"Hmm. You make a fair point. Just a handheld console really isn't enough to sustain me," Ainz muttered softly, rubbing his bony chin.
The glowing red orbs in his hollow eye sockets flickered rapidly as his undead brain aggressively calculated his entertainment needs.
Watching the exchange, Rimuru suddenly bounced wildly on his stool.
"Boss! Boss! I want one too!" Rimuru cheered, swaying back and forth like a hyperactive bowl of blue jelly.
"Huh? Rimuru, you want a console too?" Yuto asked, slightly surprised.
"Mm-hmm!" Rimuru bobbed up and down affirmatively.
Yuto chuckled lightly and grabbed a notepad. "Alright. So, what exactly do you want me to order?"
Rimuru went quiet for a few seconds, deep in thought. "Hmm... Could you buy me all the major light novels, popular manga, top-rated galgames, and the newest handheld consoles released over the past five years?"
Rimuru rattled off the massive, expensive shopping list so cheerfully that Yuto nearly choked on his own spit.
Five years' worth of backlog... light novels, manga, galgames...
'Rimuru... so you were a massive degenerate otaku too?!' Yuto thought, staring at the slime in disbelief.
"I can order all that, but... are you really going to be okay playing games and reading books with that squishy slime body?" Yuto asked, voicing his practical concern.
How was a blob without fingers going to hold a controller?
"It's absolutely no problem! In fact, my current slime form is actually way better suited for long-term, hardcore cultural research!" Rimuru boasted proudly.
The blue blob extruded a small tentacle and formed it into a perfect, confident thumbs-up.
Whether it was a trick of the light or not, Yuto swore the slime's thin eyes were practically glowing with a devout otaku excitement.
Yuto pondered the biological implications of Rimuru's claim.
A slime's body meant no need to eat, no need to sleep, and no physical fatigue or eye strain from staring at a screen for seventy-two hours straight...
Hiss—
Thinking about it that way, Rimuru was right.
A slime was the ultimate, evolved biological form for a hardcore gamer!
"Oh, right! Get me a smartphone too!" Rimuru added quickly, still vibrating with excitement.
He looked exactly like a frenzied shopper unleashed in a tech store on Black Friday.
Yuto stared at him.
He seriously suspected the slime lacked a functional brain.
'Why on earth would you ask for a smartphone?! Does the Jura Forest have 5G cell towers?!'
"Hmm. Hmm. Rimuru makes a very solid point, but for a ruler of my caliber, mere games are still not enough," Ainz nodded deeply, striking a pose like a great philosopher discussing the fate of the universe.
His deep rumbling tone was profound, but Yuto could easily detect the suppressed, giddy excitement underneath.
Yuto stared blankly at the Overlord.
He hadn't even noticed the skeleton moving, but Ainz had somehow already written out a meticulously detailed shopping list.
Even though his hands were just bare, fleshless bones, his typing speed was terrifying.
"Kamisaka! Here! Keep this sacred list safe! These are my ultimate desires!" Ainz declared with extreme, dramatic seriousness, sliding a piece of paper across the wood.
Yuto picked it up and scanned the neat handwriting.
'Light novels... Manga box sets... Handheld consoles... Dakimakura...'
When Yuto's eyes hit the word 'dakimakura', his brain short-circuited.
He slowly looked up at the terrifying undead god.
"Ainz... you... you still want an anime body pillow?" Yuto asked hesitantly, praying he had misread it.
"Hmm. I don't know if I can even feel physical comfort anymore, but I'm incredibly wealthy now, so I'm just going to buy it anyway to assert dominance," Ainz stated.
The sheer, unapologetic 'fuck you money' attitude left Yuto completely at a loss for words.
The once quiet, udon-loving depressed salaryman had fully evolved into an incredibly wealthy degenerate skeleton!
Yuto sighed softly, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Are these things really that interesting?" he muttered, voicing his genuine doubt.
He hadn't had much exposure to geek culture growing up.
He was too busy working to survive!
Now, everyone around him seemed to be a massive nerd.
Rimuru and Ainz were hopeless cases, and even Utaha wrote light novels for a living.
Since he had barely touched any of it, it was hard for him to understand the feverish appeal.
The moment he voiced his innocent doubt, Rimuru and Ainz froze.
Their non-existent eyes instantly locked onto him, like starving predators spotting a wounded gazelle.
"Hehehe... Kamisaka. From the sound of your tragic ignorance, you've never truly experienced the glorious depths of this culture," Ainz chuckled.
The sound was incredibly eerie and villainous...
Yuto sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.
He suddenly felt a very primal sense of danger.
'Something was very wrong.'
"Boss... what a damn pity..." Rimuru whispered, staring at him with a strange, pitying expression.
"Kamisaka! I've made a decision!" Ainz suddenly roared, slamming his bony hand flat against the table.
Yuto jumped slightly, startled by the outburst.
"Decided what?"
"Hehehe... Kamisaka... allow us to forcefully bestow upon you the sacred knowledge of our people..." Ainz promised.
The Overlord's eerie, rattling laughter and deeply threatening words sent a violent chill sprinting down Yuto's spine.
'New knowledge? Why does that sound like a threat?!'
...
After imparting a massive wave of otaku knowledge onto Yuto, Ainz and Rimuru finally left the restaurant.
The two monsters had an ironclad diplomatic agreement to spend the latter half of the night touring Rimuru's monster town in the Jura Forest.
Throughout the intense, unhinged knowledge-sharing session, Yuto had maintained a polite, rigid smile.
Concepts like tsundere, yandere, moe points, and the cultural significance of twin tails...
Yuto felt this specific brand of 'knowledge' was a bit beyond his scope as a simple chef.
The most troublesome part was that Ainz had made him promise that tomorrow, after he bought the requested mountain of light novels and manga, the three of them would sit down and read them together.
Ainz called it 'on-site guidance'.
He claimed it was necessary to help solidify the chef's new cultural education.
Yuto had desperately tried to refuse, but he was ruthlessly dragged into agreeing by the combined, aggressive enthusiasm of the slime and the skeleton.
By the time Ainz and Rimuru finally stepped through the door, the two of them had even given Yuto a synchronized, encouraging thumbs-up.
"Sigh..."
Yuto let out a soft, exhausted sigh, shaking his head in deep resignation.
His defeated demeanor made Tohru, who was standing nearby wiping the counter, light up with intense interest.
It seemed the fierce dragon girl quite enjoyed seeing her normally calm, unflappable boss looking so helpless and troubled.
"Tohru, what's wrong?" Yuto asked, noticing her staring at him with a strange, amused smile.
"Oh, nothing! It's just that it's rare to see the Boss looking so genuinely defeated. It feels a bit novel," the dragon girl chuckled, scratching her cheek.
Her golden eyes sparkled with clear delight.
Hearing her honest teasing, Yuto chuckled softly.
"I'm a normal person, Tohru. Of course I have moments like this when I feel helpless," Yuto smiled, grabbing a rag to wipe down his cutting board.
"But... if you really felt it was so troublesome, why didn't you just refuse that creepy undead earlier?" Tohru asked, tilting her head.
Her way of referring to Ainz seemed permanently fixed as just 'undead'.
"Hmm... how should I explain this to you..." Yuto fell into thought, pausing his cleaning.
After a few seconds, he looked at Tohru and offered a faint, warm smile.
"Because we're friends."
Between close friends, wasn't this kind of pushy, annoying behavior quite common?
And more importantly... only between true friends would there be such relaxed, shameless interactions.
Ainz and Rimuru felt comfortable enough to burden him with their embarrassing hobbies, and Yuto felt comfortable enough to grumble about it.
Hearing Yuto's simple explanation, the dragon girl fell silent, pondering his words.
After a moment, her golden eyes flickered.
A clear sense of sudden understanding dawned on her face.
'So that's how humans view friendship...' Yuto glanced up at the wall clock.
It was already past five in the morning.
Outside the restaurant, the dark sky had begun to take on a pale, bluish-white hue.
The sun was just starting to rise, its light and warmth gathering on the horizon, ready to chase away the night.
"Tohru, you should head back," Yuto decided, turning to his employee.
Even though they had originally agreed her shift would last until seven o'clock, Yuto felt it was much safer to let her leave at five.
After all, she was a literal princess of a hostile faction.
Even though Tohru had confidently assured him that no one would notice her missing during the night, Yuto still thought it was best for her to slip back into her world before the sun fully rose.
"Huh? Wasn't my shift until seven?" Tohru asked, blinking in confusion.
"There's no need. The morning rush won't start for a while. I'll handle the remaining prep work myself," Yuto reassured her.
"Well, in that case... alright," Tohru agreed, seeing the genuine concern in his eyes.
She untied her apron, set it on the counter, and walked over to the front door.
She turned back toward Yuto and offered a very polite bow.
"Tomorrow night... no, wait, I mean tonight. See you then, Boss!" Tohru smiled brightly.
Yuto nodded, returning her smile. "See you tonight, Tohru. Get some rest."
The dragon girl pushed the door open and stepped out into the misty dawn, vanishing from sight.
Now, the restaurant was truly empty, leaving Yuto entirely alone.
Taking advantage of the quiet free time, he leaned against the counter and mentally mapped out his plan for the day.
Originally, he had only intended to head out to buy the specific movie Ainz wanted.
But now, Ainz and Rimuru had dumped a massive shopping list on him.
There were so many heavy items—five years' worth of manga box sets, consoles, and light novels—that if Yuto tried to carry them all by hand, he wouldn't even make it halfway back to the restaurant.
Anticipating this, Ainz had given Yuto a magical spatial storage device before leaving.
In gaming terms, it was essentially an extra inventory backpack.
On the outside, it just looked like a standard, slightly worn canvas messenger bag. But its internal capacity was staggering.
He could just shove the mountain of otaku merchandise inside it when he checked out.
Yuto rubbed his temples, feeling a fresh headache building as he imagined the scene.
A grown man walking into a specialized anime store and buying a mountain of light novels and a literal dakimakura...
'It feels... incredibly awkward...' he groaned internally.
As he thought about light novels, his mind naturally drifted to the scene from last night when he walked Utaha home.
He remembered the quiet sadness in her eyes when he admitted he hadn't read her work.
'Perhaps... I should buy a copy of her novel while I'm out today,' he decided.
...
Time passed slowly as Yuto prepped the kitchen for the next shift.
Soon, the clock neared seven.
Yuto was lost in thought, washing a stack of bowls.
Ainz still hadn't returned from Rimuru's world.
Yuto wondered... if he flipped the sign on the front door to 'Closed', severing the restaurant's connection to the outside world, would Ainz still be able to transit back through the magical doorway?
It was a fascinating, risky theory.
But just as he was contemplating testing it, the heavy wooden door pushed open and Ainz's towering figure stepped inside.
This time, the Overlord was alone.
Rimuru wasn't bouncing along beside him.
"Kamisaka, I'm back," Ainz rumbled, his heavy boots thudding against the floorboards.
"Welcome back," Yuto nodded, drying his hands.
It seemed his theory about closing the door wouldn't have a chance to be tested today.
"Did anything happen?"
He was specifically inquiring about the dimensional travel experiment.
When Rimuru and Ainz had decided to spend the night in each other's worlds, Yuto had asked them both to carefully monitor their physical and magical states.
He wanted to know if staying in a foreign dimension for an extended period caused any negative abnormalities or strain.
Ainz shook his skull. "No. Everything was fine. My mana regeneration and physical stats remained perfectly stable in the Jura Forest."
Hearing the confirmation, Yuto nodded approvingly.
That was a massive relief.
"Also, I conducted a secondary test," Ainz added, stepping up to the counter. "Before I left, I summoned a Death Knight in Rimuru's town. If that Death Knight still exists and hasn't despawned by the time the restaurant opens tonight, it will prove that summoned entities and foreign magic can sustain themselves in another world indefinitely."
Ainz seemed deeply invested in proving that people could survive in different dimensions for long periods of time.
Hearing the logic, Yuto nodded. "That's a smart test."
"If the Death Knight survives, I'm going to head straight to Saitama's world and stay there for a few days!" Ainz declared, his deep voice thick with noticeable excitement.
Yuto looked up at the terrifying undead god in confusion.
"Why Saitama's world?"
Ainz let out a heavy, rattling sigh, his massive shoulders slumping.
"I can't help it, Kamisaka. It's just too suffocating in Nazarick. I have to act like a flawless, omnipotent, dignified god every single second of the day. Its mentally exhausting... Besides, Saitama lives alone in a tiny, quiet apartment. Wouldn't it be perfect if I just crashed on his floor and played video games with him for a weekend?"
The Overlord's tone was incredibly weary.
Yuto could easily tell that 'Suzuki Satoru' had been severely stifled and stressed during his time ruling Nazarick.
No wonder he was so obsessed with proving he could stay in other worlds for extended periods, he was desperately looking for a vacation home!
"Your loyal Floor Guardians would be absolutely heartbroken if they knew their Supreme Being was ditching them to play video games in a cheap apartment," Yuto pointed out with a helpless smile.
"It's fine! I can easily handle both lives!" Ainz boasted, waving a bony hand dismissively.
Whether Ainz's confident assurance was actually reliable remained to be seen.
Given the Overlord's track record of panicking internally, Yuto felt the plan was rather vague and incredibly risky...
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