Evan Hayes opened his eyes to a sky that was too bright too blue and completely unfamiliar He had been in a small office in Los Angeles late at night working on a brand rollout plan for a sandwich chain When he blinked again he was lying on warm stone as if the world had folded him into an old story

He pushed himself up and saw a marketplace that looked like a medieval fair but more chaotic Spices floated in the air without containers vegetables stacked themselves with flickers of light and a man was yelling at a chicken that stood on two legs refused to be cooked and sprinted away with sparks around its feet

Evan breathed slow His mind the mind of a franchise consultant trained to diagnose operational breakdowns saw not magic but disorganization The stalls had no consistent signage food portions varied from one extreme to the next and customers argued because no one knew what anything actually cost

He approached a bread stall A woman pulled a loaf from a stone oven that glowed gold at the edges The bread’s surface shimmered and steam rose in a perfect spiral

He asked how long it took to bake She shrugged and said the oven spirit decided each batch The flavor changed every day because the spirit was moody Evan nearly choked on his own breath He could almost hear an imaginary operations director screaming about consistency

Evan wandered deeper and found a tavern where workers stirred a pot the size of a bathtub Flames of purple and silver licked underneath A wizard cook whispered something and the soup flashed from thin to thick then back to thin The customers cheered but several looked confused because they had no idea what the soup was supposed to taste like

Evan rubbed his forehead In his world people hired him to create identical flavor across fifty branches Here even one pot could not agree with itself The idea hit him not like inspiration but like a business opportunity that walked up and shook his hand

The world had magic but no systems No manuals No standard operations No predictability He saw a blank map waiting for someone who understood franchise logic

He sat outside the tavern watching the street and thinking He needed to understand the rules here magic rules market rules and social rules He needed to know if people would accept structured food service or if they were too used to chaos If there was one truth from his years of consulting it was that people would always pay for reliable flavor

He noticed a group of adventurers complaining Their meal was late The fire spirit had gone on break The cook argued that the spirit was not his employee and refused to hurry Evan stared in disbelief He could fix this entire industry with bindable service rules training and performance expectations

He asked around about local cooking tools and discovered magic stoves existed but operated on emotion If the operator was nervous the flame shook If the operator was bored the flame dimmed If the operator was angry the stove sometimes exploded Evan almost laughed because the problem was so clear Magic needed structure

He found a small abandoned stall at the edge of the market Its roof was intact its floor stable its location terrible Yet the broken space stirred something inside him The first McDonalds in the 1950s had been small This could be his first branch

He sat cross legged at the center and whispered to himself his voice steady like a consultant delivering a pitch deck

A fast food shop but enchanted
Magic tools with predictable output
Recipes bound by magical contracts
A delivery system based on teleportation arrays

If he could make food identical every time he would create the world’s first reliable restaurant

He needed resources though So he returned to the market and looked for someone trustworthy to hire or partner with After several conversations he found Mila a young mage with bright eyes a steady voice and terrible cooking skills She admitted it She could not cook but her magic was precise reproducible and calm That was exactly what he needed

He hired her on the spot The way she blinked several times before accepting made Evan smile She had potential

Together they explored the abandoned stall and began making a plan Evan explained how a franchise worked Mila stared and asked why anyone would copy the same store Evan told her people loved predictable comfort and that consistency created trust

Mila repeated the word consistency as if it were a rare spell When Evan explained that training manuals existed in his world thick books that taught employees how to cook the same way every time she gasped and asked if such books were legendary artifacts Evan almost laughed

As the sun fell he traced layouts in the dirt a counter a prep area a magic stove a teleport delivery circle Mila practiced steady flame spells and he watched mesmerized by her control

Evan realized something then Not only could he build a restaurant here he could build a franchise empire

If he played his cards right he might reshape the entire magical food industry

The night grew cold but the thought of the business ahead warmed him more than any fire