Inside the Ninth Floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
This floor served as a resting area for guild members and high-ranking NPCs, fully equipped with every kind of living facility imaginable, including meeting rooms, beauty salons, cafeterias, bars, dance halls, and bathhouses.
Back then, someone had suggested that if it was meant to be a place to live, it should be built to the highest standard possible. Enormous amounts of time were poured into creating all sorts of facilities. In truth, though, they were largely pointless. In the game, all you got was a small map. You couldn't actually use or enjoy any of it.
But transmigration turned the impossible into reality. When Momonga and the others were transported here, they discovered that these facilities had become real. They were now fully usable.
"Mm, this is really good. You should try it too, Blackie."
"It is good, but I think this piece tastes better."
"Your taste is really strange, Blackie."
"Well, what can I do? I'm a slime now. My sense of taste can't compare to yours."
The Supreme Restaurant, which had been built long ago but never once used, was finally seeing its very first guests.
Three figures sat side by side at the dining table, countless delicacies laid out before them. Two of them were rapidly wiping out everything on the table. Their movements were so fast that only faint afterimages remained as food vanished right before the maids' eyes.
"Faster, hurry up! All the plates are empty!"
Watching the scene unfold, a nearby maid NPC broke into a sweat and immediately urged the serving maids to pick up the pace. If the speed of serving dishes couldn't keep up with the Supreme Beings' eating, that would be an unforgivable failure on her part.
"Hey, Momonga, why aren't you eating?"
"Yeah, look at this chicken soup. It's really delicious. Want to try some?"
"Ahem… I'll pass. I'm not hungry."
Momonga looked at the food being pushed toward him, then glanced at the two of them, eating nonstop while already eyeing the next dish. The irritation made his teeth ache.
He knew their behavior was perfectly normal. Back in the real world, for people like them who worked from early morning to late at night and constantly did overtime, even a raw cabbage would be eaten with enthusiasm. Let alone gourmet food carefully prepared by Nazarick's chefs. The fact that they could even talk to him while eating was already impressive.
Still, Momonga was extremely unhappy.
He was undead. He couldn't eat.
This cursed skeleton body couldn't eat or drink at all. The moment anything went in, it would just leak straight out of his chest.
Even if magical items were used to keep the food from spilling out, as an undead, he had no sense of taste. He'd tried it before. Spicy, salty, sweet, bitter, none of it registered at all.
"Oh, right. I forgot you can't eat now, Momonga."
"Sorry about that, Momonga. I totally forgot you couldn't eat."
Naohara and Herohero suddenly spoke up while continuing to eat.
"I swear…" Momonga nearly exploded on the spot.
"Alright, alright, no more jokes. Here, take this."
Seeing that Momonga was on the verge of blowing up, Naohara stopped teasing him. He reached into a black void floating in the air, rummaged around for a moment, then tossed something toward him.
At the same time, he waved his hand, signaling for all the maids around them to withdraw.
"What's this?"
Staring at the white cube in front of him, Momonga looked at Naohara with confusion.
"A cash shop item called [Mask of the Dead]. It lets undead disguise themselves as humans for three hours a day. Honestly, it's a pretty underwhelming item."
Naohara explained it casually. Back then, it had just been a small extra he got while spending money to roll for rare items. He hadn't paid it much attention at the time, but when he later considered the possibility of transmigration, he decided to keep it. Who knew, it might come in handy someday.
"Is this thing really useful?"
"Why not try it and see?"
Momonga eyed the item with lingering doubt, but Naohara's words made him stop overthinking it. Right. No matter what, it couldn't get any worse.
He poured magic into the item, and immediately felt a strange sensation wrap around him, as if a thin membrane had completely covered his skeletal body.
"Feels kind of tight," Momonga thought.
Almost as if it could sense his thoughts, the areas that felt constricted instantly adjusted, loosening until they fit comfortably.
Herohero: "Looks pretty decent."
Naohara: "Seems like all that spending wasn't for nothing."
"This is…"
Hearing their comments, Momonga slowly opened his eyes. Yes, eyes.
As his eyelids lifted, familiar scenery came into view: the dining table, the food, and Naohara and Herohero standing nearby, commenting as usual.
"A body… a real body."
Momonga raised his hands. No longer skeletal bone hands, but real arms of flesh and blood. He could even clearly see the veins beneath his skin. Everything felt astonishingly real.
"Not bad, right? Come take a look yourself."
Naohara smiled, pulled Momonga up from his chair, and quickly led him to a mirror nearby.
Reflected in the mirror was no longer a skeletal undead, but a blond man who looked to be around twenty-three years old. His handsome face stunned Momonga for a moment, and he instinctively reached up and pinched his own cheek.
"Ow."
A long-lost sensation surfaced. Pain. Something so ordinary, yet it felt like he hadn't experienced it in ages. A feeling that constantly reminded him he was alive.
"Hahaha! This is amazing! The feeling… it all came back!"
Momonga couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out laughing.
The passive ability [Forced Calm] did not activate. Right now, he wasn't the undead Suzuki Satoru, but the human Suzuki Satoru. The undead passives could no longer affect him.
"Momonga looks really excited. Makes sense. Suddenly becoming undead must've been hard for him to accept."
Herohero watched the figure laughing uncontrollably, a hint of emotion in his voice. He understood exactly why Momonga was so happy.
"Even though we all transmigrated, the two of us are still alive. But Momonga ended up as an undead. You can't tell from the outside, but I know it had to be rough on him. Just watching us enjoy things, while he couldn't enjoy anything himself. Undead can't even experience strong emotional swings."
Naohara watched Momonga flailing around happily while quietly activating a recording item, chatting with Herohero at the same time.
"Alright, Momonga. If you're done getting excited, come eat with us."
Seeing that he'd finally calmed down a bit, Naohara pulled him back to the table.
"Alright! Food! I'm eating as much as I can today!"
"Hey, hey, slow down. Don't choke."
"Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!!"
"Wait, you actually choked? Hurry, drink some water!"
"Hah… I'm alive again."
"And you're still laughing? You almost became the first transmigrator to choke to death."
"Haha, I'm just happy. Happy that I'm really alive."
"Forget it, Naohara. There's no way Momonga's going to calm down right now."