Sam looked at the elf in front of him as they shook their hands. The young Elf who is also a middle-stage pre-transcendent is a bit different from the rest of the elves he saw in the past few days.
They are all too noble and an air of superiority was around them. He didn't speak to anyone nor did he hear of someone special, but he saw them and their behavior around the town. They don't normally speak to humans, even if they want something it is their subordinates who do everything.
Actually, even Sam looking for a Business administration official for this very reason.
From what Sam observed except for this guy, everyone else doesn't even welcome humans directly. This is what they observed even without trying. And they behave like they owned the place. They had encounters with some elves in their search in the past few days and every time, not a single elf that has come for the inspections of the shops or some other things didn't even open their mouth once.
So, he felt like they wouldn't even bother to listen to him and his friends. Even though this business administration official is in charge of the business approvals, taxes of the merchants that are from the town itself and the merchants that come from other places and stay here temporarily along with the illegal business practices.
This elf doesn't manage the infrastructure and the real estate of the town and he doesn't involve with agriculture and only has jurisdiction regarding the taxes.
But he has connections with other officials which makes the process easier for Sam and the rest.
Sam's confidence on meeting this guy came from two aspects. One of them is that due to their interaction with the merchants that came from out of the town. Everyone praised this officer so much and everyone seemed to be admiring him so much and it turned out that this guy is extremely flexible with the businessmen.
The second aspect is that as long as the business proved to be beneficial to the town and adds merits to his personal record, he would be willing to bend the rules a bit and help out the businessmen a lot.
Since they heard so much about him, they decided to try their luck with him. That is also the reason Sam easily accepted his terms.
He is confident in his business anyway.
"Call me Raunak by the way. What business do you want to open and what kind of support would you need?"
The Elven officer asked Sam.
"I have several ideas, but the most direct one is a food Idea. If you would like to taste the food, I can give you some samples. It can be made with the local produce here. You can taste the samples and see if it is worth it or not. After the first deal is over, we can discuss the cooperation further."
"Further Cooperation? Just how many businesses do you want to dip your hands into?"
"We will see sir. We are pretty ambitious and we have stayed on this planet for long enough. It is about time, we spread our wings a bit and we cannot wait anymore."
"Okay then, my attendant will take you to my spare house in the town. You stay there for now and you can cook there. I will come for lunch tomorrow. You sort out your things for today."
This time all four of them had a puzzled look on their face, but Sam quickly hid it and agreed as if nothing happened.
They left the office and walked to the inn to finish the checkout process and wait for the attendant.
"Sam, don't you think this guy is helping us too much? He is too friendly. Even offering a residence to us? Isn't this too much? I have a bad feeling about this." Philip asked as they walked back.
"Don't worry. I also think there is something fishy about this guy, but all we have to do is wait."
As soon as they stepped out of the administration building, a human entered the office and asked Raunak.
"Sir, why are you offering them such generous help? They are practically strangers that just entered the town."
Raunak still has that smart smile and said.
"Do you think I don't know that? I have been observing them since they came into the town. They are certainly not from any faction I can assure you of that, do you know why? Because before a few days they don't even know of any factions, they literally learned that from one of our merchants.
They are extremely cautious, if it was not for me and anyone else in this place they would have easily made them believe their story."
"Then it is all more reason to be suspicious."
"Yes it is, but why do you think what I did is just help them? If they really have ill intentions by coming to me, then they would make a move, what better way is there for us to guard against them than keeping them right next to us.
Let us see what they are really up to.
Just take them to that residence in the farmer's street and help them if they want something."
"Okay, Sir."
Ten minutes after the conversation is over, Sam is sitting in the inn's room along with his friends as they looked at the video playing in a crystal tablet. The video is of the conversation between the human attendant and Raunak. A shadow mouse is sitting on Sam's shoulder.
Sam has a smile on his face as he looked at his friends.
"Seems like we have underestimated the city a lot. This guy has clearly made us fall into his trap. But too bad he is so desperate and tried to lock us down this quickly. If he has been a little bit patient we could have been led by the string by him for some more time."
"Do you think he is working for some faction?" Jack asked.
"I don't think so. Just remember this, wherever there is 'n' number of factions you should always consider a plan for 'n+1' number of groups because there is always another invisible group that doesn't get involved with any of the factions subconsciously forming a group of their own.
And all they care about is themselves without any form of idealistic and hypocritical bullshit and I believe this guy belongs to that category."
"Why are so sure?"
"It's simple. In both the factions, one group wants to use the other races to promote their own growth and another group wants to put the rest of the races in their place and promote their own growth.
In both cases what the people wouldn't bother with impressing the merchants or creating relationships with them. Even if they did, they would do so with the merchants of noble families not with the merchants of such low grade and status.
There is only one reason for a business administration official to have a good relationship with local merchants and that is to promote the business which would help his own growth as he would get credit due to the revenue he created. And all the growth would only happen individually not for a faction of a community.
It is purely selfish and personal which would only matter when he doesn't belong in both the factions."
"So what are we going to do?"
"Just wait and move according to our initial plan. If I think of this Raunak correctly, then we wouldn't need to worry."
That night the attendant came and led them to the residence. When the attendant offered help, Sam asked him to bring some ingredients which he would need for tomorrow.
His first business is going to be a restaurant. He is going to bring a dish from his world back. He hasn't seen a single grain of rice until he came here and once he tasted this rice and understood the properties along with the properties of the other local ingredients he has the perfect dishes that could easily be sold in this place.
So the attendant bought some rice, crystal sugar, and some other spices that are mostly available in this place.
When Sam looked at the sugar, he couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. The sugar is not while it is brown and yellow. The juice that came from the cane didn't undergo the proper refinement and became like this.
This also confirmed another thing he is looking forward to within this place. The sugar cane is still not ready for harvest yet. It seems like it would take some more time before that. So, if he goes with the plan properly, he could get to the point where he could take advantage of the local produce and get permission to get out of this planet within three months.
The next day he started cooking to find out the proper balance to create a dish from the earth. The Kheer.
Kheer is actually a pretty simple dish if we use normal ingredients that is, but if you use these ingredients with spiritual energy there needs to be a certain balance so that it could achieve Sam's desired effects.
After a few attempts, it succeeded. He replaced the elachi powder with some dried herbs that gave the perfect smell and blend for the dish while the milk is from his own pasture in the divine dimension. He got neutral elemental milk and used it with the rice and sugar to make the kheer.
Sam decided to create the blend of recovery and cultivation energy with this dish and it worked. Since it is also good to taste and most importantly new, the elves and humans would like it.
This place is full of people who don't like the boring routine of the cultivation so this would be a decent gimmick to take the money from them.
Kheer is not actually the money maker of the restaurant as it could be copied easily by others, but this would help him sell the dishes that make the real money out easily.
