Rose wanted to wash her face before heading out, and Teal had something to take care of, so they were going to head out in about ten minutes.

  “-yeah, I can get that,” I said. I didn’t really have anything to take care of at home, and as for changing my robes, I didn’t really see the point.

  The only kind of preparation I did was cast [Fragrance] on myself.

  Yeah, I had to hand it to that girl with rainbow irises, this spell was somewhat more useful than it seemed at first glance.

  Lauren wasn’t with us, but everyone else was there, including Mark.

  Once we got to the restaurant, my reservations against coming here immediately increased. Everyone in the restaurant was a lizardman.

  It was even possible the sign outside said ‘No Humans Allowed’ and there would be no way I would know given I couldn’t read their script. My translation device was at home and even if I had it, it could only be used to translate grimoires and didn’t work on normal text.

  “Uh… is it really okay for me to walk in?” I asked again.

  The lizardmen and the humans had a habit of self-segregating even if most places were not officially exclusive to either species. Both sides were rarely openly antagonistic to each other, but they had separate facilities for nearly everything - restaurants, shops, etc. I’d never been denied service from any lizardmen run shop and hadn’t seen any other human get denied either - though that only went so far.

  No one would decline official business, but a lizardman or a human shopping somewhere they shouldn’t would definitely raise some eyebrows.

  For things like renting houses, lizardmen and humans did not mix at all apparently as I had learned when I first joined Lauren’s shop.

  “Oh yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry” Mark said, leading us all in. “Trust me - this is one of the best seafood restaurants in the city, you won’t regret this!”

  That was high praise given most restaurants in the city were seafood restaurants - a simple consequence of being a coastal town and near a large river. Not to mention that the lizardmen absolutely loved fish - they would eat it with each meal if possible and would consider their diet deficient or themselves impoverished if they could not.

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  So if they were saying this place was good, it was probably very good.

  Mark asked for a large table, and though I did get some weird looks, no one stopped me from walking in.

  The store had a slightly different aesthetic than I was used to - I guess this was something that differed between the architectural preferences of the lizardmen and humans.

  For one, lizardmen preferred a slightly higher room temperature than humans - which explained the fires burning even though it wasn’t that chilly out. I took off my vest as I knew I’d start sweating if I had it on, but my colleagues didn’t mind the temperature one bit. They also seemed to be fine with slightly lower levels of illumination than humans, which is why I had to strain mine a bit.

  Since it was mainly for lizardmen the seats and tables were also larger and made in a way to accommodate their tails. In the center of the restaurant there was a fish tank with several axolotl in it with different colored skins - I hoped they were decorative and not something being served on the menu. There was a stone statue of a lizardman who I didn’t recognize near the reception, and I couldn't read what was written on the plaque below it to get an answer either. At this point I could only recognize two words in the lizardmen language- 'bookstore' and 'brothel.'

  Despite these small differences, it wasn’t like it was too uncomfortable for me or anything.

  Once we were seated though, I was immediately presented with another problem.

  What should I order?

  We were given two menus, but again, I couldn’t read what was on them. Also, was all of the stuff they served… edible for humans?

  “Uh…” I said when it was my turn to say what I wanted. “Any recommendations?”

  I was immediately given a few, but Mark mentioned he had once dined here with some humans who preferred the shrimp bowl.

  “Yeah, I’ll go with that then,” I said.

  I took a glance at the other tables. There were lizardmen there… talking. No one was paying undue attention to us because of me, which I was grateful for.

  Our food arrived - most of them had bought something with either squid or octopi in it, which seemed to be a popular delicacy in this place.

  I had to note that a good portion of the fish served seemed to be raw. “Ah, humans usually don’t eat raw fish do they?” Rose asked me while noticing me eating my shrimp bowl.

  It tasted okay - but nothing spectacular, especially compared to what I could make with the [Poissonnier] skill, but at the same time it didn’t seem to be something that would give me food poisoning either so I wasn’t going to complain.

  Why didn’t the food live up to the reputation Mark had given it earlier? I noticed everyone else thought whatever they were eating seemed to taste divine, so it was either that I had ordered something that did not suit me, or that lizardmen and humans had differing palates. Most likely it was a combination of both of those things.

  “We do occasionally - we have this thing called ‘sushi’ where I’m from,” I told her. I had tried sushi on occasion, though only with sauces and other condiments - the lizardmen though, seemed to have no issue with eating fish entirely raw. “I don’t know if the other humans in Arconia eat fish raw though.” I hadn’t seen Granny Qi do it, and every stall that sold fish for humans sold them cooked.

  That being said, I had seen some lizardmen eat their fish live; that was also a popular option that some stalls offered. Thankfully no one here was doing that. I just personally found the sight rather odd.