Side Chapter — The Bizarre Rental Fee Negotiations

It was time for the rental fee of the onsen-making magic tool to be negotiated. Dyne, the merchant shouldering most of Goren’s financial administrative responsibilities, visited Dragg’s town chief residence. Inside a simple, largely undecorated parlor was Cid Pavella, the town chief of Dragg.

“Thank you for coming. I’m Cid Pavella, the town chief.”

“Yes, my lord. I’m Dyne, a merchant from Goren. Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Dyne replied.

“Sir Dyne. First, allow me to thank you for coming.”

“No need to thank me, Lord Cid. After all, I’m a commoner and you’re a noble. Only makes sense I’d come visit you, man,” Dyne said, speaking in his Pavellan accent and debasing himself a bit. But that was actually a hard jab thrown Cid’s way. By establishing Cid as his superior and emphasizing that he was beneath him, Dyne was expressing that he intended to guide the negotiations in Cid’s favor.

In truth, the meeting should have involved Cid going to Goren and negotiating in their chief’s residence. Cid had wanted to thereby express that status didn’t matter for the negotiations, but before he could do anything, Keima had sent a letter saying the vice chief ordered him not to do any work, and that he would therefore send a merchant to Dragg.

Cid simply was not able to visit a merchant’s store to conduct a negotiation such as this. It was a firm practice for commoner merchants to visit nobles instead of vice versa, and Cid forcing his schedule on a merchant’s store would be so disruptive to business that it was out of the question.

With a single letter, Keima had forced Cid to take a suboptimal opening stance. The key to the negotiations here would be recovering from that as much as possible, and paying as much for the tool as he could to repay the debt that had been loaded onto him. Cid ordered his trained noble face muscles to force a smile.

“Indeed. But today we are negotiating a price. I would like to have an equal, balanced discussion on the market price of the tool.”

“Yeah, of course. This is all business to me too.”

“Then first, allow me to pay you for travel expenses,” Cid said before taking out a clinking bag. But Dyne took only a single glance at the bag before shaking his head with a smile.

“Hah, Lord Cid. That ain’t a good move, lemme tell you.”

“...Figures.” Cid clicked his tongue. The bag was obviously too full for mere travel expenses. It was a bribe. Cid, knowing that Dyne would be significantly involved in business between Goren and Dragg moving forward, had attempted to bribe him in order to measure his worth as a man.

First, if he just accepted it then and there, he was a small fry. Cid would be able to squash him down with his negotiating power. That would be ideal for him.

Next, if he turned it away saying he couldn’t accept a bribe, then he was a merchant with integrity. Cid would be able to expect fair, honest negotiations. That would be fine too.

Next, if he accepted the bribe with an ulterior motive, he was an experienced negotiator. He would ignore the intent of the bribe and, at best, take the negotiations a bit more seriously since he had bothered to take it. But even then, Cid would only lose the bribe and not much else. It would still come down to negotiating strength.

But the last was the worst and most difficult of all common reactions—refusing the bribe with full understanding of what that meant, as Dyne had just done. It showed their restraint, their dedication, and most of all, it showed they had no intention to negotiate at all. They knew they were in an overwhelmingly dominant position, and with that in mind they refused a bribe that might endanger their dominance. It was another way of saying they could easily earn more than enough money from the negotiations without needing to take a trifling bribe. In this case, Dyne was also showing that he had strong connections to Keima, the town chief.

“My apologies for testing you. Pretend you didn’t see anything.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. I know what’s up. I didn’t get trained by the town chief... ’scuse me, trained by Keima for nothing.”

Furthermore, he casually dismissed the reality that Cid had offered him a bribe without exploiting it as a weakness, further establishing his dominant position. All Cid got from his bribing attempt was the knowledge that Dyne was a bigger threat than expected. He should have expected nothing less from a merchant with Keima’s trust. Cid would have to go all-out as if he were negotiating with Keima himself to not lose his footing... or rather, to not be crushed to pieces. Cid swallowed hard.

“Judging from that accent, you must be from Pavella.”

“Yup. But you can just think of me as a Goren merchant now, my man.”

“Hahaha. Could I ask you to be gentle, as a fellow Pavellan?”

“Sure. I’ll sell you the tool for real cheap, brother. Don’t tell Keima.”

“Hahaha,” Cid laughed dryly, unable to hide his worry. Dyne knew he didn’t want the tool for cheap.

And thus began the negotiations.

“First of all, I need to know how strong the tool itself is. We shouldn’t even think about a set monthly payment if we don’t know how much the tool itself can actually do,” Cid began.

“Fair. I heard from Keima that it makes enough hot water to fill up a public bath, but it’d be risky to set a hard price when we don’t know the exact details. ’Specially what kind of magic stone it’ll take.”

“In that case, I think we should settle this based on the income the magic tool earns.”

“Fine with me. I was thinking the same thing, dude.”

The two of them grinned in agreement. Next step was establishing a baseline.

“I intend to pay all money earned from water purchases, bath visits, and so on.”

“...Eighty percent. That’s what I’m aiming for and I won’t take any higher.”

“Hm... Eighty percent of all our sales, hm? Very well,” Cid agreed instantly, holding out a hand. If Dyne shook that hand then negotiations would be over, but of course Dyne did not.

“Still joking this late in the game? Quit playing with me, man. We couldn’t take that much from you. I’m talking about eighty percent of the net income, obviously.”

(Translation: “The hell are you trying to pull here? You think you’re in a position to pay us that much?”)

“Oh, really? But you won’t earn that much from the net income.”

(Translation: Ngh, I knew that trick wouldn’t work. But net income is just too little, anyone can see that!)

The difference between the “sales” Cid spoke of and the “net income” Dyne spoke of couldn’t be more significant. Allow me to give a brief explanation.

Let’s say you have a bag of chips you’re selling for 500 yen. If you sell one you get 500 yen in sales straight-up, but then you have taxes, base price, and so on to take out of that 500 before it becomes net income.

If the net income of the chips is 25% (earning 125 yen per bag sold), and you have to destroy the ones that didn’t sell (losing 375 yen per bag), then net income would only be 25% of sales even when you sold all of the product. Net income would be zero if you only sold 75 out of the 100 bags, and any less than that would lose you money.

Here, Dyne was asking for eighty percent of the net income, a figure which could possibly be in the negatives depending on expenses. Naturally, with that established Cid had to retract his hand. If he let that deal through, it would be yet another favor to pay back.

“Sir Dyne, I think a merchant such as yourself should be more interested in turning a profit.”

(Translation: Quit fucking around and let me pay more.)

“Consider this us celebrating your becoming the town chief of Dragg. Not to mention, Keima said that this magic tool was just sitting dead in a storage building. We don’t even know if it’s working so you’re taking on a bit of risk here, y’know. We appreciate that, man.”

(Translation: You’re new here, pal, don’t get in over your head. We don’t even need this shit. A single bronze coin is a profit to us. Got it?)

“I appreciate the thought, but without Keima the magic tool can’t even function. By all rights he should take all of our earnings. No need to hold back, I’m willing.”

(Translation: I’m sorry. Please, just let me pay back a little of my debt. I’m begging you.)

Under normal circumstances, every coin earned by the magic tool (even before expenses like upkeep and employee wages) would belong to Keima. Without him, the magic tool wouldn’t exist, after all. Anything less would be more debt, anything more would be paying back the debt, and to that end Cid was intent on at least not digging his hole deeper. He needed to give Keima all of the sales. However...

Dyne let out a sigh. “I’m here to make a deal that’s good for both of our towns. Personally speaking, I’d be totally fine not taking any money at all, but something that benefits us both long-term is ideal. Keima’s telling me to be nice here, so you know what, how about we compromise and I take fifty percent?”

(Translation: Sorry, but I’m no softie. How about I just give it to you for free? Sure would put you in a lot more debt, huh?)

“Fifty percent is simply too beneficial to us to be a sign of equal friendship. I say... the eighty percent you suggested before is fair.”

(Translation: Alright, alright! I’ll go with your first deal, just spare me!)

“Pleasure doin’ business with ya. Eighty percent share it is. Man, sure feels good we settled it that quickly. Easy work.”

(Translation: Oh, want us to cover eighty percent of your costs when you go in the red? I can arrange that.)

“Er, well. As you know, I’m the son of Pavella’s archduke, and I receive some support from him. It’s unlikely our town will ever be in the red, and even if we are losing money, I wouldn’t be so shameless as to push the expenses onto Keima. I would like to make a deal here with that in mind.”

(Translation: I’m sorry! I was too cocky! But come to think of it, I have House Pavella backing me, so we’ll never go in the red! Please, please just let this end! Save me!)

Dyne, recognizing Cid’s reply as admitting defeat in negotiations by referencing status, nodded.

“Alright then.”

(Translation: A’ight, I’ll cut you a break. That’s good enough for me. And now it’s settled for real.)

“...Er, will you want a deposit on the magic tool just in case? We might break it by accident ourselves.”

(Translation: With that settled, is there any way I can pay you a lump sum of money at all? Please?)

“I’ve been told not to take anything like that, man. Seems like Keima really likes you. Y’know, I think I remember him saying something about giving the futons for free.”

(Translation: Don’t be a sore loser, pal. Give up.)

“F-Forget the deposit, then. But at least let me pay for the futons. It’s the least I can do.”

(Translation: Wait! Okay, I get it! I’ll actually give up now, let me live!)

And so Cid and Dyne exchanged a firm handshake, their negotiations over the magic tool’s rental fee complete.