"Absalom, I have a personal question for you. What exactly is the production volume of those potions?"
In the Flower Capital's pleasure district, Queen sat beside Absalom and asked him a question.
"Just that much. I've already answered this question."
"Kid, even though you're following Oran now, I've known him far longer than you have.
"I know how this works. That idiot Caesar would call one thing ten, but Oran is different.
"What he says is at most just a fraction. The production capacity for your potions can still be expanded, can't it?"
Although Absalom stubbornly insisted that this was already the limit of Firefly Island's productivity, Queen did not believe him. In fact, Queen had guessed correctly.
Give them a few vials in the first year, then a little more in the second. In the third year, raise the price with excuses like expanded production requiring greater investment and rising costs.
In deals like this, Oran was a thoroughgoing "unscrupulous merchant." When one held a monopoly, plenty of things could be handled this willfully.
As long as the price remained within a reasonable range, it would not draw too much protest. The key was knowing how to strike that balance.
As an old acquaintance, Queen was quite familiar with this routine. It could also be used when scamming for funding.
Yes, Caesar was not the only one who knew how to scam for funding. It could even be considered a traditional specialty of MADS.
Whether it was Judge and Queen or Vegapunk and Oran, they all did this from time to time.
The difference was in the results they produced. Oran and the others made investors pay a greater price to obtain something, while Caesar simply took the money and did nothing, leaving investors so furious they wanted to