When he arrived at the restaurant. The line was bigger than it had been yesterday. Kit felt his mood turn complicated. He was glad his restaurant was doing so well but at the same time he gave a grimace at the amount of work he would have to do.

“I really can’t wait to employ some staff.”

Kit walked around the back of the restaurant and entered. Snickers and Iris were happily chatting as they were preparing ingredients for Kit to use in his cooking.

“Kit you’re back. Did the meeting go well?”

Kit looked at Snickers and just realised she hadn’t been at the town hall.

“Morning ladies. Yes, I think it went well sort of. Snickers how come you didn’t attend, you’re a Spartan Fire resident, yes?”

“Oh well, I prefer to take care of the restaurant, and I have you to fill me in on the important details. So did you think of a solution to the money problem?”

Kit filled her in on what happened.

“A Necromancer. It has been a long time since I met one of those. Are you sure you want to get tangled up with him Kit?”

Kit frowned at Snickers response. It was no wonder Peaches had a tough time settling somewhere.

“Snickers, he is quite nice. You’ll see when he comes tonight to help with the planning of the monster run.”

“I’ll trust you for now. I’ll see for myself tonight anyway.”

Snickers walked over to Kit and handed him a piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

Snickers laughed. “A love letter.”

Kit decided to ignore her and just take a look. Kit smiled at the contents, it was yesterday’s breakdown of takings.

110 x Red blooming Purple tail turtle soup – 25 bronze crowns.

80 x Black spotted velvet frogs legs – 35 bronze crowns.

72 x Apelop salad – 15 bronze crowns.

154 x Wallowing blue poison – 40 bronze crowns.

290 x Red velvet lake pasta – 50 bronze crowns.

567 x Sweet Meadow beer – 5 bronze crowns.

1570 x Lucky sticky candy apples – 1 silver crown.

Total Sales: 1 gold, 261 silver and 63 bronze crowns.

Total: 1 gold, 600 silver and 45 bronze crowns.

Total restaurant funds: 78 gold 435 silver 644 bronze crowns

This had to be the best part of the day. Looking at how much he made brought a warm tingle to his chest. All his hard work was paying off. It was a nice feeling to see his restaurant being successful. It gave him the confidence to strive higher in his dreams.

Maybe one day he really could make this rustic restaurant into a majestic gourmet palace. Kit decided to set his sights high and aim for the impossible. He wouldn’t get there is he didn’t try. With this thought he felt like he would need to do some research.

He made plans to visit other restaurants to get some ideas. He would have to leave Spartan Fire at some point anyway to head to a culinary guild to raise his chef tier. If he could visit a restaurant that had some stars that would be fantastic.

Then he would have more of an idea how to plan for the future. With his thoughts happily fixed on the potential of his establishment, he thought it was time to open his restaurant. He couldn’t promote his restaurant if he had no customers!

Kit asked Snickers to open the door. Even though the others weren’t here he didn’t think they would be far away. Kit got to work with Iris and the day past in a hectic flash.

As Iris and Kit were cleaning the kitchen, Kit heard a commotion in the dining area. Kit walked out to see what was going on. Leonard had his big hand wrapped around Peaches neck. Kit could see the handsome man was struggling to breath.

Peaches face was turning red and veins were popping out on his neck. Kit immediately panicked.

“Leonard stop! What are you doing?” Kit rushed over and tried to pry the large man’s fingers from Peaches neck.

“Could you release him please? He is a guest I invited.”

“He is a Necromancer Kit.” Leonards loud voice rang inside the open room.

“Yes, Leonard I know. He is still a guest though, so please let him go.”

Leonard grunted then released his hand. Peaches sucked in a loud deep breath.

“Peaches I’m sorry about that. I forgot to tell the others you were coming. Are you ok?” Kit ran worried eyes over his new friend.

“I’m ok Kit, thank you for concerning yourself with me.” Peaches gave Kit a warm smile.

“Go and have a seat, I will be right back with some food.” Kit felt more guilty at the man’s warm smile towards him. Damn it, Peaches should be infuriated at being strangled. His behaviour is just not right. Kit felt even more that Peaches needed some friends to guide him.

Kit turned to Leonard and gave the large man a furious look. “Be nice, or I will tell Snickers.”

Kit looked around for his restaurant manager to help him deal with her lover. To his surprise he couldn’t see the green haired elf.

“Kit please don’t tell Snickers. She told me I had to behave. How about I do something for you?”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Kit blinked at the large man and suppressed a laugh. ‘I didn’t think threatening with Snickers would be this effective. Maybe he is already in trouble with her, that’s why it is working today.’

“Ok then I’ll think about something you can do. But you need to apologise to Peaches.”

Leonard beamed at him and went to take a seat at the table. Kit heard him apologise to Peaches in a gruff voice that didn’t match the words he spoke. Kit rolled his eyes, Leonard was just like a toddler sometimes.

Kit brought the food over and soon all talking dispersed. Discussion didn’t start until most of the food was gone.

Kit formally introduced Peaches to everyone present. Then dived into the monster run topic.

“What kind of monsters are hunted in a monster run?” Kit was curious to find out more about the event.

“Well around this area there is only one animal that fits in with a monster run. They are called trampling thickheads. They migrate from the mountains to the Spartan plains. There are only two chances each year for a monster run.”

“Luckily the migration time isn’t far away. I’ll send someone up the mountain to get a better understanding of timelines.”

“Grandpa how many of the monsters will be part of the migration?”

“They usually travel in groups of about 500.”

“So many, what level are they?”

“They are usually around level 300. Some times there might be a mutant one amongst the group, that is what we will have to be most careful of. They can reach levels of around 500.”

Kits eyes bulged. They weren’t kidding when they said it would be high level monsters. How the hell could they handle 500 of them! Kit instantly wanted to take back raising this idea earlier. It was going to be a suicide run!

“This … I think we should come up with something else. Even if we get the whole village to come it wouldn’t be enough to defeat all the monsters.” Kit raised his concerns.

“Kit, I think I can relive some of your stress about the monster run. If you can kill at least half of the monsters, I can take care of the rest.”

All eyes turned to Peaches.

“How can you take care of the rest?”

Peaches gave kit a wide smile. “I’m a Necromancer Kit, I can raise the dead.”

Kit realised what Peaches was saying. He could use a spell to raise the slayed monsters to kill off the remaining ones. This would mean they would only have to kill at least 250 of them. Kit thought the number was still a little too high though.

“If we only need to kill 250 then there will be no challenge. It wouldn’t even be worth drawing my axe. I will sit this one out.”

Kit swung his eyes to Leonard. The man didn’t even look like he was joking. Kit had no idea what Leonard’s fighting strength was. But he had to be messing with them, right?

“Then you sit there and watch us have all the fun. This is only for Spartan Fire residents anyway.” Mars grinned at the big man.

“What! No, I get to participate too, I am now a Spartan Fire resident.” Leonard thumped his chest.

“Fine, you can participate.”

Mars winked at Kit. Leonard puffed out his chest as the approval to come was given. ‘Ahh this man really is an idiot.’ Kit wanted to laugh at Leonards quick change in being a part of the monster run but held himself back.

“I’ll take some of the resident to go and scout the proposed area for the battle and come up with some plans for traps. Peaches would you like to join us?” Peaches looked shocked at being asked to come. He gave Grandpa an affirmative.

“Until we get some more information, this is as much as we can plan at the moment. So, on that note I am going to turn in for the night.” Grandpa waved and then left.

Kit watched Grandpa leave. He thought he would look happy about the event. Kit realised he had more of a resigned appearance that joy. Kit started to waver about the monster run idea again. Had he done the right thing in bringing it up?

Kit couldn’t answer his own question right now. He’d have to wait and see if he had made a mistake. He hoped the price wouldn’t be too high if he had made one.

Slowly everyone started to trickle out of the restaurant until all that was left was himself and Iris. “Kit, I will have to head back tomorrow.”

“Ahh, already.” Kit was loath to part with Iris. He had enjoyed the days talking to her in the kitchen. A wave of sadness passed over him. He would miss her. He wanted to give her a gift before she went.

“Before you go, I want to teach you how to make one of my creations. It’s a thank you for helping me out these past few days and while I was in Sweet Meadows. Plus, you taught me how to make the Sweet meadow beer.”

“Kit there is no need for that. I was just happy to come and see you.”

“No, I have thought about it. Soon I will run out of ingredients for the Apelop salad, and I have no way to get more at the moment. I will have no way to sell it in my restaurant. I don’t want my creation to stop being enjoyed by people.”

Kit grabbed Iris hand. “So… you can’t say no Iris. Besides the ingredients you need are not far from Sweet Meadows so you should be able to source the materials.”

Iris looked Kit in the eye and could see his sincerity. She nodded her head and agreed.

Ding!

Reputation with Iris has increased 100 points.

“Kit, I can’t except this without giving you something in return though. When I get home, I will send you something and you can’t refuse it either.”

Kit nodded at Iris serious look. He wondered if the gift had something to do with Iris’ reputation points reaching 100. Kit guessed he would have to wait to see what Iris would send to have more of an idea.

Kit then taught Iris how to make the monkey brain oil and the Apelop salad. He was very happy to return the favour of sharing a creation. It felt to Kit like their relationship was more balanced now.

Kit hugged Iris and promised to see her off in the morning then he headed over to his mud hut to start his night time routine with Snowball.

Kit got up the next morning to send Iris off. He didn’t prolong the goodbye as he didn’t want to spend the day with puffy eyes from crying.

The next few days went by in a happy haze as he was kept busy with the restaurant. It was a week since his grand opening it was like it had happened in the blink of an eye.

Kit had made a profit of 9 gold, 261 silver and 800 bronze crowns for the week. His chef level had risen to 37. He was over the moon at his progress. What was even more exciting was that Snickers had come to him yesterday to tell him that today they would be holding interviews for new employees.

Kit couldn’t wait. He thought the traffic to his restaurant would have died down by now. But as people packed up tents to leave new people filled the empty spaces. He didn’t know how long this would go on for. He wasn’t going to complain it was good for business.

The only thing that frustrated him was that he was stuck inside his restaurant. He needed to work on increasing his swordsman level before the monster run started. At the moment he was unable to leave his restaurant to go training. It was the same for the rest of his friends.

He was hoping to remedy that today. Kit eagerly rushed over to his restaurant to see who Snickers had found. Snickers had posted a notice yesterday that they would be opening late today. So, he was a little surprised to see a small line outside his restaurant as he arrived.

Kit quickly darted around the back to find Snickers. He came in to see her setting up a table for the interviews. Two chairs were on one side of the table with a stack of paper neatly set out and the other side had a single chair.

Snickers noticed his arrival. “Well, what do you think. It was the best I could do. We don’t have an office yet. I thought the paper added a nice professional touch.”

Kit sucked in his lip trying not to laugh. He didn’t think the stack of papers made any difference to how professional it looked.

Kit couldn’t get over how excited she looked to hold interviews. “It looks great Snickers. How many people applied for the jobs?”

“Ahh, I don’t actually know. It was my first time posting an ad so I just put in the date and time for the interview. Next time I will ask them to send resumes first. It was my oversight, sorry Kit.”

“Don’t worry about it Snickers. We are bound to learn as we go. There was a small line outside when I arrived so I think we should find some people to fit what we are looking for.”

“There were people already here? That’s great, the time for the interviews is not officially for another hour.” Snickers looked very pleased.

“If we are ready, do you want to start early? It will take us a while to go through everyone.”

“Ok, that sounds good.”

“By the way Snickers, what sort of interview questions should we ask?”

Snickers avoided Kit eyes at this question. Kit had a bad feeling all of a sudden.

“Snickers have you ever interviewed someone before?”

“Well not technically. Have you?”

“No, the only experience I have is being the interviewee when I went for a part time job.”

“That’s great, at least one of us knows what to do.” Snickers beamed at Kit.

Kit groaned. He couldn’t even really remember his first interview. He had been too nervous to take anything in. He couldn’t remember one question they had asked him.

“So shall we start Kit?”