Catato Patch 

“Hmm, if you mean those two, they are in fact of great importance to our guild, I’m willing to trade a Third-tier Magical Weapon for them!” Flanrida unflinchingly laid down his opening offer.

 

One had to know that a magical weapon was highly valued in this world, in part due to the scarcity of magical blacksmiths, but also because the ingredients themselves were expensive to begin with. Because of those two reasons, the price of magical weapons endlessly surged to the point where even money couldn’t guarantee you a weapon.

 

Moreover, for a Third-tier magical weapon, one needed a Third-grade Emperor class magical blacksmith to enchant it. As a point of comparison, such an existence was powerful enough to be a local tyrant in some tiny backwater kingdom. Thus, it could be said that a Third-tier magical weapon was equivalent to the price of a backwater town. By owning such a weapon, anyone could instantly gain the power of a Third-grade expert.

 

In fact, if an Emperor-class were to get his hands on such a weapon, his strength could even rival half a Fourth-tier’s, in other words, half an Anti-army expert! That was an existence that could single-handedly control the fate of a small scale battle!

 

Truth be told, being a pair of Third-grade adventurers, Han Zishi and Wu Junze were, in fact, worth that much. If one were to visit certain black markets, they would most likely find the same offering rate.

 

However, these two hostages of mine were obviously not just any old adventurers. They possessed a certain degree of leadership abilities, and that was something rare even amongst the adventurers.

 

As the saying goes, ‘one man is easy to take down but ten thousand men on the other hand…’ Being able to organize such a force was undoubtedly a hard task, thus those who possessed such capabilities were highly valued.

 

Combining the abilities of a Third-grade with such leadership abilities, such an adventurer would at least be worth a couple of Third-tier magical weapons.

 

“No deal!” I flatly rejected his offer. “A price like that, are you looking down on this dragon here?!”

 

For an outsider like me, I had no way to know the market rate for such weapons. Naturally, I didn’t know all that stuff about Third-grade commanders being worth two such weapons. However, what I did know was that those were the terms he gave himself. As such, he would definitely lower the price on purpose to pre-empt me jacking up the price!

 

Just like those NPC merchants you find in RPGs --those con artists who charge you exorbitant prices for an item but buy them back from you at dirt cheap prices---,  his real price had to be higher than that!

 

I didn’t doubt for a second that there was a Grand Canyon’s worth of arbitrage hidden amidst all that.

 

Thus, I had to extort this fellow! Not only to squeeze more money out of him, but also to secure an escape route for me and Slime-chan!

 

“Then what do you suggest, oh Dragon?” Still unfrazzled as before, he calmly stared me right in the eyes.

 

Looking at that reaction, I was convinced of my assessment  just now.

 

‘I knew it...that guy was trying to undercut me!”

 

“This dragon wants THREE Third-tier magical weapons!” I instantly raised the price by three times as a way to probe his bottomline.

 

As they say, ‘slash by half and raise by three times’! I purposely raised the price by a huge margin to allow him wiggling space to negotiate. That way, even if he slashed the price, I still made a profit.

 

Well...even though those magical weapons were technically free, I did have to hold their guild members hostage in order to get that sweet deal, so I clearly earned those weapons.

 

“Hmm?!” For some reason, the moment Flanrida heard my offer, he stared at me dumbfounded.

 

‘What...what’s the matter?! Don’t tell me my price is too high?’