The topic Gilgamesh had raised didn't go anywhere.
After Yuto's little "reminder," the King clammed up and refused to say another word about it.
No matter how Yakumo Yukari prodded, he wouldn't budge, and eventually even she had to let the matter drop for now.
Watching that, Yuto quietly let out a small breath of relief — though he couldn't have said why.
It was pure instinct.
He kept getting the feeling that someone was watching him, but no matter where he looked, he couldn't pin down the source.
His gut told him it was coming from Yuuka's direction.
After turning it over for a second, he decided he was better off not asking her about it.
Something told him that if he did, things might get complicated.
So, to steer everyone's attention elsewhere, he brought up a new topic himself.
"By the way — thanks for handling Sakura's matter, Gilgamesh." He looked at the King of hero as he spoke.
"Think nothing of it. This King made you a promise, so of course I'll see it through properly. Anything less would be an insult to my name."
Gilgamesh said it with perfect composure, every word dripping with that effortless, matter-of-fact arrogance — the natural bearing of a king, radiating off him without the slightest strain.
Yuto didn't mind it one bit.
For all his over-the-top arrogance, the king sitting in front of him was, surprisingly, a genuinely good guy.
Every so often he'd let some flustered side of himself slip out by accident, and the whole restaurant would end up laughing at him.
And now and then, honestly, his personality was a lot like a stubborn kid's.
According to Iskandar, this king bore no resemblance to the one he'd once crossed swords with.
'The Gilgamesh of the Holy Grail War was an unbelievably arrogant, brutal man. There's no way he'd ever sit calmly in a restaurant like this.' — Iskandar
'The Gilgamesh who shows up at this restaurant is still proud, but he understands manners and respect. Compared to the "him" from the Holy Grail War, this one feels far more like a true king.' — Lord El-Melloi II
"I've already talked to Kaguya about that thing you asked me for. She said yes."
At that, Gilgamesh's expression lit up. "Excellent!"
The king smiled, deeply satisfied.
Beside him, Enkidu and Siduri watched with faint smiles of their own — a little helpless, maybe, but happy for him all the same.
Right as they were on the subject, Ainz and Rimuru came back.
Yuto had figured the two of them wouldn't be gone long — their whole round trip hadn't even taken half an hour.
Whether they'd actually sorted out their own business in that time was anyone's guess, but from the relaxed looks on their faces, it seemed things had gone smoothly enough.
"Everything go okay?" Yuto asked.
"All normal. Everyone in Nazarick is still completely reliable. Honestly, I get the feeling I could vanish for several days and Albedo would still run the place flawlessly."
There was a hint of conflict in Ainz's voice.
Proud as he was of the Guardians' abilities, he couldn't shake a strange sense of being... useless.
He'd long suspected Nazarick would keep humming along just fine without him.
He was the leader, sure, but most of the time he was just acting his way through the role, forcing himself to play the part of someone in charge.
Asking a gamer to suddenly become the actual head of a real organization was, frankly, a lot to handle.
"Mm... On my end, another wave of goblins showed up wanting to join. Ugh... that means naming a whole new batch. Just thinking about it wears me out."
Rimuru sounded thoroughly tired.
Yuto had heard Rimuru talk about this "naming monsters" business before.
A higher-ranked monster could bestow names on lower-ranked ones, granting them power and other perks — but name too many at once and you'd flat-out pass out.
That was how Rimuru had explained it.
"Sounds like your territory's really growing, Rimuru," Yuto said, a little moved.
"It is. There are more and more monsters in the village these days, and lately even outside ones have been coming to join. We've been putting up houses, all kinds of things. Good thing I got those crop seeds from you earlier, Boss — otherwise feeding this many mouths would've turned into a real headache."
There was genuine warmth in Rimuru's voice.
"I was worried about safety too, at first, but the weapons from Shinomiya took care of that for now. Turns out modern guns work great on lower- and mid-level monsters!"
As it went on, Rimuru's tone brightened, and listening to all this, Yuto felt a wave of quiet emotion.
Then he turned to Ainz.
"What about you, Ainz? No plans to expand your own territory?"
As two people who'd both crossed over into other worlds, Ainz and Rimuru were in fairly similar boats.
At that question, Ainz couldn't help rubbing his chin — bone scraping against bone with a faint, dry rasp.
The red pinpricks in his eye sockets brightened a little.
"My main goal is still finding out whether anyone else ended up in that world the way I did. I'm looking for my old guildmates. Expanding territory wasn't really on my mind at the start." He paused, thoughtful.
"But... ever since Saitama and Goku had that fight near Nazarick, adventurers have started poking around the area. I've been wondering whether I should show a bit of strength and stake out a clear boundary..."
He trailed off, clearly hesitant.
Human curiosity wasn't something you could just switch off.
The uproar from Saitama and Goku's battle had terrified the nearby human kingdoms, sure — but once the fear wore off, what was left behind was curiosity.
There would always be people willing to risk their necks to dig up the truth.
At this rate, Nazarick was going to be discovered sooner or later.
That was exactly why Ainz had started thinking about getting ahead of it and revealing himself first.
If he'd never wandered into this restaurant, never met all these people, he'd never have even considered it.
Ainz was cautious down to his bones.
Any risk, however small, was a risk to be avoided.
But the way things were shaking out now — and knowing he could turn to the restaurant crowd for help — the idea of taking the initiative had slowly started to take root.
His last brush with that so-called powerhouse from the Theocracy had shown him the enemy was basically a pushover, which made all of his caution feel a bit like swinging at empty air.
And if some genuinely dangerous enemy ever did show up... well, he could always just ask Saitama.
Getting out ahead of it would make hunting for people from his world easier, too.
Compared to hiding and hoping, taking the initiative simply suited his situation better.
"I think you should. When the time comes, flex a little strength and put a scare into the whole area." Rimuru nodded along with him.
Yuto nodded his agreement as well.
But then Ainz scratched his head.
"My worry now is how the Guardians will take it. If I bring this up, what are they going to think?" He sounded genuinely troubled.
Managing subordinates really wasn't his strong suit — trying to guess what they were thinking was just too much for him.
"Sitting around agonizing over that on your own won't get you anywhere. You're the leader — you need the nerve and the decisiveness to actually make the call. Don't get so hung up on how your people will react," Yuto said.
Ainz went quiet for a moment, then nodded.
He'd decided.
The second he got back, he'd summon the Guardians for a meeting — and announce it then.
It probably... wouldn't cause any problems... right?
"Anyway, let's put that aside for now. Ainz, come give me a hand with this freezer first."
"Oh."
Ainz got up and followed him into the kitchen.
Yuto spent a while gesturing at the wall, and Ainz kept nodding along — "mm-hm, mm-hm."
For all the world, the two of them looked exactly like a contractor and his handyman!
Once Yuto finished laying it all out, Ainz got to work on the "construction."
He raised one bare-bone arm, a faint glow spreading from his palm, and just like that a chunk of the wall in front of him vanished — a gap roughly the size of a door.
Then he headed out to the backyard and layered a string of spells over the "cold room."
The thing had started out about the size of a shipping container, but after his handiwork it was suddenly as thin as a door.
Such was the wonder of spatial magic.
He fitted the now door-shaped cold room neatly into the hole he'd just opened in the wall.
"That should do it." Ainz touched his chin.
Yuto opened the cold-room door and walked around inside.
'Mm — perfectly normal in here. Just as spacious as ever too.'
Even though, from the outside, the whole thing looked no thicker than a door.
After that, he had Ainz use magic to hook up the power and everything else. From this moment on, the restaurant's old freezer could go straight in the trash!
Erina and Hisako were so astonished they went in and out of the cold room several times.
They'd known Yuto had some way of dealing with the "giant freezer," but watching it actually happen right in front of them still left the two girls floored.
"By the way, has Hatsune-chan shown up yet?" Once Ainz was seated again, Rimuru couldn't resist asking.
The whole reason the two of them had hurried back was so they wouldn't miss her arrival.
Yuto shook his head.
Rimuru and Ainz both breathed a sigh of relief.
Good — they hadn't missed her!
The mention of Hatsune piqued the curiosity of Erina and the others nearby.
They'd been dying to see the concert too!
Since they hadn't been able to attend in person, all they could do now was listen to everyone talk about it.
While Rimuru and the rest described the concert, Yuto slipped into the kitchen and came back out with the flower cake.
He set the steaming plate down in front of Yuuka.
As he straightened up, his eyes met hers — and just like that, a flicker of nerves ran through him.
He'd already been doing his awkward best to avoid her gaze.
Now it wasn't just awkwardness; there was an inexplicable jolt of nervousness stacked on top of it!
Yuuka's gaze was utterly calm.
Like a piece of gem resting gently in the grass — beautiful and quiet.
Even a passing breeze would only add to her elegance.
And yet... that same calm gaze left him feeling strangely unsettled.
He couldn't say why, but he kept sensing something deeper behind her eyes, something with weight to it. It made him uneasy.
'Strange. Why is she looking at me like that?'
He couldn't help wondering.
It couldn't be about the time he'd gotten drunk, he was pretty sure — if that were it, she'd have started looking at him this way ages ago, and she hadn't.
This was sudden.
Which meant something had changed.
He reached that conclusion in a heartbeat.
'Ah... did I do something to wrong her?'
He thought it over carefully.
Nope — he was pretty sure he hadn't done a single thing to deserve this.
That realization left him feeling a touch bolder.
He was about to just ask. But before he could open his mouth, Yuuka's eyes narrowed a fraction.
Yuto immediately backed down.
'Forget it.'
"Eat the flower cake while it's hot — it won't taste as good once it cools," he said, pointing at the plate in front of her.
Yuuka let out a faint sigh, her body shifting by the barest fraction.
Her gaze slid off him at last, and he relaxed a little.
"Hmph..."
The softest little snort escaped through her nose.
There was no reading what she was thinking. Whatever it was, Yuto was completely lost.
Yuuka picked up the flower cake and started eating, same as always — and, at the same time, stopped fixing him with that look.
A seat over, Yakumo Yukari hid a giggle behind her folding fan.
She loved watching scenes like this. Such was the wicked little hobby of a certain youkai sage!
Yuuka had just taken a small bite of her flower cake when the restaurant door swung open.
Yuto looked up, and his expression shifted.
There in the doorway stood the female general — looking even more stunning than she had the day before.
"Yuto, I'm back~"
The instant Esdeath spoke, the mood in the restaurant took a strange turn.
The sudden hush felt like something quietly coming to a boil.
Gilgamesh smiled.
Yakumo Yukari's eyes narrowed — whatever thought had crossed her mind, it made her smile too.
Yuuka stopped eating her flower cake..... she didn't smile.
The air in the restaurant subtly shifted.