"Tilea, three fried rices please."
"Comingggg."
Receiving the order I headed into the kitchen, and brought out my carefully maintained, and favourite kitchen knife. It's just a cast iron knife, but it's my prided and beloved knife. Using this, I finely chopped vegetables similar to spring onion, lettuce, and carrots into fine pieces.
Next I spread oil in the pot, and mixed in rice and egg with the chopped vegetables from earlier, and put it all through the heat. The fire was strong and shaking the pot so that it wouldn't burn was the trick to it. After putting in our secret spices for flavour, I completed my parallel world fried rice.
I can smell a delicious fragrance. Newly made and still piping hot, I delivered it to the customer.
"Thank you for waiting."
"Oh! The smell is making me hungry."
The guest received the plate and began vigorously digging into it.
"Ah, ah, hot, mn, yummy, yummy."
Noisily and heartily wolfing down the food, the plate was empty in an instant.
"That was great. Today's was delicious as well, Tilea-chan."
"Thank you as always."
I politely bowed, and tidied up the completely empty plate.
Phew, I've been working hard today as well, huh.
Seeing the customers happily wolf down the food I spent so much effort cooking makes me so happy that I can't bear it. There's nothing happier than being a cook.
You can say that right now I'm living a fulfilling life every day. It makes me keenly realise just how useless I was in my past life.
I have memories of my past life. As the slang goes in Japanese circles, I'm a reincarnater. I was called Shioda Tetsuya in my old life, and I was a Japanese guy born to an extremely normal household. But, as it often is with us reincarnaters, I lived an unhappy life, and passed away from the world in despair as a 33-year-old jobless virgin. I didn't work, and lived as what you'd call a NEET, completely inconveniencing my parents.
Moreover, because I suffered from the Middle Schooler Syndrome; Chuunibyou, I was pretty hard to deal with. I always thought that I was a special human; that I had some special power and would be entrusted with a mission. So I never thought about studying hard for exams, or working to pay for food. I looked down on people who busied themselves working hard.
As you'd expect, I was bullied at school and then stopped going, and couldn't even get a job. In the end I was abandoned by my parents, and having fallen halfway into self-abandonment, I was hit by a truck and died.
Even when I was hit, I half believed that because I was a special person I couldn't die, so I really was beyond help. It was only when I was carried into the hospital with one foot in the grave that I opened my eyes.
I wasn't special. I realised that I only convinced myself that I was special to run away whenever things got tough. I wanted to do it all over.
I wanted this time, to live a life that I wouldn't regret.
With these strong feelings of regret, my consciousness faded…
And when I awakened, I had become a baby.
Eh? Huh? What is this?
is not what I thought.
Because I was a chuunibyou, I indulged myself in reading all sorts of manga and novels, so I was able to immediately understand my situation. I had been born again, with memories of my old life.
What an incredibly chuuni-esque development!
Moreover, I was even in a world of swords and magic as a bonus. But even if I reincarnated, I no longer thought of myself as special. Were this a novel then there'd be stuff like being born with OP powers, or a harem, or crap like that, but the reality isn't that kind. In my old life, it was this kind of conceit that was why I had such a hard time.
God had even given me a second chance at life.