1 First Meal - Baked Potato (1)

At the very top of a tower that was made completely of steel, there was a person who was currently bent over a table.

Based on the clothes that he wore and the equipment that he used, it was clear that he was a researcher of some sort.

As he looked into his microscope, he couldn't help knitting his brows as he muttered to himself, "It's still not giving me the reaction that I want. Just what is wrong with this?"

After looking in the microscope for a bit longer, the scientist could only give a sigh as he stopped leaning in to look into the microscope and sat up, stretching himself out in the process. It had already been more than twelve hours since he had started working and he was getting quite tired.

While he was stretching, his stomach suddenly gave a gurgle that reminded him of its existence.

As he heard this, the scientist couldn't help muttering, "When was the last time that I ate?"

After being reminded of this fact, he went over to one of the cabinets that was beside his lab bench and took out a tube of something. On the front of the tube, the words written read "Potato Flavoured Meal Paste".

Inside of the drawer that he had pulled this out of, there were several other tubes that all had the words "Meal Paste" on them.

As he was about to squeeze this meal paste into his mouth, there was a sudden glow that came from the center of his laboratory.

It wasn't too bright, but it was definitely eye-catching in this rather dark laboratory.

The scientist turned in the direction of the glow that appeared, but all he found was a door that was standing right in the center of his lab.

The scientist was confused by this and didn't understand what had just happened, but that still didn't change the fact that there was a door that was just standing in the middle of his lab.

After a moment of silence, the scientist said, "Jenny, scan it."

There was another moment of silence before a robotic female voice rang out in the lab saying, "No matching results. Unknown item detected."

The scientist was even more surprised, but his curiosity came over him in the end. He walked over from the cabinet that he was standing in front of and came over to where the door was just standing there.

After coming to the door and looking at it closely, he found that there was nothing that this door was attached to. It was just a simple wooden door that was standing in the middle of the lab with a picture of a dog's paw on the top half of the door inside of a circle.

Finally, he couldn't help himself and he reached out his hand towards the handle of the door. After a slight pause, he turned the handle and pulled back the door, but what he saw on the other side wasn't the other side of his lab.

Rather the first thing that came through was the sound of chatter that came from the other side. After that was the bright light of whatever was on the other side.

Since the researcher kept his lab dark in order to control the amount of light that his experiments were exposed to, it was quite blinding when he opened the door. However, his eyes slowly adjusted and he was able to see what was on the other side.

It was a very simple space, but it was without a doubt a restaurant. Though, it had been a long time since he had ever gone to a restaurant to begin with.

There were quite a few people in this restaurant already enjoying their food and the moment that the door opened, there were a few that looked over to see what made the sound that they had heard. After they saw that it was just the door opening, they lost interest in the person who was standing at the opened door.

However, that wasn't the case for the person standing at the door. The moment he looked more closely at the people eating in the restaurant, he couldn't help being shocked because there were many people who he had never seen before, but had heard in legends.

There were the people who had sharp ears who were clearly elves, there were people who were bipedal lizards who were the famous lizardmen, and there were the famous orcs that he had only seen before in his night time reading materials.

In a daze, he couldn't help moving forward until he came over to the table of a female elf who was currently eating some spaghetti.

He just stood there looking her over which clearly made her uncomfortable as she couldn't help moving a bit to the side.

Seeing this, the orc that was sitting at the table next to her stood up and took the researcher by the shoulder and said, "Hey buddy, don't you think that you're getting a bit too close?"

When the researcher saw who it was that grabbed his shoulder, he couldn't help moving back while flailing his arms since the orcs that he had always read about were quite aggressive. Seeing that this orc was standing right over him, with how much taller he was and how fierce he looked, naturally the researcher couldn't help panicking even more.

After taking a few steps back, he reached into his pockets and pulled out a pistol that he aimed right at the orc and shouted, "You stay back! I know what you orcs are capable of!"

The orc had an awkward look on his face, but he still moved away from the researcher.

When the people in the restaurant saw what the researcher did, a few of them spoke up.

"Hey buddy, you should put down the weapon. No one here wants to hurt you."

"Right, you should put it down before you get hurt."

"Uh oh, looks like trouble is coming."

"Yep, it seems like it's too late for him."

The comments in the end had a strange tone to them. Instead of being afraid of the person who had just pulled out a gun, it was almost as if they felt sorry for him.

When the researcher heard this, he couldn't help turning his head to look in the direction that those comments came from. The moment he turned his head, he saw that there was a girl who looked to be in her teens that was walking over.

This girl had jet black hair and pure white eyes where even the pupil and the iris were white, but a different shade from the sclera of her eyes. She was dressed in a tight fitting black maid outfit that perfectly accented her figure that had a perfect ratio, except that the skirt was considered a bit too short.

In short, she was a perfect woman that even the researcher who normally was too busy with research couldn't help being stunned by when he saw her.

But before he could come back to his senses, her leg had already come up in a sweeping manner. The first kick knocked the gun out of his hand and the second kick which was a spin kick that was even stronger than the first one knocked him into the wall.

His breath was knocked out of him the moment he slammed into the wall and he almost blacked out from lack of oxygen.

The maid came over to where the gun was and picked it up before throwing it onto a table by the door that was covered in various weapons.

Then she turned back to the researcher who was on the floor leaning against the wall and said, "This is your one and only warning. If you do anything stupid like that again, you're banned from this place."

The orc who had actually scared the researcher into pulling the gun was the one who came over to help him up. The researcher was confused why the orc was helping him at first, but after talking to him, he realized that he had the completely wrong idea about the orc.

The orc in front of him was nothing more than a simple farmer, not the kind of orc that he imagined at all.

The orc explained to him that this place was the Between World Restaurant, it was a restaurant in another world. The door that appeared in his lab was a magical door with a will of its own that appeared in many different worlds. It had also appeared in this orc's world, but it had appeared inside of a remote cave that this orc had found by accident while it had been out hunting.

However, even if this was another world, the orc also guaranteed that the food that this restaurant served was all delicious. He even tried to recommend his favourite dish, but that was also when that dish had been served.

The orc immediately forgot about this researcher and went off to enjoy his meal.

The researcher who had been left alone looked around the restaurant to see everyone enjoying their meals and he couldn't help feeling curious. He couldn't understand the allure of food since his world was one where food had long gone obsolete.

His world was a world of science where food had long been replaced with meal paste and tablets. There was no need for food when you could get all the nutrients that you needed from these pastes and tablets which freed up people to get much more things done.

However, he couldn't help being enticed by the fragrance of the dishes around him. When he had watched the people around him enjoy his food, the way they acted almost seemed like they were being drugged, but he knew better than that.

After all, if it really was drugs, then someone out of all these people would have noticed already. Especially since there were people that had powerful magic here from whom he could sense mana fluctuations that far surpassed his own.

Being enticed by the smells, he picked up the menu and started going through it. There wasn't a single thing that caught his attention until he saw one certain item on the menu.