The sky was blue for once.
Ludwig hopped back to reality from the embrace of the void with his heart beating on his chest. The Azure sea stretched endlessly in front of him, shining with the sunshine from above while swaying freely. A salty smell from the sea wafted into his nose, patting his beating heart into a slow beat.
He was finally free. Free from that literal hell that the Demonkin called home. No more should he live under the despairing crimson and grey sky. No more should he sleep with the smell of death and loss.
Ludwig let gravity take control of his body, the next moment he was on the sand. Feeling it's not enough to celebrate the end of the bleak chapter of his life, he also let his upper body fall.
He had done it. He had finished the business the system handed to him. A business he was sure he wouldn't even have a relationship with if it's not for the bright idea of his younger self.
His body warmed up from the evening sun and cooled down rapidly from the breeze. But as drowsiness started to tug his eyelids to shut, Ludwig jerked his body up. He didn't come to this particular sandy shore to enjoy a late nap. It was time to finally wrap up this chapter of his life.
He called the system to appear before him, with his mind not voice. A translucent purple window opened before his eyes, the system was as easy to coax as ever.
「Name: Ludwig
Rache: Human.
Attribute(s): (locked)
Attribute point(s): (locked)
Unique Skill: [Mana Manipulation] [Space Manipulation] [Time Manipulation] [Weaponmaster]
Quest: Open a restaurant (Ongoing) Defeat the Demon Kind Lezhrak (Finished)」
As his eyes went through every sentence written on the holographic window nobody else could see, his index finger hovered towards the finished quest on the very bottom of the window and clicked it.
「Do you want to receive the reward?」
Ludwig nodded in his head at the question, making another system prompt appear in front of his eyes.
「You received 1,000,000 gold」
「You received new system function: Otherworld Connection」
「You received new system function: Currency Exchange」
Ludwig's jaw slackened the moment he read the rewards he got from the mission. The gold reward did not really send him reeling—not for the current him. If it had come years earlier, his past self would surely not even entertain the thought of becoming an adventurer to save money to open his restaurant, a first step that led to him being discovered and recruited by the Hero's Party.
But the other two? Ludwig's lips curled upwards as he saw them. A memory packet rushed in, now he knew what they did. The first system function would allow his system to breach the fabric of time and space and connect to worlds other than his current one. However, it was by no means a ticket home. Any kind of movement between places always needed a connecting path, whether it's a road, water, tunnel, or even a magical tunnel. No matter how magical this function sounded, it was no different. But, unlike any normal connection, the path it needed to connect to other worlds was a restaurant.
In other words, once he opened his restaurant—which he would open real soon—he would not only get customers from his world but from the other worlds as well. That explained why he also got the second new system function, as without it, any types of money aside from bronze, silver, and gold coins would be pretty meaningless. Well, aside from if he decided to use it in the world it originated from.
Unable to contain the bubbling happiness in his heart, Ludwig let his emotion take control of his body. He rose to his feet, face full of a manic smile. His hands, it was punching the air as if it was the warzone once again.
For the first time in long years he thought that joining the Hero's Party was the best thing he decided to do. How could he not? The rewards came from a system quest. Something which was triggered the moment he formally joined the party. In other words, if he didn't join the effort of exterminating the Demon King, the restaurant he would open would be just that; a restaurant.
With [Otherworldy Connection], his restaurant would become a place that opened for any hungry people throughout the multiverse to rest and eat.
It might sound ordinary for some people, it was not a direct portal that could make him travel everywhere he wished, too ordinary for a mission as grand as slaying the Demon King. But Ludwig looked at it this way: What if someone from modern times appeared in the restaurant?
That meant, he would be able to go to modern times to buy all the ingredients that were simply impossible to get in this world. Soy sauce, curry powder, ketchup, cola, beer, and many more. No more picking, drying, and grounding something if he needed it for all the dishes he wanted to make.
Once his heart stopped racing, and his senses returned to him, Ludwig sat back down. He let out a hot breath from his lungs, and took the salty air of the shore into his lungs one after another. Then, he raised his hand to the air and a crack suddenly appeared. It was as small as a bean at first. But the more seconds passed, the more it grew. By the end of its growth, a black hole with shimmering purple as big as a basketball was hanging in the air.
Ludwig moved his hands into it before plunging it into the darkness. When his fingers touched a soft and leathery something beyond the crack, he pulled his hand back. Coming out together with his hand was a book, a thick one covered in black leather.
Ludwig's eyes softened as he flicked the cover of the book to the side. Written on the very first page was a scribble of things he would need to open a restaurant. The need for a good city, the need for a spot with good traffic, the need of eye-catching things to attract the eyes of the passerby and the need of a good smith to create all the necessary appliances for his restaurant.
When his fingers moved and flipped the page into another one, he could read names of some cities around the continent. Beside it, his own thoughts about the positives and negatives of opening his restaurant there were written. There's even a 'Look around to another continent if no cities were suitable' circled with thick marks on the bottom of the page.
Ludwig smiled and tapped his index finger on the page a few times. With the power of [Otherworld Connection] some cities that had 'small population' and 'Not much money going around' as their negatives were back in the candidacy. But then, a thought hit him hard like the attack of the demon king.
Now that I could connect to other worlds and get customers from there, wouldn't customers from this world meet them? What would I tell them? What if along the way I got some customers which were way different than the inhabitants of this world? What if the news reached the ears of people I didn't really want to associate with and they came to his restaurant bearing the name of god?
Ludwig scrunched his face. His eyes no longer reading the book, it just hovered on the page idly. Yes, he could obliterate those fanatics if they decided to knock on his door or use the Blood Contract to prohibit any inhabitant of this world to tell others once he explained his ability to them, but that's tiring. He didn't want to stain his hand with any more blood. All he wanted was to serve food and drink.
Once that thought took root in his mind, all the candidate cities written in the book look unappealing. Well to be honest, the idea of opening his restaurant to the inhabitants of this world felt stale now. After all, there's a reason why Murphy's Law became famous.
Ludwig once again raised his hands and opened his Storage Dimension. His hands pulled a fountain pen from it and flipped the pages in the book until he found an empty one. He didn't know how many other worlds there were, there's a chance there were hundreds or even thousands of worlds out there. But without any evidence, there could be only tens of them out there.
After raking his brain about that problem for quite some time, Ludwig started to write again. He would open the restaurant in a secluded place first. If he got less customers than he expected after one year, he would return to his original plan: Opening a restaurant in a city.
That course of action would be safer than opening in the city first to do some research on how many customers from other worlds he would get. After all, if he got so many customers from other worlds during the duration, he would have a lot of explaining to do. And maybe, he would also need some pest controlling.
Ludwig moved his hand once again. A few lines beneath what he wrote before, he started anew. With a customer base secured, he now had to choose a location. Without the need of foot traffic, the pool of places he could choose became wider. He could choose a forest somewhere in this world and open his restaurant there before letting the system do its thing.
But, no, he would not carelessly pick a location. He needs something good. Something that preferably could leave an impression on his customers, making them always come back if his food proved to be not up to their palate.
Looking for a scenic and secluded place in this wide world was by no means easy. After all, humans always looked for a scenic place and built around it for their vanity and pleasure. Thankfully, he had decades of experience of traveling through this continent under his belt. Some of the locations he knew were secluded enough, dangerous even. But at the same time, a few of the most beautiful places he had ever seen through his two lives.
While his mind dived into the memories of those places, two locations piqued his fancy. His mind also started to draw how his restaurant would look in those places.
The first place was the Ashfrost Mountain Range that isolated the Markiram Kingdom from the rest of the continent. The place was covered in snow throughout the year, a truly scenic place for those who could step there. However, Ludwig didn't think about just anywhere in the mountain range, he was ready to shoot for the stars. The place he picked was the highest peak on the mountain range.
He had visited the place out of curiosity before. It was jagged beyond belief. No normal blacksmith would be able to build a house there. However, that didn't mean it was impossible. If a normal blacksmith wouldn't cut it, he just had to bring someone extraordinary to do the job.
The second place he had in mind was one island close to Storm Island. Even though the sky was always raging blue on the island, the nearby islands were not really impacted by it. He didn't need to explain the appeal of the beach and the sea, did he?
However, compared to the need of building a structure in the most jagged and dangerous peak in the tallest mountain of the legendary mountain range, he needed to inscribe some illusion ward around the island to prevent any unwanted person from drifting to his shore before even building his restaurant there. Of course inscribing something so high-level such as illusion ward was not something he could do, but that would also be solved by him calling some people who still owed him favours.
However…
Even if I can bind her with Blood Contract to not spill any information about my restaurant, the fact she will know about my whereabouts is a bigger danger. Ludwig sighed as he thought about a certain woman who handled most of the range damage in the Hero's Party.
He could be sure that his power wouldn't even reach the ears of the church through her mouth even without the Blood Contract. However, he rather not meet her again before her quest of sitting on the throne of Magia Empire came true. No, even after that dream of her came true, he still rather not meet her. Who knows what she plans next? Aside from his food, that woman had a huge appetite for power.
After writing about the disadvantages of the island, Ludwig made a big circle around the mountain range idea and smiled. He stood up feeling the breeze and the warmth of the sun again. He then brushed the sands that were clinging onto him with some wind magic, and once again let the void behind the curtain of reality claimed him.