At the Shinomiya residence, Kaguya and Hayasaka sat on opposite sides of a sofa, staring intently at the phone lying on the coffee table between them.
The contrast between mistress and maid could not have been clearer: Kaguya looked visibly restless, while Hayasaka remained perfectly calm.
"Hayasaka, do you think Kamisaka-kun is angry because I took too long to reply?"
"No," Hayasaka said evenly. "I think the Boss is simply busy and hasn't checked his phone yet."
Her reassurance did nothing. Kaguya still looked nervous and unsettled.
Then—Buzz.
At last, the phone signaled a new ssage.
Kaguya's face brightened instantly. She snatched up the phone with startling speed, flipped it open, and hurriedly opened the ssage
The mont she read it, her expression changed again.
The light seed to drain from her eyes, and for an instant, there was sothing oddly dangerous in the way she looked!
"Hayasaka," she said very quietly, "that Asuna you investigated before... are you certain she has no special relationship with Kamisaka-kun?"
....
"Well, Kamisaka?" Ainz already knew Yuto had been contacting Kaguya, so the mont he saw him put down his phone, he imdiately spoke up.
Rimuru, sitting beside him, wore the exact sa look of expectation.
"Just wait a little," Yuto answered calmly.
He had already spoken to Kaguya, who said she would contact the person imdiately.
Now all they could do was wait.
He raised a hand toward Ainz and Rimuru in a calming gesture.
Not long after, his phone lit up with an incoming call from an unrecognized number.
Yuto guessed it must be Asuna.
But when he answered, the voice on the other end was a man's, catching him off guard.
So it wasn't Asuna?
"Hello. May I ask what you needed from ?" The voice sounded like a middle-aged man, polite to an almost excessive degree.
"Ah... I was actually hoping to speak with Asuna. May I ask who this is?"
"Of course. I'm Asuna's father, Shouzou Yuuki. May I ask why you were looking for my daughter?"
Yuto was genuinely surprised.
He had expected Kaguya to connect him to Asuna herself, not to her father.
The surprise only lasted a mont before he recovered his composure.
"It's just a small matter. I'm a friend of Asuna's—my na is Kamisaka Yuto. If you tell her my na, that should be enough."
"Very well. Please hold for a mont."
Shouzou remained impeccably polite the whole ti, Yuto guessed that had more to do with Kaguya than with him.
A little while later, Asuna finally ca on the line.
Her voice carried both hesitation and quiet delight. "Kamisaka-kun? What did you need?"
She didn't waste ti asking irrelevant things—such as why Yuto had access to her father's private number.
Having seen Kaguya at the restaurant before, thinking it through for a mont was enough for her to guess how this had happened.
"It's about the VR gear you ntioned before. I was wondering if you could bring a few more sets..." Yuto explained the situation simply.
He had no intention of asking her to do it for free, Ainz and Rimuru were perfectly willing to exchange valuable items in return.
But Asuna refused the idea outright.
She agreed to the request without hesitation, and when Yuto brought up paynt, she turned it down completely.
He thanked her sincerely for that.
Once the matter was settled, he asked with a faint smile, "By the way, why haven't you been by lately?"
For a mont, Asuna didn't know what to say.
She looked toward her father nearby and could only give a vague excuse about having been busy recently.
In truth, the last few days had been nothing but strict ho tutoring and constant supervision; she had hardly had any chance to leave the house.
Worse still, her father kept saying things that made her feel trapped.
Things like: There's a very promising employee at my company—would you like to et him?
Or: Sugou is really an excellent young man. I think you ought to spend ti with him.
Every ti she heard those sorts of comnts, her chest tightened with frustration.
It wasn't that she didn't want to visit the restaurant, she simply had no freedom!
"If that's the case," Yuto said gently, clearly hearing the heaviness in her voice, "then don't rush the VR gear. Bring it whenever you're free. I'll be at the restaurant."
The quiet reassurance softened Asuna's expression at once.
They chatted for a little longer before ending the call.
When the line disconnected, Asuna looked up at her father, who was still watching her.
Tense, she said, "Father, if there's nothing else, I'll go back to studying now."
Shouzou stayed silent for a mont before speaking.
"The person you were just talking to... what sort of relationship does he have with the Shinomiya family?" he sounded thoughtful.
A subtle spark lit in Asuna's eyes as sothing in her mind began moving.
"Kamisaka-kun..." she said after a mont, considering her answer carefully. "From what I can tell, he seems to be very close friends with the Shinomiya family's young lady."
Shouzou frowned slightly. "Do they interact often?"
"Yes. The Shinomiya heiress goes to see Kamisaka-kun every day."
In truth, Asuna had no idea what sort of relationship Kaguya and Yuto actually had.
She had only seen Kaguya at the restaurant once, everything she was saying now was, strictly speaking, a lie.
But for the first ti, she felt that lying might be worth it.
Shouzou drew in a long breath. "In that case, if he needs the VR gear, then take it to him today."
Joy flared up inside Asuna, but she stayed composed on the surface.
"Then today's...?"
"No need."
...
Back at the restaurant, Yuto had barely hung up before Ainz and Rimuru fixed him with twin stares.
"You can look at like that all you want, but it won't change anything," he said with a helpless smile.
"Asuna's been busy lately. She agreed about the VR gear, but we'll have to wait until she can co."
At once, both Ainz and Rimuru looked crestfallen.
They desperately wanted to start playing VR gas as soon as possible, so waiting was agony!
Yuto shook his head with a quiet laugh and left them to it, turning his attention back to the newly delivered ingredients.
When he stepped into the kitchen, Erina and Hisako were in the middle of a low conversation.
Yuto glanced at them before saying, "Co help prepare the sashimi."
He assud the two of them knew how to handle raw fish properly, if not, then Totsuki would be a pretty sad place indeed.
"I was wondering when you were finally going to start working on those fish," Erina said.
"So it's ti after all."
There was still the faintest trace of her old pride in the way she spoke, though much reduced.
A person who had spent their whole life carrying themselves with that kind of confidence was never going to change all at once.
If an ordinary person had given her orders like this, she would have refused without hesitation.
But because she had already admitted to herself that Yuto surpassed her as a chef, she didn't object.
She was proud, yes—but not blind.
"Of course, Boss," Hisako replied. Compared to her mistress, she was far gentler.
Yuto took the large and small boxes out of the space bag.
The fish he had ordered from Totsuki that morning were all ant for sashimi.
In this country, sashimi was almost a national dish.
Ordinary restaurants would use simple sea bass or salmon, but to put together a truly grand course, Yuto had no intention of settling for sothing so ordinary.
He had ordered red sea bream, tuna, shad, pomfret, and a number of other highly prized fish.
Used together, it would make for an extravagantly luxurious spread.
The reason he had chosen a sashimi feast tonight was simple: among the grand dishes he knew how to make, this was one of the fastest to prepare while still being elegant, beautiful, and delicious.
The dishes he considered his true trump cards were far more impressive, but they all took too much ti.
Take Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, for example.
Even setting aside the prep work on the ingredients, the actual cooking alone took two full days.
That was the kind of dish you could truly call a masterpiece.
But there wasn't ti for that now, so the sashimi feast would have to do—enough to scratch the itch of making sothing extravagant again, and enough to surprise the guests as well.
Yuto opened the longest of the boxes first.
It should have held the tuna.
The mont he looked inside, however, he paused.
He definitely hadn't ordered this.
Yes, red sea bream and shad were expensive fish, but compared to what lay before him now, they were nothing.
Blue dorsal fin. Silver belly.
Scientific na: Pacific bluefin tuna.
This wasn't rely "expensive"; it had crossed over into rare and extraordinary.
In fact, this country was the only place in the world where it was still permitted to be caught.
At Yuto's side, Erina noticed his surprise and let a faint smile touch her lips.
"Well? Have you finally felt the true strength of Totsuki?"
Yuto pressed his fingers lightly against the body of the fish.
There was still a fine resilience in it, it was fresh.
"I can feel it, sure," he said with a wry smile, "but I never asked for this. Yellowfin would have been more than enough."
He really was at a loss.
His face showed helpless amusent, but in his eyes there was already a flicker of excitent.
Any chef, when confronted with ingredients of this caliber, would be the sa.
"Once Grandfather heard you were making sashimi, he specially released a bluefin tuna from storage," Erina said. "Under normal circumstances, even I wouldn't be allowed to use bluefin in cooking."
There was sothing subtle in her tone as she looked at the fish.
For many chefs, simply getting the chance to handle bluefin tuna was sothing close to a dream.
It was beyond the question of money.
Even at Totsuki, they had only a few dozen of them.
Senzaemon controlled them with an iron grip. Even Erina herself had only ever been allowed to look at them.
Yuto let out a quiet breath.
Then he turned to her and said, "Let's handle it together."
For a mont, Erina went completely still.
The astonishnt in her eyes gave way to sothing brighter—surprise, disbelief, and joy all mixed together.
Yuto had seen the way she'd looked at the bluefin just now.
Among chefs, so things needed only one glance to understand.
To have a treasure in front of you, to long for it, and yet never be allowed to touch it—he understood that feeling perfectly.
Hadn't he known it himself?
"I've never worked with bluefin before either," he added. "It'll be safer if we do it together."
At that, Erina's expression shifted again and again.
In the end, she pressed her lips together, and a small, stubborn, helpless smile appeared there.
"Well... if you've never handled it before, then I suppose there's no helping it. We'll just have to do it together."
Her cheeks were faintly pink as she spoke.
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