"Are you with the goods?"
The Elf called Aurora finally broke the silence with her question. Her eyes narrowed and her frown deepened.
Rey could see her strengthen her grip on the staff, and nothing about her demeanor spoke of friendliness.
Despite the Elves being courteous, it didn't automatically make them friendly.
'She's has her guard raised, huh? I can even sense ten other Elves that are hiding a far distance off. It's best I don't mention that, though…' His thoughts trailed.
The atmosphere was a little too tense for his liking, but it couldn't be helped.
Rey slightly glanced at Aldred, who slowly nodded at him. He took in a deep breath and calmed himself.
'I can't mess up. Let's get this over with.'
"Yes, I do. And do you have the promised payments?" Rey took a step closer as he brought a small sack from one of his pockets.
Within the pouch were quite a few Spatial Rings, which contained the Enchanted Items that the Elves requested.
'Over ten thousand in total. They really bought in bulk, huh?' Rey smiled to himself as he looked at Aurora.
"Of course we do. What do you take us for?" Aurora responded as she nodded at one of the Elves behind her.
Rey raised his brow underneath his mask and felt a bit slighted.
'What's her deal? Didn't she ask me the same thing?' The way he saw things, the Elf before him had a serious attitude.
Even if she wasn't in a good mood, that didn't mean she could bring it into business.
One of the assisting Elves behind Aurora—Feyi or Feyu, Rey didn't quite remember the name—handed over a sack to Aurora seemingly out of nowhere.
Of course, for Rey who had already noticed the sak under several layers of concealment, it didn't look that way at all.
"Here, as promised. There are high-end minerals and Mana Crystals of the cumulative value of the items you are exchanging." Aurora raised the sack and gave Rey, and he also returned the favor and gave her the small pouch.
"You don't mind if I examine the goods, do you?"
Rey asked this the moment took the sack away from Aurora's hands. Naturally, the pouch that was previously with him now belonged to them.
'It feels considerably heavy. I should check, though…'
"Hmph! Do as you please." Aurora responded, and a certain glare of stifled hatred echoed from her eyes.
'Why does she look so mad? Rebal told me the Elves were pretty cooperative with him, though it was difficult making the deal with them. But he didn't say it was this bad!'
Rey felt like something ha definitely happened to make them like this.
'Well, let's ignore that for now…'
Rey opened the large sack before him and noticed the goods. He utilized [Absolute Appraisal], on one hand to confirm the quality, and on the other hand to see if the Elves noticed him using the Skill at all.
At the very least, that would allow him to know if they aware of the Skill and its effects.
'Oho! These are incredibly pure Mana Crystals! Far purer than anything we have here…' Rey looked at the shining gems before him.
It wasn't just Mana Crystals, though.
The Elves had Orichalcum, Mythril, and Adamantite—the three rarest metals in the world.
Well, according to the books he read.
The fact that the Elves had them in such phenomenal quality and quantity told Rey that perhaps they weren't as rare as he imagined.
'This is really…'
With these materials, and the Monster Core he obtained from slaying that S-Tier Monster, he could create a very potent Item.
Perhaps the frist Grade 2 Item in the history of mankind.
'Grade 1 would be an item like the Divine Sword. I don't think anyone could make something like that…'
Rey felt his smile widen as he anticipated the future. In the meantime, it seemed the Elves were also done with their analysis, and so the leader spoke up promptly.
"They're all here. This concludes our deal."
Aurora's voice was stone cold, a lot less thrilled than Rey expected.
There was no way he could just watch the Elves go like that when they had access to such pure minerals—probably in high quantity. If the Alliance could exploit that, then maybe…
"Hold on, Lady Aurora. If you don't mind, I would like to discuss further business with you."
"I do mind, and there is nothing further to discuss." Aurora responded bluntly.
She made to leave, turning her sights from Rey. He clenched his teeth and sighed internally.
'I can't rush things. If I am too pushy, it'll just push them away even more. Besides, they'll eventually run out of those Items, so there's a chance we can do business again.'
There was also the possibility of the Elves finally winning the war on their end, so Rey wasn't completely sure which side of the pendulum his interests would fall on.
'There's the backup plan, but… I should at least try my hardest here, right?'
Rey opened his lips to call upon Aurora's attention, but before he could do so, a louder voice echoed from behind him.
"Lady Aurora, please spare me a moment of your time!" It came from Esme.
Rey swiftly turned to look at her, finding her hood down and her Elven face exposed.
'Ahh… I guess it has come to this already.' His thoughts were deflated. 'This isn't going in the order I expected it to.'
He made one more glance at Aldred, but the young man simply smiled and shrugged.
'Fair enough.' He smiled and kept quiet, turning his gaze back to Aurora, whose eyes were widened with shock.
"Why… Y-you…?" Her voice quaked as beads of tears began to fall from her moist eyes.
It seemed like just one look at Esme was enough to make the cold and angry Elf soften up and even cry. Rey's eyes glistened in relief.
'At the very least, I can say the Esme plan worked we—'
"Why do you look like her… you abominable half-breed?"