Chapter 122
Seeing the flicker of trust in Erina's eyes, Mineo felt a small stir of emotion in his heart. He reached out and gently patted her smooth, fragrant shoulder.
"Follow me," he said. "I'll take you to see the real deal. Today, I'm going to let you both truly open your eyes."
Seeing Mineo lead the way, Erina followed him without a hint of hesitation. Seeing this, Alice huffed, stomped her foot lightly in annoyance, and followed them anyway.
Soon, the three of them headed down the stairs and reached the basement of the restaurant.
As they walked, Mineo spoke. "There are many wondrous things in this world. The existence of some of them might even surpass everything you've learned about the world so far, Erina."
"Erina, do you think superpowers exist in this world?"
"Superpowers!?"
Both Erina and Alice were momentarily stunned by the question. Then, Alice spoke up. "Do you mean the kind in comic books? People who can fly, go underground, or teleport instantly? Please, how could stuff like that actually exist? You're not suggesting *you* have superpowers, are you?"
Mineo only smiled in response to Alice's skepticism but said nothing more. He reached out and flipped a light switch on the wall.
In the next second, the full view of the Dimension Restaurant's ingredient warehouse was laid bare before the girls' eyes!
"This is the storage area for my restaurant," Mineo explained. "Basically, any ingredient that exists in this world can be found here. But the reason I brought you here today isn't just to look at these things. Alice, go over to that fish tank over there. You might find something that will give you quite a shock."
Curiosity piqued, Alice and Erina walked toward the massive glass tank. Almost instantly, their pupils shrank.
Before their eyes... what on earth was this creature!?
The body of a tuna... but the tentacles of an octopus?
This... how was this possible!? How could such a creature exist in this world?
Alice suddenly let out a sharp shriek. Terrified, she scrambled backward several steps.
"Mineo, you... there's a monster in here! What... what kind of creature is that!?"
Fortunately, Mineo moved quickly, catching Alice and steadying her before she could tumble over.
"I'm telling you, Alice, for a chef, your courage is far too small," Mineo teased. "Can't you see that what's being kept in this aquarium is just a fish? To be scared like this by a mere ingredient... you really are a scaredy-cat."
Being mocked by Mineo at every opportunity made Alice feel like she was about to explode with rage. However, every time she caught sight of that strange creature swimming in the tank, a wave of anxiety washed over her.
She wasn't afraid of food ingredients, but... was the thing in that tank actually an ingredient? Have you ever seen an ingredient with the body of a tuna and the tail of an octopus?
Who knows what kind of wild scenarios were playing out in Alice's head, but she stared at Mineo blankly. "Underneath... your restaurant... is there a secret biochemical laboratory!? Are you running some kind of genetic research project!?"
"Alice, what are you even imagining!?" Mineo sighed. "This place is just a simple food storage area. Where would a lab even come from?"
Mineo pinched Alice's soft cheek again, then pointed toward the freezing area on the other side. "Do you see those pincers hanging over there? Those are the giant claws of another deep-sea creature... if we're categorizing them, they belong to a type of crab."
As the saying goes, *to see is to believe*. Following Mineo's finger, Erina and Alice looked toward the freezer.
In the next second, both girls felt faint.
That thing... is a crab claw!? A crab claw nearly two meters long?
God! What kind of place am I in!? Mineo... who exactly are you!?
At that moment, Alice and Erina's worldviews were utterly shattered. A two-meter crab claw, a strange fish with a tuna body and octopus tail, and countless other ingredients they wouldn't even dare to imagine.
It could be said that if any one of these items were revealed to the public, it would be enough to shake the world. Yet here they were, laid out plain as day.
While Erina and Alice were too stunned to speak, Mineo walked over to the giant pincer and ran his hand along it.
"This is the claw of a Pincer Fish. This species doesn't exist in our world," Mineo said. "Erina, aren't you curious about where I got all of this? You need to understand this in the context of what I asked earlier."
Turning to face the beautiful, wide-eyed girls, Mineo said slowly, "Erina, you have the 'God's Tongue.' Many in the culinary world say your tongue is a manifestation of a superpower. But honestly, in my eyes, the God's Tongue isn't a superpower; it's just a special ability at most."
"But I am different from you," he continued. "I am the kind of being who truly possesses superpowers. My ability can be understood as Space-Time Leaping—or space hopping."
"Alice, you study Molecular Gastronomy, which requires a lot of scientific knowledge. You should be able to grasp the concept of a spatial jump. Besides the world we live in now, there are many other worlds in the universe that hold life. You can think of them as alien planets if it helps. This Pincer Fish claw, and everything else in this warehouse, was taken from another world."
Mineo looked them both in the eye. "I told you before—even if you spent your entire family fortune, you wouldn't be able to buy a single item in here. Otherwise, why do you think Kobayashi-senpai is so willing to work as a waitress here?"
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