It wasn't just Koromo Amae who looked completely baffled—even the girls behind her wore expressions of pure confusion.
In their minds, reviving a person should come with dramatic fanfare—some kind of exaggerated special effects, like in a mythological drama.
At the very least, it should involve some unique ritual or flashy move, followed by a drawn-out process to bring someone back.
But what did they actually witness? Just a few casual words. Not a single motion. Eriri simply said the person had been revived, and it all seemed to happen in less than a second.
On top of that, they didn't even see the revived person appear on-site, making many of them quietly suspect that Eriri was bluffing.
Still, no one had the nerve to voice such thoughts aloud.
Seeing Koromo Amae's skeptical expression, Eriri simply smiled and rubbed her little head.
"Anyway, the mahjong tournament is over and the rewards have been handed out. If you're eager to go see your parents, you can leave now~"
The moment she heard Eriri's words, Koromo Amae's eyes lit up. She immediately nodded, practically brimming with anticipation.
"I want to go back!"
Knowing how anxious Koromo Amae must be, Eriri didn't hesitate. She opened a world portal right beside them.
"Alright, just step through this portal and you'll arrive directly where your parents are."
"Mhm! Thank you!"
Without a moment's delay, Koromo Amae gave Eriri a grateful look, turned, and ran eagerly into the portal—completely forgetting to call over Touka Ryuumonbuchi and the others who had come with her.
In the crowd, Kunihiro Hajime, standing beside Touka Ryuumonbuchi, retracted his gaze from the portal and turned to look at Touka, who still had her eyes fixed on it.
"Touka, aren't we going with Amae?"
Upon hearing Hajime's question, Inoue Jun and Sawamura Tomoki also looked toward Touka.
Several seconds passed. Only after Eriri had closed the world portal did Touka slowly shake her head.
"Let's not. We'll go back later."
Though she was extremely worried about Koromo Amae and also wanted to see her revived uncle and aunt, she didn't want to disturb the reunion between Amae and her parents. So she restrained the urge to follow.
After closing the portal, Eriri shifted her gaze to Teru Miyanaga, Komaki Jindai, and the others—including Touka Ryuumonbuchi's group—still arranged in three neat rows.
"The rest of you as well: if you want to return, I can open a portal for you now. Or, you can wait until today's event is completely over."
Upon hearing Eriri's offer, the girls on stage began exchanging glances. Whispers and small discussions soon filled the air.
In the end, most of them chose to return, while only a few stayed behind.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side, after Koromo Amae stepped out of the world portal, she found herself not at the Ryuumonbuchi family villa, but in a place that felt oddly familiar.
After carefully examining her surroundings, a long-buried memory stirred in her mind.
Recalling the details, she finally realized where she was—this was the entrance hall of her old family villa, a place she hadn't set foot in for four years.
After her parents died in the accident and she went to live with the Ryuumonbuchi family, she never returned here.
Because the place reminded her of her parents' passing, just as she hated being interviewed by media reporters.
Now that she was back, an air of sorrow crept into her heart.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on those feelings. More than sadness, what filled her now was an urgent need to confirm whether her parents had really been revived.
Since she had been sent here, and considering what Eriri had told her before she left, her parents were very likely somewhere inside this villa.
With that thought, Koromo Amae didn't hesitate in the slightest. She immediately sprinted into the villa, not even bothering to change her shoes.
Before long, she reached the living room, and with a single glance, she saw two familiar figures sitting on the sofa.
At the same time, two clear streams of tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably.
"Dad, Mom!"
With an emotional cry, Koromo Amae ran toward the sofa and, under the surprised gazes of the two adults, leapt into their arms with her arms spread wide.
"Oh my, my precious daughter! Why are you back so soon? Didn't you say you were going to participate in a mahjong tournament with Touka and the others, and that you'd return in a few days?"
Holding her daughter close, the middle-aged woman—who bore a strong resemblance to Koromo Amae—asked in surprise.
Beside her, a middle-aged man also looked on with confusion, feeling the small hand resting against him.
"Yeah, I'm curious too. And why are you crying? Did someone bully you?"
At those words, the gentle aura around the man vanished, replaced by a stern presence, as though he were ready to immediately punish anyone who made his beloved daughter cry.
But upon hearing their words, Koromo Amae suddenly froze.
Because what her parents said didn't sound like people who had just been brought back to life. On the contrary, they sounded like they had been alive this whole time.
Before she could voice her doubts, a voice from Eriri echoed in her mind.
"Ah, right, I forgot to tell you. When I revived your parents, I also conveniently adjusted the causality between them and your world."
"So, to everyone in your world, the event of your parents dying in an accident never happened."
"You never went to live with the Ryuumonbuchi family either. At most, you were just someone who often stayed over. Your parents' relationships and jobs have also remained intact."
"Of course, this adjusted causality doesn't apply to the people who came to participate in the mahjong tournament today. So only those people know your parents were revived."
"And to make sure you didn't lose the memories of these last four years due to the causal changes, I've stored those memories in your mind. You can view them whenever you like."
"That's all I wanted to say. See you again someday~"
After hearing Eriri's explanation, all of Koromo Amae's confusion vanished. She finally understood the situation.
She was very satisfied with this outcome. It had solved a massive problem for her family.
After mentally thanking Eriri once more, Koromo Amae looked up, then squeezed herself into the space between her parents on the sofa.
"Mom, Dad, no one bullied me. I just really missed you both."
"Also, the tournament is over, and I actually won first place! Pretty amazing, right?!"
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Koromo Amae looked at her parents with a bright, blissful smile on her adorable face.
...
It was now 5:30 p.m., over half an hour since the end of the mahjong tournament.
At this time, the culinary competition officially began.
On stage, the area had been divided into three rows and ten columns, making thirty individual kitchen stations. The thirty contestants brought by Erina and Alice each occupied one.
Each station was fully stocked with utensils and ingredients tailored to each contestant's specific requirements.
The giant screen above the stage, which had previously faded away, now reappeared. Each contestant had their own dedicated display to showcase their entire cooking process.
In front of the kitchen area sat a long row of judges' seats.
There were ten judges in total. Each could award a maximum of ten points, meaning the total score would be out of one hundred.
Naturally, Eriri was among the judges. The other nine were: Arifureta, Aoi Kujou, Akino, Haruno, Artoria, Erina, Elaina, Fumino Furuhashi, Yuna, and Chika Fujiwara.
Though the event was full of food lovers, no one fought to be a judge—after all, they'd still get plenty to eat regardless.
Because aside from the competition, the thirty contestants also had to prepare dinner for everyone present. In other words, the dishes they made were not only for the judges to taste and score, but also had to be distributed to every member of the audience.
Hundreds of maids were already waiting at the sides of the stage. As soon as the judges finished scoring, they would move in to portion the remaining food and distribute it to the audience.
Though the competition only required the preparation of a single dish and not in excessive quantities, dividing it among the hundreds of attendees still required a significant amount.
This was evident from the large quantities of ingredients stacked around their stations.
These ingredients were prepared based on a planned quantity. As long as the contestants used up all the ingredients, the resulting portions would be enough for everyone.
Therefore, the competition had a strict rule: all ingredients had to be used completely.
This posed a considerable challenge for each contestant.
Fortunately, the ingredients had all been pre-cleaned and processed. All that remained was for the contestants to turn them into dishes, which greatly reduced the difficulty.
Of course, Eriri wasn't going to make them work for nothing.
Since the mahjong participants received rewards, it was only fair that those entering the culinary competition received some as well—especially since they were handling dinner.
So before the competition began, Eriri announced that every culinary contestant would receive ten kilograms of gold as compensation for preparing the dinner.
As for the champion's prize, it was the flawless "God's Tongue."
This reward held immense appeal to every contestant. With the God's Tongue, their culinary skills would surely reach an extraordinary level.
This motivated them to devote themselves even more earnestly to the competition.
After all preparations were complete, the culinary competition officially began, and the thirty contestants started crafting their dishes.
Time passed slowly, and aside from the murmurs of the audience, the air was filled only with the sounds of cooking.
In a normal competition, preparing dishes for just the judges wouldn't take long—about half an hour unless it involved time-consuming dishes.
But now, nearly an hour had passed, and the contestants were still far from finishing.
No one attempted to use all ingredients in one go to prepare hundreds of servings simultaneously. Of course, no one was doing it one dish at a time either—that would take an eternity.
So each contestant worked within their manageable range, aiming to make as many dishes as they could. If they couldn't do hundreds at once, then ten or twenty per batch would do.
As time passed, the piles of ingredients beside them slowly diminished.
Finally, around 8:00 p.m., the first contestant to finish appeared.
That contestant was none other than Nene Kinokuni.
Her specialty, naturally, was soba noodles, and that's exactly what she made for the competition.
Compared to the others, the drawback of noodle dishes was that the ingredients couldn't be pre-washed or prepped.
This alone put her far behind the others initially.
But in terms of effort, noodle dishes were easier than many others. Once the flour was made into noodles, the rest was much simpler.
While she couldn't boil all the noodles at once, the cooking time for soba was short, so multiple rounds didn't take long.
Even so, over 90% of her time went into just preparing the noodles.
By the time she was ready to begin final steps, nearly two hours had passed. The remaining thirty minutes were used to finish everything up.
Due to the sheer quantity of dishes she had to prepare, Nene ended up finishing first.
Otherwise, had her dish required less prep time, others might have finished ahead of her.
Of course, the scoring wasn't based on speed, so it didn't matter who finished first.
After Nene completed her hundreds of soba servings, it didn't take long for the second contestant to finish.
Over the next stretch of time, up until just after 9:00 p.m., all thirty contestants on stage successively completed their dishes.
If Eriri hadn't temporarily enhanced their stamina at the start of the match, their petite bodies wouldn't have lasted to the end. They would've collapsed from exhaustion long before finishing.
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