6-1 The Taste Of Japan

A week had passed since that fierce battle, and my otherworld life had entered day ninety.

Incredibly, a full quarter of a year had already gone by since I came to this world.

Back in Japan, it would be late February right about now.

With one thing and another finally settling down, I suddenly found myself aching for Japan.

I could still eat the Japanese food I had on hand, but if possible, I wanted to eat at normal restaurants.

Hopping from place to place, you know.

Just like I did when I was in Japan.

If it came to that, maybe I’d have someone run an eatery in Adros.

But I’d need capital first.

So, how much money did I have right now?

I’d been terrible at keeping diaries and household budgets since forever.

The payment for the mithril swords I’d sold so far was one hundred platinum coins.

And then there was what I’d sold off to the country: mithril (through the weapon shop owner) for one thousand platinum coins, plus one hundred platinum coins via the guild for ten thousand high-grade potions, for a total of twelve hundred.

They had wanted them in bulk in preparation for a war with the empire, so I’d supplied a large quantity to the country.

I also still had materials and magic cores I’d gathered during the stampede.

There was a surprisingly large amount left over after covering the adventurers’ drinking tab, but I’d cash that in later.

Come to think of it, the king had also given me all sorts of rewards for the stampede incident.

A big part of that was rewards that weren’t money.

Even the weapon shop owner, Gobson, told me this.

“With an SS-rank honorary marquis, there’s nobody left who’d dare mess with you now. Go ahead and do business without worry.”

Since I owed him for the orichalcum, I routed all magic metals and magic-metal weapons through the weapon shop owner, Gobson.

I told him to politely inform anyone who tried to pressure him into handing goods over by force that “Alphonse the Explosive Blaze” would be paying them a visit.

If I was going to get a nickname anyway, I would’ve preferred something like “the Bloodstained,” though.

After all that effort swinging around blood-soaked monster heads, it was completely ruined.

Even during the stampede, I’d been drenched in blood inside the dungeon, too.

Thanks to that stampede affair, I’d ended up known everywhere as “Explosive Blaze.”

On top of that, there were various other rewards I’d received, money from selling things to the guild, and the proceeds from cashing in gold plates—worth ten platinum coins—and the dragon I sold at someone’s request, also worth ten platinum coins.

Converted to Japanese yen, that came out to around 112 billion.

That was quite a lot.

And I still had plenty of things I could convert into money.

If I copied expensive items and sold them, I could make as much as I wanted, anyway.

Still, dumping too much on the market at once wouldn’t be great.

Alright, decided.

I’d build a Japanese food “taste shopping street” or a “food court.”

Or maybe a “noodle-soup alley” would be fine, too.

I immediately took Eri with me and headed to Adros’s commercial guild.

“Well, well, Marquis. Welcome.”

“Cut it out, Logos.”

This Logos—since he’d been the head of the commercial guild in Adros, a slum of a castoff city—gave off an impression of being a bit grimy.

But what kept me from feeling that was probably those eyes, holding a shining resolve.

A heavenly soul that those with muddy eyes—souls that seemed rotten—could never understand in their entire lives.

This man, Logos, was an exceptional figure with more backbone than anyone else in Adros.

He was the kind of person who went toe-to-toe with the thieves’ guild scum that ran with corrupt nobles, and he was highly trusted by the townspeople.

If he hadn’t been here, this town would’ve decayed further than it already had, and it would’ve looked even more desolate.

He was also one of the people who strongly recommended me for SS-rank.

“So, I’ve got a small favor to ask.”

“Yes, yes. If it’s a request from the hero who saved the town, I’ll do what I can.”

He said it with a warm smile, creasing the corners of his well-worn eyes and mouth.

“You know that dining district I mentioned before—well, a village of food stalls would work too.

I want to do it.”

I said it dreamily, picturing Nagoya’s underground shopping districts—places like Esca and Sakaechika—in my mind.

And the restaurant floors up in those department stores people call the ‘Nagoya 4M,’ too.

Ah, that cheap and delicious Italian lunch at JR Tower—I should’ve gone one more time.

At that place, I always had two glasses of the house white wine.

Watching—secretly—how close I was to drooling, he spoke up.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, yes, but without startup funds, it’s rather difficult.”

“For now, how much would it take? Rough estimate is fine.”

“Let’s see. For starters, if we had about fifty platinum coins, that would be plenty.”

“Got it.”

And with that, I handed him fifty platinum coins.

I still had the equivalent of about 1,150 platinum coins left, so I had plenty of leeway.

“Ooh!”

He gave me an exaggerated reaction, like he was truly shocked.

“As expected. With this much capital, we can first set up a food court inside a large building like you described, and build each section according to the plan. Then, a village of food stalls. We’ll line up stalls under a covered arcade roof, or whatever you called it. And should we also place hand-pulled mobile stalls? That way, we can swap them out easily and keep things changing. For now, I think that’s the outline.”

“Yeah, and it wouldn’t be bad to do traveling sales in the Royal Capital, either. Horse-drawn mobile stalls—or a kitchen wagon. Those can serve as advertising that pulls customers from the Royal Capital to Adros. After that, improving the transport routes and restoring public safety are essential. We’ve got a prime location right near the Royal Capital. I want to attract wealthy folks and the like.”

“Will they come? Wealthy people, to Adros?”

Logos pondered with a slightly troubled expression.

True—Adros, with its grimy impression, might have a bad image.

It was a rough adventurers’ town and a city of castoffs.

It had been a den for the thieves’ guild, too.

But I wanted to change that.

“That depends on how we promote it. At the very least, the royal family went crazy for the food. If anything, we can ask His Highness Prince Emilio to do an inspection visit.”

“Oh, then—”

Logos’s face brightened.

The adorable His Highness Prince Emilio was wildly popular with the people.

So much so that the fact itself could bring misfortune down on him.

“Indeed. Well then, let’s proceed step by step. This was your long-held wish, Al-san.”

Right—this man knew I was a Rare Visitor.

He’d asked me directly.

A foreign-looking face with dark, slightly brownish hair and dark eyes, and overwhelming power.

He said I reminded him of the legendary Rare Visitor—meaning one of martial prowess.

He greatly admired this country’s first king.

“Well, we’ll also need training and loans for the people who’ll do the work.”

“Leave that to us. We have Eri and the others as well.”

Eri smiled brightly and accepted the task.

“Leave it to me. I feel like I might be suited for that kind of work.”

Right now, Eri and the others were trying various things in a stand-style setup.

Other people said they wanted to try it too, so I’d handed over additional equipment and asked Eri to train them.

Those people would likely become instructors later for the restaurants and food stalls.

After asking for this and that, I took my leave of the commercial guild.

And so began my Japan-food popularization project—driven by my will and my investment—and this was one part of it.

“The Noodle Soup Research Institute”

That’s what it said on the building, written in Japanese.

The director was, of course, me.

This was still a brand-new project.

The building itself had already existed; I’d reinforced and remodeled it.

Here, in preparation for the upcoming “Noodle-Soup Alley Project,” I had them researching noodles and broth.

I’d scouted people—third and fourth sons and the like—who had real skill but were just languishing at shops in the Royal Capital.

Using online recipes and knowledge as a base, I supplied the ingredients and had them work.

What helped as a reference was fresh stir-fried-noodle noodles, maybe?

I did have huge amounts of cup noodles and instant noodles, but it wasn’t like I wanted to eat that stuff.

The “small-pack shaved bonito flakes” I’d brought from Japan were precious goods.

Plus soy sauce, miso, cooking sake, meats, vegetables, spices, and so on.

I also had materials obtained by breaking down Japanese seasonings and foods with my item box, as well as curry powder and the like.

If you broke down cup noodles, an incredible number of ingredients and seasonings piled up in mountains.

The meat and bones in this world were essential items for broth.

After all, monster meat existed as a resource.

Surely, I could make a magnificent-tasting broth that never existed in Japan.

Just thinking that made my throat rumble with anticipation.

Anyway, I had never made noodle-soup broth myself even once.

My cooking skills were nothing but pathetic.

All I had to rely on was online knowledge and their skills.

Here, maybe I could even try making an instant-noodle restaurant—something that never caught on in Japan (obviously).

That was originally a noodle shop run in Korea by people who didn’t know real Japanese noodle soup existed.

They expanded into Japan without really understanding Japan’s noodle-soup scene, and starting the shop was all well and good, but it apparently never caught on at all.

Of course it wouldn’t—instant noodles couldn’t compete with the real thing in Japan, which was authentic and dirt-cheap.

That industry was a brutal cycle of rise and fall, with fierce competition—shops collapsing and then new ones popping up like phoenixes, nonstop.

They probably didn’t even know that in Japan, “cup-noodle vending machines” did that kind of job.

Those exist only within Japan.

Back when 24-hour auto-restaurants in Japan were booming, I went on a cross-country road trip across America by car, but I didn’t see any dubious machines like that anywhere—there weren’t even canned coffee vending machines, which was miserable.

The coffee from vending machines was always the kind served in cups.

Come to think of it, cars in that era probably didn’t even have cup holders.

The history of cup holders becoming widespread as standard car equipment was surprisingly recent.

American vending machines back then were the worst—there were fewer things you could just buy cleanly with a quick press.

If your dollar bills were even slightly wrinkled, they wouldn’t accept them at all.

And over there, bills got wrinkled to an absurd degree.

Since public safety in America was bad, people didn’t have a habit of taking out wallets in public, so lots of them stuffed bills directly into their pockets.

These days, even American airports have wonderful vending machines.

It’s not like the old days where you often just couldn’t buy things.

Even when I was going to America, they were selling IT devices and such, too.

So that was already eight years ago, huh.

I wonder what American vending machines sell now.

I bet it’s cashless purchasing by now.

Anyway, instant noodles originally came from preserved noodles in Taiwan.

They were invented by a Taiwanese man who started a company in Japan.

Now they’ve gone far beyond Asia, circling the globe and taking it over.

I wonder if that kind of preserved food didn’t exist in mainland China?

Chinese instant noodles originally entered through imports from Japan, too.

They turned into a sea of knockoffs in no time, and now Chinese manufacturers are the top makers within China.

Well, for that kind of thing, matching local tastes is best.

If it was a Chinese brand from the birthplace of noodles, there surely had to be some delicious ones.

Though even then, Japanese people’s preferences might split.

The noodle dishes at a Chinese restaurant inside a hotel in Vegas had a sort of mediocre taste.

Japanese cup noodles are expensive, so setting the flavor aside, it seems questionable whether they sell well in China.

That was a strange story, too.

Originally, real Japanese noodle soup used to be called “Chinese noodles,” so it wouldn’t have been strange if instant noodles had been invented in China.

As for cup noodles, they started because some housewife came up with the idea and a manufacturer bought it.

Apparently the food company bought the utility model rights for one million yen, but people say that if she’d gone with a royalty contract, she would’ve become a billionaire.

Well, originally it came from that manufacturer’s ramen-in-a-bowl product where you just poured in hot water.

Personally, I thought instant-noodle restaurants—like canned-food bars—could be interesting depending on their lineup.

But that one existed only in Tokyo.

Well, even if I went, it’d probably be just once.

It would’ve been interesting if they’d put insanely delicious instant noodles from places like Canada—stuff Japan doesn’t have—on the menu, but they probably didn’t go that far.

Even Japanese noodle companies have flavors that they sell only overseas, and they won’t sell those in Japan.

Even though those are incredibly delicious.

I saw it in some article: apparently there’s an idea that “to sell as a bestseller product, it must not be too delicious.”

That makes sense—if you want people to keep eating it without getting tired of it, that’s what it takes.

People say rice is like that.

But I want to eat truly delicious bagged instant noodles.

Even if it’s limited-time, sell those overseas-only delicious flavors in Japan, would you?

Though I can’t buy them from another world.

But American instant noodles are, frankly, unbelievably awful.

I’m the type who won’t throw food away unless something truly extreme happens, yet I threw it out after one bite—same as that cold Canadian pizza that’s infamous for being bad.

Since they’re made in places like Mexico where labor is cheap and then imported, they probably don’t suit Japanese tastes even more.

Even when Japanese manufacturers make them, it feels like the flavor has evolved twice in the wrong direction.

Cup noodles from China—the true homeland of noodle cuisine—have to be better.

And while real Japanese noodle soup in America is delicious, it’s way too expensive.

In places like New York, I feel like it was around 2,500 yen.

In this other world, I’d happily pay that price now, though.

Those were shops run by Japanese people, after all.

Over here, that’d be what—twenty-five copper coins?

But in America, I heard they’re afraid of burn-related lawsuits, so they serve noodle soup that’s ridiculously lukewarm, and I don’t want that.

Couldn’t I order noodle soup for delivery online, pay by card, and make only the noodle soup cross dimensions?

Maybe I’ll make a spell like that someday.

No—if I’m going that far, I’ll make a spell that lets me cross dimensions myself!

Though for now, that seems impossible.

That’s how badly I missed real noodle soup—enough to think such stupid thoughts.

In this season, something like miso noodle soup with butter and corn would really hit the spot.

Vegas still had cheaper noodle soup, but honestly, a lot of that was basically just Chinese-restaurant menu items, and many weren’t really noodle soup.

More like “something-something noodles,” you know.

Anyway, I wanted authentic, Japanese-style noodle soup.

Separately, I’d also asked someone to develop thick wheat noodles.

I commissioned trial batches at a workshop on the outskirts of town that used to make bread dough.

Every day, they tested different mixes and changed things like water content.

For some reason, the trial noodles were ending up in the bellies of street children who’d basically moved in.

They were also making all kinds of different broths.

Since so many kids had gathered, I went ahead and built a safe house on the vacant neighboring plot.

Basically one of those street-children protection facilities you see in some foreign countries.

There was a good building available, so I asked Logos to buy it, stored it in my item box, and brought it over.

Then I copied it and built it.

I used magic to properly reinforce the foundation so it wouldn’t collapse.

I also strengthened the structure with my ability.

I also sent the children to the nearby Noodle Soup Research Institute to do taste tests.

Feeding them only carbohydrates would be a problem, so I gave them other foods too.

While I was at it, I expanded the safe house’s facilities again and tried turning it into something like a preschool.

I surrounded that area with a fence and put up boards where I’d transferred cute pictures I found online with paint.

All the kids who came to us were beastfolk children who tended to suffer persecution for one reason or another.

So, given that situation, I wrote “Beast-Eared Preschool” on it—in Japanese.

Some of them were unbelievable little monsters, like one year and six months old.

The little ones had cat ears and tails that were huge for their bodies, and they were incredibly cute.

But they were way too much to handle, so I urgently asked Logos to arrange caretakers.

When I went to peek in, they rushed me all at once.

I’d be covered in snot in no time, so I always changed into sweatpants before going in.

The kids who came running were still fine.

The ones who sat in a corner hugging their knees, looking lost—those were harder to deal with.

I bought lots of picture books and left them there.

If they couldn’t read on their own, it seemed they begged the caretakers to read to them.

But some of them came to me, trying to make me read, which was a problem.

I’d been living in this world for three months now, so I’d learned the letters somewhat, but reading and writing were still awkward for me.

Well, I guess I could at least challenge myself to read a simple picture book out loud.

I also tried making educational toys.

For starters, I began with wooden blocks.

I made blocks with the letters of this world written on them, and let them play letter games.

In the luggage I’d brought from Japan, I had colored pencils, crayons, and paints, so I put those out too.

I tried giving them sketchbooks as well.

I’d brought them thinking I might do that kind of thing up in the campsite mountains, but I’d forgotten I even had them.

I also made them handwriting practice notebooks.

I used my item box to transfer faint letters onto notebooks I’d brought as idea pads.

So they could trace over the pale letters and practice.

Twenty-six letters equivalent to the alphabet, practice books for their own names, simple vocabulary books, and pencils and erasers.

Some kids happily used them, others didn’t seem interested—lots of different reactions.

I also had them try taking turns serving meals and cleaning.

I was surprised that even the little ones handled it fairly well.

When I was in daycare, I feel like only the oldest class prepared meals by ourselves.

And even then, I think it was only sometimes—but I’ve forgotten.

In preschool, the menu wasn’t that serious, so it felt like we mostly just lined things up.

Even when I moved up to elementary school and needed proper serving, in first grade the sixth graders helped take care of the meal service because we weren’t used to it.

While developing thick wheat noodles, I ended up starting an unexpected business.

On a whim, I checked the title field on my status screen.

Huh—“principal” had become a title.

Maybe it becomes a title if it’s something you can earn respect for from a certain number of people?

The Noodle Soup Research Institute was basically me outsourcing everything, so even if they called me “director,” it didn’t become a title.

While I was busy looking after the children, a whole month passed in the blink of an eye.

And of course, I did plenty of petting and fluffing those adorable beast ears.