The two quickly cleared the food on the table. Roy felt only half full. After receiving the Grace, his appetite had grown, and food expenses were soaring daily.
Roy placed both hands on the tabletop.
"Miss Ryuu, I just discovered a very serious problem."
Seeing Roy so solemn, the Elven girl assumed there was an abnormal situation and her face tightened.
Roy said,
"The currency used in this Secret Realm is not Valis, and Valis is not accepted here."
The atmosphere immediately grew awkward. The Elven girl's exquisite mouth twitched. She understood Roy's implication—they were likely about to dine and dash. She glared at him fiercely. "If you didn't have money, why were you so confident just now?"
Thinking back to how Roy ordered the food like a regular customer, Ryu's fingers trembled with anger. She was just grateful he wasn't part of the Astrea Familia, or their hard-earned reputation would be ruined.
"Cough! Cough!"
Roy pretended to cough to ease the embarrassment. He glanced outside. The Colossal Titan still hadn't appeared. His idea of skipping the bill during the chaos was going to fail.
The owner noticed they had finished eating but hadn't paid or left, and seemed to realize something was amiss, turning around to instruct the young server.
Roy gave a wry smile. It looked like he had no choice but to use a little wit and kill some time in the process.
While the others weren't paying attention, Roy picked up a toothpick, snapped it in the middle, and then used the splinters from the break to piece the two sections back together, making it look like one complete toothpick.
Then, Roy stood up and addressed the dozen or so customers in the restaurant.
"Everyone, we are actually a traveling performance troupe. During this leisure time after our meal, please allow me to perform two small magic tricks to entertain you."
Hearing there was entertainment, the customers immediately became animated, and some started cheering.
"Everyone watch closely. This is a toothpick. Next, I will use my mind to break it,"
Roy said, dangling the toothpick in front of the crowd.
Roy had already cleaned up the splinters at the break point. As long as no one touched it, no one would notice.
"Hah!"
Roy held one end of the toothpick with one hand, while the other hand danced around it. He put on an elaborate show, murmuring incantations. In reality, all the actions and sounds were meant to distract the others.
Feeling the time was right, the fingers of the hand holding the toothpick's tail subtly flicked, and the toothpick immediately snapped in half.
Aside from Ryu, who had sharp eyesight, no one else noticed Roy's small movement.
"Amazing!"
The customers, who had never seen such a feat, erupted in applause, filling the restaurant with the sound of clapping.
Roy gestured for silence. He took two Valis coins and placed them in his two palms, clenching them into fists.
"Now, I have one coin in my left hand and one coin in my right."
Everyone swallowed and stared intently at Roy's hands. They hadn't taken him seriously before, but his previous trick had stunned them. This time, they were determined to spot the trick.
"Next, the coin in my left hand will disappear. Watch closely, and don't blink!"
With that, Roy put the coin from his left hand down on the table, opened his palm to show the crowd the empty center, and then picked the coin back up, clenching his fist.
His right hand seemed ready for verification. He brought his hands together slightly, then opened his right fist, palm down, and a coin dropped onto the table.
Roy picked up the coin with his right hand, then signaled everyone to look at his left hand. As he slowly opened his left hand, it caused an uproar in the restaurant. His left hand was completely empty. Everyone had clearly seen him holding the coin, yet it had vanished.
Roy shook his right fist and smiled,
"Everyone, can you guess where the two coins are?"
The crisp sound of coins clinking was heard.
To the amazement of the crowd, Roy opened his right hand, and the two coins rested quietly in his palm. The restaurant again rang with gasps of wonder.
"Thank you all! This was just a small performance today. Please support us in the future. If you have money, please give generously; if not, your presence is support enough!"
Roy said, smiling brightly.
Many customers found it truly magical and kept asking Roy when his official performance would be. They promised to come and support him wholeheartedly. Three or four customers even left a few dozen copper coins as tips.
Roy smiled and responded to each one.
Ryu scoffed silently. Playing tricks on people. Only she had seen through Roy's gimmick. It was a very simple sleight of hand. At the start, Roy only seemed to demonstrate that there was one coin in each hand.
He hadn't actually placed the coin from his left hand into his palm; he had gripped it between his middle and ring fingers. When verifying the coin in his right hand for the customers, his left hand didn't open when he brought his hands together, but two fingers simply let the coin drop onto the table. When his right hand opened, the palm was facing down. The coin in his right hand had never left; Roy had used some method to stick it to his palm.
The second coin that was picked up was actually the one from his left hand, and his right hand gathered it up seamlessly. The two coins ended up together in his right hand.
What surprised Ryu was the young man's social acumen. Without his language and body movements to distract the others, the trick would not have succeeded. She looked at Roy, who was surrounded by the crowd, smiling and eloquent, acting as if he was going to live here permanently and was greeting his neighbors. Even though they would be leaving after slaying the monsters... This person's mouth is simply the devil of deception, the innocent Elven girl began to realize.
Roy collected the tips from the customers and presented them to the restaurant owner. The owner repeatedly tried to refuse, as he had enjoyed the performance very much. Roy insisted on pressing the money into his hand, knowing that the currency of Paradis Island was useless to him.
Returning to his table, Roy saw Miss Ryuu staring at him with a look of caution. "What's wrong?"
"I have to be careful not to be sold by you and then help you count the money,"
Ryuu said, quoting a common saying from the East.
"..." Roy opened his mouth, speechless.
Outside the restaurant, a group of two boys and one girl were pressed against the window, having watched Roy's performance in its entirety.
Armin exclaimed,
"Eren, that person is amazing! How did he do it?"
Eren said, "I have no idea."
"The second coin he put down was also the one from his left hand,"
Mikasa said calmly. She was one of the only two people who saw through Roy's trick. Compared to the Elven girl's sharp eyesight, her angle gave her a slight advantage, allowing her to catch a subtle flash of light from the coin pinched in Roy's left hand.
After Mikasa's explanation, Eren immediately felt bored.
"So he's just a con artist."
Armin's excitement didn't diminish. "That's not it, Eren. He successfully cheated everyone without being discovered. I think that's incredible."
"Good eye. Praise me more, I love to hear that,"
a voice chuckled at the doorway.
The trio hadn't noticed that Roy and Ryuu had already walked out and were looking at the three of them.