Chapter 160

Chapter 160

Clink—

What he took out were three coins engraved with a fork and a knife.

Roan accepted them and spoke calmly.

“Let’s go.”

“Uh? Yes? But…”

Yusina and Sion sent looks asking if it was really alright to leave a student who looked like a beggar and had just hit the back of his head hard.

“He is an employee at the place we are going to. He is just dressed like that for a disguise.”

“Is that true?”

Hearing Roan’s explanation, Yusina asked the student.

Only then did the student, whose pain had subsided to some extent, smile slightly and nod.

“Yes, Saintess. You don’t have to worry about me. No, more importantly, are you Darc? Aren’t you a freshman?”

“That’s correct.”

“…? But how did you know about me? Did the Saintess tell you?”

The student asked, looking as if he did not understand the situation.

Even if they said Yusina had told him, she herself seemed not to know him very well.

Was his brain not working well because he hit his head?

…Actually, setting aside such questions, it was a situation that was hard for anyone to understand.

“Well, I heard rumors here and there… let’s get going.”

“Ah, yes. Wait a moment.”

Despite Roan’s urging, Yusina finally left only after treating the back of the student’s head to some extent.

“T-Thank you, Saintess! I am Rendol, a third-year! It is an honor!”

“Yes, greet me when we meet next time~”

Rendol, who seemed deeply moved by Yusina’s kindness, bowed repeatedly while sitting.

Yusina also waved her hand to Rendol.

She then asked Roan again.

“Is he really an employee? But why does he look like a beggar?”

“I said it’s a disguise.”

“But he stands out even more like that.”

“…”

Roan was left speechless.

In truth, Yusina was right.

If an Akerandir student sat in an alley looking like that, he was honestly just as suspicious as a black mage.

‘It’s just that the game developers set it up like that, so there’s nothing I can do about it.’

Yet, he couldn’t tell her the real reason.

Roan made up a roughly plausible excuse.

“Because the people looking for the restaurant need to be able to recognize him.”

“Ah, is that so?”

Fortunately, Yusina and Sion seemed to understand well enough.

Going in a bit further, the restaurant Roan wanted to visit appeared.

At the end of the dead-end alley sat a worn-out door, and above it hung a signboard dangling vertically, having lost a nail on one side.

—No Entry, The Pit—

It was written like this on the signboard.

“…Darc, is this really a restaurant?”

Sion asked with a frown.

Having to buy coins from a beggar employee, a place with a signboard like this didn’t seem like a normal restaurant at all.

Roan smirked and nodded.

“It’s a pretty good place. You’ll like it.”

“Really?”

While wearing an expression of surprise, Sion quickly shouted fiercely,

“G-Go in first!”

Watching Sion take a step back from Roan, Yusina asked curiously,

“What’s wrong, Sion?”

“When we went to the clubroom for the first time, Darc—”

Sion still vividly remembered Roan’s atrocity of pushing her into the entrance of the clubroom—where they might be attacked.

“I will.”

Roan opened the door first before any useless misunderstanding (?) could arise.

Creak—

“Huh?”

Contrary to the exterior, which looked as if it were collapsing, the interior was quite cozy and had a good atmosphere, just as Roan said.

Soft, jazz-style music drifted out, and though not very bright, the lighting was sufficient.

—Welcome!

—Welcome to The Pit!

And even the employees dressed in maid outfits, who greeted the three of them warmly.

“…”

Sion and Yusina looked at the employees’ outfits and stared at Roan with contempt at the same time.

Roan was slightly taken aback by the unexpected reaction.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

Isn’t the atmosphere nice?

Back on Earth, women liked places like this too.

…It was a farce that occurred because Roan, who had grown too accustomed to the bizarre outfits in the game, felt that maid outfits were almost like formal suits.

“Darc, I am disappointed in you.”

“Indeed. Being so precocious…”

Sion and Yusina turned their heads away from Roan as if they had promised, and strode inside.

“What’s wrong with them?”

Roan genuinely could not understand the two of them, so he tilted his head and followed.

Wooooong—

What a worry, what a worry.

False Divinity vibrated as if sighing.

[Oh, it’s warm and nice? Dark, too.]

On the other hand, Bel, who was ignorant of the ways of the world, found everything he saw for the first time fascinating.

‘I’m glad at least you like it.’

[Haha! Of course~ But why are those people wearing different clothes?]

‘It’s just like a school uniform.’

[Aha!]

Roan naturally spread a false prejudice to Bel.

Roan handed the three coins to the employee and walked to the most cornered table where Yusina and Sion had sat down first.

“By the way, this really is my first time here. What kind of place is this to be hidden like this?”

The two of them were already looking around with curiosity.

For a place so tightly hidden, there were surprisingly quite a few customers.

“Have you heard of Mystic Food?”

“Mystic Food?”

“Ah, I’ve heard of it.”

Unlike Yusina, who was hearing about it for the first time, Sion nodded.

“You might have eaten it occasionally in the Ricardo Kingdom.”

“Yes, though I haven’t personally.”

Roan began to explain, as if that was enough.

“This is a restaurant run by the Mystic Food Research Society. Every day, they present the recipes they researched to the customers.”

“What is Mystic Food?”

Mystic Food was a method similar to molecular gastronomy, if compared to Earth.

Instead of chemistry, they decomposed and processed ingredients directly with holy power or mana to create entirely new dishes that had never existed before.

Yusina’s eyes widened upon hearing Roan’s explanation.

“Really? Is that possible?”

“It is possible. Isn’t it similar to grilling meat with a fire lit by magic?”

“I suppose so…”

Roan used to stop by here often when playing the game, and the reason was that eating Mystic Food very rarely increased the root stats of holy power and mana.

The probability was extremely low, but since he was going to have a meaningless meal anyway, it had to have at least that kind of fun.

Though he did not bother telling the two of them that.

Yusina tilted her head and asked.

“But why do they operate so secretly?”

It meant: even so, was it really necessary to hide to the point where the employee dressed like a beggar?

Roan replied calmly.

“There are people who look down on it, viewing it as an act of destroying the purity of ingredients.”

Since it could also be made with holy power, Mystic Food was not exactly designated as heretical.

However, the fact that the food was not cooked naturally was bound to look rather suspicious to the people of the Empire.

With feelings like: would there be something wrong with the body if one ate such food, or wouldn’t the God be angered?

In the Empire, no one enjoyed Mystic Food for that reason, but in the kingdoms, where religious constraints were relatively less, it was somewhat widespread, mainly among gourmets.

“Heheh, is that so? Then I shall taste and evaluate it~”

In any case, Yusina seemed fully excited at the news that it was food she was tasting for the first time, already holding a fork and a knife in both hands and licking her lips.

“I’ve only heard about it; it’s my first time eating Mystic Food as well.”

Sion also seemed to expect quite a bit.

Just then, an employee pushing a cart stopped beside their table and served the plates.

—Thank you for waiting. Today’s menu is a course meal starting with Overgrown Three-flavor Mushroom Soup, Holy Power Reassembled Flat Iron Steak, and followed by a cake made by decomposing Epchi greens grown with cultivation holy magic and baking them with fire holy magic. The code for today’s course is the wind attribute.

“Wow…?”

Yusina, who was about to dive nose-first into the plate, froze in that exact posture.

According to the employee, the first dish should definitely be soup.

“…But this looks like pudding?”

What was served on the plate was not soup, but a suspicious deep green pudding.

Wiggle—

The pudding even wiggled on its own in an extremely suspicious manner.

“Oh, it looks exactly the same.”

Unlike Yusina and Sion, who looked down at the plate with deep discomfort, Roan was very glad and spoke without realizing it.

“Have you eaten this before?”

“…No, I saw a drawing in an illustrated guide.”

When Yusina asked, Roan made a rough excuse.

Mystic Food was characterized by presenting dishes that differed in form from their names.

“It looks like this, but the taste is fine.”

Roan said so and brought a spoon of the pudding—no, the soup—to his mouth first.

Yusina and Sion watched him suspiciously.

Jiggle—

The elastic soup, as soon as it entered Roan’s mouth—

‘…This is it.’

Melted smoothly and spread warmly and wholesomely inside his mouth like real soup.

…The chef making the Mystic Food hadn’t named it soup because they were blind.

The fragrant aroma of mushrooms and the moisture evenly wetting his tongue.

A texture enriched by the thickness of a well-brewed soup.

On top of that, the wind mana dissolved in the food lightly swirled in his mouth, leaving behind the fun of eating the dish.

The Mystic Food Research Society’s “No Entry, The Pit” was one of the top ten restaurants in Akerandir.

“R-Roan’s face is making that kind of expression?”

“No way…”

Seeing Roan’s satisfied face, Yusina and Sion got goosebumps all over their bodies.

Seeing Roan’s terribly gloomy and dangerous impression transform like that created a massive sense of discord, no matter how close the two of them were.

They then had the same thought at the same time.

‘Just how delicious is it?’

The two of them scooped up a spoonful of soup each with slightly trembling hands.

Although the wobbly deep green pudding looked closer to a magical experiment subject than food no matter how favorably they viewed it.

Munch—

“!!!”

Putting a spoonful into their mouths, the two of them widened their eyes and looked at each other at the same time.

“W-Why does this taste like this?”

“Indeed.”

After that, Yusina and Sion ate the soup even more urgently than Roan.

Perhaps because they ate so heartily, taking large spoonfuls.

Miyaaa—

Pururung—

Watching them, Noeul-ie and Locke also grew eager and nagged their masters.

[I, I want to eat too! Me too! Me too!]

Bel went without saying.

However, naturally, divine and spirit beasts must not eat food prepared for humans.

Instead, the Mystic Food industry also created food for divine and spirit beasts.

—Ah, we also have mystic feed for the cute divine and spirit beasts~

Once given the feed provided by the restaurant, Bel began to eat like a glutton.

Chirp—

Seeing how Charlotte, who was always gentle, also ate it up quickly, it seemed to suit the divine beasts’ tastes well.

—Next is the steak~

“G-Give it to me first! I am the senior!”

“Then I’ll be second…”

When the main dish, the steak—which was black and watery like porridge this time—came out, the Saintess and Saintess candidate struggled to receive it first by any means.

Roan wiped his mouth with a tissue and looked at the two of them pathetically.

“No wonder you get fined.”

No matter how delicious the food was, it was not right for people of their status to eat so undignifiedly.

Flinch—

“Well, eating well is something Lord Hiloa likes too, you know?”

“T-That’s right, you know?”

Although they seemed slightly pricked by conscience, the two of them still ate heartily.