"Dear young ladies, all four of you, would you prefer a VIP private room or to dine here in the main hall?"
Heat Haze continued asking questions in her decidedly abnormal manner.
"With the amount of traffic this place gets, eating in the main hall wouldn't be any different from a private room, would it?"
As I spoke, I glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Look, it's already lunchtime. This is practically like booking the whole place anyway. Let's just eat here."
"My lady~ The private rooms come with special services available only to VIPs, you know? Are you sure you won't consider taking a look~?"
Heat Haze was still speaking to me in that strained, cutesy voice.
Special services?
Special services provided by her really did...
Interest me a little.
But I couldn't agree that easily. Clearly, business was bad, so she wanted to get us into a private room and charge us an extra service fee.
Although I wasn't exactly short on money, honestly, I didn't want to waste it and get treated like a sucker. If they really needed money, I could just lend them some...
No, wait.
In theory, neither Heat Haze nor Jila should have been short on money.
They were magical girls who had participated in the finals, after all. Their bank accounts should have held a fair amount of prize money. Even if this Maid Café went under, they could always give up on their ambitions, return to Hawaii, and inherit their parents' restaurant.
Their grilling skills were already honed to perfection, as they had proved back in Zodiacal. They would have had no trouble running a restaurant themselves.
At least they were better equipped to survive in the New World than I was, having failed to finish compulsory education because I