Black-Hearted Merchant

However, the other party's opportunistic approach still displeased him somewhat, as someone was trying to take advantage of him, Frog.

"Heh heh heh, what are you saying? From the moment you walked into the store, I knew you were a young hero, someone of great stature. This little expense is barely befitting your status."

Looking at Frog, whose face was slightly gloomy, the boss seemed completely at ease, as steady as an older brother, still wearing a fawning smile on his face.

It seemed that the other party's reaction was within his expectations.

As a seasoned veteran who had been around for many years, Frog could understand the mentality of wanting to make more money when he encountered such a generous customer.

There is no such thing as a "Consumer Protection Law" in this world, so when Frog entered the store and couldn't find any price tags on or around the clothes, he already had some guesses.

Sure enough, this old fox was going to try and make an exorbitant demand. I may be rich, but don't take me for a foolish landlord's son.

Frog earned all his money through hard work, so he knew how hard it was to come by, and he certainly wouldn't squander it so recklessly.

Asking me to hand over five gold coins right off the bat?

Don't even think about it!

"Smooth talker, be more honest. Give me your bottom line: I want all these packed clothes, plus that one last one. Give me a reasonable price."

Even though the other party only said nice things, anyone who came would find it very flattering.

Although this the boss was a bit greedy, he had a good grasp of the psychology of upper-class people, especially since this was clothing sold to women. In this kind of situation, men naturally didn't want to lose face and were very likely to rip him off to save face.

However, Frog wasn't the kind of person to be easily fooled. He knew that Lia was still a naive young girl with little social experience, so she wouldn't care about such things and therefore had no such concerns.

On the contrary, he felt that the boss had quoted him a very high price right from the start, leaving him unsure how to negotiate.

Since this was my first time buying clothes for a girl, I didn't know the market price. I was worried that if the price I casually quoted still caught her off guard, I would feel like I had lost out.

At this point, it's no longer as simple as just buying clothes.

Rather, it was a game of bargaining between two businessmen, an art of haggling. "Over there... miss?"

"Huh? Are you calling me?"

"Yes, do you know how much clothes of this quality would cost in other stores?"

This old fox was definitely not going to tell the truth, so Frog, seeing this, approached a female customer who had just entered the store and began asking her questions.

The other person looked very young, probably a few years younger than me, and should know a lot about this kind of women's clothing.

However, the girl's clothes were rather simple, all form-fitting, highlighting her good figure. She had an oval face and was quite pretty. She also wore a Jade Necklace, which Frog, with his sharp eye, immediately recognized as genuine.

However, judging from his intuition, this girl didn't seem to be wealthy, because he could inadvertently see thick calluses on her hands, which were clearly the result of years of hard work.

Affluent families would never allow their daughters to do hard labor year after year, and they would never develop such calluses.

Could this little girl be an adventurer?

"I... don't know much about this... I just happened to be passing by and came in to take a look."

The girl, who had been curiously examining the clothes in the closet, was caught off guard by Frog's sudden question. She blushed and stammered, keeping her head down and avoiding looking in his direction, seemingly quite embarrassed.

Seeing her like this, Frog understood that she didn't actually have enough money to buy such beautiful clothes; she just wanted to come into the store to fulfill her own desires or something else. She also couldn't look people in the eye properly when speaking because of her inferiority complex—a habit formed in her upbringing.

Judging from this, the other party could not possibly be a noble lady or the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and might not even be from an ordinary family...

Looking back now, he really regretted asking such a casual question to a stranger; he might have unintentionally hurt the girl.

"I was careless..."

He silently pinched himself in his heart.

The shop owner, who had initially worried that the girl would ruin his plans, came to the same conclusion as Frog after seeing her performance.

"Luckily, I didn't ruin my plans."

He secretly rejoiced.

"Since you said you wanted me to give you a reasonable price, I won't play games with you. How about adding all of these together, plus the item you mentioned, two Lacir Gold Coins? That price should be pretty good, right?"

The boss still had a smiling face. This time, the price he quoted was only two-fifths of the initial price, which seemed like a significant reduction and a sign of sincerity. However, Frog knew that it was only because the initial price had been so outrageous that he was using such a large discount to make Frog think, "This price has already dropped a lot; they really intend to make friends."

He's a businessman too; how could he not understand these little tricks of manipulating customers' psychology?

"You're still not being honest. This price isn't reasonable at all. If it really doesn't work out, I'll go check out other stores. If they offer a better deal, I'll buy from them. My friend won't mind."

As Frog spoke, he glanced at Lia, unusually, understood his signal and nodded in affirmation.

"You really don't need to do this. My shop is famous for its good clothes around here. You might not find styles that appeal to you two elsewhere. Besides, it's quite a walk to the nearest shop, and I'm afraid you'll get tired and lose interest in shopping."

Seeing that things were getting out of hand, the boss hurriedly tried to calm the two down.

This is a very important client he's had in the last few days; he can't let you get away from him.

Just as the three were at an impasse, the welcome bell at the shop door rang again.