Overthrow, Chain Restaurant!
“Now then, the second great Overthrow, Chain Restaurant’s Annihilation meeting will begin!”
“Uoooooo-!”
To keep up with the overly-worked up men, the embarrassed way the female shopkeepers, who weren’t riding that wave of enthusiasm, raised their fists in the air was pretty moe.
The location is inside the tent that is the inn’s Okami-san’s temporary place of business. The tables and chairs are pretty much all up against the wall, so we have quite a bit of available space.
“This time, it’s about developing new menu items to oppose them. Everyone was told last time, so you’ve all brought samples, ne. Then, first, let’s try them.”
So saying, she placed the sample food on top of the round table; the shopkeepers went around tasting the flavors and exchanging opinions. Every one of them presented their food, but honestly, none of them really jumped out.
It’s at the degree where they just arranged existing dishes a little, so although I’m unable to taste it, just seeing the other peoples’ reaction tells me they aren’t fragrant.
“Well then, here we turn to the one who is participating this time as well, Hakkon-san. Do you have any advice? For example, what do you think about my new dish?”
The dish that was pushed in front of my eyes is something like pasta in a thick soup. It kind of looks like cream pasta, but the color isn’t white, it’s yellow.
“Uuum, Hakkon seems a little troubled, so if me and Hyurumi eat it and give you our impressions, would that work somehow?
“Welcome.”
Aa, oh yeah. This time we have the special guests Ramis and Hyurumi participating. It’s because they also wanted to get opinions from customers.
If they can take my place and act as my tasters, that would help a lot.
“Hakkon said it was alright, so is it fine to eat it, Munami?”
“Yep yep, please do. Hyurumi too, go ahead, ne.”
“I ain’t got much confidence in my sense of taste, though, na.”
The two people lifted the yellow soup pasta to their mouths. They chewed silently, the two wiped their mouths.
“Un, I think it’s good. Just, the flavor’s a bit thin? I thought the stock was meat-based, but the thickness seems to be from vegetables. If it was a bit stickier so it could stick to the pasta better it’d be better, I think.”
“Yeah, it really is that kinda feeling. Wish the pasta was a bit stiffer, it wasn’t boiled good. If ya make it so it would be ok if it soaked up the soup some, I think it would be easier to eat.”
Well aren’t the two of their opinions precise together? Ramis has pride in her home-cooking, and it looks like it’s not a lie that Hyurumi has a sense of taste comparable to the best chef. I wonder if it’s because she’s been eating this kind of stuff since she was born, and it all compounded within her to give her that tongue.
“Ha,hang on a sec. Let me take notes. Uum, Hakkon, what about you?”
The excited Munami came back to me. My opinion … so what other improvements other than the two girls’ that I can think of, huh? A- , if it’s a cream-type, heavy pasta, how about this, white cream pasta.
I also have canned soup pasta, but since the noodles have the pre-requisite to be able to sit in the soup for a long time, they use something that’s different from regular pasta, so it can only make for a weak reference at best.
And so, the pasta I put out is a pasta they sell specifically on vending machines on ferries. It’s got the soup and the pasta separate, so you have to cut open the sealed pouch and mix it in yourself, but I remember the flavor being pretty good.
“Fuwa-, this is, pasta and a bag? Uum, it’s hot, but I’m going to have to open the seal. Looks like there’s a picture of scissors drawn on here, so cut it off here and pour the contents over …could this be white mushrooms and smoked meat? The taste is … nngu-, delicious! It has a distinct, deep flavor and a thickness to the consistency. This is milk from an animal, ne. Un, un, if that’s how it is …”
It seems like, because of the reference, she headed towards the kitchen with the notes in hand.
Seeing her go off like that, the shopkeepers all surrounded us at once, and it became a situation where the two girls were given prototype after prototype to sample.
For the shopkeeper whose pride was hot soups, I put out tonjiru (pork miso soup with veggies), shijimijiru (stewed clam soup), and miso soup. It doesn’t look like miso exists, but it looks like it stimulated the shopkeeper’s inspiration, and he nodded many times.
It looks like the two female twins offer sweets, so I put out the crepes in a clear bottle that I ate at Kagoshima. These vending machine crepes are quite locally famous, so there’s quite the abundance of types and they are quite good.
Since crepes are quite popular among women, it will probably be received well by the girls who work at the very erotic Shirley-san’s shop. If they set up a street stall near there, they’ll be able to make quite a bit, it seems.
Like that, with me presenting food that matched each shop’s specialty, and them taking notes while listening to the two girls’ advice, with this and that the development of the new menu items began from there. Alright, now, from here on, it’s business.
“Are, Hakkon changed shape again, but this is … eggs?”
That’s right, this time I changed to an egg vending machine. Actually, egg vending machines are surprisingly popular, so you can see quite a few of them in various places.
Since it looks like securing ingredients isn’t going well, the eggs sold like they were leaping out from me. Furthermore, when I switched to a vending machine that sold a lot of vegetables you could find in the area, once again the shopkeepers scrambled to buy them.
With the soup pasta and crepe requiring it, of course I also sold milk. It’s just, since I hadn’t come across a vending machine that sold raw meat, there was nothing I could do about that. Probably, the food and health committee had some problems with that, to it’s not something you can do in Japan. Let’s have the Hunters do their best for meat.
I kept the prices reasonable. The ingredients sales were very popular with the food and drink shopkeepers, so it was decided to secure a time just once a week to sell ingredients. They begged for at least during the period of winter, and so we came to an agreement.
It’s been three days since then, and today is the day that the food and drink shopkeepers decided to all come out in revolt.
Starting from today, the food and drink shops will be limiting themselves to making food during sales hours in order to boost their activities. They also chose beverages that would match their new menus.
The fight is up through Chain Restaurant’s one month opening sale. During this period, while it prevents an over-flooding of customers, is the time to grasp their stomachs tightly.
If Chain Restaurant comes to the decision that they cannot make a profit, they’re famous for immediately withdrawing; if the sales during their opening sale is bad, then the possibility that they’ll withdraw their branch from Seiryu’s lake shore is very high.
I’ve done all I can, so now it’s just waiting for the result. I’ve been placed in a spot where I can see each store well, so today I’ll take my time observing all day.
In the morning each store was busy preparing, and it was right before lunchtime when all the activity began at once.
“From today we have a new menu! Zyugiuma fried to a crisp, a delicacy popular with young folks! Come on, try it out!”
“Meat with its flavor sealed inside is a supreme dish. The flavor here is something you can’t taste anywhere else yo-“
“After eating something strongly flavored, how about gentle sweetness from a cute sweet-? The fruit for its filling is free for you to choose-“
Raising loud voices, each and every one of the street stall shopkeepers began calling out.
Chain Restaurant’s branch had been here for over two weeks; it’s the time around when the customers have tried just about every flavor of the food before their eyes, so the stalls chose products that haven’t been seen or heard of before.
And, pretty much all of the food the stalls chose are what some people would customarily call junk food. It’s stuff whose nutritional balance is poor and calories are high, but if you’re comparing this world’s people to modern Japan’s, the calorie consumption is on another level.
In the first place, this is a world where you can’t thoughtlessly ingesting vegetables when you’re in the midst of winter is the norm; worrying about that in itself is wrong. In this season, if you put in vegetables and hike up the price, saying, “We thought of the nutritional value and put in vegetables. That’s why the price went up,” your customers won’t come.
The stall that’s selling hamburgers just has lettuce alone sandwiched in, but it’s at the degree that it’s getting praised for being a luxury despite being cheap.
For a street stall, once you put out your food, you shouldn’t overlap with others, but in this place, kara’age (nuggets of fried chicken) is selling the best. Next would be hamburgers, and then something like takoyaki(octopus chunks covered in batter and rolled into balls, then grilled in a special pan). There’s no octopus, so they put in some meat. I provided the takoyaki sauce. It’s something that’s normally sold in vending machines, so I bought it many times when I was still alive.
Right in front of the Hunter Association is the stretch of street stalls; with the Hunters who just finished a request and warmed their purses buying it right there on the spot, this location has become quite the plus. Chain Restaurant needs a large plot of land, so they built their store in a place a little bit further away. It’s the cold winter season, so the people who feel that moving over there is troublesome are many.
And then, the steam rising from the stalls brings a smell that tickles the appetite. Being able to withstand this temptation is probably rare. The flavors have been checked by Ramis and Hyurumi, and were completed with pride, so the shopkeepers are brimming with confidence.
“This, what is that?”
A single Hunter standing and eating at a food stall tilted his head as the shopkeeper passed him a business-card-sized card.
“This is, when you buy an item, a stamp is put on it. When it’s all filled out, you’ll be given a discount of 1 silver coin.”
“Hee-, interesting. Eh, is it okay if it’s not just this store?”
“Yes, for any store with the picture of this card in front of it, it’s fine.”
This as well is the secret plan part two. We’re introducing point cards. The participating stores are, of course, the food and beverage shops managed by the shopkeepers that participated in that meeting.
How did these guys think of this point card? The trigger was definitely me. A vending machine where you insert a card and save points, nowadays it’s not so rare.
And, from the manufacturer, there are also products that take point cards; when I took this Function, actually I had to drop the cards for them to be understood.
Maa, the shopkeepers didn’t understand the reason at all, but Hyurumi understood how to use it, so she taught them. Hyurumi’s powers of understanding really helped.
With my offhand knowledge and the two girls’ advice, Seiyru Lake level’s food and drink businesses were revived as a result, and they’ve become quite superior. It’s at the degree where the things they’ve never seen before stops the customers and draws them in, but that’s fine. As long as we can remain superior for a short time, Chain Restaurant will retreat.
Lunch was our overwhelming superiority; the frustrated glares from the people from Chain Restaurant who came to investigate made quite the impression.
The cold in the evening was quite harsh, so the street stalls quickly closed up shop early, but since the shops that were using point cards were advertised for at noon, people kept flooding into the temporary inn tent and other stores that use point cards.
Different from lunchtime, it’s soup and stir-fried items with vegetables, but since it’s provided at low costs, it’s popular among the people who ate heavy things during the day and elderly women.
Of course, the reason they were able to make it low-priced is because I set my prices at the bare minimum. Even so, I didn’t occur any point loss. When Chain Restaurant withdraws, the food and beverage stores will become my rivals so it might be like sending salt to the enemy1, but that’s fine too.
Ramis still seems to have great hopes to succeed as a Hunter. Right now the community’s reconstruction takes precedence, but once the winter’s over, I think she will be starting Hunter activities again. Then, if the community’s food situation stabilizes, even as people gather, the community’s prosperity won’t decline.
And, Ramis is very reserved when it comes to me. I want the community to be in a situation where it doesn’t need me, so we can break through the situation where she finds it difficult to move around from the community.
Well, maa, it looks like I’m thinking about a lot of things, but my real intentions are … after all this time, I’ve been transported to another world so I’d like to look around; I want to really experience being in another world
Uotto, costumers came. First things first, I have to do the working of a vending machine.
“Welco me.”
“Yo-, Hakkon. I have something pretty interesting. Let’s bond as guys … you’re a guy, right? Maa, right now, that doesn’t really matter. I have something I want to consult with you about.”
Seeing Leader Keryoil’s always frivolous expression, the foreboding I have triggers the warning bells in my mind and they won’t stop ringing.