluttered with excitement at her first “school cafeteria meal” in over twenty years.

Though it was a student cafeteria, this was an academy attended by noble children and occasionally even royalty. The menu was a feast for the eyes first and foremost.

Had there been an artist present, they could have painted several beautiful still life. Perhaps titled simply “School Lunch.”

“Just… enough.”

The glistening, fatty pork sauté.

A red demi-glace sauce topped with white sauce, creating a harmonious duet of red and white.

This is a bit much.

This is intense.

Hildegard took one bite of the pork sauté, its fatty sweetness appealing, and found it delicious.

The second bite was also good.

By the third bite, she began to think it was too rich, and by the fourth, she decided she’d had enough meat for a while.

The fat was overwhelming. The sauce was too heavy.

Thinking to balance it with vegetables, she tried the glazed carrots coated generously in butter and honey.

A palate cleanser that instead assaulted her palate.

So. this is teenage cuisine…

Meals at the marquisate were never what she’d call simple, but now that she thought about it, Hildegard’s dining table had always been about savoring the pure flavors of quality ingredients.

Thinly sliced rye bread with dried fruits, lightly salted fresh butter.

If there was prosciutto, just a dash of black pepper was enough. The rye bread’s flavor deepened with each chew.

If even the bread was like this, the soups and main dishes followed the same principle: small portions where each ingredient’s taste could be fully appreciated.

That said, Hildegard had always been indulgent with desserts, her favorite being buttercream-filled rolled cakes.

“Maybe I was being unfair to Austin. But he always ate everything so happily. And my husband too…”

Her husband had eaten the same meals, and their tastes had been similar.

“At least we agreed on that.”

Now she reminisced about those mundane moments with her late husband. Well, she was dead now too, so it didn’t bring much sorrow.

Muttering to herself, Hildegard was pulled from her thoughts by Atrey.

Atrey, being genuinely young, polished off the pork sauté—sauce and all.

“Thank you for the meal.”

She’d forced herself to eat out of politeness to the cooks, but eventually her hands rebelled, refusing to lift the cutlery, and finally her mouth joined the strike as she pressed her lips together. She gave up—no more.

Her stomach ached faintly.

This youth-oriented meal, despite her young body, clashed with the middle-aged noblewoman’s mentality in Hildegard’s mind, giving her indigestion.

Atrey watched her quietly.

“Atrey, was it not enough?”

“No… that’s not it.”

“Forgive me for leaving food.”

“Not sure why you’re apologizing to me…”

“Look, you barely touched it just the edges. Do you want the rest?”

With a motherly instinct to portion meat for a child, Hildegard cut the untouched parts of the pork sauté into small pieces.

She’d done this for Austin too. Despite his impeccable manners, he’d always been delighted when she fed him like this, in such a commoner-like way.

“Heh.”

Remembering her stepson’s childhood, a nostalgic smile escaped her. Still smiling, she speared a piece with her fork.

“Here, say ‘ah~'”

She held it out to Atrey across the table.

“……”

Atrey had probably never been fed like this in his life. Not just Atrey most noble children didn’t do “ah~”.

For Hildegard, spoon-feeding the picky Lauren had been routine. Saying “ah~” was as natural as breathing.

Atrey’s eyes wavered in utter bewilderment, but—

“O-okay.”

—he snapped out of it and obediently took the bite.

Good. No issues here.

She’d raised Austin this way, so the thought never crossed her mind.

Come to think of it, her husband had reacted much like Atrey when they’d first married. But he’d accepted the “ah~” soon enough.

Even on the morning he died, he’d obediently eaten the bright red tomato she’d speared for him.

She’d held his funeral just yesterday around this time.

Only four days had passed since his death. Whether it was because she’d died too or because she’d regressed in time, her husband now felt like a distant figure.

He’d never given her love, but there had been affection between them. At least in the first few years of marriage, they’d been an ordinary couple.

The nostalgia brought a tinge of melancholy, and Hildegard smiled faintly. It must have looked like a sad smile.

“Hildegard.”

Atrey’s voice pulled her back from her memories.

“What is it, Atrey?”

“Not enough.”

“Huh? What? The pork sauté? Or the glazed carrots?”

Atrey deadpanned, “Pork.”

“Easy enough.”

Hildegard thought of Lauren, Austin, and sometimes her husband as she cut the sauté.

Spearing a piece, she gently held it out to Atrey.

“Ah~”

Atrey obediently took the bite.