by Ko Hiratori
“...I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, Haru.”
I told Lupe I wasn’t mad at her at all. I smiled and told her I wouldn’t hold a grudge against her for briefly thinking I was the culprit.
“But Haru, you made such a big deal out of the whole thing. It’s just panties.” Chiba was still tied up, but he teased me like a doofus as if he considered the whole incident over and done with.
My temples twitched.
“I even came to return them, but then you were going on about execution—that’s so overkill. You’re the one who made this so ridiculous. You should think about what you’ve done. Oh, and untie me.”
His babble was so infuriatingly infuriating that I couldn’t even make normal comebacks like,But whose fault was it in the first place, huh?or,Who the hell wants their panties back after you did God-knows-what to them?
Which made me remember: I didn’t care about the murder mystery. This was about how much I wanted to teach that fucking panty thief a lesson!
Deactivate Level Bind!
I unleashed my combat level. My skills Sword Fighting +150, Martial Arts +120, Speed +140, Accuracy +100, Dynamic Visual Acuity: Divine, Peripheral Vision: Cosmic, and Reaction Speed: Light activated. Immunity to Status Effects, Immunity to Attack Magic, and Instadeath Immunity activated. Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Thunder, and Summoning Magic—unlocked, all with the boost of Sage’s Wisdom. Dual Spell—activated. Skill Killer—activated. Double Blade, Bastard Sword, Charge Spear, Aegis—activated. Embody Armament Concept and Sermon to Eradicate Dead Souls—on standby.
Status List—activated.
I checked my level against Chiba’s. And snorted. “...If you have any last words, better say them now, Chiba.”
“C’mon, Haru, calm down. Chiba’s sorry for what he did. Right?” Lupe frantically put herself between us to stop me.
Oh yeah.I couldn’t act this way in front of her.Chill. You can’t snap. You decided you would live your life in this other world as a pacifist. I’m a normal girl. I’m super against violence.
“Hey, hey, what the heck? Are you all mad again? Violent girls have gone out of style! Not that your violence is anything but cute to me as the cheat-skilled protagonist, but enough is enough, yeah? Just untie me already! How do you even know how to tie someone up like this? Are you some kind of bondage freak?”
At the cafe I had been thinking that cheat skills were handy and great, and that I felt sort of bad for enjoying my not-at-all-ordinary life, and whatever, but that was a mistake.
In the end, today I used three skills:
Dig
Bind
Candle
Look what you made this JK do, other world!
Jaysohlbrother’s Kitchen
My name is Jaysohlbrother. But Miss Haru says, “Sumo is better,” so I go by Sumo most of the time now.
I’m Sumo. I’d like to cook something today. No, I mean, I cook everyday, but Miss Haru says, “You can’t be a celebrity chef unless you can talk at the same time,” so I’m going to practice cooking and talking. I don’t know what “cele” or “britychef” means, but I’m making it my goal to be one. Miss Haru says, “If anyone can do it, you can, Sumo.”
So then about that cooking. I guess anything is fine, but let’s grill some meat.
This is mangameat. At Jay’s Cafe, we call this thick cut with a bone through the middle “mangameat.” It’s our specialty.
The name is said to have come about when, decades ago, one of my predecessors was in pursuit of a new shape of meat. A famous boy adventurer at the time strolled by and said, “It looks like meat from a manga!” That’s where they got the name. But apparently no one knows what a manga is. Actually, Miss Haru made a strange comment too. She said, “Looks like something Luffy would like.”
Now then, the way to cook this meat is just to grill it well. After searing the outside on high heat, we just keep it turning it until it cooks through. Once it’s cooked to some extent, it’s time to season it.
Jay’s Cafe’s special blend consists of forest salt mixed with erb powder and peppe seeds. At Miss Haru’s suggestion, we started selling it. To us, the idea of selling just the spices was pretty shocking, but contrary to our expectations, there are lots of people who buy it on their way out. Miss Haru is amazing.
So we sprinkle this seasoning on the meat. Miss Haru said that sprinkling it from up as high up as possible will help make sure the meat gets coated evenly. We hug our bent elbows into our sides and drop the spices pinched between our fingers.
Apparently Miss Haru likes this. She often requests that I “do it sexier.” I worry the flavor will be too strong, but since it makes her happy, I sprinkle quite a bit.
So that’s how the meat goes. We mainly do meat here, so we have a lot of grills, and there are cooks manning each of them so we don’t keep customers waiting. But Miss Haru says, “The way you plate the food is too rough. It’s all meat—no balance at all,” so we don’t score very high. And she says, “This isn’t the sort of thing girls want to eat,” as she’s chomping into a mangameat.
The idea of serving things girls want to eat is quite a challenge. For one thing, girls don’t come to the cafe. Well, not besides Miss Haru and her friends.
I want to prepare things for Miss Haru when I can, but in terms of business, it might be tough. My old man lets me do as I like on the condition that I’m personally in the kitchen, but he also doesn’t want me making anything too strange.
Lately I’ve been making sweets, but I’ve also come up with some new dishes. We set up some open-air seating in front of the cafe (Miss Haru’s idea), and Miss Haru and her friends advertise what a good time they’re having drinking their tea, but if you ask me whether we’ll really be able to build up a business aimed at women I’d have to say that honestly, uh...yeah.
But we’ve only just started. The stuff Miss Haru comes up with is so amazing that sometimes it’s beyond my understanding, but I believe in her and want to see her ideas through. My old man and the regulars laugh at me, saying, “That lady really perked you up,” but...I think Miss Haru needs a place she can be that isn’t the brothel. Yeah.
While the meat grills, let’s make a cake. The batter is made with vloua powder, sugar, eggs, and ream grass juice. What you do is simmer the ream grass. The water will turn white. Once it’s cooled, you scoop out the top layer. If you beat it, it thickens up and becomes more solid, but Miss Haru seems to like it better as a liquid. Still, ream keeps better as a solid, so this time we’ll do that. Both gimli and ream are grown with wind alphytemagic which helps the cake rise well and come out fluffy.
After adding some sugar to the ream juice and whipping it into clouds, you spread it between the baked cake layers and on top. Besides ream grass, you can brush it with melted sugar, mix in roasted cao nuts, and use different fruit jams and whatnot as variations when you decorate it.
I find this decorating part the most fun, or rather, I’m confident in my skills, and when I do a good job, it makes Miss Haru super happy. Miss Haru puts a lot of emphasis on the appearance of her food. She says that “pretty,” “cool,” or “instaworthy” foods will attract customers. Even if I don’t understand what it means, if it makes Miss Haru happy, I want to make things instaworthy.
This time we’re making a normal round cake. Pour the batter into a palm-sized pan of heetrezist leaves and bake. When it’s done, you just pile the ream juice on top. You can add fruit, too.
One of the basics of cake-baking is to make more than you think you’ll need in case an order comes in, but since the only ones who buy them are Miss Haru and her friends, we generally have leftovers. Although sometimes Miss Haru comes to buy a lot of them as “apology cakes.” The other day she came in with Miss Lupe to buy cake for everyone working at Blue Cat Nocturne. I didn’t ask what she did this time, but I felt bad, so I offered a discount. When she said, “I’ll make Chiba pay for it,” I figured that was fine and gave her and Miss Lupe a bunch of my deluxe—
“Mr. Sumo, why are you talking to yourself like that?”
The flesh of my entire body shrieked. A customer had come in even though the cafe wasn’t open yet. It was Miss Kiyori. She’s Miss Haru’s friend, but she comes in on her own now and then, too.
“Sorry, I just came to thank you for the cookies you baked me last week... But wait a minute, is it true that your real name is Jaysohlbrother? Why would you hide something so important from me?”
“Uh, err, it’s because...”
Miss Kiyori’s big eyes grew rounder and rounder as she brought her face closer. Apparently she had been listening from the beginning. The flesh of my entire body trembled in shame.
I couldn’t really explain why I was Sumo, but I told her how Miss Haru had given me that name, how I got used to it, and how even my old man calls me Sumo now. I stuttered a lot, but Miss Kiyori listened all the way through, sometimes making little feedback noises.
“I see... Miss Haru calls Mr. Endless Rain weird things like Gunma, Saitama, and Chiba, too. Perhaps where she’s from it’s rude to call a man by his given name.”
Miss Kiyori is smart. I felt like I had grown to understand Miss Haru’s puzzling behavior a bit more. From now on, I’ll only go by Sumo.
“So then Mr. Ja...Jaysohlbrother. What were you doing just now?”
But suddenly being called my real name by Miss Kiyori made the flesh in my face stiffen. Not only was it awkward to have been caught narrating my cooking to myself, but having a woman around the same age as me calling me by my real name got me all flustered for the first time in a while.
“Um, ahh...” I’m not very good at speaking. I’m confident when I talk to myself, but especially with women, I tend to get tongue-tied. Miss Haru is fine talking on and on by herself so I can have fun just listening, but Miss Kiyori, how should I put this...she tends to ask a lot of questions, so it’s tough when it’s just the two of us.
“...”
But she does patiently wait for me to finish talking, so I feel charged with the responsibility of explaining.
I explained. According to Miss Haru, I needed to sell myself as a chef. She proposed thatIshould be attracting customers, not the cafe.
Honestly, I don’t really feel like I’m cut out for it. For example, the idea of opening a cooking school for women to gain women customers. She says that people would be happy to reproduce the flavors of the cafe at home.
They might be happy, but the cooking I do isn’t all that complicated, so if they learn to make it at home, I feel like they’ll probably stop coming to the cafe. So though I’m aiming to be a celebrity chef, I’m not really sure how everything will turn out. That’s what I tried to explain.
“Aha. Bringing people together through cooking. Sounds very Miss Haru.” Miss Kiyori nodded. “Mr. Jaysohlbrother, it might not be a bad idea to try it. Restaurants have been completely ignoring the potential of women customers. And I think if you’re teaching them to cook, they’ll be loyal customers, too.”
Loyal customers?
Miss Kiyori explained, her eyes sparkling. “Yes. They’ll be customers, but also apprentices. There are no other cafes like that, so I’m sure word will spread even beyond this city. Once that happens, even people who live far away will be curious about your cooking and come to eat it. And if they like it, they’ll buy the cafe’s seasoning. Once that flavor becomes the flavor of home, they’ll stop in to eat while they’re buying more seasoning. Expand your customer base and keep them. I don’t know much about business, but it sounds like a good idea to me.”
I didn’t really get it at first, but as I thought about it more, it started to sound really smart. Miss Haru really is amazing.That’s what I thought Miss Kiyori was saying. I nodded over and over.
“Also you don’t need to worry. Amateurs won’t be able to reproduce your cooking so easily,” said Miss Kiyori with a smile. “I watch carefully while you cook, but when I go home and try to copy you, I can’t get the same flavor. If you do open a cooking school, please let me enroll.”
Come to think of it, Miss Kiyori did always sit in a place where should could see my station while she waited for Miss Haru. I thought it was because sitting alone on the “terrace” would make her stick out too much, but she was observing my hands so she could learn to cook? Then I should have been explaining what I was doing while I worked—I really owe Miss Kiyori.
“...Umm.” I asked if I could make her something. She ordered tea.
I wasn’t sure if making tea counted as cooking or not, but I figured I would take advantage of this chance and explain the process as I went. “Today’s tea is black naeb.”
“Oh, I love black naeb tea. It has such a sophisticated bitterness.”
I was lost for words. Miss Kiyori said “love” so casually, but the effect was, mm, pretty powerful on me. I knew she wasn’t saying it about me, but it’s just not a word I hear very often from a girl. Yeah.
“Oh right. It’s Miss Haru’s favorite tea, too, right? Is that why you serve it so often?”
She can be merciless at times. I couldn’t deny it, so I couldn’t say anything. I was in the middle of trying to narrate my process, so I wished she would give me a break.
“Uh, so the black naeb tea we serve here is prepared in a pot like this.”
We put a netted bag of black naebs in a big pot and let it soak for two nights. All that water gets thrown out, and then we simmer the naebs for half a day. After that, we cool it down and dilute as necessary to adjust the flavor. Miss Haru seems to like it rather thin, so I add quite a bit of water. When I do that, though, the flavor seems a little lackluster, but when I add sugar or float some tomin leaves on top, she praises it as “tasty.”
“That’s all it takes to make tea. Tea brewed with dried leaves doesn’t taste much different at a cafe versus at home. But there’s another way to make black naeb tea. The people of the eastern side of Seigaya forest apparently use that method.”
“Seigaya...?”
“Yes. Err, it’s not a very well-known area, but they have a different culture from ours.”
They put around ten black naebs in an empty pot and warm them up. They’re naebs that have been dried and rehydrated. This time we were using naebs soaked in water for two days, but actually an hour is enough. And the idea is to use naebs that are as small as possible.
As the naebs warm up, their skin splits, releasing the fragrance of earth alphytemagic. As you continue, though, the scent of the naebs themselves comes out. Then you take them off the heat, put five or six into a cup, and pour hot water over them.
Floating a dried apple flower on top can be good. It’s just to add some flavor, so you take it out before drinking, but whole dried apple flowers release some fire alphytemagic that keeps the drink hot and makes the liquid swirl a bit. It’s fun to look at.
“Wow, it’s so cute. And it smells nice.”
“Now we just wait until it turns the color of the black naebs.”
“...”
“...”
Oops.I ran out of things to talk about. I didn’t factor this waiting period into my calculations. Putting some naeb knowledge on display would have been fine, but I couldn’t think of anything interesting.
“Uh, so the other day Miss Haru—”
“I was also wondering, Mr. Jaysohlbrother. You said you were narrating your cooking, but actually half of what you were saying was about Miss Haru, right?”
“...Yeah.”
“Don’t you think you talk about her a bit too much?”
It felt like all my body’s flesh was being kneaded. It’s true that there aren’t many topics I can discuss. Food and Miss Haru—that’s about it. No wonder even my old man calls me Sumo.
“Why do you suppose the people of Seigaya Forest make their black naeb tea differently?”
“Oh, I think I heard they don’t have as much drinking water as we do here...”
“I see. So they must not drink tea very often, then, huh?”
&nbs
p; “They drink it as medicine, and apparently also on special occasions. Incidentally, if you make it this way, you can also eat the naebs.”
Since we have no way to use the drained naebs, we have them disposed of along with the bones. But warmed black naebs soaked for only a few dozen minutes retain their flavor and fragrance.
I spooned up a few and dropped them into Miss Kiyori’s open hand. After inspecting them for a moment, she carefully put one in her mouth as if she were taking a pill.
When she bit down, a vague smile appeared on her face. “It’s a little bitter, but aromatic. The naebs must have been grown with care.”
I’ve tried eating them before, and they don’t taste very good. I felt like I’d made a strange recommendation—another failure.
But Miss Kiyori said, “This is the sort of topic I like,” which made me blush again. “You really know your stuff, huh, Mr. Jaysohlbrother? I think if you share those sorts of stories as you cook, your customers will enjoy it.”
To think my naeb knowledge would come in handy. I always thought interesting conversations were the funny things Miss Haru brought up, but Miss Kiyori seems to enjoy this sort of thing. In that case, I actually have plenty to talk about. When it comes to cooking, I’m pretty confident. Recently, at least.
The apple flower absorbed the hot water and its rotation slowed down, its petals opening on the surface. I scooped it out and placed the finished tea in front of Miss Kiyori.
“Thanks.” She held the cup in both hands and smelled it with a happy look on her face. When she took a sip, she said, “Tastes weird,” with a smile. “But it’s good. I like the apple aroma. Despite the potent bitterness, it has a smooth aftertaste. I guess you could say it’s a sophisticated flavor?”
Miss Kiyori complimented me, but I’m a cook with a fair amount of training, so I can understand honest feelings from expressions to some extent. I don’t think it’s a flavor that Miss Kiyori—or really any young woman—is bound to like.
So then why did I serve it to her? Maybe I was being sort of cocky. Miss Kiyori is always happy to eat what I cook, even if I mess up a bit.