In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 16 - Chapter 2.1

Interlude: The Mysterious Sushi Adventure 

I held the chopsticks firmly as I placed the morsel into my mouth. There was some faint trace of oil along the fish, and it spread across my mouth slowly. The flavors blended together into a delightful waltz. When I bit into it, the taste of the oil came out even more. Vinegared rice, a bit of salt... some plum. It was like a dream. 
“H-How is it?” 
“It’s delicious! I really like it. It’s not all that different from the sushi I’m familiar with.” 
“R-Really? Thank goodness!” Lu, who had been staring at me anxiously, suddenly melted into relief. 
I threw another bite of yellowtail sushi into my mouth. It was seriously yummy. Technically it wasn’t yellowtail, but Eashen’s closest equivalent fish. I didn’t really care all that much though. 
“Mm! This is delicious, this is! Lu-dono, I would like some more, I would!” 
“Yummy... This is very yummy... I want some more please...” 
Yae and Sakura were seated next to me, happily gulping down the food. They certainly didn’t have any objections. 
All the other girls seemed to be enjoying it too, but they weren’t quite as energetic about it. Elze and Linze seemed pretty into it, though. 

Nobles weren’t accustomed to eating raw fish, so Yumina, Sue, and Hilde weren’t exactly familiar with how to eat sushi. They seemed to do fine with kappa rolls and tamago rolls, though. 
Lu was originally no good at making this kind of stuff either, but she gradually adjusted and ended up making quite a few nice things. Leen and Sakura did just fine, since Mismede and Xenoahs had a fairly diverse level of food in their culture. In Xenoahs it wasn’t even too strange to eat magic beasts. 
Elze and Linze were from Refreese, so they weren’t too unfamiliar with seafood. It was still a little bit uncommon for them, though. 
We had a lot of different kinds of sushi on offer. There was yellowtail, egg, squid, octopus, shrimp, mackerel, flounder, sea bream, bonito, salmon, crab, and scallop. Then we had kappa rolls, veggie rolls, plum rolls, tamago rolls, and some dried gourd. The gourd was pretty hard to come by. 
These things all looked the same as they did in my world, but the ingredients were still a little different. It took a lot of trial and error, and a lot of awkward taste testing, for me to get it right. I remembered being especially worried about trying out Tentacular as a squid substitute... But luckily regular squid existed in this world too. 
I also used [Search] and wound up discovering that wasabi was around in Eashen. It just wasn’t commonplace since it was only made in one city. Personally, I felt like sushi without wasabi was no sushi at all. 
“I’ve been using fish we found on the dungeon islands. Please enjoy, I want to keep making more and more...” Lu smiled at us while Leen poked at her flounder. 
“This is lovely. The rice really does complement the fish. I think we could even enjoy this with other ingredients.” 
“Mhm! I’ve seen sushi with ham and onions, shrimp tempura, and even roast beef. I’ve had it a few times with conveyor belt sushi.” 
“Conveyor? How can a piece of food convey something to you? I don’t get it?” Sue started staring intently at a piece of egg, perhaps wondering if it was going to communicate with her. 
“No, uh... I meant like a conveyor belt that has plates of sushi on it... I guess it’ll be faster just to show you.” 
I pulled up a video of conveyor belt sushi and showed it to everyone. It was a clip from a variety show, so a couple of comedian commentators talked over it a bit. The conveyor belt ran through the store, with different plates of sushi running down it. All the girls seemed pretty intrigued by it. 
“That looks amazing! Can you take anything you want?” 
“Sometimes, but usually they’re orders for other tables.” 
Sue was staring at the screen with hungry eyes. I wasn’t surprised, she was probably thinking of eating them all. 
“Oooh! Pudding! There’s pudding, too!” 
“Cake...! Cake...?!” 
“Oh, a parfait! It certainly seems to be full of treats.” 
Sue got excited at the sight of pudding, and Sakura had an uncharacteristic burst of excitement at the sight of the cake. Linze seemed pretty happy with what she was seeing in general. There were also sides like fried potatoes, too. Linze was right, the belt was full of treats. I was pretty fond of the sides you could get in restaurants like that. 
“Can’t you make something like this, Doctor?” 
“Mfh?” 
When Elze brought up the idea of Doctor Babylon getting involved in sushi operations, Lu quickly stuffed her cheeks full of rice. She looked like a squirrel. It was kind of funny. 
“The mechanism is pretty simple, honestly. If you just want the belt rotating at a constant speed, then Touya or Leen would be able to do it with [Program].” 
Doctor Babylon was right in that the basics were pretty simple, but I had a feeling that touch-screen ordering would be a little more complex. 
I tossed some sea bream sushi into my mouth. It was really tasty. It had been a while since I’d had good sushi, but there was still something missing. 
“I miss tuna...” 
Tuna... Oh, tuna... Pacific bluefin tuna, to be precise... The king of all fish, the magnificent tuna... It existed in this world, sure, just not in the waters around the dungeon islands. 
When I searched it up, it was offshore around Eashen. But that area was largely unexplored... Even though I had a result, my [Search] spell was unreliable sometimes, so it was more likely to be a fish that was just close enough to tuna. 
Also, the tuna was unusually large. As far as I knew, the largest tuna on Earth was four meters long, but the tuna I looked up in this world seemed to be around ten meters long. 
I wondered if it was a monster of some sort... A magic beast, perhaps? Or a magic fish... It wasn’t that I couldn’t go fishing or anything, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of free time... 
“Touya! Do you think we could serve sushi at the next League of Nations meeting? I’d like them to try this conveyor belt sushi you showed us!” 
“Hmm? At the League of Nations?” 
While I daydreamed of tuna, Lu turned to me and spoke up. 
“That sounds wonderful, it does! I would like Shirahime-sama to try it, I would! I would be very happy if this kind of food spread to Eashen!” Yae was referring to the mikado of Eashen, Shirahime. I wondered if the world leaders would be so eager to try raw fish, though... The king of Egret would probably be fine with it, given that they already had it as part of their diet. 
If sushi spread to Eashen, then the demand for wasabi would probably go up too... Still, I wondered if the world had enough rice in it for it to become a global fad. There was still a possibility it could catch on, even so... 
“Alright, I’ll get to work on a sushi conveyor belt! I’ll make one even better than the video you showed me, Touya!” 
“Make sure you don’t do anything weird... I don’t wanna see any self-destruct buttons or anything.” 
The doctor flashed a mischievous grin as she shoveled more sushi into her mouth. Still, part of me really wanted that tuna. I internally debated going fishing for it before the League of Nations meeting. Mostly, I just wanted to eat it for my own sake. 
 
“Is that tuna?!” 
“...N-No, it’s a little different from the tuna I know.” 
The massive fish jumped out from the water, and Linze asked me for confirmation. I couldn’t give her a sound answer. I didn’t quite know what I was looking at. 
It was sort of like a tuna? I didn’t think tuna on Earth had horns, though. And their pectoral fins were definitely not so huge... It was kind of moving like a flying fish. 
However, I’d never heard of a flying tuna fish. How was it even floating with such a massive body, anyway? I wondered if it was using magic. Linze’s Helmwige floated magnificently, but the tuna-like fish was running rampant and proving difficult to handle. I was standing outside on the shoulder. 
We didn’t want to damage the tuna’s body too badly. Ideally, we didn’t want to damage its body at all. But it was jumping at such a high speed that it was hard to aim for... If we missed our attacks, we could damage other fish in the area, too. 
I brought along Sango and Kokuyou since it was an aquatic encounter, but this was more troubling than I’d thought. 
“How ssshall we deal with thisss?” 
“What do you two suggest?” 
“We could use the full extent of our power in the water, and obliterate the fish in a matter of seconds.” 
“No thanks.” 
That would defeat the whole point. We weren’t here to destroy the fish, we were here to catch and eat it. 
“Touya, we could try slowing it down?” 
I heard Linze’s suggestion through the speaker and nodded slowly. That seemed wise to me. I decided to start off with that. 
““Come forth, Water! Raging Whirlpool: [Maelstrom]!” 
A massive whirlpool formed in front of the tuna. Alright, now it’s slowed, I can just encase it in ice... Wait, what?! 
The tuna simply swam straight through the whirlpool without a care in the world. I’d clearly underestimated that fish. The fish quickly submerged itself in the water, which proved to be an issue. 
Even if my smartphone could track it with the searching function, if it went too deep it’d all be over. It wasn’t that I couldn’t follow after it, I could easily use the Black Monarch’s power to breathe down there, but I didn’t want it to turn into an all-out fight... If it was a case of slaughtering the fish, that’d be fine. But I couldn’t really use my strength here or I’d damage valuable food. 
It was huge, though. We could definitely afford to damage the areas that wouldn’t be needed for food. 
“Guess we’re gonna have to go fishing the classic way.” 
There was nothing else for it. We’d used a massive fishing line to pull up the Tentaculars a while ago, and that was still in my [Storage]. I could easily make a hook with [Modeling], which meant all I needed was bait... 
The fish we were after was huge. Regular bait wasn’t going to cut it. I needed some bonito-sized fish. I turned to Kokuyou and Sango and held out my hands out to the approximate width I was after. 
“Alright, guys. I need you to catch fish that are about this big. Please don’t rip them apart.” 
“Very well.” 
“Ssseemsss sssimple.” 
They both jumped off of Helmwige’s wing, returned to their true sizes, and dropped into the water with a sudden splash. After a short while, the duo returned with a lot of bonito-sized fish in their mouths. With that, the bait had been secured. 
“Now I just need to thread this through here, and... Oh, Linze. Transform Helmwige, okay?” 
“Got it!” 
I used [Fly] to clear myself away from Helmwige as it transformed from a jet-like form into its more mech-like base form. Helmwige was unique amongst the other Frame Gears, in that it had superior boosters and an anti-gravity field. It could hover in the air indefinitely. 
Helmwige took the large fishing line, complete with hook and bait, into its massive hands. 
I could’ve called Reginleif to do this myself, but I wasn’t confident I’d be precise or delicate enough with the tuna and the flying at the same time. Linze had a lot more flight experience. 
Helmwige made a few dexterous motions until it finally caught the attention of the tuna. It bit down and started pulling on the line. 
“It took the bait!” 
“Woo!” 
Helmwige started tugging at the fishing line. The line and hook were made out of orichalcum and my [Modeling] spell, so I didn’t expect it to break. 

It was true that the tuna had broken through my [Maelstrom] spell, but Helmwige was still a Frame Gear. Even if it wasn’t combat-oriented, it couldn’t lose against monsters. 
Helmwige continued to reel in the fishing line, and the tuna breached the surface once more. It was struggling, and moving quickly, but it was clearly slowed. This was my chance. 
Without missing a beat, I flew over and immediately cast [Ice Coffin] on the hulking fish. A square block of ice rose from beneath the waves, sealing the tuna within. One fresh tuna, coming right up! 
I activated [Storage], and sucked up the tuna popsicle into it. One would probably be enough to feed everyone, given that it was ten meters long... But I wanted to catch some more, just to be on the safe side. It made sense to do it while we were out there. There were all kinds of dishes I wanted to make with tuna, after all. Tuna bowls... Skewers... This is kind of my own gluttony talking... 
But I have to seize the day! If I don’t catch it while I can, I’ll be cranky about it later! 
Thus, we went hunting for more tuna before returning to Brunhild. 
 
“Interesting... You’ve made something odd yet again, then...” 
“That’s Touya, alright...” 
The emperor of Regulus muttered as he looked over the sushi, and the king of Belfast followed up with a typical comment. But it wasn’t actually me who made the food, this time. 
The League of Nations afterparty was in full swing as usual, and Lu’s “Sushi-go-round” was proving quite popular. There were various small seats lined up against a countertop, just like in the video. 
“Hmm... How novel. We can take whatever we like?” 
“That’s right. But don’t put the bowl or plate back after you’re finished. Leave it in your dining area, so we can see how much you ate based on the piled-up plates. This’ll prevent the conveyor belt from getting cluttered, too.” 
The beastking of Mismede turned to me with curious eyes. I decided to show him how it worked. I picked up a dish from the belt, one with tuna sushi on it. Then, I dipped it slightly in some soy sauce and took a bite. 
“Mmh... So good...!” It wasn’t quite the tuna I knew, but it was basically as good as the real deal. The wasabi really accentuated the taste. 
Ahhh... This... I’ve been waiting for this... Sweet paradise, sweet tuna... 
“Then I too shall try this...” 
Eashen’s mikado, Shirahime, reached out for a plate. She went for the tuna, same as me. She didn’t seem hesitant at all, probably because raw fish wasn’t super uncommon in Eashenese food. She dipped it in a bit of soy sauce and popped it into her mouth. 
“Mm! This is wonderful! The taste of the fish spreads through my entire mouth... The rice goes perfectly, too!” 
The other world leaders saw Shirahime’s reaction and began reaching out for dishes of their own. There was a lot more on offer than just raw fish, so that probably helped as well. 
“Mm! This is good!” 
“Plenty easy to eat, too. I like how you can wait for what you like the most and just pick that.” 
“I like seeing them go by.” 
Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Shirahime, the overlord, the king of Egret, and the beastking of Mismede were chowing down without reservation. Some of the other world leaders couldn’t quite handle squid or octopus, but they still tried the rest. 
“Hngh! Gwuh!” 
“A-Are you okay?” 
The beastking suddenly wrinkled his nose after eating a piece of sushi. His eyes were watering. 
“N-No, just... This wasabi thing... I think there was a little much in this...” 
“Ah.” 
Lu wasn’t very experienced in making hand rolls quite yet, and there were a few other cooks helping her as well. It was likely that somebody had underestimated the amount of wasabi they’d put into one of the rolls. Whoops. 
Well, preparing for a party wasn’t without its pitfalls. These things happened now and then. 
“Hm... The spice in this is different from cully, but it’s not bad... Could we use this on other foods, too?” 
“Yeah. I think it’s mostly being used as a medicinal item right now, but it can be used as a condiment paste too.” 
I strongly believed that wasabi was necessary for sushi. I hoped that it would become more common in Eashenese cuisine. 
“Ooh, there’s parfait!” 
“Cake, too!” 
The queen of Palerius and the queen of Elfrau reached out for the dessert items. I wasn’t too surprised that the girls had taken better to the treats than the meals. I looked over and saw Shirahime munching on a couple of dumplings. 
“Hmm? What’s this drink?” 
The emperor of Refreese poured some sake into a cup and took a sip. I figured that serving some light liquor would be okay. Typically, nobles would drink wine, but I didn’t think wine went all that well with sushi. 
I didn’t drink alcohol, so I couldn’t say for sure, but it just felt out of place for me. That was why we decided to serve Eashenese sake with the sushi-go-round, and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. 
“This is good... I wonder if we can make it in my country... The fish should be fine, but the rice...” 
“If it is rice you need, then Eashen can provide it. We will cut you a fair trade.” 
“Oho, sounds good. Thank you, Miss Shirahime.” 
“Not a problem. Actually, those Luphu birds you have in Egret are of interest to me...” 
It seemed like the king of Egret and Shirahime were forging new business relations. 
Eashen and Egret were pretty far apart in terms of distance. But thanks to the League of Nations, participating countries could trade via my [Gate] spell. 
It was pretty simple. I’d just put the items from country A in [Storage] to keep them fresh, then deliver them to country B. It took less than a minute, really. It was no real issue for me. I’d probably have to do it after the party. 
Hm... What should I have next? 
I brought my cup of tea to my mouth and was about to reach out for some more sushi when... 
“Heyo, Little Bro! It’s me, you know?!” 
“...Whaddya want, Karen?” 
Karen suddenly appeared, holding out a sushi bowl to me. It had several slices of tuna roll in it. Was she a delivery service now or something? 
“This is ‘Russian sushi,’ you know? It seemed interesting, so I made it because Regina asked for it!” 
She did...? Russian sushi...? What is that? 
“One of these slices of tuna roll is loaded to the brim with wasabi, you know?” 
“Why would you do that?!” 
That sounds ridiculously stupid, that kinda thing wasn’t in the video I showed at all! 
The beastking came over after hearing me fuss. 
“Ms. Karen... What is this Russian sushi you mentioned?” 
“It’s a battle! A manly battle of guts and courage from Touya’s homeland! You need to win with luck and tenacity, you know? Avoid the wicked sushi, and come out a champion!” 
“Ooh... A knockout competition, like the pruning from the Sea of Trees...” 
No. It’s not like that at all. Please don’t buy into her nonsense, it’s just a prank... 
“Now then, if you wanna fight, then fight! You know?” 
“This seems interesting. I’d like to participate.” 
The beastking stepped forward, followed by the emperor of Refreese, the king of Lihnea, the knight king of Lestia, the overlord of Xenoahs, the king of Egret, and the king of Felsen. Wait, wait... Why are you all getting suckered in?! I’m not doing this... 
“What are you waiting for, Touya? Take up a plate.” 
“Gh... Guess I’m participating, then.” 
Damn it! This sucks! I don’t wanna do this, but fine! There were eight tuna roll slices in the bowl. The goal was to avoid the wasabi-laced slice... I had a one in eight chance of my mouth lighting on fire. 
Wait, I can just use [Search] to... 
“No tricks allowed, you know?” 
Tsk... How’d she know? I gulped and took a piece before setting it on my plate. Everyone else did the same and popped the pieces into their mouths on Karen’s command. 
Everyone went quiet. Hm... Tasty as usual. 
The moment I thought I was safe, everything went wrong. My nose was filled with burning, my throat started to close up, and I felt a pain so sharp I thought my brain was gonna short-circuit. 
“Ghguhah! Hngh... Bwuh... Ghah!” 
I fell to the ground and started squirming like a worm, occasionally clutching at my own face. Oh god... Hngh... No! This is impossible! It hurts! It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone has spicy diarrhea! 
I screamed out before scrambling up to the table and chugging down my boiling tea. I didn’t care that it was scalding, I could just use recovery magic later! The other participants crowded around me and laughed. Tears streamed down my face into my mouth. Spicy tears. I cried even more. Karen was laughing like a madwoman. She’d said I couldn’t use tricks, but I was a hundred percent sure that she’d planned this from the start. 
“See, Touya? You’re the luckiest guy here. You spared them all a terrible fate.” 
“Oh, I get it. Touya’s incredible luck saved us all from our bad luck, I get it!” 
The beastking nodded along as if he’d just said or understood something reasonable. What the hell kind of dumbass interpretation is that?! Stop buying into her crap! 
I wanted to interrogate Karen, but there was nothing I could prove. I’d been defeated. You witch! You cretin! I’m gonna put wasabi in your desserts, you monster! 
I gulped down some pudding to offset the spice. It was nice and sweet... Eventually, the pain subsided, and even though I was embarrassed, I returned to eating my sushi. Now... What to eat next... 
In the end, Lu’s sushi was extremely well-received by the world leaders. Everyone enjoyed it. 
Sadly, Lu kind of became addicted to creating new types of sushi. She didn’t have a lot of success in that regard, though. Cream definitely had no place anywhere near sushi. 
As a result of the afterparty, sushi became pretty common in countries around the world. The Russian sushi game was even listed on several menus.