Chapter 226: Searching for Keywords for Sakura Hibiki
Perhaps it was because Ren had personally taken charge of the grilling, or perhaps the beef at this particular establishment was already of a remarkably high grade.
Whatever the reason, the moment the premium cuts of marbled meat touched the scorching metal grate, the results were nothing short of hypnotic.
Thick, fragrant white smoke billowed upward, instantly sucked away by the overhead exhaust vents, leaving behind an intoxicating aroma of charred fat and savory soy-based marinade. The intense heat of the glowing binchotan charcoal kissed the surface of the beef, triggering a flawless Maillard reaction.
Rich, golden-brown crusts formed on the edges of the meat, while the delicate web of white fat melted seamlessly into the ruby-red muscle fibers. The rhythmic, aggressive sizzle echoing from the grill pan sounded like a beautiful culinary symphony.
Courage picked up a perfectly grilled slice with her chopsticks and blew on it gently. She dipped it into a small dish of citrusy ponzu sauce before placing it delicately into her mouth.
The moment her teeth sank into the tender flesh, her eyes widened to a comical degree. A soft, breathless gasp escaped her lips as the savory juices exploded across her palate.
"Eh? Why does it taste so incredibly good?" Courage mumbled, her cheeks flushed as she chewed, her professional palate completely overwhelmed.
As a First-Class Book Master for the World Gourmet Organization, she had tasted the finest delicacies on the planet. "Logically speaking, this is just a standard yakiniku restaurant. It's just normal grilled meat, so why do I feel this overwhelming sense of culinary euphoria?"
Ren effortlessly flicked his wrist, using a pair of gleaming silver tongs to expertly flip five slices of beef simultaneously just as the juices began to pool on their surfaces.
He smiled calmly, picking up a perfectly caramelized piece of brisket and placing it into Cerberus's waiting bowl.
"Because grilled meat, to put it in the simplest of terms, is just the act of placing processed meat onto a heated tool to cook," Ren explained, his voice smooth and steady over the crackling flames. "If the meat at this restaurant has been aged and processed well, and if the one controlling the heat knows what they are doing, it will naturally turn out to be a very good dish."
Sōryūin Akemi leaned closer to Ren, her shoulder brushing lightly against his arm. The subtle, elegant scent of her expensive perfume mixed intoxicatingly with the rich aroma of the barbecue.
She stared at the sizzling grill and whispered, "Brother Ren, I've eaten at your personal restaurant with my sister before. Are you absolutely sure you want to say something so humble?"
Ren paused for a moment, letting the tongs rest against the edge of the grill. "So?"
"What we ate back then was also grilled meat!" Akemi protested, her dark eyes sparkling with absolute adoration. "And it was transcendentally delicious! Although this current meal is also very good, it's still miles worse than the masterpieces you made for us, Brother Ren!"
Ren chuckled, shaking his head slightly as he reached out to adjust the ventilation hood.
"Oh, that's because the dish you had at my place was fruitwood smoked grilled meat," Ren said thoughtfully, his eyes reflecting the amber light of the charcoal. "This right here is standard charcoal grilled meat, so the foundational flavor profile is definitively different."
He casually flipped another thick cut of pork belly, watching the golden fat bubble and pop. "If this establishment swapped out their standard briquettes for high-quality fruitwood, the aromatic depth of this meat would also be elevated to a profoundly delicious level."
Momobami Kirari rested her chin on the back of her interlocked fingers, an elegant, knowing smirk playing on her blue-tinted lips.
"Akemi, you might as well give up," Kirari said helplessly, her icy blue eyes dancing with amusement. "Ren is far too modest. He will never openly admit that his own cooking skills are absurdly delicious."
Kirari gracefully picked up her chopsticks and secured a piece of short rib. "But regardless of his modesty, we can all agree that it's more than enough that this grilled meat right in front of us is incredibly delicious."
Across the table, Sakura Hibiki was arguably the happiest person in the entire restaurant.
She was an absolute force of nature, aggressively devouring massive bowls of white rice topped with mountains of glistening, sauce-drenched meat. She stuffed her cheeks until they bulged like a greedy hamster, her eyes squeezed shut in a state of pure, unadulterated happiness.
For a high school girl who exhausted herself daily with intense, muscle-tearing workouts at Silverman Gym, there was no greater reward. When that beautifully marbled meat sizzled violently on the grill pan, filling the air with its savory perfume, it was the ultimate cure.
Nothing in the world could dissipate her physical fatigue more effectively than a heavy dose of pure animal protein.
Although everyone at the table found the meal to be exceptional, the stomachs of average maidens were ultimately limited. As the plates of raw meat continued to vanish, the group naturally slowed their pace, sipping on iced oolong tea to wash down the rich oils.
In the end, the dinner essentially transformed into a two-person spectacle. Only Cerberus and Sakura Hibiki were left operating at full capacity.
The white-haired demonic hound and the tanned, fitness-obsessed high schooler seemed to be absolute kindred spirits. They mirrored each other's aggressive eating pace flawlessly, wordlessly communicating through the universal language of gluttony.
It was a strange, borderline terrifying bond that left Uehara Ayaka and the rest of the girls feeling a mixture of helpless exasperation and profound amusement.
There was something undeniably therapeutic about watching others eat with such unrestrained joy after your own stomach was comfortably full. The sight of Sakura Hibiki and Cerberus—two completely distinct yet undeniably adorable young girls—wolfing down an industrial amount of grilled meat with matching expressions of blissful ecstasy was a rare and precious spectacle.
Ren rested his tongs on the metal rack, wiped his hands with a warm, damp towel, and finally shifted his attention.
He glanced across the table at Kirari, his gaze sweeping over her perfectly tailored uniform. "So, what are you planning to do this afternoon? You should be entirely free from your school's bureaucratic matters for a long time after coming out on this trip, right?"
The moment Ren's words hung in the air, the chaotic noise of the table abruptly ceased.
Everyone in the booth, including Sakura Hibiki and Cerberus, who were still happily chewing on their tenth serving of brisket, simultaneously put down their bowls. A dozen pairs of curious eyes shifted toward Kirari.
She was, without a doubt, the single girl in the room who possessed the most terrifying, overwhelmingly negative reputation in the underworld of student politics.
Kirari slowly licked the savory sauce from her lips, her sapphire eyes narrowing into a sharp, predatory crescent.
"Ah... well, you see," Kirari began, her voice dripping with a casual, almost terrifying sweetness. "A few very foolish people wanted me to be overwhelmingly busy during this specific timeframe. They tried to orchestrate a little coup."
She tilted her head, her twin platinum braids swaying gently. "So, naturally, I could only resolve the issue using my school's traditional methods. And the result? Heh~"
A dark, imposing aura seemed to momentarily manifest behind Kirari's elegant smile.
Hearing her sinister little chuckle, the younger, more innocent girls at the table visibly shivered in unison. Their spines tingled as they remembered the horrifying rumors. She was exactly as terrifying as the urban legends claimed!
Yet, seeing her sit there calmly sipping tea, she didn't seem quite as bloodthirsty or brutal as the darkest corners of the internet described.
Ren simply raised a curious eyebrow, entirely unfazed by her intimidating presence. "So, what exactly are the stakes? What kind of rewards and punishments do you play with over there?"
"Oh, it's quite simple," Kirari replied breezily, resting her cheek against her palm. "If I win, the losers are strictly forbidden from leaving their designated rooms until the current competition officially ends. Furthermore, they absolutely cannot make any form of contact with the outside world."
She smiled softly, a playful glint in her eye. "And if I were to lose... well, then I would be the one stuck in that exact same miserable situation until the tournament commenced~"
Hearing Kirari's casual explanation, the heavy tension in the air instantly evaporated. A collective sigh of relief washed over the table.
To the wholesome fitness girls, this merely sounded like the stakes of a childish parlor game. It seemed to be on the exact same harmless level as a simple 'truth or dare' or a grand adventure penalty. It was nowhere near as terrifying as the dystopian legends made it out to be.
Thinking of this, Sakura Hibiki let out a massive breath, clutching her chest dramatically.
"Man, you really scared me for a second!" Hibiki laughed, her tense shoulders dropping. "I honestly thought it would be exactly like the terrifying urban legends, and that we'd have to watch people go straight into crippling bankruptcy..."
Kirari smiled warmly and waved her pale hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Oh, please. That wouldn't have anything to do with this particular matter," Kirari assured them, her tone flawlessly deceptive. "Besides, in this specific scenario, mundane things like money aren't even important anymore."
She gracefully shifted the topic, looking directly at the Kōyō girls. "Speaking of which, your Kōyō Women's Academy seems to have garnered a phenomenal amount of good reviews online lately."
Sōryūin Akemi puffed out her chest, her face lighting up with immense, uncontrollable pride.
"Of course it does!" Akemi beamed, her voice filled with sisterly adoration. "My older sister manages the school incredibly well. Our university acceptance rate is remarkably high, and they even fully reimburse our external gym membership fees!"
Akemi counted the perks on her fingers. "The school spirit is wonderfully excellent, the campus is beautiful, and the students are given a relatively massive amount of personal freedom."
Sakura Hibiki and Gina Boyd immediately nodded their heads in frantic, vigorous agreement.
These two meatheads had been riding a high of pure joy for a long time specifically because Kōyō Women's Academy reimbursed their extracurricular gym fees. After all, a professional-grade membership at Silverman Gym, with its world-class equipment and elite personal trainers, was excruciatingly expensive.
Kirari chuckled softly, her eyes glinting with a strange, multifaceted amusement.
"Eh? Is that so?" Kirari mused, twirling a lock of her platinum hair around her index finger. "If we're strictly talking about providing funding, my Student Council at Hyakkaou has also been generously distributing funds to the student body all along."
She let out a dramatic, sorrowful sigh. "Why is it that we haven't seen any good reviews or praise for our generosity? They really are such a greedy, ungrateful bunch of students~"
Upon hearing this surprisingly pitiful complaint, Sakura Hibiki and the others felt a sudden pang of sympathy. Their previous terrifying impressions of Kirari instantly began to soften.
They all nodded in solemn agreement. If playing these little 'games' wasn't strictly compulsory, and the Student Council was even paying out of their own pockets to fund them, then it really wasn't strange if the foolish students simply couldn't control their own gambling addictions. If they lost everything and got punished, it was completely their own fault!
However, Sōryūin Akemi, who actually belonged to the absolute elite echelons of society and knew the horrifying, unvarnished truth of the corporate world, slowly turned to look at the platinum-haired girl.
Akemi's sparkling eyes had instantly devolved into lifeless, perfectly flat dead fish eyes.
[Akarin's Note: In Kakegurui, Hyakkaou Private Academy enforces a brutal hierarchy based solely on high-stakes gambling. Students who fall into massive debt are stripped of their basic human rights and branded as "Housepets" (Livestock), effectively becoming indentured slaves to the Student Council until their debts are violently paid off.]
For some inexplicable reason, Akemi felt an overwhelming, desperate urge to scream out a vicious complaint and expose the sheer hypocrisy of Kirari's statements.
But just as she opened her mouth, she seemed to catch Kirari giving her a dangerously sharp, imperceptible side-glance. The sheer, freezing weight of that single look sent a chill down Akemi's spine, and she immediately snapped her mouth shut, falling into absolute, terrified silence.
Further down the table, Lucifer was currently propping her forehead against the palm of her hand, completely lost in exasperated thought. Even the usually airheaded Cerberus was gripping her rice bowl tightly, staring blankly at Kirari with three pairs of deeply conflicted eyes.
Although every single word that Kirari had just spoken was technically, legally true... why did it feel like it was missing an ocean of crucial context?
The innocent girls at the table were picturing a harmless after-school club. They had completely glossed over the fact that Kirari was deliberately omitting a Great Wall's worth of horrifying information regarding human rights violations, psychological torture, and indentured servitude.
It was a masterclass in manipulation. Some long, horrifying passages, when heavily abbreviated, technically conveyed the same core idea. But for some terrifying reason, when compared to the brutal original reality, it felt as if the very fabric of truth had been grotesquely distorted.
Ren, who knew better than to poke the sleeping dragon of Hyakkaou's politics, didn't bother dwelling on the matter.
He let out a soft sigh, leaning back against the comfortable leather of the booth. "So, Kirari, what exactly are you planning to do later? You're definitely not going back to the school to handle paperwork right now, are you~?"
"Of course not," Kirari replied instantly, a genuine, relaxed smile finally breaking through her imposing aura. "It's a phenomenally rare outing for me. No matter what happens, I intend to have a thoroughly good time today and give Sayaka a much-needed break from her duties~"
Hearing her name, Igarashi Sayaka jolted completely upright in her seat. Her face flushed a deep, frantic crimson as her absolute fanaticism flared up.
"President, I...!" Sayaka stammered, her hands gripping her knees tightly. "I don't need a break! Serving you is my utmost—!"
"Now, now, don't worry yourself into a panic," Kirari interrupted soothingly, reaching out to gently pat Sayaka's trembling hand. The simple physical contact instantly melted the fiercely loyal secretary into a puddle of compliant mush. "I'll be taking you with me, of course."
Kirari turned her attention back to the chef. "Ren, where do you want to go this afternoon?"
Ren simply shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, indicating that he hadn't thought about an itinerary at all. He was perfectly content just following the flow of the group.
Kirari sighed softly, tapping her manicured nail against the wooden table. "Making a sudden, impromptu decision is always troublesome. It's quite hard to think of a genuinely good place to accommodate a group of our size on such short notice."
She looked out the restaurant window at the bustling shopping district. "If nothing else comes to mind, we'll just go shopping. We can browse the high-end boutiques and, while we're at it, catch a movie at the luxury theater."
"A movie?!"
The moment the word left Kirari's lips, Sakura Hibiki's head snapped up.
Her dull, food-coma-induced gaze instantly shattered, replaced by a pair of massive, sparkling, starry eyes. She became completely, overwhelmingly excited, vibrating in her seat with the sheer kinetic energy of a caffeinated squirrel.
"That's right," Kirari affirmed, slightly amused. "I haven't had the luxury of simply sitting down and watching a theatrical movie in ages, so this is a perfectly good chance to see one."
She gracefully tilted her head. "Speaking of which, Hibiki, you seem highly, unusually excited about this. What's wrong?"
Sitting right next to the vibrating girl, Uehara Ayaka let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her eyes devoid of all hope.
"Sakura Hibiki. Seventeen years old. Chronically single," Ayaka recited in a flat, robotic, deadpan voice.
"An absolute idiot," she continued mercilessly. "Her only known hobbies in this world include eating massive amounts of calories and watching movies. That is absolutely all there is to her."
Kirari, Ren, and the rest of the table simultaneously let out soft 'ah's of realization, nodding their heads in deep, profound understanding.
Meanwhile, Sakura Hibiki's face flushed bright red with embarrassment and sheer outrage. She slammed her hands flat against the wooden table, shouting with massive dissatisfaction.
"Ayaka!" Hibiki roared, her twin tails practically bristling with anger. "Don't introduce my entire existence like I'm some kind of cheap internet keyword search!"
"Oh~?" Ayaka replied smoothly, not breaking eye contact.
"You didn't remember a single other good quality about me at all!" Hibiki whined, pointing an accusatory finger at her best friend.
Gina Boyd, the silver-haired Russian transfer student, placed a hand on her chin, nodding seriously as she pondered the statement.
"Actually," Gina chimed in, her heavy accent making the brutal roast sound even funnier, "if you really were to search for those specific keywords among the people we currently know, you really might think of Hibiki right away! It is a 100% accurate search algorithm!"
"That's enough out of you guys!" Hibiki screamed, burying her burning red face into her hands as the rest of the table erupted into a chorus of warm, teasing laughter.
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