Figuro returned a few minutes later. I introduced my current slaves to Faenya. She was very polite to each of them. Although she was supposedly around 18 in our years, she had a motherly aura around her that seemed to make the other girls look up to her. They all smiled at her and seemed to really like her. I could never understand what led them to hating some girls while liking others. It was truly a conundrum.
"I will provide the slavery stuff for free, so you don't need to worry about using your… ahem… skill…" Figuro smiled wryly.
What? I didn't like being nickel and dimed. Is that really such a problem? Well, at least Figuro understood me. Since those fees were being waived, I might as well do things as officially as possible. Well, I still used haggle as I handed over the money. However, he didn't hand any back to me after I signed the paperwork, so I started to frown.
He noticed me frowning and then winked. "I'll admit, I was a bit surprised when you haggled me down, naturally I responded by upselling you. The two abilities end up canceling each other out. Any knowledgeable Trader or Merchant isn't so easily brought down in price. It does leave me wondering what job you have, or if you have a Priest on retainer."
I could only smile wryly. "I apologize."
I had never bought a slave from him before. Miki was given freely and the cost was the resurrection spell to the Priest. When it came to Lydia, the town came together and paid my fee before I could even attempt to use the ability. So, this was the first time the pair of exchanged any money. As it turned out, Figuro had a skill that countered my own, so getting discounts from him was impossible. I felt like I had done something bad.
Figuro just waved it off. "Any good Merchant always tries to haggle. It's really how we make profit. It's actually not uncommon for merchants to buy things at their value. In that case, that 20% is our only profit. Naturally, small store owners, seamstresses, blacksmiths, and these guys don't have a Merchant job, so they can't block haggling, but any true Merchant usually would, and if he doesn't, it's because he already marked things up 20% expecting you to haggle with him."
It seemed like the world of mercantile was far more insidious than I had originally thought. It wasn't so easy to just abuse my haggling and become rich, especially if I was going to deal with the Merchant Guild. I'm glad I learned this from Figuro rather than embarrassing myself against the experts. There might even be an advanced Upsell and I'd find myself getting taken advantage of. Actually, there was a third-tier dungeon ability called Bargain that sounded like a higher-level version. Perhaps it'd get me 50% off. It was too late to use it on Figuro though, and he might even have the higher-level version of Upsell. I should be happy he didn't use it on me. Or did he?
I definitely handed him 2000 gold, but maybe he hadn't asked for 2000 originally. Man, these skills really screwed with your brain. What is real anymore?
I didn't have time to fall into an existential crisis, half the day was over and I had one more project, perhaps the most important things that dictated our future. After the mark was transferred over, I gained a new slave, and then bid my farewell.