Second World

Jack made a quick tour around the neighborhood. There were indeed many empty plots and unused buildings. After making the rounds, the most suitable plot in his opinion was actually the one beside Amy's Bakery. It was not the largest but it was not small either, it should be a good size for a fledgling restaurant. And the customers that came to Amy's Bakery would be easily exposed to the existence of the Restaurant, which would be a good advertising point. And it was closed to where he stayed, so it was another plus point.

The site he had chosen already had a building. He did not know if he could utilize it for reducing the cost of renovating the building into a restaurant, or if he even needed to pay extra to demolish it. He looked inside his pocket, he had 26 gold coins, he just hoped that it would be enough.

After deciding on the site for the restaurant, he went inside Amy's Bakery. Amy and Samantha were just about to close the shop when he came in.

"Good evening to you!" Both of them greeted.

"Good evening, I see business has been going well?" Jack said.

"Yes, it does! The renovation had managed to attract more customers. I would say your money was well-spent, I guarantee that you will soon see a return to your investment in no time!" Amy announced with a high spirit.

"That's good to hear," Jack said. If it was indeed as profitable as it sounded, he did not mind investing for the second upgrade once he got enough coins stored.

"All right, we can see that you are tired already. Amy, why don't you bring our benefactor here to see his new room. I will prepare the dinner in the meantime," Samantha said.

Amy was gleeful after hearing it, she grabbed Jack's hand and practically dragged him away. New room? Jack was intrigued. When they arrived at the second floor, Amy continued to pull Jack on, and brought him to the stairs up to the new third floor.

"Ta-da!" Amy exclaimed after bringing him to a spacious bedroom on the third floor. It was considerably larger than the small bunker he slept in previously. The room he saw now was a true bedroom with a double bed and some cupboards, there were also a desk and a chair, with a small sofa at the corner. Most impressive was the room had one side with fully glazed windows and a door to an outside foyer. He could see the main street outside from that foyer.

"Don't tell me this is the best bedroom?" Jack asked. "You or Samantha should use this room. I'm fine with that small bunker that I slept in before."

"No, no, no, we have agreed to let you have it," Amy insisted. "We are used to our old bedroom anyway, wouldn't be able to sleep here even if we want to."

Jack looked around the room. He didn't need all the cupboards anyway. He had an Inventory system to store all his belongings. So this room was kinda too much for him, but looking at Amy's demeanor, she was really looking forward to him accepting this room.

"Then I gladly thank you for your hospitality," Jack said to her.

She gave him a sweet smile before telling him to rest up while she helped her mom in preparing the dinner.

Jack walked around after she left, admiring his new cabin. He walked outside to the foyer and look at the scenery. Most of the buildings in the business district were one or two-story tall. So he could roughly have an unobstructed view from his third-floor height.

It gave him the time to think about the life he had now. He had always been living by himself in the real world, with no family to tie him up, except for that grandfather of him, hope that geezer was all right. Hence, when he was transported into this game world, it didn't bother him too much. In fact, he felt much more at home here than in the real world.

He had spent so much time in VR games precisely for this kind of escape. He was not sure if one day he was offered a chance to return to the real world, whether he would take that chance. Perhaps it was all right for him to just stay here in this game world.

"Not too shabby, eh?" Peniel's voice drifted to his ears, breaking his train of thoughts. She had come out of her hidden dimension and was flying around the room.

"Yeah," Jack replied. He came back into the room after collecting his thoughts.

He took out the Orbs of Disguise and asked Peniel, "How do I use this thing?"

"You will need a magic furnace," she answered.

"A what now?"

"Magic furnace, kind of like a forge for a blacksmith, but this is for magic tools," Peniel explained.

"And where could I find this magic furnace?"

"A Magic workshop, or I bet the Mage academy where you took the Mage class test should have it as well. You will need to pay a fee to use it though."

Tough luck, he thought he could work on his disguise tonight. It appeared that he could only do it tomorrow then. He spent his time practicing the rune forming of his Barrier skill until Amy called him for dinner. After the lovely dinner, he continued practicing until he was tired, then he ended the day by sleeping in his new bedroom.

Ellie and Bill appeared at Amy's Bakery around 9 AM. Jack had been waiting for a while since he woke up. The two had gotten lost a few times when they searched for this bakery.

"So you have managed to accumulate 100 gold coins to buy a land?" Ellie asked.

"No," Jack replied.

Ellie was caught off guard by Jack's reply. Her face was slightly dark, did the guy asked them to come all the way here just for a joke?

"Calm down. I don't have 100 gold coins, but I have this." Jack showed them the deed.

"Where did you get this?" Ellie exclaimed with a surprise after reading the deed's description.

"What about it?" Bill as always was clueless.

"Okay, before we proceed any further, we should talk first about the arrangement. How should we share the profit, what is each of our duty," Ellie stated seriously. "We should make everything clear from the start. I don't want there to be a discontent between us in the middle of the road."

Jack saw that the woman was clearly a business-minded person, it should be a good idea to have a partnership with her.

"An existing shop that we invested in will have a determined share given to the investor, but we have the freedom to set the financial structure for a business place that we built on our own," Jack explained to them. He had been asking several questions about opening a shop to Peniel when he was waiting for the two, so he more or less had understood the proceedings. "I would suggest for the start that we set 70% of the income we received to be used for daily expenses, like buying ingredients, paying workers' wages, etc. the remaining 30% will be distributed equally between the three of us. We could adjust the percentage later after reviewing the restaurant's progress."

"I'm not so sure about the condition in this place, but in real life, we usually had a loss on the first year in the food serving industry, not even need to mention 30% to share as profit," Ellie said.

"Don't worry about it, things work differently here. As a prove, you still managed to make a profit despite selling on the street, didn't you? And as your cooking skill level increased, you will make more profit, and more people will come to you, especially our kind."

"I have no idea what you are saying," Bill commented.

"You be quiet," Ellie reprimanded, which immediately made him pursed his lips tightly.

She then nodded and said, "All right, we will follow your arrangement then. How about the workload?"

"I just provide the capital, I will not do anything in the restaurant. I don't intend to focus my time here. You will have complete freedom to work the place the way you want. Will you have a problem with that?"

"Actually, I will prefer it that way," Ellie said.

"Marvelous, then we are in agreement. You can of course let me know if you ever need any rare ingredient or recipe, as long as you have the info, I will go get it for you."

"All right, so how do we get this started?"