"Sorry to interrupt… but this Golden Fried Rice—
is it a new dish from Liyue or something?"
A voice chimed in from a nearby table.
Everyone turned to look.
It was a young man with spiky blond hair and green goggles perched on his head.
He was sitting by himself, half-finished plate of food in front of him.
Sara recognized him immediately.
This was Bennett,
a passionate young adventurer from the Adventurers' Guild.
He was a regular at Good Hunter.
Bright spirit. Terrible luck.
And since it looked like Lumine and Bennett hadn't met yet—
Sara briefly introduced them to each other.
"So you're an adventurer, huh?"
Paimon nodded knowingly, then said mysteriously,
"Golden Fried Rice is a dish that literally glows!"
"A glowing dish?"
Bennett's face was full of surprise.
At first, just hearing the name, he thought it was a new Liyue dish. But this?
As an adventurer—albeit one with a bit of bad luck—he'd been to many places.
But he'd never heard of food that could glow.
Is this little floating thing pulling my leg?
Bennett silently questioned, but then looked at Lumine.
Her serious expression made it clear: she wasn't joking.
Weird.
"That's something Miss Sara received as a reward from Boss Han's manga shop! There's no way it's fake!"
Paimon pouted, clearly unhappy with his doubt.
Lumine and Sara both nodded as well, clearly agreeing with her.
"You're saying... this glowing dish came from a manga store?"
Bennett looked completely lost.
He couldn't wrap his head around the connection between food recipes and a manga shop.
Could the shop owner secretly be a master chef, and Sara just happened to learn it from him?
Wait a second—
Manga shop?
A realization flashed through his mind.
"You're not talking about that shop called 'Solace Book House,' are you? The one with that Digimon manga or something?"
Bennett asked cautiously.
Lately, there'd been a lot of chatter around Mondstadt about that shop.
He'd caught wind of it too.
"You actually know about Boss Han's manga shop?"
Lumine asked curiously.
Then quickly figured it was probably due to Venti's recent promotion efforts.
"Wanna go try it? You just read a manga and get a reward—how cool is that?"
Paimon jumped at the chance to start her enthusiastic pitch.
Sure, she wouldn't get any extra manga out of this…
But maybe she'd score some favor points with Han Feng.
And who knows, it might come in handy later when she tries to sell off Lumine for manga access.
"No way. I heard that place is just a scam."
Once he confirmed it was that place, Bennett refused outright.
Read manga and get rewards? Yeah, right.
If that were true, the Adventurers' Guild would've blown up by now.
He'd never heard of anyone in the guild getting such a reward.
…Well, truth be told, his real reason was simpler: he was broke.
Bennett's missions always ended in disasters, so he was always short on Mora.
He couldn't even afford to read manga.
"There's no way Boss Han would fake something like that!"
Paimon was instantly triggered by the accusation.
To her, Han Feng's manga shop was practically sacred.
Even if a talking robot cat popped out of a manga, she'd believe it without a doubt.
So she decided to prove it with hard evidence.
"Look at this game console I got! It can play all kinds of games. And this camcorder—it records video!"
As she spoke, Paimon pointed to Lumine's feet.
"See that? Those are rollerblades! Have you ever seen anything like this?"
Now that shut Bennett up.
Everything she mentioned was totally foreign to him.
The only thing he vaguely recognized was the camcorder—because he'd heard of something called a "Photo Crystal" before.
But clearly this was far more advanced.
Wait... Could that manga store actually be legit?
Doubt started to loosen its grip as Bennett's thoughts wavered.
"And that's just the normal stuff," Paimon continued proudly.
"There are rewards like cooking techniques—Miss Sara got the Golden Fried Rice recipe, remember?"
"But the most amazing thing is: you can gain real powers from reading manga!"
Seeing that Bennett was faltering, Paimon pressed on with the final blow:
"You remember the giant battle yesterday? The Wind Dragon versus the blue dragon?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
Bennett nodded—everyone in Mondstadt knew about that event.
The Knights had already posted a public notice about it.
"Well, that blue dragon was something Lumine summoned from a manga reward!
Don't believe me? I recorded it on video!"
She floated up and held the camcorder right in front of him.
She hadn't expected that her little videos could come in so handy.
Bennett leaned in to watch.
Sure enough—it showed Lumine summoning a majestic azure dragon, engaging in aerial combat with Stormterror.
"Whoa… You're telling me… that manga store is really that amazing?!"
At this point, Bennett was 80% convinced.
His curiosity about the shop had gone through the roof.
Just then, Paimon delivered the finishing move:
"Jean and Diluc are still at the store right now.
If they're there, you believe it now, don't you?"
She knew those two names would be hard to argue with.
Sure enough—
"What?! Jean and Mister Diluc are there too?"
Bennett nearly leapt from his chair.
Everyone in Mondstadt knew those two.
One was the Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius…
One was the former Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius and now Mondstadt's richest man.
People like that wouldn't casually visit just any manga shop—
Especially one that outsiders might think is a scam.
That left only one possibility:
This manga shop really is special.
The legendary "read manga, get rewards" thing… was actually real!
"If that's true, then I want to check it out too..."
Bennett muttered under his breath.
~~--------------------------------------
To read 65+ future chapters head over to p@treon:
pat reon.com/YonkoSlayer