Chapter 322 - 244: The Advancing Girl (Part 2)

Chapter 322: Chapter 244: The Advancing Girl (Part 2)

"I want to learn from you."

"Hahaha," the City Lord laughed. He thought his daughter was joking, trying to distract herself from her heartbreak. "What is there to learn from me?"

"I want to become a respectable noble."

"You already are."

"I want to learn how to govern a city."

Seeing that Grace wasn’t joking, the City Lord’s expression turned serious.

He had agonized over the matter of his successor for a long time.

He had one son and one daughter. His son was a lost cause—a typical rich heir, several generations removed, who did nothing but eat, drink, and play. Despite arranging for all sorts of renowned tutors, nothing could be taught to him.

According to his son, "My ancestors already worked hard, so why should I have to? Wouldn’t that mean their hard work was for nothing?"

Fortunately, his son was just a run-of-the-mill hedonist. He was only interested in pleasure, and pleasure alone wouldn’t be enough to bankrupt the family.

His daughter, on the other hand, had always been uninterested in succeeding him, viewing it as a burden.

But now, things were looking up.

Grace had grown up.

’As expected of my daughter.’

’What a good thing this heartbreak is,’ the City Lord thought, starting to feel a little grateful to Peter. He would thank that brat for one second, and then go back to hating him the next.

"This is no easy job."

"I know," Grace replied resolutely.

"Perfect. I have a proposal here for a Tiefling job fair. Do you think it should be approved?" the City Lord said, picking up Old Mike’s proposal.

He wanted to see what Grace’s foundations were like.

Grace took the document and skimmed through it.

She knew about this job fair. It had been mentioned in *Beyond Reach*. The Tiefling caregiver had gotten a new job through this very event.

’So this project hasn’t actually started in the city yet.’

After a moment of thought, Grace ventured an answer. "I think it should be approved. Providing legal work for the Tieflings can only benefit Twin Tower City. It would both reduce the number of criminals and add a great deal of labor."

"But what about public opinion? Most of the city’s residents detest Tieflings."

"Their opinions are starting to change."

That included Grace herself. Before walking into the Magic Cinema, she had also detested Tieflings. Less than two hours later, she felt that there were admirable individuals among them.

And when Peter gave it a good review, she had also seen other comments online. Quite a few people had changed their minds.

"The Zog Group will definitely continue to push for improving the Tieflings’ image."

They had done similar things many times before. In the past, the name Zog only brought disaster to mind.

Now, Zog represents toys, Shadow of Evil, and games.

And then there’s Zor. The name Zor used to be synonymous with bandits. Now, in everyone’s mind, Zor are a bunch of characters who beat drums, play instruments, and sing with strange hairstyles.

"I believe they will succeed. The earlier we become their supporters, before they achieve complete success, the greater our contribution will be throughout this whole affair, and the greater our returns will be in the end."

After listening to Grace’s statement, the City Lord nodded. For a sixteen-year-old girl, her answer was quite good.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than his son, who only knew how to drink, play ball, street race, and chase after actresses from theater troupes.

’How gratifying.’ He thanked Peter again, just for a second.

————————

Zog Group Headquarters.

Elsa was preparing to give her report.

Zog was researching how to make "Baby Toast."

Or at least, that’s what he thought it was called.

Zog’s office had always been an all-in-one space for work, gaming, movie-watching, and cooking.

What it was used for depended entirely on his mood.

"Baby Toast" was a food from *Teletubbies*. When Zog was little, watching it on TV made his mouth water.

The only other thing that made him crave food so badly was dorayaki.

But he had no idea how to make dorayaki. "Baby Toast," however, seemed replicable.

Judging by the name, it should be similar to a piece of toast.

So, he cut a slice of bread into a circle and used a fireproof Magic spell to draw a smiley face on it.

They didn’t have anything like tin foil yet, so he had to make do with Magic for now.

He spread syrup on the remaining part.

He breathed a puff of fire at just the right temperature, caramelizing the syrup.

He examined it. ’Why doesn’t it look like the one I remember seeing?’

Zog suspected it was a translation issue. The toast in *Teletubbies* didn’t look like toast at all; it looked more like a pancake or something.

’I’ll try with a pancake next time.’

Since his replica was a failure, Zog suddenly lost his appetite. But he didn’t want to waste food. What should he do with it?

His gaze fell upon Elsa, who was standing nearby.

Elsa tried to look away, as if Zog wouldn’t notice her as long as she avoided eye contact.

Zog extended a claw, offering the still-warm "Baby Toast" to Elsa.

"Try it!"

"Can I not?" Elsa asked hesitantly, staring at the bizarre, blackened piece of toast with a smiley face on it in her hand.

"Why? Don’t you trust my cooking skills?"

Elsa nodded without hesitation.

"Come on, it’s just a piece of toast. It’s not like it’s going to kill you, is it?"

"A normal person wouldn’t draw on toast with Magic, nor would they cook it with Dragon Breath," Elsa said, gingerly pinching the "Baby Toast" between two fingers. "When you use Dragon Breath, does saliva spray out with it?"

What a peculiar question. Zog was stunned silent.

It took him a moment to react. "Are you crazy? Dragon Breath is Magic! Magic!"

He wasn’t the same oil-guzzling, fire-breathing Dragon he used to be.

"Besides, even if there was saliva, it would have evaporated at that temperature!"

Elsa remained unconvinced.

"You were late this morning. I’m suddenly tempted to dock your pay."

Elsa scarfed it down.

"It’s surprisingly good."

"Would I trick you? It’s caramel and bread. It’d be harder to make it taste bad."

Zog, satisfied, lay back down on his cushion.

"Alright, tell me. What’s the news?"

"The proposal Old Mike submitted to the City Lord has been approved."

"That fast?"

The speed was somewhat unexpected for Zog.

When the City Lord of Twin Tower City handled proposals that were difficult to refuse, he often dragged his feet. Moreover, helping the Tieflings was hardly a surefire profitable venture.

Zog had thought he would need to send someone to negotiate with the City Lord.

"Not only did he approve it," Elsa added, "the City Lord also offered a lot of other support, including helping with the venue setup and issuing a public announcement."

"Fine. Better than nothing."

In truth, Zog didn’t really need this support. An announcement from the City Lord’s Mansion got a fraction of the traffic of his new media channels.

"He also offered to provide meals for the job fair staff in his personal capacity and expressed his hope that his daughter, Miss Grace, could be a volunteer for the event."

"A volunteer?"

Zog had no idea what the City Lord was up to. ’Is he trying to pad his daughter’s resume?’

"Then let’s not make her a volunteer. Since he’s being so cooperative, let’s just make Miss Grace the brand ambassador."

"Uh, brand ambassador?"

Elsa had never heard of the concept.

"It’s a spokesperson for advertising. Basically the same thing. Doesn’t ’ambassador’ sound more high-end? She’s the City Lord’s daughter, after all. ’Doing an ad’ sounds a bit tacky."

Elsa jotted down this new concept in her notebook.

"Next, Old Mike reports that his current small-scale recruitment efforts aren’t showing significant results. The outlook for transitioning Tieflings into new jobs is not optimistic."

Before the large-scale job fair, Old Mike had already begun recruiting with a few of the converted Tieflings he knew.

"The other Tieflings don’t trust Old Mike and believe the Deepwater City construction is a scam. It might be difficult to reach the employment targets we set."

"That’s easy. We’ll just count all the Tieflings who don’t show up as ’flexibly employed.’ That counts as employment, right? Then we’ll hit our target. Duh."

"Huh?" Elsa looked bewildered.

After a moment’s hesitation, she prepared to jot down this new concept of "flexible employment" in her notebook.

"Wait, wait, wait, don’t write that down. I was just joking. Don’t take it seriously," Zog stopped Elsa.

It’s not like he needed to make the numbers look good.

"One last thing. The materials on Devils from the Church have arrived. They’re in the next room."

They went to the next room, where several tall stacks of heavy books were piled up.

Zog stretched his neck. "Alright, time to design some new units for the game."