Delayed Transfer

Hamil went in front of his audience composed of nobles and officials of Narcone and their families. The circus leader briefly introduced the first movie, Star Wars: A New Hope, and Hamil used many extravagant words to describe the movie trailer.

Mark thought it would have been better to show the audience the trailer. At first, Hamil asked Mark to conjure popcorn and soda for the audience to eat while watching the movie but the butler gave them advice to not do anything like that since the audience members were very important people and any accident related to the consumption of the unknown food may result in grave consequences.

Hamil turned off the lights except for a single magic lamp which was near the door and even that one was dimmed by the circus leader then started the movie. The iconic Star Wars floating text appeared and the movie music blasted through the four large speakers that they arranged surrounding the seats to achieve a surround sound effect.

Mark almost laughed out loud at the startled expression of the audience but held himself off. While the movie was playing, he amused himself by watching the expressions of the audience members but he focused mostly on Arissa’s expressive face. He liked Arissa’s uninhibited behavior of showing everything that she was feeling in her face and it made her more charming.

Mark remembered that he was a bit turned off by her when she said that his food was almost as good as those that were prepared using magical materials but he just thought of it as the insensitivity of youth.

He still wasn’t sure that he would pursue Arissa since she was young and her identity was a bit sensitive but then again Mark wasn’t really planning to pursue her seriously, just to have some fun with a beautiful young woman.

When the movie ended, everyone in the audience clapped and praised the movie as a “wonderful unique show”. The top dogs of the audience went to Hamil and invited him to join them in the room next to where the theater was set up since that was where the food for their lunch was served and of course, the circus leader joined them.

While some of the government officials were talking to Hamil, Mark saw Arissa walking towards him.

“Mr. Mark, you’re “unique show” or movie as you call it is really wonderful. I believe after lunch we will see the second movie and I can’t already wait. I can almost believe that there are worlds beyond ours and that we can go there by riding flying ships. I wish I lived in an era where we could do something like travel the universe and hop from planet to planet. It would be wonderful to see magnificent and unique planets!”

“You’re right. That’s the main reason why I joined the circus. The circus is traveling the world and we would encounter different sights both magnificent and grim. We would encounter friends that we haven’t met yet and dreadful enemies that would cause nightmares to anyone who would see them but for me, that is the meaning of life.”

For a few moments, Arissa wore an expression of longing as if any second she would suddenly asked to join him in his adventure and that moment magnified her beauty a thousandfold. Then that moment passed.

“I now understood why the men in our university are obsessed with those movies. At first, I couldn't understand why they were behaving weirdly about something like a show, almost to the point of creating a cult and now I wanted to join them!” Arissa said and Mark released a tiny laugh and the young lady joined him.

“I can’t understand though why it started on “Episode IV” and not “Episode I,” Arissa asked.

“It’s the peculiarity of the movie makers. He eventually released Episode One to Episode Three then a few decades later Episodes Seven to Nine. Of course, we have copies of those movies as well,” Mark bragged a bit.

“You mean there are six more movies beyond these three that we’re going to watch?!” Arissa shouted and Mark sighed.

Everyone heard her and Hamil had to explain to the officials that he was talking to why he was only showing Episode IV to VI. Arissa blushed and knew that she brought trouble to the circus leader but Mark just smiled.

The audience members then went to the next room to eat but Hamil was the only one invited so he and Nedertu and the other three circus members who assisted them in setting up the theater stayed. Arissa said that she had to join her parents but of course, would return to watch the second film.

After everyone left, a lot of people came in to clean up the room but since it was never truly dirty to begin with, it took them only a couple of minutes to make sure that everything was spick and span. The butler stayed and joined Mark and the others.

“Do you want something to eat Sir…?” The butler asked.

“My name is Mark and no, we can conjure our food. Will you join us?”

The old butler did join them and Mark retrieved the table and chairs that they used earlier from his inventory. He then conjured lunch for everyone who remained in the makeshift theater. Since he missed rice, that was what he replicated, and some viands like grilled pork, roast chicken, beef steak, pork barbecue, and more meat. He basically served a carnivore meal and Nedertu and the others weren’t complaining.

Mark also served iced teas and sodas but didn’t serve any alcohol since technically, they’re still on the job.

After that healthy repast, Mark didn’t waste time cleaning up after themselves since he knew that soon the audience members would return. He would have preferred to leave after showing the first film but Nedertu told him that Hamil asked the catman to request Mark not to leave so that if any equipment failure occurred, he would be there to fix it immediately.

Soon, the audience members returned and Hamil played the second film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Unsurprisingly, everyone was focused on watching the films. Before the film ended, the butler came towards Mark and invited him outside using gestures to avoid disturbing the important people watching the movie so he followed the old man outside.

“Sir Mark, the circus leader informed the officials of the snacks that people usually ate while watching the movies and the officials wanted to experience it so they requested that you prepare it before the last movie so everyone could get one for themselves. I prepared the poison tester to assure the safety of everyone involved,” The old butler said.

Mark just nodded so he prepared a large table and replicated around a hundred buckets of popcorn with the season set up in a corner. They could choose to season their popcorn with salt, butter, cheese powder, and sour cream powder. He instructed a few maids who were commanded by the butler to assist Mark on how to season the popcorn depending on the customers’ preference. After that, he prepared cans of soda but he chose one flavor which was the original cherry coke to avoid confusion and thought that maybe he should have done the same thing with the popcorn.

After everything was prepared, Mark thought that the butler would call someone to taste the popcorn and check it out for poison but instead, the old butler brought out some sort of enchanted item and then pointed it at the popcorn. The item didn’t react and according to the butler, it would only react if there were poison on the food.