The smuggler paused and hesitated for a few seconds, "this is just the price of a single ship."
"I want to know what's the price of a big one…"
"Big one? Hahahaha! You are indeed crazy, hahahaha!" The smuggler seemed to grow amused by what Hye said, "a single one will cost billions of your bones. As far as I know, you already traded for too long with them, spending tons of your bones. So you can't afford…"
"I can," Hhye slowly interrupted him, "I want one big, three medium, and a swarm of small spaceships."
"Swarm? Do you think I'm making a big impact on them or what?!!! Come on man! All I have here is just one big, two medium, and one hundred small ones!"
"Deal!" Hye didn't move his extended arm for even an inch, didn't flinch in closing up this deal, "are you going to shake my hands on this or what?"
"I need to write a contract first!"
"I won't sign anything before knowing when and where I can get them!" Hye wasn't worried about paying such a scary amount of bones. After all, the bones this smuggler was speaking about were mostly the blue ones, the highest graded bones he used with the Toranks over the course of twenty years.
"Don't worry, human," the smuggler slowly extended his hand to shake Hye's, "once the contract is active, you pay what you owe me, then you are going to get to know the answer for that question."
Hye felt immense power coming from the smuggler's hand. It felt like he was a kid, shaking hands with a wrestler or something.
"What do I owe you? I owe you nothing!" Hye felt weird about the last words of the smuggler, and yet the latter didn't release his hand, as if he was taking it as a hostage.
"Did you forget? Little Silvy arranged this meeting to get you crystals. I already…"
"Oh about that, just add them to the contract," Hye casually said, as if this wasn't something that would bother him.
"Are you sure? This will cost you a lot…"
"Compared to the ships? I hardly believe that!" Hye laughed shortly, "hurry up and finish the contract. And tell me where and when I'm going to get my ships!"
"As you like," the smuggler didn't comment on Hye's words, took a few minutes doing something in midair, seemingly formulating some sort of contract over the interface of the system.
Hye didn't know that smugglers and outlaws had their own interface of the system. It was a bit different than the one provided to normal citizens in the universe. And that was a bit peculiar.
If he learnt about that, he'd jump to the conclusion that the system supported the outlaws. And that was partially true.
The system higher ups saw in the smugglers and outlaws a way to resist any invasion if it happened. Even if they had many scums, and bad personalities, they were still considered a sizable and decent military power.
They weren't like usual high forces in the universe, and weren't guided by any rules. Even if they were bad, they were still linked and limited by the system.
There was some sort of a life threatening contract signed between these outlaws and the system. Up to date, the system higher ups never activated such a contract. But in bad times, when things would go south and the universe would lose war, this contract would bind everyone and force them to oblige to the will of the system higher ups.
They'd fight the invaders, and unlike the regular high forces of the universe, they'd excel at street type of battles. They'd give the invaders a hard time, one that'd let them suffer to control the universe, or much better lead them to lose such war.
"It's ready," the smuggler finally stopped what he was doing after half an hour, "I've written everything we agreed upon, and placed the price over the universal standard of your bones. As far as I know, there are four types of bones you used before, is that true?"
"I can pay with other types of bones," Hye paused, "higher grade bones that aren't recorded in your system."
"Oh, that means you want a discount then?" The smuggler wasn't stupid, he got what Hye meant by his words. Hye was going to use special types of bones that never appeared before in the market. And that meant in addition to their market value, there was an additional value added by their rarity as well.
"Not a discount, but a raise in their value," Hye corrected him. He knew if he aimed for a discount, he'd pay much more than what he would if he evaluated his bones the way he liked.
"Then how can we assess these?" the smuggler laughed in his unique and weird way, "you don't believe I'll trust your call on this…"
"It's easy," Hye shrugged, "just use the samples of bones I'll provide and put them on sale in the universe. The price you'll get will be doubled, and that will be the value of each bone."
"Doubled? That's impossible," the smuggler laughed again, "the best I can offer is a ten percent increase in the final price."
"Make it eighty percent then…" the two started to hustle around the final price of Hye's special bones, ending up increasing the price by forty percent after an entire hour of debating.
The lady green nymph watched from the side, feeling more shocked about all this. She knew Hye got lots of bones, but she never thought he had a much higher grade of them than the ones spreading across the universe.
And then a question popped into her head: if he had such a vast variety of bones, then why didn't the Toranks try to make better deals with him? If she was in their shoes, she'd definitely not let such a fat fish go away off her net.
New novel 𝓬hapters are published on (f)reeweb(n)ovel.com