Those are cat ears I see under the hood right? I'm not seeing things am I?

Wait, wait, calm down now. She might just be a modded human… But that's still cute though!

But if she just modded herself, why the hood? Because I'm assuming she's using it to hide her cat ears, right?

Maybe it's just for fashion?

The salesman mistook my silence as interest and rubbed his hands together, "How about it, dear customer? May I interest you in the G-seven--"

"We were already here when you got exposed," Amber interrupted him with an upraised hand. "So no need to try and scam us too."

The hooded girl grinned while the salesman glared at her from behind.

I was curious so I tried asking, "Just so that you know, we're Mercs. So we don't need any of your fancy but impractical stuff. Do you have anything here that is actually more practical than decorative?"

The salesman clapped his hands together, "Why yes! Of course I do! I have the Komaka Series V-seven right over--"

"Those got recalled back to the factories because their joints have a tendency to lock up which resulted in at least seven pilots losing their limbs," The hooded girl interrupted.

He coughed, "Ahem… That… Those only happened to the older models. This one is the updated one…"

"Which was actually built off the older models by the same company where the only thing that changed was the addition of a bigger shield capacitor that doesn't address the joint issue, which was why they were recalled as well."

The salesman grimaced, "O… Ok… If you are worried about something that only had a one in a million chance of that happening to you--"

"Actually, only seventy thousand of these units were produced, so it's a one in ten thousand chance. Or to be more precise, a zero point zero zero zero one percent chance. And that's only counting the seven who lost their limbs, there were multiple others who had broken limbs or some other injury related to that problem. That percentage would go quite high if we were to include those. Should I start counting?"

"Aaaanyway! I can see that this is not to your taste! How about the Enforcer G-seven zero eight? This one is pretty popular amongst Mercs! I can personally guarantee its effectiveness! Decent armour, decent shielding, decent load and it even has an in-built close combat system that can be activated to speed up its strikes!"

Surprisingly, the hooded girl remained silent this time so either she did not know much about the armour or the salesman had not told a lie yet.

As though emboldened by this fact, the salesman continued, "For just today, I'm willing to let this one go for just twenty million Credits!"

That was the part the hooded girl scoffed at, "That model has been out for at least a decade and a half already. Sure, it still holds up decently against the current generation models but it's already considered an antique at this point. The reason why it's popular amongst Mercs is because it's still a decent entry level power armour but you'd be stupid to pay more than two million Credits for this."

Holy shit… Assuming she was telling the truth, he Just tried to scam us for more than ten times the market price? I'd think even other unscrupulous merchants wouldn't try to bump up the price by that big of a margin…

The salesman stomped the ground with his foot in a fit of rage, "That's it! You get out of here right now! Go back to the storeroom!!"

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The hooded girl smirked at him, "Oh, you don't need me to check on 'those pieces of crappy armour that were making weird noises behind the stall' anymore?"

"You… You… Get back over there and shut your mouth!"

She huffed before turning to us, "If you're serious about buying one, the G-seven zero eight is indeed not a bad starting machine if you're on a budget, but not for the ridiculous price he had given you of course. If you aren't that tight on money though, I would recommend one of the Sentinel series from Galactic Armaments. Pretty good for their price which you could get from eighty to two hundred million Credits."

I looked at the salesman who was still glaring at her, "Don't suppose you have what she just suggested?"

He quickly changed his attitude again to smile at me, "Oh, I do! Have a look over he--"

"Don't buy it from him though, his stock of them are all pretty bad," The hooded girl interrupted again.

His face changed again and he scowled at her, "What do you mean I have the bad stuff?! I literally stole these from--"

He covered his mouth as soon as he realised he had screwed up over there.

Right… So not only does he scam his customers, his stuff isn't even legit… Why the hell does this place even allow someone like him to set up shop here?

The hooded girl smirked when she saw him slip up, "Mmhmm~ Maybe next time you would learn that screwing over your hired help who is literally keeping your things running might not be the best of ideas."

She was about to step past him when he reached out his hand and stopped her, giving her a death glare which she received without even flinching.

"Fuck you, you damned bitch! I've had it with you! You're fired!"

Instead of being shocked or angry at the declaration, the hooded girl simply stretched out her hand towards him, "Alright. Where's my pay then?"

"Pay?! You still dare to ask for your pay?! After you screwed me out of all those possible sales?! You're already fortunate that I'm not asking you to pay for the damages, you ungrateful pussy!"

She crossed her arms, "You signed the contract with me that I will get paid even if I was laid off by you. The terms also stated very clearly that I would not be responsible for any sales at all, which meant that all of the responsibility lies in you. So you still owe me my pay."

Lea leaned over very slightly, "Do you think we should leave, Captain?"

Amber spoke up before I could, "Leave? Why? It's just starting to get interesting! I'm more upset that I don't have some popcorn for this!"

I'm actually inclined to agree with Amber, you don't see a show like this everyday after all. I say just let them cook!

The salesman pulled out a rolled up piece of paper from his jacket to unfurl it and shove it in her face while pointing at it, "Oh yeah?! Did you miss out this line over here that says your only responsibility is doing work on the equipment and not to engage with clients?! You broke the contract right here by telling everyone about the products!"

"Oh, but you missed the point right here that says that on my twenty minute break time, my work responsibilities would not apply to me? So in that short break time I'm given, I am actually allowed to talk to potential clients about your products. And look at the time! I still have five more minutes of my break time! So pay up!"

Oh damn, at this moment I'd say that the hooded girl is winning this. And judging by the scowl on the salesman's face, I think it's safe to say that I was right.

But then, the salesman suddenly grinned, his demeanour completely flipping around.

His finger went towards the bottom of the page and tapped at the corner of the empty space, "Seems like you really missed this part here that says that the contract becomes null and void when you are fired for any reason."

All of us narrowed our eyes at the page and… There's nothing there?

"There's nothing there," The hooded girl said what I had in mind.

"Oh, but there is!" He chuckled, reaching into his pocket to pull out some kind of flashlight.

He then shone it on the edge of the page where he had pointed earlier and something showed up at the very edge of the page.

All of us leaned in closer and I realised there were several words written in fine print that I could not even make out despite how hard I was straining my eyes.

Thankfully, I had Lea to read it out for me.

"All terms of this contract will be null and voided if the employee is fired by the employer for any reason and no remuneration shall be owed to the employee upon such a termination. This clause supersedes all other clauses in this agreement."

The hooded girl glared at him, "You bastard! How dare you?!"

He then rolled up the contract once again while smirking, "I dare. So get out of my face you stupid cat, I have merchandise to sell."

"You sure you want to do this? Because if you come running back to plead me for any reason to come back, I'm not going to!"

"Hahahaha! Just get out of here before I call security!" He waved her off.

I thought she would continue to argue but surprisingly, she seemed to accept her loss and stormed off.

Geez, that was definitely not how I thought this interaction would end…