Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)

Volume 4 - Ch 5.11

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist Editor: Weasalopes

However, since this is supposed to be a nightgown worn only during the night hours, this should not be too much of a problem.

When we finished our visit to the clothing store, we made our way towards our next destination: Quratar Merchants Guild. As I stopped by the entrance, a man different form the one I saw yesterday walked up to me and began chatting me up.

Good day to you, sir. What is your business with the Merchants Guild today?

I would like to inquire about the auctions for a little bit, if it is not a problem of course.

The name is Luke, and I am one of the brokers who acts as a middleman for those eager to participate in the auctions. If t is all right with you, sir, I will gladly hear and answer any questions that you might have.

[Luke Acid],

Male, 28 years old

Job: Armor Merchant Lv.2

Equipment & Accessories: Sacrificial Misanga

Oh, quite conveniently for us, this guy is an Armor Merchant. Could it be that he is still so young because his level is low?

As for the Armor Merchant Job itself, I do not have it personally, and judging by its name it is rather obvious that it is aquired through the means of buying and selling armor for yourself. Who knows, as long as I keep doing that and increase the level of my Merchant Job, maybe one day I will get may hands on it as well?

I see. . . . . . . . All right then, I am going to hear what you have to say to me.

Wonderful. Then please, follow me.

I followed after the man, and he took me to the room similar to the one where I was talking to the other broker yesterday. He sat at one side of the table in the back of the room, so I took a seat at the other side, with Roxanne and Sherry sitting at the either side of me.

If I may ask this of you, sir, then what is your name?

Michio. Kaga Michio.

Michio-sama then. Forgive me if it sound too direct, but it would seem that you have been here yesterday inquiring about the auctions, but were unable to secure a suitable deal for yourself. Is that right?

For someone who was meeting me for the first time, this guy has a surprising amount of information about my visit here yesterday. Could it be that I was spied on? Or maybe Laurent the Sex Maniac, the broker whose offer I have refused yesterday told all of his collegues and cohorts how our meeting went? Yeah, that sounds like a more probable option.

Yes, you are right about that.

I see. Very well then. You wanted to know about the auctions, correct? Then allow me to give you a brief rundown of how they function here. On the left side of the guild building, there is a waiting room that was made specifically for those how are participating in the auctions. If you have made the appointment earlier, then you are allowed to use it at your own leisure, and it is also the place where the results of each auction are going to be posted for all those who are interested in seeing them to see. Alternatively, if you have your personal contracted broker and do not wish to mingle with the rest of the auctioneers, you can always schedule a meeting with your broker so that he or she could relay the news of the auctions results to you personally. That is how the auctions generally work here.

These are some pretty tight rules. But now I fully see what Sherry meant by saying that all of the brokers cooperate and have a strong bond of solidarity with one another. Talking to the people who come visit the Merchants Guild is always an occasion for the acquisition of new customers, so I guess it can be called a kind of a concession between them, since the chances of aquiring new clients are shared equally between all of them, since if one broker fails to win a customer over, like it was with me and Laurel yesterday, there is always a chance that another broker might achieve what the other failed to do. On the other hand, if the customers were allowed to freely talk to whoever they wanted, it would have lead to the conflict over getting the customers, which could have directly lead to the reduction of overall fees, and that in turn would mean that the Merchants Guild would not make as much of a profit as they could have made otherwise.

Before we begin, let me ask you this: is the reason because I was approached by brokers yesterday, and today as well, because I was standing around looking all absent-minded, which prompted you to think that I am going to make an easy target for manipulation of myself?

No, no, no, that is not the case at all.

Good. Also, yesterday I talked with a man named Laurel, but I found the offer he presented me with to be lacking, so we did not strike a deal. Is that okay, or is it going to be a factor in my talks with you today as well?

No, of course not. If you did not make a deal with him, then that means that it was he who failed to appeal to a potential customer, so you have nothing to worry about.

I thought that my refusal to accept Laurels proposal yesterday might end up in considerably racking up the difficulty of finding out a potential replacement for him, but thankfully it does not look like it is going to be as difficult as I have initially thought. Well then, let me see what this guy will have to offer, and if I do not like it, I will simply refuse him just like I did with the other guy yesterday.

Okay, in that case, I see no problems in talking with you.

Wonderful. Now, if I am to begin my explanation about auctions in more detail, can you please tell me which kind of auctions interests you the most, sir?

Both buying and selling auctions, since I know nothing about either of them.

When it comes to buying, it is possible for you to take care of everything by yourself, but in the most cases, potential clients tend to go about it be cooperating with broker and middleman like myself, or Laurel, whom you have met yesterday. And that brings us to another important question: what kind of goods do you want to buy, sir?

Since I displayed interest in buying things through auctions, Luke the Broker jumped at the opportunity that would allow his to earn some money off of me, as expected.

Even a complete beginner should know that if you know next to nothing about things like that, then managing and keeping an eye on the auctions is going to be impossible for a complete layman, and that is why brokers and middleman existed in the first place. With their assistance, the process of taking part in an auction is not going to be as puzzlingly perilous as it would have normally been.

Kobold Skill Crystal.

Just like with Laurel yesterday, I decided to be open about what I needed. Lying about it now would not help me in the slightest.

Kobold Skill Crystals? I see. The day before yesterday, one of them was sold for five thousand two hundred Nars, and two days ago another one was sold for five thousand four hundred Nars. As for the bidding of the current auctions, it would seem that its current price once again averages at around five thousand two hundred Nars. I am not going to lie, the price is already expensive, but if you want to obtain it during the current auction and be willing to invest a sum bigger than that, I could arrange to enter you as another bidder with the same price as the one from the day before yesterday: five thousand four hundred Nars.

Luke the Broker replied without even looking at any kind of memos. Just from that action alone, I could say that he is an excellent middleman, or at the very least a better one than Laurel the Sex Maniac. If he would really arrange it for me to become a bidder in the current auction and I managed to win it, that would snatch me the Kobold Skill Crystal that Sherry could infuse into a weapon in the same manner as

she did with the Rabbit Skill Crystal and the Copper Sword.