The morning at the gourmet restaurant Slow began by flipping over the open sign hanging on the front door.
It was a restaurant that might see one customer a week, if that, but every day, preparations were made to welcome guests.
I watered the various herb pots growing on the rooftop and checked the ingredients.
Then I enjoyed my leisure while waiting for customers to come.
“Wipe the tables one more time.”
“Huh? It hasn’t even been an hour since I wiped themmmmm?”
“We don’t have any customers, so there’s nothing else to do. You have to do at least that much to earn your keep.”
“Uuuuu……”
The seaweed-haired ghost Aris picked up the rag and began wiping the tables again.
I had temporarily hired her as an employee for the time being, but with no customers, there wasn’t much to make her do.
“Should I hand out flyers in the city or something……?”
Sitting on a wooden chair in the kitchen, chewing dried herbs like gum, I muttered to myself.
It had already been a year since I opened the restaurant.
The number of customers who had visited had yet to reach even a hundred.
“No, if I mess up the advertising even once……”
To anyone’s eyes, it was a failed restaurant, but there was a reason I ran it like this.
In my past life, the restaurant where I had worked as the executive chef had been far too busy.
Fully booked reservations every day, customers flooding in nonstop.
An insane workload where I had to work over twelve hours a day with hardly any days off.
I had started because I loved cooking, but at some point, I had lost the joy of it.
So in this other world, I wanted to run a restaurant that took few customers.
That was also why I had spent fifteen years as an adventurer, saving up money.
A restaurant like this was practically a hobby that only ate away at my funds.
Jingle— Jingle—
Just as I was bored enough to consider making the ghost Aris do some other nonsense,
the restaurant door opened, and the bell rang.
“Klaus! I’m here!”
What the hell, I thought it was a customer.
It was someone I knew.
A blonde elf girl appeared in knight’s attire.
Well, she was a bit too old to call a girl.
“Why are you here again? I’ll say it again, I am absolutely not going back to the party.”
The elf knight, Irit.
She was a comrade who had been in the same party as me back in my adventurer days.
When I retired and said I was going to open a restaurant, she had tried to stop me while bawling her eyes and nose out.
She was an elf who had lived for over five hundred years, but judging by her personality, you could say she had aged through her ass.
Even after I retired and opened this restaurant, Irit kept coming to see me.
She had one goal.
To make me return to the adventurer party.
Each time, I firmly refused, but nevertheless, she continued to visit the shop.
“Eeh~ That’s so mean. Even if I’m an acquaintance, once I enter the shop, I’m still a customer, you know? How can you ask a customer why they came?”
“Because I know you’re not a customer.”
“Aah~ Aah~ No wonder you don’t have any customers, acting so cold like that.”
“I’m kind to real customers.”
Irit naturally walked into the shop and sat down at one of the tables.
“But what is that?”
Then, seated there, she raised her index finger and pointed at the ghost Aris as she asked.
“That?”
“Yeah, that. The kid who looks like a clump of seaweed. Is this a new preference of yours?”
“She’s an employee.”
“There’s something strange about her……”
A trace of wariness settled over Irit’s expression.
As expected, it seemed there was no fooling the eyes of a seasoned elf knight.
To think she immediately noticed that Aris was not an ordinary human.
“Yeah, she’s a ghost. She got caught dining and dashing, so she agreed to work.”
“H-H-Hello……”
Aris approached Irit and gave her a hesitant greeting.
Water dripped steadily from her seaweed-like hair, and as soon as it touched the table, it vanished with a soft slither.
“……You’re going to scare off even more customers.”
“Uuu… I-I’m sorry……”
At Irit’s words, Aris bowed her head and apologized.
Was it really that strange to use a ghost as an employee?
It wasn’t as if she looked hideous. If anything, she was fairly cute……
“You haven’t changed, Klaus.”
Irit propped her chin on the table and looked at me as she spoke.
“What hasn’t?”
“That bizarre personality of yours.”
“As if you’re one to talk.”
“Even in the old days, whenever you saw a new monster, you’d say you wanted to try eating it, slice off some flesh, and cook it on the spot, didn’t you? Now that you’ve opened a restaurant, you’ve gone and caught a ghost to use as an employee…… Can anything be more bizarre than this?”
“If you’ve got nothing to do, go home. No matter what you say, I have no intention of joining the party again.”
It was obvious what she had come for anyway.
If she was going to plop herself down and say things like that, I figured I should send her away quickly.
But Irit shook her head and said to me,
“No, I’m not leaving today. I told you, I’m a customer too. Are you saying you won’t even accept an old comrade as a customer?”
“If you’re a customer, then place a proper order.”
“I will. But I don’t want to eat anything ordinary.”
At those words, I examined Irit’s expression again.
It seemed she really had come as a customer today.
“Aris, take her order.”
“Ah…… Huh? Yes? Yes! I-I’ll… take your order!”
Irit glanced at Aris with an expression of disbelief, then looked back at me and said,
“What I want is…… the finest meat dish.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“I’m serious.”
At Irit’s order, I let out a deep sigh.
She was an elf who had lived for over five hundred years.
And elves in this world did not eat meat.
For someone who didn’t even eat meat to demand that I serve her the finest meat dish.
I was certain it was some strange order meant to mess with me.
“Even a neighborhood dog would know you’re an elf at a glance. I’ve never heard of an elf wanting meat.”
“But I really do want to try it. I’ve always wondered. What it feels like when all of you devour meat as if it were the most delicious thing in the world. I want to feel that same satisfaction too.”
By this point, she could have stopped teasing me, but Irit’s expression was serious.
This girl…… had she really become interested in meat?
“……”
I fell quietly into thought.
I knew exactly why elves could not eat meat.
To be precise, perhaps it was closer to saying they did not eat it rather than could not.
The elven race, considered friends of nature, sensed the gaminess of meat dozens, even hundreds of times more strongly than ordinary people.
Once, back in our adventurer days, all my comrades had gathered together to eat roast leg of lamb.
Naturally, Irit had been there as well, and out of curiosity, she took one bite of lamb, only to vomit immediately.
After that, until the day I retired, I never once saw Irit put meat in her mouth again.
And yet she suddenly came here and made her first order “the finest meat dish.”
“What’s wrong? You gave up your fame and life as a great mage to open this restaurant. Are you saying you can’t accept an order like this?”
Irit asked me with a strange smile.
It felt as though she was provoking me, saying, after retiring on my own and leaving my comrades behind, I couldn’t even do this much.
But Irit did not know what kind of resolve I had when I started this restaurant.
That challenge, I would gladly accept.
“Fine. But not today. Come back in three days.”
* * *
After Irit left.
No other customers came until closing time.
Aris wiped the restaurant tables more than ten times just today.
Since there was no meaning in labor if she just sat around doing nothing, I deliberately kept making her work.
“Um……”
With water dripping from her hair, Aris looked as though she wanted to say something.
“What?”
“What… what should I call you?”
“Me?”
“Yes……”
“Call me whatever you want. As long as it’s not an insult, I don’t care.”
“Then I’ll call you M-Manager……”
“Sure. Then go up to the rooftop and water the flowerpots.”
I said, handing Aris a watering can.
To be honest, it didn’t really feel like she was much help,
but since I was using her as an employee anyway, my policy was to make her do as much as she could.
She was cute enough in her own way, so watching her was also a treat for the eyes and a way to pass the time.
Still, the finest meat dish to serve an elf who ate nothing but vegetables……
No matter how I thought about it, I could only take it as wordplay meant to screw me over.
But now that I had already accepted the order, I had no choice but to think about it seriously.
She had said the finest meat, but she had not said what kind of meat dish she wanted to eat.
In effect, she had left everything to me, from the ingredients to the cooking method.
The problem was that even if she asked for the finest meat dish, I couldn’t actually use real meat.
Elves were constitutionally averse to eating meat from birth.
There were plenty of ways to get rid of meat’s gaminess or its meaty aroma.
But those were only methods aimed at ordinary people.
Compared to normal humans, elves sensed the gaminess of meat hundreds of times more strongly.
They could notice it even if you dropped a tiny piece of meat into a huge pot full of boiling soup.
So no matter how I thought about it, using meat was impossible.
“I really do want to try it. I’ve always wondered.”
“What it feels like when all of you devour meat as if it were the most delicious thing in the world.”
“I want to feel that same satisfaction too.”
The words Irit had said while placing her order with me……
A restaurant’s job, in the end, was to serve food that satisfied the customer.
She had ordered “the finest meat dish” from me.
But what she actually wanted might be the very feeling of eating meat deliciously.
The countless foods we had eaten during the days we adventured together.
Naturally, many of them had been dishes containing meat.
Each time, Irit would watch from a distance as I and the other comrades ate, then have her own separate meal.
We loved meat too much to all eat vegetarian out of consideration for her.
Something suddenly came to mind.
A word from my past life referring to people with dietary habits like Irit’s.
Vegan.
In other words, vegetarian.
Vegans basically did not eat meat.
But in my past life, ironically, there had been countless “vegan foods” that called meat to mind.
Vegan hamburgers, vegan steaks, vegan dumplings……
And these vegan substitutes had been quite popular among actual vegans as well.
The irony of wanting to maintain vegetarianism while seeking foods that imitated meat.
Foods that provided the satisfaction of having eaten meat without actually eating real meat.
Perhaps Irit’s desire was similar to that of vegans seeking such substitutes.
“Manager……! I finished watering everythinggggggg!”
Just as I was roughly sorting out my thoughts, Aris came down the stairs and spoke.
“Good. Work’s over for today. Nice job. If you work like this for nine more days, I’ll let you go.”
“Um……”
“What?”
“Today’s meal……”
Aris twisted her body shyly and asked me.
Meal?
To begin with, you were a ghost, so it shouldn’t matter even if you didn’t eat.
“I want to eat that stew set meal from before again……”
“……”
“……Is that not okay?”
Did she like that stew set meal that much?
But I had no intention of feeding her for free.
“You know, if you eat that, the time you work here gets extended by ten days. Are you fine with that?”
Without the slightest hesitation, Aris said,
“……Yes. I still want to eat it.”
Are you planning to settle down in my shop entirely……?
* * *