Chapter 283: Barbecue
The barbecue venue was located about a five-minute walk from the Dragon Corporation Building. Surprisingly, it was a pet-friendly restaurant.
“Woof! Woof!”
With Nil excitedly wagging her tail, we entered the establishment. She seemed more thrilled than ever before.
“I’m so glad, Nil,” Phonia said, her smile radiating joy.
“Haha, it’s great to see her so happy,” I replied, equally amused.
What surprised me about this place was its atmosphere, reminiscent of a fresh produce market, with a barbecue area located in the back. It didn’t seem to be an all-you-can-eat restaurant; instead, customers could order whatever they liked at the counter and then grill it themselves in the barbecue area. The menu was primarily meat, but there was also a wide variety of vegetables available.
“This is an interesting place,” I remarked.
“Isn’t it? It’s a bring-your-own-food kind of place, so you can just use the barbecue facilities,” Phonia explained.
Once we were guided to a private room in the back, we all took our seats.
“Now, everyone, feel free to order whatever you like,” Mr. Jinpei said, picking up the tablet placed in the corner of the table and presenting it to the center.
The tablet displayed a menu of meats and vegetables, indicating that we could place our orders from there. It seemed that if we ordered from the tablet in the private room, the staff would bring our selections to us. I was relieved, as I had thought the distance from our room to the counter was quite far.
“Phonia-chan, what do you want to eat? There are so many types of meat!” Rio asked, taking the tablet and selecting options alongside Phonia. Nil, wagging her tail from behind, peeked over and occasionally chimed in with a “Woof!” while reaching out with her paw.
I picked up another tablet and began placing my own orders.
“Here you go. El, if there’s anything you want, feel free to order it,” I said, handing the completed tablet to her.
El accepted it with a puzzled expression. “I can’t read this… But I can understand it somewhat by looking at the pictures… What is this? I don’t sense any Magic Power from it…”
I watched as she skillfully flicked through the pages, occasionally flipping it over to check the back. It seemed she didn’t understand the words, but she was adapting surprisingly quickly.
“If you touch the cross mark, the text changes, but if you touch the stick mark, it won’t change beyond the circular mark… Hmm. So, this must represent zero,” she muttered.
She might actually be picking it up faster than I thought. Before long, she might be speaking Japanese and even reading and writing it. Perhaps she wasn’t just a musclehead after all…
After a while, the food began to arrive, and we all started grilling the meat, kicking off our feast. At some point, Kaede-san’s father, Jushiro-san, joined us, adding to the lively atmosphere.
He had been surprised by El, a member of the Vampire Clan, but upon seeing Ivan and Phonia’s ears, he seemed to understand something.
“By the way, this place allows you to bring your own food, right?” Jushiro-san asked.
“Yeah? That’s right, but why do you ask?” I replied.
His curiosity sparked, Jushiro-san’s eyes lit up.
Alright, let’s see if Japanese people can accept Otherworld ingredients. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem since we were already eating here.
“There’s a variety of options. Over there, we have Monster Meat, fish, and a full range of vegetables,” I explained.
“Hmm…? I’m curious about the Monster Meat, but does that mean you can actually bring it here?” he inquired, looking intrigued.
We hadn’t brought any supplies with us, so the Yanagihara family seemed genuinely interested. We had shown them some magic, but I didn’t think we had revealed the Dimensional Box yet.
“Yes, this is also magic,” I said, pulling out a large cutting board from the Dimensional Box and laying out various types of meat.
“Whoa!?” both of them exclaimed in surprise.
While they were astonished, El quietly approached, stopping her eating to take the knife from me. As a maid, she had taken on all the household chores lately.
“Let’s start with some common Monster Meat. This is deer, this one is bear, and this is wild boar,” I explained.
“Hmm, they all look like regular meat,” Jushiro-san noted.
“Once they’re prepared, they don’t look much different from regular meat. By the way, all of these came from monsters that were over two meters long,” I added.
“Two meters…? Where exactly did you pull this from?” Jushiro-san asked, astonished.
“More importantly, isn’t this raw meat? Does it really last that long?” he continued.
“Haha, well, magic takes care of that,” I replied.
“Is that so…?” he mused.
“It’s incredibly convenient,” I assured him.
Despite his skeptical expression, when El tasted the grilled Monster Meat, she praised it highly. I suspected there might be a hint of flattery in her words, but it seemed the taste was genuinely good. It didn’t seem to differ from the expensive meat sold in stores.
“Next, we have Earth Dragon meat and turtle meat,” I announced.
“E-Earth Dragon…?” Jushiro-san stammered.
“Is that what you call a dragon?” he asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a bipedal dragon species without wings, measuring about thirty meters from head to tail,” I explained.
I hadn’t measured it precisely, but it was definitely large.
“Thirty meters…?” Jushiro-san echoed, astonished.
“Fufu, you seem surprised, but actually, the turtle was even bigger,” Rio chimed in with a smile, causing Jushiro-san and Mr. Jinpei to exchange uncertain glances.
“I’m not quite sure how to react to this,” Mr. Jinpei admitted.
“However, if you’re bringing it out now, it must be delicious, right?” Jushiro-san said, seemingly more interested in the food than the peculiarities of the situation.
“Of course! Please, start with the Earth Dragon,” I encouraged.
And so, we continued to savor the Otherworldly ingredients that were presented to us, each bite met with enthusiastic praise as the feast unfolded.