The Other World Dining Hall

January 3.

It's only New Year's Eve at first, and all the shops around us are taking the day off.

One of the shopkeepers was getting to work.

"Well... do it"

Stand just one person in the kitchen and get to work.

Employees other than shop owners are still on holiday today.

Also, the store is still closed and the customer does not come.

But I have to do my job. Because today is... Friday.

(chicken curry and beef stew...... oh, and then I'll have to make some regular curry too)

The shopkeeper makes a solemn offering, thinking of the regular face, first of all the regular face that will undoubtedly come tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Saturday. A day when a different world dining room opens.

That door is a basin, twilight, New Year's Eve. I don't care about Golden Week in any way about Japanese circumstances, and at the end of the day, residents of different worlds don't have the word New Year's holidays.

In other words, they are required to do the same work as usual.

I would make some for the other world cafeteria during the weekday planting, which I would usually do with the rest of the staff, but on Fridays when I'm on a big vacation like this, the shopkeeper will spend a day getting ready for it.

(Well, it's just nasty without the New Year mess)

Nevertheless, the store owner does not surprisingly dislike this preparation for the holidays.

I used to rest well and have plenty of energy.

The shopkeeper encourages preparation with the intention of dropping a week's worth of rust on his arm.

(Well...)

I'm just finishing up the whole street, getting ready for the New Year.

At this time of year, there are special dishes served in different world cafeterias as unique to New Year's Eve.

It's Japanese food as much as I'd like, but I have guests to ask for it.

Originally started by my predecessors, it seems it was just a little service for New Year's Eve, but there were customers who showed a huge amount of eating to it.

Anyway, once a year since the shopkeeper was in elementary school, he only visits at this time of year.

I can't even say I'm going to stop when that happens, and I keep going even now that my money has changed this way.

(Well, are you coming again this year... that long-heared sister)

With that in mind, the shopkeeper washed it in water and started simmering the beans in the pan.

Serena, the Elf woman sage, interrupted her thought and exploration, slowly opening her eyes for the first time in about a year, amidst a cave of great trees standing in the rear of an old forest surrounded by deep mountain ranges on the western continent.

(Also, have the years changed)

A stream of magic that is influenced by the sun, the moon and the stars and continues to shake slightly.

That was circling around and telling Serena that about a year had passed from that day.

Secrets that rejuvenate the forest's refinement by taking it as a magic, and keep aging and the resulting death under control forever.

The secret art of literally exercising to breathe if you are an ancient god who abandoned the world and moved to a different world to escape those terrible seven-colored champions and the champions in far ancient times.

The only elf in the world who can use it is Serena.

At a time when the elves were studying magic in abundance, fighting with their magic the five-pillar champions and their dependant monsters of the South, and even trying to enter a different world without a deep bottom of the sea or the end of a high sky, and finally an elf.

Elves were called geniuses in a time when they thought they were the rulers of the world, and Serena made it 100 years old to complete that sorcery.

To one day visit, to deny the end of the quest for death, to become immortal without abandoning the flesh and without turning into an undead.

Serena was at the time a secret to living the eternity knitted by the excellent magicians of the elves to carry out further drilling of their magic......

I couldn't believe the secret trick of abandoning my own flesh due to ritual death and turning it into a spiritual demon spirit (Rich) that should only be called a mass of death.

It is true that this flesh is fragile, a substitute that, if perished, will extinguish both spirits, but the elves are creatures originally born with flesh.

I didn't think it would have any side effects to abandon it and become spiritual only.

Thus, Serena's concerns were true.

All the elves who abandoned their flesh and turned into demonic spirits went mad less than 1,000 years later.

He did not have a physical base, but was therefore fascinated by death, devoured by death and turned into a monster that wielded death indiscriminately.

The sorcerers, who excelled in the old days of witchcraft, albeit insane, are mighty, and they continue to exist as death-wielding monsters even now that the secret of demonic spiritualization is obsolete.

(forever, or... it's a lonely thing)

500 years to complete the theory, 300 years to prepare one's flesh and forest environment to use witchcraft.

The power of that secret surgery, which took an equal length of time for the elf to have literally spent his whole life, of 800 years to complete, allows Serena to live eternally without the need for food or water as long as she is in this forest.

And its eternity brought Serena a long time of research and solitude.

3,000 years since the secret art was completed and we began to live eternity.

There is no longer anything left (except those demonic spirits who have gone mad and turned into monsters) that Serena can call her acquaintance when she was in the capital of Elves.

(Fair enough. I've also been having fun lately)

Such a slight change occurred only about 30 years ago in the life of pursuing only thought and exploration.

In this forest, the doors to the other world, the remnants of the old compatriots, began to appear.

(... I'm really looking forward to that)

At the end of that otherworldly door is a place to serve meals in exchange for money.

In that place, which is called the Dining Room of the Other World by humans, demons, etc., there are special dishes that are served only once a year, on the first day of the doyo after the year has changed.

A dish made from rice and hardened rice that is widely eaten in the western continent.

Because of that, Serena visits there only once a year.

And a few days later, the year changed and the day of the first doyo.

"... have you come?"

Seeing a black door appear in the woods, Serena heads to the place where the door is.

A small fountain, used as a water field by the beasts who live in the woods.

It was by that fountain, surrounded by silence because of this season when many of the forest animals are hibernating.

A magical, black cat painted door.

Serena gently hangs her thin fingers on the handle of that door...... open.

Sounds like comfortable magic activates in the woods surrounded by silence.

Listening to it, Serena slowly steps in.

One room full of bright, warm air, as opposed to a dim, winter cold forest.

There was a crowd of guests celebrating the New Year.

"Hmm...... Mm"

Looking inside the store, Serena finds the man and walks over.

That mixed human and elf child to a person who, according to the story flowing on the wind that flows into that forest, has grown in numbers for a long time from about a thousand years.

Demons who gained the power and flesh of man by praying to the reigning king of old chaos, demons of a different culture from the elves, the families of the hateful southern reigning kings of the former elves.

They are celebrating the New Year and eating a great deal of food, without worrying about Serena, who came in loosely.

(As usual, it's a dizzying place to change. This is... oh)

Find and greet someone you know who eats it loosely in one corner of the store in a place where 10 or 20 years makes no difference is obvious enough for an elf to make a remarkable difference.

"Long time no see... Kristian."

"... This is, Serena. It's been a year."

Cristian politely returns a greeting to a voice hung unconstitutionally.

I know who it is, but that's why.

A legendary elf who lives about 10 times more than he does.

We talked about not knowing where he was since he disappeared more than thousands of years ago, but apparently he's still alive and well.

It was in this cafeteria that I met the most, and it has never been outside of this cafeteria, so it is unclear to Christian where he lives.

"Hmm. That doesn't seem the same... but isn't it?"

Serena, speaking in no way old language, also finds a change in some of the acquaintances she meets for the first time in a year.

"Ha. Was there a flavoring of tin cakes in this store or something?

What Kristian was eating was a cake with a sauce of rotten beans called nuts.

Surely what this man was eating until last year was a walnut cake flavored with sugary 'shoyu' and curled with black sea grass?

With that in mind, I hesitate.

"No, this is... I recently got a tip from a friend I met"

In response to that inquiry, Christian says about six months ago, what he taught his younger friend's daughter.

"The nut goes well with the wheat noodles, but it also turns out to go well with the rice. I was wondering if it would go well with the rice cake."

... I tried to place an order and it seems to be a common way of eating in different worlds, and it came right out.

Cake with nuts, slightly darker than usual shoyu.

The unique flavour of the nuts was viscous and well suited to the chewy soft cake, which greatly satisfied Cristian.

"Hmm. I see that makes sense... okay"

I don't feel anything that gets hit by that nut cake either, but I'm not looking for Serena.

"There's my daughter. I'm sorry, can I make an order?

"Ha ha. Please wait."

He would have been hired by a big shopkeeper to wrap up a cross-world-style outfit and call his daughter, who carries food to tables everywhere and listens to orders.

"Yes. Thank you for waiting. Place your order."

"Um. I'm sorry, but I'd like to grab a glass of Oscilco soup first."

What I order is sweet bean soup.

It is a special dish, served only on this day, the first cross-world dining room day in a year.

And when I hear from Kristian about the research he's doing right now on the difference between 'corruption' and 'fermentation', the food comes out.

"Thank you for waiting. It's Osilco!"

Placed in front of Ri and Serena is a red brown soup with white cakes swimming, filled with deep, round cubes.

"Hmm. So you're going to wear it."

While that's good, first breathe the hot air out of Oscilco all over your chest and indulge.

Full of lungs, sweet aroma.

For the first time in about a year, the stomach is ready to add food to the fragrance, making a small noise.

First, wrap the soup in a wooden spoon and transport it to your mouth.

"Hmm..."

It spreads in your mouth and leaks your breath without thinking about the sweet taste.

A sweetness with the softness of beans, unlike the fruit that becomes the forest and the honey that can be taken from the hive.

Unlike the other sweetnesses in this store, this flavour, which can only be tasted once a year, without milk or eggs, was what Serena was waiting for.

(Still good. This Osilco soup is)

With that in mind, the next thing I know, I take the chopsticks and eat the cake, which is this oscilco utensil.

Slightly pinching at the tip of the chopsticks is a slightly larger cut, cake.

It is difficult to chisel with chopsticks, so I know how to do it and carry it straight to my mouth, chewing it with my teeth a thousand times.

(umm...... umm)

If you chew the soft cake, what spreads in your mouth is the oscilco soup spilling out of the simmered cake.

Sweet That intertwines with the taste of a pale cake, making it look different than it did earlier.

If tightened, sweetness was also created from the cake, which became even more sweet.

(This flavour is still good)

The same feeling comes back when I first ate.

Serena is very satisfied with the treat she eats once a year.

"... ugh"

Eventually, Serena, who flattened a cup and remouthed it with the salting of the combed things she had followed with her, drinks Genmai tea, which smells like rice served.

"... well. There's your daughter, okay?

I just took a breath and call for service again.

"Yes? What is it?

"Uhm. Ask for an extra order. Isobe and Kinaco, and the nuts that the man there is eating, please."

Serena's health is always adequate thanks to the refinement of the forest.

For the first time in a year, Serena doesn't have the option of enjoying a meal she almost only does at this time.

"We're having a feast tonight. Try to get enough to rip your stomach off."

Thus began Serena's year.