Chapter 12 - A Pretty Hard Start
Panda Novel
Her eyes were shiny with tears, her face full of excitement.
In Amy’s memory, only in bed could she snuggle up in her father’s arms, and she had never been hugged by him. She knew it was because of his body, but she had always wanted to experience the feeling of being hugged. Who would have thought that she would realize her little dream today?
Mag smilingly touched Amy’s cute little nose, nodded, and said, “Yes, I can hold Amy in my arms at last. I can also lift you up and give you a princess hug. I will do anything you want me to do.”
While holding Amy in his arms, he was very excited too. Sure enough, body is my first priority. I have to accomplish this mission. I don’t want to go back to the state in which it’s hard for me to even walk.
Amy put her face to Mag’s chest, nuzzled him like a little cat, and said happily, “Father, you’re the best!”
Mag pacified the little thing for a while. He was a little relieved after he had made sure that there was nothing wrong with Amy other than that bluish violet fire she’d unleashed.
Moreover, Amy had demonstrated it for Mag—she could unleash that bluish violet fireball anytime now, and she could do it with just a thought; no spells or time were needed.
His predecessor didn’t know much about magic casters, either, and even the mysterious princess of elves was vague in his memory. Mag couldn’t even recall her looks. He just vaguely remembered her as a powerful magic caster.
Looks like she has got her magic talent from her mother. Instant fireball magic—her talent should be good. It’s just she can’t control it well enough now, thought Mag, stroking his chin. His predecessor’s worries had not been misplaced. If elves found out who she really was, he couldn’t imagine what would happen. Whether putting her in harm’s way or taking her away, it was unacceptable to him.
The Gray Temple should be put on the back burner. Maybe I should find a more reliable magic caster and suss him out first, thought Mag. He didn’t want to rush into making Amy learn magic. He had to be thorough about it.
Mag picked up the black-leather-cover menu on the table. The leather was very smooth. He opened it. On the top left-hand corner of a plain light gray paper, he found a line of words written in black: Yangzhou fried rice—600 copper coins each, plain and simple yet stylish.
This system’s taste is not bad. Mag closed the menu contentedly.
“Father, has our restaurant really opened today?” asked Amy, standing beside Mag.
“Yes, opening the door means we start operating. Let’s hope we can sell many plates of rainbow fried rice today.” Mag smiled and stroked Amy’s hair, and then he took her little hand and walked towards the door.
Mag held the door handle, took a deep breath, and pushed it hard towards outside.
The two small bells hanging on the door rang twice, and then the door was opened. The warm sunlight of early autumn spilled on the two very different figures standing outside the door—one big, and one small, casting two long shadows onto the restaurant floor behind.
Standing there, Mag looked at the signboard hanging above, on which were two big words in black: Mamy Restaurant. Holding Amy’s hand, he murmured to himself, “It seems nice to be alive again.”
“Father, what were you saying?” Amy looked up at Mag, a little puzzled.
“I was saying, ‘It’s nice to have you, Amy.'” Mag looked down at the little thing who was even shorter than his waist, smiling lovingly.
“It’s nice to have you too, Father.” Amy ran happily around Mag for two laps, and then, forming her hands like a trumpet in front of her mouth, she shouted towards the square, “Our restaurant has opened! Come and eat here! We have very delicious rainbow fried rice…”
Mag looked at his little girl and gave a reluctant yet happy smile. He was very happy inside too. He looked to the Aden Square—it was early morning, and there weren’t many people yet.
Not far on the grasslands, two large orcs with fangs were sparring with each other bare-chested; a little farther, two businessman-like humans were standing under a tree, talking; a tall elf hurried across with a longbow on his back, followed by two curious troll children…
Mag looked at all this with a little surprise. While he had seen the face of every species in his predecessor’s memory, the shock delivered was completely different when he saw it with his own eyes.
Powerful orcs, crafty goblins, long-lived elves… It had all become so real all of a sudden, and he truly felt he had come to another world.
It didn’t seem as simple as he had thought to live an easy and comfortable life here with Amy. Mag lifted an eyebrow and turned his head to take a look at his restaurant. Since the restaurant had been set up in this Chaos City, apparently, it wouldn’t just cater for humans; after all, elves, giant dragons, and demons were famous for having an outrageous amount of money.
The Aden Square was located in the center of Chaos City. When they built the city, the buildings around the Aden Square had been arranged into the shape of the crescent moon to surround the round square. It was open to the south.
From one end of this crescent moon to another, there were thousands of various shops, restaurants, forges, red-light districts, arenas, magic shops… Any shop could be found here, as long as it existed on the Norland Continent. Their owners were also of various species; a hotcake shop might well be owned by lava demons, who’d bake hotcakes directly on their hands.
After the peace treaty was signed, Chaos City was built to promote mingling among species. At that time, the continent was divided among all the species like a pie cut several times horizontally and perpendicularly, and they shared the same intersection point, on which Chaos City was built, so it was not an exaggeration to call it the center of the continent.
Because Chaos City bordered with the lands of every species, it had eight gates to provide entrances for all of them.
Orcs, humans, elves, goblins, trolls, demons, dwarves… and giant dragons that showed themselves now and then lived together in the same city. This kind of chaotic inhabitation was how the city got its name.
After the chaos in the beginning, a secret organization named Gray Temple appeared in the city and started to maintain the order; at the same time, it slowly changed the city into today’s size and layout. The people in gray walking in the dark were the law enforcers of this city.
Mag’s restaurant was standing on the tail of the crescent moon—the last shop on the Aden Square.
Since the entrance of the square was on the other end, people seldom came here. Next to their restaurant was an arms shop, which Mag recalled was owned by a dwarf. Farther on were several closed shops with “House to Rent” notice on their doors, and then, there was a shop that sold magic potions, whose door had two birdcages hanging on it, in which two parrots were still sleeping.
To say the customers were few and far between here was putting it lightly. Thinking about the chance of a customer being interested in coming through his door and ordering a plate of 600-copper-coin Yangzhou fried rice, Mag suddenly felt that this start was pretty hard.
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