After hearing Tess's heartfelt words, only one thought crossed Wayne's mind:
Oh, for goodness' sake...
Although he wasn't the type of man to be particularly obsessed with "moe" culture before he crossed over, looking at the textbook-example of a cute little girl before him, he couldn't suppress a surge of soft-hearted affection. Who wouldn't melt or soften up seeing this? Probably only a person with a heart of cold stone.
"Fine then. You'll have to work for me, though it shouldn't be too exhausting. And I'll pay you wages... enough to support yourself."
Tess nodded happily.
Wayne added, "But you'll have to sleep here in the net cafe at night. I'll prepare bedding and covers for you. My room is right next door." He pointed as he spoke. "If anything happens at night, just call me anytime."
Tess continued to nod with happy sincerity.
He led her to the blacksmith shop on the other side. His old friends Andrew and the Steelie siblings had actually heard about what happened in the early hours of the morning, but they listened as Wayne introduced her again.
For the three of them, having such a well-behaved and cute presence added to their busy and monotonous lives was a delight—especially since they didn't have to pay for the girl's upkeep.
There was more good news: Wayne decided to give his three old colleagues a raise, increasing their monthly pay from 50 silver to 5 gold. As for Tess, her monthly salary was set at 2 gold. Her duties during the day while Wayne played games included: greeting customers, handling payments and bookkeeping, showing customers to their stations, bringing them cold colas and popcorn, cleaning the cafe after closing hours, and finally, picking up takeout for Wayne from the Lion's Pride Inn.
Given that the net cafe currently only had seven seats—one of which was permanently occupied by Wayne—Tess's workload was truly not heavy. A monthly salary of 2 gold was definitely considered high pay.
Faced with Wayne's proactive raise, Andrew and the Steelie siblings didn't refuse, but they didn't seem overly excited either. The elderly Andrew even flashed a nonchalant smile, which surprised Wayne a bit. However, he didn't ask why; he simply mentioned that if they needed any errands run, they could ask Tess for help, and then he returned to the cafe.
Before leaving, he also asked Andrew to build him a simple wooden counter and a set of bells to hang on the door.
During the short ten-meter walk back from the blacksmith shop to the cafe entrance, Wayne glanced toward the Lion's Pride Inn.
By a window on the first floor, Lyria, who was currently teaching a novice warrior how to utilize Rage, cast her gaze toward him through the glass.
Their eyes met. Lyria shook her head slightly, while Wayne gave a small nod. No further communication took place.
Back at the net cafe, the clock had already struck noon. Wayne explained the five rules of the cafe and the set prices to Tess. He also handed her a ledger and a pen, telling her to record every single transaction.
Tess was incredibly bright; she understood everything instantly and learned the tasks on the first try. If he didn't need her to watch the shop, Wayne would have even wanted to pull her in to play the game with him.
Rainier was already there waiting for him.
8 gold was the fee for the gaming session, and the remaining 1 gold was for cold cola and popcorn.
Once Wayne taught Tess how to serve, she opened the refrigerator and the warmer, delivering the cold colas and popcorn to each of them one by one.
"Delicious! This is dozens of times better than Southshore Brandy!"
Hicks added, "Don't even mention that low-quality, sour-tasting wine. Even Dwarven Stout is far inferior to this!"
Hudson remarked, "The shape of this plastic bottle is interesting too. I really wonder how Old Mil brewed this."
Verdan asked, "Can you get drunk on this stuff?"
Wayne had already entered the game and was organizing the items in his bag, preparing to take Rainier on a few runs to farm high-level monsters like the Silver Rathalos and Red Khezu. He wanted to help him craft a set of high-tier gear as quickly as possible so they could challenge the Lao-Shan Lung, which would unlock the Black Dragon quest.
Hearing the quartet's discussion, Wayne remarked, "Look at the ingredient list on the bottle. There's no alcohol, so how could you get drunk?"
An ingredient list? It was the first time they had heard of such a thing.
Everyone, including Rainier, was stunned. They immediately picked up the cola bottles beside them and indeed found an ingredient list on the packaging. Even the curious Tess leaned in, whispering the words as she read:
"Ingredients: Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Food Additives (Carbon Dioxide, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Caffeine), Edible Flavoring."
Interestingly, except for "Water," they recognized every individual character, but they had no idea what the combined terms meant.
The group glanced at Wayne. Seeing his mysterious expression and unwillingness to elaborate, they figured it was a strictly guarded secret recipe and stopped asking.
After a chorus of belches, the satisfied group focused intently on the game, seemingly determined to make up for the days they had missed.
On Wayne's end, he explained the increased strength and necessary precautions for subspecies like the Silver Rathalos and Red Khezu as they traversed the map.
When the battle truly began, Rainier's gear was still stuck at the Yian Kut-Ku stage, meaning he couldn't deal much damage to high-level monsters and would likely be one-shotted and carted back to camp if hit by a heavy blow. However, his combat techniques once again made Wayne feel excited.
As an extremely rare defense warrior who held dual blades, carried no shield, and used various strange taunts to draw the monster's attention, Rainier's ability to evade attacks and seize counter-attack windows was incredibly strong.
For example, when the Silver Rathalos performed its lunging dive: instead of Wayne's safer method of dodging horizontally and circling to the tail, Rainier would run straight toward the dragon. He would slide under a wing on one side to evade while simultaneously striking with his blades—hitting whatever he could reach, whether it was the claws or the wings.
The greatest benefit of doing this was combining the dragon's forward momentum with the speed of his own frontal slide. The combined forces doubled the impact, creating very obvious wounds on the monster.
Besides this, his strict military discipline also left Wayne deeply impressed.
Since Wayne was clearly the more professional and powerful one in the game, Rainier naturally followed Wayne's commands for every action.
The random behavior of high-level boss monsters increased significantly. Often, in a split second, Wayne would suddenly issue a command, and Rainier would provide the fastest feedback in the shortest possible time.
For instance, the moment the Silver Rathalos flapped its wings to fly and enter its hovering fireball mode, Wayne would tell him to throw a Flash Bomb. Rainier—despite this being only his second time playing Monster Hunter G—would skillfully reach for the Flash Bomb hanging from his belt, pull the pin, and hurl it at the dragon's head simultaneously.
Occasionally, in the heat of the moment, he would even throw it without pulling the pin first...
With Rainier's highly efficient support, Wayne, wielding a Greatsword, maximized his damage output.
Wayne calculated the time; it seemed that before the net cafe closed today, the two of them would have a chance to witness the Black Dragon.