Chapter 22: Negotiation

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n“Your Grace, Vicente Fuller is here to meet with you.”

nAfter these words, Butler Mason opened the office door and allowed Vicente to enter there accompanied by his guard.

nVice and Wesley entered that luxurious room with a beautiful balcony overlooking the beach, a large sofa in the center of the room, two armchairs on the sides, and a table facing a fireplace between them.

nAll the armchairs and the sofa were in light brown leather, very much in keeping with the vintage look of this place.

nIn front of the balcony overlooking the beach was a desk, where a middle-aged man was sitting reading some papers, and a man was standing behind him.

nThis man had a sharp look on his face and a sword hanging from his waist.

nVicente had no way of telling how strong this person was. Still, he judged that such a man was not weak, for Wesley immediately focused his eyes on this individual.

nBut he knew that the one who had business to attend to was the man with the mustache and black, gray hair reading at that table.

n“Your Grace Baron Nate Murray, it is a pleasure to meet you. My father couldn’t make it because of a problem, so I’m here to represent him.” Vicente said as he approached that man.

nHearing this young man speak, Nate took his eyes off the papers he was reading and looked at Vicente’s childish face. “You don’t look so much like your father… You must have pulled the traits from your mother’s family.”

n“Hmm, I’ve been told that several times. Unfortunately, I never met my grandparents or uncles, to be sure.” Vicente said, swallowing his sad thoughts on account of Kate’s death.

nThis world’s typical family did not consider distant blood ties. After the second degree of kinship, many no longer gave importance to blood ties as they would on Earth.

nFor example, except in cases where a daughter married to generate benefits for her family, they would typically move away from their family of origin to integrate into their new home, the husband’s family.

nTherefore, it was common that grandchildren would take years to get to know their maternal grandparents in this society, and they would not normally give so much importance as to make great sacrifices for a member of ANOTHER family. .𝘤𝘰𝑚

nVicente was aware of this and did not consider contacting his maternal relatives for now.

nThat man noticed that Vicente didn’t seem disturbed by this comparison and said. “I heard that your mother passed away recently… I am sorry for your loss. It must be hard for a boy like you to go through it.”

n“Hmm,” Vicente said nothing beyond that, closing his eyes momentarily and nodding to the Baron.

n“In any case, I hope you won’t let this stop you from taking your own journey.

nYour father has already told me good things about you, Vicente, so I hope you will continue on the good path you have been on.

nYou’re going to triumph if you keep it up, kid.”

n“My father has told you about me?” He asked in surprise.

nThe Baron laughed. “Andrew and I come from different backgrounds. But during our youth, we were partners on a journey…

nAt that time, we were still trying to discover our magical ways.

nHe had escaped his master and was away from merchant affairs while I was experiencing time away from the pressure of inheriting my father’s position.

nWe kept in touch after that until we started doing trade, and he told me about you on a few occasions talking business in recent years.”

n“I see… So you have known each other for a long time.” Vicente did not know this since his father had not told him of all his business partners and contacts. “Anyway, thanks for the words, Your Grace. I will try my best.”

n“Hmm.” Baron Murray then said to the man behind him. “Sir River, take that item and give it to Vicente.”

nVice looked at that man and was surprised.

nIt was not easy to be called Sir in this society!

nThere was another title besides those given to nobles that the king conferred. That was the title of Knight.

nThis title was usually given to people who entered the royal family army and had merits during their time in such a force.

nSooner or later, they might have the chance to become nobles and receive the title of Baron.

nBy the way, the proper way to communicate with Knights was to call them Sir.

nUpon seeing the first of these warriors, Vicente understood why Wesley was staring at this man.

nHe was probably powerful!

nAs Vicente looked at that man, he placed a small chest in front of him on that table.

n“Vicente, I want you to give this to your father later.” The Baron commented. “This is nothing but my condolences for your loss…

nAnyway, you’re here to take care of business, so let’s get down to business. How are Andrew’s resources? He and I were about to make a deal concerning 10,000 bags of wheat and 5,000 sorghum.”

nVicente heard that and asked Wesley to hold up the item the Baron gave to his father. He said. “We have the required amount, but due to our recent problems, it will take us a little longer to make the shipment.

nIn the meantime, we can lower the price of these resources by a tenth to compensate for the delay.

nHow about 92 gold coins for the whole amount? We can deliver the resources in a maximum of 5 weeks.”

nNinety-two gold coins were not a small amount. Fifty silver coins, or half a gold coin, would be enough for a family of five to live well for a whole month.

nBut with that amount of grains, Baron Murray could feed many animals and people in his family for weeks or even months.

nWith any other contact from Nate, he would have to pay at least 110 gold coins for those amounts, so upon hearing Vicente’s proposition, the Baron liked what he heard.

nBut then Vicente said. “But as Your Grace must know, the price we charge is greatly influenced by the transportation. But if we trigger another 5,000 bags, it wouldn’t change our transportation cost much.

nWhy don’t we negotiate something more than that? I will certainly keep the discount for Your Grace.”

n“What other grain do you have?” Nate asked.

n“We also have barley and rye. For our other crops, unfortunately, we’ve already made deals recently. So I don’t have much else to trade.” Vicente was sincere.

n“Hmm, very well, then I’ll take 2,500 bags of barley and another 2,500 rye. How much would that cost me?”

n“Plus 12 gold coins in total.” Vicente did the math quickly, figuring a profit margin good enough for his family but without making the product expensive for the customer.

n“So 104 gold coins.” The Baron agreed to that price and showed one of his hands to Vicente, not taking the time to close this deal with this boy.

n“I will pay a quarter of the amount in the next few days and the rest when you make the delivery.”

n“All right, in the meantime, I’ll advance things by sending some letters to my father’s men.”

nWith that said, Vicente finalized his first utterly solo deal, experiencing the feeling of signing a Two-Party Agreement, the type of guarantee commonly used in Polaris Realm.

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