Chereads / The Merchant / Chapter 21 - Star Monster Meat, Hamburger Idea

Chapter 21 - Star Monster Meat, Hamburger Idea

Luck had cleared the last table when he heard the door open.

He turned his head and saw Halt and Horace walking towards him.

"Luck, I told you this shop has a cleaning rune, do you still clean the tables?" Horace asked in surprise. 

"They always spilled ketchup on the table and I had to clean it." Luck was tired but couldn't hide the happiness in his voice.

"I should thank you, Horace! Without you, I wouldn't have finished all my stock on the first day!"

"You're welcome, I guess...?" Horace replied confusedly, not understanding why Luck was thanking him.

"You used up all your stock?" Halt asked in disbelief.

They had been sitting and talking together for a couple of hours when Horace had come up to him and asked him to help him introduce Luck's shop, and they had finally gotten curious about Luck and had come to his shop.

All this time they hadn't known about the explosion Luck's store had suffered. 

"Yes!" Luck put his arm around Horace's shoulder "Thanks to Horace, not long after he left saying he was going to promote my store, my store started to get customers!"

Halt looked at Horace in amazement. 'You've already successfully promoted the shop, why come to me for advice? Are you kidding me?'' his eyes seemed to say.

Horace looked at Halt blankly, 'Believe me, I have no idea what he's talking about!'

Luck continued, unaware of the meaningful glances between the two.

"I don't know what you did Horace, but in just hours I sold everything! I even made a menu with the extra fries and coke I had and sold it for 1 silver!"

Horace didn't know what to say, "Wow, that's great."

Halt wondered how much money Luck had made and asked, "It may not be appropriate to ask, but how much did you make Luck?"

"525 silver!"

Halt and Horace flinched as if shocked.

"How many hours was the store open?" Halt asked curiously, looking around the empty shop.

"Just a few hours until I ran out of supplies."

"Five gold coins in a few hours?" Halt made a face as if questioning life.

"Oh, my God!" Horace exclaimed in shock.

"Why are you so surprised? I'm sure other restaurants make more than this." Luck was confused by their shocked expressions.

"Sure they do, but they also have a lot of overhead Luck, the meat of a star beast over 4 stars is not cheap. They either pay hunters to hunt the star beast meat or they buy pre-hunted monster meat. That means they earn no more than 10 silver pieces per plate."

Halt echoed Horace, "And they don't sell very much in a day, hardly more than a hundred plates, so they either make ten gold pieces a day or they don't."

"But you..." Luck looked at Halt and tried to protest, but Halt cut him off.

"Not counting the profits I make on the clothes I buy and sell from you, even though I normally only make 20 gold coins a month at most.

"So you're saying I'm making good money?" a surprised Luck asked.

Halt and Horace looked at him as if he were a ghost. 'He doesn't even realize how much he makes,' they both thought.

...

After chatting with Horace and Halt for a while, Luck went for a walk in the marketplace and passed by a butcher shop selling star monster meat, remembering the flavor of the meat he had eaten in the restaurant, he decided to buy some star monster meat.

To Luck's surprise, the butcher shop had a lot of star-beast meat.

From one-star wild chicken meat to five-star swamp snake meat.

Unsure of what to buy, Luck bought 1 kilogram of wild chicken meat and 1 kilogram of 3-star red-horned beef.

When he returned home, Luck realized that his mother would not be home for another half an hour, so he changed his clothes and started cooking.

When he put the roast chicken and beef cooked with red wine on the table, the delicious mouth-watering smell spread throughout the house.

His mother smelled the incredible aroma from outside the door and when she opened the door and entered the house, she smiled when she saw Luck waiting for her at the dining table.

"I see you have improved your cooking skills. Even the cat outside the apartment was staring hungrily at the window of our house."

Meanwhile, Black, who was lying on the floor eating his share of Luck's cooking and dreaming sweet dreams, started twitching at the word cat.

His dreams had suddenly turned into a nightmare. He was trying to escape with his tail between his legs amidst a group of cats looking at him with malicious eyes.

Unaware of the terrifying moments his dog was experiencing in his dream, Luck started eating dinner with his mother and was enchanted by the taste of both meats.

'I don't understand how the taste of an ordinary hamburger can so impress the people in Gliese, this meat is amazing! If I could make hamburgers out of this meat and sell them, I'd make a fortune!' 'Luck was thinking when a light bulb suddenly went off in his head.

"I'm going to make a lot of money!" he shouted as he stood up.

His mother, frightened by Luck's sudden movement, dropped the meat she was eating.

"What are you yelling about? Are you crazy?"

Woof!

Luck yelled and Black woke up from his dream-nightmare. Realizing that it was his owner's voice that had saved him from the horrible cats, he shook his tail and grinned at Luck.

Woof! - I love you, master!-

Woof! - Cats are scary

Luck's mother, angry that he had dropped his food on the floor, looked at Black when he barked and shouted, "Don't bark at night!"

Black barked hoarsely

Wooof? -But you're louder than me?-

His mother turned to Luck and asked him curiously what he had just said.

"Are you going to make a lot of money, how?"

"I'm going to open a hamburger joint," Luck said confidently.

Luck's mother put her fork down on her plate and began to examine Luck with worried eyes.

"Do you have a fever? Or did you hit your head somewhere?"

Luck was surprised by his mother's worried questions.

"No, I'm fine, mom, why do you ask?"

"When you were talking nonsense, I thought you were either sick or had hit your head somewhere, but it turns out you were just being your usual stupid self..."

Luck rolled his eyes and said, "I thought you were worried about me."

Luck's mother said in a very serious tone, "I worry about you every day because you are an idiot..."

Luck locked eyes with his mother for a moment and they both started laughing at the same time.

"What happened to the internet café?" she put a piece of her delicious meat in her mouth with her fork.

"Huh? What internet cafe business?" Luck didn't understand what his mother was talking about.

"You were going to start a business with Zack? You were saying an internet cafe or a restaurant..." 

"Well...I've given up on that idea," Luck faltered, not thinking for a moment about the lie he had told.