Salt-Grilled Sanma1

Being lit by the light of full moon, Koheji looked around the area quietly.

(Where, is it here, it’s about to arrive…)

In Koheji’s ears, the sound of wind was mixed with that sound.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA…

Sadly, the voice of resentment against the world, to his ears faintly reminded him of the rustling of clothes.

(There’s no mistake. Until now, the lost people had become ghosts…)

He became frightened when he remembered the first time he encountered those things.

Though they were somewhat beautiful, those cursed beings had the appearance of a woman with empty eye sockets.

It happened to one or two person in a few years, the travellers who went missing in this highway would appear as ghosts.

However, he didn’t think that it was a big problem.

To peddlers who did not have enough money to hire a group of escorts, the danger to life was inherent.

According to the gossips he could glean at bars, there was a pack of wolves residing near a part of the highway, one part of the highway was safe because adventurers destroyed a nest of goblins, and it seemed that a married pair of horrible man-eating ogres was sighted near the highway, those kinds of dangerous tales.

Compared to that, of course there’s at least one person that’s unlucky.

Koheji did not think that he was particularly unlucky, and decided to travel the road.

(Pro, probably… during the night of full moon…)

He looked up to the sky. On the large expense of darkness… the full moon s.h.i.+ning on the heaven was said to strengthen the power of death.

Even at his small hometown, it was normal for an apprentice priest to sleep in a graveyard during full moon night.

Because the strong power of full moon had the magical power to change corpses into terrible undeads.

(Don’t tell me it’s a ghost… it’s such a dreadful thing…)

Being frightened by the possibility of a ghost appearing, his body started to tremble.

When he was a kid, he heard that a traveler died near the entrance of his hometown and decided to see it with other people. When people became ghosts, they became an “indifferent” ent.i.ty.

He slipped down a cliff to his death and standing idly there with a transparent body.

It was so creepy that he thought that it was scary, but after his grandmother repeatedly bashed extra-large fist on him while giving him a lecture, the neighborhood’s priestess was called to banish the ghost.

However, the ghost he saw some time ago was different. It was another thing… a monster.

Based from the dress, it seemed that she was a daughter of an aristocrat that died around there during wartime when humans and demons were fighting fiercely for territories.

Indeed, for several decades or centuries, with their grudge against the world keep building up, only the power of senior silver ranked priest or priestess could cleanse them.

For Koheji who was a mere peddler, not only was he an amateur in sword-wielding, he had no training in magic.

(A, anything is fine. That guy will arrive later… what is that!?)

Under the moonlight, Koheji who looked around desperately noticed it.

A black door with a picture of a cat.

(Why in a place like this… wait, it’s going to disappear!?)

Almost at the same time the full moon reaching its peak on the sky, the door’s becoming more transparent.

It was about to disappear.

(Oh c.r.a.p!?)

If he did not enter the door now, surely he would be cursed by a ghost before morning arrived.

Following his intuition, Koheji immediately ran and opened the door.

‘Chirinchirin’, at the same time the bell rang,

he jumped inside and closed the door.

While the door closed with a bang, Koheji’s lower body immediately became weaker and he sat down.

[Am, am I saved?]

He was glad that the floor was not made of rough stone, it was a wooden floor made by human hands.

He did not know where this is.

Although it was pitch black, certainly there were signs that it was lived in with no presence of a ghost.

That was enough for now.

Koheji sighed in relief and leaned back on the door.

At the same time he thought he was saved, his fatigue hit his body and his waist gave out.

Shortly afterwards, Koheji began to snore and the sound echoed in “otherworld dining hall”.

[…Who is this?]

For this restaurant, Sunday was the only fixed holiday.

At the morning, the owner who slowly came down to the restaurant later than usual noticed a snoring young man.

[…Maybe he found a door during the middle of the night and got stuck…?]

St.u.r.dy clothes for mountain climbing… j.a.panese-like clothes for protection and a small katana hanging form his waist, he reminded the owner of warring states era and period drama.

Yesterday, after giving beef stew to the last customer and the employee returning home… it should be nearing midnight.

It seemed that the door disappeared from that world around 12 a.m., so maybe he entered during that slight gap.

[…Nn? Is it morning…?]

While he was thinking such, the young man who was noticed that the surroundings were bright began to wake up.

[It seemed that it’s strangely bright somehow… un?]

The man who was still half-asleep looked at the owner and tilted his head curiously.

And for the owner,

[…Welcome to the Western restaurant Nekoya.]

For the time being, he decided to treat him as a customer and greeted him slowly.

Then, after a while,

(…Otherworld dining hall, huh…)

While drinking the ice cold owner handed to him from the owner who was probably 10 years older than him, Koheji pondered about the situation.

From what he was told, the place where he got lost in was a different world restaurant that opened once in 7 days.

It was such a mysterious story, but this restaurant had been around for 50 years and it seemed that it started to appear at the other world around 30 years ago.

Then when Koheji told his story… he spoke about the terrible ghost he encountered, he was surprised that undeads did not exist in the other world.

And he said that.

—It seemed to be a lot of trouble.

While it was unfortunate that the food he could make today was limited, if he didn’t mind, please eat something.

As he was told so, Koheji’s belly grumbled.

When he thought about it, he was running for his life last night and had not eaten anything yet in the morning.

It was reasonable to get hungry.

So Koheji decided to take advantage of the owner’s favour.

Of course, since the owner was involved in business, such a thing couldn’t be free.

Fortunately when in terms of money, dozens of gold and silver coins were stored in his clothing and he always carried it around with him.

He told the owner that he was fine with it and paid a silver coin to become an official customer of the restaurant.

Thus,

[Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s salt-grilled sanma. For miso soup, the ingredients are radish and fried tofu.]

Before Koheji, other world food was placed.

[Somehow it looks like a luxury, master.]

Seeing the food lined up before him, he said such honestly.

It was surprisingly different from the food of an ordinary restaurant that Koheji knew… its luxury suited the aristocracy.

The white rice piled in a small bowl s.h.i.+ned under the light from the ceiling, and the piping hot brown soup emitted a tantalizing scent.

Yellow salted vegetables were served in a small plate.

And on the middle was a grilled silver-black fish similar to a sword with browned skin due to fire.

The owner said that this was a salt-grilled fish named “sanma”.

Placed on the side of the plate was something resembling white snow and green fruit.

[I appreciate it. Please eat it with the sauce in the red bottle.

The rice and miso soup are complimentary, so you can have refills. Please enjoy.]

The owner turned back to the kitchen for cleaning up.

Koheji was left alone.

[Well, let’s eat…]

He couldn’t endure his appet.i.te anymore seeing the steaming food in front of him; he picked up a pair of chopsticks and started eating.

[First off… oo, tasty.]

He picked up the bowl of brown soup and drank it.

The salty soup hit the empty stomach of the exhausted Koheji.

The ingredients were chopped and were left to stew in the soup, with something like a shredded light coloured grain mixed inside.

Both the ingredients sucked in plenty of the soup and it was irresistible to taste the soup along with the original taste of the ingredients.

In spite of its unexpected nature, Koheji reached for the white rice.

In this time of the year, rice was probably just harvested in the Western Continent.

For it to be here… he was surprised.

(Why… why is this thing “sweet”!?)

The otherworld rice was slightly sweet.

In addition, it was so soft that it was incomparable to the rice of Western Continent, and it got sweeter the more he chewed.

It was already a treat with this rice and soup.

With just the soup, Koheji could eat several bowls of rice.

[Owner, refill for soup and rice please!]

[Yes, yes. Please wait a moment.]

In response to the request, the owner immediately brought the refill.

Immediately Koheji noticed.

He had not eaten the fish yet.

Koheji had never seen this type of fish before.

It was sliced with a knife in several places, a long silver fish with brown marks.

From the smell of grease, the fish contained plenty of fat.

(By any chance…)

Koheji recalled something, swallowed his spit and stretched his chopsticks towards it.

He started where the fish was sliced and the meat was easily separated from the bone.

His chopsticks pinched the meat of a white fish.

It conveyed in his mouth… Koheji was certain with its taste.

(There’s no mistake! It’s a “salt water fish”!)

Yes, the fish that the owner cooked was a “salt water fish” that was precious in his hometown that was located at the mountains.

The fish was a wonderful thing with few bones and plenty fat. The taste was remarkably different from the river fish that could be found at the mountains.

Besides, the method of cooking was better, although the fish was securely grilled with fire, it did not lose its moisture and was still soft.

The browned skin was fragrant, which was also delicious.

(This is really delicious!)

He then started to eat his rice a second time.

He decided to alternate between rice and fish.

Before he ate half of his fish, he had already finished his bowl of rice.

[Owner, another serving!]

[Okay… aa, customer, Sanma is particularly delicious if you eat it if you squeeze the Sudachi2 on it and eat it with grated radish. Also, you could dribble some soy sauce on it.]

The owner brought back a new bowl of rice and advised Koheji on how to make the fish more delicious.

[Oh, is that so?]

Koheji decided to obediently follow the owner’s suggestion.

He squeezed the juice of the fruit and put the grated vegetable on top.

He picked up the red bottle and gently tilted it.

Black sauce dribbled out from the bottle.

It slowly dyed the white vegetable black and spread over the fish.

[Then…]

Once again, Koheji extended his chopsticks.

He slowly lifted it to his mouth and lost his words.

(What is this!? It’s even more delicious than before!?)

The fish… sanma had plenty of fat and fragrant skin.

The sweetness of grated radish, the refres.h.i.+ng and bitter taste of Sudachi, and above all the saltiness and distinct flavor of shoyu.

The moment all three were added, sanma became a different thing.

Delicious. It was just too delicious.

No other impressions came up, Koheji continued to fiercely eat sanma with rice.

(1 silver coin is too cheap for this…)

It was not an exaggeration to say that this was the most delicious food he had ever eaten in his life.

He finished it in a blink of eye.

[…Fuu. I finished it.]

After finis.h.i.+ng the salted vegetable and soup, he put down his chopsticks.

With his belly filled, he felt his fear yesterday was diminis.h.i.+ng.

[Ou, owner, I’ve been in your care! I put the money on the table!]

Feeling grat.i.tude, he put the silver coin on the table.

[Ah! Just wait a moment!]

The owner came out while shouting in panic at Koheji who was heading out.

In his hand was a brown paper bag.

He said this to Koheji.

[Please take this. It’s rice ball. The ingredients are plum, kelp and salt. There’s also pickles inside, please eat this for lunch.]

[…Are you sure?]

Koheji asked again after unexpectedly receiving the most gracious interaction.

Though he received the lunch box thankfully, it along with the sanma was worth more than one silver coin.

[Yeah well, the total is 1,000 yen… 1 silver coin is the total for both.]

However, it seemed that that was not the case for the owner.

[…I understand. Thank you very much.]

[Okay. Please visit again. Next time on Sat.u.r.day if possible.]

They cheerfully said goodbye.

When Koheji opened the door, clear autumn sky greeted him.

[…It seems that only half a day had pa.s.sed.]

Being chased by a ghost, feeling that he would definitely die, seeking refuge and had a wonderful breakfast at the other world.

All of that happened in only half a day.

And now, Koheji was still alive with full belly.

It was a lucky life event in midst of misfortune.

[…O, it’s still here. That’s good.]

Naturally, the ghost had no interest in Koheji’s luggage.

He recovered his baggage that he released in order to escape yesterday.

[Well then, I have to reach the city before sunset.]

He would be busy when he reached there.

Even if he had to do business tomorrow, he had to report the existence of the ghost to the temple.

As the temple regarded all undeads as enemies that must be exterminated, when they knew the terrible existence that only appeared during the night of full moon, surely it would be banished and the road would be safe once again.

People wouldn’t die anymore when they camped during full moon night.

(Moreover, it may be good to be there soon.)

For a person that traveled for merchandise and money, he didn’t know what might come next.

But someday, when he pa.s.sed this road, it would be nice to visit the restaurant as a normal customer.

Koheji decided so, while swallowing his saliva.

AN: It was planned to be the owner’s breakfast actually.

1. Sanma – Pacific Saury

2. Sudachi – Sudachi is a small, round, green, Peruvian and j.a.panese citrus fruit that is a specialty of Piura in Peru and Tokus.h.i.+ma Prefecture in j.a.pan. It is a sour citrus, not eaten as fruit, but used as food flavoring in place of lemon or lime. I usually use lemon on Sanma though.