Chapter 1: My First Time in Another World

Spring.

It’s my first weekend as a high school student and I’ve joined a club.

After the club activities in the morning, a Senpai brought me to a curry shop in an alleyway, a short distance from the school. It was a small restaurant run by an old couple, and it looked like a hideaway, but it had a good number of customers. ……

But ……

What …… is this? I wonder.

There was something …… strange about the atmosphere of the store.

It was as if it was a battlefield. The eyes of the customers were extremely glaring(scary).

There were only three dishes on the menu: Indian Chicken Curry, Thai Pork Curry, and the Curry of the Week. The only other items on the menu were Lassis and Beer for after dinner.

「I’m gonna buy you the celebration of joining the club. Chicken, pork, both are cool.」

I bowed my head and asked for the pork curry since my Senpai had ordered the chicken curry.

I had never eaten curry before, except for store-bought curry roux with vegetables, so the simple pork curry with its soup, prodigious pork meat, fried potatoes, and boiled egg was fresh and fragrant. It was so rich that I neglected to say Itadakimasu and just took a bite out of it on instinct.

「Mogu, mogu ……」

The first bite.

The first bite was more complex and difficult to describe than tasty.

There were probably a lot of spices in it, and it must have taken a lot of effort. Well, as an amateur high school student, I don’t know much about spices and deep flavors. ……

「……?」

The second bite.

I moaned a little here.

I felt a stinging pain in my mouth. No, that’s right, well, it’s curry, it’s supposed to be spicy. I tried not to worry about it, and took my third bite…

「Ugh, Ugbo!」

I let out a strange sound.

My throat felt hot, like it was burning. I realized that my stomach was already on fire.

Sweat was pouring out of my face and I couldn’t stop crying. I reached to the water for help. I gulped it down and breathed a sigh of relief. Fua~h. Then, somewhat later, I regretted it. I don’t remember who said it, but it reminded me of a wise saying: 『Drinking water while eating curry is like drinking seawater while drowning in the ocean.』 It was already too late for everything.

I don’t remember much of the rest.

I finished the meal —I believe I did. I want to believe that. I’ve always hated to lose, and more importantly, I was brought up not to leave(waste) any food behind. I also felt bad for my Senpai who bought me a drink.

But.

The curry shop was not a restaurant, but rather a battlefield.

It was a battle for the pride, beliefs, lives, and most of all, the mucus in the stomach and rectum of those who ate there. There was no need to exaggerate, it was a dangerous area that could have been designated as a travel ban zone by the Government.

I was lucky to have survived such a deadly battlefield.

However, I was plagued by stomach pains for three days, so it was a completely losing battle. …… At any rate, it was a really good memory to have my Senpai buy me a Lassi after dinner. I really thought that I would follow him for the rest of my life! I felt such a sense of manhood! Even if I found out a month later that going out to eat at the curry shop was a rite of passage for the new members of the club, and that it was a scheme to strengthen the relationship of trust between the Senpai and Kouhai members for nothing ……

By then, though, I had become a regular at the curry shop.

After club activities on weekends, I would always go to the war zone, and even on weekdays, I would refuse dinner to my mother and devour curry as long as I could afford it. ❝T/N: Dude, ditching your mom is not a good thing to do.❞

I prefer pork to chicken.

The weekly curry menu had a very suspicious item called Transcendental Spicy Curry, so I tried it just for the sake of trying it, and ended up missing a few days of school after just one bite.

Even so, I never got tired of eating their curry until the rainy season, and there was always something new to discover in its taste. It wasn’t just spicy. Rich aroma. The rich flavor and richness that melts away. The spiciness of the spices and the sweetness of the rice that combine in your mouth as you slurp down the well-cooled, hard rice… ❝T/N: Shit my mouth just watered from reading this!❞

However, by summer, the restaurant turned into a hell rather than a battlefield. When I went outside after eating, I was soaked in sweat, not only all over my body but even my underwear. From the outside, I looked like a bit of a pervert.

Just when I thought it was time to eat curry, I saw a sign on the door that said, 『Due to the owner’s health condition, we will be closed for a while.』

There was a sign on the door.

It’s true that they were an old couple. …… I hope they come back soon. ……

But when the snow started to fall, the store did not reopen, and when I looked at the store’s T*itter account, I learned that it was hopeless for the store to return because of the owner’s illness.

「Oh, no. ……」

I was indeed dismayed.

I hadn’t felt this distressed since I fell in love at first sight with a girl for the first time in seventh grade. ❝T/N: You are comparing a girl with a curry? Was it spiciness? Am I the only one thinking like this or someone else too?❞

Then I realized. This thought was love. I had fallen in love with that curry without even knowing it.

However, I also learned that some of the regulars, realizing that the restaurant might be closing, had started a cooking blog to recreate the taste of the restaurant. During the winter, I put aside my studies and club activities and just devoted my life to curry. After all, this is love. You must never cut corners. You have to face it with all your might. I never want to have regrets. So I watched various cooking blogs and Yo*Tube videos, made friends with people who were into cooking, and studied together. My single-minded desire was starting to bear fruit.

That’s when…

「That restaurant. It’s going to be back for one day.」

I was told this by a Senpai who was about to graduate.

He might not have been able to see that I was so absorbed in making curry that I didn’t even participate in club activities and neglected socializing. …… He’s a good Senpai after all. I bowed deeply.

「It seems that we will also do a transcendental spicy curry. Will we finish the meal and challenge at the end?」
「Of course, I’ll have all the curry!」

So, as soon as the bell rang for the end of the day, I got on my bike, even though it was pouring heavily outside, and mumbled to myself, 「Chicken, pork, extinction of the chicken pork, extinction of the chicken pork, extinction …. 」I hurried to the curry shop with a look of death on my face.

I think it was because of that—

—I think that was it.

Only a few minutes later, I was dead.

I slipped in a manhole on the corner of an alleyway and collided head-on with a truck in the rain, with poor visibility. ❝T/L: Truck-kun makes his debut.❞

They say that when you die, you see a running lantern, but all I could see at best was the various spices I had been studying over the past few months, the tomato base with hidden flavors such as miso and yogurt, and the golden color of the turmeric rice I had been obsessed with lately …

Surrounded by the compassion of my beloved curry, I was able to ascend to heaven after all.

The rest was just—

All that was left was to go on and on and on and on and on.

Forever, forever. For what seemed like an eternity. In the darkness that continues until the end.

I was thrown out of my body, and yet, at some point, a ray of light, like a spider’s thread, finally reached my ear.

『Do you want power?』

It were some mysterious words.

But to be honest, I didn’t really care about power.

『Oh, I wish I could …… at least eat …….』

At that time, what I wanted the most was love.

That’s right. To be more precise, it was the curry at that restaurant.

『I’m sure. I got that strong feeling. That’s fine!　　I’ll give it to you.』

「…..?」

Seriously? Can I eat it?

It was almost at the same time that I put in the Tsukkomi and the field of view opened at once.

When I came to my senses, I found myself in a completely unfamiliar place.

Apparently, I was on a plateau. There were several terraces in a row, with a natural staircase stretching downward.

Looking down, I saw a large forest and an endless river ahead. There was also what looked like a Castle Town on the shore of a lake along the river beyond the forest, though it was only as small as the tip of my finger. As I looked further into the sky, I could see something like a Sky Castle in the sky in the distance, and even 〈Wyverns〉 and 〈Harpy-like〉 creatures were flying around.

「What about ……?」

Yes.

I was supposed to hurry up and go to the curry shop, but…

It seems I’ve come to another world with nothing but my clothes on.