"So, what would Miss Tohru like to eat?" Yuto asked with a warm, welcoming smile.
Even as he spoke, he couldn't help but marvel at the girl sitting across the counter.
How could a majestic terrifying dragon suddenly take such a form when transformed into a human?
There wasn't a single trace of fearsome dragon in her, instead, she was utterly adorable!
And the fact that she was currently wrapped in nothing but a single piece of cloth was certainly distracting.
"Do you honestly think human food can impress a proud dragon?" the horned girl asked, her voice dripping with haughty arrogance.
Her sharp, reptilian eyes narrowed in skepticism and intense scrutiny.
"Why not give it a try?" Yuto replied with a light, easy laugh.
Tohru fell silent for a few seconds, assessing him, before giving a sharp nod.
"Hmph! Then bring me your best dish. Do your best to please me!" She raised her chin high, sitting up straight with a perfectly executed air of superiority.
"Of course. Please wait a moment," Yuto bowed slightly.
He had become an absolute master at handling all kinds of customers.
He had dealt with guests who arrived with massive egos before, but his cooking always managed to humble them in the end.
Smiling to himself, he headed into the kitchen to prepare her meal.
Meanwhile, out in the dining room, Tohru's dramatic entrance had immediately drawn the attention of the diner's other otherworldly patrons.
'Why can't Veldora transform into something this cute?' Rimuru thought to himself, feeling a sudden deep sense of betrayal toward his own dragon best friend.
'A dragon, huh? Back in YGGDRASIL, a dragon was always a massive raid boss. I wonder if a real dragon drops as much high-tier loot as the ones in the game did...' Ainz mused.
For a fleeting moment, a pang of nostalgia hit him hard, and the painful emptiness in his chest grew a little heavier as he missed his old guildmates.
"Slime and undead. What are you staring at? Is it because you simply cannot contain your awe upon seeing a noble dragon in the flesh?" Tohru demanded, narrowing her eyes at Rimuru and Ainz.
Her expression was filled with absolute condescension!
As a supreme being of destruction, she had always viewed creatures like slimes and undead as nothing more than pathetic, bottom-tier monsters.
Hearing this, Ainz desperately wanted to frown, but since he was literally just a skull, his lack of facial muscles betrayed him.
Instead, the twin red orbs in his eye sockets flared dangerously bright.
He wasn't going to explode in rage over her attitude—he was well-acquainted with the nature of dragons, and their arrogance was a universal given—but feeling intensely displeased was inevitable.
"Miss Tohru, are you also from another world?" Rimuru asked eagerly, completely unbothered by her insults.
Tohru was slightly taken aback by the slime's boundless enthusiasm.
"Ainz and I actually come from completely different worlds! Tohru, are you a native creature of another world too?" Rimuru asked, feeling inexplicably delighted to meet yet another isekai traveler.
Tohru's arrogant expression faltered slightly.
She glanced at Ainz, then back at Rimuru.
For a moment, she was genuinely shocked that they were all from separate universes, but she quickly regained her composure.
Considering the existence of this bizarre restaurant, coming from different worlds didn't seem all that strange.
"That's right! I am a proud dragon from the other world, highly skilled in destruction and absolute devastation!" Tohru boasted, answering Rimuru's question while making sure to add her specialties.
Just mentioning her destructive capabilities made her feel incredibly excited and proud.
Rimuru, however, broke out in a cold sweat.
Literal beads of water poured down his body, only to be instantly reabsorbed.
"Oh? When it comes to destruction and devastation, I consider myself quite skilled as well," Ainz stated darkly.
He clenched his bony hand into a fist, and the red dots in his eyes burned even brighter.
"Is that so, undead? Are you challenging me to see who is better at raining down devastation?" Tohru curled her lips into a sharp fanged smile.
The dragon girl seemed to ignite with sudden excitement!
"Call me Ainz. I am Ainz Ooal Gown, the ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick!" Ainz formally introduced himself, the sheer weight of his title only fueling the dragon girl's bloodlust further.
"Interesting! An undead daring to challenge a dragon?! How incredibly amusing!!!" Tohru's slender fingers instantly transformed into massive, razor-sharp green dragon claws.
"Oh? A challenge? Hehehe... Hahaha! A mere dragon dare to challange me? The desperate wails of dragons are not uncommon among the souls I command!" Ainz laughed, a dark, chilling aura beginning to leak from his skeletal frame.
As the two apex predators grew increasingly confrontational, Rimuru was on the verge of a total breakdown.
"Wait! How did this turn into a deathmatch?!" The slime rolled back and forth frantically in a genuine panic.
He had only asked her a question out of friendly curiosity!
How had things escalated to a boss fight so quickly?!
"Tohru, Ainz. Please keep it quiet in the restaurant," Yuto's calm, even voice drifted softly from the kitchen.
Instantly, the raging dragon girl and the terrifying Overlord of Death fell completely silent.
The boiling bloodlust in their hearts inexplicably vanished, calming as quickly as a disturbed pond returning to perfect stillness.
All thoughts of conflict simply evaporated under the restaurant's cognitive magic.
"Mhm. This is a place to enjoy a good meal. Kamisaka's cooking is excellent," Saitama nodded in agreement, putting down his chopsticks and smiling at the group.
Tohru glared at Saitama, finding him utterly uninteresting and ridiculous.
A mere bald, weak-looking human daring to lecture her?!
And he looked so incredibly foolish!
Saitama tilted his head slightly, his smile turning into a slight frown.
He felt like he had just been deeply insulted without a single word being spoken!
....
Signature dishes... Yuto had far too many signature dishes to choose from.
He sighed softly and decided to base his choice on Tohru's likely dietary preferences.
He didn't know her well, but since she was a dragon, she undoubtedly craved meat.
After thinking for a moment, he knew exactly what to make.
He would make Nikumaki Onigiri—Meat-Wrapped Rice.
In the past, Yuto's go-to comfort food was Omurice.
It was a beloved, traditional dish in this country, and Utaha ordered it all the time.
But considering Tohru was a fearsome dragon, a fluffy egg omelet simply wouldn't cut it.
It had to be meat!
Compared to Omurice, Meat-Wrapped Rice was far more impactful and heavy.
After all, ordinary egg rolls couldn't possibly compare to the rich, savory aroma of seared pork.
Having made up his mind, Yuto took a wooden paddle and scooped a generous portion of cold rice from the prep bucket.
Occasionally, customers ordered fried rice, and only overnight, chilled rice could produce the perfect, separated texture needed for a good stir-fry.
Because of this, the shop always kept two buckets of rice on hand: one steaming hot for immediate serving, and one cold for frying.
After scooping the rice, he quickly and skillfully diced some fresh carrots and onions for flavor. Once that was done, he pulled a block of premium pork belly from the fridge.
The fat and lean meat were perfectly balanced, and the marbling was exceptionally even.
It was leftover stock from the Totsuki ingredient truck delivery earlier that week.
Holding the pork belly in his hand, Yuto couldn't help but marvel at the quality, the Nakiri family truly sourced the best ingredients in the world.
He washed the meat thoroughly, then placed it on the wooden cutting board. His left hand pressed gently down on the block, his eyes calmly assessing the grain.
His right hand gripped his chef's knife, slowly pushing the blade flat from one end to the other.
For Meat-Wrapped Rice, he naturally needed thin slices, but they couldn't be too thin. The meat would be pan-fried later, and if the slices were paper-thin, they would tear and ruin the presentation.
They needed to be slightly thicker, seared in oil until about seventy percent cooked so they remained juicy and tender.
The sharp blade slid smoothly, producing a perfect slice of pork belly about three millimeters thick. Held up to the light, the slice wasn't entirely transparent, only slightly semi-translucent.
A single slice was about ten centimeters long and three fingers wide—far from enough to cover a mound of rice.
Yuto quickly calculated the surface area in his head and sliced three more uniform pieces. Four slices would be exactly enough.
Setting the meat aside, he moved on to the rice. He slipped on a pair of prep gloves and gently massaged the cold rice with his hands, loosening the grains so they wouldn't clump together in the wok.
Once prepped, he fired up the stove.
He poured a little oil into the heavy iron wok and waited.
The moment he saw a faint, nearly invisible wisp of blue smoke rise from the surface of the oil, he tossed in the diced carrots.
After tossing them quickly over the high heat, he added the diced onions, followed immediately by the loosened rice.
He stir-fried the mixture with rapid, practiced flicks of his wrist, adding a precise blend of seasonings.
The rice, already fragrant from the intense heat, exploded with a rich, savory aroma as the spices hit the hot oil.
Sitting outside and chatting with Rimuru, Tohru's nose twitched.
She smelled the aroma wafting from the kitchen.
It was a fragrance rich and savory enough to captivate even the proudest, most stubborn dragon.
"Everything Kamisaka makes smells amazing," Saitama noted with a faint, appreciative smile.
Ainz nodded silently in agreement—even though he didn't actually have a nose to smell it with.
If there was one thing Ainz regretted most about becoming an undead skeleton, it was
the tragic reality that he could no longer eat Yuto's cooking!
"This smell... could it be that he added some kind of magical ingredients?!" Tohru gasped, sniffing the air hungrily, her reptilian eyes wide with doubt and shock.
She was a proud dragon!
There was absolutely no reason for mere human cooking to move her!
But... but right now... even she had to admit her mouth was watering.
"No, I didn't," Yuto's calm voice drifted from the kitchen, easily overhearing her surprise.
He offered the simple explanation and fell silent, but a small, proud smile appeared on his face.
Coming from a dragon, her disbelief was the highest form of praise for his skills.
It brought him a deep sense of joy.
"Boss! Boss, please make me a portion too!" Rimuru suddenly cheered.
Despite having just polished off a mountain of fried chicken and a bottle of beer, the slime declared he could eat more.
"Alright!" Yuto called back.
With the rice finished and shaped into a perfect, tight oval using a wooden spoon, Yuto began frying the meat slices.
The oil in a separate pan was already smoking hot.
He picked up a slice of pork belly with his chopsticks and laid it flat in the pan.
Sizzle...
The pale pink meat instantly seared, turning a beautiful, golden-white.
Droplets of hot oil danced around the edges as the fat rendered down, and the flat slice began to curl and wrinkle slightly from the heat.
Yuto flipped it with a practiced flick of his wrist.
After searing it for just a few more seconds, he lifted it from the pan and draped it carefully over the molded fried rice.
It covered exactly one-quarter of the mound.
He quickly fried the remaining three slices, draping them one by one until the rice was completely encased in a sizzling, savory shell of pork.
In the unseen angles where the hot meat met the rice, the rich, rendered fat slowly seeped down, soaking into the grains and binding the flavors together.
Finally, Yuto scooped a spoonful of his custom-made glaze and poured it over the top.
He had never been entirely satisfied with traditional teriyaki sauce, so he had made several improvements to the recipe, giving it a deeper, more complex umami profile.
As the thick, glossy sauce cascaded over the seared pork, the Meat-Wrapped Rice was complete.
Yuto carried the steaming plate out to the dining room and set it gently in front of Tohru.
"Meat-Wrapped Rice. Please enjoy."
He placed a clean white spoon on the side of the plate and turned right back toward the kitchen, he still needed to make a second portion for Rimuru.
Tohru stared down at the glistening fragrant mound of meat and rice.
She couldn't help but swallow hard.
Staring at the dish, the proud dragon suddenly seemed a little less deserving of her fearsome title!