One way or another, Pete knew Mod would need more help. Hiring more pixies seemed like an excellent way to streamline services. It would help the customers would get their food faster. Sure, those customers were happy with the new food. Even so, if they had to wait thirty minutes or more every time they ordered, they’d get grumpy with the service. Mod and his place needed to streamline how they provided the service.

“How about we take orders by communication box?” Pete suggested. “After we take a person’s order, we can deliver it to people in their own homes.”

“Deliver food?” Angel raised an eyebrow. “Is that a thing? That would be amazing to call and have dinner come to you.”

“Where I am from,” Pete explained. “You can order almost any food you want and have it delivered to your house. Hamburgers, French fries, pizza, sandwiches, Chinese food, anything.”

“I don’t know what those are.” Angel squinted her eyes together. “But it sounds cool.”

Mod entered the conversation. “I like the idea of pizza delivery. I could also deliver my other baked goods. Pete, do you think you’d be able to track the orders and get people the food they wanted to their houses?”

“That was my job back home,” Pete replied. “I wasn’t in the pizza store that much. I focused on deliveries. Some nights, I’d do thirty or forty deliveries. In a town the size of Greenlake, delivery should be a piece of cake.”

“Piece of cake?” Mod asked.

“It’s a saying,” Pete explained. “It means it will be easy.”

“Ah, I see. That saying doesn’t make sense.” Mod said. After a few seconds of pause, he continued, “I have one other thing I wanted to talk about.”

“What’s that?” Pete asked.

“We need to give the store a new name, and we need to give you a job title.” Mod scratched his temple with his finger. “I was thinking of calling it M and P’s Pizzeria and Baked Goods.”

“That works for me,” Pete agreed. “I like it.”

“Great,” Mod smiled, “and what job title should we give you?”

“Pizza Delivery Driver?” Pete asked.

“Driver?” Angel pointed out. “You don’t have a vehicle. What will you be driving.”

“That’s a fair point,” Pete agreed. “You could call me a pizza delivery specialist?”

“That works,” Mod and Angel answered in unison.”

A prompt appeared:

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

You have completed the quest Job Offer.

You received 300 len. You received 350 experience points.

Pete closed the prompts, saying. “We’ll need uniforms, too.”

“Right,” Mod agreed. “I’d prefer you to have something more durable than cloth. It will prevent the issue you have with your current uniform.”

An uncomfortable Pete answered, “right, that might be a good idea. You think your sister Lilly could come up with something?”

Mod considered Pete’s words before answering. “I don’t think so. You might want to try the tailor. They know some leatherwork, too. Even so, cloth uniforms should be enough for the Pixies. Hope, I’ll let you come up with a design for them.”

“You got it,” the pixie smiled. “I have so many ideas for them. I’ll use Pete’s current uniform as a pattern. You’re going to love it.”

For a few more moments, they discussed the logistics of how a pizza delivery place needs to operate, and how they would implement the new pixie staff. Then Pete retreated to his bedroom.

The night before, he didn’t have much time to look at the room, so he decided to take a closer look at it. The mattress was similar to what he had back home. Though, instead of springs, feathers and hay seemed to fill it. A similar filling was in his pillow. It reminded him of a pillow his grandma used to own.

A chest of drawers pushed up against the north wall, the bed laid out in the southeast corner. A mirror hung on the west wall. A small window was on the east wall.

Pete rested in bed, considering everything he’d been through over the last two days: the cat in the tree, the conversation in the booth with the cat named Max, meeting Nick the guard, and the mayor who was a gnome.

He smiled as he remembered how his conversation with the mayor had gone. Then he worried, what if he hadn’t been able to ask someone how to close his prompts? What if he still didn’t know how to close them? He shuddered at the thought.

He remembered hunting the tomato plants, meeting Mod, running from the turkey, and the busy day at Mod’s Bakery... It used to be Mod's Bakery, anyway. In all his life, Pete wasn’t sure he’d ever been through so much.

With all that, he still hadn’t taken a bath. He planned to make it a priority for the next day. Even if he had to sneak to the lake in the morning, he’d do it. No one had mentioned his smell to him yet. But he was sure they would if he went any longer without taking care of basic hygiene. That reminded him, he’d also have to ask about how people brushed their teeth in Round.

Pete pulled out his cellphone; its battery had dipped to two percent. He’d also have to go to the nearest Communication Box retailer and see about getting a plan for his device. He hoped he wouldn’t have to buy a new phone altogether. Either way, he would need to come up with a way to charge his phone. He hoped they’d have a wireless charger, so he wouldn’t have to match his port to anything specific.

Either way, he understood those were all things to do in the morning. In the meantime, he only had one objective. He needed to rest, but he had one more thing to do before he went to bed. He pulled up his status page:

Upon seeing that he was level five, a smile spread across his face. He loved it when he could quantify his improvements. It’s one of the things he loved about video games. This was a way to quantify improvements in real life. It was amazing. The jump in his attack surprised him. He still wasn’t sure how attack and defense got figured.

The torn description to his shirt was concerning. Not only did it describe the shirt, but it also showed a minus one to the shirt’s defense attribute. When comparing his slapping proficiency to his pizza cutter proficiency, Pete felt torn. He could keep leveling up his slapping, but he might fight monsters who are immune to slapping.

It was always good to stay balanced, relying on an arsenal of abilities in a fight. As such, he decided he’d need to hunt some of the tomato plants with a cutter. It would balance how he leveled his cutter and slapping skills.

He closed the prompt, kicked off his shoes, closed his eyes, and prepared to dose off. Then a loud crash sounded outside, jolting him up with a start.