After convincing Camilla to leave, I ask stan about cocoa.

It’s these moments when I’m grateful that people around the world are not as lazy as me. Point in case, during my maître-chocolatier training, the Italian academy I attended taught us every single step of how chocolate is made, starting from the goddamn trees.

I swear, Italians can be the laziest things in the world. But when they go nuts about something, they really go all the way.

Can the ‘nuts’ be considered a pun? I don’t think so. They are cocoa beans, in fact.

“I think we might find them too. But you will have to order a plantation made. From what you say, it takes hundreds of beans to make a few pounds of the stuff.”

“Not necessarily. Every ‘pod’ has at least twenty to forty beans. We should buy them all, corner the market, and make tons of chocolate. The process, though… we’ll need people to help us with it. The beans need to be fermented for a few days.”

“I can help with that,” Stan winks at me, “I might not be a [Brewer], young man, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. Tricks you are not interested in knowing the source of, apparently.”

It seems that Stan wants to tell me about his secret class or whatever. But, as you know, I’m not interested in trouble. This guy ended up homeless on the street after a life of God-knows-what. For now, I’ll try to avoid kicking the hornets’ nest.

“Well, then we’ll use a separate room for that. And the last is coffee beans. If you chew them, you get a spike of energy. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

The tall silvery Elf slowly nods with furrowed eyebrows.

“I think I do.”

…

I sent Stan on a recon mission to find all the stuff and dumped eighty golds on him, telling him to buy as many ingredients as possible. I also told him we needed to restock the ingredients for the croissants. Plus, I need regular oil before getting the palm one. I gave him a full list. Told him we needed parchment, but old Stanimal said he had a very good memory.

Meh, let’s hope so.

Anyway, tonight I’m already whipping out my second secret weapon.

Hehe.

We are going to cause a major ruckus through the entire baking world!

I should also start baking some stuff to distribute to Stan’s friends. The homeless, I mean. Are they Stan’s friends? Am I being… what’s the term for clumping people together based on their social condition? Anyway, if we keep raking in money with a shovel, I might get some delivery packages going to those people.

Or could I hire some?

Would they shiv me?

I should probably ask Stan if he thinks we can do something about them. He can probably act as the alpha homeless.

A mote of sadness courses through my body.

Joking aside, I imagine these people must suffer quite a bit in a medieval-like world. I’m just a [Baker], so I can either feed them or, if they want, give them work. Is there anything else I can do?

I mean, training them as [Bakers], even clumsy ones, would probably help. I have some free rooms, and Stanimal can probably rein in the dangerous ones.

Mh.

That’s a good idea for a name.

What?

What is?

Home-Bakery.

That’s cute.

House of Magic?

Nah, it would lose some charm. And I think there’s a TV show with that name or something.

Yeah, let’s go with Home-Bakery.

“Joey?” I hear a crystalline voice coming from the entrance – an entrance which no one bothers to close.

When I see a shy blonde Elf entering, my face softens into a smile that would be at home in a soapy drama.

“Hey, beautiful. How you doin’?”

“I came to—to visit?”

“You can come for whatever reason,” I give her my signature wink-cum-click.

“Listen, should we talk about—”

I take a few strides toward her, and she backpedals a bit.

“What—”

I plant a soft kiss on her lips, dispelling whatever doubts she’d had when she entered the place. Only after a minute do I relent and look into her emerald-green eyes.

“Talk about what? We are dating, no? Boyfriend and girlfriend stuff, dude,” I say, raising my thumb.

“Dude?” she raises a thin eyebrow.

“Err… dudette?”

We both laugh while I show her around the place.

“Got this place for twenty golds a month, cute, right?”

“Did you clean? I smell soap,” she says with an approving tone.

Yeah, it kind of smelled yesterday, didn’t it?

“Stanimal did. The old guy’s a blast,” I tell her.

“Stan? The homeless guy?”

Oh, right, I didn’t tell her.

“Yeah, he’s working with me now. He can probably afford a house now or just keep sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs.”

She looks at me with her lips slightly parted.

“You gave Stan a job? And he accepted? What does he do?”

“Stanimal’s my new manager. He’s good with stuff. He knows a lot of plants, fruits, and whatnot. He’s shopping now. Gave him a ton of money to stock our reserves. I hope he’ll buy a bag of holding for it, now that I think about it. I mean, the guy’s probably deceptively strong, but I’d rather he doesn’t pull a muscle or something.”

“Do you… trust him?” she asks with a bit of concern when she hears me say that I gave him money.

“I’ll pay him much more than what he has on him at the moment. Unless Stanimal has a betting problem, I don’t think he will squander the money.”

“And how much are you paying him?”

“Twenty? Thirty? I don’t remember.”

“Twenty silvers a month? That’s not too bad as a start,” she says.

“What? No, thirty golds a day. Or twenty. Man, can I get a memory skill when I level up?”

She laughs, probably thinking I’m joking.

As soon as she understands I’m not, she widens her eyes.

“You can’t pay him that much! Not even a small [Merchant] makes that much money a day! And how can you afford that?!”

“Yo, girlfriend, calm down. We made a hundred and fifty golds yesterday, with a net profit of around one-forty.”

She looks at me like I’m a madman.

“How?”

“Food and adventurers. I sold them croissants for four silvers each. I think Stan might have raised the price, actually. I didn’t really count the money after. But yeah, we made a boatload. And that’s just the start.”

Lucinda goes pale.

“WHAT?!”

“You hungry? I can make two quick croissants for you to try if you want. It doesn’t take much for them to cook. This oven is better than I expected.”

“Joey, do you have any idea how much money you made?!”

Man, she’s a screamer, isn’t she?

I love her so much.

Wait, was that sexual innuendo?

Whatever.