Chapter 48: Price negotiation and first ride
「Like I was saying, since we are going to buy three at the same time, gives us a discount!」 (Hind)
「Can’t do! If I sell them for cheaper than this, Kami-san will yell at me!」
Basically, we were participating in the auction now.
Regarding what happened, we went to the seller that was unable to find a buyer in order to strike a deal personally.
Regarding the auction itself, it was quite the stimulating experience, seeing how the sellers shouted the price in a loud voice while hitting the camels with a stick to show the quality of their meat.
As expected, while buying them for their meat was popular, buying them as a mount wasn’t so much.
After finishing the transactions, the buyers and sellers take their camels and go their own ways.
Seems like the number of sellers is way higher than the number of buyers today, so the price is on the cheaper side.
As a result, you could see people like us that were negotiating with the sellers even though the auction was over.
I want to take this chance and get a camel as cheap as possible.
Because even for a vendor, bringing the camels here is not free either.
They have to feed them and I heard that some travel great distances to sell them too.
That being the case, the travel expenses must have been pretty high.
Furthermore, in the case that they want to appear in the auction tomorrow, they will have to pay a fee to show their goods again.
As a seller, it’s better to sell as soon as possible.
Our estimated budget is 200.000G.
Today’s average price for a camel that’s been trained to be mounted is 70.000G, it’s usually a bit higher.
If we bought five of them it would be 350.000G so…we don’t have enough?
Just for the record, Tobi investigated and the average price for a donkey is 50.000G and a horse was a whooping 1.000.000G. You could say they are on a league of their own.
「In that case I’ll buy five! I’ll buy all the ones you have right now, so please! Sell me those five for 180.000G!」 (Hind)
「Kuah! So you finally said all of them…it’s true that if I don’t head back soon my next job will be…220.000G!」
Well, I was aiming for a vendor with five of them from the start!
After sticking a price to 3 of them, I suggested buying all of them.
Once I saw the man soften his expression, I believed the flow was in my favor.
As I’ve previously stated, for a seller, having to stay for longer periods of time raises the chances that it’ll turn unprofitable.
Because of that, I made him think that he would be able to sell everything he had, increasing the chances that he’ll listen to my demands.
Particularly someone like the man in front of me, I looked for someone like him in tribal clothes that looked like he had come from far away.
「190.000G!」 (Hind)
It’s finally time for the finale.
Most likely, he’ll settle for a price around 200.000G with this.
The man’s expression turned bitter and troubled.
…What will it be? Will he stop the negotiations, or…?
「…Suu…fuh. 200.000G is the final price! I can’t go lower than this! That will be all!」
「-I’ll buy them!」 (Hind)
Alright! I bought them! I mean, I won!
The man started to scratch his head as if he was thinking 「Have I messed up?」, but it was too late.
You can’t really say it doesn’t count at this point, you know?
I paid the man before he changed his mind and he handed over the reins for all of them.
「Hah…you are good for someone so young, kid. Since you were wearing lovely Shinto priest clothes, I thought you would be an easy target…」
「Haha, thanks. However, I think you’ve been doing a great job, uncle. These camels are really docile and obedient and react properly when you pull the reins, I’m satisfied with this purchase.」 (Hind)
「Yes, I raised them to be docile. Take good care of them.」
Seems like camels get really violent when they are being trained and it’s very hard to discipline them.
That being the case, it costs a lot more than using them as food, but that can’t be helped.
They also have saddles on them, so it’s a life-saver that we can ride them immediately.
The negotiations took longer than I thought.
There was no need for the five of us to be there in order to complete the transaction so I had the others go and replenish our items.
Once I got to the meeting place, everyone was already—wait, it’s this way! Turn this way!
There there, even though he said that they were docile, it was still hard to pull all five of them.
However, they sure look sleepy…just looking at them makes me feel as if I’m losing strength.
Looking at their faces remind me of Siesta-chan.
I wonder if she’s doing fine?
「Amazing! Wacchi, you really bought them for 200k!? That’s quite the discount!」 (Tobi)
「Wacchi…? And Tobi-kun, your way of speaking…」 (Selene)
「Ah…Ehem! Good job, Hind-dono! Degozaru!」 (Tobi)
Seeing me pulling the five dromedaries, Tobi shouted in joy.
Selene-san learned of Tobi’s way of calling me, but let’s leave that aside for now.
「Well then, there’s one for each one of you so take turns in getting one. There, there and there.」 (Hind)
「Good work on the negotiations, Hind. Ooh, this camel is so big!」 (Yumir)
「You are right, they are big…」 (Riizu)
I handed everyone their respective reins.
The girls were unexpectedly taken aback because of the size of the camels, but since they are calm there’s no need to worry.
The camel’s body is about 3 meters long and 2 meters in height, it was quite the impressive sight.
When I gave Selene-san the reins at the end, she was looking at me with worry for some reason.
「Hind-kun, was it really fine? I still have more than enough money, if you asked…」 (Selene)
「I already told you this a while ago, but that sort of thing is no good. We are trying to build a relationship of equals with Selene-san, so we have to take money matters seriously too.
「I did properly buy them within our budget so please don’t worry about it anymore.」 (Hind)
Since Selene-san earned a fortune via blacksmithing, she’s the one with the most money among us.
Regarding the matter of buying camels, she offered to have her part be bigger than the rest of us, but I refused that proposal.
I did have confidence in my negotiation skills after all, in times like this, you have to share the burden equally.
Most of the money we spent this time was from the reward from capturing that bandit boss.
It’s something we earned as a group, so there are no issues.
「…Hind-kun, you sure are mature. At times, it makes me think that you are older than me.」 (Selene)
「I-If you compliment me directly like that, it’s quite embarrassing…」 (Hind)
This girl…is for better or for worse, a naive person.
She doesn’t really mean anything by it, but it troubles me when she frankly expresses her feelings.
I mean, if it was the usual three, we would talk about stupid stuff after all.
As I got embarrassed, the three idiots made an evil smile at the same time. I got a bad feeling about this.
「Instead of someone older, a classmate of mine asked me if he wasn’t actually an old man, you know?」 (Yumir)
「When we were kids, some of my friends mistakenly called Hind-san dad. Ah, others called him mom.」 (Riizu)
「For some reason, the girls in our class always ask Hind-dono about matters regarding love.」 (Tobi)
「You guys! The happiness from being complimented by Selene-san is all gone! How are you going to repay me for this!?」 (Hind)
「Ah, ahaha…」 (Selene)
That being said, Yumir’s statement was the most shocking.
An old man she says…I’m still in my teens…
Anyway, let’s get back on track.
We advanced to the exit of the town that had a bridge, from here it’ll finally be time to ride the camels.
We pulled the camels a bit past the exit and started to mount them at a spot not too close to the valley.
Once we mounted the camels while they were sitting down with their legs folded, they started to stand up with their front legs first making their bodies bend backwards.
「Ahahaha! Scary, so scary!! Hahahaha!」 (Yumir)
While listening to Yumir, who became all weird, I braced myself in order to not fall down.
This time it raised its back legs and finally stood in an even manner.
Ooh, they are so strong…and this view…
「This is so high…!」 (Tobi)
「Oooh, this is quite…」 (Hind)
「It really feels as if you had grown taller. It feels good.」 (Riizu)
「It’s more comfortable than I thought. The humps are soft.」 (Selene)
Like that, we practiced how to mount them for a while.
Without crashing into each other, we started walking around the place.
It’s a game after all, it’s probably simplified so that it’s easy enough to ride them but…
「I-It’s shaking…it’s shaking a lot…」 (Selene)
Camels have a unique way of walking, so it does shake in all directions.
It’s fine if you get used to it…but there’s the chance that you’ll get sick, have to be careful about that.
When I checked if everyone was fine, I saw Yumir getting off the camel with a pale face.
I got off the camel after approaching her and placed my hand on her back.
「A-Are you all right?」 (Hind)
「Ugh…I-I’m fine…hah, hah.」 (Yumir)
Even though she was the most energetic one of us until just a moment ago, what a sad state.
However, this is worrying…
「Yumir, think you’ll be able to cross the bridge?」 (Hind)
「Eh?」 (Yumir)
「I mean the bridge. You can see it from here right? The bridge hanging in the valley, it’s a suspension bridge…」 (Hind)
「…Eh?」 (Yumir)
So she didn’t notice…
Because of my words, Yumir looked at the bridge hanging in the valley and her face turned gradually paler.
