Lin Ye was not one to take a loss.
Even if he were to suffer a loss, it would have to be one he took willingly. But this time, the behavior of the dining room's chef and waiters clearly hadn't reached a level he was willing to swallow.
What was this dining room worth, and what were the chef and waiters worth on top of that?
If it were a beautiful Strange like Miyuki, he wouldn't necessarily mind taking a loss—but this burly brute and his several uniformed waiters? He had absolutely no intention of taking a loss for them.
Most importantly,
this dining room had actually set its sights on his body, wanting to treat him as fresh ingredients.
What kind of joke was this.
It had always been the case that only he ate others; there was no logic by which someone else could eat him and treat him as an ingredient.
And so,
Lin Ye decided that he absolutely had to make the dining room pay a price—a heavy, grievous price.
"Your woman has already left, already returned to the world that belongs to you two. Rest assured, we would never break our agreement."
Never break it?
What a joke that was.
Forcibly twisting ten Strange Coins into twenty Strange Coins—if that wasn't breaking the agreement, then what was?
But Lin Ye had no interest in squabbling with this chef over such things.
"Now, we need you to take a deep breath, relax your mind, don't be tense, don't worry. It'll be quick. Given that you're acting of your own free will, I'll bring the knife down fast—so fast you won't feel any pain at all."
The chef licked his lips, his eyes bursting with greedy desire.
Meanwhile, the other waiters retreated and spread out the distance as if out of habit, and at the same time, their hands gripped mops, rags, and other cleaning implements.
Their practiced movements and postures looked exactly as though they'd done this countless times before.
'Shhk…'
This time,
the chef even wiped his cleaver, yet the bloodstains on the blade hardly diminished at all.
"Come on, close your eyes, it'll be quick."
Lin Ye gave a calm smile. "You probably won't succeed."
"Oh! You intend to resist?"
The chef wasn't surprised, though.
For the other party to dare stay behind, he surely had some confidence to back it up. Given that the man possessed Strange Coins, the chef guessed he was a Strange Player with a certain degree of strength.
But that certain degree of strength was utterly useless against the dining room's rules.
Under the restrictions of the dining room's rules, no matter how ferocious the man was, there was no way he could resist them.
"Resist? What resisting?"
Lin Ye's rhetorical tone grew ever sharper. "When did I ever need to resist?"
He raised his hand and abruptly slapped the table beside him.
'Clang-clang-clang…'
A crisp ringing echoed out.
"Check, please."
The chef froze,
and the waiters were astonished.
But Strange Coins, one after another, appeared on the tabletop.
Ten of them, not one more, not one less.
"Stra… Strange Coins…"
There were more?
"No, those are the Strange Coins from before,"
But the chef immediately looked over, and saw that the Strange Coins in the waiter's hands hadn't decreased in the slightest.
In other words,
this man had possessed twenty Strange Coins from the very start.
Earlier he had merely feigned having no Strange Coins in order to let that woman leave one step ahead.
In that instant the chef understood,
and the other waiters likewise came to understand Lin Ye's purpose one after another.
This human player was out of the ordinary—an entirely different concept from the ordinary humans and players they'd encountered before.
"That's twenty Strange Coins in total, the bill is settled. Well then, goodbye."
Of course Lin Ye had no intention of leaving; he simply wanted to provoke a reaction from the dining room's staff.
He wanted to see how the chef, the waiters, and the rest would respond next.
'Tap, tap…'
Lin Ye took two steps,
"Wait,"
A shout to stop him came from behind once again.
"Guest, you cannot leave yet."
One waiter said.
"Reason."
Lin Ye glanced over out of the corner of his eye, his expression calm.
"You have not yet settled the bill."
"Oh? Those ten Strange Coins from just now still aren't enough? You're raising the price again?"
Lin Ye's words now carried a faint trace of mockery.
If they could raise it once, they could raise it a second time, and after that a third, fourth, fifth, sixth time.
Sooner or later there'd be a figure he couldn't afford.
Only, when the dining room staff repeatedly broke the rules, they too would lose the protection of the rules. Lin Ye didn't know the dining room's specific rules, but he also knew that these rules guaranteed a certain degree of fairness.
When the dining room staff broke the rules multiple times, it also meant they would no longer be protected by the rules.
"This establishment does not engage in raising prices,"
"Oh!"
"Then what is it?"
"Guest, you have not yet paid. Your ten Strange Coins have not been settled."
Lin Ye discovered that the Strange Coins on the dining table had vanished without a trace—he very nearly believed that he really hadn't paid the Strange Coins after all.
The chef and the other dining room staff had already braced themselves for Lin Ye to make a scene.
As long as he made a scene, they'd have their opportunity.
That was their method.
"Looks like I really did forget,"
Lin Ye took a glance with his perspective and had already confirmed who the Strange Coins were on—but that wasn't important.
What mattered was that he had enough Strange Coins.
"My memory's been a bit poor lately,"
The chef and the waiters wore looks of astonishment.
The next second, they saw more Strange Coins appear in Lin Ye's hand.
Another ten.
Just how many Strange Coins did this player have in his hands!?
Had Strange Coins become some cheap, mass-produced commodity? Could any random person just possess dozens of them?
Judging by Lin Ye's reaction as he produced the Strange Coins,
these thirty Strange Coins seemed like nothing of value at all, no different from ordinary coins.
One of the waiters grew faintly worried.
The quantity of Strange Coins one held could, in a subtle way, reflect the strength of the player holding them.
Generally speaking, the more Strange Coins a player held, the stronger they were.
Obtaining Strange Coins was not such a simple matter.
Using them to gauge a player's strength was entirely viable.
"Keep them safe, don't go losing them,"
Tossing down ten Strange Coins, Lin Ye turned and walked off again.
In his mind he counted down.
Three,
two,
one,
"Guest, please wait."
Another waiter spoke up,
"What is it."
"You still haven't…"
'Bang…'
In that instant,
Lin Ye strode forward with Brisk Walking, gathering power in his right hand and abruptly exploding it forth, slamming a fist square into the forehead of that waiter two meters away.
'Thud…'
The waiter went down, and with a 'clang-clang-clang' Strange Coins tumbled out.
"So my Strange Coins are right here,"
In that moment, the whole place went silent. The burly chef froze, never having imagined that Lin Ye would erupt.
They had been trying all along to apply pressure—maximum pressure,
but this backlash came far too fast.
"I want to file a complaint: a dining room waiter stole my money."
"Guest, we…"
Lin Ye struck like lightning, his fist once again slamming into another waiter's jaw with a speed too swift to cover one's ears.
'Bang…'
The waiter collapsed, and once more Strange Coins, one after another, tumbled out.
"How will the dining room deal with these two waiters who stole a guest's money?"
Lin Ye swept his gaze around.
Make a move, or not dare to make a move?
Now, the difficult problem had been tossed over to the dining room's staff.
Lin Ye had by now roughly grasped the dining room's rules.
Under normal circumstances, the guest and the staff held equal status, with the staff holding a slight edge.
But once one side committed an act that violated the rules of their own role—
for instance, if he ate without paying, or wasted food and the like—the dining room staff would gain greater power, while his own power might be restricted. In short, the staff could establish an absolute advantage over him as a guest.
This advantage, unless he was very strong, made it very hard to resolve things against the staff through violent combat.
But in the situation where the staff broke the rules, and he discovered it and called out the accusation, then as a guest he would hold the advantage and the initiative.
The power attached to the staff would vanish.
He could then attack at will.
What Lin Ye wanted to know now was whether he could also pin the other staff members to the ground and rain down fists—especially that chef—just as he had beaten down these two waiters!?
Lin Ye still wasn't entirely certain.
This Strange Mission had no explicitly stated rules; he could only rely on his own exploration and analysis.
Lin Ye chose to advance steadily and surely, gathering as much information as possible to make a more accurate judgment.
The two waiters were not lightly injured; Lin Ye had, you could say, used the greater part of his strength, holding nothing back at all.
But by all accounts—according to Lin Ye's expectations—the waiters shouldn't have still failed to climb back up by now, still letting out pained, wailing groans.
So that was it.
Lin Ye understood.
The rules no longer protected the two waiters who had violated them, and had further weakened their own overall capabilities, causing the single round of his blows to inflict even more damage.
"You won't deal with it? I'm going to file a complaint against you all…"
Lin Ye's eyes swept over them, and he had just made the motion of raising his hand and clenching his fist,
when it immediately frightened the remaining waiters into hurriedly speaking up: "We'll deal with it, we'll deal with it! We will absolutely deal with it, we guarantee we'll handle it properly and to your satisfaction, Guest."
Two waiters supported the waiter lying on the ground and immediately headed toward the dining room's back room.
Lin Ye didn't stop them either,
and the remaining waiter bent down to pick up the Strange Coins on the floor one by one.
Soon, he had gathered up all the Strange Coins and came to Lin Ye's side. "Guest, your Strange Coins, twenty in total,"
"That's short,"
"..."
In that moment,
the waiter's pressure mounted,
and the chef, too, sensed that Lin Ye was a hard one to deal with.
This fellow was different from past players.
Previous players, restricted by the dining room's rules, could only obediently submit to their arrangements,
but this one had precisely located the dining room's hidden rules and, from the very start, had never been bound by the dining room's rules.
Taking him down, obtaining his body—the difficulty was simply too high.
In that moment the chef couldn't help feeling a measure of retreat creep in.
Better to just let him leave!
Forget it, forget it.
Just give up on it—as much as this body made his mouth water, giving up really was the better choice before it got someone killed.
If this went on any longer, they'd likely face even greater losses.
"Guest, today your dining fee is entirely waived."
The chef spoke up,
"Oh? You have the authority to make that call?"
He'd felt all along that there was something off about this chef's identity.
"I do. I am the head chef of this dining room."
Head chef?
"This dining room is special. With the manager absent at present, as the head chef I can make the decisions."
The burly chef smiled, but that smile of his truly gave one no sense of safety whatsoever.
The manager was absent?
Lin Ye couldn't help reading into it.
Was the manager truly absent, or had they been eliminated on humanitarian grounds?
Lin Ye looked all around, and even used his perspective, but didn't discover any particular person or matter.
A moment later,
the perspective ended, and Lin Ye rubbed his eyes to ease the soreness in them.
"A full waiver still isn't enough,"
Lin Ye said,
"You stole twenty of my Strange Coins—you must produce tenfold compensation."
The chef: ???
Tenfold.
Two hundred Strange Coins.
You're practically robbing us!
"This establishment doesn't have that many Strange Coins."
"Poor,"
Lin Ye said without the slightest courtesy,
making the corners of the several staff members' mouths twitch.
They realized this human male's attitude toward them was now completely different. Compared to the start, the current him was simply provoking them again and again, trying to make them do something rash.
The chef caught onto this point and abruptly realized that this fellow had already guessed at a portion of the dining room's rules, and had even begun attempting to use the rules.
Shock.
Meticulous in his observation, and most importantly, bold.
Ordinary players were all cautious and careful, deathly afraid of touching something they shouldn't, and even more afraid to act recklessly toward staff like them—every word and deed handled with utmost care.
This one before them was something else: after already beating down two people, he was still continuously provoking and pressuring them, searching for more opportunities.
People really are different from one another.
The chef sighed inwardly.
"You can't even cough up two hundred Strange Coins—what kind of dining room are you even running? Don't bother, just hurry up and close down for good!"
凸(艹皿艹)
The chef and the waiters nearly couldn't hold it together.
"Guest, please don't think two hundred Strange Coins is a small sum—this is already an enormous fortune,"
he reminded.
"It's an enormous fortune because you can't cough it up,"
Lin Ye continued his cold mockery.
"Guest, we…"
"Don't explain. The more you explain, the more you cover up how poor your dining room is—can't even produce two hundred Strange Coins."
The chef was provoked. "Guest, you, who can't produce two hundred Strange Coins either, have no right to say that."
"I'll be able to produce them in the future."
Lin Ye said with full confidence.
"Heh heh, that's a matter for the future too. When you can produce two hundred Strange Coins in the future, then come talk about our dining room being poor,"
"Oh!"
Lin Ye looked toward the chef.
Hypnosis superpower, activate.
Before this, he had also covertly used Hypnosis a few times, but the effect hadn't been good.
Making the chef perform certain actions had conflicted with the dining room's rules, resulting in his purpose not being achieved.
And so,
this time Lin Ye attempted to induce him,
using Hypnosis at the appropriate moment to make everything reasonable.
It remained to be seen whether, under such circumstances, he could smoothly bypass the rule restrictions and obtain the rules' approval.
"If I can produce two hundred Strange Coins in the future, will you sell me this dining room? Do you dare?"
"I dare. What's there not to dare?"
The inducement succeeded.
But whether it would take effect was another matter.
Did the words of this head chef carry any effect?
It was all still unknown.
Lin Ye then made a move.
'Clatter, clatter…'
Strange Coins, one after another, tumbled to the floor, giving off crisp ringing sounds.
The continuous, unceasing clatter left the chef and the waiters stunned stiff.
Strange Coins.
So many Strange Coins.
This man… had he robbed a bank!?
Otherwise, how could he possibly have so many Strange Coins!?
Shock.
All that was left was shock.
...
...
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉