Chapter 40: Katsudon

Chapter 40:
Katsudon

This is a tale from some twenty years ago, when the previous master of the Restaurant to Another World ran things.

***

“Now, now. Don’t ya worry yourself. Ya got special permissions, ya see? Ya can use that weapon of yours just like ya always have.”

It was the first day of his battle to the death. The old, one-eyed demon attendant, likely a survivor of the great demon war, looked at Lionel with his one eye.

“But the Demon King sure is kind! For just 10,000 gold coins, you can buy your way to freedom! The same amount they paid for ya. And since you’re the fresh rookie everyone’s so excited about, your reward for winning’s gonna be that much bigger, ya hear me? If ya win today, you’re gonna be earning 100 gold coins in one go. I’m damn jealous!”

Hmph, like hell you are.

Lionel could see in the old man’s eye that he was looking at someone who was ready to head to his own death, and it pissed Lionel off big time.

“Well, good luck, pal! Your match is around noon. Try not to get yerself killed!”

And with that, the man exited the waiting room, leaving only Lionel and silence.

Why did it come to this?

How many times had Lionel asked himself that very question? Alone in the small room, surrounded by the faint scent of dried blood, he felt the uncomfortable texture of metal around his neck.

Just half a month ago, Lionel was leading a fulfilling life.

It was a life any demon of old would have enjoyed.

Yet now here he was, a magical collar wrapped around his neck to prevent him from fleeing, and all he could do was wait for death’s cold embrace.

Lionel was born with a blessing so strong that had he been born one hundred years—no, even just fifty years earlier, it was said he could have been a demon king’s right-hand man. His entire body was covered in steel-like muscles and fur, while his face had a distinguished, lion-like mane. His roar was enough to kill small animals on the spot, and he was capable of lifting stones larger than himself with no effort. His tail could smash a giant tree to pieces with one swipe, and, despite his size, he was as fast as any beast.

“Just make something tough enough that it won’t bend or break due to my dumb power.”

Lionel didn’t request the dwarf blacksmith to make a sharp sword, but rather a large, blunt object that he could wield. The weapon he got back barely had a blade attached to it, but if swung with Lionel’s strength, it could pierce iron and split a man in two with no problem.

Lionel was a man born to fight, which was why he left his village behind and threw himself into battle. When there was a fight to be had, he lived life as a mercenary with the ability to completely change the course of any given battle. When the fighting stopped, he continued to swing his blunt sword as a feared mountain bandit. It was said that any who came into contact with him would never be seen again. Lionel raised money fighting back the knights who were sent on missions to dispose of him and even served multiple large-bosomed witches. He lived life as a first-rate monster of sorts, with both humans and demons jealous of his incredible strength.

But eventually, those days came to an end.

“Heheh, whaddya think? One hell of an attack, right? I bet you can’t even move! You see, I’m confident in my sword skills. Not just the one in my hand, but the one between these here legs, too. Heheheh.”

Despite the disgusting things being said, the voice speaking to Lionel as he was stuck on the ground was beautiful.

Lionel didn’t understand. What he knew for sure was that he was unable to get a single strike in. Instead, he found himself on the receiving end of but one attack from his enemy’s thin sword. That attack was enough to make everything from the neck down crumble to the ground like a weighted stone.

“Fear not. You won’t die. That’s how this attack of mine works! In three days or so, you’ll be able to move just fine. Same with those underlings of yours. That’s how I stabbed ’em after all.”

There was no longer anyone else on the battlefield who could move. The man continued speaking to Lionel.

“You see, according to the contract with my boss, I’m supposed to get 30% of the cash he makes from selling you and your belongings. It’d be a real big problem for me and my wallet if you just upped and died on me now. Sorry, pal. Today’s your unlucky day.”

Lionel just barely managed to get movement in his neck back, so he looked up at his chatty assailant. They at least appeared to be a half-elf but had the power of a monster.

“It sure is a good thing you were born in this era though. You’re just as powerful as all the rumors said. Hell, if you were born at least fifty years earlier, you probably could’ve become the demon king. Then you would’ve been put down by Yomi, of course.”

The half-elf’s appearance was that of a boy too young to be called a man, or perhaps a young girl who had yet to blossom into a lady. Deep within his eyes was the innocent, desperate light of a child mixed with the light of a cold, sleazy old man.

“Feel free to brag about it later. ‘I fought the legendary Alexander and lived to tell the tale!’ I suppose you should probably do that while you’re still alive, but hey, your call. It’s probably less impressive if you’re already dead.”

The monster standing over Lionel introduced himself as one of the “legendary four heroes” who traveled the world, slayed the demon kings, and even killed the dark lord himself. The creature gave the signal to the carriers he brought with him who had been watching the one-sided battle unfold with stunned looks on their faces. They moved in to pick up Lionel.

“Y-you damn monster.”

The words Lionel managed to squeeze out from his throat were laced with true fear. For the first time in his entire life, Lionel was scared. He had met a being who had been fighting on battlefields for over a hundred years. Someone who had perfected the way of the sword. Someone completely and utterly terrifying.

“Hahah, me? A monster?” The creature laughed lightly in response to Lionel’s words and cast his eyes down at the warrior. “Sorry, but I don’t qualify for the role. I’d have to be about as strong as Yomi if I wanted to be considered a true ‘monster.’”

The creature then turned and made his way toward Lionel’s bed. That was where he kept all the treasures he’d acquired up until now. Eventually, he was placed in a horse carriage with multiple others.

This was the beginning of Lionel’s life undergoing a massive change. In the demon capital, he and his comrades would be sold as slaves to the highest bidder, with Lionel bringing in a hefty 10,000 gold coins alone. His buyer? Altina’s child and ruler of the demon capital. This meant they were the tribe of the demon king.

Needless to say, those in said tribe didn’t earn this status for themselves. They merely had the good fortune of sharing the same blood as the demon king who survived the war and the four legendary heroes. They had no real combat experience to call their own. That said, when the war ended and a new, young country called the Empire rose to power, they chose the path of least resistance that would result in the demons acquiring land with which to live on. They were one of the very few, truly high-class noble families who lived in the Empire.

As those who chose to lead the demons not through raw power, but through knowledge, law, and bloodline, they decided to make an example of Lionel. He was a creature who committed heinous acts within their territory and a remnant of a time when demons prized pure strength over all else. He was sent to the slave colosseum to provide bloody entertainment to the masses.

Of course, if that were all that was, Lionel had the confidence to survive. He would never lose to a human or a demon. The problem was that the other side was more than aware of this.

A manticore, eh?

His opponent in battle was a high-level monster that had been a sticky thorn in adventurer parties and small knight squads during the war. It took incredibly powerful magic (that of a demon king) to force it into submission.

Rationally speaking, even someone as powerful as Lionel had close to no chance of defeating the beast on his own.

Can I win? I couldn’t even beat that gangly bastard before…

The experience of his singular, brutal loss colored all of Lionel’s confidence. There was once a time when he believed himself to be strong, that he could defeat anyone.

Even one of the four heroes.

But reality was unkind. Lionel couldn’t afford to have such reckless confidence. He had no chance against Alexander, a hero who, like Lionel, did not use any magic. In fact, his loss was so one-sided that he even found himself thinking he was glad he wasn’t born during an era in which the four heroes were traveling the land together as a party.

This was an unforgivable personal defeat and more than enough to prompt Lionel to abandon his trust and confidence in himself. He clasped his hands together in the hopes of throwing away his fear of losing, of dying.

Psh, I’m bored…

Lionel looked like a prisoner on his way to the gallows as he stood up, trusty blunt sword in hand. He still wasn’t sure how to spend the rest of his time alive.

That was when it happened.

“The hell’s this?”

Behind his beloved blunt sword was a door. What was a black, wooden door doing in a room made of stone? Lionel stared directly at the illustration on its surface.

“Why in the blue hell is there a door here?”

Lionel turned around and looked at the door the old man from earlier had left through. It was made out of iron. In order to keep battle slaves like him from fleeing, the walls were made almost exclusively of stone and the doors made of steel. This thing was clearly out of place.

“Well, whatever. It’s not like I’ve got long to live anyway.”

Lionel sighed once before putting his hand on the golden handle and turning it.

The lion man’s ears were met with the sound of bells singing.

“Oh, welcome.”

Lionel suddenly closed his eyes, unused to the brightness of the room.

“Well, this is rare. Two new customers in one day?”

The demon opened his eyes in response to the voice speaking to him.

“Hey, old man. What is this place?”

Standing in front of him was an older, human man. He had short hair up top and a well-kept white beard. Despite his age, he was clearly in good shape.

“Well, ain’t that a way to greet someone!” The old man laughed in response to Lionel’s “greeting.”

“This is Western Cuisine Nekoya. A restaurant, get me? From your point of view, it’s a restaurant in another world. My name’s Yamagata, and I’m the master of this fine culinary establishment.”

Yamagata explained things like he always did.

“This is a restaurant…?”

Lionel looked around the inside of the room, his expression screaming, “Why the hell is this place in a colosseum?”

The place was fairly quiet. The only customers present were an older mage sipping on a glass of booze and eating some kind of brown food, and a middle-aged man who was viciously devouring what looked to be brown-colored mud of some kind.

“…Looks like you got a popularity problem, pal.”

“Right?”

Yamagata simply laughed in response to Lionel’s straight shooting.

“Not much I can do about it, to be honest. Doesn’t look like there are too many entrances on the other side yet. I started serving folks like you some ten-ish years ago, when my grandson was just about to start elementary school. He’s a high schooler now, and we still don’t really get many customers of your kind around these parts.”

“Entrances? You mean that black door?”

Lionel turned around to look at the very one he came through moments earlier. This time, however, he noticed the little bell attached to the top of it. That was likely what connected this restaurant and the colosseum where he came from.

“So, hows about it? Care to grab a bite? If you don’t got no cash on you, I can just put it on your tab,” Yamagata asked in a friendly voice.

“Well… You know what, why not? I’ll eat something. I don’t have any money though.”

Lionel decided to accept the master’s kind offer. He realized he hadn’t really had anything proper to eat ever since losing that horrible battle, which caused his stomach to remember that it was, in fact, extremely hungry.

“So, what’s good here anyway?”

The once proud warrior knew this could very well be his final meal, and if that were going to be the case, he at least wanted something delicious. If he could get a meat dish of some kind, that’d be perfect.

“Well, you’re in luck, buddy. We got anything and everything, and it’s all damn good. That being the case, if there’s something specific you wanna eat, just lay it on me. It’s a little tough trying to explain the menu to folks from your world.” Yamagata chuckled.

“I see.”

Lionel glanced at the customer devouring the brown mud-like stuff at the other table.

“Master! Another plate of this curry rice stuff!”

With amazing timing, the man had cleared out his plate and immediately requested another serving of “curry rice.”

It was a dish of white stuff topped with brown stuff, and Lionel couldn’t even imagine what it might taste like.

“Aye, you got it. Just give me a hot second. I wanna take this guy’s order first.”

The master responded to the other customer, paying no mind to the fact that Lionel was not only a demon but an intimidating-looking one at that. He may be human, but the man running the restaurant was clearly good-natured. Lionel decided to make his order.

“I guess for now, I’d just like some meat. Oh, and…” Lionel gulped. “Something to help me win… No, never mind.”

Lionel stopped himself before he voiced his own weakness.

“Aye, you got it,” Yamagata replied with a big smile and a nod of his head.

“You have something like that?”

“Just you wait and see!” Yamagata replied to the surprised lion man.

“Right then. Just hold on, and I’ll get you all set up once I get that man his curry,” said the master before happily trotting to the back where the kitchen probably was.

“…Just what is this place?”

Lionel was left to himself, a puzzled look on his face.

It’s so bizarre.

He took a moment to survey his surroundings. The space was a clean, well-kept dining room. Each table and chair were lined up neatly, their surfaces sparklingly clean. There wasn’t even a single crumb to be found on the floor. While there were no windows, there was a gentle light coming down from the ceiling. It felt like the middle of the day.

“Here you go, pal.”

As Lionel glanced around the dining room, the master returned with tray in hand. First, he placed down a bowl filled with brown soup and sliced yellow vegetables. Next to that he set down a ceramic bowl with blue and white horizontal stripes running across it. On top of it was a lid with the very same pattern, preventing Lionel from seeing what was inside.

“What is this?”

“Well, you see, it’s called ‘katsudon.’”

The master responded with a word that Lionel had never heard before.

“Katsudon?”

“Yup. Katsudon.”

Yamagata voiced the word once more and then went on to explain its meaning.

“You see, in the country I’m from, the word ‘katsu’ means ‘to win’ or ‘victory.’ The dish itself is packed with meat, eggs, and rice, so it’s full of nutrients. It’s the perfect meal for a fighting man, you get me?”

He finally lifted the lid off the bowl.

“Oh…”

A sweet aroma filled the air around Lionel, who couldn’t help but let out a sound. Underneath the ceramic lid was a smattering of light brown, the yellow of the eggs, and some sort of white substance all mixed together into one colorful food.

Lionel’s stomach let out a ferocious growl. He hadn’t eaten anything remotely good since becoming a slave.

“Take your time and enjoy!”

And with that, the man called Yamagata cleared the table of any extraneous dishes and returned to the back.

“All right, let’s see what this tastes like.”

Lionel gulped and picked up the fork next to the bowl.

“I’ll start with this.”

The large man took his small fork and gently stabbed it into a piece of meat. As he lifted it closer to his mouth, the scent of the “katsudon” grew stronger.

“Here goes nothing.”

He took a bite of the meat covered in some sort of breading and eggs…and nearly roared.

It was delicious. More delicious than anything he had ever tasted.

The first thing to hit Lionel was the sweetness of the seasoned eggs and the underlying flavor of the oranie. The two great tastes mixed with the juices dripping from the breading of the meat and sweetly spread across his tongue. Immediately following that was the meat itself. Despite having absorbed all manner of juices, the meat still had a tenderness to it. It was clearly some sort of high-quality pork, and each bite caused it to gently fall apart in Lionel’s mouth.

It overflowed with meat juice and fat, which, when combined with the breading, made for an unbeatable fusion of flavors.

“Hm? What’s this at the bottom?”

More than satisfied by the meat alone, Lionel noticed something as he reached for the next piece. There was something beneath the layer of meat.

“What is this?”

It was a food he’d never seen before. More than half of the bowl was filled with small white grains of some kind that had been stained light brown by the juices of the meat.

“Oh, this must be that ‘rice’ stuff the old man mentioned.”

Lionel brought his fork down into the sea of white grains and lifted some from the bowl. The otherworldly, magical light of the restaurant made it easy to see how the white rice had mixed with the brown juices of the layer of meat.

He took a bite.

I see. Not bad.

The large man inspected the flavor with every chew and confirmed that the rice itself didn’t appear to have much of a taste at all. Fortunately, it absorbed the juices of the meat, so in that sense it was still good. But something was missing.

I guess it’s meant to be padding? Wait a second…

Lionel realized something and immediately looked at one of the other customers.

It was the middle-aged man furiously eating the so-called “curry rice.” His clothes were in complete tatters, almost as if he had been in a storm. But judging by what his attire once looked like, he had to have been some kind of nobleman. Additionally, he was quite fit, which led Lionel to guess that he was also a skilled knight. The curry stuff he was devouring also had the “rice” stuff in it.

Watching him deliciously down the white rice and brown topping gave Lionel an idea.

What if he were to eat the layer of meat and the layer of rice below together in a single bite? He immediately brought the food up to his mouth to test his theory.

“OoooOOOHHHH!!!” Lionel roared out into the air.

This was it. By eating them together, the flavors of the meat and rice intertwined, almost as if they were destined for one another.

What is this stuff? It’s unbelievable!

He hadn’t noticed it before, but the meat by itself had a rich, thick flavor, while the rice was far lighter.

But when he combined the two into one bite, the dish reached its maximum potential. Lionel was convinced. He didn’t care how uncouth it was, he lifted the bowl and directly placed his mouth on it, using his fork to shovel the food in as much as possible.

It’s incredibleeeeeee!

Lionel’s mouth was assaulted by a wild tidal wave of meat and rice. In fact, he barely had any time to chew on the food, the sounds of munching filling the air around him as the katsudon made its way to his stomach.

The sweet and warm katsudon satisfied his insides on a level of which Lionel had never experienced before. All his worries, his concerns about the upcoming battle, had disappeared that very instant. It wasn’t just the katsudon, it was the fact that he was alive to experience it for himself. It felt like the happiest time of his life.

But all good things must eventually come to an end.

“…Wow.”

Lionel finished up the salty vegetables, drank the rest of the soup, and let out a long sigh.

“I could still go for more.”

A single bowl of katsudon simply wasn’t enough to satisfy someone with such a large frame. Lionel had completely cleared out his serving, leaving not even a single grain of rice in the ceramic bowl. While he was certainly fuller than he was before he entered the restaurant, it just wasn’t enough.

“Damn it all! If only I had money.” Lionel muttered to himself, frustrated.

The day he became a slave warrior, he had all of his treasures taken from him. Lionel had no money to his name, and he likely wouldn’t live past tomorrow. He would never again be able to experience this incredible food.

…If this were a different time, a different place, he could have easily intimidated a single chef into doing his bidding with no trouble at all, but Lionel didn’t want to. Despite being a human, the master named Yamagata had treated him like a prized customer. There was no fear in his eyes. Doing harm to someone like that didn’t feel right, and Lionel simply didn’t want to do it.

“I guess that’s it then…”

Just as Lionel was about to stand up…

“Aye, here you go, pal. A second bowl of katsudon.”

The master gently placed another bowl on the table in front of Lionel.

“…Well, you know. After seeing how you downed that first bowl, I figured one wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the likes of someone like you! If you don’t want any more, I can just have it for lunch, so don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll eat it!” Lionel nodded his head rapidly and lowered himself back into his chair.

“Great. You want another bowl after this? You can just pay me whenever you get the money. No worries.”

“Absolutely! You have my thanks, old man!”

Once again extremely grateful for Yamagata’s kindness, Lionel took fork in hand, ultimately devouring a grand total of five bowls before finally taking his leave of Nekoya.

***

Lionel stepped through the door, once again returning to the room that smelled of dry blood.

“Hrm, he did me a real solid.”

The demon rubbed his stomach, now filled with katsudon. He couldn’t even remember the last time he ate so well. It went without saying that the quality was beyond anything he’d ever experienced.

“Now then, I guess it’s time to go make some money. Gotta pay for all that katsudon after all.”

Lionel casually grabbed his giant sword and exited the waiting room with a bounce to his stroll. He no longer feared defeat. It didn’t matter if he was facing a manticore or some other legendary beast, he’d just swing his sword as hard as he could and kill them till they were well and dead. Just like he always had.

The proud warrior made his way to the colosseum having come to that most simple of conclusions. There was no doubt in his step. He knew he would never lose again.

As soon as he entered the battlefield, the spectators burst into cheers, drunk off the smell of blood and death. It was their way of greeting the poor souls who would be forced to battle to the death. In return, Lionel let out a ferocious roar that could pierce the heavens itself. This was his declaration of war against the assholes who thought they could put him in the dirt.

…But Lionel couldn’t have known.

He couldn’t have known that after effortlessly defeating the manticore with three strikes and without ever getting hit a single time, he would go on to defeat countless dangerous enemies. He couldn’t have known that in a single year he would earn enough to buy his own freedom.

He couldn’t have known that this was the beginning of twenty years at the top of the colosseum as the strongest warrior in all its history.

He couldn’t have known that this was the debut fight of the man who would eventually come to be known as the “Lion King.”