Chapter 54 (2/2)
However, this person had said we were “earning petty change on the roadside”. I haven’t been looked down on so pleasantly in a long time. There was someone like this in the management of my black company era. “Can you figure this out, Ayase? A 20% discount off 160,000 and a 60% discount off 320,000, which is more worthwhile? Can high school graduates do calculations like this? Hmm?” I was made a fool of often like that…
“So great imperial trader-sama, why have you carried your legs all the way to this lowly market?”
“I’m just killing some time. The person I’m meeting with in Erishe is arriving late. Large markets like this don’t exist in the imperial capital, after all. It’s quite messy and interesting. To look at, at least. Ha ha ha!”
He always has something more to say.
He had shot one glance at our products, but as he said, he truly didn’t seem to have any interest in anything other than looking. Well, he said he was a merchant, but I have no idea what this chubby guy sells, so it could be possible that his interests just didn’t match.
…But he did seem loaded.
…He might make a good customer to sell that to. He wasn’t local, either.
I stopped Chubby from leaving as he laughed.
“Since you came all the way from the imperial capital, how about buying a souvenir? I just received something rather rare today. I was thinking of selling it to the mayor or a n.o.ble, but… well, this works too.”
Although he stopped moving, he had a dubious look on his chubby face. The shadows of that permanent grin on his face were also there.
“Oh my. You’re either really brave, or really ignorant… There’s no way I’d buy a souvenir in a place like this, don’t you think?”
He seemed a little irritated. Well, to him, I was just a lowly roadside salesman yelling “Buy some souvenirs!” at him. In reality, that was exactly it.
“…If you have any eye for items, then yes.”
I answered as I took the velvet fabric from my bag.
You couldn’t miss the instant the look in Chubby’s eyes changed.
“What do you think? Isn’t it a wonderful item? There shouldn’t be many items like this in the imperial capital. You can touch it with your hands if you want.”
“H-Hmm… This is rather surprising. It’s true that you don’t see fabric this glossy in the imperial capital often. …Where did you get this?”
“Of course that’s a trade secret… is what I’d like to say, but I’ve mentioned it before That I had an elf slave. Thanks to that connection, I started taking products from the elf village… Ah, do you know where the elf village is? It’s quite a famous place in Erishe.”
I returned his comments vengefully.
It’s true that I have an elf slave, but the elf village was a lie.
However, from Chubby’s point of view, the elf slave was also a lie, so the elf village was just sarcasm attached to it—and it showed in the way his face flushed red with blood rising to his head.
…The thought had crossed my mind before, but this person really gets excited easily.
“H-Hmm… I see, I see. It seems like my studies are lacking too. To think items from an elf village were in circulation… As a merchant, I’d love to get my hands on a piece of that.”
“Unfortunately, the elf village has an exclusive contract with me. Ah, but you can buy wholesale from me though. So what will you do? With this fabric. I’ll give you a discount if you buy it right now.”
There’s no way I’d give a discount, though. You have to charge what you can!
“Exclusive, huh… You have a spiritual contract? With the elves.”
“Huh? Yes, that’s right. A spiritual contract.”
“I see, I see. Well, putting that aside, I will purchase the fabric. It’d be a good material to tailor a dress and gift to my wife.”
This guy has a wife? I guess since marriage happens early in this world, it wasn’t too strange. Especially for the son of a large merchant, arranged marriages were also possible.
“How much is it, then?”
“Erm, like I said in the beginning, this is a rare item that rarely leaves the elf village… Thus, the price isn’t cheap. Well, it should be pocket change for a large merchant from the imperial capital, though.”
Now, how much shall I wring out of him?
One or two gold coins? It was already a ripoff to charge two gold coins for 10 metres of this fabric at 30,000 yen—
“You can have it for 6,000 el.”
I went all-in.
Six gold coins. 900,000 yen.
The doubt showed on my own face. If I couldn’t keep a poker face in times like this, I was still an amateur. I’d get used to it eventually, though.
It seemed that even a great merchant from the imperial capital would be surprised by this, as he hesitated for a moment before letting out a sigh.
“6000 el is barely what I have on hand at the moment, but it’s not the amount I expected to spend in a place like this. Weren’t you planning on selling it for much cheaper?”
Chubby diverted the topic to haggle a lower price.
“Of course not, I was planning on selling it for much higher. But in order to forge a good relations.h.i.+p with the great merchant from the imperial capital, I am trying to learn more.”
“I see, I see. Then it can’t be helped. If you say we’ll be seeing each other again, I’ll buy it at your price this time. Ah, I’m glad I had enough on hand.”
“Thank you very much! I look forward to doing business with you again.”
And thus, that was how I successfully sold a fabric I purchased at 28,500 yen for 900,000 yen!
There will be a celebration tonight!
Read the chapters at rinkagetranslation.com. The chapters for this series will NOT be posted anywhere else other than on that site itself. If you are reading this from somewhere else then this is chapter has been stolen.
Read the chapters at rinkagetranslation.com. The chapters for this series will NOT be posted anywhere else other than on that site itself. If you are reading this from somewhere else then this is chapter has been stolen.
I received six gold coins in one sale. A slow and steady income was good, but earning a ton at once wasn’t bad either.
Chubby spent six gold coins to buy it, but was it really okay? He wouldn’t be yelled at by his papa, right? No matter what, 10 metres of fabric for 900,000 yen was too much.
I cleaned up as I basked in the weight of the six gold coins, and by the time I finished Diana and the others had returned.
“Ah, welcome back. Listen, about the fabric I told you about—”
“We’re back. Oh, we have something to tell you about the fabric just now. The three of us were talking, and we realised that fabric was—”
“I sold it for six gold coins!”
“It’s the Royal Cloth of the Night Demon… isn’t it? It might just seem similar, but… eh?”
“Eh?”
“Eeeh?”
“…”
“Jirou-sama, you acted too fast. If it was the Royal Cloth of the Night Demon, it would have sold for no less than 50 gold coins… If it was a citizen of Erishe that bought it, then you can still find them and buy it back… The only ones that know of the Royal Cloth of the Night Demon are the n.o.bles and great merchants of the imperial capital, after all.”
“…Y-Yeah.”
The Royal Cloth of the Night Demon was the fabric used in the mantle of the royal elf family. Rebecca-san had seen it once before, Hetty-san had heard of the name, and Diana said, “Come to think of it, Dad may have worn it before… in a different colour, so I didn’t notice!”
Why… why couldn’t you have said that earlier!
That velvet existed in this world, but only as a super rare item!
It wasn’t as though I lost anything, but it felt like I had lost. The fabric itself could be restocked at any time, and it wasn’t as though I had suffered a painful blow of any sort.
No matter how you look at it, that Chubby definitely saw the Royal Cloth of the Night Demon and bought it without saying anything, the sly b.a.s.t.a.r.d!
He’d definitely come back saying “Sell me more~ sell me more~ sell me another one for six gold coins~”!
I guess the next restock will be next year! …Is what I’ll have to say to him, so stocking velvet in the future will be a little trickier…
But there’s no point in worrying about it anymore.
Grandma always told me that picking yourself up quickly had an effect on your work.
Tonight was still a celebration, as planned!
At this time, the only thoughts that were in my head were the fact I had sold a precious item for cheap, and that selling it for cheap had left me feeling like I had lost.
I hadn’t considered what kind of actions a large merchant would take when he discovered that a paltry trader was monopolising a huge profit market—the thought hadn’t even pa.s.sed my mind.
And that would later come back to bite me in the a.s.s—in the worst way possible.
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