The story of Soba-Sei opens in Edo, in a fairly well-furbished soba shop. Pass the hallway, into the dining area, and you'll see a group of rowdy customers enjoying soba. Amongst them, an unassuming man, slurping up a massive bowl of soba. The other customers are impressed with his gusto, and put down a wager...
"Man, you sure know how to eat. Think you can finish 20 whole bowls of the stuff?"
"Easily." And so he does. He exits the shop with money lining his pockets.
The next day, the man returns, and the customers, frustrated at having lost the wager, challenge him to finish 30 bowls of soba.
Once again, he eats it all and leaves, now twice as rich as he was when he entered. What the hell? These poor (foolish) customers have lost twice as much money now. Seeing their plight, a regular shares with them some pertinent information...
"That man you've been challenging is well-known round these parts. His name is Seibei, but we call him Soba-Guzzling Seibei, or Soba-Sei for short. You ain't winning any time soon."
Rather than give up, these customers grow even more upset, and the next time Soba-Sei enters, they challenge him to finish 50 bowls of soba. Surely, he won't be able to win THIS time, right?
"Oh, uh, 50? Like, five-zero bowls? You know what, I'll do it, but I've got some business I gotta finish up first so uh, wait till I come back."
This is getting too much. Hoping to find some way to beat this wager, Soba-Sei wanders off to a mountain in Shinshu. As he sits to rest in the shade of a tree, he suddenly notices...A massive, hulking python hanging from a nearby branch. He stiffens in fear, but realizes the snake has its attention trained elsewhere. The snake was eyeing a hunter, his gun aimed directly at it.
In a flash, the python lunges at the hunter, constricting him, killing him, and then swallowing him whole. Engorged and encumbered, the snake has difficulty moving, so it seeks out a mysterious yellow herb and gives it a lick. Like magic, the snake's distended stomach shrinks, it regains its sleek body, and it surreptitiously slinks away, completely oblivious to Soba-Sei's presence.
"What was that herb? When the snake licked it, it digested its food in an instant!" He had found gold. With this magic herb, this 'snakegrass' as he called it, he could instantly digest all the soba in his stomach and continue to eat more, easy peasy! HE grabs a few leaves and returns to Edo.
Back at the soba shop, Soba-Sei slurps up bowl after bowl. 50? Nah, he's going for 60 this time! The customers crowd around him, "This can't be happening!" they exclaim, as they are struck at once by anger and disbelief. But as Soba-Sei approaches his 40th bowl, his chopsticks slow...
"Guys, I'm gonna need a little break for a moment. Could you all wait out in the hallway first? I'll call you back in when I'm ready to continue."
Suspicious...But the customers and shop owner oblige. They leave the dining room, and the doors close. With no one around to witness him, Soba-Sei takes out his secret snakegrass, and gives it a lick...
............
"It's been 40 minutes man, the heck is he doing in there?"
"He didn't run away, did he!?"
They open the doors and charge back in the room, but what awaits them was a peculiar sight.
There, in the seat that once sat Soba-Sei, there now lay a perfectly human-sized pile of soba, with a haori draped around it, the same haori Soba-Sei was wearing!
For you see, dear listeners, what Soba-Sei found, and what the python licked, was not an herb to aid digestion. It was an herb to digest humans.
End scene.
