We'd arrived at the city of Eastport in the Dragon King Realm—the
biggest port city in the entire world.
People here spoke the same language as in the Holy Country of Millis,
but the names and appearances of the shops were subtly different. Still, this
was the fourth port city I'd seen, so the place didn't really feel like anything
new. Once we were off the boat, I got us right to work on the routine task of
finding ourselves an inn.
As we were walking along the street, however, Eris paused and
murmured, "Something smells good."
Hmm. Like the scent of your neck right after a training session? I'm a
big fan of that one, personally. But with one sniff of the air, I understood
what Eris meant. There was certainly a tempting aroma wafting around the
area.
I glanced up towards the sun sitting high in the sky. Now that I thought
of it, my stomach was feeling a bit empty at the moment. "I think it might be
time for lunch."
"Yeah…" Eris agreed, nodding slightly.
The two of us had our eyes fixed on the restaurant that seemed to be
the source of this interesting smell. Its exterior was less than promising. The
brick walls were in terrible shape, with visible holes here and there, and the
wooden sign up top was so grimy and weathered that it was impossible to
read. Even the front door was about ready to fall off its hinges. It looked
more like an abandoned house than a fine dining establishment.
However, the smell drifting from its interior was a whole different
story. It wasn't the sort of rich fragrance that would get a man's mouth
watering immediately, but there was something kind of nostalgic about it. I
felt my stomach rumbling.
"You want to go in there?"
Ruijerd's question startled me slightly. I'd been wandering closer to
the restaurant without even realizing it. "…Yes. Is that a problem?"
"Don't you always say that we should eat at more visually appealing
restaurants?"
I did remember saying something to that effect, yes. But that was back
on the Demon Continent, where you could pretty much count on a shabby-
looking place to have truly awful food. Sometimes you'd find an exception to
the rule where everything was much better than expected, but…one way or
another, I wouldn't normally have set foot in a place that looked like this.
For some reason, though, I felt really drawn to this one. "A change of
pace can't hurt, right?"
"Well, if you say so…"
With Ruijerd and Eris tagging along, I pushed open the front door. It
protested loudly at this cruel and unusual treatment.
Unsurprisingly, the restaurant itself was also on the grimy side. Well…
maybe "grimy" wasn't quite the right word. It looked clean enough to serve
as a place to eat, at least. More than anything else, it was just shabby. Half
the chairs seemed to be missing legs, most of the tables were cracked, and
there were shallow holes all over the floor.
As one might expect, there were no other customers inside. "We've got
the place to ourselves," murmured Eris cheerfully. I guess she didn't find
anything suspicious about a restaurant being totally empty at lunchtime. It
was enough to make me anxious, of course. But for some reason, my sense of
anticipation was still stronger.
"Welcome, folks…" As the three of us took our seats, a skeleton-thin
man approached us with a menu. Was he the one who ran this place, maybe?
I had to say, his face was seriously gloomy. I mean, it was obvious at a
glance that the shop wasn't doing booming business, but it couldn't hurt to at
least slap on a fake smile for your customers…
"Rudeus, are you sure we shouldn't reconsider this?"
Wow. It wasn't every day Ruijerd second-guessed me like this. Still,
you can't go around judging people by their appearances, right?
"Now, now. The food might be delicious, right?"
Smiling awkwardly at my words, the skeletal man opened his menu for
us. There were only two items listed on it:
***
Dragon Meat, Nanahoshi Style
Alba Fish Stew
***
Back in Millishion, the restaurants typically gave you more than ten
options to choose from. Even bars that mostly focused on their booze offered
a bit more variety than this. On the plus side, the prices here were low.
Maybe it all cancelled out.
"What'll it be, folks?"
So the choice was meat or fish, huh?
The Alba Fish was a species native to the seas down south. It was a
standard part of people's diets in this part of the world; I'd already tried some
back in West Port. The menu said it was a "stew," but in this case that
probably meant a sort of fish and vegetable soup. It was supposedly a very
common dish in the King Dragon Realm.
On the other hand, though, we had "Dragon Meat, Nanahoshi Style."
I'd never even heard of this one before. I knew that King Dragons resided in
a nearby mountain range that took its name from them. They were said to be
capable of manipulating gravity itself. Was this actually the meat of those
monsters? Or maybe something that looked and tasted very similar…?
Also, what did "Nanahoshi" mean? The term was totally new to me,
though it sounded almost…Japanese. Of course, I wasn't too familiar with
the various cuisines of this world. Maybe it was a popular cooking method in
the King Dragon Realm.
One way or another, it definitely caught my interest. "I'll take the
meat."
"Me too."
"Three of the meat, then."
Once his carnivorous guests had placed their orders, the skeletal man
vanished back into the kitchen expressionlessly.
There was no water provided, not that I'd expected any different. As a
general rule, you didn't get much of anything for free in this world. This
called for some self-service. I created cups with Earth magic, filled them with
water, and passed them to Ruijerd and Eris. With a few ice cubes, you
couldn't ask for a better tonic for a weary body.
Eris gulped down the contents of her glass in seconds, chewed up the
ice, and stuck her cup back out at me. "Rudeus, refill."
Shaking my head ruefully, I filled it back up for her. Ordinarily I might
have told her to cast the spell herself, but we were inside a restaurant here.
No reason to risk her messing it up and flooding the place.
As always, Ruijerd was just sipping at his water. The man was a fast
eater, but he always took his time with his beverages.
"Anyway, it doesn't seem like there's much information to be gathered
in this city, does it?"
"I guess not. I kind of wanted to look at the swords a little longer, but
maybe we should just move on to the next city."
There were a huge variety of bladed weapons on sale here. Even your
average roadside stall had a range of swords on display. Eris had earlier been
looking over some with shining eyes, but she soon realized that they were all
blunt pieces of crap targeted at beginners who didn't know any better. Her
skills as a fighter had come a long way, but that didn't mean she could tell a
good sword from a bad one at a glance yet. Not too surprising, really.
"Hey! I'm comin' in!"
Our conversation was abruptly interrupted by a loud bang. Someone
had thrown the door open. A thuggish-looking man stomped his way into the
restaurant without even taking off his shoes. Not that anyone did here,
granted. That wasn't really a thing.
At the sound of this interloper's voice, the skeletal man emerged from
the kitchen. "Shagall…"
"Hey there, Randolph! You finally in the mood to make the right
decision today?"
"My answer isn't going to change, no matter how many times you ask.
Would you just leave, please?"
"Hah! How long are you gonna keep this empty wreck of a place
running, man?"
"Until I die, of course. It's been in my family for generations…"
From their exchange, I could make a reasonable guess as to the
situation here. Long story short, this business was struggling to survive. The
proprietor had probably taken out all sorts of loans just to keep its doors
open. This thug was probably some shady speculator who wanted to buy up
the land cheap or something.
"Wait out here for a while, at least. I've got customers at the moment."
"Customers? Oh, wow, you really do. Now that's a rare sight!"
"I won't give up on this place, not as long as I've got a single
customer."
"Hah!" Snorting with laughter, the thuggish man dropped down in a
nearby chair. With a sidelong glance in his direction, the skeletal man
trudged back into the kitchen.
It definitely sounded like times were tough. I didn't know all the
details, of course, but if the food was any good, maybe we could try to spread
the word about this place.
"That man's looking at us…"
I had a feeling Eris might overreact to any eye contact from this guy,
so I went ahead and covered her eyes with my hands. A problem like this
needed to be resolved through the power of food, not by her fists of fury.
"Hey! Rudeus! I can't see!"
Agh. Wait. Not my wrist, Eris! Oh, my bones. My poor delicate bones…
"Sorry for the wait, folks."
As I was playing around with Eris, our food emerged from the
kitchen…and my eyes went wide at the sight of it. "No way…!"
"Dragon Meat, Nanahoshi Style" was apparently a meal with three
distinct parts.
First of all, there was a transparent vegetable soup of some kind. I
could tell at a glance that it would have a simple, refreshing flavor. That was
fine. Standard stuff. But the other two parts were a different story.
First, to the left, we had a staple food I hadn't seen once after coming
to this world. It was white rice! The emperor of all grains!
No…wait. On second thought, the color wasn't quite right. There
seemed to be other grains mixed in there as well. Okay, so multigrain rice,
then. It had been so long since I saw anything of the kind that I'd gotten
slightly mixed up.
In any case, that certainly explained why the smell coming from this
place had felt so nostalgic. He must have been cooking rice at the time. No
wonder I'd been pulled in like a magnet.
Finally, there was the third part of our meal. This consisted of golden-
brown chunks of deep-fried goodness. In other words…
It was, without a doubt, karaage.
Which meant…although the soup wasn't exactly miso, and the rice
wasn't exactly white…this was a classic karaage meal.
"I can't believe this!"
"What is it, Rudeus…?" Eris was looking at me dubiously.
Understandable, since I was trembling and clutching the table with both
hands.
"Uh, sorry… It's nothing."
I never even dreamed that Japanese-style fried food might exist in this
world. The heavens had truly smiled upon me today! Maybe that Man-God
character was finally starting to understand what I wanted out of life.
Okay then! Let's go! Let's eat! Right now!
Putting my hands together, I offered a quick prayer of thanks to all the
spirits of the heavens and the earth.
"Let's dig in!"
There were no chopsticks, naturally, so I shoveled a big chunk of rice into my mouth with my fork. "Aaaah…" A single tear trickled down my
cheek.
In my previous life, my passion for rice knew no bounds. It was
basically what I lived for, especially in my late twenties; I must have gobbled
down a gallon of the stuff every single day. And compared to the rice I ate
back then, this stuff was lousy. Under the Japanese taste rankings system, it
wouldn't even have earned a C.
And yet, it was still rice. Real, honest-to-goodness rice.
For the first time in my life, I truly understood that all rice was created
equal.
"R-Rudeus? What's the matter?"
"Oh, it's nothing…nothing at all!" I wept silently as I ate, doing my
best impression of a Japanese soldier who'd just returned home after years in
a Siberian internment camp. Every bite filled my mouth with the familiar,
comforting flavor of rice.
Oh, wait. There's not that much, is there? I should eat it with the side
dishes…
It was about time I gave this karaage a try. With a greedy stab of my
fork, I skewered a deep-fried piece of meat and brought it to my mouth.
"Mergh!"
Instantly, my joy gave way to shock.
This was deep-fried meat, to be sure. But it definitely wasn't karaage.
The coating was wet and oily; the meat inside was dry and tough. And the
more I chewed it, the stronger its rancid odor grew.
It was actually making me nauseous.
Anger bubbled up inside me. You expect me… You expect me to eat
rice with THIS?!
I could eat rice all by itself, of course. I could eat unlimited amounts,
as long as I had a little salt. Yes, salted white rice was all the samurai in my
soul really needed.
And yet. I couldn't manage to suppress my fury. This karaage was
nothing less than an act of blasphemy against rice itself.
"I want to see the chef! Right now!"
***
When the owner of the restaurant anxiously emerged from the kitchen,
I started things off with a few compliments.
First of all, the pseudo-miso was quite passable. It was a simple clear,
salty vegetable soup, but it complemented the distinctive flavor of the
multigrain rice very nicely. In combination, those two dishes almost felt like
a complete meal all by themselves. Only a skilled artisan could have pulled
that off.
The way he'd cooked the rice was also impressive. It seemed like he'd
used the right quantity of water and the perfect amount of heat. In this, too,
you could sense the touch of a veteran professional. Every grain I tasted
brought a tear to my eye. If he'd gone just a little further and paid more
attention to the quality of the water he was using, it would have been worthy
of a perfect score. And I was perfectly willing to present him with a few
megatons of delicious Rudeus-brand H2O. The stuff I carefully conjured out
of thin air was tastier than anything sitting in your backyard well.
With all that said, I moved on to topic of the karaage…or rather, the
Nanahoshi Style Dragon meat.
I shredded it. I shredded it thoroughly and brutally.
That stuff wasn't fit for human consumption. How dare he serve it to a
paying customer? Did he have any idea who I was? I was Rudeus Greyrat of
the party Dead End, damn it! He'd pay dearly for this insult!
Long story short, I flipped out on the guy like a psychotic celebrity
chef in a particularly foul mood. In retrospect, I'm not even sure why I got so
angry. Maybe the fact that I was still hungry had something to do with it.
Eris and Ruijerd must have thought I'd lost my mind. By the end of
that ugly episode, they had to drag me out of the place kicking and
screaming.
Honestly, I went too far. My love for rice had gotten the better of me,
yes…but that didn't justify some of the things I said. Especially since I was only an amateur myself.
This world didn't have the kind of ingredients that were readily
available back in Japan. Even the oil you needed to deep-fry meat was
probably of a much lower quality here. At the end of the day, I'd learned that
some people in this world ate rice with side dishes, and that deep-frying was
a thing here. That was fantastic news. So why the heck had I let myself get so
furious?
By the time we left his restaurant, the owner of the place had shriveled
up completely, and I could see tears shining in his eyes. I'd definitely been a
childish jerk.
Let's do better next time, Rudeus.
[The Owner]
Business was terrible.
For the last several years, I'd barely gotten any visitors at all. Even
when someone randomly came in, they never turned into a regular customer.
I was sinking deeper and deeper into debt with nothing to show for it.
To top it all off, today a customer hit me with an absolute barrage of
criticism. Apparently, I wasn't getting my oil nearly hot enough, or trapping
enough moisture in the meat. Oh, and I should have added sweet and sour
seasoning before I put the coating on. By the end of his rant, the boy even
told me that I'd chosen the wrong kind of meat in the first place.
But Dragon had been the backbone of this restaurant's menu for
hundreds of years. What was I supposed to do if the problem was that basic?
"Man, that seriously startled me…"
A man who bore a strong resemblance to a bandit broke the awkward
silence. His name was Shagall Gargantis, and he'd been pestering me
relentlessly for years now. "Still, I think this ought to make things crystal
clear, right? Your cooking's lousy enough that even a snot-nosed kid can rip
it to pieces, man."
Shagall had an ugly smirk plastered on his face, just like he always did.
When his expression was serious, the man was reasonably good-looking, and
he wasn't stupid, either. If he walked into the right room, dozens of
subordinates would bow their heads to him. But for some reason, he liked to
dress up as a thug and sneer at me.
Maybe he intended it as some sort of a disguise.
"You're right…but…"
"Look, I understand why you'd want to protect somethin' that's been
in your family for generations. The thing is, though, you don't have a head
for business. Or the power to keep this place running."
Those words hit me like a punch to the gut. He was absolutely right. I
was a hopeless businessman. And I didn't even have any talent as a chef,
either. My cooking was clearly atrocious if it couldn't even satisfy a child
like that.
"That said, you've got real skills in a different field. Everyone's got
some jobs they're just better suited to than others, don'tcha think?"
"I suppose so…"
I couldn't help but agree. All my determination had finally crumbled
away, leaving only resignation in its wake. "All right, you win. I'll close
down my restaurant."
This place had been founded 250 years ago; it had passed down
through the generations of my family. But I'd failed to preserve that legacy.
I'd just have to carry this disgrace with me for the rest of my days.
On that day, High General Shagall Gargantis of the King Dragon
Realm succeeded in recruiting a certain individual…namely, Randolph
Marianne, the Death God, ranked fourth among the Seven Great Powers.
Why had Randolph suddenly accepted Shagall's offer, after years of
steadfast refusals?
Very few would ever know the answer to this question.