"Li Ke, Li Ke! Did you make this yourself?!"
Mitsuri Kanroji arrived at Li Ke's side like a localized gale. However, she didn't try to snatch the food from his hands. Instead, her eyes sparkled with an intense radiance as she stared at the dish he was setting on the table, swallowing hard while interrogating him.
She looked exactly like a child eagerly waiting to see if an elder had brought back a handful of sweet fennel seeds!
"Yep, I sure did!"
Li Ke flashed a immensely proud smile.
In this era of Japan, let alone refined monosodium glutamate, even basic spices like black pepper or cinnamon were practically non-existent in mundane kitchens. The absolute highest tier of flavor enhancers available in the estate's pantry amounted to nothing more than basic soy glazes and local wild honey.
And remember, this was a high-end estate belonging to a wealthy noble house backing the Demon Slayer Corps—the literal future hope of the nation!
Yet even under these prime conditions, the ingredients were a luxury that the vast majority of ordinary citizens would never see in their entire lifetimes.
While it was true that MSG was historically discovered and isolated by a Japanese scientist, in this shattered timeline where the supernatural invasion had occurred, production had been choked out in its infancy. It was nowhere near achieving large-scale commercial distribution.
And even before the crisis, the price point of early synthesized seasonings meant commoners could never afford them.
Most importantly—
The secret weapon Li Ke had just dumped into the pot was a hyper-refined seasoning blend custom-made by Erina Nakiri herself, sourced straight from the universe of Food Wars!.
Given that her high-concept culinary creations literally triggered intense biological reactions and dopamine rushes in anyone who ate them, classifying his cooking as a literal aphrodisiac for the tastebuds wouldn't be an understatement at all!
"Omg, it smells so good... I want it so bad..."
Mitsuri bit down on her finger, desperately trying to keep her rapidly pooling saliva under control. Staring into the steaming pot of slow-braised chicken, her senses were so utterly overwhelmed that she could practically see an army of adorable, plump little chicks fluttering their wings inside the broth, chirping, "Eat me, eat me!" in the cutest voices imaginable.
Meanwhile, she felt like a predatory hawk, driven by an insatiable, wild instinct to swoop down and devour every single one of them!
"Ugh... Lord Li Ke... could I... schloop... please have just a little taste? I'll—I'll trade you a hundred sakura mochi for just one bite!"
Mitsuri had to summon every ounce of her internal resolve to make that proposal.
While she desperately wanted to experience the flavor of this masterpiece, maintaining a full stomach remained her absolute number-one priority in life.
Offering up a massive reserve of one hundred sakura mochi in exchange for a single spoonful of soup was, in her mind, a monumental sacrifice and an unprecedented concession!
But looked at from another angle, it proved just how staggering an value she placed on Li Ke's cooking!
"Come on, you're exaggerating..."
Looking at her near-microscopic level of self-control and the pitiful, puppy-dog eyes she was directing at the pot, Li Ke subconsciously reached out and patted Mitsuri's head. True to her nature, the pink-haired girl instinctively leaned into his palm, leaning her head against his hand like a happy puppy.
"If you want to eat, just go ahead. There's no need to trade your sakura mochi for it. I'm not really used to Japanese cuisine anyway."
He was telling the absolute truth.
As the saying goes, "Each unique environment nurtures its own unique people." Just as traditional Chinese food transforms into something completely unrecognizable the moment it crosses foreign borders, people from different cultures naturally lean toward vastly different flavor profiles.
If completely authentic Chinese cuisine truly sold perfectly abroad by default, there wouldn't be an absolute mountain of heavily modified, localized fusion dishes dominating the global market.
By that same token, an ordinary individual raised on a Chinese palate would invariably struggle to acclimate to genuine American or traditional Japanese staples as their primary diet.
At the very least, Li Ke could absolutely never tolerate finishing an entire giant bowl of white rice using nothing but a single sour pickled plum as his side—yet, in the historical era of this Demon Slayer world, that was a baseline standard for a domestic meal.
Conversely, he found the standard American habit of packing five or six processed cheese slices into a single burger, only to drench the entire thing in layers of heavy butter and thick cream sauces, utterly impossible to stomach.
It was the culinary equivalent of trying to eat a dumpling stuffed with sweet whipped cream.
Erina Nakiri, being a Japanese national herself, was naturally a world-class authority when it came to satisfying a Japanese palate. That was a deep-seated cultural specialization that no chef, regardless of talent, could easily bypass.
It was exactly like a master street vendor who spent a lifetime crafting authentic Chinese rougamo pan-breads; if you suddenly handed him two burger buns, he could technically assemble something edible, but the resulting execution would never satisfy a foreigner the way a dedicated burger chef could.
Every discipline carried its own distinct level of structural expertise.
That was precisely why he kept Erina's custom-engineered seasoning blends secured in his inventory at all times.
"Oh wow! Thank you so much, Lord Li Ke! You are seriously the best person ever!"
Hearing his permission, Mitsuri eagerly slid into a seat at the table. Her eyes never drifted from the dishes for a single fraction of a second, her mind already manifesting the sheer, euphoric bliss she would experience the moment the food actually touched her tongue.
Standing off to the side, the estate's young kitchen maid conscientiously carried over a massive, steaming mountain of white rice, before nervously shifting her weight, clearly intending to excuse herself from the room.
Li Ke, however, had zero intention of letting her leave. Although the maid was being remarkably tactful by trying not to impose on the high-ranking leadership of the Demon Slayer Corps, Li Ke had personally promised her that she would share in the feast.
As for social hierarchies and class divides...
As an Endless Traveler, Li Ke possessed the unique, unshakeable right to view every single native resident across the multiverse from a position of absolute, egalitarian neutrality.
After all, what was the point of holding a reality-hopping cheat if you still bound yourself to local feudal class structures?
"Alright, let's dig in."
The moment the words left Li Ke's mouth, even the usually reserved Shinobu Kocho couldn't resist raising her chopsticks with an enthusiastic cheer.
But it was Mitsuri who fell into a state of absolute, unadulterated ecstasy. The exact microsecond her senses processed the flavors, she discovered that every single component of the meal was utterly magnificent!
Because Li Ke hadn't reached for the chicken yet, she politely started by sampling a piece of the braised greens. The instant the food crossed her lips, her eyes snapped wide open.
She could literally feel the crisp, vibrant arrival of spring!
A gentle, localized wave of warm spring air seemed to wash over her entire body. The soft, imaginary radiance of a pristine afternoon sun caressed every single inch of her skin and muscles, wrapping her in a state of unimaginable, deep-seated comfort!
"Ah...!"
An involuntary, soft gasp escaped her lips as a deep, vibrant flush painted her cheeks. Completely ignoring her lapse in proper table manners, she reached up to wipe away a stray tear that had materialized at the corner of her eye, speaking up in a voice that was noticeably trembling with emotion.
"This is honestly too delicious!"
Li Ke, who was currently reaching for some of his own braised greens with his chopsticks, was completely dumbfounded. After all, Erina Nakiri hadn't personally executed this dish, and he had never actually bothered to learn how to properly stir-fry vegetables. As a result, his execution of the greens was an absolute disaster—they weren't crisp, nor did they look particularly appealing. The flavor profile was carried entirely by the sheer, unadulterated quality of Erina's seasoning mix.
The slow-braised chicken, on the other hand, was the only thing that had a decent amount of culinary technique behind it, as he had actually put effort into learning how to manage the heat for stews.
"Man, this poor girl is tragic!" Li Ke thought to himself. "She's clearly never eaten a single piece of actual high-quality food in her entire life."
Driven by a sudden wave of genuine pity, he immediately picked up a choice, succulent piece of chicken with his chopsticks and dropped it into her bowl.
"Here, have some actual meat..."
While frantically shoveling rice drenched in the seasoned vegetable broth into her mouth, Mitsuri quickly swapped out her empty container for a fresh bowl of white rice, catching the chicken Li Ke had offered.
"Arigatou!"
The next second, Li Ke watched in sheer amazement as she swallowed an immense mouthful of food in one go, the muscles in her neck visibly shifting as she forced the massive bolus down. Yet, acting as if it were completely normal, she immediately picked up the piece of chicken and bit into it. A deep, feverish flush painted her cheeks, and before he could even blink, yet another entire bowl of rice completely vanished from existence!
This specific, hyper-aggressive rhythm of eating a single bite of a side dish followed by an entire mountain of white rice was something Li Ke had genuinely never witnessed before in his life.
Granted, due to his various high-performance physical cheats, Li Ke himself consumed a massive volume of food. However, his diet consisted of tearing through huge slabs of meat. Unless Erina personally forced him to eat greens, he wouldn't touch a single vegetable unless it was Shanghai bok choy, tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, or kelp.
As for carbohydrates and staple starches, he only ate them on a whim.
At the end of the day, sustaining an incredibly powerful, transcendent physique required burning high-calorie, nutrient-dense proteins, not filler grains.
Watching her rely so heavily on cheap carbohydrates to fill her stomach made Li Ke feel a profound sense of sympathy for her.
"She really hasn't experienced anything good. What a tragic kid..." Li Ke sighed internally, his heart filling with genuine, empathetic sorrow.
But when he glanced around the room, he realized the estate's young kitchen maid was eating with the exact same frantic desperation. Even Shinobu, though slightly more reserved in her table manners, was still heavily prioritizing packing away massive quantities of white rice over the actual side dishes.
Even under these skewed eating habits, the baseline volume of food he had initially prepared was visibly nowhere near enough to sustain the room.
"Good grief... But then again, my raw culinary skills really can't hold a candle to Erina's."
Scratching his head as he looked at the room full of flushed, completely dazed women, Li Ke had no choice but to head straight back into the kitchen to start preparing additional dishes.
Though he had barely managed to swallow a few bites of his own meal before being forced back into continuous kitchen labor, a strange sense of fulfillment washed over him as a temporary chef, watching these girls completely lose their minds over his food.
This was especially true whenever his gaze drifted over to Mitsuri. Watching her down a single bite of meat before practically drinking an entire bowl of rice like water, Li Ke couldn't help but nod in silent appreciation.
"So this is what they call a chef's joy? A pure, unadulterated sense of validation?"
He didn't find her staggering appetite terrifying in the slightest. To the average citizen of this impoverished, historically constrained Taisho era, watching a girl eat like this would be an absolute nightmare. But to Li Ke's modern sensibilities, Mitsuri's voracious appetite looked incredibly endearing, acting as a fantastic catalyst that made everything look delicious.
Of course, it would be even better if he wasn't the one stuck doing all the manual labor over the hot stove.
Li Ke spent a solid hour entirely confined to the kitchen, slaving away over the burners before Mitsuri finally brought her relentless feast to a formal close.
By the time she set her chopsticks down, a fourth massive wooden rice barrel sat completely hollowed out right beside her chair.
Toward the final leg of her marathon, Li Ke had completely abandoned standard bowls, opting to just serve her food using massive kitchen mixing basins.
Yet, as he stared down at Mitsuri's stomach—which displayed only a microscopic, barely perceptible curve—Li Ke couldn't help but harbor a serious, profound suspicion: Did this girl have a literal nuclear fusion reactor hidden inside her gut? How on earth could someone dump that massive volume of mass into their body without showing a single physical change?!
"Ugh, I am so completely stuffed..."
Having finally eaten and drunk her fill, Mitsuri Kanroji happily patted her stomach, causing her generous chest to jiggle along with the movement. However, the exact moment her gaze drifted over to Li Ke—who was currently trying to placate a thoroughly panicked kitchen maid over the entirely hollowed-out rice barrels—the expression on her face froze instantly. A second later, she turned completely pale.
Having experienced Erina's specialized seasoning blends for the first time, a heavily flushed Shinobu Kocho stole a quiet glance at Li Ke. She mentally resolved to give him a thorough demonstration of her newly refined breathing techniques in exactly half an hour. But noticing Mitsuri's sudden, deathly pale complexion, she couldn't help but ask out of genuine curiosity, "What's wrong?"
"I—Did I just completely terrify Lord Li Ke?! And—And he didn't even get to eat a single bite of that magnificent food because of me...!"
Mitsuri finally snapped back to reality. Her survival-driven eating instincts had been so hyper-focused earlier that she completely failed to notice Li Ke spent the entire hour working over the stove without consuming anything himself. As the realization hit her, a wave of profound dread and panic assaulted her heart.
"What if Lord Li Ke hates me now? Did I actually just leave him to starve? What if he decides to never cook for me again for the rest of my life?!"
Clutching her face in her hands, her mind spiraled into a chaotic mess of anxiety. Shinobu could only stare at the pink-haired girl in absolute bewilderment. Before she could even open her mouth to offer some comfort, Mitsuri lunged forward in a frantic panic toward Li Ke. However, because her stomach was carrying the weight of four entire barrels of rice, her center of gravity was completely shot. Losing all spatial control, she barreled straight into Li Ke, knocking him flat onto the floor and collapsing heavily right on top of his chest.
Driven to the absolute brink of humiliation and anxiety, Mitsuri didn't even try to stand up. Instead, she subconsciously blurted her deepest insecurities straight into his face.
"L-Lord Li Ke! You don't secretly detest me, do you?! You don't think I'm the kind of monstrous freak who could only ever find a bear to marry, right?! You must absolutely hate me! Did I really just eat way too much?!"
Having screamed out her confession, she squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the inevitable lecture.
Li Ke, however, merely offered her a warm, easy smile.
"I don't hate you at all," he replied gently. "In fact, I think you're an incredibly endearing girl, Mitsuri. Watching you eat with so much genuine joy actually makes me build up an appetite myself."
Li Ke paused for a brief second, his smile growing a fraction more genuine.
"Honestly, if I had been the one paired up with you for an arranged marriage, I probably would have married you and brought you home on the exact same day."
He meant every single word.
Staring up into the eyes of the man who had just spoken the exact words she had spent her entire life praying to hear, Mitsuri's internal emotional dam shattered instantly.
"Waaaaah! I want to marry you, Lord Li Ke!"