But who would’ve expected that they got placed on a deserted island instead of some burgeoning town . Apart from a shipyard there wasn’t a single building , and the Merchant’s Window showed that Port Atwood , as the presumptive town was called , only housed one solitary citizen ; its Lord .
Worse yet was the Lord’s companion , the System-blasted Demon . For a second Calrin was ecstatic when he heard that the Lord controlled an actual Nexus Crystal Mine . That meant there was a Nexus Vein on the island , and sooner or later things like farms with valuable plants would pop up . Even cultivators would relocate here for the high density of energy , which would only help business further .
Until then he would be able to turn a tidy profit buying the crystals and reselling them through the Mercantile System . A native had no idea of value of things , and if they added a larger margin , who would know?
But that Demon wasn’t actually a native , but a defected invader . He ruthlessly started to pressure down the profit margins to a razor’s edge , even threatening them with a trade embargo . He obviously had a general idea of the Thayer Corporation’s situation and knew that if they didn’t produce some profit and turnover , the System would rescind their business license .
Gone were the dreams of a mighty comeback , replaced with a nightmare of toiling under a demonic taskmaster for little to no profits .
Zac was quite happy with the result of the negotiations as he moved through the forest . Ogras kept proving his worth as a teammate . The little genie , whose race was actually called Sky Gnomes , made a big production of support and mutual cooperation after he heard about the Nexus Crystal Mine . After almost wiping away a tear of self-sacrifice he offered the most generous price of 35 Nexus Coins per Crystal .
The price seemed to have awoken a dragon in Ogras , and he started making a scene . It turned out that the value of a crystal was actually closer to 50 Nexus Coins , and after subtracting transaction costs for using the Mercantile System and some profit for the merchant , the crystals were generally bought for 44 to 46 crystals at most merchant shops . The price-gouging System-run stores only gave 35 crystals though , and it seemed that the gnome planned on offering the same price and pocketing the difference .
What followed was an almost surreal exchange between the gnome and the demon , where the demon initially wanted to get 54 coins per crystals , forcing the trading firm to eat a loss at each trade .
The gnome tried every trick in the book to keep the prices reasonable in order to make some profit . At one point he had even tearfully ordered one of the clerks to fetch a noose , as he said he would - rather hang himself than keep suffering this kind of injustice’ . Not long after the noose was long forgotten , and instead the chairman paraded two little Gnome Children in front of Zac and the Ogras .
They were some of the cutest things Zac had ever seen , but they were wearing frayed clothing and looked hungry with large puppy-dog eyes . Zac was tempted to stop the demon at this point , but Ogras waved him away and ruthlessly pushed forward . Zac did however spot the demon surreptitiously place candies in each of the kid’s hands , without pausing in his screaming contest with Calrin .
Ogras’ trade tactic was simpler , as it was just a long stream of threats , insults , and angry gestures . He tried everything from threatening to fill the area with competing businesses to enacting trade embargoes on the Sky Gnomes .
Finally , the price they agreed upon was 47 Nexus Coin per refined crystal , a rate that obviously was one of the best one could get without selling them directly to a customer who needed them . Both Ogras and Calrin was heaving and sweating at this point , looking like they had just finished an arduous battle . Zac quickly handed over 11 000 crystals , and immediately received 517 000 Nexus Coins in return .
Next , Zac asked about a pill that could help with his situation with his pathways , but as expected the little gnome had nothing of that quality in the store . He did however promise to acquire one through his channels , but it didn’t look like he even believed himself .
Content , Zac and Ogras left as there wasn’t much else of value to buy in the shop . Besides , both of them were suffering from a lack of funds at the moment . Ogras told him that the System had confiscated all the demons’ nexus coins when they stayed on Earth , but Zac wasn’t convinced . After watching the previous display he was more inclined to believe that he simply refused to expose any hidden wealth .
