Chapter 202: It’s a matter of ambience, Selius-kun. Ambience
A door within the room then opened.
It was closed when we entered, but maybe defeating all the mummies caused it to open.
“Raul, we’ve decided that I’ll be the leader, right? Don’t decide things for the group all on your own again, alright?”
“Tch, fine.”
When I admonished Raul for his earlier action, he agreed to my demands albeit reluctantly.
“Alright, why don’t we take a break? This room seems big enough. Anyone want to eat?”
“There are a bunch of mummy corpses lying around though…”
Marin-san’s strained face seemed to ask ‘how can we eat anything at a place like this?’.
She didn’t have to worry though, since I have an easy solution: building a medium-sized house.
“!?”
“We won’t have worry about looking and smelling them while we’re inside.”
Disregarding Marin-san’s surprise for now, I entered the house.
I made the living room a bit wider, so even 13 people should be able to fit there.
“Please let me know where you’re wounded. I’ll be treating them now.”
Kurine-san, an elf, said so. While they were doing that, I decided to teleport back to the village.
“Hello there, Koch-san. Are the ones I ordered ready?”
“Ahh!? Oh, it’s you, chief… you surprised me. I mean, how did you even get in…?”
Koch-san was the person to open the first restaurant in the village.
Moreover, he possessed the [Cooking] Gift.
The delicious food he makes has become so popular, some people travel to the village just to try it.
“Anyway, yes, of course they’re ready. Here you go.”
“Woah. Thank you!”
“Still, this benty thing, this is the first time I’ve ever heard about it.”
I had asked Koch-san to prepare some bento for us.
When I opened one of the small, wooden boxes, I saw the delicious food packed within.
Preparing a bento wasn’t a part of the culture of this world yet, so it was understandable that Koch-san was a bit perplexed by it. Even so, he still managed to prepare a splendid and well-garnished bento.
The only issue was that it didn’t have rice. It used pasta instead.
It wasn’t Koch-san’s fault though. There just wasn’t anyone—in this kingdom at least—who grew rice.
“These will be perfect for our break in exploring the ruins beneath the capital.”
“The capital…?”
I thanked the confused Koch-san once again and then returned to the ruins with the bentos.
“I brought some bentos. Everyone grab one, okay?”
“““Ventos…?”””
I then handed out the bentos to everyone. Most of them were puzzled by what a bento actually was.
“Ooh, bentos. Thanks for always looking out for us, chief!”
“Yeah, thanks!”
Alec-san and his party were the only ones who knew what a bento was.
After all, bentos were also offered in the canteen of the inn that was exclusively for adventurers.
I had made boxes for the meal adventurers brought with them to the village’s dungeon. I called those boxes as bento boxes, and I guess the name stuck with them since everyone was calling their packed meals as bentos.
Familiar to bentos or not, everyone expressed something along the lines of ‘looks delicious’ when they opened their boxes.
“Today’s bentos are a little bit more special. Koch-san made them.”
“Ohh! No two ways about it now. These ones are definitely going to be delicious!”
Selen exclaimed so while her eyes sparkled.
“““So goooooooooooooooooooooooooddd!!!”””
When everyone tried the bento that Koch-san prepared, they all shouted so.
Maybe it was because they were fighting undead after undead before, but they seemed to have worked up quite an appetite. In no time at all, they finished their meal.
“Oi, is there more!?”
“Sorry, but I only ordered one for each of us.”
When I said so, Raul looked a bit disappointed.
“Well, damn…still, if my soldiers can have this as their provisions…”
Mass-producing bentos didn’t seem possible though, at least bentos of this quality.
“Now that I think about it, why did you build a house here? I mean, wouldn’t it normally be better to teleport back and eat in the village?”
“It’s a matter of ambience, Selius-kun. Ambience.”
“Ambience…?”
Selius-kun made a good point, but bentos were better when eaten while travelling somewhere.
Alec-san and the others seemed to agree with what I said.
“Definitely. A bento eaten while exploring a dungeon just taste better to me.”
“Yeah, even when it’s the exact same food too.”
