“Say that again?” the Goblin asks with wide eyes.

“My only condition for you to work with me is that you hire Claudius for this job. I want him on the enchanting. Is that a problem?”

“We don’t just hire anyone, Human,” the Goblin is clearly tired after having haggled with Stan about a bunch of stuff I couldn’t care less about. “I have a professional team of [Builders], [Enchanters], [Masons], and so on. To make it on my team, you have to be the best of the best. And I’m not sure what your standards for magic are, Luciani, but mine are pretty high.”

You know, I shouldn’t.

I really shouldn’t.

This is like ‘villain makes a stupid bet, and the protagonist slaps him in the face with his greatness but then creates ripples and problems of every kind for himself because people start noticing him’ 101. But it’s also true this guy just insulted my magic and Claudius.

“Bring me your [Enchanters], then,” I laugh, “the one who can make the first three Cantrips as perfectly as possible wins. If I win, you take Claudius. If you win, I’ll pay you double. Stanimal, could we afford that?” I ask my man.

He nods and winks.

Man, I love Stanimal so much.

Lakaris is now wary.

“I know you are a Gold-rank,” the [Architect] says, “but my [Enchanters] are over level 40, young man. They are both over fifty years old, and they have extensive experience and insights on magic that you can’t possibly match. Are you sure you want to be humiliated?”

“Oh, someone’s scared,” I mock. “What do you say, if one of your [Enchanters] can do one Cantrip better than me, whatever Cantrip they choose, I’ll pay you four times your rate. If I win, you take Claudius and one-fourth of time to work.”

“I’ll even fork the cost of the basic materials myself if a stupid young Human can do that,” Lakaris snarls.

See, I’m not a competitive baker. It’s not who I am. I’m sure there are many people like that out there, but I prefer to relax. However, when you dismiss my friends and me just because, you need to be taught a lesson, don’t you?

“Call them up,” I wink and click my tongue.

I have no doubts that these people know magic much better than me, but I’m positive I could give an [Archmage] a run for their money if we played it on Cantrips. I have spent so long polishing these stupid things. And the more you do, the more the previous ones get better.

Now I can do the color trick that Stan used the night I—yeah, that night.

Oof, it still hurts a bit, doesn’t it? It stings. And it stinks too.

The [Architect] fumbles with his belt before taking out a stone and saying something to it. There’s some kind of a [Silence] spell while he uses it because I can’t hear a word even though he’s right in front of me.

“They are on their way,” Lakaris says with a smile. There’s some pity for me in his eyes because he thinks I’m delusional.

I get it. I get where he’s coming from.

During my first ‘tours’ in the Dungeon, I met my fair share of overconfident adventurers. As for myself, I’m still exceedingly cautious about my Dungeon diving, even though Stanimal let me keep the artifacts he’d given me. But let’s talk about this at another time.

“Why don’t we order some food while we wait?”

I wave my hand at a [Waiter], and the lad comes to take our orders.

“A steak and some lidulae,” the latter are the eggplants-like veggies.

“The same for me,” the [Architect] says with a hint of tiredness in his voice.

My best guess is that this man believes he just wasted a trip for a senile, old man and a young, arrogant idiot.

“A mix of your freshest vegetables and fruits,” Stan says. “I’m not feeling very carnivorous today.”

Stanimal is like that. One day he will order a bunch of bloody meat; the next, he’s going vegan. Why? I never asked. I bet you that it has something to do with his class. Goddamn [Druids].

“So, Mr. Lakaris,” I say while chomping down on some snacks that the waiter brought us while we wait for our food, “how come you became an [Architect]?”

I look at the green guy with a lot of interest. His face and overall complexion don’t reflect the common image of a Goblin from my world’s tales. It’s more like a slightly disfigured human. Or maybe it’s Humans who are pinkish Goblins; what about that, huh?

“You don’t know much about my race, do you?” the Goblin is almost completely still when he talks. There are no hand gestures or big movements on his part. It’s weird for me, especially considering my Italian roots.

“Not a thing,” I reply with a huge smile.

I’m genuinely curious. I don’t necessarily want to know that much about this world, but I also don’t feel like missing such a chance.

“Well, Goblins are [Architects], [Designers], and [Engineers] by trade. Since Epretos opened their gates to us, we have done a great deal of work here,” he points at the roof of the restaurant. “Even those architraves lining the roof are typical Goblin architecture. It looks like a simple copy, but it’s a good copy. My people have a lot of respect for Elves, and we’ve worked together for a long time. I would say that apart from the Antidosis, no one is closer to them than ourselves.”

“Antidosis?” I ask with a curious expression.

“They are Humans, Joey,” Stan intercepts my question. “They are the most prominent [Bankers] and [Treasurers] in the world. Even though we don’t allow many banks here, they had invested a lot of gold in us when we were fighting in the Continental Wars. There are some in Amorium, and you’ve even met a couple of them. You remember the Humans who came to me with an investment proposal for the bakery?”

“Oh yeah, those people,” I nod. I don’t really remember that, honestly. But Stanimal scolded me once because I couldn’t recall an important order of business at the bakery. He said I should be more responsible.

Anyway, you know, I’m not a huge fan of history, to be honest. I’m a fan of the kind of history full of made-up facts. You know, like some of ancient history that’s justified with ‘I saw that in a dream’ or ‘yeah, a friend said that, and I just wrote it down in my Historiae.’ That’s the kind of history I enjoy reading. But it seems that they have a lot of stuff here that I don’t know and would love to know more about.

But before I dive deeper into the Elves, I want to discover more about the green fellas.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Lakaris, would you tell me more about Goblins? Whatever fact or story comes to your mind. We can use them to while the time away before our bet comes to fruition.”