July 19th, early morning.

It was the start of a new week!

Ryohei Tanaka was feeling particularly lucky today, having obtained a very practical blue-tier ability: [Storage Space]!

The space was 10x10x10 meters, a total of 1,000 cubic meters, and could not hold living things. This was practically a standard-issue ability for any transmigrator, and Ryohei, feeling a sense of novelty, tested it out a few times. He even started his phone's stopwatch and placed it inside the storage space, discovering that time flowed within it at the same rate as the outside world.

...

"Yurine, do you have your admission ticket and stationery? Don't leave anything behind."

It was a little past eight o'clock. Ryohei, having finished his grocery shopping, drove back to the house to take Yurine to school. Her final exams started today—two exams each morning with no exams in the afternoon. With ten subjects in total, her testing would conclude on Friday at noon.

"I have them," Yurine replied cheerfully, fastening her seatbelt. With a smile in her eyes, she patted the bag on her lap.

Ryohei glanced over, nodded, and drove her to school. He would pick her up again after her exams were finished at noon.

Just like that, time flew by, and soon it was Friday.

In Setagaya Ward, at Seijo 3-chome, the new commercial street's food festival began as scheduled.

Three days prior to the event, the organizers had announced the participation of a "mysterious chef," and the news had instantly blown up online. That same evening, customers at the restaurant began asking Ryohei if he would truly be attending the food festival. He confirmed that he would, but he remained coy about what he would be serving. As a result, for the past two days, the internet had been buzzing with speculation about his menu. Some people even posted pictures of their plane and high-speed rail tickets, sparking another wave of travel to Tokyo.

In the commercial street's central square—

"Whoa—! There are so many people!"

"What is with this crowd?!"

A few out-of-town tourists, following the event brochure, found their way to the central square. They stared, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, at the long queue that numbered at least two to three hundred people. A headache began to set in.

How long would they have to wait in a line this massive?

It wasn't even nine o'clock yet. The food festival was set to begin at nine, so this was still the preparation period. Would they even be able to get their hands on the Culinary Sage's glowing cuisine by eleven? Would they get heatstroke from standing under the sun for two or three hours?

Although the thought was daunting and they didn't want to wait, their bodies honestly moved to the back of the line. No matter what, they had to taste the Culinary Sage's glowing cuisine; otherwise, their special trip by plane would have been for nothing.

A young man in a clean white chef's uniform and a mask, who had been behind the group of tourists, walked past the long queue and entered a shop behind the temporary stalls.

"You're back?" Lucoa greeted him with a smile.

"Yeah." Ryohei Tanaka casually took off his mask, letting out a sigh of relief as he felt the cool air inside the shop. He walked towards the counter and looked at Jashin-chan and Yusa, who were busy wrapping dumplings. "How many have you made?" he asked with a smile.

As he spoke, he glanced at the filling, the meticulously crafted dragon heads, the two different types of dumpling wrappers, and the finished Ascending Dragon Dumplings. The dragon heads were fashioned from shrimp heads, which Lucoa had magically carved. During a test run, Lucoa had "carved" a dragon head in her own image and even suggested that Ryohei add two small wings to the dumplings. Since her true form had wings, she seemed to want the dumplings to reflect her own appearance, as she was a dragon, after all.

Ryohei had been momentarily stunned before shaking his head and refusing. Setting aside the fact that using her as a model would mean changing the base ingredient entirely, how would he explain it to customers? Furthermore, the steamed Ascending Dragon Dumplings would have a red head and tail, which was completely different from her green head and tail. He couldn't just dye them, could he? That wouldn't be right.

The current dragon head design was based on a shrimp head, similar to the version seen in Chuuka Ichiban!.

"I've wrapped about a hundred, I think? I didn't count exactly," Jashin-chan replied, tilting her head in thought. She was always at her most serious and reliable when it came to cooking tasks, and her hands never slowed down as she spoke.

"It's about the same for me," Yusa said, looking up with a gentle smile.

"Okay." Ryohei nodded and walked into the open kitchen. He planned to prepare another batch of filling and wrappers.

He took the shrimp that Pekola and Poporon had just peeled and divided them into two portions. One portion he minced into fine particles, and the other he chopped into coarse chunks. He then diced a piece of fatty pork into fine cubes.

Ryohei's Ascending Dragon Dumplings were different from the ones in Chuuka Ichiban!. The original recipe called for shrimp brain marrow, an ingredient he found unacceptable. A shrimp doesn't have a central brain like a human; its nervous system consists of distributed ganglia. The so-called "shrimp brain marrow" actually refers to the shrimp's gills, stomach, liver, heart, testes, ovaries, antennal glands, and other organs. The head is where contaminants most easily accumulate, making it an ingredient that is generally not recommended for consumption.

Ryohei had substituted it with fatty pork. The fat from the pork balanced the natural dryness of the shrimp, making the filling smoother and juicier. When kneaded, the diced pork and shrimp combined to form a finer, more gelatinous texture, which improved the filling's cohesiveness. Once steamed, the fat would also release a fragrant aroma, elevating the flavor to a whole new level. Ryohei had never tasted the original Ascending Dragon Dumplings, but his version was truly excellent. It had received unanimous praise from everyone at the restaurant, and he himself was very satisfied with it.

"Minos," Ryohei called out after preparing the filling and setting it aside for Jashin-chan and Yusa to use. He turned to Minos, who was standing by the counter with her arms crossed over her ample chest. "Go outside and get the water in the steamer boiling. It's almost time to open."

"Got it," Minos replied, turning to head outside.

Ryohei grabbed a mixing bowl and a bag of flour and began to knead another batch of dough. By the time he had finished preparing the two types of dough, the water in the steamer was already at a rolling boil. He instructed the Second to roll out the dough into wrappers in half an hour. He wasn't forcing her to work; the Second had voluntarily offered to help. Kouji had also helped roll out wrappers earlier. The task wasn't difficult. Ryohei had already prepared the dough; all they needed to do was use a rolling pin to flatten the proofed dough and then use an inverted bowl to cut out perfect circles. It was quite simple.

"..."

After instructing Minos to carry the small steamers filled with Ascending Dragon Dumplings outside, Ryohei called for Kouji, his human-shaped air conditioner, and followed with a brisk pace.

Everything was ready. It was time to shock the people of Japan once again!

~~~

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