Isekai Restaurant
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Chapter 13: New Guests
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- Silas -
"Two orders of Chicken Fried Rice is up." I said as I handed the plates to Tohru who carried them to the tables.
"Five servings of karage for Ainz-sama." Shuna came in with the new orders as soon as Tohru left. Lavinia was taking care of cleaning the tables while Sakura was helping her.
With enough waitresses things were running smoothly in the Restaurant.
Perhaps the weakest link now was the speed of cooking?
There was only so much I could do alone, especially with no help.
Maybe I should look for some other good chefs to help me out in the kitchen?
Then again, where would I find people who would be skilled enough to cook these levels of dishes? The ingredients I was working on were extremely difficult to work with. I mean except for the mysterious Mathias' Farm, I didn't even know anything about where and how these crops came from.
As I was thinking this, the door to the Restaurant opened and an old man came in.
He looked like a frail hunched old man. He had a pompadour hairstyle as well as a goatee. "A restaurant? I don't remember one being here. Did you open this recently?" He asked.
"This place has been running for several months now." Sakura went and greeted the old man. "Please take a seat. Is there something I can get for you?"
"Oh. Yes, since I am here I don't see why not. A drink of sake would be wonderful, unfortunately I have nothing to pay you with." He said, scratching his head, looking embarrassed.
The guy looked like a goofy old man and I don't know why I found him funny. "In that case, the first meal can be on the house."
A simple bottle of alcohol wouldn't cause anything.
"Hahahaha thank you so much. I really owe you for this."
She took him to the table where the old martial arts masters were already sitting and they readily made a room for him.
I remodelled the place after the paperwork for Tobio's old house was transferred to my name. The first thing was to add more rooms as Shuna was staying with Lavinia.
Although, that was hardly a problem for her as most of the time Lavy entered my room at night so Shuna had the room to herself.
And boy was it a surprise for Shuna.
The girl had been just as confused as me the first time she found out about the whole setup. In fact, the poor girl even tried to use something as useless as common sense against Lavinia. She however soon realised the futility of the whole thing and just accepted it.
The situation also reassured me that I was not the crazy one here. Sakura just had an incredible tolerance for craziness.
And while going through all this, I decided to remodel the Restaurant. The first thing I did was to construct separate areas for drinking, as many children often visited the Restaurant. It was better to separate the areas.
I even made private rooms for those who wanted some privacy.
It also helped that Rimuru, Ainz and the rest had a space for themselves now and could indulge in their activities while no one was suddenly scared of noticing Ainz's skeletal face on entering the Restaurant.
Cid joined them sometimes too.
I think he and Ainz got along a bit too well.
Rimuru had sent his Dwarves to make the place and even the interiors. Those dwarves worked extremely fast and their work was high quality too so in just a week, the entire place had a completely new makeover.
Ainz had several great pieces of furniture and sent them over to furnish the Restaurant.
Seriously, this furniture wouldn't look out of place from a royal palace.
I seriously need to visit Ainz's place some day.
When I wanted to repay them back, they didn't take money.
The Dwarves took alcohol while Ainz just gave me a list of several manga and games to order from my world.
Well, whatever he liked. I went shopping that day and bought anything and everything I could get my hands on.
I had bought the entire collection of all the top selling mangas and light novels with me and they were currently going through that. I think I heard that they were planning to do a marathon of some kind recently.
Finishing the last order, I took a bottle of some sake and went to the table to serve the new guest myself.
He looked like the group had already explained the ability to him and to his credit, the guy, while curious, didn't look too surprised or amazed either.
I had observed very few people could see my Restaurant and came to the conclusion that they must be something special or at least they were someone who were approved by the System or passed some criteria. Since I didn't know what criteria that was, I made it a point to always pay respects to everyone who entered the Restaurant as long as they behaved properly.
I even made it a point to talk with any new guest in the Restaurant.
Just like now.
The old man looked very happy to receive the sake and I placed a plate of snacks on the side. "On the house." I smiled.
"Ahahahaha thank you. You are a very good man, Owner-san. I will never forget this gratitude." He said, extremely sincerely.
"Please enjoy the food." I then looked at the rest of the people on the table. "Can I get something else for you all?"
"No, we have had enough for today." Hayato-san shook his head.
"By the way, how is that child, Ikki Kurogane doing, Silas? Hayato tells me that he was incredibly talented in martial arts." Bang-san asked.
"Ikki-kun? I haven't seen him but Kisuke-san comes here often and even takes food for him. From what I have heard, Kisuke-san's methods are working on him so he might be doing well."
"Ah, I see. That's good to hear. It's very rare to see such determined young men." He nodded his head.
"Indeed. And how is your own Martial Arts training going? I heard you were out for some kind of training trip with your friends?" Issac-san asked.
"Oh yes. The trip was very enlightening. I learned a lot about my own powers and was able to fight against many different kinds of monsters with different kinds of abilities. It was a very educational experience. We even got a chance to fight a small war of sorts at the end."
"A War?"
"Oh yes. An army of orcs had attacked a village of ogres. Eight Hundred Ogres against over ten thousand Orcs being led by several extremely strong beings. We heard of this and decided to help out the ogres since the Orcs were invading the place Rimuru lived in." I explained the whole situation to the group.
"It sounds like you had quite an adventure. Did you try Martial Arts against the Clown?" Hayato-san asked.
"Ahahahaha I doubt I would be able to do so. That monster could take down a small country if left to rampage and it was a physical skill based monster. I doubt that a simple chef like me could take him on with only months of Martial Arts training."
"Hmm? And who said that chefs can't be strong Martial Arts Masters?" Surprisingly, it was Jirou-san who had spoken.
We looked at him and he continued.
"To catch better prey and to prepare truly great ingredients, a chef needs to possess incredible willpower, strength and skill. For example, the Tempura you made was from the Sake Salmon. While it is a fish with only a Capture Level 2 it's extremely difficult for a chef, even experienced ones, to keep the flavours locked when cooking it. You have managed to do something which I think only a hundred or so chefs around the world can do. Good job on that one. But for higher level ingredients, you will have to complete the process in a fraction of the time taken for this Tempura. For some dishes I know, it can be as low as a thousandth of a second. Without proper knowledge of Martial Arts, such a task is impossible."
It was the new old man who said this, attracting the glances from all the people around him.
But I was attracted to something else entirely. "You know the name of the ingredient."
"Hahahaha I have eaten different types of food in my life."
"Silas boy, is there something special about this dish?" Issac-san asked, sensing my shock.
"I… get provided with any raw material I need by the restaurant itself when I pay the money but even I don't know where these food products come from. There were some extremely outrageous things in the list of ingredients. Ingredients costing billions. It's just that I have only been learning to cook for a year and a half so I don't want to waste those ingredients. I will try them when I get better."
"Billions?" Hayato asked, quite shocked.
"The things from the Dark Continent can go for that price." Isaac scratched his goatee.
"You just get the ingredients in the shop? For money?" The new old man asked, surprised for the first time.
"They are just kept in my refrigerator or my store room when I buy it. Oh, this restaurant is a bit special." I explained about the restaurant to the guy and after an initial shock, he listened to everything quietly.
"So you can buy anything you want for money?"
"Umm."
"Even GOD?"
"Yes. There is one such ingredient." I answered.
"How much do I need to pay for it?"
"This… I am sorry but I still can't cook it and this is a restaurant and not a butcher's shop. I am afraid selling raw ingredients is not allowed. I can sell only food cooked by myself."
He sat back and then shook his head with a smile.
"As I thought, it would never be so easy. I hope you get there soon, child. GOD is not something money can buy so you don't even realise how lucky you are."
The man went on to explain some things about his world. He worked as a Knocking Master. He was a hunter in his younger days. Just because of this, he got along well with Issac-san. He said that his name was Jiro.