Chapter 20: Breakfast Special

Chapter 20:
Breakfast Special

Sunday mornings after a special business day always started with cleaning.

Normally, after the master handed the last guest her giant pot of beef stew, he made sure to clean up the kitchen to make sure it didn’t get infested by bugs. This meant he usually ended up tidying the actual restaurant space the following day.

Truth be told, the reason he did this was to conserve his own energy. Ten years had passed since he inherited the restaurant from his grandfather. The life of a chef wasn’t an easy one. Over the years, while he’d gotten much better at cooking, his stamina had dropped significantly.

Only recently had he started to feel his age, especially on Sundays following a solo Saturday shift.

Ain’t got much choice, though. If I don’t clean up now, I’m gonna be in trouble come Monday.

The master sucked it up and changed into his casual wear. He then used the elevator to go from his living space on the third floor to the kitchen on the first floor of the basement. Monday was the beginning of a new work week. The kitchen staff and waitresses he employed would be coming in. If he didn’t finish cleaning up by then, he’d be late opening the restaurant. The special business day didn’t really come to a close until he finished cleaning everything.

And so the master woke up at his usual time, by force of habit, and walked through the kitchen so that he could begin cleaning…

Only this time he stepped on something.

“Whoa!”

Whatever it was, it was soft to the touch. The master shouted out in surprise and immediately looked down at his feet.

“…Who the heck are you?”

There, directly below him, was a young girl he’d never seen before. As far as the master could tell, she ended up falling asleep on the floor of his kitchen. After being stepped on, the girl slowly opened her eyes, lifting her upper body with a sleepy expression on her face. Next to her on the floor was an empty pot of leftover corn porridge that the master saved for breakfast.

“Mmm…?”

The young girl sat up on the floor, apparently still dazed and confused. She wore an old and battered long skirt along with a large hat that clearly didn’t fit her. Poking out from beneath the hat was reddish, curly blonde hair. She didn’t appear to be Japanese.

Oh, boy, the master thought. She’s definitely from the other side.

Not only did she not look Japanese, she was wearing clothes no youngster on his side would ever wear. Perhaps more conclusive was the fact that he found her in his kitchen on a Sunday morning. It was clear as day she wasn’t from his world. The master had heard from his precursor that the doors in the other world disappeared at the same time the date changed. He generally closed up shop and started cleaning at around ten at night, which meant she had two hours to wander in by accident. This kind of incident typically happened once or twice a year at most.

“Um… Where am I…?”

Meanwhile, the young girl shook her head a few times, causing her overly large hat to gently fall to the ground. Poking out from her curly hair were two small black horns.

The young girl remained dazed for some time, rubbing her reddish brown eyes with her hand before reaching up to her head, perhaps out of habit. After noticing her hat was gone, she immediately panicked and grabbed it off the ground, plopping it back on her head. After taking a moment to feel relieved, she looked up, saw the master, and immediately froze in place.

“Oh! I-I’m so sorry!”

The young girl seemingly remembered what she had done and proceeded to bow her head and apologize, once again resulting in her hat falling to the floor.

The master watched the young girl continue to panic.

“Now, now,” he said, having regained his own composure. “Calm down. Young lady, what’s your name? And why are you on my floor?”

“Oh, u-um… My name is Aletta,” she said, still clearly frazzled.

This is the story of how these two unlikely people came to meet for the very first time.

***

It was the middle of the night of the previous day.

“Ugh, I can’t sleep,” Aletta groaned.

Aletta had kept her eyes tightly closed in an attempt to fall asleep but finally gave up. She opened her eyes. Despite being tired from walking around the city looking for work all day, she just couldn’t get to sleep.

“I’m hungry…”

Just as she spoke, her stomach let out a sad growl. All she ate before lying down was a single cobbler’s tuber. For a young woman like Aletta, that wasn’t nearly enough food.

This was the gorgeous capital city of the Kingdom, a place said to be the most prosperous of cities in the world. Just outside of it were a series of abandoned ruins. About a hundred years prior, when the humans and demons were still at war, the demon king found his way in, and using the power of the dark lord he worshipped, changed the citizens into monsters loyal to him. This would prove to be a damaging strike against the capital city, and these ruins were the long-lasting scars of that event.

It was rumored that the humans who had turned into monsters still lived in the ruins, occasionally attacking and eating humans who found their way into the area. The only sorts of people brave or stupid enough to go there were outsiders who didn’t know its history or terrible criminals who were escaping their horrific fate. It was the worst place in the capital.

After Aletta lost both of her parents to disease, she left the village of her “people” to come to the capital. She didn’t see the point in living in a village surrounded by sterile land, especially as a young woman. Unfortunately for her, life in the capital wasn’t much better.

Part of this was certainly because she was just a young woman with no connections or anything to offer. The other, perhaps stronger element, was her face. Aletta was a demon.

Demons worshipped the dark lord, who sought to descend upon the planet and make it his own. They were his servants. While technically they were once a race similar to that of the humans, dwarves, and half-elves, worshipping the dark lord caused them to develop grotesque traits, resulting in their current physical forms. Their physical strength was far greater than any of the other races, and some even possessed magical powers exceeding that of the elves.

One of the abilities that believers of the dark lord received was the ability to control monsters.

For years upon years, the demon race brought terror upon the other races of the world, waging war after war…. up until about fifty years before Aletta was born, anyway.

It was around that time that the demon race decided to use their final trump card: the resurrection of the dark lord. But before he could regain his full powers, he was defeated by three courageous humans and one brave half-elf. The ambitions of the demon race had ended in failure.

The demon king, the mightiest of warriors and possessor of great strength and divine protection, gave his own life in order to summon the dark lord. When the human heroes defeated the lord of darkness, the demon race lost his powerful divine protection. While it hadn’t vanished completely, what the demons were left with was weak in comparison. New demons born into the world possessed divine protections as weak as any human’s.

And so the demon race, their strength and magical power greatly reduced, no longer could go to war with the other races. Some demons chose to live in places well off the beaten path, far from the eyes of others, while others cast away their divine protection, choosing to live undercover as humans in their towns and cities.

While Aletta was a demon, she was a weak one, closer in many ways to the humans. The only thing that really proved she was of the demon race were the two small goat-like horns on her head. Otherwise, she was just an average young woman. This was precisely why she wore such a massive hat and decided to try and live in the capital.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go her way.

Some seventy years had passed since the war against the dark lord. Most of the people who were present for the climactic battle of the demon war had long since moved on to the next world. People weren’t nearly as hard on the remaining demons as they once were. If nothing else, being discovered didn’t immediately result in a death sentence.

That said, demons were still heavily discriminated against. If one’s identity were discovered at their place of work, they’d be fired without question. As for shelter, places like the aforementioned abandoned ruins were the only available room and board. When Aletta was discovered to be a demon, she was let go of her job and kicked out of her inn, leaving her homeless on the streets.

“Ugh,” Aletta groaned again. “I’m so hungry…”

The nearly full moon was already high above in the sky, but Aletta still couldn’t sleep, her stomach empty. She didn’t have a single copper coin left to her name.

Up until that day, she had gotten along by doing all manner of difficult day-to-day jobs so she could eat, but she’d reached her limit. Aletta briefly considered her last resort for making money but quickly shook her head and reconsidered. She once again tried to get some sleep.

That’s when it happened.

“Something smells good…” she said, catching a scent in the air.

Aletta instinctively raised her body. Even the trees and grass were fast asleep at this time. There was no way that this sweet aroma could really be food. Aletta began to check her surroundings, her drowsiness a thing of the past.

She turned, thinking she heard the sound of a cat, and saw something.

What?

That was when Aletta realized she was looking at a black door in the middle of the ruins.

I don’t remember there being a door there. Am I losing my mind?

The demon girl tilted her head in confusion. This was her fifth night sleeping in the ruins. Though she went out searching for work during the day, she always came back to sleep. She would have noticed a door like this days ago.

That smell is definitely coming from the door…

The void in Aletta’s stomach made her sense of smell that much stronger. There was an aroma both sweet and unfamiliar coming from the opposite side of the door, and it was enough to make her mouth water. The cobbler’s tuber she’d eaten earlier was already long gone from her stomach, prompting Aletta to unconsciously draw closer to the door.

“What is this? Some kind of cat?” she said.

The black door was lit by the moon up above. Aletta took a closer look at it. The handle was gold, and the door itself was made of black wood. On the front of it was an illustration of what appeared to be a cat.

The closer the demon girl looked, the clearer it became that the door was quite old. Be that as it may, it was in extremely good condition. Pressured by her empty stomach, she slowly turned the golden knob.

Ring, ring.

“Aaah!”

The sound of a bell ringing caught Aletta off guard, drawing a scream out of her.

“Th-that scared me…” she whispered.

The door had a bell attached to it. Beyond it was a dark room, nearly pitch black.

Ah, I smell something good.

The dark space in front of her was more than enough to make Aletta stop in her tracks. Yet still, the smell of food coming from within was too much, and she found herself stepping forward, closing the door behind her.

Aletta’s sense of logic tried to stop her. She knew what she was doing was against the law. She knew it, but she couldn’t help herself.

“It smells so good,” she said.

The young demon girl hadn’t had anything to eat besides cobbler’s tubers and water. There was simply no way she could resist the warm, sweet smell of food. Aletta proceeded deeper into the room, dodging tables and chairs on the way.

What is this place?

Fortunately for Aletta, her eyes had long since become used to the dark, so she could just barely make out the layout of the room. There wasn’t anybody present, but there were a number of mysterious silver doors all over.

What a weird place.

The first room was filled with tables and chairs, which wasn’t altogether that strange. It was probably some kind of dining hall. This room of silver doors, however, was far beyond her comprehension. Aletta was left with one conclusion.

This was all just a dream.

Clearly, this was a dream brought about by hunger. Lots of things about it didn’t quite make sense, but she was sure it was a dream.

The more Aletta thought about it, the more the pieces fit together. There was no way a pretty black door would just appear out of nowhere, and it was even more unlikely that there’d be a room of silver doors beyond it. This wasn’t reality.

…If this is just a dream, then I should be okay, right?

Once Aletta convinced herself she was dreaming, she moved quickly. With her own conclusion as her shield, she started to act rashly. The demon girl made her way to a small copper pot sitting on a counter in the room. This was the origin of the delicious aroma she’d smelled earlier. Aletta immediately took the lid off.

“Wha…!”

The moment the lid was lifted, the delicious aroma rising from the pot engulfed Aletta. The metal container was filled with a sweet-smelling soup of some kind. The moment she caught a whiff of it, her stomach let out a roar, like a beast stalking its prey.

…But isn’t this a dream? Or maybe it’s because it’s a dream.

The aroma only further convinced Aletta that she was asleep. This smelled much like the famous “knight sauce” the capital was known for. On occasion, Aletta had the good fortune of smelling the soup from afar. It was an incredibly high-class food that couldn’t be found in poor villages like the one she came from. Aletta had seen the soup in town before, but after seeing its cost, long since gave up on eating it. There was no doubt that it appeared in her dream as a result of her hunger.

Then it should be okay for me to try some, right? she reasoned.

Aletta swallowed the saliva building in her mouth and grabbed the ladle sitting in the pot. She scooped up some of the soup, noticed that it was filled with tiny grains of some kind, and took a sip of the sweet liquid.

“What is this?! I-It’s so sweet!”

The demon girl gulped down the soup. The still-warm liquid not only had a dash of saltiness to it but also the flavor of milk. Above all else, however, it was sweet.

“Mm!” Aletta noisily smacked her lips and slurped down more soup.

This was the first time in Aletta’s life that she had ever tasted something like this. Despite nearly choking multiple times, the girl continued to drink down the soup. She was completely smitten with its taste, being careful not to spill any of the priceless sustenance as she frantically devoured more of it.

The soup was smooth to the touch and sweet. The tiny grains mixed into the liquid produced their own delicious sweet juice when chewed on. All of this traveled down Aletta’s throat and into her once empty stomach, warming her body up. She continued to use the large ladle to pour more soup into her mouth without stopping. There wasn’t much of it to begin with, but it still disappeared in mere moments.

While it was unfortunate that the pot was now empty, Aletta let out a sigh of relief at having finally eaten her fill for the first time in ages. When was the last time she’d felt this way? It was like she was in some wonderful dream… And then she remembered that she was dreaming and let out a laugh.

“Phew…”

A wave of drowsiness finally started to set in now that she had filled her stomach.

“Mm…” Aletta sighed wearily.

Sure that this was all a dream, Aletta let her sleepiness take hold of her as she laid down on the floor. It was hard but smooth, and the fact that it kept the cold air out meant this was comfortable enough for her to sleep on. The quiet sounds of Aletta’s breathing echoed throughout the dark kitchen.

That is, until the master woke her up and she realized everything that had happened was real.

“…I see,” said the master. “So you thought it was all a dream, then.”

“Y-yes! I’m so sorry.”

After hearing her tale, the master looked at the young girl. It was a gentle gaze, but she nonetheless recoiled in fear.

What should I do? she thought frantically. I had no idea this was a sorcerer’s mansion!

Aletta trembled with fear, having realized what she had done. At this rate, she’d be passed over to the authorities and either locked in a cell forever or hanged.

Of course this was a magic user’s home! The capital city of the Kingdom was known for being a city of great sorcerers. It made sense considering one of the legendary heroes who helped defeat the dark lord, Sage Altorius, made it his home. Why wouldn’t there would be other talented sorcerers in the city?

Aletta had seen the middle-aged man before her use magic just moments earlier. The moment he pressed his hand against the wall, there was a clicking noise of some kind, and suddenly the room was filled with white light. Before he cast his spell, the room was as dark as the night itself, but now it was bright like the middle of the day. After seeing his skills in action, Aletta was forced to confront reality: there was no way out for her. All she could do was tremble in fear and await her punishment.

“Well, I guess the corn porridge doesn’t really matter all that much…” the master mused.

It’d be one thing if she’d eaten something the master made for his customers, but this was just the leftovers he saved for himself. If he didn’t eat it, it was just going to go to waste. In that sense, he was relieved that it went to a good place.

“I’m actually pretty hungry myself,” he said.

Now that the master thought about it, after watching one of his regulars, the self-proclaimed Queen, take her giant pot of beef stew home, he spent the next two days working on the braised pork. He was so exhausted that all he had for dinner was something light. Any food he put in his stomach was long since gone.

The master was planning on making breakfast, so…

“Little lady, er, Aletta, right? Would you like something to eat?”

There was no way the master could make something for himself without feeding the young woman in front of him, so he asked her directly.

“Wh-wh-wh-what?! N-no way! I couldn’t! I-I don’t have any money on me, plus I’ve already caused so much trouble for you!”

The master attempted to calm the still frightened girl. “Hey, if you really feel that way, I’d actually prefer if you grabbed a bite. You don’t have to pay a thing. If anything, it’d feel awkward for me to eat alone. Food’s more delicious when you have someone to share the experience with, right?”

“…Okay. I-I’ll have some, then!”

Aletta instinctively nodded her head in response to the man’s kind words.

“Excellent. Let’s see… You just hang on for a bit.”

And so the master began to cook. He placed some soft bread into the oven and then went to the refrigerator and took out a few eggs and slices of bacon. He placed his pitch-black frying pan onto the stove and started the burner. First, he quickly cut the bacon pieces into thin strips and laid them on the frying pan, causing them to release oils he would use for further cooking.

Salt, pepper, and a dash of milk and cheese… There we go.

Even though she wasn’t technically a “customer,” the master decided to treat her that way nonetheless. He paid close attention to getting the egg wash just right before pouring it into the frying pan. The middle-aged man then quickly mixed it all together before turning the flame off and trapping the air and half-cooked food underneath the lid of the pan. The master then turned his attention to loading a small bowl with chopped cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and dressing.

The master took the hot bread out of the oven and placed it on a dish with a clump of butter, and finally placed the soft eggs and bacon onto a separate plate, completing the meal.

“Here you go,” he said. “This is our ‘breakfast special.’ We don’t normally serve this to customers.”

Aletta’s eyes widened after looking down at the different plates of food in front of her. The master made it all look easy.

He’s really good at cooking, she thought to herself.

The meal in front of her was better prepared than any she had seen before. Even the cooking of the master and mistress from her previous job couldn’t compare. The way he put everything together felt like some sort of magic trick. Each step rolled into the next with impossible smoothness.

In front of her was a plate of eggs and smoked meat, as well as a bowl of finely cut green vegetables with some sort of red fruit on top. And that was to say nothing of the toasted bread and butter off to the side.

“Unfortunately,” said the master, “this is all I can really offer you right now. I hope you like it.”

He quickly grabbed a chair and took a seat.

“Itadakimasu,” he said.

Aletta, on the other hand, put her hands together and offered prayer to her god.

“Thank you, oh Lord of Darkness, for this, my daily bread… Ah! F-forget I said anything!”

Seeing the master say what had to be a prayer had led Aletta to do so as well. She panicked. Aletta knew all too well that the dark lord she worshipped was feared by humans far and wide.

However, the master simply gave her a puzzled look. “Hm? What’s wrong? Not a fan of the food?”

He knew little of what went on beyond the door. All he knew for sure was that Aletta described herself as part of the demon race when she told him her story. The master didn’t know much about religion and the like, so all he really assumed was that demons probably had a dark lord they prayed to.

“O-oh, no, it’s nothing,” Aletta said.

Apparently the man in front of her didn’t fear the demon god. After realizing she’d said too much, she stuffed some bread in her mouth in an attempt to change the conversation.

She was stunned. “What is this?!” she said.

It was too soft, warm, and faintly sweet to be the bread that Aletta was familiar with. The wheat’s fragrant aroma traveled across the inside of her mouth. This was truly a feast in and of itself.

No way! This, and this, too?!

Her initial attempt to change the subject ended up being the trigger that made her excitedly devour her breakfast special. Everything in front of her was unbelievably delicious.

The fresh vegetables had none of the bitterness usually associated with them, and the liquid covering them was sour and salty. The tiny red fruit next to the greens wasn’t the least bit sweet; its perfect level of sourness bounced around the walls of her mouth. The quality of the vegetables overall was exceedingly high, considering it was autumn. The crunchy texture also made for a delightfully satisfying sound as she chewed. It was magnificent.

The smoked meat, likely the main dish, was also delightful. At first glance, it looked like it had just been cooked over flames, but that was unlikely. Much of the oil had been drained from it, leaving behind only the savory quality of the meat. As a bonus, the salty flavor went extremely well with the bread.

And then there were the eggs. Never mind someone of Aletta’s lower status, even regular citizens would rarely got to taste something as delicious as these. The master used up high-quality eggs like they were a dime a dozen. When he was cooking everything in the iron pan earlier, the eggs must have soaked up the juices from the meat he put in first in order to drain the grease. Just the eggs alone were enough to call this a feast of feasts, but then there was the salt, pepper, milk, and cheese that were added as additional flavoring. All of these elements came together to create a deliciousness that Aletta could barely describe in words.

The bread that Aletta first bit into was both soft and sweet, going together with every other food in the meal. Like so many other individual items in front of her, the bread by itself was delightful, but when combined with the other foods, its deliciousness was multiplied to an explosive degree. It didn’t take long before both pieces of bread on Aletta’s plate traveled to the bottom of her stomach.

“Do you want seconds?”

Aletta nodded her head so quickly that her hat almost fell off again.

“Ha ha ha, as a cook, seeing someone like you enjoy my cooking so much is what makes it all worth it.”

The master wore a warm smile on his face as he watched Aletta ravenously devour her food. He handed her another piece of bread.

And so the two continued their meal until all the food atop their plates had vanished into thin air.

“That was amazing,” Aletta said. She placed her metal fork on the plate and let out a sigh of satisfaction. The meal was so incredible that even the small traces of egg remaining on her plate seemed enticing. She wondered to herself if it was really okay to have such an extravagant meal so early in the morning.

“Aye, glad you enjoyed it.”

Surprisingly, the master rarely had the opportunity to watch one of his customers enjoy his cooking up close and personal. As such, this rare occasion put him in an especially good mood. He hummed to himself while warming some soup in a small pot before pouring it into a slightly deeper-than-usual plate.

“Here, some hot soup. I had an extra can left over for staff meals, so.”

Aletta took the soup and was immediately entranced by its sweet flavor. The master then shot a question at her.

“Hey, Aletta. You said something about looking for work, right?”

“…Yeah.”

The master’s question was enough to pull Aletta back to the struggles of reality. Her time with the master had let her momentarily forget that the only reason she was able to have this feast was because of the kind sorcerer sitting in front of her. It was nothing but good luck on her part. When this was all over, she would once more have to continue her hunt for work.

What am I going to do?

It was just as Aletta began to come down from her momentary happiness that the master raised his voice again.

“If I remember correctly, you said you worked as a waitress before, right?”

“Huh? U-um, yes,” she answered, somewhat puzzled.

That was correct. When she was telling the master her story, she remembered mentioning that she’d been fired from her job working as a waitress at an inn.

“Well, if you’d like, would you want to work here once a week, er, every seven days?”

Aletta immediately raised her head.

The master continued. “You’d be working from dawn till dusk. As for what you’d be doing, you’d handle bringing the orders out to customers and taking care of dishes and the like. Oh, but you wouldn’t be handwashing anything. I have a dishwashing machine here, so you don’t gotta worry about that. Let’s see, in terms of wages, we can treat this like you’re a student part-timer, so… One day’d be like 10,000 yen. Over there, that’d be just around ten silver coins.”

“Th-that much?! Just for doing that sort of work?!”

Aletta was shocked at how much he was willing to pay her for the kind of work he expected. Normally, someone with no education or strength, never mind a demon like her, would grind themselves into dust for a day and receive ten copper coins at best.

Ten copper coins were equal to a single silver coin. And he was going to pay her 10 of those? A young woman like herself could potentially live a whole month off of that much.

“Yup,” he said. “Including break time, you’d be working a pretty long fourteen-hour shift, so. If you’re not used to that kind of work, it might be a little rough on you. Oh, and you’ll get three staff meals every time you’re here.”

“I-I’ll do it! Please let me work here! Please!”

Aletta nodded her head not once, not twice, but multiple times. This must’ve been good fortune granted to her by the god of demons who watched over her. If she let this chance go, all that waited for her was death. She nodded with all her might.

The master smiled. “Great! Then it’s a deal. For today, let’s just have you watch. I’ll teach you everything you need to know, so make sure to keep it memorized. This is work, so I want you to take it seriously. Also, we have a uniform here, so whenever you come in, you gotta wear it, all right? I’ll be counting on you starting next week.”

“Yes, of course!”

This was how a new worker was welcomed into the Restaurant to Another World’s staff. She was a demon girl with tiny goat horns who wore otherworldly attire.

The waitress of the Restaurant to Another World.

The following Saturday, the young woman would find herself terribly surprised by the restaurant’s customers on her first work day.

Her story had only just begun.