The day after accepting the Nomination Request at the Guild, Rei stood in front of the diner Kenny had recommended.
It was a place he had eaten at a few times before.
Unlike the Full Belly Diner—his usual spot on a back street—this one faced the main road.
The food was by no means bad; it was good enough to hold its own on the main thoroughfare.
He knew from past visits that while it was rarely packed, it was never completely empty either.
"Alright... Set, sorry, but you'll have to wait out here, okay?"
"Gruu!"
Set purred to show he didn't mind, then lay down right beside the shop.
Since they were developing a new dish, Rei couldn't afford to dote on Set today.
That was why he had originally planned to leave Set playing in the snow in the backyard with the Children who had come to visit the inn, so the gryphon wouldn't get bored.
But for whatever reason, today Set had made it clear through his body language that he intended to tag along.
The Children... as well as Mirene and Yohanna, had seen him off with disappointed faces, conceding that if Set insisted, then so be it.
...Though in Mirene and Yohanna's case, it was probably because they had been competing over who was more magnanimous, each declaring that if Set wanted to do as he pleased, she would allow it.
Incidentally, Rei had already figured out why Set had chosen to come with him today.
Hearing the words "new dish," Set had likely remembered the time Rei made udon.
Remembered the taste testing.
Rei's guess was that Set was hoping for another taste test this time around, with the steamed bread... the nikuman.
"Hm? ...Ah, Rei-san! And Set-chan too!"
Perhaps overhearing Rei talking with Set outside, the door of the shop—the Golden Bread Pavilion, the diner that had issued the Nomination Request for Rei to develop a new dish—suddenly swung open, and a woman peeked out.
Naturally, Rei recognized her.
He didn't know her name, but she had been the one working as the Waitress when he had eaten here before.
She appeared to be in her early twenties.
Her features weren't particularly striking, but the bright smile she directed at Rei and Set was charming enough to earn her the title of Signboard Girl of the Golden Bread Pavilion.
"Ah, thanks for having me today. I'm Rei."
Rei gave the Waitress a brief self-introduction.
"Ah, I'm sorry. Come to think of it, we haven't introduced ourselves yet, have we? I'm Sandrine. Come on in. We don't have much time."
Guided by Sandrine's smile, Rei stepped inside the shop.
Given the size of the entrance, Set obviously couldn't fit through.
Rei hadn't planned on bringing Set inside in the first place, but Sandrine still looked regretful as she disappeared into the back of the kitchen, returning with a bone that still had some meat on it.
It was probably a bone that had been used to make broth for some kind of soup.
There wasn't much meat left on it, but it must have looked delicious enough to Set, whose round eyes stared intently at the meaty bone... or rather, the bone with meat still clinging to it.
"Here you go, Set-chan. I can't let you inside the shop, but you can eat this while you wait, okay?"
"Gruu!"
Purring happily, Set took the bone in his mouth and settled down beside the shop.
"Now then, I'd like Rei-san to start working on the new dish with my father right away... if that's alright?"
"Yeah, I'm ready whenever."
With that, the two of them headed toward the kitchen.
"Dad! Rei-san is here!"
"Ah, he's already here? I'm sorry, Rei-san. I know you're a busy man."
"...Ah, yeah."
Rei was somewhat surprised when the Cook emerged from the kitchen—Sandrine's father.
Since it was a diner on the main road, Rei had assumed a powerfully built man would come out... he wouldn't have been surprised if someone like Pamidor had appeared.
But the man who stepped out was slender and slightly timid-looking.
The exact opposite of what Rei had pictured for the cook of a main-street diner.
Noticing Rei's surprise, the man smiled and spoke up.
"I figured you'd be surprised. I get that a lot. ...Um, I'm Rodrigo, the Cook here at the Golden Bread Pavilion."
Rei snapped back to his senses and shook his head at Rodrigo, who bowed with a timid expression.
"No, sorry for staring. I'm Rei, the one who accepted the request. I imagine you already know that."
"Not at all. Honestly, I never expected anyone to accept a Nomination Request for such a low fee. Let alone a famous adventurer like Rei-san. ...I figured I'd just ask on the off chance."
"I might not have taken it normally, but fortunately—or maybe I should just say, since it's winter—there wasn't anything in particular I needed to be doing."
In truth, the fee for this Nomination Request was far from generous.
But... even if it had been lower, Rei still would have accepted.
As long as he was based in Gilm, any improvement in the town's food situation was a welcome development.
Without letting that show, Rei moved straight into explaining what kind of dish they would be making.
"There's a dish called nikuman."
"Nikuman? Judging from the name, is it a meat dish?"
"That's right. But what I know is only a rough outline. Same as with the udon—what I can teach you is the general concept. The actual execution will require the Cook's own trial and error..."
You can handle that, right?
At Rei's inquiring glance, Rodrigo offered a somewhat unconfident smile but nodded all the same.
"Yes. I'm not very confident, but I'll give it a try."
"Hey, Dad. At least try to look more sure of yourself. You're already at a disadvantage with that appearance of yours... Rei-san, my father may not look the part, but his cooking is excellent, so please don't worry."
Rei nodded at Sandrine's guarantee of her father's skill and resumed his explanation.
"By the way, do you buy the bread you serve here from another shop? Or is it homemade?"
"It's homemade."
"Huh."
Despite having asked the question himself, Rei was genuinely impressed.
Most diners purchased their bread from bakeries rather than making it in-house.
But that worked out perfectly this time.
"Then this is ideal. Nikuman is a type of steamed bread."
"...Bug bread? Are you saying you use bugs?"
"We already went through that yesterday."
Rei cut Sandrine off mid-sentence as she made the exact same misunderstanding Kenny had, then turned his gaze toward the kitchen as he continued.
"Steamed—as in steaming meat. That's the sense I mean. Definitely not bugs... or anything in the insect family."
"...Steam? Bread?"
Rodrigo had experience steaming ingredients like meat, vegetables, and fish, but the concept of steaming bread was clearly beyond his imagination.
"That's right. Though it's not about steaming already-baked bread. It's the bread dough... it might be easier to understand if I say you finish it by steaming rather than baking?"
"...Steam it. Hmm, I can't quite picture it."
"Unlike regular baked bread, it'll have a moist texture. And when you steam the bread, you put a meat filling—something made by kneading minced meat and vegetables together—inside the dough and steam it all at once."
Having explained that much, Rei found himself wondering if shumai or gyoza could also be made, given that they started from the same concept of dough and meat filling.
But for now, he kept that to himself. They needed to focus on completing the steamed bread—the nikuman—first.
"Hoh. That is rather intriguing. A moist texture... I've never had bread like that before."
When Rodrigo asked with evident interest, Rei nodded.
"That's right. However, I don't know exactly how the bread dough should be modified compared to regular baked bread. It might not need any changes at all. That's something I'd like you to work out through trial and error."
"Leave it to me. I enjoy that sort of thing."
He must have genuinely loved cooking.
For the normally quiet Rodrigo, it was rare to see such an interested gleam in his eyes as he looked at Rei.
Seeing that look, Rei decided this was promising and moved on to explaining the meat filling.
"Now, regarding the filling that goes inside the steamed bread—from what I know, a meat filling is the most common."
"Meat, huh. Just a moment."
Rodrigo said that and began preparing ingredients, starting with the meat.
Watching him work, Rei thought about other types of chuukaman besides nikuman.
There were pizza buns, curry buns, shark fin buns, anpan... but curry had the spice problem, he didn't even know how to prepare shark fin to begin with, and he didn't know how to make sweet bean paste either.
The only one that seemed feasible was the pizza bun, but as a nikuman lover, Rei had rarely eaten pizza buns and couldn't recall what ingredients went into them.
(It's called pizza, so it probably has cheese and tomatoes... but wouldn't adding tomatoes make it watery?)
Setting that thought aside, he decided to hold off on explaining pizza buns for now.
Once Rodrigo honed his skills with nikuman and developed his own touch, it would be fine to mention that other varieties existed.
(...Ah, but if pizza buns were an option, I could have just suggested pizza instead. Still, steaming has more impact than baking. Pizza can wait until later.)
While Rei was musing about pizza buns and pizza, Rodrigo finished preparing the meat and an assortment of vegetables.
"Um, Rei-san. What should I do next?"
"Let's see. First, cut the meat into fine pieces... minced, I suppose? I'm not sure if they should be slightly larger than that, but cut it up for now. This is the kind of thing where you should decide on the right size by actually tasting it and finding what feels best."
"I see, understood. Is the filling just meat?"
"No... right, vegetables are needed too. Some versions use stewed meat as-is, but it's better to start with the basic one."
He briefly wondered whether using stewed meat—something like a chashu bun—might be easier than making a meat filling. But in Rei's mind, the fundamental form was nikuman.
The importance of fundamentals must have resonated with Rodrigo, who nodded without objection.
He then cut the prepared Orc meat into pieces slightly larger than a mince.
"Next, the vegetables. ...Let's go with this one, and this one. And this one too—minced the same way."
Rei selected mushrooms, a vegetable whose leaves were green but otherwise resembled napa cabbage, and another that looked like nothing other than long green onions. Rodrigo nodded and began mincing them.
Watching him work, Rei turned to Sandrine, who had been observing her father's cooking with keen interest, and asked about something that had been on his mind.
"It's a bit late to ask, but there isn't a single customer here today."
"Hm? Oh, right. We heard from the Guild yesterday that Rei-san had accepted the request, so we decided to have you teach us the dish during the daytime today and open the shop from the evening onward. ...If possible, we'd like to serve this new dish and see how people react."
"Isn't that a bit unrealistic? That would be one thing if I remembered the complete recipe, but I'm only teaching the rough outline. The Cook will need to properly adjust things on his own."
"Yeah, you're right. It's a shame. ...But still, steaming bread? What an incredible idea. Where is this dish from?"
"A country that has already been lost."
Unable to say it was a dish from Japan, Rei deflected with those words.
(Well, chuukaman is dim sum, so it's technically Chinese cuisine... but either way, for me it's a country that's already been lost, so it's not exactly a lie.)
Sandrine tilted her head, watching Rei mutter to himself.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. As far as I know, they apparently favored eating it in cold seasons like this."
"Well, since it's steamed, it would be warm."
"...Since steamed dishes already exist, you'd think steamed bread would be a natural step."
If they were already steaming ingredients like meat, vegetables, and fish, why not steam bread too? At Rei's question, Sandrine shook her head.
"It's a matter of shifting perspective. I don't think it ever occurred to anyone. There might be steamed bread somewhere else, but... at the very least, I believe this is a first for Gilm."
"Rei-san, I've finished the mincing. What do I do next?"
While Rei had been talking with Sandrine, Rodrigo had finished preparing the ingredients. Rei scanned the nearby tableware for something resembling a bowl.
"Put everything in that, season it a little on the stronger side, and then knead it until it becomes sticky. Ah—do you have bread dough?"
"Ah, I'll bring it right over. Just a moment."
Sandrine went to fetch the bread dough while Rodrigo, following Rei's instructions, seasoned the meat filling with salt and other condiments and began kneading it.
Watching him work, Rei racked his brain trying to recall the next step in making nikuman.