Isekai Restaurant

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1: The Restaurant

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- ??? -

I looked at the building in front of me. The place was old and in a remote alleyway in a town near Kyoto.

To be honest, it was a bad place for a thriving business but… there wasn't much I could do.

I didn't have the budget to get a better place.

And for my current situation, this place seemed to be quite good.

Thankfully it was well maintained.

If I advertised well, there was a chance I could catch the local crowd for my shop.

Right now my first priority is to hide from the yakuza.

I clenched my hands as I recalled those bastards.

They jumped on me the moment my parents passed away in the accident.

My property was taken away through forgery and bribing the officials.

But I was able to sell a large part of it away before they could get their hands on all of it.

The money I got from those along with the money in my parents' accounts was able to get me this place. A house with the ground floor as a restaurant and the upper two floors for living in this place in the whole other corner of the country.

And thus, I was here right out of High School, away from the home I grew up in, no family and friends to rely on and barely any money left in my pocket.

Almost eighteen years of my second life and this was the first time I felt alone.

I forced myself to get up, open the door and enter the building. I kept my bag on a table and looked around the place.

The Restaurant space was clean and honestly bigger than I was expecting. It had enough space to hold a dozen or so people quite comfortably.

It would still need some work before I can start work here.

My Father used to run a very successful Restaurant in the Tokyo area and my home was far better than this but that was what had attracted the Yakuza.

I don't need to think about those right now. I shook my head and focused on the work in front of me.

Over the next two hours, I cleaned the place and rearranged the furniture according to my own choice.

The day was still young so I took the opportunity to go out and buy some ingredients for my Restaurant.

While doing so I inquired more about the nearby area and also spread a word about my restaurant.

I returned back home and decided to test the kitchen while I cooked myself a meal.

It was a simple meal. Just a bowl of Udon noodles and soup.

"Happy Birthday to me, I guess." I sighed.

And that's when the change happened.

A virtual screen appeared in front of me.

I must be too tired.

Shaking my head, I sat down to eat.

The funny thing is that I didn't stop seeing the screen in front of me the entire time.

Am I really going mad?

I looked at the screen and it only contained a few lines.

Restaurant Level: 1

Cooking Level: 1

Restaurant Privilege: Level 1

Store

Inventory

Just to test things out, I thought of opening the Store Option.

And just like that another menu appeared in front of me again.

Within the menu there were hundreds if not thousands of food items.

Beside each item, there was a price and the currency changed with my thought.

… this was too detailed to be a dream.

Only one way to check it.

I went down the list and saw a chicken, around twelve times more expensive than the one I bought today. I didn't have anything to lose anyway so I clicked on the purchase button.

….

….

Nothing happened.

I guess stress is getting to me.

Yeah. Getting a fantasy type cheat in my reincarnated life… What is this, one of those anime worlds?

I ate the food and went back to the kitchen to clean up. When I finished, I decided to prepare for tomorrow's shop opening.

And so I opened the refrigerator and suddenly paused at the sight in front of me.

There lay a large piece of whole chicken in the Refrigerator… which looked exactly like the one I had just purchased.

With shaking hands I picked up the thing and observed. It was different from the normal chicken.

No.

This cannot be real.

I quickly tried to verify it.

The screen was still in front of me so I purchased another thing.

With my heart beating fast, I opened the refrigerator once more and sure enough, there in front of me was another product all of a sudden.

… fuck.

I experimented with some other things and sure enough… it worked.

Suddenly another thought struck me.

Money.

If the products are real, is the money being charged for it also real? To verify it, I quickly ran to my cash counter and opened it quickly.

Sure enough, there was money missing from the place.

I did a quick maths and the amount missing was equal to the money I had used for the products.

Tired, I sat down on a chair.

Everything was real.

I really had a new power.

Or was it the power of this place?

I didn't know.

Over the rest of the night, I explored everything I could about the System.

Doing so, I figured out a few things about this power.

First, it didn't tell me almost anything due to low accessibility.

There was a note saying 'Figure it out yourself.'

Second, everything I order comes from a place called Mathias' Farm.

Now, I had no idea who this Mathias was or where he lived but damn this guy could produce some fine crops. Each and everything from his farm was way beyond anything found in the nearby markets.

Starting from common vegetables to food which supposedly increased someone's health and vitality.

The only problem was the price it took to buy those things.

When I checked the list, it extended from simple, daily use ingredients to insane things with just as insane prices.

Finally, my cooking had improved beyond anything I had ever known.

It was even better than my dad who was a professional chef for all his life.

With all these, I finally felt a semblance of support in this world once more after all the shit I had been through these last few months.

Let's hope that my new life in this place can be a quiet and peaceful one.

_________________________________x____________________________________

It was odd.

Three days had passed and yet… Barely anyone came to the Restaurant.

I knew that the location was going to be a massive problem but still, no one even accidentally strayed near the place.

To advertise, I had some flyers printed and even offered a discount but… to no avail.

My remaining funds wouldn't last me long so I needed to do something.

If someone doesn't come today, I will go to the main streets and offer some free samples to advertise my Restaurant.

With my dishes I am pretty sure I would get a crowd in no time.

Just at this time, the door to the shop opened and someone entered the Restaurant.

I looked over the counter to see a tall man, over two metres tall with blonde hair and the same coloured beard.

"Hahahaha is this a new restaurant in the neighbourhood? The atmosphere looks quite nice." He laughed loudly while taking a seat.

I quickly went ahead to serve the first customer of my Restaurant.

"What would you like to eat, Sir?"

"Bring me a large serving of Soba Noodles and a Sukiyaki. When did you open this restaurant? I don't remember one in this area the last time I visited."

"It's been a few days, Sir."

"Oh, lay off with the formalities. My name is Furinji Hayato. Just call me Hayato, Mr. Neighbour."

"My name is Silas Evans. Please take care of me." I replied while preparing his Soba.

"Not from around here?"

"Yes. I moved in a few days ago." I answered while working on my dishes.

My cooking skills were much better due to the Restaurant System and this included my Knife Skills.

Every cut was fine and equal with the accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre.

"Hoh, that's some nice knife work. You have got a good potential for Martial Arts." He said as he looked at me from what was a minimum eight metres distance.

I smiled but waved it off as a compliment and thanked the guy.

A few minutes later, I served the Soba to him and took a seat at the nearby table.

Mr. Hayato is someone with great energy.

He was apparently a Martial Arts instructor who ran a dojo nearby and invited me to train sometimes.

While this was going on, another guy entered the Restaurant.

He looked like a salaryman.

"I didn't know there was a Restaurant here." The guy asked as he sat down, taking a look at the menu. "Please get me some Ramen and some Tempura."

The guy's name was Mikami Satou. He was a salaryman in a nearby company.

The door of the restaurant opened and I looked up to see what looked like another salaryman. This one was a bit odd as he was looking around in wonder. with a strange mask filter that he proceeds to take off, too exhausted after the day's work.

"Welcome. What would you like to eat?" I asked.

He picked the menu up and looked at it strangely before pointing out the same dishes as Mikami.

I cooked the meal soon and saw him chowing down the food with tears in his eyes.

When he finished his plate, he ordered a few more dishes in the same way and then thanked me profusely.

"Thank you Boss. This is the best food I have ever eaten."

"Eh… you're welcome?"

He thanked us once again, paid the bill and left.

"That was…" I whispered softly.

"A bit odd, yes." Mikami, who was beside me, replied. "I mean not saying your cooking isn't great. It is the best I have eaten in a long time but his reaction was strange. I guess he must really like food."

"Maybe." I answered as I picked up the bill when a strange fact caught my eye.

"The year…"

Mikami and Hayato looked at the bills too. "Did he just use fake money to do a dine-and-dash?"

Strangely though, my System did accept the money.

This thing accepts fake money?

"Let's catch him first. That's illegal." Hayato said as he got to the door. I too opened the door only for us to stop at the sight in front of us.

Tall buildings, foggy atmosphere and people walking around with gas masks…

"What place is this?"

The three of us looked strangely at the scene in front of us.

"I don't think we are anywhere near Osaka." Hayato said.

"Osaka? This isn't Tokyo?" Mikami replied while I had several thoughts running in my head.

To confirm something, I decided to do something. I walked to someone. "Hello, Sir. Do you have a change for this?"

Hayato and Mikami probably realised what I was doing and didn't ask anything. I handed him a bill the last guy had left and to my surprise, he brought out a similar bill.

We looked at the bill strangely but returned back to the Restaurant before we could do anything.

"Alright, what is going on?"

"This… first of all, let me say that this Restaurant is near Kyoto so it's not Osaka or Tokyo." I said, catching the attention of both people. "Just to confirm my doubt, can one of you two open the door?"

Hayato volunteered and the scene behind the same door changed.

I looked at Mikami and he too did the same thing and the scene in front of us changed again.

The next two hours, we discovered something amazing.

We were apparently from the Japans of completely different worlds.

They obviously questioned me on it and I told them I didn't know how but this power just came to me three days ago. The surprising thing was both of them actually accepting it.

"Wow, this is quite amazing. Different worlds. It's like straight out of a manga."

"I can't say I disagree."

"Hahahaha but isn't this a great opportunity? To meet and see the people of other worlds and get to know them." Hayato laughed out loud.

Both of those guys stayed there for a while and we talked about a few things.

I was still eighteen and couldn't drink but they could so I served them something from my side.

In return, they promised to return and bring others with them.

Mr. Hayato even offered to teach me some Martial Arts to defend myself.

Overall it was quite an eventful day today.