Reunion with the Wandering Merchant Lucy (2)
"How much are you buying them for?"
Jin-soo put it to Lucy without preamble.
"The heart is fifty million points. The teeth, per kilogram..."
Lucy rattled off the sale prices in a rush.
"You're asking higher than I expected."
The figures sailed well past the average going rate for material items on the auction house.
"F-fifty million points for a single heart?!"
Shin Sua's mouth fell open, the price knocking her flat with shock.
"I'm not selling the heart or the teeth."
At that, Lucy's face twitched, and she pressed on.
"I can let the teeth go, but please sell me the heart. I'll add another ten million points."
"Still not selling."
"Wh-why not?! The only way to use it is to eat it as an elixir! If that's all you're going to do, you'd come out ahead selling it for sixty million and buying elixirs with the money!"
"If you look only at its value as a material, sure, you're offering a fortune. But the karma soaked into this heart is worth far more than that. You know it, too. That's why you opened at fifty million."
Lucy's face crumpled without mercy.
"Fine. Then I'll give you a hundred million points. That's my limit. My absolute line."
At the declaration, Jin-soo's expression turned serious. A hundred million points was an enormous sum, even with the karma dissolved in a drake's heart taken into account.
"Someone commissioned you to buy it."
Lucy went pale.
"N-no. They didn't."
She fought to keep her face under control as she answered.
"Up until a little while ago you couldn't scrape together ten million points and had to trade in goods. And now you can bid a hundred million on a single heart?"
"That's because I've been working hard at my trade and earned a lot of points!"
"If you had that kind of skill, you'd have been a great merchant ages ago. Quit the nonsense and tell me who commissioned the purchase."
Faced with the certainty in his voice, Lucy's ears and tail drooped.
"If I tell you... will you even know who it is?"
"You don't need to worry about that. Just say the name."
"It's Master Unlaelba."
Jin-soo's face brightened. Fortunately, it was a name he knew.
A High Elf craftsman. Among the artisans in the Tower, his skill ranked inside the top ten. He isn't quite at that level yet, though. Of the craftsmen Jin-soo knew, Unlaelba was a late bloomer.
Judging by the money he's pouring in, this isn't simply about raising a skill level. Could it be one of the conditions for a class advancement?
It varied wildly from case to case, but for crafting classes, advancement was sometimes impossible unless you produced an item above a certain standard.
"So what he absolutely needs is a dragonkin monster's heart brimming with karma. Claws, bone, and scales would be nice to have as well, if he can get them."
"No, he doesn't!"
"Then leave. I can sell to another wandering merchant and be done with it. You really think Master Unlaelba entrusted a purchasing commission to a greenhorn like you and no one else?"
"Nngh!"
Lucy clenched her teeth, her whole body trembling. She looked furious, but honestly, it was more cute than frightening.
"Let's be straight with each other. What commission did you agree to? Twenty percent? Thirty?"
"Twenty or thirty?! Who pays a purchasing agent a fee that huge?! The standard rate is ten percent, I'll have you know!"
"The client seems to be in a hurry, so I doubt you took the job at the listed rate. You were probably promised something around fifteen."
Lucy's eyes went perfectly round.
A g-ghost?
How did a Player lingering on the fiftieth floor of the Tower know the exact going rate for rush-buy commissions from the upper floors?
"You take only ten percent."
"What?"
Lucy's mouth fell open. It was so absurd she had nothing to say.
"If I don't sell, you don't get a single point anyway. So you take ten. In exchange, I'll sell to you."
Lucy set her mind spinning hard.
The price I just named is a hundred million for the heart alone.
The sum she had been given to purchase the materials was two hundred million points, and on top of that she had received an additional thirty million in the name of commission. If the total climbed past two hundred million, she would have to shave her own fee to make it work, or give the job up.
If she bought for less than two hundred million, though, every point of the difference was hers to keep.
Beat the material price down and pocket the spread.
Hand Jin-soo ten million out of the thirty-million commission, then buy the materials, heart included, for a hundred and ninety million, and she would break even. Buy them for a hundred and fifty million, and she could skim a full extra forty million.
And if the sale price drops, the cut I have to peel off for him drops with it.
On a two-hundred-million baseline, five percent came to ten million points. Hand the goods over at a hundred and fifty million, and she would only have to give him 8.5 million.
That would put Lucy's share at 71.5 million points in all.
He said he'd sell to me, so this is the best I'm going to get.
Lucy made her decision.
"All right. I'll do it that way. But you absolutely have to sell to me."
"Meet one condition, and I will."
"What condition?"
"Go to Master Unlaelba and tell him to make a magic staff, or a suit of armor, out of the materials I sold. Then negotiate for him to sell that staff or armor back to me."
"That's basically a crafting commission, isn't it?"
"It is. A win-win, don't you think? Tell him the crafting fee will be five percent of the material cost. So—shall we write up a contract ahead of time?"
Lucy's thoughts tangled.
Five percent of the material cost as a crafting fee means he expects me to cover it out of my own money, doesn't it?
The nerve of it was beyond belief.
"How is that a win-win? Then Master Unlaelba is the only one losing points equal to the ten percent commission I'd be taking."
Without a contract, none of it would matter. But if they put it in writing and negotiated the crafting fee down to five percent of the material cost? The raw cost would be laid bare before Unlaelba, and the fact that she had skimmed fifty million points in the middle would be exposed in all its naked glory.
Add the thirty million she had originally been paid as commission, and it came to a full eighty million points.
When wandering merchants handled a purchasing commission, beating the price down a little and pocketing the difference was an everyday thing. But that usually ran one to five percent of the total—ten, at the very most.
Taking fifteen percent of the material cost as a fee and then skimming another twenty-five on top of that? In a case like that, if you didn't spit the commission back out—or at least half of what you'd skimmed—you'd be cursed for a swindler until your ears rang.
And once you were called a swindler, future dealings suffered. Obviously.
"I don't know. From where I'm standing, I don't think it's a loss."
"What do you mean, you don't know?! It's Master Unlaelba's loss, no question! Five percent of the material cost is impossible as a fee! You'd have to pay ten times that—fifty percent—before he'd even accept!"
"I don't know. Seems to me the bigger loss belongs to you, the one who tried to play games in the middle."
"Wh-what is that supposed to mean!"
Lucy's fur bristled all the way up.
"Then let's do it this way. You received two hundred million points for the materials, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't! I received a hundred and fifty million!"
Lucy flared, shouting. She put her whole soul into the performance.
"Then there's no way you'd bid a hundred million on a single heart. As a rule, when you make one item, the core is half the material cost and everything else is the other half. Call a hundred million for the heart that serves as the core, and a total of two hundred million is only natural, isn't it?"
At his words, Lucy's face flooded with grievance and bitter frustration.
"How in the world do you know that kind of information?! You've never met a single craftsman in your life!"
Lucy was truly at a loss. It had already been unbelievable that he'd had the item market prices memorized at their first meeting. And now he even knew the ratio of funds a craftsman spent when buying materials.
"These things happen. Let's set that aside for now. Tell Master Unlaelba you bought the materials from me for a hundred and fifty million points. And tell him I said I'd pay a commission of thirty percent of the material cost—forty-five million points."
"Then I'm the one who gets cursed, and my credit falls!"
"So you return twenty-five million points to Master Unlaelba."
"Wh-what did you say?!"
Jin-soo had named, exactly, the sum she would be obliged to spit back for the sake of decency.
"You received two hundred and thirty million points in total, right? Subtract my share, ten million, and what's left is two hundred and twenty million. Material cost, a hundred and fifty million. Crafting commission, forty-five million. And twenty-five million to return. That lands on exactly two hundred and twenty million, doesn't it?"
The moment he spoke that vicious arithmetic aloud—setting aside the ten million owed to him and assigning every last point of Lucy's share until nothing remained—
"You wicked demon! You'd tear the liver out of a flea!"
The word demon tore itself from Lucy's mouth of its own accord.
"Why not? You get to build a relationship of trust with Master Unlaelba, a real craftsman. And that's not the end of it. You gain a merchant's experience and credit. You think that's easy to come by?"
Lucy resented her own heart for wavering under his honeyed words. And though she herself had no idea of it...
The tail that had stood rigid when she shouted that he was a demon had already let go of its anger, and was wagging softly, like a puppy that had found its master.
"Come on. I'll be generous about it. I'll give you five million points. You were mostly in this to build experience anyway. That's why you were ready to spend every last point of that thirty-million commission, if that's what it took to walk away with the materials. I'm right, aren't I?"
He was. Once she had taken the purchasing commission, turning a material profit was the first goal. But what Lucy truly wanted was a bond of trust and a record of results with Unlaelba, the rising new craftsman—and, with them, the experience and credit of a merchant.
"You were prepared to come out of this without a single point of commission, nothing but the hard work. And I'm telling you I'll set aside five million points for you. Take it while it's offered."
"Nnnngh."
Lucy sank into a long deliberation.
"Keep this up, and I'll deal with another wandering merchant."
But at the words that followed, Lucy had no choice but to raise the white flag. A whole crowd of novice wandering merchants was already waiting on this commission—merchants just like her, prepared to abandon every point of their fee for the sake of trust and a better record with the craftsman Unlaelba.
"Fine. But if Master Unlaelba refuses, I just sell the materials, right?"
"No. Not that. Then there's no material sale either."
Jin-soo drew the line, sharp as a blade. Selling the materials alone would still have earned him a fat stack of points. Right now, though, he needed good equipment more than points.
It's not as if I'd take a loss just by selling the materials.
If this deal closed, Jin-soo would gain five million points and, in effect, turn the materials into an item at no cost whatsoever. A truly enormous profit.
It'd be a waste to stop there. And from the look of it, this is for a class-advancement quest. He won't be able to refuse so easily.
In Jin-soo's memory, the craftsman Unlaelba was a Player who put the growth of his own skill, and the perfection of his work, ahead of money.
There was a time he poured two hundred billion points into materials just to raise the quality of some cheap, off-market item—an item that would have sold for a hundred billion. If I remember right.
That, too, had been done to heighten the completion of an item he was making for a class-advancement quest.
Which is why speculation went around that producing a sufficiently perfected item might unlock a quest to advance into a higher class.
Jin-soo thought that speculation had some basis to it. Unlaelba had pulled the same stunt at every class advancement after that.
This is a golden opportunity.
The chance to buy, at a price this cheap, equipment into which a Player destined to become one of the Tower's ten master craftsmen had poured his heart's blood—that chance would not come again for a long while. And so Jin-soo had no intention of yielding a single step.
"Then shall we start with the contract?"
At his words, Lucy nodded weakly.
Once the contract was written, Lucy rose from her seat.
"Then I'll go and deliver the message."
She said it with her tail hanging limp.
Well. Even if he refuses, Lucy will obviously come back asking me to just sell the materials.
When that happened, he could simply drive the price up to the limit and sell.
"Yeah. Have a good trip."
Jin-soo saw Lucy off with a smile.
A short while later, Lucy returned.
"He says that if you're skilled enough to have hunted a White Drake on the fiftieth floor of the Tower, you're qualified to use an item he makes. He'll craft it as a staff for a mage. He also said a strong ice-attribute option is likely to take."
"Of course it would. It's made from White Drake byproducts. Give me the five million points."
Jin-soo held out his hand as if it were only natural.
"Haaah!"
Lucy let out a long sigh and passed him five million points.
A mage's staff was the best outcome. This worked out well.
The armor had been a fallback, for if crafting a mage's staff proved impossible.
An item made from the byproducts of a White Drake was bound to carry a powerful ice-attribute option. Which meant that, rather than armor for a Blood Demon Swordsman of the dark affinity, it was a perfect match for a magic staff—the weapon of an Ice Dragon Mage, a class of the holy affinity.