Holy shit…
The scale of this challenge is way better than I expected… The venue that they booked was huge…
This is the kind of venue where you would go to watch so really popular idol at so major concert… And even then, this place was bigger than any concert venue I knew of back in my universe…
I guess now that things are on a galactic scale, such a size was probably considered normal here. But knowing that this place was sold out was also insane…
The place was octagonal in shape with the stage leading out from one of the sides and ending in the centre of the octagon in an inverted T shape.
They had already set up two different bar counters with the back facing each other which Valiea and I would occupy once the challenge starts.
From what I understand, the people who paid for the standing tickets would be our 'judges', just like what happened when I challenged Valiea the first ti.
Apparently, just to get the ticket to get the right to stand here would cost a person over ten thousand Credits and yet that didn't dissuade people from purchasing it.
I shuddered a little when the scale of this challenge finally dawned on .
I was going to be appearing in front of at least several hundreds of thousands of people live and probably several billion more online.
This was a number that I never thought I would even deal with in any situation at all yet here I am…
"Nervous?" A voice ca from behind.
I turned to see Valiea standing there with a smile on her face.
I nodded, "I didn't realise that this challenge would have this big of an audience. I thought we would just be doing the sa thing as last ti where we would do this back in your bar."
"You have my husband to thank for that. He's the one who knows how to make a show. Without him, I doubt we would be as popular as we currently are."
"Right…"
Currently, we were the only ones that were standing inside the venue aside from the workers that were still busy setting things up and making sure everything was where they should be.
Oh, Ragbar's there too, the guy busy directing the workers while coordinating with the venue owners on setting things up.
I guess he also has experience in events managent as well?
I was already wearing my mask so I didn't need to worry about them realising the true identity of Valiea's opponent while my girls were also waiting with the crowd outside to join in as one of the 'judges'.
Valiea looked out at the currently empty seats that would most definitely be filled later, "You don't need to think about it that much. Just imagine that you are back at your ship and you're simply making the drinks for your crew. I do that everyti and everything around just fades to black so the only thing in my vision is the bar and the bottles."
"Should I remind you that I'm not a professional bartender or even a professional chef for that matter?"
She turned back to smirk at , "Could have fooled . And yet here I am, participating in this challenge despite the fact that I know for sure that I will lose."
"I wouldn't be that sure yet… Who knows? I might just ss up or maybe the crowd might have a different opinion just like last ti."
"Tera please, there's a limit to humility where it becos arrogance by itself. Unless you're telling that you aren't even aware of your own talents?"
I huffed at her, "Hey, first of all, I'm self taught. And the primary people who I use my cooking skills for are my girls so it's not like I have a good fra of reference to begin with."
I an… I'm still making those condints for Tyle back at Denibi station but since those are just condints, they don't count.
And I'm pretty sure that this was all because of the perks I had chosen during my character creation so most of it was not due to my own skill and just so external thing that was affecting . I wasn't going to get arrogant over a skill that I didn't even earn myself to begin with.
Who knows? Maybe one day, the perks lose their effect and then everything that I have cos crashing down so I wouldn't want to rely too much on it.
Valiea shrugged, "Fair enough. Although I've already prepared myself for this loss, but that doesn't an I'm not going to do my best anyway. Besides, this is going to be good publicity for us."
"Don't the people in second place usually don't get much attention?"
She crossed all four of her arms in front of her chest, "Normally yes, but it's not like you are opening up your own bar anyti soon right? Since these people can't find you, they will have to settle for the second best, which happens to be . Anyway, my husband knows what he's doing and I trust him "
Well… It's not like I know about how people would think so I can't say anything in regards to this anyway.
"Anyway, what are you doing out here?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at the four ard bartender.
"Just checking things out like you. This isn't sothing we do daily after all so even I feel a little worried that things might go wrong."
"What? You're scared that there might be troublemakers or sothing?"
"Did you forget, Miss Tera? Not too long ago so people were even sent to try and kill us."
I grimaced, "Point proven… How long before this starts?"
She took out her personal terminal, "In about two more hours. The entrance will open in half an hour so this place will be flooded soon. There are so other bars who are taking this opportunity to advertise themselves so we're letting them handle the introduction of the show first to get things going before we finally show up."
"So sothing like a pre-show or sothing?"
She nodded, "That's right, so we still have a few hours before we need to show up so you can just go ahead and relax. Ah… Actually, maybe don't relax too much because I think there might be people who might try to take your life."
I stared at her.
She scratched her cheek with one of her hands, "Yeah… I guess this is a little late to tell you but… Now that you are in this industry, you'll need to watch your backs for jealous competitors who would resort to violence to take you out…"
"And you didn't think about warning us about this ahead of ti?"
"Honestly… It's because we were already so used to them that we didn't even think about it… Sorry…"
I shrugged, "Whatever, this is only for today isn't it? Since they wouldn't know my real face anyway. I guess this wouldn't change anything."
She gave a reassuring smile, "Don't worry, we spent quite a bit on security so there shouldn't be any problems. We also moved so of our bouncer androids here as well so they would also raise an alarm the mont any problems co up."
Hmm… While I wouldn't be able to carry my shotgun with , I do have my pistol so I wasn't completely defenceless in case a fight does happen…
Of course, the best case scenario would be that nothing happens, but after that previous job with Deviminio, I'm not expecting nothing to happen.
Actually… If I think about it… Even if sothing happens, I wouldn't really be disadvantaged anyway so what am I worried about?
At most I would just need to kill my attacker and that's the end of my problems.
Compared to that, needing to bartend in front of the crowd seems to be a more daunting task for …
Valiea gave a look, "Please don't sabotage the event just to get out of this… If you really don't want to go ahead with this, just let us know… Please…"
Her voice actually sounded desperate at the end.
I waved at her, "Don't worry, the girls had also been looking forward to this so I won't do anything like that."
They even prepared so kind of congratulatory gift as well but I decided not to tell her that… And I'm also really glad I managed to divert their attention away from it last night.
"Anyway, I guess we should go backstage now? It seems like they might be starting soon," I suggested.
She waved at , "You can go ahead, Miss Tera, I'll wait for my husband."
If she says so.
I turned and walked through the doors that led to the backstage, following the signs that led to the waiting room.
When I got there, I found soone crouching outside my waiting room… Placing a really suspicious box at my door.
…
…
My guy, is that a bomb?
User Comments
0 comments from readers