Demon World Boba Shop: A Cozy Fantasy Novel

The next day was deliciously normal. Arthur woke up in his real bed, complete with a real mattress provided by a specialty sewing class who made bed-things. It was in the demon style, which meant it was thin and firm instead of thick and fluffy. Arthur had hardly noticed the process of getting used to them. It happened when he was still getting used to his new world in general. He remembered thinking they were different on the first night, then got right back to freaking out about bigger considerations.

Now that he had more time to pay attention to such things, he realized that his new mattress was much superior to anything he had ever slept on during his time on Earth. Like with most things he owned, some sort of system-influence was in play, changing the products in subtle ways that weren’t always easy to pick up on. The mattress-maker probably could have told him, but he already knew the most relevant bits. He fell asleep faster, slept harder, and woke up better than he should have.

Arthur twisted the blankets a bit closer to his body as he listened to the sounds of the morning starting up around him. The blankets were every bit as good as the mattress, with the added bonus of actually being fluffy and soft. When the mattresser had asked Arthur his preferences, he had said to make it seem like he was sleeping under a giant, warm cloud.

The mattresser had smiled at him, said that was possible, and delivered it perfectly.

Arthur was warm, comfortable, and in one of those series of magical waking-up-great moments where just stretching out his legs under the covers felt incredible. It was amazing, not just because of the bed but also because of his stat-juiced, custom-made offworlder body. There were never any joint aches or sore muscles. Everything just functioned and worked like a well-oiled machine. It was rare that he stopped and appreciated how well his body worked, but this morning was an exception to a lot of rules.

The best part of the whole thing was that Arthur had time. As a tea maker, he had gotten used to waking up early, and his wide-ranging list of self-imposed extra responsibilities meant he had started getting up even earlier than that. Now that those responsibilities had been stripped of him because of Mizu’s threats, which ranged from cancelling dates to reinstating her traditional greetings, he had time. Lots of it. He could probably lay there for an hour if he wanted and not miss a bit of the morning rush.

Arthur decided to do just that. He laid there stationary for one full hour, soaking in the comfort of everything the Demon World had to offer and letting all his muscles fully relax. Then he got up and took a hot shower courtesy of his magic water-heating element, put on the most comfortable outfit he owned from a closet full of majicka-enhanced clothes, and slipped his feet into shoes that made walking a joy. Even his stroll through the gentle morning sun to his shop was relaxing.

His skills had been growing. These days, skills like Teashop Brewmaster came equipped with extra little descriptors, making it more clear what they actually did now that they reached what most people thought of as near-full maturity.

Teashop Brewmaster (Boba Specialty)

You make tea to make people happy. This skill helps with that, in various ways.

When someone tastes a sip of your tea, it comes with an infusion of the majicka of the Demon World and carries your own conceptions of what tea should be like. The water takes on new, complex qualities that massage complex flavors out of your ingredients. When you measure leaves, your hands are guided to the perfect proportions. When you mix tea components together, the various tastes they impart work together better, allowing the lead actors to stand out and enhancing the effect of the supporting cast.

In every facet of the preparation process, your intuition and physical interaction with the process are fine-tuned to create the finest products possible. Every single cup or glass of tea you produce is close to the best you can make, and further enhanced by the best assistance the system can provide, depending on the ambient majicka in an area.

Given that the ambient majicka in Coldbrook was so rich that it had literally poisoned Arthur, the assistance the system could give him was sort of a lot. These days, it was possible for him to go on autopilot and make as much conventional, non-medicinal tea as needed without so much as a strained muscle. He wasn’t doing that today though. No, today was going to be a very active day indeed.

Of course, not every element of the process had to be. Good prep work would give him more time throughout his workday to do fancier tea-moves. so he got started on the more boring, less majicka-intense steps of the process.

The first was filling up his giant kettle and setting it to boil, which was easy enough. Measuring out his projected use of tea leaves and leaving them to acclimate and breath on the counter was next. And then came preparing the boba for the day from his dried pearl-stock, something that was getting to be an easier and easier task, once again courtesy of the growth of a skill.

Mass Prep (Skill)

You have planned out how to make a food item for a huge number of people, then followed through on that plan by focusing down on one particular component.

When preparing ingredients in advance, every bit of ingredient produced makes the next bit a little faster and easier to make. Effects dissipate once you stop a particular work session.

This achievement-based buff has now advanced to a full skill, courtesy of sustained use in your tea-preparation routine. As a result, it has gained new capabilities.

Your ability to create large quantities of supplies is further enhanced, and works even better when you pursue that task using complex machinery designed to help you do your work faster.

The ingredients you prepare using this skill also retain their freshness longer, are more shelf-stable, and contribute more majicka enhancement to the end product than would otherwise be the case.

Focused, active efforts on the ingredients for a single, bespoke cup of tea will still yield better results than mass-prepared ingredients, but only by a small margin. But most of your projects will benefit from at least some of the steps being prepared in mass.

Arthur could make all the boba he needed for half of his workday in one swoop. Once he got a big tub of it prepared, he could leave it covered and scoop it out as needed with no discernible loss of quality. The same went for the tea, if to a lesser extent. He could brew up a lot of leaves every half hour or so, and portion out the tea as needed.

But despite how far Arthur had come, it was undeniable that his growth had slowed down. He had always been told it was coming, but for a while he had defied expectations so consistently he had begun to think he was immune to it. He wasn’t. Even with a few more generic achievements under his belt granting him extra class experience, he hadn’t moved very much forward in terms of levels since Milo and Rhodia’s wedding.

Arthur Teamaster

Level 26

Stats:

STR 10

VIT 10

DEX 10

PER 24

WIS 34

INT 5

Primary Skills: Teashop Brewmaster (Level 21) Food Scientist (Level 20) Medicinal Brewer (Level 20) Empathic Host (Level 20) Comfort Baking (Level 15), Mass Prep (Level 11)

Achievements: Shop Owner, Buffer Against the wave, Whole-Body Health, I Ate the Works, Impromptu Leader, Founder, Bad Allergies

His skills seemed to be settling out around level twenty, which was apparently a natural bottleneck. After twenty, skill levels came even slower and less consistently. Some of his harder-to-level skills were lagging behind that, and only his main class skill had broken through to twenty-one.

It was plenty. At least it was more than normal, according to nearly everyone’s reaction who had seen his status sheet. And Arthur had never felt hamstrung by his levels. Even when he was a lowly level one tea-person, he had no shortage of people who were glad to enjoy his product.

As his first customer of the day made their way to the counter, Arthur was just finishing all his prep and sweeping for the day. The customer was someone he knew, a rare, actual bear demon. There weren’t as many of them as he thought, given how popular The Bear had been. The legendary demon had taken one wife, and over the course of the generations his bloodline had spread, but there were still less demons made in his image than other kinds.

This particular bear was having a day off, or at least that was Arthur’s best guess for what Empathetic Brewer was giving him.

“Not working today? You look relaxed, Ghuda,” Arthur greeted.

“That’s right.” The big bear beamed beautifully at Arthur. “I finished a big, big project. I thought I’d reward myself.”

“Really? What did you do?” To Arthur’s best recollection, Ghuda was a Turner, a very specific class that worked in making poles of various shapes and sizes. That had seemed oddly specific to Arthur, the kind of class that was a bit too specialized to be useful beyond a narrow range. Milo had set him straight on that account, listing off a dozen ways very straight, strong poles could be used for various weapons and construction projects. If Ghuda was working on a big project, it could be almost anything. “Poles, I’m assuming. But for what?”

“Milo had a bunch of metal rods from the mine, and I did a quick experiment to see what I could do in terms of sharpening them. Then I got to talking with Puka… you know him?”

Puka was a trapper, which was a full dungeoneer support class. Arthur hadn’t ever seen the new demon’s shop, but he was reliably informed by other crafters that it was a confusing, scary place.

“I know him.”

“Well, he bought them from Milo and asked for as many as I could make. Milo only has so much metal, so I got into using Slapstone, then wood, then normal stone. I even had Rhodia work with me to make some out of clay. They didn’t work, but guess what happened after that?”

“New skill?”

Ghuda grinned even wider. “New skill. It’s called Pointy Stick. It buffs poles that are going to be used for traps or weapons, especially if the pole is the weapon, with no other big modifications. So then I reworked all the poles I had made so far, leveled the skill, then reworked them again, and… well, you know how it is.”

“They are pretty good sticks now, I’m assuming?”

“The best. And there are hundreds of them, with more to come. Puka and I are planning a major project to completely trap the approach to the town’s entrance. It won’t stop the wave, but it will make the approach to the town much, much harder on the monsters,” Ghuda said proudly.

“That’s great!” Arthur liked this idea a lot. Anything that trimmed down the monster wave without putting his people in danger was an absolute positive in his book. “How far along are you?”

“Well, not that far yet. We sort of wanted town approval before we got started. Especially if we loop in Milo, which we want to.”

“Ah.” Arthur kept forgetting he was the mayor. “Yes, please do. I’ll clear it with the town council later, but this is the kind of thing everyone wants. We’ll find the money. In fact, give me a receipt for everything you’ve spent so far. We pay for research and development on accepted projects now.”

Ghuda’s eyes went wide. That last part of reimbursements was new, something Arthur had thought up to encourage people to take bigger risks with their dreams. He had been trying to figure out a great way to announce it, but now he probably didn’t need to. Ghuda wasn’t a quiet person. He’d get the word out.

“That’s amazing. Thank you, Arthur. I’m going to get started right now,” Ghuda said as he stood up.

“No, you aren’t,” Arthur said. “Because it’s your day off, remember? I have a day-off drink for you right here. You can’t waste it.”

Ghuda slapped himself softly on the forehead as he sprinkled some coins on the counter. “That’s right. I almost forgot. Yes, please.”

Arthur took the minimum, non-tip payment and slid the rest of the coins back.

“No tips when we discuss town business. It’s appreciated, but just get me some other time. I want to keep those channels well and clear of each other.”