"Another new restaurant opening in Ravenhall?" A woman with a black hair and brown eyes who donned a black shirt and black leather pants muttered as her feet brought her deeper and deeper into the restaurant.
Ludwig's mind went into overdrive in an instant. haven't even opened the restaurant yet! So how could someone already visit?
When Ludwig dived into the memory packet of the [Otherworld Connection]. he came to know why he already got a customer. The opening and the closing mechanics of the restaurant was different from normal restaurants. He could close the restaurant for people in this world by simply flipping the sign on the door, but as long as he didn't close the connection between worlds, customers would still walk into the restaurant, even when he's absent.
Since the rice had turned into a porridge like this, Ludwig decided to take the customer. After all, turning away his first ever customer was something he couldn't bring himself to do.
"Welcome to Checkpoint, how can I be of service?" Ludwig adopted a polite tone as he smiled towards the woman.
The woman looked at Ludwig after he said so. Then, he could see her stop moving. Her eyes went wide like a saucer before her face turned rigid. He could also see her eyes moving around at a rapid pace.
Half curious, half offended because he knew his face wasn't that bad in this second life of his, Ludwig opened his mouth again.
"Anything wrong, miss?"
"Ah. N-nothing is wrong." The woman seemed to be back as soon as Ludwig asked so and walked closer towards the bar.
Looking at her sitting on the bar seats, Ludwig's mind started working once again. Would it be better to tell her now before she ordered anything, or would it be better to tell her about it later once she finished eating?
Telling her now possessed a risk of her walking away before she even ordered anything. But telling her later felt a little scammy. Ludwig simply couldn't bring himself to treat his first customer like that.
As he thought so, his hands moved and took a glass that was stored in the shelves on top of the bar. After putting the same ice he used before in it, he poured the whiskey he was enjoying before to the glass and put it in front of the woman.
"I haven't ordered yet." The woman said.
"It's on the house, Miss." Ludwig said as he smiled. "Please treat it as a gift for our very first customer."
"I see." The woman nodded ever so slightly as her hand moved towards the glass. However, her face still showed just how tense she was. It seemed like something about him unsettled her deeply.
"Before you order, can I ask something, miss?" Ludwig said again.
"I can't promise I will answer, but you can." The woman answered with finality.
"First of all, can I ask for the name of the city where you entered from?"
The woman's brows furrowed as she heard Ludwig's question. Her eyes pierced towards him, and Ludwig knew that looks perfectly well. If he was not careful with his next words, he knew that the woman in front of her would attack.
"Please rest assured, Miss. I don't mean any harm to you. I'm just simply curious." Ludwig asked as he donned the best smile he could muster.
"I don't know why you ask something like that when this restaurant is located in Ravenhall." Probably deciding to trust Ludwig's words for now, the woman answered after some contemplation.
"I see. And the world? What is the world called?" Ludwig asked again. But this time, the answer came quite quickly.
"The world is called Elos. You don't know that?" The woman shot.
Ludwig smiled as he digested her answer. The world the woman came from was called Elos while the city was called Ravenhall. The world the woman came from was obviously different from the world he lived both right now and in his previous life.
"I'm sorry, but I don't know about it. But Miss, from now on I will tell you about this restaurant. Please bear in mind I have no ill intention towards you." Ludwig said before he started, which earned him another pointed look from the woman. However, the woman didn't cut him off, so Ludwig just opened his mouth.
"My restaurant is special, Miss. This restaurant isn't located anywhere in Elos or Ravenhall but in Ashfrost Mountain Range in the world called Ortus. It's a different world from yours, I'm sure of it. The reason you can enter is because my restaurant is connected to many worlds."
Ludwig finished his explanation as he saw the woman's eyes became more and more of a slit.
Huh? She didn't believe me? Ludwig asked himself.
"Miss, don't you see the scenery on the window? I don't think the city you call Ravenhall has this kind of scenery." Ludwig opened his mouth again, but this time, a tint of smugness couldn't help but to leak into his calming voice. At the same time, his hands pointed towards the window on the wall behind him.
"What are you talking about? I can see the other buildi–" the woman's words were cut short as her head turned to the direction of the window. Her jaws dropped to the floor in an instant. The chair under her crashed into the floor as she quickly rose to her feet.
"H-how! I'm sure I didn't see something like that the moment I entered this place!" The woman shouted as he looked back towards Ludwig.
Huh? She didn't see the scenery earlier? What the hell? Ludwig frowned. But rather than thinking about it himself, he did the most efficient way to come to the answer of his surprise.
Turns out, any customers wouldn't see the scenery before Ludwig gave them the explanation about the restaurant. Something that made Ludwig sighed. However, the other explanation about the windows made Ludwig smile. After all, he could change the scenery to the place where the customers entered from.
"Please calm down, Miss." Ludwig tried to soothe the woman as soon as he got the answer he wanted. "It's like this, my ability needs me to tell you about the ability of this restaurant first before you can see the true scenery from the window."
However, even though he told her the truth, her body was still taut. In order to dispel her fear and concerns, Ludwig decided to use the feature he just unearthed.
The scenery on the window changed from a vast sea of clouds into rows of wooden buildings built closely together. Between the buildings across the street and the window, he could see people strolling about in a road built from black stone. Those people were dressed in a diverse style. From luxurious clothes to some kind of clothes that had a moving shadowy hood walking around.
"Please look at the window again. Is that the Ravenhall you mentioned? Ludwig asked.
The woman looked at the window, her lips still slightly parted. But then, she answered.
"Y-yes. That's where I entered from. The commercial district."
"I see. So can you believe me right now?" Ludwig asked. Hoping that he could start serving food rather than playing 100 questions with strangers like he was on a blind date.
The woman took her time answering. While he was looking kindly at her like she was an elderly who was crossing the street, Ludwig suddenly remembered about the food he had cooked. He quickly took the plate in front of him, teleported to the counter where he left the other fillet of salmon, and took both of it towards the storage place next to the refrigerator.
When he returned to where he stood while chatting with the woman with another teleportation, he saw the woman looking at him.
"Y-you are not just a chef." The woman said.
"Uh… I mean, yeah." Ludwig chuckled. "I don't think any normal chef can have a restaurant like mine. By the way, If you still can't believe my words, I could escort you out to see my world. How about it, Miss?"
The woman fell silent, probably contemplating his offer. As he saw her nodding her head, Ludwig walked away from the bar, taking a long way into the dining area. He then signed to the woman to follow him to the door and continue to walk.
"Please note that it will be cold. Do you want me to cast some warming spell on–" But before Ludwig could finish his words, he was forced to whip his head towards the door as the bell chimed once again.
From the opened door, two people walked in. One was a man with blonde hair with some kind of headband covering his forehead dressed in a green vest and blue shirt and pants. The other one was a red-headed woman donning almost the same clothes as the man.
Ludwig's eyes went wide, lips parted before he even realized. He knew them. No, not personally knew them, he simply had seen them before. But no, not from his past life nor from Ortus. He saw them in anime and manga of his past world.
How could his ability connect to a fictional world…
But then, Ludwig realized—probably the memory packet influencing him—as it came so suddenly even before he thought more. Even though the world seemed fictional to him, it was still a world where real people lived. So it still counted as a world, a place his restaurant could connect to.
When the blonde guy looked at him, he cocked his head to the side and scratched his cheek sheepishly.
"U-uh, did I have something on my face?"
* * *
Ludwig gave the blonde haired man a glass of whiskey as he finished explaining about the ability of the restaurant. Thankfully, because he already had an experience prior to telling the man, the words came from his mouth better than before.
"I guess that's why your chakra felt different from what I used to." The red-haired girl broke the silence, the tea cup hovering in front of her mouth, still shooting hot steam from it.
"Now that I think about it…" The blonde moved his head towards both Ludwig and his other customer, eyes glimmered with curiosity. "You guys' chakra is indeed different. It felt the same from ours but there's something different about it. Something warm like the Natural Chakra."
"Sorry to interrupt." The other guest chimed. "Don't you think both of you are too accepting about it?"
Faced with the question, the blonde smiled. It was the moment that Ludwig realized that the anecdote regarding him throughout the series was true, nothing was being exaggerated.
"Miss, the fact that both of you don't have the same chakra as us inside your body is evident that you are not from our world. After all, in our world, everybody has chakra. Even the animals have it. Moreover, even though it's embarrassing to say it with my own mouth, I have quite a talent regarding space, I could feel the space around this restaurant is different from the space I used to."
"What is this chakra you are talking about?" The woman asked again, now curiosity could be heard in her voice, not only apprehension.
"Chakra is what we ninja use to perform all kinds of techniques." The blonde explained. As if to give them an additional example, the blonde moved his hands in rapid pace—which Ludwig recognized as hand seals—before an exact copy of him appeared beside him with a puff of smoke.
"T-that's a fascinating technique." The woman muttered as his eyes looked back and forth between the original blonde man and the clone of him.
"Indeed. However, it's merely one of the basic techniques that a ninja should have." Minato beamed before the clone vanished into thin air with a puff.
Sensing that the woman had finally started to accept that the restaurant was not in his world, Ludwig let out an inaudible sigh. It had been too long. Far too long to his liking. How couldn't things be simple when all he wanted was to cook. Because of that, he decided to step in even though he also had questions of his own. After all, he felt that if he asked the questions right now, another round of question and answer would unfold.
"Dear customer, please don't forget that this place is a restaurant. Can I offer you some food to accompany your talk?"