Lisa and I went outside the store after I was done eating all the sweets.
We had initially thought of using the side entrance to run away but they know how we looked and while I wasn’t worried about myself, I was worried what might happen to Lisa should they know where she worked. Especially if they knew about her potions shop and chose to go visit it while she was away to wreck it.
The Mahuns from before were all waiting outside and the leader nodded at us the moment we came out.
“You’re done? Follow me.”
Lisa stepped in front of me, “Hold on, why do we even need to listen to you? Who are you?”
The man looked back at us and shook his head, “Ask no questions, just follow us.”
“Oh sure, why don’t you just give us a million Creas while you’re at it too?”
He frowned at her, “I don’t think you realise what position you are in, do you?”
I quickly did a quick scan with my [Screened] to see their stats, only to realise that all of them were in the mid two hundreds in their stats.
That means they weren’t really a threat to us if both Lisa and I were to fight them seriously.
Lisa seems to also realise that fact since she did not look worried about the threat we just received.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest while staring at the man defiantly, “Oh? And what are you going to do to us if we refuse?”
He furrowed his brow, “In that case, I guess I have no choice…”
The man reached his hand behind him and both Lisa and I tensed up, ready to fight him and his group.
He then pulled out his hand and I was prepared to send him flying with a punch when I realised he was holding something in his palm for us.
I peeked at it and… It’s a piece of candy?
“Here. I wanted to give this to you but I thought you might have had enough sweets after how much you ate just now,” He explained.
I looked at the sweet, then up at him, “Is that… For me?”
“Of course.”
“But… Why?”
He raised an eyebrow at me, “Weren’t you saying that you had no reason to follow us? I’m giving you a reason now.”
I pointed at the candy, “You want us to follow you… Because you’re giving me this candy?”
He nodded, “That’s right. I’m sure that once you try it, you’ll want to follow us.”
Huh? Is the candy supposed to mess with my mind or something? Like after tasting it, it’ll make me unable to resist his orders? If that’s the case, why is he revealing it to me?
I don’t get it…
Lisa seemed just as confused as I was as she picked up the sweet to look at it.
I’m guessing she was trying to determine if the sweet was poisoned and seeing that she didn’t turn hostile to him and simply placed the candy back on his hand it probably wasn’t poisoned.
“I don’t understand… What exactly do you want?” Lisa asked.
The leader raised an eyebrow, “Didn’t I already say so? Our boss wishes to meet with you.”
“And what does your boss want?”
“Unfortunately, I do not know, I just believe that you are really fortunate to even get our boss’s attention.”
I cleared my throat, “And who is your boss?”
“The owner of the patisserie you had just came from, of course. He has noticed you have great tastes in sweets and would like to consult you on certain matters regarding the store in general.”
…
“Then what do you mean when you say that we don’t know what position we were in?” I asked.
“Because our boss doesn’t just meet with anyone! He’s the owner of one of the biggest patisserie chains within the capital city. It is an honour for him to want to meet anyone and ask for them personally! You are in a really enviable position right now!”
What the heck… If that’s the case then say so clearly from the start! Why do you make it sound like you were going to beat us up or something?!
I turned to Lisa, “So… What should we do?”
Lisa shrugged at me, “I’m fine with anything that Aster wants.”
That’s not helping me Lisa… I don’t know what would be the normal response for this kind of invitation… What would happen if I reject it? And we are on our date right? Isn’t it bad that we’re doing something else while we’re on this date?
Ugh… I’m curious what the boss wants though…
Oh!! Maybe he saw through my love of sweets and wants me to be his sweets tester!!
In that case, sign me right up!!
“Alright! Bring me to your boss!”
The man nodded, “Very well, this way please.”
He led us to the back of the store where there was a rather fancy staircase leading up to the second floor which I assume was an office of sorts.
The rest of the group waited downstairs while the leader brought me up to the said second floor, his knuckles rapping on the door loudly.
Without waiting for a response, he pushed open the door, revealing a rather clean looking lounge area with a female Mahun seated at a table beside another door.𝗈𝓥𝔩𝒩xt.𝑐𝗈𝑚
She turned to us, “Is she the one?”
The man nodded, moving straight towards the door beside the woman before turning to us, “Boss is just inside. Head on in.”
I guess the lady must be the secretary or something.
Lisa and I walked through the door he opened for us and I was quite surprised to see a relatively modern looking office behind the door.
Ok, when I say modern, I wasn’t saying like there was modern furniture around but more like the arrangement of the office just felt more modernesque I guess?
Like the boss was even seated on a swivel chair with a high back and facing away from us.
When the door closed shut, the boss spun around and steepled his fingers on the table.
“Welcome, I have been expecting you.”
Both Lisa and I stared at him and the silence stretched awkwardly for a minute before he coughed and gestured to the seats in front of him.
“Please take a seat.”
Yeah, this guy is an Off-Worlder for sure.
I checked his stats with [Screened].
[Name: Aruule Laruule
Title: Boss, The One Upstairs, Weirdo, Tryhard, Sweets Connoisseur, Owner of Laruule Patisserie
Race: Mahun
Gender: Male
Current Mood: Awkward
Stats:
15 Strength
12 Dexterity
16 Endurance
10 Magic
Skills:
Business Management (Tier 3), Leadership (Tier 2), Negotiations (Tier 3), Noble Etiquette (Tier 2), Accounting (Tier 2)]
Eh? He’s not? What the heck… Then how is he doing all this weeb stuff? Is it just because he’s already just like this to begin with?
Hmm… Or maybe he has a staff working for him that is giving him all these ideas?
I’m going to guess it’s one of the pastry chefs.
“So… Err… You wanted to see us?”
He clasped his hands together, “Oh! No, no, no. I wanted to see you! You’re the one who ate all the cakes by yourself, right?”
Ugh… Hearing him say it like that makes it sound like he’s calling me fat… But I nodded in response anyway.
“Is something wrong with that?”
He quickly waved his hand at me, “Not at all! I was just quite surprised to hear from my staff that someone actually ordered all those cakes and claimed that it was for a single person to consume, so I had to see you for myself! Now that you’re here, I see that I am really fortunate indeed!”
I tilted my head at him, “Fortunate how? You wanted to see who would eat all of your cakes?”
“Ahahaha! No, no! You see, this is just me stating a fact but my business is really good right now. But I have a competitor that is catching up to me by employing pretty girls to serve their customers even though their cakes are inferior to ours. Even though I sincerely believe that the quality of our cakes would be enough to draw customers in, it is still true that we could do better. But…”
“You don’t want to stoop to your competitor’s level to do it?” I guessed.
“That’s right. But I do know one way to beat them at their own game! I just need an even prettier girl to be our poster girl to spread our name to the city! That way we wouldn’t need to stoop to their level but we’ll also do just as well!”
Ahhh… I get it.
I turned to Lisa, “Well… I don’t really care about that… Would you be willing to do it though?”
Lisa blinked at me, “Me?”
“Yes? Isn’t he asking for you? You’re the pretty one here, right?”
He wanted to see me so that he could ask my permission, isn’t it? That would make the most sense.
“Ehehehe~ Aster is so cute!” She giggled before turning to the boss. “Well, I’ll have to refuse but what do you think about having my dearest here as your poster girl?”
The boss raised an eyebrow, “What are you talking about? We were intending to–“
“Ah, ah, ah~ That’s not my question. I just asked what did you think about having her as your poster girl?” Lisa interrupted.
“I said we were already–“
“You’re having trouble hearing I see. I said what do you think about having her as the poster girl instead?”
The boss seemed a little confused but then later just shrugged his shoulders and turned to me with a wide grin on his face, “Yes! Yes! That’s a good idea! Do you want to become our poster girl?”
Eh? Me? Really?
Why me?