The next day, Eli headed towards Della Tavern right after dinner around seven.
Della Tavern was really close to Hutton Park, which was just some distance away from Eli's place and very convenient to watch the troublemakers pestering their parents as he passed by.
Della Tavern was right at the center while Hutton Park was at the edge, which didn't make any sense as a kid from the park could easily stumble on Della Tavern if he went further towards the center. Then he would be like: "Mom, I want to play over there," and Mom would be like: "It's um… the government house, off-limits."
"Della Tavern is not small by any stretch of the imagination. It is probably the third largest bar within a few blocks' stretch. It's only seven pm, and the bar is already packed," Eli thought to himself.
When he walked into the bar, he found out that Medulla Fenburg had told him the truth. There was no ear-deafening bass nor scantily clad girls in the bar.
This was a bar for relaxing and meeting up with friends, not for picking up random girls. Like Medulla Fenburg had told Eli, many customers were either Academy students or university students, which should be why the government didn't close Della Tavern, but still, it wasn't absolute.
Eli nodded approvingly, and then he stopped a waitress that walked past her: "Excuse me; I am the cousin of Medulla Fenburg. She told me to come here to look for her."
He told the girl exactly what Medulla Fenburg had told him to say. The waitress was a beautiful girl in her early twenties. Eli wagered that she was a student from the college working part-time at the bar. Surprise flashed across her face, and she said: "You are Sister Medulla's cousin? Hmm… Academy uniform… Are you still in Academy High?"
"Everyone calls me Zaha, but you can call me Sister Zaha. I will take you to your cousin."
"Zaha, what's going on?" A young man with a pale face and a pair of sunken eyes came over to the girl and asked hotly. Strangely, he was wearing a green Elite suit.
"Did he steal them? How much can Della Tavern make? I see no big shot molesting a fifteen-year-old… This is indeed… interesting," Eli thought.
"Ah? Boss Amsten!" Zaha was startled by the young man, and she hurried a reply, "This is Sister Medulla's cousin. He is here for her."
"Well, take him to her then, don't dawdle! The customers are waiting," Boss Amsten refuted annoyedly.
"Yes." Zaha lowered her head and replied.
After Boss Amsten was gone, she spat out her tongue and said to Eli mischievously: "Boss Amsten is the vice manager of our bar. We heard that he knows some important people in the city and he owns a significant portion of the bar's share. Don't let him scare you; he just likes to bark at people."
Zaha leaned forward and whispered in Eli's ear, which made all the Academy students and some university students, both boys and girls, envious because Eli was a muscular stud. Perhaps due to being a fatty before, all that show changed him; his fats tightened so much he looked huge, and with the red hair that was glowing in the low lights. Eli had been really lazy recently, so his hair grew like a storm. Though packed in a ponytail, it was covering all his front head, and his blue eyes complemented them. Zaha wasn't bad herself, with blonde messy curly hair in a longer than a buzz cut and a slim waist and assets that shouldn't be on someone with a slim waist. She was also from southern Mombinza. She was pale, not like Boss Amsten, which was a clear indication of a neglected illness, but just like Van Halen.
Eli smiled and didn't speak. He reckoned that the girl had to be a very easy-going person to stomach a douchebag boss.
When Eli arrived at the general manager's office on the second floor, a broad smile broke over Medulla Fenburg's face. Greetings over, she asked Zaha to take Eli downstairs and introduce him to everyone.
Later, Eli learned that he was going to be the Fruit Boy, and his job was simple: holding the platter of fruits when the customers ordered their food.
"There are three people in our bar who you don't want to mess with. Medulla Fenburg is one, and the other one is Boss Amsten," Zaha told Eli. "Rumor has it that Brother Bonteng is backing Boss Amsten. He is very influential around here, and even Medulla Fenburg has to watch what she says when Brother Bonteng is around."
"The last one is the 'resident-girl' of our bar, 'Ding-Ding.' To make her come work for us, Medulla Fenburg had nearly begged her. She ranked 20th in last year's pageant show in the Somali District. She attracts many customers and is good for business. But Ding-Ding has a very short temper and blames us for minor mistakes. You need to be very careful around her; literally all models have a short temper."
Eli nodded.
The business of the bar was dictated by the students' schedule, and therefore, people started to fill up the bar right around seven in the evening. That was when Eli started to get busy.
Just as Sister Zaha had warned him, Boss Amsten was very rude to his subordinates, including Eli, and he molested some of the girls who could be his younger daughter away from the public eye, but Eli was stalking the beast. Eli was scolded many times for being slightly slow on his first day of work. Eli also found out that Boss Amsten basically harassed the girls working with him, pinching or groping the girls whenever he wished every time he passed by, which occurred more than 50 times and always away from the public eye, basically an expert with eyes behind his back.
"How can Medulla Fenburg allow this kind of scumbag to work in her bar?" Eli furrowed his brows, but he had kept his complaints unspoken. After all, he barely knew Medulla Fenburg.
In the few days that followed, Eli went to school during the day and worked at the Della Tavern in the evening. It wasn't long before he started to gather a group of new friends around him.
Most of the workers at the bar were students living in the Lakeside community. All of them were from poor families outside of the city. Driven by financial stress, they had come to Della Tavern to work. Eli preferred spending time with his friends at the bar much more than his spoiled rich classmates. At least no one looked down on him while he was with his new friends, but most of the girls always tried to flirt with him, always gripping his hands between their chests or being too close for him to perceive their perfume mixed with body scent. Eli didn't act shy, but he also did not lead them on. He basically acted dumb by men's standards for someone who's pure with a beauty rush.
Since Eli was the youngest worker at the bar and he was also Medulla Fenburg's cousin, other employees looked after him like they would their own brother. But Boss Amsten didn't like that.
Boss Amsten, just like Eli was stalking him, was also stalking the handsome stud. Seeing how those young girls were throwing themselves at him to be basically devoured and Eli being indifferent made his stomach turn. At first, he acted politely and asked for it, but they all refused. He was under the protection of Brother Bonteng, for goodness sake. So he started feeling them forcefully. That's what a good boss should do when the worker you are chartering says "No," but he was not good enough. Every time Eli could spot him through the mirror or the glasses of the beauty rubbing herself on him.
"Hurry up, Kid Eli! Didn't you see that the customer at table seven is getting impatient?" Seeing Eli and a waitress chatting with each other, Boss Amsten frowned and then chided the waitress. She was hot and from an influential High family called the Billikis but was thrown out when she fell in love with a pauper who later ditched her. The family killed the pauper and made it look like he vanished in a violent sandstorm. Every time she walks home at night swaying those deadly hips, she leaves a blood trail. Boss Amsten, even under the protection of Brother Bonteng, could not forcefully pinch her sensitive spot and grope her, because Brother Bonteng is just one of the Handraisers for the High-class family Targaden. From previous records, they will not stupidly throw hands with another High-class family for a penny. Boss Amsten could only dream fantasies about his dream girl but couldn't touch her. But that sloth was throwing herself on this kid. Of course, Boss Amsten thinks he is bigger than Eli, but he's straight-up delusional and can't even make a girl moan or last 30 minutes. So seeing Eli with that hottie just steeled his resolve to dispose of this youngster.
"Okay," Eli replied thinly.
"Come keep going forward, Kid Eli. You are one step away from the Heaven's Gate."
In this bar, Boss Amsten was no doubt the most hated and annoying person.
The waitress gave Eli a placating look. Eli got up reluctantly and walked to table seven with a pint of dark beer.
Suddenly, he heard a surprised voice calling out to him: "Eli?"
Eli turned around and saw a group of young boys and girls sitting in a booth. One of them was Milliette Visoki, who he hadn't seen for a while.
"Why are you here?" Milliette Visoki gazed at Eli as she got up from her seat and came up to him.
"Who is this, Molly? A friend of yours?" A man with silver-rimmed glasses asked. He looked much more mature than the rest of the crowd, and his voice was warm and charming.
A light flashed in Milliette Visoki's eyes as she wrenched her gaze away from Eli's face. She replied, "He is the child of my mother's best friend, and we study at the same Academy High."
The man nodded and said, "My name is Machine Billy Danielle. Since you are friends with Molly, why don't you come join us here?"
"There is no need," Eli refused.
"I am working; you guys have fun." Eli nodded slightly to Milliette Visoki, and then he turned around and started up the stairs.
"Hey, wait for a second!"
Milliette Visoki paused for a second, letting the hesitation hang in the air. But eventually, she came up to Eli.
"Machine Artillery seems like there is more than what meets the eye between the two," a burly young man standing right next to Machine Billy Danielle said in a deep voice
Jill Hill was the leader of the Sports Interest Group at the Student's Council. Like most other people who sat in the booth, Jill Hill was a student leader and a powerful level 4 earth ability user.
They were here for a group party. Milliette Visoki didn't want to come at first, but she couldn't resist the insistent request of her fellow student leaders. However, she never thought that she would meet Eli here.
"He is just a worker at the bar; there is no way Molly would fall for him," a beautiful girl with heavy makeup next to Jill Hill said with a contemptuous smirk.Obviously, a pauper made rich by hanging around big boys.
"Why would she know someone of his kind? Could it be that they met at the nightclub?" the same girl said as she glanced at Machine Billy Danielle.
She was the leader of the arts interest group, and her name was Purple Flame. She obviously changed her real name. She was a level 4 pyrokinesis ability user with a stunning but less harmful purple flame. She had always liked Machine Artillery and considered Milliette Visoki as her biggest rival. She wouldn't pass up the opportunity to smear her opponent's reputation.
Machine Billy Danielle's face remained placid, but doubt and jealousy flickered in his eyes.
Milliette Visoki caught up with Eli at the bottom of the stairs, and she grabbed his arm. "Why are you working in a bar? Does my mom know about it? What about the Academy?"
Eli looked at her with a half-smile. "You knew my grades. Do you think that I could get into a first-tier university even if I tried?"
Eli, from a genius Academy student, suddenly stopped taking his tests seriously but writing just enough to get a D+. Every Academy Teacher thought he was having trouble adapting since the young man was a pauper he should be ignored.
Milliette Visoki was suddenly out of words.
"Plus, I am only here for two hours a night. If I can't get into a good university, I need to prepare myself for society," Eli said.
Even as Eli was talking to her, Milliette Visoki heard her friends calling out her name.
Eli pulled her hand away and said: "Your friends are looking for you. I have to work."
Eli turned around and started away, leaving Milliette Visoki at a loss. She was not sure what to make of this discovery.
Eli owned a lot of millions on a Deluxe card: 999,000,000 credits. That's enough to turn any man insane. Eli currently had accessible funds comparable to a high-class family's lifetime savings.
Eli's Net worth »»»»» 50 years High-class family savings✓.
Why did the old man give him such credits?
Her friend's voice finally caught her attention. As she looked back, she saw Machine Billy Danielle was also standing on the landing, looking at her. She turned around and hurried upstairs.
When Milliette Visoki reached the second floor, she looked up at everyone and found that no one was smiling. Even Machine Billy Danielle's face was cold and disapproving. She managed a smile and then said, "Well, let's forget about him, and party!"
"Yeah, why should we let a random dude stop our fun?" Jill Hill slapped the table, which made a hand imprint, the ceiling shook and dust fell off. It was obvious he was angry and irritated. "Come here, hot stuff. Let's have a toast in the name of Brother Machine Artillery! No one other than Brother Machine Artillery could have landed our council that five hundred thousand Credits sponsorship fund."
"Very well. Thank you, Danielle!" Milliette Visoki grabbed the glass and poured its contents down her throat. Only Milliette Visoki could call Machine Billy Danielle by his last name, and for some reason, it made him feel pleased.
However, even as the hot wine burnt all the way to her belly, she heaved a deep sigh in her mind.
'Perhaps, we truly live in two different worlds.'