The weather was fair and bright, the sunlight warm and dazzling.
Hayashi Saku strolled slowly along the sidewalk, his neat black short hair swaying lightly in the breeze. The word "fatigue" was practically written across his well-shaped features.
He had just peacefully broken up with his girlfriend. There had been no argument. They had both said goodbye calmly, but there was still a lingering sense of regret in his heart.
"A future I can see all the way to the end at a glance... I want to experience a new life."
After glancing at the traffic light, Saku stepped onto the crosswalk and muttered absentmindedly to himself.
"Beep..."
Bang!
In an instant, Saku felt an unstoppable force crash into him, as if it were about to tear his body apart. But thanks to the adrenaline surging through him, he did not feel any truly sharp pain right away.
At that moment, he flew through the air like a rag doll. In the final instant before darkness completely swallowed his vision, he saw what had hit him.
Truck-kun had elbow-checked him.
So he really had gotten "lucky."
"?"
He could no longer speak, but in his heart ten thousand alpacas were stampeding past. He had just broken up, and then he got hit by Truck-kun. If he had known this would happen, he should have checked the horoscope before leaving home today.
He had not noticed anything before the impact. He only felt it at the exact moment he was hit.
The truck driver looked at the Saku who had vanished into thin air and nodded in satisfaction. The last quota for this round had been met.
Just in time, too. Since I happened to hear you wanted to experience a new life, I figured I'd grant your wish and send you off to another world to try one out.
"Young man, your road has only just begun."
"Go, go, go. Off you go!"
...
Someone once said there was a kind of beast whose entire body was made of perfect marbled pork, so tender it melted the moment it touched your tongue.
There was a spring that poured out a refreshing drink, tasting like rich muskmelon and fully ripened mango, endlessly bubbling with sweet, fragrant foam.
There was a... Unknown delicacies. People were intoxicated by them.
This was the age of gourmet.
...
"Ah, damn it, damn it, damn it..."
"Moooo!"
Saku ran for his life across the grassland. Chasing close behind him was a white-haired cow nearly two meters tall. Its bell-like eyes glared at him viciously, locked firmly onto his body, while white jets of breath burst from its nostrils like steam.
He had probably transmigrated, but the place he had appeared in was wrong in nine out of ten ways. He had stepped on this cow's tail while it was sleeping, and the thoroughly ill-tempered beast had immediately decided to use him as a punching bag.
He had already been hit by Truck-kun before crossing over. He really did not want to get launched into the sky by a cow the moment he arrived here.
His body seemed to have changed because of the transmigration. He had actually grown younger, turning into a little kid about the age of twelve or thirteen. So this was what "becoming a shota" felt like.
The prairie stretched endlessly in every direction. There was no cover, no obstacles, not even a tree he could climb. Right now, from the bottom of his heart, he felt utterly unlucky.
It was about to catch him. He simply could not outrun it. If it hit him, he would definitely end up in pieces.
"Pressure Point Strike!"
A black blur flashed past, and a crisp, pleasant female voice rang out. The pounding hooves and trembling earth from the white-haired cow stopped at once. Saku gradually slowed to a stop and turned around.
A black-haired woman in black outdoor sportswear had appeared. In her pale hand she held something like a stun gun, and the white-haired cow now looked as though someone had pressed pause on it, frozen completely still.
"White-Haired Cinderella Cow, capture complete." The woman lightly patted the cow's foreleg, apparently quite satisfied with the quality of the ingredient.
Its capture level was below 1 if it was farmed, but a wild one could reach Level 1, and its flavor would be richer too, with a wild taste farmed cattle simply did not have.
"Hey, little guy, running out into the wild alone when you're just an ordinary person is not very wise," the black-haired woman said, looking at Saku.
Her pretty face still carried a touch of youthful softness, and the ponytail tied behind her made her look sharp, dashing, and highly capable.
"Thank you. Whew... you saved me."
Saku dropped onto the ground and gulped down great breaths of air. He had only managed to keep going because of adrenaline. Now that he had relaxed, a wave of exhaustion and weakness instantly spread through his whole body.
A beauty saving the hero? Not bad, honestly.
"Here, replenish some water and energy."
The woman walked over slowly, took out a half-transparent apple from her bag, and smiling, handed it to Saku.
"Thanks."
Saku had never seen such a strange apple before, but right now his mouth was dry, his throat was burning, and the fresh, sweet fragrance tugged hard at his senses.
Crunch!
The moment he bit into it, Saku's eyes widened. It was like opening a shaken bottle of soda, as bubbly apple-flavored juice burst out and instantly filled his mouth.
A refreshing, cool sweetness spread through him, while bubbles danced and burst on the tip of his tongue. Saku could feel his lost strength rapidly returning, and the exhaustion in his body quickly fading away.
"It's like soda, but even better!"
Saku licked the juice from the corner of his mouth, his eyes sparkling. He had drunk plenty of juice and soft drinks before, but this was absolutely the best juice he had ever tasted.
"My name is Tsurara. What's your name, little guy?" the woman called Tsurara asked with a smile.
"Tsurara?"
Saku searched his memory, and after a moment, a flash of realization crossed his mind.
"My name is Hayashi Saku. Tsurara-neesan, what famous organizations or factions are there in this world?" Saku asked, wanting to confirm exactly what world this was.
"The famous ones? The IGO, the Gourmet Corp..." Tsurara answered without even thinking.
Hearing those names, Saku showed a trace of surprise. His guess had been right. The Tsurara standing before him really was that chef Tsurara, one of the world's ranked chefs, and this place was...
...the world of Toriko.
In this world, the value of food far exceeded money. Ingredients with high capture levels were priceless. Food could practically be called a hard currency, even harder than gold.
It was also a dangerous world. Just the Four-Beast from the Gourmet World alone had reduced the Human World to devastation.
By the Gourmet World arc, beasts with capture levels in the thousands were everywhere. Especially during the final battle for GOD, the Earth under their feet, already far larger than the one from his previous life, had nearly been reduced to scraps drifting through space.
Looking at how much younger Tsurara appeared than in the anime and manga, she was probably still working as a Gourmet Hunter right now. In the manga, her exact age had never been shown, so he might as well assume this was her younger days, before the main story began.
"Tsurara-neesan, I've heard of a dish called Century Soup. Roughly when can it be captured?" Saku asked, trying to confirm the current point in time.
"Century Soup, huh? If I remember right, the last time it matured was eighty-five years ago, so there should be around fifteen years left," Tsurara said after thinking for a moment. Century Soup only matured once every hundred years.
Saku stroked his chin and quickly made a rough estimate in his head. Toriko had probably met Komatsu at around twenty-five, and Century Soup had matured at about the same time.
From that, he could conclude that Toriko was probably around ten years old right now. A few years younger than him, maybe, and likely training under Ichiryu along with the other Three Heavenly Kings.
Tsurara was currently a Gourmet Hunter. In a few years, she would probably gradually retire and focus on running a restaurant as a chef.
[Ding!]
Suddenly, a cold voice rang out inside Saku's head, and a virtual screen visible only to him appeared before his eyes.
[Dimensional Chat Group has finished loading. Congratulations, you have become the group owner.]
[The group owner has management privileges within the chat group and may remove group members.]
[Group members will join the chat group at random intervals.]
Saku quickly skimmed through the information in the chat group and confirmed that this was his cheat ability. Since he was the first one to join, he had become the group owner.
When he saw that the group owner came with a gift pack, his spirits lifted at once, though this was not the time to open it yet.
"Tsurara-neesan, are you a Gourmet Hunter?"
"Yep." Tsurara nodded. "Right now, my main job is Gourmet Hunter, and being a chef is just my side work, so I don't have a two-person partner team."
"Can you teach me how to survive in this world?"
At the moment, it did not look like he was going back, so he could only make the best of it. He needed an experienced guide, and the person in front of him was perfect.
"Hehe, I think I understand what you mean. Meeting each other is the guidance of Food Luck. Come with me. Let's see how far you can keep up."