"You"re saying Kra.s.su came to Rodu, and his disciple defeated Kola?""Not only that, but Irina also appeared in the Magus Tower and a.s.saulted Brent?"
Within a unicorn-drawn carriage that was slowly exiting the royal palace, Josh was looking at a magic caster sitting across from him with furrowed brows.
The magic caster nodded respectfully, and replied, "Indeed, Your Highness. Those two events are perhaps unrelated, but the president is more concerned about whether Princess Irina is going to attack members of the Magus Tower again. If so, they"ll be forced to retaliate."
Josh"s expression remained calm as he said, "I"ll pay Irina a personal visit, so tell the president to rest a.s.sured. As for Kra.s.su, if the president can set aside their bad blood and convince Kra.s.su to stand with me, then that would naturally be fantastic news. His disciple is currently living at my manor, so I"ll try to pull some strings behind the scenes. Please also issue an apology to the president on my behalf."
"Alright, I"ll inform the president of this." The black-robed magic caster nodded before disembarking from the carriage.
Following his departure, the carriage continued onward, and Josh furrowed his brows as he murmured to himself, "Was it merely a coincidence that both of them appeared there at the same time? It"s also incredible that a four-year-old little girl was able to defeat Kola. She"s a freakish talent that may not even be seen once in 1,000 years. If Mag isn"t Alex, then whose daughter could she be?"
…
Within the booth of a restaurant, Quine appeared beside Sean, and asked, "Your Highness, we"ve lost contact with the two Cheetahs we deployed to follow them. Should we deploy more?"
Sean shook his head, and replied, "There"s no need for that. No one can spy on Kra.s.su unless he allows them to. If we deploy more Cheetahs to tail him, we"ll only risk irking him, and who knows what that madman could do?"
Quine continued, "I just sent out some subordinates to go through the information we have on Kra.s.su, and they informed me that Kra.s.su took a four-year-old half-elf girl as his disciple two months ago. The father of his disciple is the owner of a restaurant known as Mamy Restaurant. There"s also been some news from the Magus Tower that Kra.s.su visited the tower with his disciple, and she crushed Richard"s disciple. Brent was also severely injured in a mysterious surprise attack in the Magus Tower at around the same time."
Sean strode over to the window with a smile on his face as he said, "Sean is asking the father of Kra.s.su"s disciple to cook for His Highness during his birthday banquet, yet Kra.s.su humiliated the Magus Tower with his disciple. If I"m not mistaken, the one who attacked Brent in the Magus Tower was most likely Irina. After that, Kra.s.su and Irina were both riding on the same carriage from the second prince"s manor. Does this mean that Josh is trying to teach the Magus Tower a lesson?"
"Could it be… that there"s already a rift in the relations.h.i.+p between Josh and Magus Tower?" A surprised look appeared on Quine"s face.
Sean shook his head, and said, "If someone else did these things, then that would indeed be a possibility. However, there"s no way that Kra.s.su and Irina would allow themselves to be used by Josh. As such, I"m sure that all of this came as a surprise to Josh himself. Nonetheless, this is a good thing for us. If we can use the spies we have in the Magus Tower to sow the seed of doubt in Richard"s heart by suggesting that Josh was behind all this, then the relations.h.i.+p between Josh and the Magus Tower will inevitably deteriorate."
"I"ll organize that right away." Quine bowed respectfully before departing from the booth.
Sean picked up the cup of wine on the table and downed its contents in one go before murmuring to himself, "Regardless of whether you"re Alex or not, perhaps we"ve become comrades again on this occasion."
…
In the face of Mag"s request, Sinclair nodded almost without any hesitation. "Of course! You can use all of my ingredients and kitchenware, and there"s no need for you to pay me any rent; all you have to do is pay me for the costs of the ingredients you use. If you need, I can give you a hand as well."
It took three seconds for Sinclair to take off his ap.r.o.n and hand it over to Mag while also thrusting a boning knife into his hands. This stall owner was much more hospitable and eager to help than Mag had expected. As such, Mag smiled, and said, "Thank you. If possible, I"ll require your help in taking payments. I"ll pay you twice the average wage rate received by restaurant cas.h.i.+ers in this area."
"I"d be glad to be of service, sir," Sinclair replied with a smile before putting on an ap.r.o.n that had the word "cas.h.i.+er" st.i.tched onto its front.
Sinclair could sense the question in Mag"s eyes, and he gave a slightly awkward smile as he explained, "I thought that business for my stall would be really good, so I prepared a cas.h.i.+er ap.r.o.n, but I haven"t even had a chance to use it yet."
"I"m glad you"re well prepared." Mag nodded with a smile. This temporary employee was quite amusing.
Ike looked at Mag with a derisive sneer as he said, "What do you think you"re going to prove with this run-down stall? No one with any amount of self-respect would eat anything from a roadside stall like yours! An inferior chef like you is only worthy to cook at roadside stalls for inferior citizens for the rest of your life!"
"No one becomes n.o.bler just from eating roast meat." Mag looked at Ike with a calm expression, and proposed, "How about we make a bet? In half a day, we"ll see if my roadside stall receives more customers, or your self-proclaimed n.o.ble rotisserie does. If you lose, then you can never plaster a discriminatory sign like this on your restaurant"s door ever again, and if I lose, you can do with me as you please."
"You have yourself a deal!" Ike was already brainstorming countless ways to punish Mag.
His restaurant was the best rotisserie on the Renhe Food Street, catering to over 1,000 customers per day, yet this man was trying to challenge him with such a pitiful little roadside stall; it was an absolute joke! However, he had to accept this challenge in order to uphold the reputation of his rotisserie.
Of course, he was even more eager to stomp this obnoxious man into the ground.
Mag nodded, and said, "Alright, let"s begin, then. You can get an employee of your restaurant to keep a tally of the number of customers visiting my stall; I"ll do the same for your restaurant."
"I look forward to seeing you cry." Ike harrumphed coldly before re-entering his rotisserie. A few moments later, an employee emerged from the rotisserie, looking at Mag and Sinclair with a derisive sneer on his face.
Sinclair approached Mag, and whispered, "Aren"t you getting ahead of yourself here, sir? If you want to run away now, I can cover for you."
"We"re going to be super busy soon, so I hope you"re good with counting numbers." Mag patted Sinclair on the shoulder with a smile as he said, "By the way, can you get me a pen and some paper?"
"Sure; I just bought some for my daughter earlier today." Sinclair rummaged around in his little carriage before producing a stack of paper and a feather quill.
"Thank you." Mag accepted the paper, dipped the quill in some ink, and wrote a makes.h.i.+ft sign for himself, which he plastered onto the front of the trolley.
"Mamy Restaurant"s temporary rotisserie stand in Rodu; selling roast beef for one silver coin per cube."