After filling up more than two hundred croissants, I simply left the rest of the trays to the preservation runes.

I’m currently sitting outside, seeing the first group of half-drunk people approach our stand.

“Huh! What’s that! That smells really good! Yo, Armin, get some of that for the team!”

“Yo, don’t push, you knucklehead!”

Two groups meet in front of my stand and start pushing each other.

Well, everyone said that adventurers were trouble.

Honestly, I don’t blame them. If you risk your life against monsters every other day, getting drunk at night is the least of the things I would recommend doing.

“Hello, there, customers!” I smile with Stan by my side and Lucillus looking at the adventurers from the door. “We are opening a new bakery that will serve food all night! These are croissants, a specialty that will not just fill your stomach but also make you fly on a cloud of deliciousness!”

The group doesn’t really listen.

One of them looks at me, squinting.

“Is that a Human? And is that the homeless guy?”

I look at Stan. I’m a bit awkward in these situations.

The former homeless winks at me and coughs strongly.

“Adventurers!” he booms.

Wow, that’s cool.

“We beg for you to stay back! Get in a line if you want food! Now!”

Wow.

Stan’s voice has some sort of hidden power that makes it resonate through me too. It’s like he just used a skill or something. In fact, even the adventurers look skittish now.

My secret-hermit-expert theory is probably paying its dividends back.

The adventurers start slowly oozing as little amoebas toward a disordered line.

The first person comes up to me.

“Hi, uh, how much for one of those?” he asks, yawning.

“Three silvers per croissant,” I say without missing a beat.

The man looks like he just got a cold shower.

“What?! Three silvers?! I can buy an entire meal at an inn for three silvers!”

“Well, no one has my recipe, buddy. I came here because I know adventurers can afford the best snacks. Can’t they?” I wink at him.

“Yo, don’t hold the line, you cheap bastard!” someone shouts from behind.

“Ok! Ok! Damn swindling Humans,” my first client harrumphs while paying up with three silvery coins.

“Jam or crème patisserie?”

“What’s the second?” he asks, confused.

“A special filling that’s not fruit-based,” I explain.

“Well, I’ve had it with Amorium and their stupid fruit. Gimme that one.”

I take a weird leaf I got from Camilla and use it as a napkin to fetch the first, still warm croissant.

The flakiness is right on point, and the taste is amazing. Even if the yeast wasn’t perfect, having two high-level [Bakers] helped smooth out the kinks.

The man takes a bite and frowns at the croissant almost melting in his mouth. Then, he gets hit by the flavor of the fresh crème.

“Shit, oh, shit. This stuff’s good! Wow, what the—gimme another two!” he says before being shoved away by the second person in line, a massive Elf in heavy armor.

“You wish! It’s my turn to try the stupid Human’s stuff!”

Well, at least they are paying.

The second customer takes three croissants of each flavor and starts popping them in his mouth right after paying.

“What the hell did the Human put in this? I’ve never tasted anything like this!”

The man now looks longingly at the croissants still on the stand, regretting not having bought more.

I have to say, that guy just inhaled three thousand calories or so. How does he not feel sick?

Flaminia and Camilla ate four croissants each, and they did start feeling sick right after. Croissants are not light on the stomach. They are basically sugar and butter filled with more sugar.

The third client orders for the entire team and drops six gold coins on the table.

I didn’t expect that.

I asked Flaminia and Camilla for a reasonable price, and they told me that I would make a killing selling these for five coppers or something. But these people are fighting over the croissants!

Wait, now they are literally fighting.

Someone tried to skip the line and got clocked in the face by a huge guy.

How tall do these stupid Elves get?

A little brawl breaks out, but the rest of my clientele is unfazed—no, not unfazed. Happy that they get to me faster.

Goddamn adventurers.

We keep selling croissants at an insane speed. After ten minutes, I have to go back in to bake more.

I find Camilla and Flaminia sprawled on two chairs, with more croissant crumbles on their clothes.

“Did you eat more?” I ask with wide eyes.

“They are so good,” Camilla says while trying not to puke.

Flaminia nods, clearly not able to speak.

“Well, get cooking. We need more,” I say with a laugh.

“How much are they selling for?” Flaminia manages to squeeze out some words.

“Three silvers for now. If they keep flying out of our trays like that, I might raise it to four.”

Honestly, I have no idea how much money that is. I’m paying what for this place, twenty golds? Thirty? I’m pretty sure it’s like twenty.

“Lucillus, how much are we paying for this place?” I ask my bodyguard.

“Twenty golds a month,” he says while keeping an eye on Stan. The homeless guy is taking care of himself remarkably well. He even shouts some orders from time to time.

“Huh, I think we just made the rent back. Camilla, how much do you pay your bakers?”

The pink-blonde Elf stares at me with narrowed eyes.

“I’m not saying! Do you want to poach my employees?”

“What? No. I mean, if they want to come, let them. But I’m not—”

“She pays around one silver per hour to those who are under level ten. Three silvers to those who are above level ten,” Flaminia speaks.

“Huh, that’s not a lot.”

“You can buy a meal with one silver! And if you cook it yourself, you can do that with a few coppers!” Camilla looks offended.

…

Apparently, adventurers attract more adventurers. In barely two hours, we sold more than five hundred croissants. That’s how many I could make with the dough on hand.

This is not supposed to be a trafficked day either.

It means that we might see much more foot traffic in the upcoming days. Especially because one of the adventurers mentioned that they found a silver-rank Dungeon in a mine. And that it’s enormous.

I sent everyone home and told Stan to go to sleep.

Considering that this was the first night, everything went well. It was pretty uneventful, and I’m sure I didn’t pay more than three or four golds for all the ingredients. Plus, I still have quite a bit of them left.

Huh.

Well, cornered the market in one night. Not too bad.

I’m currently sitting at a table, pondering what to do next.

It’s around two in the morning, but I’m not really sleepy.

Should I study some more magic?

Argh, I’m sick of it. Stupid Cantrips.

There’s one thing—no, one person I’d like to see.

And who says I can only be unlucky? Huh?

I hear a knock on the door.

Huh?

I get up and, guess what, I go for the door.

Lady Luck, for once, thank you.

“You!” the blonde Elf shouts, stabbing my chest with a finger.

“Me?” I smile, and it feels like I have never smiled before this moment.

“You!” she says with puffy eyes and her hair in disarray.

“Me!” my body is ablaze.

She pushes me inside with her finger on my chest.

“How you doin’?” I say while we leave the door behind us.

“You… You!” she struggles to speak, clearly torn.

“Me, and me. All for you.”

What’s happiness? Some like to ask themselves. What’s a dream, maybe. What is that we live for?

To all three questions.

She’s the answer.

“Lucinda,” I say softly.

“Show me your stupid Cantrip!” she yells.

“Huh?” I’m taken aback.

“I said, show me your stupid Cantrip!”

“What? Why? I said I’m not—”

“I am busy, Joey! I have to study magic! To become an [Archmage]! Why do you—why!” she shouts incoherently. “Show me the first Cantrip!”

“Lucinda, please. I’m sorry. I just—”

She cuts me off with a push of her finger.

“You are a pathetic Human! Why, why?! Why are you—”

She’s breathing heavily, shaking. Her eyes are tearing up again.

“My life is different, Joey,” she now lowers her voice. “I can’t do this; I can’t come here in the middle of the night because I cannot sleep. Magic is the one and the only thing I need to cultivate. And this, this…”

I take her finger in my hand while wincing sympathetically.

“I don’t want to take anything away from you, Lucinda.”

“You!” she stares accusingly and struggles but doesn’t try to pry her hand away from mine.

“Me,” I smile.

She raises her fist to hammer my chest, but she hesitates right before hitting me.

“Joey, I can’t—” she says while not turning away. “My life… this is not it. I am going away. I am never coming back to Amorium.”

“Well, they need pastries everywhere. Even big mages need pastries. And from what I’ve seen, you people eat a whole lot of stuff. So, what’s the problem?” I try a joke.

And it falls on silence.

“Show me the first Cantrip, Joey. And then I need to go.”

My heart plunges.

It skydives from ten thousand feet into the void.

I know she’s right. I’ve been in her company for a brief time, but she wants something I am not. She might want someone I’m not. She’s bound to be an [Archmage], or die trying. And that’s not my life.

“Why?”

“I need to know,” she says softly. “Please.”

“Sure. Under one condition,” I say. “One song, one dance. Then, I’ll show you my first Cantrip.”

“What?” she looks confused.

“You asked me to sing you a song before. And I do have a song for you. We dance to it a little while I sing, and then you can go.”

“Joey, I—”

I softly squeeze her hand, changing my grip, and I put the other one on her waist.

I start humming gently while swaying back and forth in small movements with her.

“This is my family’s language. They say it’s the most musical tongue in existence. The song’s title roughly translates to ‘my magical girl.’”

When I open my mouth, an upbeat tempo comes out of it with lyrics that she cannot understand. It’s happy but mellow, sweet, and musical.

I can feel her body relax against mine and her ear on my chest, listening to my lungs thrumming, my heart beating so strongly I’m afraid of hurting her.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers while her tears wet my stained shirt.

I laugh, going off-beat for a second.

My body rocks back and forth as if taken by a current coming from the depths of the ocean. We move together, not knowing where our bodies end and begin, melded together.

As I get to the chorus, I finally grant her wish.

For some reason, I don’t even need to focus. It just comes out of me as the most natural thing in the world. I have never felt so in sync with my magic.

Two huge orbs start circling us, each almost as tall as her, painting a diagonal orbit and shedding smaller motes of light in their path.

With another deep breath, tens of smaller lights appear above us, recreating a desert sky at night. They are not all the same size, and they pulse with different intensities.

She looks up and sideways with her mouth open and her eyes not crying anymore.

Around us, the floor sprouts with roses of all colors, wild and beautiful – not as beautiful as my Lucinda, of course. I have no idea where those come from. But I’m not going to spoil the mood.

If I ever dreamt of love, this is what I should have remembered.

Suddenly, my [Lights] start changing color; they shine on us with ever-changing colors, almost impossible to grasp.

Once again, not me.

She giggles while looking star-struck around us.

“Lucinda, I—”

I stop singing for a second, the words coming out of my mouth on their own.

She seizes my head and plants a kiss on my lips.

We keep rocking as we share a kiss that goes through my body stronger than any thunder.

Then, as suddenly as it started, it ended.

She looks at me with longing and whispers.

“I’m sorry,” and for a second, my heart plunges. But then.

She kisses me again.

…

“How is this going to work?” we are both on the ground after dancing and kissing for almost an hour. She’s sitting on my lap and keeps caressing my face, almost scared I might somehow disappear.

“You are in charge. I have a little bakery here, nothing else. Whenever you want, I’ll be there. If you want me to, I can follow you on your journey and make all the food you need.”

She giggles sweetly while a blonde lock ends up in my mouth.

“Puh, puh,” I try to spit out the golden threads.

“I don’t know, Joey. Let’s—let’s see what happens, ok?”

“As I said, you are in charge, Officer,” I wink mischievously.

“That’s for sure,” she says while giving me a peck on the nose.

After some more cuddles, she shyly bids her goodbye to me.

I look at her walking figure with a stupid grin on my face.

Man, look at that—

“Kids,” I hear a hearty laugh behind my back. “It’s good to be young.”

I almost jump out of my skin and turn to find Stan on the top of the stairs and the huge dog right beside him.

The old man waves at me and then goes up.

Huh.

That’s where the roses and the colors came from.

Maybe I should be concerned because…

I yawn.

Man, that’s a problem for morning Joey. Night Joey has done his thing.

See ya’ in the morning, Joey.