Chapter 44: Salt-Grilled Pacific Saury

Chapter 44:
Salt-Grilled Pacific Saury

In the light of the full moon, Koheiji surveyed his surroundings.

There’s gotta be something that can help me get away from that thing…

The wind blew, but Koheiji could still hear its approaching cries.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…”

It was the cry of a sad, cursed voice, accompanied by sounds of rustling clothes.

There’s no doubt about it. All the folks who went missing out here got done in by that wraith.

Koheiji felt chills as he recalled his first encounter with that thing.

It was a female wraith—incredibly beautiful, yet where a beautiful woman would have had eyes, the wraith had two shining red lights, infernal embers embedded with a curse toward all living creatures.

He’d heard that, once every few years, a handful of travelers on this road would go missing.

But he didn’t think much of it. For merchants like Koheiji without the money to hire a bodyguard, putting one’s life in danger was part of the job.

If you found yourself in a bar around here in search of directions, you’d hear all kinds of horrible tales: about roads occupied by packs of ravenous wolves, roads that had been cleared by adventurers who had taken out a goblin nest or two, and roads where ogre couples had made their homes.

When you’d heard all those stories, the fact that one or two people went missing every few years seemed like no worry at all. You’d have to have incredibly bad luck to pull such a short straw.

But Koheiji never expected that he’d be the one to draw that straw.

He looked up at moon shining radiantly in the heavens above. Since the ancient times, it had been said the full moon strengthened the power of the dead.

Now that he thought back on it, even his little hometown had an apprentice from the shrine keep watch over the cemetery on full-moon nights.

The reason was simple: the powerful dark magic of the full moon was capable of transforming corpses into undead.

I never knew wraiths could be so terrifying…

Koheiji’s body trembled in fear. He knew that the wraith was likely still looking for him.

When he was just a kid, he and his dumb friends once came face-to-face with a ghost. A traveler had died near the village entrance; the ghost was, supposedly, his. Koheiji remembered it being a fairly unexciting sight, a translucent man simply standing in place below the cliff he had slipped off of.

While it was creepy—and he had heard that staying around a ghost for multiple days would suck the life out of you and kill you—Koheiji was pretty sure his mom was ten times scarier when she was angry at him and ready to throw a fist or two. It certainly didn’t help that a priestess in training with only a bronze sigil to her name was able to exorcise the thing with little difficulty.

But the wraith that Koheiji had just encountered was something else entirely.

This was a real monster. Judging by her appearance, she was likely some sort of noble princess who’d died here during the great war between humans and demons.

A wraith like that, one that clung to this world through the power of its rage and sorrow for decades, or even hundreds, of years—it was said they could take down a priest or priestess with a silver sigil in but a single night.

And if that’s how a proper exorcist would fare, there was little doubt that a merchant with minimal sword skills and no magic to speak of wouldn’t last a minute. Koheiji was in a pickle.

His path lit by the moon above, Koheiji furiously searched the area for something that might come to his aid.

I-I just need something, anything, to prevent that thing from following me… What the hell’s that?!

That’s when he noticed the door with the illustration of a cat on it.

Wh-why in the blazes is there a door here…? Wait, it’s about to disappear!

As the full moon made its way to the sky’s zenith, the door slowly began to grow transparent. At this rate, it would vanish entirely before he got there.

C-crap!

If Koheiji didn’t dive head first into the door at this very instant, there was no question: he’d be killed by the wraith before sunrise.

He didn’t know what awaited him beyond the door, but Koheiji had no other option. He had to flee from the monster chasing him.

Ring ring.

The sound of bells rang out as the door opened—just at the moment two white hands caressed Koheiji’s face. He immediately passed through, closing the door behind him as hard as he could.

The wraith attempted to follow the merchant, placing a ghostly palm on the surface of the door. But the instant it made contact, the terrifying being let out a scream of intense pain; its hand was burning up.

***

Slamming the door shut behind him, Koheiji collapsed on the other side.

“A-am I saved?”

The ground on the other side of the door was neither stone nor dirt, but a floor of warm wood, clearly man-made.

He didn’t know where he was. It was pitch-black, but he could sense the presence of other living things. This wasn’t the land of the dead.

And that was enough for him.

Safe for the time being, Koheiji let out a sigh of relief. He leaned against the door. As soon as he realized he was no longer in danger, every ounce of energy left his body; he could barely stand.

Ever since the full moon had risen, summoning the wraith, all he could do was focus on running away from it. Now the exhaustion was finally catching up with him.

It didn’t take long before Koheiji’s snores were sounding throughout the Restaurant to Another World.

***

“Erm, who the heck is this?”

It was Sunday, the only day that Nekoya was actually closed.

The master had come down to the basement later than usual to turn on the lights in the dining area. It was there that he saw a young man leaning against the door, snoring up a storm.

“I guess he must’ve found his way in during the night.”

The young man was wearing clothes that would have been suited to hiking up a mountain… Actually, his garb resembled something a warrior from the Sengoku period might’ve worn, complete with short blade at his waist.

It didn’t take much for the master to figure out what happened.

Last night after giving an order of beef stew to his last customer, he’d seen his two waitresses off for the evening. On the other side, that would’ve been the middle of the night.

As far as the master knew, the door typically disappeared from the other world at around midnight. This man must’ve wandered in during that small gap of time.

“Mmm… Is it morning?”

Meanwhile, the man on the floor slowly came to, awakened by his bright surroundings.

“Is it just me, or did it take a while for it to get bright today…? Huh? Who are you?”

The sleepy man finally noticed the master. He tilted his head in confusion.

“…Welcome to Western Cuisine Nekoya,” the master said.

Whatever was going on, he was going to treat this odd visitor as a customer.

***

An otherworldly diner, eh?

A little while later, Koheiji slowly sipped on the ice water the master had put out for him. As far as the merchant could tell, the man was at least ten years his senior.

Koheiji was processing all that had happened.

According to the master, he had wandered into an otherworldly diner that was open only once every seven days.

It was a strange story, certainly, but apparently the previous master and his wife started this place together, and it’d been running for half a century. They’d been doing business with folks like Koheiji for nearly thirty years.

The merchant decided to tell the master about what had led to him wandering through the door: the moonlit night, his awful encounter with the wraith. Apparently there weren’t many undead in this world as the master was surprised by his harrowing tale.

He then spoke to the merchant…

“Sounds like you’ve had one helluva day, pal. Unfortunately, today just happens to be an off day, so I can’t offer you our full menu. But I’d be more than happy to cook you up something if you’d like.”

At that exact moment, Koheiji’s stomach let out a fierce rumble.

Truth be told, he’d spent so much time fleeing for his life that he hadn’t had a single bite to eat since the previous morning.

Koheiji decided to take up the master on his kind offer. Of course, being a fellow merchant of sorts, he refused to accept a meal for free.

Fortunately, he just so happened to have some money on hand in the event he had to abandon his bags. Wrapped up in some cloth were dozens of gold and silver coins he kept on his person at all times.

Koheiji refused the master’s offer to eat for free; together they determined he would pay a single silver coin. Thus he become a proper customer and guest of the Restaurant to Another World.

***

And so:

“Sorry for the wait. Here’s your order of salt-grilled pacific saury. Today’s miso soup has radish and fried tofu in it.”

The master set Koheiji’s otherworldly foods down in front of him.

Koheiji stared. “Master, I gotta say, this is all pretty grand.”

He wasn’t just being polite; looking at the arrangement of dishes in front of him, it was the only honest reaction. This was far removed from the kinds of fare he expected from the average diner. In fact, it was so luxurious that even describing it as food fit for nobility felt like an understatement.

Packed into a small bowl was a mountain of shimmering white rice, reflecting the light coming down from the ceiling. Sitting next to it was another bowl filled with hot brown soup of some sort. It smelled delicious.

Even the yellow pickled vegetables on their own tiny plate looked great.

But the main attraction of the meal sat directly in front of Koheiji, set on its own separate plate: a slightly browned, black and silver blade-like fish. This was what the master referred to as “salt-grilled pacific saury.”

Beside the fish there was some kind of white, snow-like substance and a piece of green fruit.

“I’m glad to hear you say that!” The master smiled. “Oh, make sure to use some of the soy sauce—that red bottle over there—when you eat the saury. We offer free refills on rice and miso soup, so if you want some more, just give me a holler. Take your time and enjoy yourself!”

And with that, the master returned to the kitchen to start cleaning up and left Koheiji to his meal.

“It all looks so good. Wouldn’t want to let it get cold and all. Guess I’ll dig in.”

Unable to resist the call of the delicious, steaming food in front of him, Koheiji grabbed a pair of chopsticks off of the table and started his journey through food-land.

“Let’s start with this… Whoa, delicious.”

He first grabbed the bowl of brown soup and took a sip. The salty broth was refreshing to Koheiji’s tired stomach and body.

The soup was filled with boiled, minced radish and thinly sliced light brown pieces of something he couldn’t identify.

Both ingredients absorbed the broth of the soup; when Koheiji bit into them, he got to enjoy both the taste of the soup and these components. It was unbelievable.

Without thinking, he immediately reached over for his bowl of rice.

It was the middle of autumn, and the glimmering white rice was likely freshly harvested.

Koheiji took a bite and was stunned into silence.

What the hell? This rice tastes sweet!

Indeed. The rice from the other world was ever so slightly sweet.

It was also significantly softer than the dry stuff that Koheiji was used to. And the more he chewed the rice, the sweeter it tasted.

This partnership of rice and soup was a perfectly satisfying meal in and of itself.

And so the merchant dug into his bowl of white deliciousness while treating the soup as his side.

Koheiji called out: “Master, my apologies, but can I get a refill on the rice and soup?!”

“Aye, you got it. Hang on just a sec.”

The master was quick to fulfill Koheiji’s request, bringing out second servings of both soup and rice almost immediately. But just as the young man was ready to continue his food journey, he realized something important.

He still hadn’t tried the fish.

Koheiji glanced over at the fish he’d never seen before, sitting quietly on its undisturbed plate.

There were diagonal cuts on its crisped skin, with white meat peeking out. The body of the saury itself was thin and long; it was slightly browned after being cooked but still a silver color overall.

Pacific saury was apparently a fairly fatty fish. That explained the fragrance coming from it.

Wait, could this be…

Koheiji remembered something that made his mouth water and his chopsticks reach for the fish.

Perhaps because of how carefully the master had cut into the fish, it was surprisingly easy to pick out the meat from the bones.

Koheiji examined the white meat nestled between his chopsticks before tossing it into his mouth.

This all but confirmed his hunch.

I knew it! This is the “fish of the sea!”

The master had served him something he was more than a little familiar with. Koheiji hailed from the Mountain Nation where the “fish of the sea” was a tremendously important food. And this was that very fish.

Its body was fatty and yet lacking in bones; it tasted far better than anything Koheiji’s people could catch in the rivers of their land.

The master was clearly a pro: the fish was well-cooked, without being dry at all. The browned skin was just as aromatic and delicious as the meat hidden beneath.

This is goddamn incredible!

Koheiji shoveled more rice into his mouth.

A little bit of fish, a lot more rice. The merchant barely made his way through half of the fish before finishing off another bowl.

“Master! Seconds!”

The master already had a fresh bowl in hand as he approached Koheiji. He also offered him some words of advice so as to better enjoy the pacific saury.

“Aye, here you go. Oh, and sir, you should really try the saury after pouring some of the sudachi juice on it. It also goes great with the grated radish. And I highly recommend pouring some of that soy sauce on top as well.”

“Really?”

Koheiji had the sense that the master knew what he was talking about, so he did as he was told. He drizzled some of the green fruit’s juices onto the fish and then put a dash of the grated veggies on top as well. Last but not least, he took hold of the red bottle and drizzled its contents out onto the silver fish.

The liquid slowly turned the white vegetables black, spreading across the silver surface of the saury.

“Well then…”

Koheiji grabbed a piece of the fish and took a bite. It was like a shock to the system.

What is this?! It’s even more crazy than it was before!

By adding the refreshing juice of the sudachi, the slightly bitter grated radish, and the uniquely salty soy sauce to the fatty saury meat with its delightfully scented skin, Koheiji had created something else entirely.

It was tremendous. Absolutely tremendous.

There were few other words he could use to describe the meal in front of him. So he just continued to eat, and eat, and eat.

There’s no way that one silver coin is enough to pay for all of this.

It wasn’t an overstatement to say that this was the most delicious meal Koheiji had ever eaten. And sadly, it didn’t take long to finish it all off.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about…”

Koheiji devoured another bowl of rice along with some pickled vegetables and soup. Finally, he placed his chopsticks down on the table. His stomach was full, and the fear he felt all throughout the previous day almost seemed like a dream.

“Yo, Master! You’re a real lifesaver. I’ll leave the money here,” Koheiji yelled with extreme gratitude, setting the silver coin down on the table.

“Ah! Hold on just a second!”

The master panicked for a moment, running out to stop the merchant before he could leave. In his hand was a brown paper bag.

He handed it to Koheiji.

“Please take this with you. I rolled up some rice balls for you—kombu, plum, and salted rice balls to be exact. I made sure to include a whole bunch of pickled stuff for ya, too, so feel free to have these for lunch later.”

“…Are you sure?” Koheiji replied, stunned by the master’s generosity.

Of course he was grateful for the lunch, but he already felt like the pacific saury was worth far more than the single silver coin he’d paid.

“It’s no biggie. Plus, 1,000 yen, er, a silver coin is way too much for just pacific saury.”

So apparently the master didn’t agree.

“All right, if you say so. I’d be more than happy to take these off your hands.”

“Great. I’ll be looking forward to your next visit, sir. Preferably on a Saturday!”

And so they warmly parted ways.

***

When Koheiji exited, he found himself underneath the dark fall sky.

“Now that I think about it, only half a day’s gone by since all that craziness,” he said to himself.

The merchant had been chased by a wraith who undoubtedly would have killed him if it had the chance. All he could do was run…and run he did, all the way to an amazing meal in another world.

Now Koheiji stood tall, alive and full.

It truly put it all in perspective. He was a lucky man.

“Ah, it’s all here. Thank goodness.”

Koheiji’s personal belongings and bags were all present and accounted for on the other side of the door. The wraith obviously had no interest in his stuff. He was hugely thankful that he was able to recover everything he’d had to abandon the previous day.

“Now then, I better haul ass to town before it gets dark.”

Once he got there, things were going to get busy. Even if he was going to start selling his wares tomorrow, he still had to report the wraith to the shrine. Once they were made aware of the existence of a wraith—that undead being appearing with the rise of a full moon—they would undoubtedly move to strike it down. The undead were their mortal enemies, after all. Once it was all said and done, that road would be safe for everyone.

Or at the very least, nobody would have to fall victim to a wraith just because they were passing through on the night of a full moon.

I should head back there one of these days.

But as a merchant who traveled the world selling his wares, he wasn’t exactly sure when that day would come.

Still, if he ever found himself traveling that road again, Koheiji decided to visit the restaurant as a proper customer. The thought alone was mouthwatering.