CASE 4
“Kyaaaaa!! Someone—!? My husband suddenly collapsed!!”
One of the customers, a woman, suddenly started shouting loudly. That itself isn’t rare or anything, so I approached to handle it as usual, and the man who had been eating with that woman had lost consciousness. Thinking that maybe another real exploding rice ball had gone off, I approached the man and was about to touch his body when my hand was grabbed and stopped.
“Everyone, please don’t move from where you are. No one is allowed to leave this restaurant.”
The person who grabbed my hand was a tall woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Wrapped in a long coat, one eye hidden by long hair, with a languid expression and a cigarette in her mouth—this woman who looked like a fetish expo started giving orders to people around her despite not being a staff member.
“Everyone, please listen calmly. This man has already passed away. But this isn’t an accident. This is—a murder case!”
A mystery has started. The woman who started giving orders was, as expected, a fairly famous detective, and the customers around were all excited like [Eh!? Could it be that ability detective!?].
Because of that, I completely lost my timing. My timing to inform her that this restaurant is completely non-smoking.
And so, naturally, an investigation by the detective-san began. Furthermore, after about fifteen minutes, she said [The key to the mystery has now been revealed]—probably her signature line—and instructed all the suspects to gather. She’s as fast-paced as Conan-kun in a single-episode story. And so the deduction show began.
However, that deduction show required knowledge of powers, and since I didn’t understand the content of the deductions at all, I could only nod along appropriately with [As expected] [I didn’t know that] [Amazing!] [Good sense] [I see!] to match those around me.
By the way, the culprit was the wife of the collapsed man. The motive was her husband’s affair, and she thought she could make it look like a natural death in this restaurant, so she committed the crime. Manager, you should reconsider this restaurant’s management.
After that, the culprit woman was taken away by the police, and apparently the man came back to life at the hospital he was taken to. Since I had witnessed someone’s death, I was feeling rather unpleasant, so I was really glad he was alive.
That detective-san clearly said he had [passed away], though. There are various theories about whether she’s really a great detective.
Well, in any case, the case was safely resolved. However, thinking that the restaurant would surely be closed for a few days since there had been a murder case (attempted), the manager gave grateful words to all employees:
“Then let’s aim to reopen in one hour.”
This guy’s insane.
CASE 5
“An order… for that special menu item… has come in…!”
When one of the staff members who had returned from taking orders reported this while trembling, the kitchen grew restless.
“Oi oi, seriously…?”
“Damn…! There haven’t been any recently, so I let my guard down.”
“Who ordered it?”
“The usual ‘X’.”
They seem excited about something, but as a new employee, I completely don’t understand their vibe. What are they even talking about?
“No choice… we’ll have to offer up a sacrifice.”
“Yeah…”
“That’s the only way.”
The senior staff with dark atmospheres looked toward me with expressions that said [I don’t like it, but…].
“Watagaya-kun, we need to talk.”
“No thanks.”
“I haven’t said anything yet!?”
No, with that flow, I’m not going to be like [I’ll do it!]. You clearly said “sacrifice.”
“We’re not asking you to do anything weird. We just want you to carry a certain dish.”
“You say that, but last time you made me carry that [Light-Middle Gunpowder Rice] that had a 1/199 chance of exploding every second without telling me anything.”
In the end, it didn’t explode while I was carrying it, but right before the customer put it in their mouth.
“Really, this time it’ll be fine!”
The senior staff looked straight into my eyes and earnestly pleaded. Honestly, I couldn’t trust them at all, but believing in the conscience that all humans should possess, I accepted the senior’s request.
And so, thirty minutes later—
“Watagaya-kun, you’re going to carry this.”
What was presented had a volume dozens of times larger than the plate it was served on.
“[The Dragon Who Governs Eternity Falls to Earth]… that’s the name of this dish.”
Rather than a dish, it should be called a kind of art piece—a huge, colorful dragon made from various ingredients as the main creative work. It was about two meters tall and one meter wide, with the dragon and surrounding decorations maintaining an exquisite balance. I couldn’t help but applaud at its overwhelming dynamism and level of completion. However…
“You’re not human…”
There’s absolutely no way I won’t spill this while carrying it, no matter what I do. So it was something weird after all!
“Listen, Watagaya. At this restaurant, you can only become first-rate once you can carry this dish without spilling it.”
I don’t particularly want to become first-rate at this restaurant though…
“The great veteran Takayanagi-san can even carry it while maintaining nearly 40% of the dish’s original form!”
That means more than half gets spilled!
“Also, be careful of the customer who orders this dish—we call them ‘X’.”
Saying that, the senpai led me to the hall and pointed at this customer called X. At first glance, it was just an ordinary elderly man with a lot of white hair.
“That person?”
“Yeah, that person has a hobby of regularly ordering this dish and then complaining snidely to staff who couldn’t carry it well, and he publicly declares this. According to him, [Now that I’ve retired, lecturing young people like this is the only thing that gives me energy].”
Can’t we throw this guy in prison? This is a flaw in the law at this point.
“So Watagaya, go receive the lecture.”
You’ve finally stopped pretending.
“What, if you’re lucky it’ll end in thirty minutes. All right, I’m counting on you!”
Saying that, the senior staff pushed this troublesome matter onto me and left. Damn him. Next time I find him napping in the break room, I’m going to stomp on him hard.
But what should I do? At this rate, I’m going to receive an unreasonable lecture from a textbook toxic old man. I need to think of a way to avoid it—or so I, from a year ago, would have worried.
But the current me has, nominally at least, studied powers for a year in this ability society. That’s right—even I tend to forget, but I’m an ability user. And my ability happens to have good compatibility with this current problem.
So I used my ability on [The Eternal Dragon… um… whatever dish].
“Sorry for the wait~”
“Hmph, you’re finally here. Now let’s see how much you spill—what the!?”
The toxic old man who ordered the dish raised a voice of shock and amazement when he saw the dish I brought in its perfectly intact state.
“Im-impossible… Nothing’s collapsed. How can this be possible…?”
Hehe, it feels kind of good to be this surprised. I see, so this is what it feels like to be a protagonist with cheats getting praised by everyone. Not bad.
“I… lose.”
I don’t know what I won against, but it seems there won’t be a lecture. So as I tried to return to the kitchen—
“Ahahahaha! Oi oi, old man, what happened to your usual vigor!”
Suddenly someone started shouting next to me. When I turned around, it was the senior staff member who had just pushed this troublesome matter onto me.
“You said it the other day, didn’t ya~. That if anyone could carry this dish perfectly, you’d eat the plate too~”
The senior staff, with a proud face as if this were his own achievement, taunted the toxic old man with foul language.
“You little brat~!”
“Uhahahaha! Come on, the plate too! Here, the plate too!”
…Can’t we throw this guy in prison for something too? I quite seriously wished for this senpai’s isolation from society.
A while after that,
“Someone please handle the register!”
“Yes. I’ll go.”
There was a request for register assistance, and since I happened to be free, I went to the register. And standing in line at the register was that toxic old man from earlier.
Ugh, bad timing— I thought, and at that moment, I noticed. Blood was dripping from the corner of the old man’s mouth.
…Did he go for it? The plate and all?
Uh, no, but, um… Should I point this out? However, none of the staff or customers around showed any reaction at all to the old man bleeding. What? Am I the weird one here?
Damn, what kind of reaction should I have…? Think, think, think—in that split second, I agonized and agonized before reaching a conclusion.
“…That’ll be 53,000 yen~”
I decided to pretend not to see it. Though I did at least recommend he go to a hospital.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.GITHUB.IO
CASE 6
During my part-time job break, I casually looked through customer surveys that were on the break room desk since I was bored.
[The food is delicious. There’s nothing else to praise besides the food.]
I agree.
[When will we be able to eat mermaid meat? I want to become immortal soon.]
What do you think a restaurant is?
[I try not to ask staff members I’ve seen before to serve me. Staff members I’ve seen three or more times are definitely crazy in some way.]
What the hell… you bastard…
[When a customer who was clearly underage ordered alcohol, a staff member deliberately brought the alcohol in front of them, then said “You’re too young for this” and started drinking it themselves right there. I really don’t understand what that meant. I felt madness. Manager, please properly educate your staff.]
I’m pretty sure it was the manager who did that.
[Thanks to eating this restaurant’s food, I was able to transcend the wall of the sixth dimension. Through this, I presided over the creation and death of a new humanity, and furthermore, reigning as a higher-dimensional existence—]
[I want to eat a platter of the socks the staff members are wearing.]
[Upo hahaha tayoru $% ga o wawa! &—]
The restaurant is what it is, but the customers are what they are too, I thought.
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