“I’d like you to help with kitchen work tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I heard a party of adventurers is coming. We’re short-handed too.”
“Adventurer parties come all the time though?”
Even while grumbling, my hands didn’t stop wiping the table. In fact, the village restaurant owner had said business was lackluster, but after two weeks passed, it suddenly got busy.
When I asked why, they said it was because subjugation season had arrived. Thanks to that, I didn’t even have time to look into the kitchen. I was busy just with serving and cleaning. Maybe Gilbert taking me in wasn’t because he pitied me but because he really needed the help.
“Knights have been coming to inspect the streets lately. Just by looking, it’ll be someone of high status.”
“But why does your face look so terrible? Shouldn’t you be happy about making money?”
“I’m worried. I’m wondering if their palate will be picky.”
I laughed as if dumbfounded at those words.
“Boss, your cooking is delicious. What is there to worry about?”
Gilbert stared at my face for a while, then tousled my hair again.
“Ack, don’t do that!”
When I shouted and hurriedly fixed my hair, Gilbert chuckled.
“One of them is a gourmet, you see.”
“A gourmet? …Ah.”
The protagonist’s party suddenly flashed through my mind. Now that I think about it, in the original work, the saint was set up as an exceptional gourmet.
My heart pounded for no reason. I didn’t know if it was excitement or anxiety. When I thought that meeting the protagonist’s party meant stepping onto the threshold of the original story, that fact strangely tightened my breath.
While I was pointlessly counting my heartbeats alone, Gilbert leisurely fidgeted with his beard. His rough touch slowly swept through the hair, then finally stopped his hand like someone who’d organized their thoughts.
“Anyway, if you’re going into the kitchen tomorrow, we’ll have to trim those bangs first. People are sensitive about hygiene.”
“What about you, boss? Will you shave your beard?”
“I’ll tie it up.”
“That’s gross…”
When I shuddered and avoided him, Gilbert chuckled, then roughly swept up my bangs with his large hand.
“Ah, what are you doing?!”
At the sudden gesture, I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut and struggled. When I tried to step back, my leg caught on the table edge and my steps stopped—abruptly.
“How ugly must you be to keep it covered? It’s more amazing that you don’t bump into things even with your eyes covered like that.”
“Ah, seriously!”
Gilbert pressed my shoulders down with his thick hands, fixing me to the table. Though it seemed like a light gesture, my breath was cut off. As my whole body was crushed by a lump of muscle, I felt like I was helplessly pinned under a heavy barbell. When I struggled and groaned, beyond my closed eyes, Gilbert’s low exclamation flowed.
“Kid, you’re quite…”
…Making me look like this and then even critiquing my face? Heat rushed up and I opened my eyes wide to glare, and Gilbert flinched in surprise before hurriedly lowering my bangs.
“What?! What’s with that ‘can’t look at you’ expression?”
Pressing down my body just to see my face once, and then what’s with that reaction? My mood soured completely.
Even at my sharply spat words, he had no response for a moment. Then, while firmly pressing down my bangs, he muttered lowly.
“Kid, you’d better not reveal your face if you can help it.”
“Why? Am I that ugly?”
I’m not though? I was even told I’m likable-looking!
But I felt anxious for no reason. Beauty standards are all different. What if this world was an era where burly macho men like Gilbert with beards were the beauty standard rather than slender handsome types like me? Such ominous imagination even started to raise its head.
When I asked seriously at Gilbert’s serious voice, he soon shook his head and said.
“It’s not that, but troublesome things will happen.”
“…Then what, I have to go around like this?”
I grumbled while smoothing down my bangs with my hand. It’s not like I can’t see, so what’s the problem? If being handsome is a crime, is it a capital offense? It didn’t seem like an expression of not being able to look at me though.
Just then, Gilbert, who had briefly gone away, held out a ladle as if he’d already been to the kitchen and said.
“Taste this.”
“Okay.”
I took the ladle, swallowed a mouthful, and answered.
“It’s delicious but not amazing.”
Smack—
As soon as the words ended, a ladle flick flew to my forehead.
“Ow…!”
“Babbling is your calling, isn’t it?”
What can I do about the truth? I just rubbed the red lump rising on my forehead with a tearful face.
After that too, we bickered trivially while washing dishes and cleaning, and by the time I finished wiping the remaining tables, time had flown by. When my back became stiff and my wrists felt numb, the day’s work at Gilbert’s inn finally ended. After turning off the lights at the inn and briefly exchanging greetings with him, I trudged back to the inn on the Boundary Line.
I immediately finished showering as if washing off the fatigue and threw myself onto the bed. Water droplets flowed from my damp hair and soaked the pillow, but I had no energy to care.
I was about to close my eyes just like that, but strangely, Gilbert’s face, which had been dejected all day today, kept coming to mind.
For a bearded guy who’s annoying, the sight of that mountain-like bulk drooping down made one corner of my heart heavy for no reason.
“It would be nice if there was MSG here too.”
It wasn’t like some grand wish, just words that slipped out carelessly.
Just convenient for adjusting seasoning, and magic powder that brings out umami flavor with one spoonful.
With just that one thing, I could have filled a bit of that empty energy on Gilbert’s face today. At times like this, the absence of modern conveniences was truly regrettable.
Of course, I had no idea that those carelessly dropped words would be the prelude to the incident that occurred the next day.
The next morning. The moment I got up from bed to go to work, something caught under my feet with a thud— and I almost fell forward.
“Whoa, ah shit, what now?”
Rubbing my sleep-filled eyes and bowing my head, there was a large silver sack placed under the bed. At the familiar glint that didn’t suit the shabby inn, I looked in listlessly, and large letters caught my eye.
M·S·G.
“…MSG?”
Why is this here?
Staring at it blankly, I opened the sack and carefully took a taste with my finger. The moment it touched the tip of my tongue, the familiar salty taste and umami flavor spread.
“It’s real?”
I was bewildered. No, not just bewildered.
MSG. It would have been less absurd to wake up back in my original studio apartment. Why did MSG of all things get summoned with a pop? How did it suddenly appear in this world?
Racking my brain, the words I’d carelessly dropped yesterday came to mind.
‘It would be nice if there was MSG here too.’
No way.
But I soon hardened my expression.
“No way” gets people killed.
Besides, this is a fantasy world. What is fantasy? Literally “something born from imagination.” Then from the moment I possessed someone, doesn’t that mean my imagination becomes reality?
Somehow my heart pounded. Was it excitement, curiosity? Or… was it perhaps the shallow expectation that I too might be able to use something like magic?
As various emotions tangled together and my heart thumped, I unconsciously clenched both hands tightly and shouted.
“I want to return to my original world!”
And nothing happened.
“What, it doesn’t work.”
The sky shaking, or space twisting… there wasn’t even a speck of such signs. As futility washed over me, I just awkwardly scratched my cheek. Then, as if resigned, I got up.
Even if I fell into a fantasy world, I still have to go to work… Well, let’s try again at night. With that resolution, I scooped out some MSG and put it deep in my pocket.
After passing the desolate sand dunes, sparse trees and buildings entered my view. According to Gilbert last time, the area near the Boundary Line became desolate and turned desert-like because demon poison had seeped into the ground.
At least the village side was barely habitable because the poison hadn’t spread there. Walking a few more steps, the inn’s roof soon came into view.
“I’m here!”
I greeted energetically as soon as I opened the door, but Gilbert’s appearance before my eyes was not ordinary.
His mountain-like bulk was sitting in a chair, his beard braided into two strands, with his face buried in both hands.
At that grotesque scene, I momentarily stopped, stunned, then frowned and muttered.
“…What’s with that look? Gross.”
“What should I do, kid? It seems tasteless.”
“Did you cook all night?”
I asked while tying my apron strings. He didn’t answer and still had his face buried gloomily.
After pondering for a long time about what words of comfort to give, what I finally spat out was this.
“…There’s no guarantee they’ll even stay at this inn…”
There is. Gilbert’s inn is the biggest. So I rolled my head again and said.
“Even if they do stay, there’s no guarantee they’ll eat the cooking. There are restaurants next door.”
Gilbert raised his head and his eyebrows twitched.
“When you go to the bathroom, do you only piss?”
“Ah, please, even if you make analogies, please! That’s disgusting.”
I shuddered and waved my hands. Then, as something suddenly came to mind, I glanced down at the MSG I’d hidden in my pocket.
“Make a soup dish. You’re good at it, boss. And I also…”
“You also what?”
When Gilbert’s eyes narrowed, my throat felt blocked for a moment and my words trailed off.
I absolutely can’t talk about MSG. If he asks where I got it, I won’t be able to answer, and I’ll look suspicious for no reason. Besides, would he carelessly eat this suspicious thing?
I bit my lip and turned my gaze away. In the end, I barely squeezed out only deflated words.
