Child of Destiny

……

After arriving at their destination, Arthur led Shin and Leonard to the most famous seafood restaurant in Ace City.

Shin thought that it was supposed to be a fancy and high-class restaurant, but he found out that he was entirely wrong when they arrived.

The restaurant was far from fancy. It was not from a huge and luxurious building nor had an expensive-looking establishment. Instead, it was an ancient-looking, traditional house with bamboo walls and a nipa roof. Though, the establishment itself was pretty large and had three floors including the ground floor.

The location of the restaurant was also quite isolated from the main city too and a little closer to the fort city of the Corner Stone City. And with such a clear area, the upper floors of the restaurant had a good overlooking view where they could see the sea from afar. It was just a pity that it was already dark, so it was impossible to enjoy that view right now.

But despite all of that, there were a lot of people gathered around and heading toward it. The flow of people coming in and out of the entrance was quite large. They were from a different variety of people. Regardless of their social statuses, these people clearly enjoyed the food of this place.

This constant number of customers indicated that the business was bursting.

“Not bad,” commented Shin as he entered the seafood restaurant. And when he saw the interior of the place, he could not help but repeatedly nod his head. “This is a good place. No wonder everyone likes it.”

The inside of the restaurant was pretty simple but it was very clean. The tables and chairs were also made of bamboo and other wooden materials. There were also a couple of wooden sculptures at the corners together with some bonsai trees.

Shin looked at the busy people eating at the respective tables. Some of them did not care about their surroundings and minded their own business while there were others who were chatting and laughing as they eat.

There were also the busy waiters running around, taking orders left and right, and assisting the other customers who were arriving and leaving.

Shin liked the atmosphere a lot as it was giving him a light-hearted and easy-going feeling.

“The first floor is open for everyone. Most of the people here are from different social statuses. This is also where the ‘common’ people are mostly gathered,” explained Arthur before pointing at an isolated passage from another entrance of the restaurant. “That one leads to the second and third floors.”

“You know that not everyone like this kind of busy and noisy atmosphere. The second floor is for the ones who like to eat in silence but had a similar arrangement as this floor. The third floor, on the other hand, is mostly for people with ‘high’ social status and too prideful to eat with others or for people who want to eat in privacy. That floor is filled with different rooms with isolation barriers cast on them.”

Shin raised his brows when he heard that. “Seems like the third floor is for VIPs.”

Hearing that, Arthur shook his head. “Nah! That floor also has a variety of people with different social statuses. It just has a more private place for customers who don’t want to eat with other people around.”

“The VIP rooms are at the back of this place. They have a separate building,” he added before looking around.

After that, he quickly asked. “So, where do you want to eat? Anywhere is fine by me.”

Shin did not hesitate when he heard that and answered. “Let’s go with this floor. I like this atmosphere a lot.”

“So do I!” said Arthur as he snapped with his fingers. “Let’s go look for a table.”

There was no need to ask Leonard as this guy was fine with anything. He was someone with a humble background, to begin with, and grew up in the streets. He was just lucky enough to have wealthy brothers. Even though he also had quite some money now from the games that he played, he was still thankful for these two since they were the ones who changed his and his sister’s lives.

He followed the two silently while looking around.

“Excuse me, can we have a table for three?” asked Arthur after arriving at the counter.

The person on the counter was a young girl who was around the same age as the trio. She was quite stressed at the moment since the number of customers right now exceeded the normal times. It was naturally a good thing but also very exhausting. She was barely able to catch her breath due to the constant flow of customers.

She was about to reply to Arthur just like how she responded the everyone but was suddenly stunned when she raised her head. Her mind seemed to have turned black when she saw the trio standing in front of the counter.

They were such eye candies and with different flavors at that. They were all good-looking but had different temperaments from one another. One resembled a prince charming that could only be seen in fairy tales while the other one looked like a handsome bad boy that could strangely make the heart of any girl flutter. Then there was a mysterious guy who could arouse the curiosity of anyone, making them become attracted to and interested in him unknowingly.

She tried to open her mouth to accommodate them but found it hard to force out the words that she wanted to say. She could only stare blankly at the sight in front of her and dumbly maintain that expression with her mouth agape.

Arthur was not paying attention to her as he was already sweeping his gaze around, looking for a good spot they could take. But when he heard nothing from the counter even after a couple of minutes, he could not help but turn his head back to her. It was at that moment that he saw the expression that she was making while staring absentmindedly at them.

He could not help but chuckle a little when he saw that. He was already used to this kind of situation since it already happened to them quite a lot of times when the three of them were together.

He knocked on the wooden table of the counter before waving his hand in front of the girl’s face while saying. “Hello? A table for three please.”

It was only at that moment that the girl snapped out of her daze and turned to the side, dodging the eyes of Arthur, embarrassed. She waited until the redness of her face subdued before turning back to Arthur with a forced smile. “Please wait for a moment, sir. We will prepare it for you.” 𝑏𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙.𝘰𝑟𝑔

Arthur slightly nodded his head and added. “If it is possible, please let us have a table beside a widow.”

The girl was able to calm herself down at this point and responded. “Note, sir. You can sit there while waiting for your turn,” while pointing at the rows of bamboo chairs in a corner near the counter.

Arthur thanked the girl once again before leading Leonard and Shin toward the rows of chairs.

At this point, Shin felt something strange and cautiously swept his gaze at the surroundings. He did not know why, but he was feeling a little restless. His intuition was telling him that something was going to happen, though he was unable to pinpoint what exactly it was.

He was also not entirely sure if it was directed to him or other people since he could not locate their sources and the malicious feeling was not exactly directed to him – or at least for now.

He quickly informed Leonard and Arthur about it so that the two would be ready any time if something really happened. It was better to be prepared than be caught off-guard, especially with the current state of his body.

Having that in mind, he quickly circulated his Mental Energy within his body and used some healing Mentalism Techniques to hasten the healing process of his internal injuries so that he would be ready to get in action anytime.

Professor Henry and Luvenia Potter to let his wounds heal naturally since it would be beneficial for his body in a long run. But he did not have a choice but to heal it with his mentalism techniques since it will get much worse if he fought in his current state.

Even though he was not sure if they were really the targets, he would not hurt to be always ready in this kind of situation.

“D*mn! How are we going to enjoy the feast if we have to worry about them? Should we inform Uncle Nathan about it? We can relax and eat while leaving the rest to his people,” said Arthur in a very annoyed tone.

Shin gave him a strange look before replying in a whispering voice. “I already send a message to Uncle Nathan. His people will be arriving here in a couple of minutes. They are already been on standby since the previous incident with Cloe, so they are able to quickly respond this time.”

“For now, we have to act normally, so that we will not alert the other side. We will catch them this time,” he added as he sat casually on the seat prepared for the waiting customers.

Following him as an example, the two also took their seat and started chatting about random topics in disguise. They might be acting leisurely on the outside, but they were actually fully on guard on the inside and patiently waiting for the right opportunity.

They had already done this in the past during the special assignments given to them by the Springfield Family, so they were able to act properly without alerting the opposing side. And when the situation called for it, they would spring into action without any hesitation.

……