There’s No Drug in My Cooking!

Ichiyo's father was simply stating a fact. Sometimes, if you take too big a step, you may end up hurting yourself. The Sakuraba family may not be able to withstand too much impact.

The Sakuraba family and the Nakiri family have a high status and reputation in the culinary field, but in Japan and even the world, there are too many fields, and the really intimidating ones are armed!

"I can give you financial support and bring Tadokoro over to help you, but I need a more detailed explanation," Ichiyo's father said.

"When the time is right, I'll show you the results directly," Ichiyo replied.

"Okay!" his father said.

The phone call ended, and Ichiyo knew that his father would always be reliable in front of him. Soon after, he received a message that his credit card had been unlocked and could be used normally. All expenses would be covered by the Sakuraba Food Group. With the funds in place, it was time for Ichiyo to start designing and building his own team.

***

"Mr. Tadokoro, would you like to have some snacks?" Ichiyo called Mr. Tadokoro, a helper his dad provided now that the financial restrictions had been lifted.

Mr. Tadokoro hesitated for a moment, clearly not used to this kind of conversation, but eventually said, "Thank you for your concern, but I don't really need any right now."

Undeterred, Ichiyo continued, "Well, I'm sure your daughter would like some homemade snacks!"

Mr. Tadokoro remembered the whip he had brought for his young master today and shuddered. "She doesn't want any," he quickly replied.

Ichiyo's voice took on a more serious tone. "She will want some."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry, but it's inconvenient for me to reimburse you on this end right now," Ichiyo explained. "Tomorrow, when you bring ingredients over, take 80,000 yen worth of snacks with you and report to my father. You can either give the snacks away or keep them for yourself. Is that a problem?"

Mr. Tadokoro listened to Ichiyo's words and finally realized that his daughter was not the target of Ichiyo's attention. He let out a sigh of relief and realized that he had overreacted. After all, Ichiyo had only heard a few things about his daughter and the two had never met, so there couldn't be any connection between them.

Feeling both fortunate and helpless, Mr. Tadokoro nodded and said, "Understood."

The call ended and Mr. Tadokoro was left wondering why the head of the Sakuraba family had suddenly informed him that he would be responsible for Ichiyo in the future and that his salary and benefits would be handled by the young master of the Sakuraba family. He only knew that he had probably been dragged into some kind of undercurrent.

Should he retreat and go against the current?

His family relied on his salary to live, and the money from the Sakuraba family was not insignificant. Should he continue to work for the Sakuraba family?

Perhaps in the future, Mr. Tadokoro would face something that no one could predict. Ichiyo's actions were unpredictable, and the head of the Sakuraba family remained tight-lipped and wouldn't say any more about it. All Mr. Tadokoro could do was follow the path before him and hope that, if something unexpected happened, the Sakuraba family would be able to take care of his wife and daughter.

Ichiyo entered the kitchen with a cookbook and began to practice recipes step by step. Cooking wasn't something he could only learn when the system randomly gifted recipes to him. The recipes he received through the system's lottery just saved him a lot of effort and time, transferring the experience directly to him. Practicing on his own allowed him to learn other dishes. It was just a matter of doing more or less, practicing more, and mastering various basic skills through trial and error.

Even though the cheats were helpful, they were not a reason for him to not work hard. Right now, the path that was most suitable for him and would support him in going the farthest was undoubtedly becoming a chef!

Ordinary chefs had a peak, but if Ichiyo had the support of the system, could hone himself with ingredients from various worlds, and even learn a bit of the unique power systems provided from other worlds, where would his peak be?

It was hard to say.

In order to prepare for a big order the next day, Ichiyo stayed up all night in the kitchen preparing dishes. He occasionally sent some snacks and water to the two girls in the wasteland. From midnight, the seals on his left hand kept flashing due to the overflowing energy and were slightly scorching his palm. So, Ichiyo summoned the chatty spider again and pointed to the dishes in the kitchen that were not yet completed.

"Over there, eat whatever you want. This side, I'm using them," Ichiyo said as he continued to prepare various dishes, not limited to snacks but also other dishes on the red and white tables. To Ichiyo's surprise, after the initial excitement, the spider was silent in the face of her cheap master, not speaking much but just eating with her head down and occasionally making happy humming noises.

Half an hour passed and the spider had already eaten all the dishes that Ichiyo had made that were not up to standard. Although they did not gain her any experience, they were still delicious!

The spider estimated the speed at which Ichiyo prepared dishes and felt that it would be a waste to wait around slowly, so it was better to go back and come back in the morning for a big feast.

The mischievous spider requested to return, and Ichiyo turned off the heat on the cooking station. He looked at the round spider face that had been burned by sulfuric acid and the blind eye, and silently went upstairs to get his hand crossbow and threw it to her. "Given your miserable appearance, you are still my magical pet. Take the hand crossbow and don't die easily and waste my contract scroll. Since you have reincarnated into a spider, use your little butt to think about how spiders hunt. Remember to bring prey next time."

"Ichiyo, you're a good person!"

"Call me Master!"

Tears flowed down the spider's face. Living in the cruel and monster-filled underground magic cave, even her spider parents of the same species lived in mutual cannibalism. This was the first time someone had cared about her! She was so touched!

Even if Ichiyo was a damn tsundere, she was still touched. If a gentleman treated her as a friend, she would treat him as a friend!

Carrying the hand crossbow, the spider was brought back by the purple-red magic array. She was going to find the stinking frog that spat poison on her and seek revenge!

Ichiyo shook his head and didn't pay too much attention, just planning to inform Mr. Tadokoro later to bring some veterinary medicine on his way over the next day. This magical pet was really weak, if it wasn't for the fact that firearms were inconvenient to get in Japan in a short period of time, he would have gotten some equipment to support this magical pet.

One night passed quickly, and early the next morning, Mr. Tadokoro brought everything Ichiyo needed and also took away 80,000 yen worth of snacks made by Ichiyo himself. Looking at the system, the personal panel in his own system showed that the points column had suddenly soared from 0 to 8,000 points, and Ichiyo had a satisfied smile on his face.

"System, give me an eighty-time draw!"

He is not a simple-minded person, his grandfather and father are enough for simple-minded people. Since it is possible to drill holes in the rules and happily pay for virtual currency, why bother leveling up slowly?

System: "..."

"Hurry up, I'm still waiting for you to level up and see what new features there are in level 2." Seeing that the system had not responded for a long time, Ichiyo urged.

The voice of the system was rare and somewhat angry, "You are cheating! This is a violation of the rules!"

"Is there anything in the usage instructions you were given that prohibits you from flushing the order? Ichiyo shrugged, "I'm just making good use of the bug in a reasonable way."

Can a player who pays virtual money to level up be called cheating?

"Don't talk about these useless things, just tell me if you are going to give a lottery or not, and if there is no problem, get it done quickly!"

After a long period of silence, the system finally admitted that it is too weak, as its seniors had claimed. The host is truly a demon!

Ichiyo's vision was filled with the sight of a familiar slot machine, and his points were instantly converted into lights and absorbed by the machine. As it began to operate, Ichiyo's experience also reached 10000/10000, fulfilling the requirement for the first upgrade.

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing the "Water Goddess Aqua." Due to opposition from the Water Goddess, the extraction has failed and the reward has been changed to one liter of Water Goddess Pure Bath Water containing weak purification power!"

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "10 ripe cabbages."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "20 carefully cultivated Bianhua by Meng Po."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "30 various types of Japanese confectionery recipes," and the reward has automatically been changed to "Wagashi Mastery."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 steaming meat bun bitten by a certain songstress."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 barbecued pork bun that the previously mentioned songstress hasn't bitten yet."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 basket of small steamed buns from the table of that same songstress."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 tear and a grudge from a songstress who was recently crying."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 high-quality scallion from the hand of a songstress currently performing on stage."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 banana peeled by the Monkey King himself."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "10 servings of puppy milk."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "2 bottles of horse monkey liquor."

"Ding Dong, congratulations to the host for drawing "1 serving of rat tail juice."

A series of system prompts filled the screen for a while, and then Ichiyo looked at all the stuff in the kitchen and was silent for a long time. He had a feeling that the "rat tail juice" drawn by the system at the end had some deep meaning!

And what the hell is "horse monkey liquor"? Ichiyo opened it and saw that it was really liquor. Looking at its muddy color and smell, it should be wild fruit wine, maybe it is really monkey wine brewed by a big horse monkey?

"The lottery is over, and the system will be upgraded for a month. In addition to updating basic functions, this upgrade will also add anti-cheating patches. Please take care of yourself, host."

Upon discovering that the system is offline, Ichiyo's face falls. Good fellow, that last one really had deep meaning!

After the system went offline, Ichiyo collected all the ingredients wrapped in golden light and stored them in the large refrigerator. He was gentler this time when he picked up the cabbage rolls and knocked them out with one knife and put them into the refrigerator.

The knowledge about "Wagashi Mastery" in his mind was not really helpful to him. After all, Wagashi itself is just a small matter. The most difficult thing is the ability to shape the sweets. Wagashi made by real masters is a kind of beautiful art, which makes people not know where to start eating and can't bear to destroy the beauty.

After digesting so many Japanese sweets recipes, he has almost understood these abilities, and even without the system's recipes, he can design the shape of his own Wagashi. As for those things like big meat buns, barbecued pork buns, small steamed buns, and scallions, he put them aside and paid no attention to them.

After opening the grudge from a certain songstress, a girl's voice with a crying tone entered his mind: "Bastard, thief, you're a bully! Give me my buns back! Ah Ling, someone is stealing my buns!"

Ichiyo listened to the familiar voice in silence for a moment before taking a big bite of the barbecued pork bun. As a music student in his previous life, Ichiyo was familiar with virtual songstresses, and the voice, combined with the identity of the songstress, could only belong to Luo Tianyi. As he ate a bun and a banana, Ichiyo couldn't help feeling mischievous and wanting to laugh.

But Ichiyo knew he couldn't laugh. That would be too cruel. It's all the system's fault, holding onto a little girl and constantly taking advantage of her, stealing the food of a foodie girl and making her so sad. None of this is Ichiyo's fault. He just put everything in place and smiled dishonestly as he planted the strange flowers that he didn't know the use of. The only thing that can be confirmed right now is that as long as you don't eat them, you won't die. The rest will have to wait until his team is set up and someone can test it.

What about the rat tail juice? Heh, what "rat tail juice", Ichiyo pours it into the sewer.

"Excuse me, may we order please?" At the counter, a group of little girls appeared out of nowhere and weakly raised their little hands towards Ichiyo who was thinking about whether or not "puppy milk" was drinkable.

When he was drawing the lottery he locked the door, so no one else can come in and see his situation, now that he was done, it doesn't matter if he was seen, after all, the open kitchen is meant for customers to see the whole process of the chef making the dishes. He said, "The pastries for sale today are all displayed in the showcase, choose for yourself, no special requests accepted. In addition to pastries, afternoon tea is also 1000 yen per cup."

The Seven-Flavors Fruit Daifuku has a sweet fruit flavor that is slightly less sweet than pastries, making it a good choice to pair with slightly sweet afternoon teas. Ichiyo's customer service attitude is not particularly good or bad, but in a country that places a lot of value on etiquette, it might be considered rude. Normally, customers would leave at this point, but Ichiyo has not yet found someone to help him serve the customer and he's too lazy to do it himself. However, the little girls' attitudes are extremely strange, they are not angry at all, and instead, nod with red faces and run to the side to choose pastries from the showcase.

Ichiyo can faintly hear their unabashed discussion.

"It's true what they say in 'The Most Beautiful Food' - this place really does have a good-looking, cold chef! He's so cool!"

"The magazine said that these pastries can make you feel happy, and I'm already happy just from seeing such a handsome guy!"

"Awesome!"

"Hey, calm down. We came here to eat pastries, not swoon over the chef."

Ichiyo: "..."

As the number of customers continues to grow, mostly consisting of females, Ichiyo's expression becomes a bit complicated as he thinks of the unlucky food journalist who was here before.

At Totsuki Academy, Alice Nakiri didn't bring her attendant Ryo Kurokiba with her on the weekend trip to Totsuki Gourmet Street. Instead, she sneaked out on her own. She had already found out that Erina would be busy all day today, so she wouldn't be able to come. That's why she's absolutely certain she won't be discovered!

So, from that night after she returned home, Alice, who had been feeling guilty ever since, finally couldn't resist the urge to go confess to her 'fiancee'.