As I voiced out my desire to eat chocolate out loud, Benladann wondered what it was, and it left me speechless.
She's supposed to be from Earth but never had the chance of eating it?! Ah, my poor Benladann…
And the weirdest part didn't end there, as Rakasha proclaimed that he had tasted it.
Wait, so ice cream is nowhere to be seen but chocolate does exist?!
"What! Tell me! Tell me everything you know!" I said desperately, almost as if my life depended on it.
"Hahahaha! You seem pretty excited man! Calm down, I'll tell you everything, let's sit here and enjoy the main dishes now and I will tell you everything I know." Said Rakasha.
The ice cream was mostly nowhere to be seen and everyone had stuffed themselves with it, but compared to meat, it barely filled the stomach, so we quickly began to serve ourselves the main dishes. Delicious salads, potatoes-like root puree, and a lot of grilled fish of all sizes and shapes, with the new addition of massive grilled tentacles, cut into perfect rings. There were also deep-fried fish filets covered in wheat, eggs, and breadcrumbs, alongside "Kraken Rings" as I called them, similar to squid rings deep-fried.
We even made a Tartar Sauce go with it using pickled vegetables and mayonnaise, which I had already remade in this world, and which was never seen before either, although I introduced it way before and everyone had loved it, I guess that's a tale for another time.
"Hmm, this grilled fish is good! The spices, the nice "soy" sauce, and everything into it! Ooh, the meat is so smoky and tender too, nom, nom, nom…!" said Benladann, eating whole fishes with a single bite. The small fishes fit inside the mouth of an ice giant with ease.
The fish was indeed salty and smoky, and the delicious Kraken Rings were tender, chewy, and also very crunchy tanks to the panko coverture. Alongside that, the amazing tentacles grilled with soy sauce and other spices ended pretty well too. I liked to use Tartar Sauce with everything, and this clearly changed the flavor of everything to completely new levels.
As we were all enjoying the meals, Rakasha began to share his memories with Chocolate.
"Chocolate… Alright. I remember meeting this dish back then when I was in Midgard…" he said.
"Does everything just comes out of Midgard or something?!" asked Miranda.
"Well, little lady, Midgard is a wonderful continent with many things to do here and there! You'll never get tired or bored of going there to explore the continent and all there is to it! and yeah, chocolate was found there by the younger me, approximately… around 60 years ago." Said Rakasha.
"T-That's a long time ago!" said Benladann.
"Well yes, but the dish was there and I was there, so I tasted it. it was back then when I was a bit younger, and I was seeking new flavors to taste. I found a small cafeteria in a small town, in there, there was a young couple. An elf girl and a young human man. The couple was rather cute, and they ran a large cafeteria that served all sorts of dishes I never saw before. There were things such as Coffee, Pizza, Chocolate, and even a thing they called Shawarma…" said Rakasha.
WHAT!
T-Those are meals of Earth! Are these guys… Reincarnated people in disguise? Were they from Earth? It's the only solution!
"And they sold chocolate in milk, cookies, and also alone in bars. The texture was… something I can't describe well… But it was indeed creamy and delicious… They called it in another name thought, which was Cacao. And only the daughter of the pair named it Chocolate because her father introduced it to her like that… I wonder if that half-elf is an adult now…" Said Rakasha.
Apparently, in his travels, Rakasha meet a married couple that ran a small and inconspicuous cafeteria where they sold coffee, pizza, chocolate, cookies, and even shawarma.
They presented chocolate as cacao, its real name, and sold it on milk, cookies, and also in bars which they just called candy. When Rakasha asked them about where they found it, they had answered:
"Well, they said that they had a small plantation behind their house, where large trees gave a big fruit. They roasted the large seed and then pulverized it into dust, this dust ended having a delicious aroma, which they merged with sugar, milk, and other ingredients, creating the chocolate I ate… I never heard of such a dish after going there, as I continued my travels across the continent." Said Rakasha.
"Damn… but chocolate is from my world… but there could be the possibility for someone to have brought it here, I guess? Maybe the people you meet were Unique Skill users of some sort." I said.
"Ohh… They did indeed felt different, but well, it was more the guy than the others, that young human man had a strange aura to him, I couldn't really tell, but he was hiding his power, he only seemed to pretend he was around Rank 2, but he was way stronger than that, that's for sure." Said Rakasha.
"Hmm… I see. Well, one day we'll get there and taste chocolate!" said Benladann.
"Sounds like a plan!" I said.
As Drake and company enjoyed their meal outside as a picnic while talking about chocolate and other things, a small figure within the surrounding and dense forests was running away from something.
It was a little beast boy whose cute ears seemed to be those of a black leopard, his long and striped tail was rather cute, but his expression of exhaustion seemed to not go well with his cuteness.
He tripped over the grass, as he suddenly noticed that there was a large lake in front of him, he finally found some water to refresh his sore throat.
However, in front of the lake, there was a big group of people eating around a table, the delicious smell of grilled fish and other meals made his mouth water…
"Ahh… Food…"
