Volume 5 - Ch 4.16
He was right. The amber in the middle of the necklace was definitely bigger than the rest and more transparent.
There is a big jewel in the center of the string, with several smaller ones lined up on both sides of it.
How is it, master?
Roxanne showed me the necklace after she finally put it on.
There are three mountains on her chest now: the amber one in the center, and her own big mounds on the either sides of it.
Because it has faint color, it does not assert itself too much, but just sits quietly in the valley of Roxannes chest, surrounded by her two bountiful hills.
Oh, you have to be shitting me! This means war! I can do nothing but watch while its sitting on her chest. This truly means war!
It It looks good on you, Roxanne.
Thank you very much, master!
Her smiling face looks so dazzling.
Do you like it?
It surely looks better than the previous one.
This one is priced at fifty thousand Nars.
So it is actually five thousand Nars more expensive than Sherrys necklace.
In other words, this is the escape route that I was so desperately seeking.
T-Then, I will be taking these two necklaces, please.
Are you sure about that, master?
Roxanne asked me when I finished placing my order with the merchant. Of course, she kept the necklace with the big amber in the middle of it on her, meaning that the big amber was still lodged firmly in between the safety of her chest, which was basically an equivalent of her forcing me to buy it. Without anything else to say or do, I simply nodded at Roxannes question, causing her to smile and nod back at me happily.
Now then, about the price for your purchase. With the price for the raw gemstones and the letter of introduction from the Duke himself. Let us call all of that a special service and make it seventy two thousand Nars.
The old man merchant nodded with a big smile on his face. Damn it! Even with my thirty percent discount Bonus Skill active, it still feels as if I was doing exactly what this guy wanted me to do, making me dance at the palm of his hand to the tunes that he was playing. I mean, do not get me wrong, it it nice to see that the letter of introduction given to me by the Duke apparently acted as yet another source of discount, but even with that in effect, the price that I have to pay for these necklaces an draw ambers is still astronomically high. Well, I guess that right now there is not much more that I can do about it. It cannot be helped. I do not know exactly what cannot be helped, it does not change the fact that it cannot be helped. What matters the most right now is the fact that I managed to get my hands on the amber necklaces that are going to be adorning Roxanne and Sherrys necks.
Well, I guess this concludes our business then.
As I was telling him that, I coughed up the dough and paid it to him without complaints or any attempts to haggle in order to get the price down any further than was it already was, because something was telling me that haggling and bargaining would not do me ant good at this point.
Yes, we certainly concluded our business here, and I hope that our partnership is going to be the one that is going to be beneficial for the both of us.
Yes, definitely. I am going to be in your care when it comes to amber.
The next time when you come to pay a visit to Bode we are going to have your raw amber gemstones ready. Is what would like to say in order to not needlessly keep you on the edge of your seat for too long, but since they are not the kind of product that can be picked up immediately, preparing them all properly is going to take some time, so I would like to ask you to be patient.
Sure, no problem. Do whatever you have to do, just as long as you will make sure that everything is done right.
That might have sounded a little cheesy, but these are my honest thoughts on the matter of doing business with this guy. But now that our business here in this shop was concluded, we went back home. For a moment I thought about going to Palmasque, but ultimately I did not want to travel that far for once, and for twice, there is no need to show ourselves to others as greedy individuals.
Even though I do not completely trust those craftsmen from Palmasque, as long as Sherry and Roxanne paid for a deposit of the mirrors that were being made for us, we do not need to get hem right away. I thought that maybe we should have went there to show off Roxanne and Sherrys new Amber Necklaces, but since that might have been seen as a fraudulent method of rushing a sales contract, so we should exercise a healthy dose of restraint so hat these craftsmen could see us as serious business partners.
Thank you so very much, master.
Yes, thank you, master.
But. Are you sure that was really okay? Buying us those necklaces, I mean?.
When we got back home from the shop of the amber merchant from Bode, the girls thanked me for buying the jewelry for them, but not before confirming once again whether or not that purchase was really, really okay with me.
Yes, I am really fine about it. Since the two of you are going to be responsible for the selling of our amber in Palmasque, I thought it might be a good idea if you were to wear some kind of amber accessory yourselves, so you can think about it as a necessary business expense to increase our chances of everything going smoothly.
Yes, if you think about it, that is exactly right, even if these might not have been my original intentions when I was buying these necklaces. This is going to be a kind of exhibition, where Roxanne and Sherry, as the two people responsible for the selling of our amber need to be wearing something made out of amber themselves, that is simply how it has to be.
Okay, then we will be borrowing them from you, master.
Borrow? Why would you borrow from me something that has been bought specifically for you?
Sherry said something pretty strange
Says Sherry while I was putting the necklace around her neck, so I asked her about that particular matter.
Everything that an owner buys for his slaves is the owners property. Well, aside from consumables, undergarments and other items of daily use.
Sherry replied to me. Is it really so? I honestly had no idea about that. So you are telling me that even if I buy equipment or accessories for these two, then from the standpoint of the law of this world, any such items belong solely to me, and I am only borrowing them to my slaves?
I mean, I guess this is kinda understandable since I am their master and all, but that still kinda sucks, if I am to be honest. And by the way, I feel like I have heard a similar thing being said to me back when I was buying clothes for Roxanne back in the day.
I know that in the understanding of this world such a thing is going to be just right because slaves are nothing but another commodity in the hands of their masters and they are not treated as living beings but rather as objects, tools to be used until they get broken down and replaced, I still think that they should at least deserve that much. If I am buying accessories for them, then at the very least I want them to know that the accessory that I bought is well and truly their, and not just something that they are going to constantly have to ask for permission to wear.
Well, in any case, if you do your best to sell the raw amber, then you are going to get the money right away. Even though I do not know how much is it going to be in the end.
Even if the mirrors are going to be sold to the Duke and the leader of the Knight Order at a cheaper price, we are still going to be selling them quite a lot of them, so we should still be able to make quite the profit out of them, and we can always recover the rest of the money by selling the raw amber, and even if that were to fail for some reason and Roxanne and Sherry would not be able to do it, then I will find a way to recover the costs somehow.
But for the time being, I think we should assume that the selling of the raw amber is going to be successfully conducted, allowing us to earn some fast and easy money off of it. And while we are still on the subject of the Duke and his Knight Order, then since we are already selling the mirrors to them, then would it not be possible to sell them some amber as well?
Because amber is easier to carry than mirror, it should not be as expensive as mirror.
Mirrors and amber cannot be kept in Item Box because they are not items dropped by monsters, nor they are used as materials in making equipment. Not only that, but mirrors are quite large, so their transportation is almost always guaranteed to be problematic since due to their innate fragility the possibility of them getting broken for whatever reason is going to be quite large, much larger in fact then with other objects and instruments of similar size, and because of that it is impossible to be carrying more than one of them at once.
When Roxanne and Sherry bought the two mirrors that we carried back home with us, they had to do it by one of them holding each mirror with both of their hands and while having them lean on the entirety of their body weights, and even then it did not look like that was the safest of methods that could be used to carry these mirrors, but if there was a different, safer method of transporting them then I am sure the craftsmen at the workshop where they were buying these mirrors would have informed them about it, so apparently that is the only way in which they can be carried, or at the very least, the only known method of how to transport them.
Amber, however, is just a small stone, so you can easily carry some of it in your backpack, and there is virtually no way for you to trip over it even if it were to somehow to fall out of your backpack, because let us be honest with ourselves for a moment here: you would have to be a very special kind of touched to the head to trip on something as small as a pebble at best, and a small rock at worst.
Yes, master! W-We will try to do our best!
Awww, just look at them, ensuring me that they are going to do everything in their power to meet my expectations of them. If having such slaves by my side cannot be called a pure blessing, then I do not know what can.
You do not have to be so worried about it. Since it is the incidental product, then I am going to be satisfied just as long as we will not end up getting into the red because of it.
I am looking forward to seeing exactly how much is it going to cost.
On that day, we did not end up going to Palmasque. Instead, we went to the Labyrinth of Vale and spend our entire evening hunting monsters there so that we could get ourselves some of the items that would then be exchanged in the Adventurers Guild for some quick cash that we would use to buy the ingredients which we would then use to prepare the dishes that would constitute our supper, but also so that I could recover the MP that I have expended for the purpose of taking all three of us from Quratar to Bode and then back to Quratar from Bode.
I did not spend as much MP for it as I did when I warped us from Quratar or Vale to Palmasque, but it was still an amount that I wanted to recover, because I was planning on taking a bath with the girls after dinner, and I knew that I would still have to make at least one or two trips to the Labyrinth in order to fill the bath with hot water, so I wanted to have as much MP as possible to limit the amount of additional trips that would have to be made.
When we got back home from the Labyrinth, we had ourselves some dinner, and then took an extra long bath to ensure that our bodies will be thoroughly cleansed from all the grime, sweat and dirt that accumulated on them throughout the entire day, and when we finished bathing, the time has finally come for the girls to wear their respective Amber Necklaces, which I have volunteered to help them put on. Seen from above, Roxannes boobs were just as magnificent as they were when I was looking at the from below during the nightly fun activities or when I was looking at them normally during the day.
When I tied the string of her necklace behind her neck, I had her turn to me to show me how it looked, and I have to say, the bead of the necklace looked absolutely magnificent in the valley of Roxannes breasts, which were still shiny and glossy after the bath that we took.
Yes, buying that necklace for her was a correct choice after all.
Next, I did the same thing for Sherry.
The gorgeous red amber looked absolutely breathtaking against her white, slightly flushed skin.
Oh yeah, Roxanne and Sherry adorned with their Amber Necklaces were truly a superb dish, and I partook in every delicious bite of it.