11th day.
Early in the morning, I went out to buy lots of food ingredients and started making preparations for the food I’ll be cooking tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s menu includes a salad, a meat sauce spaghetti, and steak. For dessert we’ll be having apple pie.
I wasn’t sure what to cook, but this world has pasta and steaks too, so I figured I should be safe if I make those. Not exactly the kind of food you normally see in parties, though.
When I think of parties, the first thing that comes to mind is pizza, but there doesn’t seem to be any pizza in this world, so I refrained from serving it.
For drinks, I decided to go with water and a fruit juice with alcohol.
Alcohol has always been meant for parties, so I decided to splurge a bit and spend 3 small gold coins to purchase 30 persons’ worth of the storekeeper’s recommended liquor. The juice I’ll be making myself.
Alchemy was surprisingly useful for the cooking. For example, I was able to turn the noodles of the spaghetti into dried noodles by removing its water content after beating it. Thanks to that all I’ll need to do tomorrow is to boil it. Another example is with the juice, as I was easily able to extract the fruit’s juice by crushing it and then using alchemy to separate the juice from the other parts, allowing me to extract a 100% fruit juice.
I wonder if it’s okay to use alchemy like this.
Next was the meat sauce, but making one usually requires condomme, which could be bought from the market, but unfortunately, those aren’t sold here, so I decided to make a chicken and vegetable soup. If I add tomato and fried minced meat to it tomorrow, I should be able to make something close to it.
I stored the food I’d prepared into a wooden box coated in the sticky slime’s hardening liquid and protected by the inverse version of the barrier normally meant for blocking the cold to keep the cold from leaving, then I stored everything in a cold storeroom to preserve it.
Speaking of which, when using Identify on the cold storage, explanations for each food item show up, including the contents, freshness… etc. It’s pretty amazing. Though I guess it’s Identify that’s amazing rather than the cold storage
By the time I finished preparing, it was already dusk.
It’s a bit late to be going to the guild now, but I think it’s also too early to be going home.
In the end, I decided to go around the town first. As a result, I happened upon the church and realized that I haven’t come to pray in a while.
When I went to the church, a girl not yet twenty welcomed me.
“Welcome. How may I help you today?” [Nun]
“I have some time, so I was thinking of praying.” [Ryouma]
“In that case, please follow me.” [Nun]
The room she led me to was a wide room with many chairs and an altar at the front. Apparently, I could pray as I pleased here.
The girl told me to take my time, then she left.
A few seconds later…
A sensation that felt like I was losing touch with my body filled me.
It wasn’t a bad feeling, and true enough, when I opened my eyes next, that pure white room appeared before me again.
“I’m here again?” [Ryouma]
“Yep, you’re back.” [???]
When I turned around, Kufo was there standing.
“We met again, Kufo.” [Ryouma]
“It hasn’t been that long. At least not long enough to say ‘it’s been a while’. It’s only been a month, right?” [Kufo]
“Are Gayn and Rurutia out?” [Ryouma]
“Yeah, they stepped out for a bit.” [Kufo]
“Huh? Gods go out too?” [Ryouma]
“It’s a pretty rare, actually.” [Kufo]
“Huh. So, where did they go?” [Ryouma]
When I said that, Kufo made an ‘I screwed up!’ face.
“Erm, umm… Actually, they went to your old world.” [Kufo]
“To Earth!? Why? Are they summoning someone again?” [Ryouma]
“No, no! That’s not it. Actually, they’re…” [Kufo]
Kufo hesitate to speak.
“If it’s hard to say, you don’t have to.” [Ryouma]
“Hmm……… If it’s you, maybe it’s okay. Right. They went sightseeing.” [Kufo]
“Hah?” [Ryouma]
Sightseeing?
“Rurutia is going around eating the sweets of your world, while Gayn has taken to the songs of Japan’s idol groups.” [Kufo]
“The heck!? I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, but… Can you really go into another world for such shallow reasons?” [Ryouma]
“Normally, gods don’t really interfere with each other, but we have always been sending earthlings and mana over from Earth, so… And besides, our world doesn’t have much in the way of entertainment. Even the sweets that Rurutia has grown so fond of are relatively rare over here. And the sweets that we do have can’t compare to the ones in your world.” [Kufo]
“Well, that’s true, I suppose.” [Ryouma]
“I also explored the secluded areas of earth just recently, actually. As the god of life, I went to see the organisms that could survive even in harsh conditions. Like the Amazons, the Sahara desert, the Atlantis, or the deep sea.” [Kufo]
“I’m pretty sure one of those isn’t like the others!” [Ryouma]
“Keep this a secret, okay? It would be a huge hit to our reputation if people were to find out.” [Kufo]
“Hey, don’t ignore me. Anyway, even if I told others, they wouldn’t believe me.” [Ryouma]
“Well, that’s true.” [Ryouma]
Kufo cackled in a way that suited his appearance.
…If not for the scale of our conversation, I would have forgotten that he’s a god.
“I don’t know about Gayn’s idol groups, but couldn’t Rurutia just make sweets more popular in this world? There are a lot of otherworlders here, right?” [Ryouma]
“Right, but it’s not easy to spread recipes. We don’t have internet here like you do on Earth, after all. You’re aware that food loaded with spice here are a luxury, right?” [Kufo]
“Yes.” [Ryouma]
“A couple have been passed down among aristocrats and the royal family as luxury goods, but commoners could never procure the ingredients to make them. That’s why even if otherworlders try to cook their hometown’s food here, the number of people that could emulate them is limited, and the recipe is unlikely to be handed down. And even if it does get handed down, odds are that it’ll eventually be forgotten. For example, just recently, you’ve met a person known as Pioro Saionji, right?” [Kufo]
“Yes. So, he really is an otherworlder’s descendant. I figured he might be after hearing his last name.” [Ryouma]
“That otherworlder was the son of an okonomiyaki shop owner and was studying at a cooking school.
When he came to this world, he tried making okonomiyaki, but he couldn’t make the sauce because he couldn’t procure the seafood needed. So in order to gather the ingredients, he traveled the whole world, working as a peddler to cover the expenses. As a result, he managed to make the okonomiyaki he so wanted, but unfortunately, it didn’t spread.
So he used the connections he made and knowledge of ingredients he learned along his journey to put up a company. That company is none other than the current Saionji Company.
Another way of putting it is that he was born at a period where unless one travelled the whole world to gather the ingredients, it wouldn’t be possible to make okonomiyaki. Nowadays, there are other people trying to copy the Saionji company, so those ingredients are a lot easier to get.” [Kufo]
Something like that happened, huh…
“There are other things too other than food. Like technology or knowledge. But not all otherworlders ar eas passionate as him. Some were eager but lacked the ability or knowledge, some had bad luck and failed, and then there were those who failed to hand down their knowledge because of war or other otherworlders.”
“Makes sense… But what do you mean by other otherworlders being the reason they failed? Did they hand down something even better?” [Ryouma]
“…I can only blame it on bad luck, but there was a medical student who came to this world in the past and spread his knowledge on medicine and diseases. But now there’s no such knowledge right?” [Kufo]
“Yeah. The guild master didn’t even know about infectious diseases.” [Ryouma]
“Actually, there was a girl who once wanted to become a saint. She was the person before your predecessor.” [Kufo]
“A saint? You mean that stuff that holds a high position in the church or something?” [Ryouma]
“Right, that one. Someone who uses the divine to heal people. She wanted to live like that and be spoiled. Oh, but she wasn’t a bad kid by any means. She loved to go, “I want to be spoiled!” But she genuinely wanted to save others.
That’s why Rurutia, Gayn, and I gave her our divine protection, so that she might be able to heal other people. Her power wasn’t strong enough to revive the dead, but it was enough for her to heal anyone as long as they had a sliver or breath left. Along with that we also gave her a power that rendered her completely immune to all poison, diseases, and injuries. At the same time, she also could not be bound by anyone.
Like that she lived as a saint, but…” [Kufo]
“But?” [Ryouma]
Did something happen?
“She could heal any sickness, but others could only use normal healing magic and couldn’t heal sickness like she did. From time to time, there were also diseases that this world’s medical science couldn’t treat. When such people failed to receive treatment from her, there was only one option for them: death.
When she saw that she realized that there would be more people like that after she died, so… At the end of her life, she used the power of god and prayed, “Please make all the diseases vanish from this world.” [Kufo]
“She wanted to erase all diseases!? Is such a thing even possible?” [Ryouma]
“Normally, no, but we gave her her power directly, and she had also gathered plenty of faith from her achievements, so after adding the wishes of the people, her powers were greatly amplified and she was able to have her prayer answered. In other words, she used a trick.
But that trick was also only possible because she used literally everything she had, including her soul. Normally, the soul would enter the cycle of reincarnation after death, but in her case, it simply perished. That was the price for using so much of her power.” [Kufo]
“What an amazing person…” [Ryouma]
“Although she started living like a saint because she admired them, she was really troubled at the start. Still, in the end, she found her purpose and became a true saint.
Using the power of faith as energy may be obvious to us, but that’s not true for humans. And yet she came up with such a method… Although she wasn’t able to completely remove all diseases, the people who died due to disease in the past 400 years dropped sharply. Wounds were still a thing, though, so healing magic remained, but because of what she did, all knowledge on treating diseases stopped being passed on, bringing us to where we are today.
Although the effects of her power have already vanished, the knowledge lost won’t come back.” [Kufo]
“I see…” [Ryouma]
Still, it’s really hard to believe that one person was able to do such a grand thing, even with cheats…
“Actually, as long as you’re resolved to sacrifice your soul, you can do something similar. The effect won’t be as strong as hers, though.” [Kufo]
“Seriously!?” [Ryouma]
“When the soul of man is fused with the power of god, a great power can be born. Which is also why we use the souls of humans such as yourself to transfer mana from another world to this world.
Well, even if you attempt it, at most you can only stop diseases from appearing for a few years. In her case, a lot of people believed in her and she also specialized in healing, so she was able to stop diseases for 400 years, but in your case, not only do you not have other people’s religious faith, you also don’t specialize in healing. in fact, you’re an all-rounder.
Thanks to that though, you basically have no limits. You grow fast too, so given time, you’ll probably gain a power greater than just a mere cheat. But that’s fine since we enjoy watching you.” [Kufo]
“So in the end it comes down to that?” [Ryouma]
“That’s because it’s really boring here in the divine realm. There’s nothing to do at all~” [Kufo]
When Kufo said that, light began to glow.
Ah, this must be that.
“Time’s up, huh.” [Ryouma]
“Huh? Already? …Oh, right! Gayn and Rurutia aren’t around, so I can only keep it up this long! Ryouma-kun!” [Kufo]
“What is it all of the sudden?” [Ryouma]
“I summoned you here because I have something to tell you! Unfortunately, I wasted time talking about unrelated stuff! Anyway, I’ll just tell you the gist of it! We forgot to mention this, but as a consequence of making you young again, your mind is going to faintly regress into a child!
This happened to the other otherworlders too!
You are Ryouma Takebayashi [1], the man who lived and died on Earth after 30 years. But at the same time, you are also Ryouma Takebayashi [2], an 11 year-old boy living in this world! The reason you couldn’t keep your poker face was because of that! That’s why while it’s okay to train yourself, don’t push yourself too much!” [Kufo]
After Kufo hastily said that, light filled my vision and I was back in the room.
What did he say? My mind is being affected by my body? I don’t really get it, but isn’t this really important?
And I feel like I can somewhat understand what he means by regressing to a child’s mind…
When I was working at the company in my past life, I had a poker face that was so stiff no one should’ve been able to tell what I was thinking, but now people keep telling me that I’m like an open book. I was told something similar when I was a kid too…
In any case, nothing’s changed. I will still train myself. Still, Kufo did go out of his way to tell me, so I should keep it in mind.
I quietly thanked Kufo in my mind, then after leaving a donation, I left the church.
It was already getting dark, so I went back to the inn.
Tomorrow’s the day! Everyone’s going to be coming to my store! Let’s go to bed early and do our best!
[1][2] – The former is written in kanji, the latter is written in katakana.
