Red was not sure what he was expecting when it came to his new floor boss, but what he had received was far more intimidating. The being that stood in front of him looked like a cross between a lion and an orc, and worst of all the being of her namesake. That vile creature that existed in this world and Earth.

  New Minion unlocked! Leomog!

  Apparently she was a Leomog from what the notification said, but Red had never encountered the species in his previous lives on this world. She stood at an intimidating eight feet tall, the ceiling of the restaurant's main room not being high enough for her to stand comfortably. She had a thick build, her arms and legs like tree-trunks with their muscled thickness. The white tunic she wore was neatly tucked into her pants, which seemed to be some kind of burlap dyed a dark enough blue to almost be black.

  Red noted that she was curvy in a particular way, which made him wonder if she had been a mother in her previous life. Her figure suggested someone who had bared children and bounced back with a strict workout regimen that did not entirely remove some of the midriff fat. The original description of the boss in contract was that she was someone who had been beastly to management in life, and this was her punishment. Though Red wasn’t sure if that was flavor text or not.

  Red’s eyes rested for a moment on the ruff of fur around her neck, the glossy brown hair looking like a lions mane, though it notably did not connect to or match the color of the light brown hair on her head. Which was a finely brushed bob that framed her scowling face. Her skin was a reddish brown color, similar to a football or perhaps more of an Auburn? Red wasn’t the type to study color names, just picked what he wanted and paint. She had very sharp features, pronounced cheekbones and a very clear jawline. Red had gotten so used to being surrounded by the immaculate smooth fairies of the first floor that he couldn’t help appreciate a more rigid appearance, not that she was any less beautiful than Lotus.

  “Well? Are you going to say something or just float there?” She snapped at him, her mouth full of dagger-like fangs. The canines in her mouth were massive, how they didn’t constantly poke out of her lips must have been a genetic trait. She was glaring at him with her grey-blue eyes, waiting for a response.

  “R-right! Sorry about that, just appreciating how good looking of a new boss I have!” Red said with a nervous smile, his customer service instincts kicking in and telling him to try and make sure she didn’t explode at him. He had a feeling she could turn the entire second floor into a war zone if she wanted to do so.

  “Hmph… at least i got a dungeon core with good eyesight.” She scoffed before finally pulling her gaze from Red and looking around the main restaurant space. The room was still basic wood without any real features to speak of aside from the chair that Red had summoned for Ka’ron to sit in when she appeared. A chair that Red made disappear since it would be destroyed if the boss tried to sit in it.

  “You really summoned me before getting anything done? This doesn’t look like any kind of establishment I would be caught dead in. Let alone found alive.” She asked with a feline growl at the back of her throat that gave the deep characteristic rumble of a lion.

  “Well, i was working on it, but some other things came up with the first floor and some of the individuals who were working.” Red explained, beginning to open his menus and begin to change things around. The room was quickly shifted to be about 2200 square feet, or approximately 733 ‘squares’, the unit of measurement that dungeons seemed to use. Then the walls adjusted to where the windows that wrapped around the exterior of the building now covered the majority, with the exception of where he was going to put the counter and the entrance into the kitchen and staff zones. He also raised the roof to account for the height of more vertically gifted people.

  “That’s more like it!” Ka’ron said with approval, giving a smile that looked like she was expecting to cut ruby steaks from his side. She walked around the space, making note to walk over to the window and look out at the parking lot floating in the void. She seemed unimpressed with what should have been an absolute marvel to behold.

  “Just gotta give me the chance, and I can impress.” Red said with a smile as he opened the theme menu, knowing that there were particular themes that could be applied to rooms for the sake of saving him the cost of making every individual item. He, of course, for the expanded space selected ‘Eating Area’, before the entire room shifted.

  Tables grew from the floor before disconnecting the four-pronged metallic legs. Chairs came up to meet the underside of the table in the same fashion as cushioned booths lined the walls, with the backs ending just below the windows so as not to obstruct the view. The cushions were a light purple color somewhere between lavender and periwinkle. The booth tables extended from the floor in metallic poles, the divots where the tables could be pulled from appeared after the bases were fully formed.

  After the furniture had formed all the little things that Red loved about a diner began to appear. The metal napkin holders were full of papery brown napkins that would need to be pulled out by the half dozen just to clean up any spill. The little plastic salt and pepper shakers sitting as a little pair together, and of course, the bottles of ketchup that were always just above half-full. The fullness of the ketchup varied from table to table, but no one should be without it as long as they didn’t use an obscene amount.

  At the front of the diner, a small podium appeared so that a member of staff could take people from the entrance. It was not the fanciest thing, and instead of having a register or POS system, it simply had a metal box that the common coin currency of the world would get dropped into. On the bright side, it seemed that the box was fused to the podium, so if anyone wanted to steal it they would need to take the entire four-foot solid oak obelisk to do so.

  The last thing to shape was the bar, a long bar that could sit at least sixteen on the cushy barstools appeared with a clean metallic shine. The materials found on the tables appeared on the counter as well, allowing anyone to use them at their discretion for their meals. It seemed that there was a place for anyone and everyone to sit here at the bar.

  “Where everybody knows your name.” Red hummed softly as he checked to make sure that there were utensils, cups, plates, smaller cleaning items, and of course any discount diner’s best friend. A nice and heavy wooden bat that would be quickly used to bludgeon any misbehaving guest.

  Ka’ron lifted the portion of the counter that was on a hinge and walked behind it, looking around at all of the things Red had created. “This is pretty fancy for a diner, you sure you’re not trying to make a grand restaurant?” She joked as she gingerly picked up one of the forks between her claws. She looked it over before bringing the fork to her mouth and beginning to pick between her teeth with the metal tines.

  “What? This is what a diner is supposed to be like! Cheap metal counter, booths that have the tables too close to the seating, and aren’t bolted to the floor so they move with every gesture a guest makes. It’s not the best, but it’s never supposed to be. It’s just got to be a place for someone to be able to come in, have a coffee or food and leave.” Red said with a warmth like he was talking about some holy place. Ka’ron raised a brow, but didn’t say anything as Red described the place with such a deference to it.

  “So uh… you really like diners?” She asked as she began to look through the cupboards and things behind the counter to make sure that everything had spawned. As manager she had been given a full mental list of everything that was inside of her diner. Partly because she had the ability to use almost any item as a weapon.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “What’s not to like about them? They are the cornerstone of humanity in the modern age!” Red said with a smile as he threw his arms out at his exclamation. “Everywhere you go, you have to be civil, calm, relaxed, and without any bit of personality. You go to a diner that’s twenty-four hours and you have a hot meal and a warm drink, no matter what’s going on in your life. You could be in the back booth bawling your eyes out as you grieve the loss of a loved one without any judgement. Fuming at a table and sawing through a steak with all the hate you have in your heart for the bastard that wronged you. Where I come from, a diner is a place where you never put expectations on other people because everyone is there for a bit of food and humanity. It doesn’t matter if a brawl breaks out, if the workers have to get into a fight with a customer. We are more human here than anywhere else, because we are just emotional beasts eating the bare minimum of what can be defined as food.” Red said with a smile as he looked through the whole diner and found that it was this snapshot of a place that mattered to him. It felt nice to have this connection to Earth, this small little window into what was once his passion. “Well… I ain’t human so I can’t really argue one way or another on that.” Ka’ron shrugged before she set the baseball bat back beneath the counter. “Anyway, am I getting my staff today or do I get the luxury of just sitting around in a restaurant eating area for the whole day while I wait for more rooms to be made?” She asked as she looked at him, figuring that she needed to set her boundaries on this. She didn’t want to live at work. “Uh… well the build team should be coming through some time today since the requests are pending. I could work on your staff, but I’d prefer to wait until the rooms are here. I… also have to deal with something in the parking lot.” He muttered, not sure how he was even going to approach that one in the first place.

  “Well? Which is it going to be?”