A day in Tingen and Emotions

"Waiter!..."

"Waiter…!"

"Kid!..."

"Buzz-cut!"

"Bones!..."

At lunch time, Max was utterly exhausted. He had not expected not only his body not being able to the morning and lunch rush, but also the mental exhaustion that came with maintaining a smile while all sorts of insults and mental jabs were thrown at him, intentionally and unintentionally by the customers.

However, Max was a top-of-the-line flatterer who was able to maintain his smile and humble posture even while being insulted by the boss' useless child. Still, after so many hours of this, even Max was feeling mentally and physically tired.

Speaking about insults, Max was still a little rough with Leon, the language used in the Leon kingdom where he was currently. The original Max had been using Intis and Ancient Feysac to communicate with his parents, and he had only learned a bit of Leon in passing. On the other hand, Samuel had only read the Lord of the Mysteries in English and only knew about the existence of these languages.

Thankfully Ancient Feysac was acting like a bridge for Max, connecting the little he knew about Leon with his own Intis language, allowing him to communicate with others in a horrendous amalgamation of Intis and Leon.

Luckily Old Man Uxas had been able to understand his Ancient Feysac and had only later told him about the problem. Thus, Max had been limiting his use of the Leon language while he was working, while also learning the language properly with Old Man Uxas.

While eating his lunch at around 3 p.m., Max put away his current worries and began to think about his future tasks.

'Firstly, I need to fix up my Leon, as well as my accent. It should not be too difficult, but I should try to make it as authentic as possible to prevent any issues about someone finding out my real identity as a person from Intis due to my accent.'

'Next, I will need money as well as weapons to defend myself. A gun would be preferable, but If I am seen with it by the authorities, it will cause many issues. Especially since I am not a Beyonder yet. On the other hand, a knife would be more concealed and there should not be anything wrong with carrying it around.'

'Lastly, I need money not only for the weapon but also for the Bender and Fool's End potion ingredients. None of them sounded like some mythical creature's body parts, and I can even recall some of them from the original novel, but not where or when in the novel…'

'And all of this I need to accomplish without going to the Beyonder gatherings since I am not yet a Beyonder, plus it would put me under the detection of the official Beyonder organisations that always keep a lookout in these meetings. I could try and go to the underground trading area, though I cannot seem to remember what it was called. But I remember it was a pretty famous place, so just asking the right people should ultimately lead me to it. But that brings us back to the original problem. Money. I do not have enough time to sit back and collect hundreds of pounds from my job with Old Man Uxas.'

'Even if I had the ability of Klein, as well as his plot armour, I would still need 1 and a half months to fully digest my Sequence 9 Bender Potion. This is unlikely, so to be safe, I should at the very least keep 6 months of separation between me ingesting the potion, and the descent of the True Creator's spawn which was around September of 1349 of the Fifth Epoch. The current date is May 6th, 1348 of the Fifth Epoch, which gives me around a year and one-third to fully digest the potion.'

'I will need to earn more money somehow, but before everything, I will need the condition of my body in top form. For that, I guess spending a few days or weeks with Old Man Uxas might not be too bad. Plus, I can plan out everything while doing so, and also secretly investigate the location of the black marketplace of Tingen City.'

With his plans made and lunch completed, Max drank the water he was given by the old man and could not help but sigh. Compared to Klein, although his original reincarnation was pathetic, his current situation was incredible. He had a stable job which did not involve getting into frequent life-and-death conflicts and he also had knowledge about the future plot, locations and characters. 

The last of which should have already forced him to explode into a rain of blood or a horrendous abomination due to 'corruption.' But whatever the reason was, he was still perfectly fine, and he was not strong enough to investigate the reasons behind this just yet. He had guesses, but nothing concrete, so he only shook the thought from his mind and stood up to wash his hands and plate. 

"Are you also done little Max? Give me your plate." The old man said while smiling. Max on the other hand only shook his head before speaking in slightly better, but still utterly broken Leon, "No, I will wash mine."

The old man did not reply, and instead moved a small stand towards the washbasin and told Max to climb up. After that, Max followed the old man's movements as he cleaned one of the plates used in the previous rush for serving customers.

Max unknowingly felt an emotion deep within him he had long forgotten. It was not one of the emotions Samuel felt to his colleagues in his previous life or anyone in fact. Instead, it was something the original Max was a lot more familiar with, back when he used to live with his parents without knowing about the truth of their financial and overall situation.

But Samuel worked hard to suppress this particular emotion so deep within him that even he would never be able to find it. After all, with his knowledge of the novel, he knew exactly what kind of world this was. Having someone like the Old Man close to him, especially considering his pathway and its 'peculiarities,' would ultimately end in disaster for the old man and pain for himself.

'Yes, I am only using him to collect a bit of starting capital in order to venture into more fruitful businesses that will most definitely not be legal or moral in any way, shape or form.' Max told himself while forcing himself to focus away from the old man towards his own plate.

Cleaning it, Max put it away and returned to his duties as a waiter, cleaning the tables and restocking everything for the tables while the old man finished up on the dishes and began preparations for supper and dinner.