I sighed, looking at the change in my pocket, “It seems like Figuro was right, the Capitol city definitely doesn’t allow you to abuse haggling too much.”

I was going around trying to sell everything I didn’t want from the dungeons. There seemed to be three types of sellers. The craftsman who were not merchants, who either had a merchant do all their sales for them or automatically increased their prices by 20% or dropped their offers by the same. Mind you, those that chose the later lost sales to a lot of nonmerchants, so they didn’t usually run public shops. I had only ended up facing one seemingly by accident because I was using my map.

The second kind were merchants who seemed to always know when Haggle was used against them, and would then immediately respond with Upsell. A few seemed to even be able to predict when you would upsell with them, and would automatically adjust the price accordingly. The final kind just haggled and upsold everyone. I was beginning to see that the kinds of merchants like this were the most nefarious and least trustworthy.

Although Figuro had told me that there was no trouble trying to haggle with people, after seeing those that fell back on that ability, I was starting to feel like perhaps I shouldn’t. Thus, I decided to try haggling and upselling legitimately. I found it far easier with my charm pluses to sweet talk merchants. I think my girls also had something to do with it, although I certainly didn’t use them at all to get discounts.

“Ah… you want those gloves?” A blushing blacksmith said. “I’ll give you a discount.”

Terra had grown interested in a pair of enchanted gloves and was eyeing them excitedly. They would protect her hands and give her a stronger punch. Although I was mostly selling everything we had collected to make as much coin as I could, with the championship tomorrow, I definitely wanted them equipped properly too. Thus, it was a combination of selling everything and buying new equipment for the girls. When I started trying to talk down the blacksmith, he seemed to tighten up his wallet really quickly.

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“S-so, I can’t have the gloves?” Terra asked, tears welling in her eyes.

Come on, Deek. You’re strong. Endure… Endure… Just a bit longer! Sweat was pouring down my face. She was looking up at the two of us so sadly.

“O-okay!” The blacksmith cried out. “You can have it for that price!”

“Thank you!” I let out a breath, only just managing to outlast him.

“Y-you’re lucky she reminds me of my daughter…” he grumbled.

In the end, I got the enchanted gloves for almost their value. On top of that, I sold curious items we had accumulated from the dungeons. It was easier selling him stuff than buying stuff from him. He was much less willing to give up his own stuff than buy other stuff. Is that the so-called pride of a blacksmith? Since he made it, he felt it had a lot of value and didn’t want to part?

Well, it was something like that. We stopped at about six places before we ran out of time. I had thought Faenya might have jumped in and helped out as well. However, she sat back and watched all of my sales.

“I’m surprised you didn’t speak up and try to get a better discount. Aren’t you management?”

Faenya cocked her head. “I wouldn’t step up on Master’s pride as such? If you wish, I can do so…”

That was right. Faenya had the mentality of a slave. She hasn’t been around long enough to pick up the other girl’s boldness. Even if she felt she could get a better price than me, speaking up and interrupting her Master would be out of line. Actually, this was probably how a proper slave was supposed to act.

“In the future, if you think you can improve a situation by butting in, I give you permission to do so,” I said.

Faenya nodded, but she seemed uncertain of that. After all, her previous noble owner sounded like a piece of work.

“Let’s go, this was just phase one.”

I had made about 500 gold by selling all the extra stuff. I didn’t feel rich anymore seeing how quickly that money could go and how much I needed.