“I suggest you buy every single remaining building in this area,” Lakaris sketches the layout of our block with insane speed on a piece of parchment in his hand. “You need this, this, and this building to be razed to the ground. Once you have all of that ready, we can plan for a bakery with both a restaurant and a proper bakery place. You can use the restaurant for adventurers during the day and to favor foot traffic in this zone. I’ll also make towers here, here, and here. Probably add even more. You will need to hire some [Archers] or, even better, [Snipers], and [Marksmen]. They will guarantee security for the civilians at all times. If you speak with the [Mayor], they could even subsidize part of that.”

Man, Lakaris is going full-[Architect] on me. And it sounds super cool.

“You will need to decide how many things you want to deal with. Stan told me you have some fermenting and roasting rooms going on. That will take up space, but we can make it into a tourist attraction if you don’t mind the risk of giving your secrets away. But given that you are in the food industry, it’s a given that people will, at some point, start copying you. Therefore, making the architecture part of your culinary experience would give you a unique competitive advantage. We can organize tours of the place or do tastings. You could even use it to attract the best [Chefs], [Bakers], and all related classes in the country. If I get permission from the city, I would like to take all this dead space here and turn it into a big park. If we can relocate the civilians living—wait, Stan, are there civilians living here?”

“We bought that place three weeks ago,” Stan says while pointing at the sparse piece of parchment that Lakaris is wielding.

“Did you? How much money can a bakery even make? Anyway, that makes it easier. I have no idea how you didn’t have families protesting being relocated, but that’s good. We can make the lodgings with a communal area in mind; a place meant to swap advice, trade secrets and bring different classes together. All in all, we could have a small citadel inside the city proper that would attract tourists, talent, and lots of clients. The materials needed for such a construction, unless you also want to make it into a fortress, won’t be too expensive. But that’s relative to the average construction I make. It will still be something that you will not be able to afford. You better go to the bank and check your credit for a loan.”

Stan waves a hand, dismissing such advice.

“The Royal Palace will foot the bill, with zero interest and unlimited time to return the money. The coffers are fuller than I imagined. That brat better not be stingy with me.”

Lakaris looks at Stan and the implications of his words. Then, he just resumes talking. You don’t question a man who can drop names like ‘the Royal Palace’ like that and call a person, most likely the king himself, a ‘brat.’ In fact, Lakaris seems to enjoy not having a limit on the expenditure.

“Well, then we can settle to have magical enchantments of any kind. It’s going to take a while before we finish everything. But the main part should be good to go in a couple of months. I would say it will take two months before you can use the place again. I need to call in more crews to demolish the place, lay down magical foundations, and so on. Can you afford not working for two months?”

“Yes. We will temporarily visit the Nine Towers Academy since Joey has some work to do. You have five weeks before we depart to arrange everything. I want a list of all the materials you think you need, the sketches, and the blueprints, Lakaris. Plus, we need to decide what all of this will be. We’ll leave the details to you, but I bet Joey wants to have a say in it.”

Stan and Lakaris are talking about this stuff with such fervor that even I get infected by their mood.

“Oh, we should have a romantic lounge for lovers! And we need to invent a holiday when only couples get in! St. Valentine’s but in a magical world! HO! That’s going to be a blast!”

As I’m on the verge of losing myself in the sea of ideas that I’m brewing, we finally approach the biggest pet store in the city.

“Do you have any pets, Master Lakaris?” I ask while looking at the huge logo outside the building.

There’s a massive wolf carved into the wood with a small bird on its head. Just below the wolf, it reads, “Augustus’s Friends.”

Seeing that name reminds me that I’ll need to talk with the other Augustus at the Nine Towers Academy. I didn’t get to meet him again before he had to go back. I know he’s close to Lucinda, but the man wasn’t half bad. It’s going to be awkward, though, isn’t it?

“Animals are mostly afraid of Goblins. Few of my kind keep them as companions,” the [Architect] answered my previous question.

“Why are they afraid?”

“We eat them, usually. All of them,” Master Lakaris replies with a toothy smile. For the first time, I notice how most of his teeth are pointy and very sharp, perfect for ripping meat off bones.

“Understandable,” I say with a shrug.

I’m no hardcore animal-rights freak. If the green men want to eat their cats, let them. There’s a region in Italy where they eat cats, even if they don’t publicly admit it.

Now, while I cross the entrance to Augustus’s Friends, I start thinking about which cat I’d rather have with me.