That Time I Got Sent to Another World Where All of the Girls Are Super Hot and Super Into Me Because I Am Super Strong and Have Very Powerful Abilities that God Gave to Me Because Me and Them Were Friends When I Was in Grade School and God Is Actually A Loli Who is Also in Love with Me Because I Am A Super Epic Person Who Will Defeat The Demon Lord Who Threatens The Entire World but the Demon Lord Actually is in Love With Me and the Demon Lord is a Super Hot Busty Babe Who is Actually Just Trying to Get My Attention Because I Have a Cellphone That Can Contact the Internet and Can Get Anything Shipped To Me Within 2 Days But I Barely Need It Because I Am Actually the Most Strongest Guy Alive Because I Have Super Strong Powers Like Being Able to Lift Your Mom Really Easily Which is Nearly Impossible Because Your Mom is So Fat But is Actually A Secret Anime Busty Babe Who is Really into Me Because I Am Super Cool and Better Than Your Dad Because He is Super Lame Which I Am Not

Feast 2.28 - That time I was reincarnated into another world and had an unforgettable luncheon

I twirled the [Spaghetti] onto my fork before stabbing it into a meatball and popping it into my mouth. An explosion of flavor detonated in my mouth, sending shards of tomato, beef, pasta, and basil through the back of my head. This... was really good! If this was the kind of food that evil people could make, maybe I should change teams! Still...

"So... I'm a little confused," I admitted, shoving another bite of pasta into my mouth. "Are we still gonna fight to the death, or what?"

The dinner table fell silent. We'd moved from the kitchen into Skeletony's private dining room. Bonbon looked over at me, eyes full of concern and mouth full of breadstick. Ciel looked alarmed for a moment, setting down her slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza. Wanda continued eating, focusing solely on her Arigato alla catalam, some kind of lobster dish that I'd memorized the name of because it sounded fancy, and I'd probably sound pretty cool if I dropped it in casual conversation.

Tony just chuckled, shaking his head as he cut into his roast chicken. "You kiddin'? I wouldn't have been able to open this restaurant if it weren't for you! I woulda still been the [Demon Lord]'s errand boy."

He patted his lips with a napkin and took a long drink from his bottle of champagne. He let out a satisfied sigh and gave me a nod.

"It's always been my dream to have my own [Italian] restaurant. Thanks to you, I finally had the chance. With my connections, and that bag of gold you threw at me, I was able to get a restaurant set up in record time!"

"Connections?" I asked. If he was still corresponding with the [Demon Lord], then I might be able to get some good intel! He could let me know which of the [Elite Four] were hot babes, so I could go subjugate them first!

He shrugged. "Well, yeah. I am an [Italian] after all."

Huh... did he mean... some kind of mafia or something? I considered whether that was racist of me, but I also wasn't really sure what he meant. Italy sunk into the Atlantic ocean 30 years ago. I don't remember the details from my history books, but I guess they were moving to North America for tax purposes, and they crashed. It was apparently a big deal, but since it hadn't happened in the last five years, I never paid much attention to it. What kind of connections could he even have as an [Italian]?

"What kind of connections would you even have, as an [Italian]?" I asked. "It's not like Italy is around anymore."

Bonbon sighed, giving me a look like I'd asked a dumb question, which I definitely hadn't. "Hiro-san... there's no such thing as an 'Italy'. The [Italians] are a monastic order of chefs. They're world-famous for their Culinary Mysteries of Flavos."

My mind reeled. The odds of that were... impossible. A cult or whatever had appeared with the same name, and the same style of cuisine as a country from Earth? I blinked in shock. Was... was it possible I wasn't the first person to reincarnate into this world? I glanced up at Skeletony, who had pulled out his official [Italian Emblem], wiping the face of the enamel badge and looking fondly at the green, white, and red striped flag on its face. I scratched my chin. He didn't seem like he was a reincarnator... I guess this really was just a coincidence. I chuckled to myself. I was worried there for a second. If I weren't the only reincarnator, it would mean I was that much less of a special snowflake! I wasn't sure if I could handle that sort of news without throwing a tantrum.

"Still..." Bonbon said, glancing at Ciel's plate. "I haven't actually been able to visit one of the [Italian] monasteries or restaurants. I would have never guessed that 'Pizza' was one of the Mysteries. Hiro-san... how did you know about Pizza?"

I coughed, looking over at Skeletony. "Boy, this food is great!" I exclaimed. "You should tell me about how you made it in a way that's interesting enough to distract Bonbon from what she's asking me."

Bonbon sighed. "I'll ask you later, I guess..." she said, taking out a notepad and turning to smile at Skeletony.

Skeletony nodded emphatically. "Yeah, sure! The sauce on your spaghetti's called 'Marinara'. It's actually made outta TOMATOES, if you can believe it. That ain't a thing I tell most people, though. Folks on this continent think tomatoes are fulla poison."

He shook his head, chuckling. "Tomato sauce on th'pizza too. Not quite marinara, but close."

I glanced at Ciel, expecting her to let out some kind of retort or spit the food out in shock, just like in an anime. To my disappointment, she just continued to eat ravenously. Still... now that I was looking at her, I was definitely looking at her. I hadn't had much of a chance to pay attention to less important things like people who weren't me when I was at the Paladin Order, but when I took the time to really look at her... This is a real Bishoujo Beauty! (TL Note: 'Beauty' means 美少女).

She's wearing armor, but from what I can see around the pizza shrapnel, it's pretty stylish. I don't mean that it's particularly well-crafted, or aesthetic, because I don't really think I'm qualified to judge that. I had the [Fashion Police] title, but that only let me legally arrest offenders of fashion crimes. It didn't give me the capacity to really judge whether an outfit was truly 'fashionable' or not. No, what I meant by stylish is that it showed plenty of cleavage, which is probably the most important thing to look for in an armor!

The rest of her was pretty nice as well! She had hair the color of blue raspberry candies, and pale gray eyes, which were currently blazing with intense focus as she devoured her pizza as if her MealPass™ was about to expire in the next few seconds. I don't think they even had MealPass™s in this world! She glanced over at me, and noticed me staring intently in the vicinity of her body.

"Oh, uh, right. Sorry. I gotta work on my table manners. This is really good stuff, though!"

I glanced at the pizza, feeling a surge of jealousy at the fact that I no longer got sole credit for the dish. It was made even worse by the fact that Skeletony's pizza tasted like it had come right out of a restaurant, rather than being cooked by having somebody land a skateboard on it. I turned up my nose in a huff.

"It's okay, I guess." I tsundered, "Mine is better, though."

"Oh man," Ciel said. "I can't wait to try it, then! You should totally make some for us later."

I beamed, rubbing under my nose in an iconic gesture of pride. "H-heh... o-of course," I said, trembling slightly as I realized that a hot girl had almost given me a compliment. Ciel didn't seem to notice, thankfully. She set her piece of pizza down and glanced over at Skeletony, leaning her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her fist.

"The food's good and all, but... that guy used to be one of the [Elite Four], right?" She turned to look at me, and I nodded. "Do you... really think we can trust him?"

"Of course I can trust him," I told her, giving her a hurt expression. "If he tries to betray us, I can just murder him instantly."

"That's not trust, wan," Wanda pointed out, helping herself to another of the breadsticks provided by our server's [Unlimited Bread Works] Restaurant Arte.

"It's not?" I asked, somewhat confused. My overwhelming superiority was one of the few things that let me interact with most people without self-destructing (except for that one guy), so I was a bit surprised to hear that it was functionally different from 'trust'.

"Uh, well, in that case, I dunno if we can trust him."

Ciel glanced over at Skeletony and Bonbon, who was hurriedly taking notes. "Well... I guess we've just gotta be careful," she murmured, taking another bite of the food provided to us by said ex-[Demon Lord's General]. "But, uh... hey, while we're talking, Hiro-kun, er... Hiro-sama..." (TL Note: I'm not gonna teach you all the honorifics, but you should go learn them if you don't already know them. In this case, suffice it to say that she's correcting herself to address him more formally as a sign of respect and propriety. In other words, she's sucking up to him.)

Ciel glanced at me and started fidgeting, as if she was nervous about something. "You and... you were sayin' earlier that... uh..."

She chuckled nervously, her hand unconsciously going to the Kamiko emblem on her tabard or whatever. I watched expectantly in case she was about to do some kind of sentai transformation sequence, but sadly, it just seemed like a nervous tic.

"Well, I wanted to ask about, uh..." she looked over at the [Italian] at the head of the table, who was pantomiming either tickling his armpit with a featherduster, or mixing something in a bowl. "Y'know... maybe I should ask later."

She looked me dead in the eyes, staring with enough earnest intensity that it leveled up my [Eye Contact Resistance]. "When you've got a sec, I'd like to talk, uh... privately."

My heart went doki-doki in my chest. Technically, it does this basically constantly, but especially so just then. I felt heat rising to my cheeks, and could only nod rapidly, shoving spaghetti into my mouth. T-this cute anime babe in my harem wanted to talk privately?! W-what should I doushiyou?! She was going to confess, right? That's usually how those things went? B-but I'd never been confessed to before! And we'd just met! This was all happening so suddenly!

"U-un," I monologued. That seemed to satisfy her, and she nodded with relief, happily going back to her pizza. Phew! I was glad I'd managed to disarm another social situation with my slick wits. I'd even managed to do that without spilling any spaghetti!

"..and then you can just let it simmer until you need it," Skeletony finished. He watched as Bonbon furiously wrote down on her notepad, then shook his head. "Y'know, I can just lend youse a copy of my [Recipe Book] if you want."

Bonbon's ears shot up, and her eyes sparkled. "I... if you don't mind, that would be amazing, yes! But... are you really okay with sharing them? My Quest is to spread recipes around the world."

Skeletony waved her off with one hand, picking up a sausage like a cigar with his other. "It's no problem," he told her, dragging 'problem' out to about 2-3 times its length. "I'll give you one of my basic books. We've got [Italian] restaurants all over the place in the [Demon Realm] already."

My ears perked up at that. [Demon Realm]? That sounded... cool as hell! I wondered what it was like? Was it a hellish landscape, like Hell, or Detroit? Or was it an even more fantasy-like kickass fantasy realm with like floating islands and picturesque crap like that? Hopefully, it wasn't just normal cities, but with [Demons] instead of normal people.

I spent a few seconds thinking about hot, busty demon babes (theoretical), but then realized something... If the [Demon Realm] was where the [Demon Lord] came from... then that must be where that King Chad guy came from as well! But... what would that mean for his hideout?

"Still!" Skeletony said, leaning back in his chair. "Look at you, Hiro. Surrounded by such beautiful ladies in your party, huh?"

I shot him a cold glare, activating my [Evil Eye: Laser Beams] and changing the element type to [Cold] through a series of exploits which I refuse to describe here.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I asked him.

He looked surprised and slightly off-balance, as he should be. "Well, uh... it was a compliment, I guess. It's been, what, like a week since I last saw you, and you've got three pretty party members already. That's pretty great, ain't it?"

I let out a quiet sigh of relief, glad I didn't have to murder him for betraying me with mean words.

"Haha, sorry. Yeah, I am pretty great," I replied, agreeing with him.

I noticed he was staring at Bonbon, and started to get insanely jealous of him ogling my harem member, until I noticed he was staring at her missing arm. That was fine. She was pretty weird for leaving it that way. Only the really poor or the oddballs did that back in Neo-Shinjuku, since anybody could either afford an aug, or could take out a financing plan if they needed a replacement limb. They didn't have any augs here, I don't think. But they did have [Skills] and [Magic], and that was basically the same thing with less chrome.

"If you don't mind me askin'?" he asked, gesturing to her arm.

Bonbon's smile dampened a bit, her ears lowering back down.

"Ah... I... ran into some raiders, a few days ago. They're actually the ones we're after right now."

Skeletony nodded, chewing his sausage thoughtfully. When he finished his bite, he pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. "Yeah... yeah, okay," he said to thin air, probably to one of his invisible [Skeletons] or something. He turned and nodded again, to Bonbon, and then to me.

"Alright. Yeah. Y'know, I..." he hesitated, looking a bit embarrassed. "I still need to thank you guys properly. A free meal is nice and all, but that don't exactly even the score, y'know?"

He took a deep breath. "I think I... I think I got something that'll do a bit more on that count. I have this... recipe. A real old one. Ancient, as a matter of fact."

Bonbon's ears perked up, and he looked around to make sure we weren't being eavesdropped on. A hush fell over the table, and I leaned forward, interested. An ancient recipe? It appealed to my chuuni senses immediately.

"I think it might.. might be able to do something t'help you out." he told us, tilting his head roughly in the direction of Bonbon. An ancient recipe that would help me with Bonbon? I wasn't really sure what he meant, but... was it an aphrodesiac?! I blushed, finishing the rest of my spaghetti in a single comically-large bite. My charms had only worked really well on Bonbon, but we still hadn't even smooched or anything! I couldn't wait to see what kind of mood-setting candy or whatever he had in store!

"I'm ready," I told him. "My body is ready."

He looked at me like he wasn't really sure what I meant, but grinned a smile, as if he appreciated my spirit. He turned and twisted the mustache on one of the six decorative chef statues in the room. There was a loud clicking sound, and then a section of the wall behind him slid open, twisting out of the way with a sound of stone on stone.

Beyond, a stone hallway, with a pizza-themed rug running down the center, and torches to light the way. The passage went downwards at a steep slope that would be great for skateboarding, and at the end, there was some sort of chamber.

He stepped into the hallway, and turned to beckon us with a flick of his head.

"Follow me... to the [Panini] chamber."