Chapter 4: The Wicked Wife Job-Changed into a Diner’s Poster Girl!

Clatter, clatter—the cowbell at the entrance rang out cheerfully.
I turned around reflexively to see a pair of men who looked like craftsmen coming in.

“Welcome~!
Sorry, it’ll have to be a shared table—would that be alright?
…Thank you very much!
Right this way, please~!”

I instantly put on my best customer-service smile and guided the two new customers to an open seat.
The older man was a regular who came by often.
Once he sat down, he glanced at the menu board propped against the wall, then looked up at me.

“Miss, what’s today’s daily lunch?”

“Today it’s ginger pork!
We got some really good pork in.”

“Oh, ginger pork, huh!
Nice, I’ve been wanting to eat that again.
Alright, that settles it—I’ll take the daily special!”

“Boss, what’s ginger pork?”

The younger man tilted his head.
I didn’t recognize his face.
It seemed he was a first-time customer.

“What, you don’t know?
It’s one of this place’s specialties.
Sweet-and-savory ginger sauce clings to the pork and onions—it’s insanely good.
And trust me, it goes way better with rice than bread.
You can eat bowl after bowl of white rice with it!”

“Huh, really.
Then I’ll have that ginger pork thing too.”

“Certainly~!
Table three, two daily specials, both with rice!”

I called the order back toward the kitchen behind the counter.
From the proprietress, Hannah, came a brisk “Got it!”
From the owner, Dan, a silent nod.

This was the Licorice Diner, located in the downtown area of the border city of Diud.
With only five counter seats and four four-person tables, it was a small place, and at lunchtime it was nearly full with local craftsmen and adventurers.

It had been almost three years since I started working here.
Three years ago, I had come to this town on pure momentum, thinking, ‘It’ll work out somehow!’
Instead, I struggled desperately to find both housing and a job.
Even in another world, I learned the hard way that you needed a guarantor to rent a decent place or get a proper job.

After wandering day after day searching for work and a place to live, I was exhausted and absentminded when someone pickpocketed my wallet, nearly wiping out what little money I had left.
That was when a man approached me, saying he had a good job for me.
He seemed suspicious, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and just as I was about to follow him, Hannah called out to me.
Apparently, the man was a notorious thug in this area.
When I realized I had nearly been tricked into being sold to a brothel, the blood drained from my face.

Ever since then, I had been living and working here at the Licorice Diner under the name “Rosie,” as a live-in hall staff member and kitchen assistant.
In my previous life, the part-time job I’d held the longest as a student was at an izakaya.
Thankfully, I had no trouble learning the work.

“Rosie, pork curry for two is up!
Take it to table one, will you?”

“Got it~!”

What Hannah handed me was a slightly deep oval plate.
On it was curry made with chunky pork belly and plenty of tomatoes.
The spicy aroma made my appetite stir.

‘Wow, this smell is irresistible!
My stomach’s going to growl even though I’m working!’

Holding a plate of pork curry in each hand, I made my way through the packed dining room.
With every step, my red ponytail swayed and the hem of my white apron fluttered.
If I said so myself, I looked right at home as a diner staffer.
No one would ever guess I was once a princess.

Even while I was carrying dishes, customers kept calling out to me.

“Can I get another bowl of rice!”

“Coming right up!”

“Over here, one ale!
And add an order of fried chicken too!”

“Yes, right away!”

From a Japanese perspective, drinking alcohol during a lunch break seemed unthinkable, but in this world it was apparently quite normal.
People drank it like water.
Of course, getting drunk worked the same in any world, and being bothered by drunk customers happened often enough.

“Rosie, you’re cute as ever today!
How about going on a date with me after work?”

“Ahaha… I’ll have to pass on the date…”

“Tch, shot down again today.”

“Idiot, like a beauty like Rosie would ever go for you.
Rosie, me, me!
How about me?”

“Sorry, I’m not looking for a partner…”

I turned them down with a stiff smile, but their flushed faces showed no sign of giving up.

“Aw, don’t be so uptight.
Come on, it’s fine, just to have some fun—”

“Hey, you lot!
If you keep pestering our poster girl, I’ll ban you from the place!”

The one who came to my rescue was Hannah.
The sight of the well-built Hannah standing with her hands on her hips and glaring was intimidating.
Behind the counter in the kitchen, Dan was also silently holding a knife.
Faced with the two of them, the drunk customers immediately went pale.

“N-No, we were just joking…”

“Come on, proprietress, don’t ban us.
If I couldn’t eat this place’s curry anymore, I wouldn’t be able to live~”

“Hmph.
All the more reason to show Rosie some respect.
Every original dish we serve here—curry, ginger pork, fried chicken—Rosie came up with all of them!”

“Ah… I just happened to know the recipes…”

That was true.
All these dishes that felt so out of place in a fantasy world had been added to the menu at my suggestion.

Stories where someone reincarnates or is summoned to another world and amazes everyone with Japanese food were a staple of manga and light novels, but after actually experiencing reincarnation myself, I deeply understood how those protagonists felt.
You just start craving Japanese food.
Especially the kind of home-style cooking that feels like comfort food.

The first thing I made was fried chicken.
This world did have dishes where chicken was fried, and they were tasty in their own way, but they didn’t satisfy that craving for karaage.
When I borrowed ingredients and made it as a staff meal, Dan and Hannah were amazed by how good it was, and it ended up being added to the menu.
To my surprise, it was a huge hit with customers too.

After that, with Dan’s help, I kept trying my hand at Japanese-style cooking.
Sometimes I had to substitute ingredients I couldn’t get, so it wasn’t always exactly the same as in my previous life, but little by little, recreating Japanese food worked out, and each success added another item to the menu.

The Licorice Diner had originally been a place that served simple, classic dishes at reasonable prices.
They did stock alcohol, but they didn’t operate as a nighttime tavern, only serving breakfast and lunch.
Most of the customers were locals who stopped by before work or during breaks.
That was still the main customer base, but word spread that there was a place serving unusual food, and more and more people started coming from farther away just to eat the Japanese-style dishes.
Now, at lunchtime, it was always packed, making it a modestly popular spot.

Seeing people enjoy food I had loved in my previous life and say it was delicious honestly made me very happy and gave me a sense of fulfillment.
And more than anything, I couldn’t be grateful enough to Dan and Hannah for taking me in without asking questions, despite how obviously complicated my circumstances were.
I hoped I was at least repaying them a little.

By the time we finished the whirlwind lunch rush and saw off the last customer, it was already close to evening.
After hanging the closed sign on the outside of the door, the three of us started cleaning up.
Dan and Hannah had opened this diner when they were both in their late twenties, and they’d been running it here for about thirty years.
The wooden tables and chairs they’d been using since opening day were old but well cared for, with a honey-colored sheen like antiques.
The herringbone floor was the same.

Putting my gratitude into my work, I cleaned every corner of the place.
While I was engrossed in scrubbing the floor and digging dirt out of the gaps between the boards, Hannah called out to me.

“Hey, Rosie.
It’s almost sunset.”

When I looked out the window, the western sky was dyed orange.

“Huh, it’s already that late!?
I’ve just got a bit more floor to—”

“We’ll handle the rest.
Go hurry up and get them.”

“I’m sorry, thank you so much!
I’m going!”

I hurriedly took off my apron and dashed out the back door of the diner.