Reborn in Japan as a Chef God
Chapter 152: The Tentacles of the Gourmet Club

Chapter 152: Chapter 152: The Tentacles of the Gourmet Club

Ever since that night when he summoned the monster into the store, a week had passed.

"Yu, Yu, Yu..."

The faint calling woke Xia Yu up.

Since the afternoon classes started, Xia Yu had been napping at his desk. The afternoon teachers were more relaxed, and recently, Xia Yu had shown amazing learning abilities, scoring top marks on various tests, so the teachers tended to turn a blind eye to outstanding students.

"What period is it now?" Xia Yu rubbed his eyes.

He hadn’t slept well for the past week; the encounter with the monster that night had profoundly impacted him, throwing his worldview into chaos. He was currently in a period of adjustment and recovery, and his cooking skills had nearly stalled due to his turbulent emotions.

"Next up is home economics, Teacher Saito’s class!" Nishimura Eiki eyed his weary face and hesitated, "Yu, you don’t look quite right this week, even more tired than I am from staying up all night gaming..."

"How could I not be tired!"

Xia Yu rolled his eyes. He was mentally exhausted.

Looking at Nishimura’s face and then scanning the noisy classroom after class, Xia Yu found it hard to imagine that beneath this peaceful daily life, there was another world where monsters lived.

Monsters, Fantasy Ingredients, etc., all these jumbled words surfaced, threatening to overload Xia Yu’s mind, so he quickly tried not to think about them.

The bell for class soon rang, and both Xia Yu and Nishimura hastened to the home economics classroom.

Home economics was essentially a mixed practical class, usually scheduled for the last period on Friday. In elementary school, they taught sewing and needlework, but in middle school, they began teaching cooking and nutrition.

Today’s lesson was cooking, and the class teacher, Saito Yui, wrote a simple home-cooked recipe on the blackboard, telling the students, "Let’s all do our best!"

"Yu, let’s team up!" Nishimura squeezed over, "Today we’re making cookies!"

"Making cookies?"

Baking wasn’t Xia Yu’s specialty, but as a chef who had recently been cramming knowledge in other culinary areas, baking cookies was still something simple that he knew how to handle.

"Leave it to me—"

Nishimura was a real slacker with no practical skills, so Xia Yu let him assist with gathering ingredients like low-gluten flour, unsalted butter, caster sugar, eggs, and icing sugar.

He didn’t follow the teacher’s recipe but started by placing the butter in a small bowl and mixing it until smooth with a whisk, then added the icing sugar and caster sugar and mixed again.

The third step involved beating the eggs, after which he poured in the low-gluten flour, finally filling the pastry bag with the cookie dough and laying the parchment paper on the baking tray, squeezing the cookies out onto the tray.

Allowing Nishimura to take the baking tray to the oven, Xia Yu raised his hand, "Teacher, our group has finished!"

The entire class looked over, with the girls still discussing the details of the recipe, as the class had just begun not long ago.

Saito Yui looked over, surprised, "You’re done already?"

"Our group is also done!"

Boss Sakamoto suddenly raised his hand.

After a while, Xia Yu and Sakamoto left the home economics classroom side by side.

Pushing up his glasses, Sakamoto glanced at Xia Yu, who had severe dark circles under his eyes, "Mr. Xia Yu, it seems you are quite strained. Do you need help at the shop recently?"

"No need, absolutely no need!"

Xia Yu quickly refused.

Home economics was the last class on Friday. After retrieving his backpack from the classroom, Xia Yu went to the school’s bike shed, hopped on his bicycle, and leisurely began his ride home.

Upon reaching the shopping street and seeing Xia’s cuisine shop from a distance, Xia Yu was surprised to find four or five men in black standing at his family’s doorstep, with a van parked nearby.

As they heard the approaching sound of the bicycle, the group turned their heads to look.

"Who are you?" Xia Yu asked as he got out of his car and parked.

"We are from the Tokyo Three Tigers Construction Company..."

A blond young man stepped beside Xia Yu and handed over his business card in a very gentlemanly manner.

Unexpectedly, Xia Yu didn’t even look at it, "Xia’s shop won’t be sold, you all can leave now."

He turned his back to the group, furrowing his brows, as he had already been irritated all week, and seeing these real estate developers’ lackeys unexpectedly sparked a violent emotion inside him.

A few days ago, Miss Feng Zhixi had made it clear that a strong competitor named Tokyo Three Tigers Construction Company had gotten involved in their planning case and that the pace of acquisition was terrifyingly fast; in less than ten days, half of the shops on the street had shut down.

In just another ten days or so, the entire street would change hands.

Recently Sen Tian Makoto had complained to him multiple times that this real estate company was pressuring her family’s Sen Tian Pastry Shop both overtly and covertly, employing thugs to intimidate them while paving the way with a significant financial effort.

According to a childhood friend, her parents were about to give out.

At that moment, a black sedan slowly arrived and stopped in front of Xia’s shop.

The ’real estate queen’ Miss Feng Zhixi got out of the car and took off her sunglasses, sizing up the group from the Tokyo Three Tigers Construction Company, squinting, and said, "Why are you acquiring this area regardless of costs?!"

"It’s a complete loss!"

Miss Feng Zhixi was shaking with anger; once she had found out at what average price these people were buying the land and buildings, she concluded it definitely wasn’t any reasonable acquisition case but rather seemed like some tyrannical landlord buying up the land on a whim.

"Miss Feng Zhixi?"

The blond young man obviously recognized Feng Zhixi and casually grinned, "I am Lancelot, and regarding your question, I apologize, but we’re just errand runners."

"Where is your planning case?" Feng Zhixi sharply focused on him, "Such a big acquisition must have some plans, what exactly do you want to do here? Build a gourmet street? A large mall? Or residential buildings, office buildings?"

"Business secret, we can’t reveal anything!" the blond young man’s expression turned cold.

Xia Yu, with his back to them, found the sharp exchange between the heads of these two real estate companies rather strange to overhear.

Feng Zhixi’s City Life Planning Company had a plan and a procurement strategy, which could be said to be a legitimate business activity, but by comparison, this suddenly emergent Tokyo Three Tigers Construction Company gave Xia Yu the impression of rash and arrogantly wealthy behavior.

As he pushed open the door to the shop, Xia Yu had just stepped half a foot inside when the fire caught him.

"Xia Yu, right?"

The blond young man named Lancelot suddenly said this, altering his previously gentlemanly demeanor, his tone now full of aggression: "I know you are a two-star chef from the IGO organization, so let’s decide the ownership of your shop using the rules of the culinary world!"

The rules of the culinary world?

A culinary battle?

Xia Yu narrowed his eyes and finally came to his senses, scrutinizing the blond young man seriously.

"Are you a chef too?"

"Yes!" the blond young man confidently declared, "Let’s use a culinary battle to decide the ownership of your shop!"

"What are the conditions?" Xia Yu asked.

"Ah, see the two shops next door..." Lancelot pointed to a large bathhouse on the left of Xia’s restaurant that had closed down and then to a three-story family inn on the right, "If you win, both of these shops are yours."

"And if I win, your shop..." Lancelot pointed towards Xia Yu and the Xia’s shop behind him, "will be mine!"

"Two shops in exchange for one shop!"

"Moreover, the total area of those two shops is more than ten times that of your small shop!"