"Because trust has to start somewhere." He said with a smile. "And because abandoned Earth like yours is a treasure trove for cooking ingredients."
The words lingered between them.
A treasure trove for cooking ingredients.
Aoki didn't stiffen at the words. Instead, he just tilted his head slightly,
"…That makes sense." He said after a moment.
Momo blinked. "Dad?"
Aoki shrugged lightly. "He didn't say he would came to our world now. He just said the fact."
His gaze returned to Ludwig, curious rather than guarded. "From an ecological standpoint, a near-empty Earth would rebound fast. Biomass everywhere. Low human interference. It's… honestly fascinating."
Rin giggled and threw her arms to the air. "Lots of birds."
"Exactly." Aoki smiled at the smallest girl in the room, then looked back at Ludwig. "So… You have a plan to… source your ingredients from our earth?"
Ludwig shook his head. "Not entirely. I have learned that similar ingredients exist in other worlds too. However, some things are hard or simply impossible to find."
Aoki leaned closer towards Ludwig, his eyes shining brightly. "Such as?"
"Normal sized crab for one. Then, some vegetables like morning glory and collard greens. Heck, most of the animals in the sea in my world are different from what Earth has. We don't have uni here, the choice of shellfish is also limited."
Aoki nodded slowly as Ludwig spoke.
"…So it's biodiversity." He said finally. "But skewed."
"In a way." Ludwig replied. "Ortus has life everywhere. Both dangerous life and magical life. But it's selective."
"Selective how?"
Ludwig thought for a moment, choosing words that wouldn't lean on words normal human found difficult to understand. "On Earth, if something can survive, it spreads. If it reproduces fast enough, adapts fast enough, it stays. Crabs exist because oceans allow them to exist. Same with birds. Same with weeds that grow through asphalt."
Aoki smiled faintly. "That's evolution in a sentence."
"But in my world, survival alone isn't enough." Ludwig said.
Momo frowned. "That sounds unfair."
"It is." Ludwig agreed calmly. "Life there competes not just with the environment, but with power."
He reached for the empty glass on the bar and refilled it before continuing. "In my world, there's something layered on top of nature. Something that leaks into soil, water, and flesh. Some creatures are born closer to it. Others adapt around it. And things that can't… don't last."
Aoki's eyes turned analytical. "So species disappear not because they can't eat or breed, but because they're… outcompeted by something else."
"Yes."
"…By what?"
Ludwig answered. "By mana."
The word landed softly. Then, Aoki rolled it around mentally. "…Energy?"
"Closer to a rule." Ludwig said. "A background condition. Like gravity, but negotiable."
Momo made a face. "That didn't help."
Aoki chuckled. "It did, actually."
Ludwig continued. "Creatures in Ortus evolve assuming mana exists. Their shells are thicker not because predators are stronger, but because the world itself pushed them to their best version. Plants grow tougher fibers. Fish develop different fat structures. Most of all, flavor changes."
Tsumugi blinked. "Flavor?"
"Yes..." Ludwig said, glancing at her. "Mana changes taste. Not always better. It's just… different."
Aoki leaned back, arms crossing loosely. "So… I assume you want to make something you can't make now?"
Ludwig smiled brightly. "Indeed. Even though I can get ingredients from earth easily in this restaurant, the costs are too high. With how your world has become, hunting and gathering there will be far cheaper. Safer too."
"How?" Tsumugi asked before Aoki threw his two cents.
Ludwig moved his head to the girl. From the conversation he had with the whole family, she was probably the only one who knew about the reincarnation story the most. It simplified things, so Ludwig answered simply. "Reincarnation perks, I guess?"
The girl's eyes shone, it was burning straight into Ludwig. "Woah! That's real too? So you have your own status window?"
Ludwig stared at her for half a second.
Then he laughed. A short, surprised sound that slipped out before he could stop it. "I do have one. But not a typical one you read in most stories."
Tsumugi kept looking at him without blinking. Ludwig knew that looks well, she wanted more answers. So, he elaborated. "I only got my stats after opening this restaurant. Before, I didn't have it. I trained my magic without the help of numbers going up with every level up."
"Magic!" Rin shouted. "Show me, show me!"
Ludwig looked at the young girl and considered it. Showing magic was always a line. Once crossed, curiosity tended to snowball. But he felt it's okay to do it now. After all, the family standing in front of him now was nothing but ordinary people who came from a world that looked abandoned.
Even if there's power behind them somewhere across that door, Ludwig felt he would be able to chase them away.
"Alright." He said. "Something simple."
He reached behind the counter and picked up a teaspoon. Ordinary. Slightly bent at the handle. He placed it flat on his palm.
"No explosions." He added. "No glowing circles. Just… watch."
He closed his fingers around the spoon. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the metal warmed, not visibly, not dramatically, but enough that Tsumugi gasped when the spoon slowly, smoothly curved upward, like soft clay guided by invisible fingers.
Ludwig opened his hand again. The spoon straightened itself and dropped back onto the counter with a soft clink.
Rin's mouth formed a perfect 'o'.
Momo stared. "T-that… that…"
"That…" Aoki said quietly, eyes sharp and fascinated, "Violates at least three material assumptions."
Ludwig smiled. "Welcome to mana 101."
Tsumugi was vibrating in her seat now. "That wasn't even flashy! You didn't chant or anything!"
"I was stirring." Ludwig said. "Same motion, different medium."
"Can you do fire?"
"Yes."
"Water?"
"Yes."
"Space?"
He paused and smiled. "One of my favourites."
Her grin widened. Then—almost without warning—her tone shifted.
"Can I learn it?"
The words were light. Too light in truth.
However, the restaurant snapped into attention as the question landed.
Ludwig didn't answer immediately. Just before Claire and Cless come this morning, he was thinking about the problem. Normal people knowing their fate was not as shackling as they thought. There's a place across the door of a restaurant that could turn their life around.
Aoki noticed the pause. "Tsumugi. You don't ask that kind of thing without understanding what it means."
"I know." She said quickly. "I mean, I think I do. I'm not asking to be special. I just—" She hesitated, then laughed nervously. "I read a lot. And suddenly it's all real. It's hard not to ask."
Ludwig studied her. Not ambition. Not hunger.
Just curiosity. The most dangerous kind, if left unchecked.
"Learning magic," he said slowly, "isn't like learning an instrument. You don't just practice until it works. You change how the world responds to you."
Momo frowned. "That sounds bad."
"It's not bad." Ludwig corrected. "It's just not neutral."
Aoki nodded. "Like introducing a new variable into an ecosystem."
"Exactly like that." Ludwig said.
He met Tsumugi's eyes again, kind but firm. "So my answer isn't yes or no."
Her shoulders relaxed slightly.
"It's not yet." He continued. "There are rules. Preconditions. And more importantly, context. You don't decide something like that on your first morning in a place like this."
Tsumugi exhaled, then smiled. "That's fair."
To be honest, Ludwig answered like that because he was still unsure about how to treat people like Tsumugi. Curiosity was dangerous, yes. But it wasn't something that should be feared off.
Moreover, it was a natural course of action for someone who realized magic was real when they had only read about them in fiction.
However, just like he said to her, it was not something that could be decided on the very first morning after knowing it really existed. Such a big decision needs a cool head to be taken.
"Now, let's forget about magic." Ludwig said. "Can I ask you some questions?"
Ludwig waited until he saw three nods and one enthusiastic bounce from Rin before continuing.
"Alright," He said, tone gentle. "Can you tell me about your world? How did it happen?"
The two big daughters of the family turned to their father. Sensing their eyes, Aoki opened his mouth. "Well, can I ask you something first?"
"Feel free." Ludwig nodded.
"How did you know our earth is abandoned?"
Ludwig froze at the question. Then, he started to trace back to their conversation from the start until now. That surprised expression from Aoki after he said that their Earth was a treasure trove of ingredients.
That was the first time he opened the cards.
"Ah… So it's like this. This restaurant grants me the power to look into the world where my customers came from. But mind you, it's limited. So I can only see what was around the building where this restaurant resides in your world."
"I see." Aoki nodded. "To be honest, after all the revelation today, that was tame."
"Indeed." Ludwig agreed.
At that moment, Aoki leaned back slightly, fingers lacing together on the counter. For a biologist, this was familiar territory. Observation before emotion.
"We went to sleep." He said simply.
Momo blinked. "Dad…"
"That's what happened." Aoki replied. "No alarms. No earthquakes. No sirens. It was just… a normal night."
Tsumugi picked up the thread, her voice quieter now. "I stayed up late reading. Fell asleep around one, maybe two. Nothing strange."
"And when we woke up." Momo added, frowning as if the memory still didn't line up properly, "Everything was wrong."
Rin swung her legs under the stool. "My friend didn't come so Momo have to drop me to school."
"That was the first thing." Aoki agreed. "No cars, no planes, no distant noise at all."
He exhaled slowly. "We live on the outskirts of the city. Suburban enough that it wasn't chaos right away. But when I stepped outside the area… there was no one."
"No neighbors, no dogs barking, no people jogging, no delivery trucks." Tsumugi added.
Momo crossed her arms. "The phones also didn't work. Internet too."
Ludwig listened without interrupting. It was the first time he saw this kind of story where people woke up on Earth with no one but them. If suddenly zombies appeared it would make more sense. It would be the recipe for a good post-apocalyptic story.
But a family waking up on an empty Earth and still looked fine after what seemed to be seemingly a few decades after? That's rare. It's like whoever wrote their story wanted to combine a slice-of-life element with post-apocalyptic elements.
He would not complain about that, though. He would surely read those kinds of fics if he stumbled on one.
Aoki continued, fingers tightening briefly before relaxing again. "Buildings were intact. Doors closed. Appliances off. Food was gone, rotted completely, nothing usable. Cars are either parked or on the road. But there's no skeleton everywhere. There were also no signs of looting."
Ludwig exhaled through his nose.
"So." Aoki went on, "The only conclusion I can reach is that we didn't wake up the day after humanity disappeared. But that's not really right either. We still can find a usable vehicle. Usable clothes, and many more. I'm just confused."
Momo swallowed. "Yeah. But with how you explain magic, it makes sense now."
"Yes." Aoki nodded. "That's the only conclusion I can reach now."
Ludwig rested his weight more fully against the counter now.
"That's… quite a story." Ludwig murmured. "I mean, even magic couldn't fast forward time that selectively. It was either everything or nothing at all. It didn't make sense that nature eats the civilization that much but some vehicles are still usable."
"Indeed." Aoki nodded. "Looking at the state of nature, years or decades should have passed. But the vehicle…"
"Well…" Ludwig chuckled. "When it comes to magic and time, nothing can really be said. You just have to ride along with it. At the very least, you guys are here now."
Aoki smiled and looked at his daughters. "That's what I think as well. With my family with me, I feel safe. Moreover, it's not an everyday thing to have Earth for ourselves. So, we might as well enjoy it."
Ludwig laughed. "Wiser words have never been spoken in this hall."
What's more important than enjoying life with little to no danger?
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