OCOB 26

Chapter : 26

The day before the café opening.

“Ugh…”

The moment I opened my eyes, I was hit by muscle pain.

It was an expected result.

It was the consequence of moving non-stop, receiving and arranging furniture that had been arriving for the past three days.

For a while, my schedule had been like this:

Wake up at 8 a.m.

Prepare until 9 a.m., then go to the grocery store.

From 10 a.m. to around 5 p.m., I received customers for the special quest.

Just like on the first day, I served exactly 20 customers, and for the remaining ones who stayed to watch the sunset over the reed fields, I offered ice cream.

The leftover time was spent developing new menu items.

Since the opening was just around the corner, I wanted to add at least a couple of new items to the menu.

Since I didn’t have the syrups or pre-prepared fruit preserves that were common in the modern world… I had to measure, mix, and create everything myself from scratch.

But creating new menu items wasn’t easy.

It drained an incredible amount of energy…

I had felt it before when making strawberry lattes, and experiencing it again was brutal.

After collapsing once in front of Millan while obsessing over creating a new menu, I started restraining myself.

That icy look from back then had burned into my memory…

He didn’t see me as a “person” in the usual sense. So I worked moderately while keeping an eye on Millan, preparing the new menu in between.

In the end, even if there weren’t many new items, they would make the menu look presentable.

After spending time like this until 5 p.m., we had a simple dinner. Millan mostly prepared it.

He was skilled and also a good cook. His food was so good it could easily be sold in a restaurant!

Even in that messy kitchen, he cooked effortlessly. Thanks to him, we avoided disasters like eating undercooked noodles.

After dinner, Freesia would carry in a pile of furniture and arrange it in the café.

She sometimes made furniture on the spot while discussing ideas with me. Words can’t describe the shock when she pulled out a piece of solid wood from her pocket that matched Millan’s quality.

Anyway, after a passionate day with Freesia until 11 p.m., it was time to sleep.

After wrapping up the day and reviewing the next day’s tasks, it was midnight.

This exhausting schedule continued almost every day for nearly a week.

If Freesia hadn’t been shocked by the poor sleeping arrangements of Millan, Hugh, and me, and made us proper beds…

“I’d probably have been hospitalized by now.”

Cause of death: extreme fatigue.

Freesia’s beds deserved praise. I realized for the first time, while immersed in this game world, just how important a proper bed is.

In reality, I used to sleep on the streets, relying on my youth as collateral.

But here, where I couldn’t risk my life, I appreciated a bed more and more each day.

Thanks to that, the muscle pain was less severe than expected.

‘A little stretching in the morning will make this go away quickly.’

And today, there were no special quests—it was the day before the opening!

I planned to devote the entire day to opening preparations.

‘Honestly, I didn’t really need a full day off…’

Thanks to all the hard work so far, the café was almost ready to open.

The interior was cozy and warmly decorated to blend naturally with the surroundings.

The exterior was decorated with ivy plants to create a poetic atmosphere.

In the yard, I placed tea tables and chairs that matched the reed fields, and planted flowering trees near the minibar to draw attention.

Amazingly, in this game, if you planted flowering trees and used magic on them, they could bloom year-round. Freesia’s acquaintance, a landscaper named Anne, helped with that.

I had tried casually suggesting it to Millan… but

“I don’t work without a master fee.”

She said firmly, so I commissioned Anne with a hefty sum.

I had to spend half of my gold, but seeing the pink flowers bloom beautifully at the minibar was worth it.

The kitchen and tools were all ready too.

Thanks to completing all the special quests, I used 10 diamonds to buy a “grinding barrel for anything” from Millan’s tool shop.

It looked like a normal barrel grinder, but its capabilities exceeded imagination. It ground coffee beans finely without ruining the flavor—a godly tool.

It could also make smoothies and frappes.

With that, the coffee machine, grinder, and steam machine were all ready!

I restored as many teacups as I could find fragments of, gathering quite a few.

I had considered buying regular teacups, but items touched by Basha seemed to enhance effects better…

‘This was a lot of work.’

But I did it all!

Other necessary ingredients would be sourced from the grocery store I had been trading with. I hadn’t met the owner in person yet, but it seemed like a good supplier.

Even though everything was prepared, there was one reason I needed a day off.

‘I need to go pick up the wreaths!’

Wreaths—the flower decorations for celebrating, consoling, or commemorating events.

‘Of course, I’ll request congratulatory wreaths.’

I was determined to get only positive messages.

The plan to receive wreaths, unfamiliar to people here, had been made when I became connected with Parhan.

Since I had borrowed some of Parhan’s fame, I might as well take full advantage of it.

The rumors were probably already spread, but just in case…

I planned to immortalize the messages in writing, which would naturally be displayed on the wreaths.

So…

‘It’s best to get as many as possible.’

Even if my connections were limited… I could probably get at least three.

So today was the day to gather wreath messages. I had already pre-ordered the wreaths from Anne to be delivered at dawn on opening day.

I had to be active today.

I smiled as I walked down the stairs.

Ah, the second floor of the café was entirely our living space. Otherwise… there would be no place to sleep.

I also made a workshop for Millan and a tiny house for Hugh. I heard Lumi made Hugh’s house.

Later, if we rent another house, I planned to expand the second floor into part of the café.

Anyway, I called loudly to Millan, who was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. He had no idea what I planned for today.

In other words, I was informing him.

“Millan! Today, we’re going to be going around a lot!”

Millan’s face scrunched up at the sudden announcement.

Millan frowned until we reached Freesia’s furniture shop.

But he was human after all…

“Millan! Play with me too! Give me a piggyback ride!”

He had to loosen up in front of Lumi. Lumi wasn’t scared of Millan and kept talking to him.

He had no choice but to play with Lumi.

Thanks to that, Freesia and Illiana had some freedom.

“Thanks, I survived. When Lumi feels better, her energy is overwhelming. Even if Illiana played with her all day… it’d be hard to handle all that stamina.”

“But it’s good, right?”

“Of course! By the way, why are we here? Isn’t tomorrow the opening? Is it okay to come now? Is there more furniture to add?”

“No, not that. I just have one favor to ask.”

I told Freesia about the wreath messages.

She gladly agreed and wrote the messages on the ribbons I had prepared.

“Just curious… who else did you get this from?”

“Well… for now, from Parhan, Sir Walter, and Sir Rev. I happened to meet Walter and Rev, so I asked, and they immediately agreed… Parhan was connected by fate as well.”

“…Am I even supposed to be among such people?”

Freesia hesitated for a moment, then made the message a bit more polite. She then asked curiously:

“But did you hire staff? You can’t expect to run this alone after receiving messages from all these people, right?”

Millan won’t help, and Hugh… would struggle.

Freesia’s worry was also mine. I had no idea how many customers would come.

But I had one thing I could rely on: my experience. I had received countless waves of customers before.

So I could do it.

But Freesia seemed to think otherwise.

“You can’t do this alone, no way.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Oh, right! Illiana can help you!”

Her energetic voice sounded like she was sending someone straight to hell.