The Restaurant Of In Between Chapter 1: Unexpected Customers

-Japan, Fuyuki City-

“Finally, the restaurant has finally been renovated.” I said with a smile.

It took almost all of my inheritance money from my late parents and a few months of waiting to finish the construction.

But it was worth the wait.

The reason why it took that long is because the former restaurant needed a serious repair from inside to outside.

Since it's barely usable, after all it's been a decade since it was last used.

It hasn't been used since my parents death, which was a long time ago.

Anyway, it wasn't time for me to be sentimental, this was the start. A new beginning.

Hoping this business of mine would be a success or else, I'd be screwed big time.

Literally don't have anything to rely on, aside from myself as I'm an orphan after my parents death.

—

I went inside my new establishment, and could smell the newly painted wood. It has that recognizable smell which was honestly not a bad smell since it isn't overpowering compared to the ones that were used on the walls.

I'm glad my restaurant was mostly wooden, and some cardboard boxes.

Despite being renovated to a new one, there were still similarities between the new and the old.

Like the tables and chairs arrangements were the same many years ago, it honestly felt nostalgic.

The restaurant itself wasn't big, as it could only accommodate 3 families at maximum which isn't bad for a starting business.

Well, not really a starting per se, more like reopened after a decade of closing, but since I have to regain the customer base that my parents and I had those years ago.

It wasn't wrong to call it new, but the right word for it is technically restarting.

Either way, I'm hoping some old customers who remember this establishment will at least check it out and maybe they'll like it and become a regular.

Not to brag but I'm fully capable of replicating the dish and it's original flavor my parents made years ago.

After their death I took it myself and continued their legacy. My skills in the kitchen aren't any inferior to a professional chef at this point as I never once stop practicing my culinary arts.

I'm fairly confident of my ability as a chef, ever since that tragedy that happened years ago, it has always been my goal to reopen the restaurant my parents left me.

It took years, but now I'm finally one step closer to my goal, the reopening is just the start of my journey.

Which is why I'm hoping that this establishment won't be a failure because not only does this place have a significant value to me, but also if this fails I'm probably going to be living in the streets and I don't really like thinking about it.

Anyway, as soon as I graduated from our city’s local highschool Homurahara Academy.

I already decided what I'm going to do after, and enrolling in a university isn't one of the things I wanted to do.

As I sat at the restaurant counter suddenly I saw something strange, at first I thought it was nothing but a trick to my eyes but as the time passed it became increasingly obvious that it wasn't.

I tried to wipe my eyes a few times but it was still there…

“What the heck…?”

My first thought was. ‘Am I going crazy..?’

Because I'm pretty sure no sane person would be able to hallucinate this kind of thing.

[ Restaurant Grade: 1 ]

[ Cooking: Newbie ]

[ Customer: 0 ]

I started pitching just to make sure I'm not dreaming or anything, but after a few moments. Only then I understood that this wasn't a dream nor it is a fragment of my imagination.

But it was as real as it could be.

“Just what the hell is this…?”

After a few minutes of checking out whatever this thing is, eventually I saw its other functions which was its store.

I browsed through the items there and saw really ridiculous things.

“A hundred million yen for a single soup…?! What the hell is even a century soup anyway? There's no way a soup could be worth that much.” I huffed at the exaggerated price of a single soup.

Aside from the soup there are other things that seemed reasonable, for example this Yukihira Style Gohan which I could afford quite easily.

But most things that are in the store are ingredients, which was honestly reasonable enough but still. I couldn't help but notice that there seems to be a category between these ingredients and some food.

Like the Yukihira Style Gohan was rated as uncommon, while the Century Soup was rated as epic.

And was the highest grade I could buy, because the above epic was restricted but it's not like I could afford epic rarity food or ingredients anyway.

The cheapest cost at least half a million, with the leftover money I have left on my bank account there's no way I would be able to afford to buy it.

Either way, I'm going to try one of the food in the store because I'm still doubtful of this thing.

I bought one of the Yukihira Style Gohan since it's only 450 yen. It was honestly not a bad price considering most of the city's restaurant food is more than a thousand yen.

As I bought it, a flash of light appeared and beheld the Yukihira Style Gohan in front of me, hot and freshly cooked.

I couldn't stop my jaw from dropping, despite accepting the fact that it might be real, deep inside me I'm still quite skeptical whether it's real or not.

However because of this the notion of this being just my hallucination was thrown off the table, because this was real as it could be.

I could feel the head in the bowl, not to mention that delicious aroma.

My doubts vanished and only my fascination and awe remained as this ‘ability’ of mine, was proven to be real after all.

Then my mobile phone was ringing and then I went to check what's up with it and saw that exactly 450 yen was taken from my bank account.

“This without a doubt it's real…” There was physical evidence and I don't think I could deny it anymore and denying it would make me stupidly stubborn and paranoid as hell.

I took some chopsticks from the chopstick holder and tried the dish I bought from the store.

Took a sample of it, tasted it and my eyes widened in wonder. “Woah, this is way better than I thought..”

While It's not a world class dish, it was still better than any breakfast meal from this city and including mine.

This was way above an ordinary chef like me, but it only fueled my determination to be a better cook.

That I could do better, if this was only uncommon I wonder what rare taste like.

As I was eating this delicious meal, suddenly the bell to my restaurant door rings indicating that there's someone going inside.

I quickly shifted my attention toward the door and saw a man in his late twenties, a salary man which was quite obvious because of his suit.

There's this general rule of all salarymen being spotted quite easily since most of them have more or less the same outfit.

Despite the fact that I'm honestly surprised to see a customer. I couldn't help but feel excited cause I just opened and there's already a customer!

I quickly stood up and greeted him with an ecstatic smile. I can't help it after all, he's my first customer!

I'd be damned if I wasn't happy, I'm going to do my best serving him the best food I could possibly make and maybe he'll be a regular here.

“Welcome to my establishment, how can I help you?”

I stared at me stunned, probably didn't expect the owner to be young as me, which was honestly understandable.

After being stunned for a bit, he quickly regained his bearing and replied. “R-right, can I have the menu?”

I nodded at him and relayed to him the menu I just printed today.

—

It took him a minute to pick what he wanted and I quickly took his order and started cooking.

The dish he chose wasn't anything particularly hard, since it was just Katsudon.

After several minutes of cooking, I finally presented him the dish which he thanked me out of politeness or just instinctively.

As he took a taste of the Katsudon I made, he smiled and said. “Woah, this is good.”

I couldn't stop myself from preening internally, as a cook I'm quite proud of what I do, to hear a sincere compliment from someone felt good.

“Thank you.”

And after that we talked for a bit and got to know his name.

Mikami Satoru.

An average Japanese salary man, I also find out that he's also a bit of an Otaku but I don't judge because I'm also the same, I read manga to pass time after all.

Although, there's things I'm a bit confused about, I have no idea what this fullmetal alchemist he was talking about, he talks like it was some sort of popular manga but to be honest I haven't heard of it.

I would know of its existence if it was truly popular, either way he is probably just exaggerating things but I'll check it out after my closing time.

As my first customer continued his meal, once again the door opened making me surprised, after all two customers in a row?

That's definitely a new record for my new establishment, but I'm not complaining though.

In fact it's the opposite, I'm very much happy for these unexpected customers coming around my restaurant.

I haven't even advertised my establishment as it just opened today, not like I could afford to either way.

—

Turns out my second customer for the day was also a salaryman, I feel like this was going to be a recurring theme, however unlike Mikami this one is a former salary man, saying that he wanted to be a hero for fun.

But hey, I'm not judging everyone on their dreams and goals, even if they are childish, at the very least enjoy them.

Although…his name is really concerning.

After all, who would name their children Saitama? They must have hated him or something.

Anyway, unlike Mikami who didn't really care about how much he spends on food, Saitama on the other hand was a cheapskate, if it wasn't for me persuading him to buy something other than a burger with french fries.

He would have bought it as it was the cheapest, thankful I managed to convince him to spend more than just the cheapest meal in the restaurant.

And just a note, he and Mikami actually hit off, for some reason.

It must be the similarities between their job or even personality, either way it's not business to interfere.

Then another customer went in, and this time I was less surprised but still happy as I'm not exactly expecting anyone to actually dine today.

I went to greet the new customer, but suddenly paused as I noticed something strange above this customer's head.

[ Kirito Lvl. 2 ]

What…?

It wasn't just me who seemed to see this particular sign above him, even Mikami and Saitama saw it.

Kirito looked confused at our reaction, he awkwardly spoke. “W-what’s wrong with these npcs…”

I blinked at his wordings. “What do you mean by that exactly..?”

Kirito was surprised by my reply. “Wait, you're not NPCs? You must be players then, if so how did you manage to open a shop so early in the game..? Even in the beta, the shop function is only available after floor 20..”

“Wait, wait dude whatever you're saying doesn't lick any sense to me, I'm confused. It's like you're treating this like some sort of game.”

Kirito became even more surprised and confused. “Huh..? But we are in a game! Kayaba Akihiko made this death game so that we can't escape, didn't everyone already know about this information already?”

Okay, we aren't getting anywhere with this, I need some context to understand everything that this guy was talking about.

“Alright, there seems to be a misunderstanding here…why don't you take a seat first and I'll ask you a question and you'll ask me in return fair?”

Kirito was cautious, but regardless he accepted, which was actually a relief that he accepted.

Then after that, we started to talk with my first and second customer leaning closer as they too were curious.

—

Yep, this is official. Apparently Kirito was trapped in a game called Sword Art Online or SAO for short.

A massive VRMMORPG that could accommodate ten thousand people, according to him.

To me, it sounded like the beginning of a sci-fi story, anyway aside from being trapped by this obvious futuristic game.

According to him, he was from 2024. That's like 20 years from the future for me!

It wasn't just him either, my other customers are also from different timelines or a parallel world even!

Mikami also was from Japan, but in 2018. There's also a fact that he doesn't know where Fuyuki is because it doesn't exist in his timeline as he said that he found my restaurant in his neighborhood in Tokyo.

There's also Saitama who lived in a separate world entirely, while he explained his world is pretty similar to modern earth.

The cities aren't as they are based on letters. City A to Z, but the most surprising thing about his world was that monsters existed, those supernatural creatures that you could only see in movies or manga.

But one thing for sure, my restaurant connected these different worlds together and I'm not so sure about how I feel about this development.

I knew for certain that my life won't ever be the same again.

Whether this is good or bad, only time would tell at the result.

—

A/N: A new fanfic that I'm cooking and you can see this is a restaurant based on, along with its crossover elements.

This is going to be fun writing, either way this is a SI, as you can see he also doesn't have any fundamental knowledge about the anime's protagonist that was in his shop.

I made it that way because it's more entertaining this way.

Either way, I was really inspired by Isekai Restaurant made by crossegde and Fortune Favors by flamclawsxx.

They are good fanfics, but I hate waiting for their updates and decided to make one myself, unlike my previous stories this won't be a slowburn, as I won't describe his daily life like I always do with my fics.

In this fic, there would be a consistent timeskips and bunch of anime characters interacting with each other unlike Multiversal: The Shop which I fail to write about in other series interactions.

I made some but rarely as they mostly talk with my SI characters.

Anyway, the main world is nasuverse because why not? It's a vast world with a ridiculous power scaling.

Might add Dxd, but I'm not sure really it's overrated as hell.

Anyway the current crossover list.

Nasuverse (Main World)

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Mikami)

One Punch Man (Saitama)

Sword Art Online (Kirito)

P.S - I will update Multiversal: The Shop after this.

P.SS - I won't upload this in public yet, not after I've passed 10 chapters and I also need some feedback guys.