Hostess of Fertility

Doing as she had said, the girl accompanied Haru. Once reached their destination, she bowed.

"Soon you will be provided with the menu since Mr Customer-san do not seem to be a regular-nya."

Nodding at her words, Haru sat in his place while he could notice how with a smile, the girl excused herself, having other orders to receive.

Knowing this was quite normal for a place as filled with people like this, Haru shook his hands as he chose to wait for the menu to be delivered to him as he examined the area in detail, which he had not been able to do previously.

'..The relaxing and serene atmosphere of this place does not falter even with customers who are only there to waste time for waitresses...'

He could understand this from the succession of events that had occurred in front of him. Although that client had even called the girl "Filthy demi-human", the latter took care of the situation...in her way.

As he remembered, all the waitresses working at this pub were incredibly beautiful and attractive girls, but that was not why Haru was watching them. Since not all the waitresses had an important role, he could have forgotten some.

'For now, I remember the girl who welcomed me in. She must be Anya.'

Although she had not yet introduced herself, Haru had no doubt the girl was Anya, so he chose to take a look at the other waitress, but before she could do so, Haru's eyes met bluish-grey ones.

"..Your menu... Mr..."

Unlike Anya who had a quicker attitude as she had to carry orders around the pub, the girl in question was freer in her job, and if there was one of the qualities she possessed, it was the keen eye to analyze people with glances and small talk.

Knowing well the girl in question, Haru sighed as he looked elsewhere. Probably, his obvious way of observing the girls had been misunderstood by the girl, who behind a friendly smile was making sure he was no one suspicious.

'I only wanted to see if I remembered all the waitresses, you can sheath your sword back...'

That's what he wanted to tell her, but knowing that it would only make things worse, he decided to inform her he was no one suspicious.

"..My name is Yamaguchi Haru, level 1 adventurer. Since I came from a village and the city here has quite a good amount of exotic food, could you recommend something I should go for lunch...?"

While waiting for her answer, Haru could perceive some other detail that he hadn't had time to perceive earlier. The girl had bluish-grey hair, kept tied with a small knot in a ponytail style. Her eyes were the same colour as her hair, and she had a light peachy coloured smooth skin. She wore a white blouse and a leaf-coloured knee-length long skirt. She also wore a slightly long half apron around her waist, accompanied by a pair of brown boots over black stockings.

'This girl must be...'

Telling her as much as he could about himself, he could see how her eyes twitched for a moment. She certainly did not expect Haru to deliver such an introduction. But after realizing Haru seemed to be telling the truth, it seemed as if the girl's vigilant gaze faded, displaying kindness.

"I see. Since you've given me so much information about you, I'd say it's my turn. Pleased to meet you, my name is Syr Flova, a waitress in this pub and ready to advise you on what you might like most!"

Making also a pose to accentuate her words, Syr lifted her arm as her index finger and middle finger formed a V-shaped sign. Bringing the latter to her eye's height while the opposite was closed, and as a final touch, she had also raised a foot from the ground, moving her weight on the other leg, she lowered herself unintentionally for a second.

Her action had rather surprised him as he seemed to have jumped from a pub to a strange maid café. Syr's proud smile as if she had accomplished one of the most sensational feats in history, made Haru escape an almost imperceptible laugh from his lips, which widened her smile as it grew gentler by the second.

He did not know why Syr had chosen to joke with him this way. But anyway, a laugh was always appreciated.

"...Now it's the time for the advice. For someone who didn't feel much the kitchen in Orario has to offer, why don't you try some pasta!"

His amused look soon faded as he wanted to take Syr seriously.

He was surprised to know she recommended that dish. Haru had several opportunities to taste pasta in his previous world. Being already familiar with noodles and ramen, Haru saw it as a kind of foreign variant, yet it was superb and could be done in many ways. He saw Bell Cranel eating the same dish. However, he did not specifically understand how was the pasta as the episode of a Loki Familia adventurer ridiculing him had destabilized him.

'...I don't think I would have focused too much on food in a situation like this either.'

It wasn't Bell's fault, as he could understand the boy's struggle against discrimination only because he was weak, which seemed to be something much more real than he could have imagined at the beginning. He was still on the first steps towards his goal. However, Haru would take into account all the small things that were problematic from Orario.

Once put together, Haru believed they could form a problem that could be removed by directly eradicating the root of it. However, he knew this method was rather orthodox, and there was no guarantee there were any roots able to connect all the discrimination and hatred that Haru had been able to notice at all. For now, he had to force himself to look away, but one day, he would change the world.

But by snapping out of these thoughts, Haru nodded as he was curious to taste the pasta they made here.

"...I think it's perfect."

By nodding, Syr asked if he would also like some alcohol with pasta, but Haru answered he was okay with water. Even though he now had the appropriate age to drink, at the same time he would have preferred to keep that experience for special occasions, not in broad daylight. It was true that he had nothing else to do, yet he wanted to remain sober in case of any eventuality, one could never be prudent enough, after all.

At his words, she had a gentle smile on her face as she asked him to wait for some time until the pasta was ready...

---

After her conversation with Haru came to an end, Syr was on the way to what was the counter where a dwarf with brown eyes and long brown hair stood. She shouted so that her voice could reach the kitchen Haru's order as she inclined out of the wall where the kitchen was to confirm the chef had understood.

With this confirmation, Syr sighed as she stopped at the counter to observe the same atmosphere of relaxation, with the voices of her fellow waitresses who served, received orders and accompanied new customers to free seats. The whole thing was enough to crack a smile that raised the corners of her lips, however...

"...Did any customer gain yer' attention?"

When asked by the dwarf, Syr seemed almost surprised, but this vanished shortly after. The question of the woman called "Mama Mia" was more than fair, but this time, she could not say that there was no one interesting, however...

"...There is someone. I couldn't understand much of his character from a simple conversation, but I felt a strange feeling while talking to him. Like there's something around his heart, but at the same time, there's none...?"

That was more of a question than an answer. Syr could understand people's characters the more she conversed with them. Based on body movements, behaviour, the words spoken, all this information put together, was Syr's strength.

In Haru's case, however, she didn't even know how to describe the feeling of weirdness. It was as if the pain was present, yet was only visible in forms around his heart, which felt both a heavy and light at the same time. A feeling Syr could not understand at all, which is why she had gone out of her character, trying to notice what had happened making Haru laugh, or at any rate trying to let him manifest emotions of positivity. And yet her attempt ended with her who had understood even less than before.

She had no idea what the pain was that it had such strange roots in Haru's heart, but it was still of interest to her. In the beginning, Syr chose to control him because he was glancing at the waitresses in the Hostess of Fertility. His looks were not admiration or anything of the sort, but analysis, she concluded he was trying to discern details. However, after clarifying the misunderstanding, she found herself in a confused state of mind she did not intend to face, but at the same time, it kept her curious enough to glance at Haru from time to time.

Being able to see Syr in this state, Mama Mia turned to look at where she was looking, noticing a boy who had lost his gaze in the void, but what she didn't know, was that Haru was having a conversation with his system...

---

[RP: 33]

During his waiting for the pasta, Haru investigated how many [Points of the Reincarnated] he had collected. It appears that they did not follow the method of accumulation he expected. However, he at least knew what he had at this moment was little. So, instead of spending them right away to improve his inventory, Haru wanted the opportunity to run through a new function, hoping to find some useful one. The only problem was that unlocking one would take time, which is why he hadn't bothered to check his total before.

'... Indeed, Gaia had never said it would be easy to collect points, nor that the functions were cheap if not for a sole exception..'

And this was the function that allowed him to obtain quests. Located at 150 [RP], but that was still low compared to the standard. With prices ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 [RP], and some even about 10,000.

At the curiosity to know the other functions and how many Gaia has inserted into the system, Haru sighed.

Since the function names would only appear after he had the amount of RP needed to unlock them, something that Haru had no idea why, with the only exception being always the least expensive of all, clearly referred to as [Quest]...

---

(I think it's clear, but Haru knows all these things because he had the conversation with the system. He only knew they were slow to grow, which was foreshadowed content, but this is the 'revelation' of how [RP] truly works when it comes to new functions. Since his inventory isn't really that useful yet, he can choose to buy the [Quest], which would be much more useful than the [Inventory] upgrade. Join the discord btw, I'll post more and more polls and I don't think you would want to lose the opportunity to participate. discord.gg/y8VBZAp)