Chapter 1 - Section 1: Village Negotiations Part III

҉ Raisa POV ҉

[Awa to think I've become so dependent on even Satou's food, I mean I already knew that when I was at home even since the former royal chef couldn't satisfy my tastes more than even Satou could, and that's even before considering that mythical food he keeps in his inventory. On top of that I can't even count how many ways I owe Satou, at this point if we kept a tally if he ever came calling to collect the debt I would fall into becoming a debt slave for the rest of my life. All I can do now is whatever I can to stay in his good graces, and prove my worth to him, so the idea of collecting never comes to him. But then again the type of person Satou is… well I don't think he'd ever even consider doing that I mean I'm a dear friend of his someone he trusts enough to reveal his secret to...OMG no the best way to conceal that secret would be with a slave contract so I couldn't ever reveal it.]

'Araaaaa' <Ruby >

As she mulled her various thoughts over in her head Raisa continued to walk the length of the main street, every so often glancing at the stalls just as she had been doing for the morning with Satou, except now only she and ruby were walking the street but while consumed in her own mind Ruby eventually broke her out of it with a cry followed by a light bite to her hand.

"Ouch what did you do that for?" <Raisa >

'Point' 'Araara' <Ruby >

Pointing off directly in front of them the she saw that just five more steps and she'dve walked head first into the village wall.

"Oh I see, sorry about that ruby I was just lost in my own head, sorry about that life's been… well a lot different since Satou got here and I'm a bit insecure about how I feel" <Raisa >

'Aroo' <Ruby >

"Dah! Ruby don't do that, it's… it's not like that at all I swear" <Raisa >

Waving her hands flustered in front of her in an attempt to get her faithful kobold partner to stop making a kissing face towards her, paws clasped in front of her heart

"Ah forget it, besides aren't we on a mission right now after all, if we fail that then out of shame we couldn't go back and see the others again" <Raisa >

'Are!' <Ruby >

"Hmm thinking on it now, the one thing I haven't seen here so far would be an apothecary, well that an a blacksmith shop, but if I go the smithy route then that's almost total reliance on Satou once again, at least with an apothecary I would only need him to create a suitable stock of potions first and then he'd be free after that until restocking was required." <Raisa >

The shop in question was the brainchild of Raisa to expand her own credit with the commerce guild since they care not if you are a franchiser or a roving merchant so long as you bring in profit which translates to sales taxes paid back to the guild, and with Raisa belonging to the Salide family name they have big expectations for her to live up to the family name, or even one day take over the company from her father.

"First things for a shop would be finding an empty building on this street which we could rent, or I suppose worst case we could buy it." <Raisa >

Doing yet another lap of the main street and scoping out all the building that are closed, or with no signs of being a night business she had scoped out only a handful of possible locations, two were really small shops, one was a medium sized one, and the last would be a large style shop most likely a former brothel or inn since it was a more upscale two story building for a rustic village like this second only to the Elders own residence.

With the marketplace thoroughly scoped out, Raisa with Ruby in town headed straight for the local commerce guild, the only non military building in the entire village not made of wood, or soil.

"Good Afternoon Welcome to the Commerce Guild how can we help you" <Teller >

Pulling a card from her pocket Raisa flashed a golden colored card at the teller

"I'm here to speak about the five vacant building on the main street." <Raisa >

"Awah o.Of...Course please head to the meeting room and someone will be there shortly" <Teller >

With that the teller fled the desk as Raisa and Ruby looked around for a second before heading through the nearest door and wandering the halls a little until they came across a room with a flip tile indicating its vacancy.

The room was fairly small able to fit at most four people with the four chairs arrange in a square formation around a small table one could almost mistake it for a staff break room or lunch room.

Taking up chairs side by side with my chair in particular facing the door so I could watch every action and movement the guild staff member makes when entering and leaving the room, these were all skills drilled into me by my Father and his employee's since a merchants armor is their words, and their weapon their eyes. Leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of profit, Exploit any weakness you can find, and never allow someone else to do the same to you. This was the mantra of our house for generations so now I as a daughter of the Salide house must do my part and live up to the family name.

No more than a minute of silence passed before a knock came from the door, followed shortly thereafter by man done up in his best dress, gold and jewels adorned all over clearly trying to show off his position and vast wealth, but lacking severe manners to enter a room without receiving permission, even for a guildmaster this would be a demerit even moreso if you knew the room was occupied by a lady.

Still not choosing to announce or introduce himself the man approached the table rubbing his palms together greedily as if he was going to start a fire with the friction.

[This might be tougher than we hoped for clearly using a gold guild card was the wrong move here, no matter what happens we're gonna get ripped off so it might be best just to retreat]

Still without a word the gaudy man pulled a chair and took a seat still rubbing his hands, and even more than once I could see him licking his lips. As soon as he tucked himself into he seat.

'Keeeerach'

Sliding my chair away from the table I stood up, only a split second later Ruby followed suit without me even having to say so, and the pair of us moved to leave the room without a word.

'SLAM'

A fist adorned with multiple gold rings dropped onto the table cracking the table top, heavy breathing resulting in the man making a puhee sound with each breath through his nose. Clearly he has become enraged by our descision to not deal with him but from his reaction he believe it to be entirely our fault.

So not reacting much if at all to the temper tantrum we continued on our way to the door. But as soon as my hand touched the door knob

'SLAM'

The golden fist was now rammed into the door holding the door closed as his entire weight must be pushing against it, since I can clearly feel his breath on the back of my neck the puhee sound getting even louder and not just cause it was closer to my ear.

"Do you mind, we are clearly in the wrong room" <Raisa >

"Not a chance girlie this is the only room" <Puhee Guy>

"Is that so, and care to elaborate why that is?" <Raisa >

"Because this room has been protected with soundproofing magic so I have all day to "negotiate" terms with you" <Puhee Guy>

Saying so with audibly licking his lips again.

As it stands now clearly a guild that allows someone like this to be employed isn't on worth doing even a single iota of business with, but that still leaves one glaring problem even if thanks to Satou I could protect myself from this guy most likely, I'd still run the risk of being blacklisted for attacking a guild member without provocation… that is unless there is provocation

'wink' <Raisa >

'nod' <Ruby >

"Did you hear me girlie or perhaps are you to frozen with delight at what is about to happen?" <Puhee Guy>

Choosing not to respond since this type of man will eventually become impatient once again.

'Slaaamm' 'SLAAMM'

Crashing his fist once again into the guild room door leaving a fine imprint of the rings on his fingers into the wood. But due to his blood pulsing this puhee guy failed to realize that there wasn't one but two different slamming sounds the first when his fist collided with the door, but the second was from Ruby who punched a hole clear through the wall.

"Did you hear me Bitch, I don't care at this point whether you are frozen in fear or desire or what, if you don't respond to me now I will make sure you suffer so much pain that by the time I'm done you'll beg to be sold off into becoming a sex slave for some commoner for a couple of coppers" <Puhee Guy>

"Puhleez let me go you horrible man, how dare you keep me confined against my will!" <Raisa >

"Bwahaha your pleas will go unheard little lady I'm going to break that will of your until you're begging me to use you!" <Puhee Guy>

'Wahhhhhhhh' <Raisa >

"STEP AWAY FROM THE GIRL Kandame"

"What?" <Puhee Guy>

The gross man spun around at the announcement of the other voice in the room, gazing past his roundish form Raisa sighted a guard who had come running and crawled through the hole made in the wall behind him were another pair of guards all of whom had their weapons draw.

[Perfect, no matter what he tries to do now he's trapped unless all the judicial forces are under his control which in that case we'd have to go to plan B but for a man like this his weakness was all to easy a thing to exploit]

"To think you would go so far as to attempt something like this, and on guild grounds no less" <Judicial Guard>

"No it's a misunderstand this woman assaulted me I was only defending myself" <Puhee Guy>

"That's not going to fly we heard everything Kandame, step away from the girl and submit yourself for judgment" <Judicial Guard>

The process after wards was fairly straightforward the Puhee Guy Kandame was arrested and taken away to the town jail, afterwards the Commerce Guildmaster met with Raisa in his office and reparations were paid on behalf of the guild for the actions of one of their own against that of a Gold Card member.

Gold card members of the commerce guild are those who own large business's with multiple location within the country, there is only one rank higher than this which is platinum meant for international traders. Though she's spent her time abroad learning the tricks of her trade the gold card she used earlier was the one given to her as a daughter of the Salide house, while her own personal guild card is only that of an iron card meant for travelling merchants, but since Iron will not get you respect especially her on the kingdoms outskirts.

After the negotiations for the punishment and repayment for pain and suffering due to the actions of the guild employee, Raisa had secured all she could hope for on far better than reasonable terms securing a place for her local shop with no lease fee, and the best part was this shop was a former smithy so while she could operate as an apothecary shop if he wanted to Satou could also perform part-time blacksmithing if he wanted to, he had mentioned before about wanting to gain experience for his numerous skills.