Okonomiyaki Chain Store – 02 – Her Status is Really Strange

Part 1: Osaka’s Auntie Transformed into a Beautiful Girl

Chapter 02: Her Status is Really Strange

 

Foreword from Gumihou ~:

 

For the general information of the readers, this story is written by a native Osaka lady who is very proud of her culture, language and the little idiosyncrasies of Osakan native life. Especially the Kansai-ben which a proud Osakan native will wear like a badge of honour when traversing other parts of Japan.

 

To honour this, I shall include little onomatopoeic words (wa, yan, hen, yan wa, jya) in italics. The true meanings of these words are not entirely necessary to understand the sentences spoken by Haruna, but they do add a certain hint to the Kansai-ben as heard by Tokyo-ites.

 

Kind of like Kakashi’s maa… or Naruto’s dattebayo!

 

I work as a Japanese language tour guide, let me tell you, the first time I heard Kansai-ben, I thought the person had speech disorder or something. It did not occur to me that there’s an entire prefecture of people who spoke like that. The closest parallel I could pull for English is the cockney accent or Southern American accent to the Standard English ear.

 

A little strange, a lot musical, and may contain words that looked like second cousins of known words.

 

However, to keep the translation accessible to all readers, I kept the accent warping to the minimum and only maintained the onomatopoeic endings.

 

The narrative portion as well as speeches from other characters will remain neutral unless their characteristic requires a little tweaking. There’s a character here who spoke really polite and humble Japanese used by bankers and fashionable (expensive) store managers, let’s see if you can catch it, yan!

 

After travelling for about 30 minutes, the entrance to the town appeared.

 

The place seemed fairly large, with Old Saxon style high walls surrounding the actual village. The population in the town was only about 2000. There were many merchants and visitors along the main road going into the town.

 

Because the town was inside a wall, naturally there would be gatekeepers at the entrance.

 

“Uwaah! She’s wearing a lion pelt!”

 

The lion pelt clothes, complete with a hood made out of the lion head with the fangs still attached, looked like it was biting Haruna’s head. That kind of outfit really emphasise the face a lot.

 

The guards knew that no ordinary person would wear such an outfit for fashion purpose, and guessed that she must be an adventurer or a warrior.

 

“This one has to be an experienced hero.”

 

“The embodiment of confidence, this one.”

 

“Oh, you exaggerate, ya na~ Well, I did once chase after a cycling purse snatcher. I ended up chasing him around for quite a long time. He was close to crying when I got him. That big cry baby. Once you start chasing there’s no point stopping until you get your target, yeah? If you dare to steal a wallet, it’s only natural for the owner to run after you to get it back!”

 

The gatekeepers really did not know what she was talking about, but they recognised the pattern of talk as something close to adventurers bragging about their accomplishments and were suitably impressed.

 

“Welcome, please come in… Rather, let us escort you to the Adventurer’s Guild office, please.”

 

“Ah? You even provide escort service. Thanks a lot, wa~ Being a pretty girl is really great, ya na~”

 

Inside the guild, men with fierce faces were gathered together. A group trembled in fear as Haruna walked past them.

 

“Why would- A lion head outfit be-”

 

“In the hands of a female knight!”

 

“But, I don’t see any weapons on her!”

 

“There’s a saying that goes, ‘The pelt belongs to he who hunted’, isn’t there?”

 

The lion head outfit definitely had some deep or sinister meaning in this manly culture.

 

Normally, a young female warrior who visited the guild would be faced with obscene languages from these rough characters. However, there was none of those at all today.

 

“It’s kinda stuffy here… guess I’ll just take off a layer…”

 

Under the lion head outfit, Haruna was wearing a leopard print shirt. It was clear to the onlookers that the pattern was clearly of animal pelt variety, and of wild cats in particular. Not sure why, but Saitama prefecture seems to have a lot of leopard print items for sale.

 

“Is that for real?!”

 

“This woman is too outrageous!”

 

“This girl is a Beast Hunter!”

 

“Ah? These people are just too rude, still talking about me even when I’m here…”

 

Ignoring the men, Haruna walked over to the young female receptionist, who was really a little bobcat with a cute little face. Haruna’s mercurial nature suddenly became much better at seeing such cuteness after those rude men.

 

“Na~, little lass, there’s something I really want to know, ya,”

 

“Loofa the Guild Receptionist greets thee. H-how should this humble one be of assistance…”

 

“Where’s the nearest station?”

 

“Station? Are we speaking of a place that handles horse related transportation?”

 

“No, no, no. I’m talking about Hanshin (railway line) or Nankai (another railway line). I want the nearest station, ya.”

 

There are several private railway lines running through Kansai, Osaka’s terminal. Among them are the big five: Kinki Nippon Tetsudou, Hankyu Line, Hanshin Line, Nankai Line, and Keihan Line. These are the five largest private railway lines in the business.

 

“Umm, from honourable customer’s clothes, this humble one presumes that you are possibly a Tensei?

 

Tensei – transmigrator.

 

“I’ve never heard of a Tensei line, ya na. Aah, are you talking about the Keisei line that connects to Tokyo, Narita Airport and places up north? Then, is this place Nippori?”

 

“N-ni-po-ri?”

 

“Or maybe Ueno? You know, that place with de zoo and those pandas? Maa, I guess this place is pretty similar to Wakayama too. Yes, that seems to be correct. While walking through the mountain, I actually saw some pandas walking past.”

 

“Ah…um, that’s… there are many things that this humble one doesn’t know. This one will go find out, immediately!”

 

Actually, Loofa felt that the reality of this world would have to be explained to this completely oblivious person in simple and easy to understand terms. To prevent further misunderstandings, that customer must absolutely not leave the guild until everything was made clear.

 

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com ya~

 

In a different room, Loofa had compiled a series of easy to understand guides of this world.

 

“In short, there are no takoyaki, no Tigers (sports team), and no fugu (puffer fish) restaurants, ya…”

 

“There are…none of those. Um, Miss Haruna, it seems you have no friends or family here. So, why not become an adventurer? Since you have just defeated a group of orcs with your bare hands, clearly you have talent in this area, so why not give it a try?”

 

“An adventurer? In short, what you really want is for me to be registered here, ya rou? Isn’t this some kind of solicitation type of business?”

 

“Unfortunately, for people without connections, it is very difficult for them to get hired for regular jobs.”

 

“But, when I went to Nishinori, I was able to rent a room even without identification papers. Ah wait, there were some special circumstances then… Never mind, how much to register?”

 

“That will be 2 silver coins, please. The price for registration is about standard everywhere, registration will be done once payment is concluded.”

 

“I only have precious stones, wa. The Piggies gave them to me, ya.”

 

Haruna took out her precious stones and began lining them up on the table. Loofa’s eyes got bigger, and bigger as the line grew longer and longer…

 

“That’s quite a lot! There should be at least 50 to 60 gold coins worth of precious stones here. The Guild also offer coin exchange services. Please use it as you please.”

 

“Jya, then I’ll pay~ By the way, it’s 2 silver coins, ya na?”

 

“Yes, that is so.”

 

“Can’t you give me a discount? 1 silver coin discount!”

 

Haruna was undoubtedly the type of auntie who bargains at every opportunity.

 

“Ha? Um, er, eh, what? Um, apologies, this is quite irregular…”

 

“Come on, aren’t we all from the same line of work? Look, we’re even girls in the same line of work, ya?”

 

“I…understand…silver coin…1…please…”

 

Loofa had absolutely zero bargaining skills, and ended up following Haruna’s pace.

 

“Once paid, you may check your current status by saying ‘Status Open’. As a rule, you can only check your own status. However, if you wish to share your status with others, I can be of assistance.”

 

“Jya, let’s have a look. Status Open!”

 

Haruna

 

Level 84

Occupation     : Swordsman

 

SP                    : 638

MP                  : 457

ATK                : 525

DEF                 : 487

AGI                 : 516

INT                  : 235

Humility         : 3

Boke                : 739

Tsukkomi        : 262

 

Magic  :           Fire Magic

Wind Magic (Rokko Oroshi)

Healing Magic (Hotel New Awaji)

Benishouga Tempura Magic

Umeda Dungeon Building Magic

Simple Dimension Control Magic (Candy etc will come out from bag)

 

Others :           Divine Protection (or something like that) from Biliken [1]

Poison Nullification

Paralysis Nullification

Anti-Giant (Attacks against Giants will always be critical)

 

As Loofa studied the status, she slowly turned into stone.

 

Scarily powerful. Super strong. Worse than looking at nightmares coming to life scary tough strong. If this person ever got angry, would this town be destroyed? For as long as she had worked with this Guild, she had never even heard such a line up of numbers. The most powerful Adventurer this Guild had ever recorded was at level 30…

 

However, something stuck out even more to Loofa, which kind of blurred out the crazy numbers to the side.

 

“What’s Benishouga Tempura [2] Magic?!”

 

“I don’t know, wa. Something to do with magic, I guess.”

 

Benishouga (pickled red ginger) Tempura is a side dish that has been gaining popularity at Tokyo’s Standing Soba stalls. [3]

 

“Ah, no, I wasn’t…anyway, more importantly this Dungeon Building Magic is really strange. Even the Maou (Demon King) don’t have this kind of skill! I mean, even if it’s a magic skill, isn’t it just too excessive?”

 

“There are people who said that the Umeda Underground is really similar to a dungeon.”

 

“As for these ‘Boke’ and ‘Tsukkomi’ [4], what kind of statuses are they? These numbers are way too irregular!”

 

“Not really, Miss Loofa, if this is a Tsukkomi for real, we can start a comedy together!”

 

“… n-no matter what, these are super high numbers! Heavenly level type of super power!”

 

“Heavenly level, is that the comedy theme? Shall we aim for the M-1 Grand Prix [5] together?”

 

For a moment, the conversation between the two ladies suffered a breakdown. It was a gradual process, but Haruna was eventually made to understand the situation at hand.

 

The conversation finally went back to something more mundane.

 

“By the way, it’s getting dark, I wonder if there’s a place where I could spend the night?”

 

“I shall provide information on this as well. However, aside from that, would Miss like to exchange some of your precious stones for gold coins?”

 

After the exchange was done, Haruna ended up with 65 gold coins.

 

It would appear that she would not have to worry about living expenses for quite a while.

 

[Gumihou: I like this novel for all the real life cultural references ~]

 

[1] Famous God in Osaka known as ‘The God of Things as They Ought To Be’, statue of Biliken can be spotted in Shinsekai.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiken

 

[2] Benishouga Tempura. Benishouga literally means red ginger. Young ginger that had been finely sliced into sticks and pickled in ginger until they turned red. It is often used as a condiment, especially at soba shops and cheap beef bowl shops where you can sprinkle as much benishouga on your dish as you like. Most likely these types of cheap benishouga had red food dye to make them even redder. Why would anyone fry a condiment is anybody’s guess, there’s no English language article on it. Only photos.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beni_sh%C5%8Dga

 

[3] Tachigui Soba – literally translated as ‘Stand and eat soba’

 

https://www.tsunagujapan.com/japanese-fastfood-tachigui-soba-noodle-stand

 

[4] ‘Boke’, pronounced as bo-keh!, and ‘tsukkomi’ are slang words in Japanese that describes the roles of two roles or characters in a comedy. Kind of like a funny Watson and straight face Holmes routine.

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BokeAndTsukkomiRoutine

 

[5] Super high level for Japanese comedy shows. Grand prize is 10 million yen.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-1_Grand_Prix