The room was illuminated by the morning sun. The glass windows that went up to the ceiling were behind the desk where Lady Elise was sitting. The table was quite large and there were seats right in front of it for the people with whom they had business meetings to sit. When the three of them entered, lady Elise got up from her seat and walked towards the door they had entered. She was wearing a black one-piece dress. Arthur was stunned by Lady Elise's beauty. She had long straight hair that reached down to her back. And she was almost as tall as Arthur.She could easily have been a model in Arthur's old world.
“Welcome to Red Roses, this is Elise,” she said.
"Hi I'm Arthur, These are my friends Askar and Rook," he said after he had gathered himself.
“Very interesting,” said Lady Elise.
“Excuse me”
“You don't see many people presenting a goblin as my friend in Manumit”
“I think we are a little different from the Manumitians,” he said.
“Please sit down,” said Lady Elise while pointing to the armchairs.
She sat herself in the chair behind the desk and spoke, While looking at Arthur.
“How can I help you, Mr.Arthur?”
After taking a deep breath, Arthur began to speak. “We wanted to buy a lot of bitter seeds. After investigating around and learning that your guild is selling Bitter seeds, we came to talk.”
“Yes, we have lots of bitter seed, how much do you plan to buy?”
“What is the price?” he said.
“We can say 20 gold per hors”
A hors was a unit of measurement equal to approximately one ton. Arthur had done price research in different cities before he came south, and he knew they were usually sold for 19-20 gold per hors.
After Lady Elise gave her answer, she began to study to catch something from Arthur's movements. It was not something you would encounter every day that someone wanted to buy a large quantity of Bitter seeds.
"How much do you have," said Arthur after some thought.
This answer of Arthur caught Lady Elise off guard. But she managed not to show it on her face, as if proving that she was a successful business woman.
"I don't know exactly, if you'll give me 2 minutes I'll check it out."
“Mark,” she said loudly towards the door.
The door opened and the door guard entered.
“Can you bring the inventory list”
“As you command,” he said, and quickly went to fetch what was requested.
“How rude am I, I forgot to ask if you would like something to drink.” said Lady Elise, noticing that she had skipped the formalities because of the speed of the conversation.
“I can have water,” said Arthur.
“If you have a beer why not,” said Askar. Arthur rolled his eyes when he saw that the askar wanted a beer.
“Water,” Rook said, seeing Arthur looking at him.
The other guard at the door waited for his friend to come, when he saw it in the corridor, he left his place to fulfill the demands.
When the lists arrived, Lady Elise looked at the inventories.
“We have 35 hors of bitter seeds,” she said as raising her head from the paper.
“Well, how much can we make the price if we buy them all,” said Arthur.
Lady Elise seemed to understand from the previous question that this question was coming. After some silence
“16 gold,” said Lady Elise.
“We'll take them all for 14.” said Arthur.
“15 for the last price,” said Lady Elise.
Arthur rose from his seat and held out his hand to Lady Elise. "Agreed." said
Lady Elise also rose from her seat and shook Arthur's hand.
Just then, the guard, who had gone to fetch the drinks, came in with the tray in his hand.
“So where would you like us to deliver it?” said Lady Elise as she sat back down.
Arthur finally realized he had missed a small detail. They had no storage. To gain some time, he reached for the water in front of him and drank from it.
"We'll talk about it tomorrow when we come to pay." said Arthur.
He was about to get up to leave when he heard Lady Elise clearing her throat and hesitated.
“Although I don't quite understand what you're going to do with all these Bitter Seeds, my feeling tells you that you will make quite a bit of money from this purchase. If you need a guild, I will be happy to assist you.”
“If circumstances require us to form a partnership, we will definitely contact you,” said Arthur as he stood up.
When Askar realized it was time to leave the room, he finished the beer in front of him in one gulp. They left the Red Roses Guild afterwards.
------
“Askar, what are you doing, man,” said Arthur.
“What have I done”
“You asked for a beer as if you were in a tavern during our business talk”
“Yeah, I didn't do the talking, so it's okay.” he said as smiling.
Arthur shook his head in disappointment, taking his hand to his head.
“Anyway, we bought 525 gold coins, I wonder how much the others collected,” he said.
"We'll find out when we go to the inn, man, I couldn't enjoy my drink, I need another one," he said.
The three of them successfully completed their mission and started walking towards the inn. The sun was directly overhead.
----------------
When they arrived at the inn, the lobby was empty. Arthur couldn't understand how Old Mike was still running the inn. They sat at an empty table and asked the waitress at the inn for a beer. While they drank their beer, they waited for the other groups to return to the inn.
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The first to arrive were Elda and Mefzar. Then, when Bill and Darkis entered the door of the inn, the whole team was assembled.
Once everyone is seated at the table, Arthur.
"We found 35 tons, what did you do"
“We bought 13 tons,” said elda
“We at 11”
"How many gold have you agreed on?"
“208”
"We at 165" said Bill
After thinking for a while, Arthur said, “It makes 898 gold. "Said.
“We can complete it from small vendors if we want,” elda said.
“I think we'd better stay here and if this goes wrong, we'll at least have some money left,” he said. Everyone nodded.
After Arthur thought a bit more, he turned to the Team.
“Guys, I think we should find ourselves a partner.” When Lady Elise spoke, she realized. Even though the team knew manumit, they did not have contacts to make such a big sale.
“Why,” said Elda.
“We don't know about Manumit. With someone who knows, we can melt the stocks more easily. Besides, I don't think we will be able to protect so much goods, even if we promote coffee.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Who can we partner with and what will we offer them?” Mefzar said.
“Why don't we leave the sales job to them, let's say we got the average Ton under 15, let's say we sold it for 100, they sell it for 110, and they get 10 gold profits.” said
“Maybe Lady Elise, she seemed like a know-it-all.” said Askar
Everyone on the team looked at Askar.
“The owner of the human guild we spoke to,” he said, seeing that they did not understand.
“Is it reliable?” said Mefzar.
"We don't know, we need to investigate, but it seemed reliable." said Arthur
At that moment, Old Mike, who was walking between the tables, must have heard the conversations.
“Did you say Lady Elise, the founder of Red Roses”
“Yes, do you know anything about it?”
“Yes, I think she founded the guild when I opened the inn. In 3 years, she made one of the biggest guilds of Manumit.”
“Is it reliable?” Mefzar repeated the question.
“Yeah of course, nobody could grow that fast if they weren't reliable. The trading guilds in Manumit are in a silent war, If one catches the other's mistake, it will surely be revealed, but I've never heard of Red roses.” said
“Okay, after we sign the sales contract tomorrow, let's offer Partnership,” said Arthur.
Tomorrow, the whole team would go to meet Lady Elise first, and if they could agree, they would bring the goods of other Places to the warehouses of the Red Roses guild.
Arthur couldn't practice magic properly without thinking about it. He wanted to finish his coffee business as soon as possible and return to his magic studies. . He was becoming more and more adept at manipulating the land. And if he developed this in the winter, it would be of great help in establishing the City. He also wanted to teach Rook some basic mathematics and other sciences. He needed to make Rook a real assistant if he wanted to take advantage of him when building a city.
They talked about the plan in more detail until dinner. After eating, everyone went to their rooms to take a shower and sleep.
As Arthur lay on the bed and his eyes fell asleep, writing appeared before his eyes.
[Merchant Level 2]
Arthur awoke from his slumber. It was the first time he had leveled up since coming to Manumit.
---------
In front of the Red roses guild, 6 adventurers and a goblin were climbing the stairs to enter. It was like 9 o'clock. The same receptionist girl greeted when they pushed open the door. When the girl saw Arthur, she stood up and pointed to the Stairs with her hand.
“Lady Elise is waiting for you,” she said.
"Let's not go out together, Mefzar elda and I will be enough."
Askar must have liked this plan, so he headed for a chair in the lobby. The others followed Askar, showing that they understood.
Elda, Mefzar, and Arthur climbed the stairs and started walking towards Lady Elise's Room, when they came near the door, Arthur found the same 2 guards in their places.
After saying hello, they went inside.
“Hello Lady Elise”
“Hello, Mr. Arthur.”
“My teammate elda and my team captain Mefzar”
“I am Elise, nice to meet you”
After the little introduction, everyone took their seats.
“I think you've come to make the payment,” she said with a smile.
“Yes,” said Arthur.
"I wonder if the contract is ready," said Arthur.
“Yes, I prepared it yesterday. ' she said, and handed it to Arthur. Arthur took the extended parchment and read it.
Contracts made in this world could be tracked thanks to the mana trace left on them. If it was signed by force, it would have no validity. But the contracts signed in the normal way were binding.
“I remember we agreed on 525 gold coins, but it says 500 here,” said Arthur.
“Let's call it a gesture of goodwill,” he said, and smiled slightly.
Arthur handed the Scroll to Mefzar, who nodded as he found no problem.
“Okay we can sign it,” Mefzar said.
Before Mefzar came to the Red Roses guild, he took the Gold purse, which they had withdrawn from their accounts in the Trade guild union, from the Enchanted pouch and placed it on the table.
Lady Elise looked at the pouch and nodded. Arthur wondered how she knew the money was complete and real. Probably some kind of skill, he thought.
When the contract was signed, Lady Elise received one copy and Mefzar received the other copy.
Mefzar looked at him as if waiting for Arthur to speak after the signatures were signed and the contract was copied.
“Lady Elise, you said yesterday that you were ready if we were looking for a partner. Is your offer still valid?” said Arthur, taking the signal from Mefzar.
Lady Elise turned towards Arthur, as if realizing that the real deal had just begun.
“Yes it does, but I still don't know what to do with these bitter seeds and what kind of partnership you offer,” she said. It was quite strange for a group of adventurers to take all the seeds of Bitterness in their hands.
“I think I can explain that now. Bitter seeds are known by a different name where I come from. It is known as coffee beans and is used to make a beverage. When I met my team in the north, I realized that they were not aware of this drink and I came up with a plan to make money from it.”
“I think I'm going to lose quite a bit from the sale,” said Lady Elise, smiling. She gestured with her hand to continue.
“You must have more or less understood the plan, it was simply to buy as many Coffee beans as we could afford and sell the coffee at a high price after promoting it.”
"You still haven't said what kind of partnership you're proposing." said Lady Elise, curiously waiting where Arthur would tie the conversation.
“As for the partnership offer, we can make this sale, but we don't know Manumiti as much as the guilds here. For this, we need someone who knows Manumiti.”
“I see,” said Lady Elise thoughtfully, one hand rubbing her chin.
“But I can't decide the probability of success without tasting this drink”
“Then let me prepare a few examples for you and then we can talk about the partnership in more detail. Can I have some boiling water?"
Lady Elise asked the guard at the door for some boiling water, then watched Arthur pull a glass jar out of his purse. Inside the jar was something brown powdery.
“Is that coffee powder obtained from the seeds?”
“Yes, after the seeds are roasted, they are ground and become this way.”
Not long after, the guard came through the door with a steaming jug of water in his hand. And left it in front of Arthur.
Arthur brewed 3 coffees. One is just black coffee, the other is with milk and the last one is with milk sugar.
She handed the coffee she had prepared to Lady Elise.
The guard who doesn't leave the room after bringing the water.
“My lady,” he said.
Arthur realized that he had made a mistake. Why would the owner of a guild drink what a stranger made?
“My apologise Lady elise,” he said, taking a glass from his bowl.
Arthur poured some of all three coffees into his glass, then took a big sip.
“There was no need for that, Mr. Arthur, I trust you,” said the Lady, and began to examine the coffees.
She took a sip of black coffee first. Although it was clear that she did not like the taste, it was clear that he interpreted the taste according to whether or not other people would like it.
Later, she also tried milk and milk sugar. It was obvious that her favorite was the milk and sugar one.
“Wonderfull,” said Lady Elise, for a moment shedding her businesswoman identity.
But it didn't take long for her to gather herself. She was looking at Arthur, her eyes gleaming.
"Okay, let's talk details."