Chapter 44: Conning A Royal

Chapter 44: Conning A Royal

I stood in front of the hateful queen waiting for her to speak but she never did.

Guy 1 was the first one to speak on my behalf, "Your majesty, Prive Grove possesses an [Ultimate Skill] that allows him to trade with anyone around the world, and he wishes to share this skill with His Majesty."

The queen didn't like hearing the words, 'His Majesty' one bit. She glared at me even more, and I could feel the weak killing intent coming off of her.

"No."

She finally spoke up and the first thing she says is no? What a useless queen.

"Your majesty, some of his business partners hold great and powerful artifacts. As well as food that we desperately need."

The queen squinted her eyes before finally giving in to her greed, "Show me."

I didn't like her attitude one bit honestly. She was starting to piss me off, but I had to admit I wanted to see where this would go. Also, I had a feeling that if I said no I would most likely be executed for wasting her time.

So I used my skill on her, and watched her mess around with it for a while. I just stood there for 30 minutes while she decided to go shopping. She didn't bring out anything to sell and I didn't see her selling anything on my own screen, but I could see she was buying things.

What a lot of people don't know is that I actually possess a log of all the items going in and out of my Demon Shop. So everything she's doing is no secret to me.

So you might be wondering what she's buying and with what money. Well… this lady is using none other than her own levels. So far she has gone down 20 levels, and the thing she's buying? Beauty products.

I didn't mind of course, a part of her level goes to me actually. As a form of taxes.

Also… I was the one selling the beauty products. I couldn't help it, I noticed there wasn't a market for most miscellaneous goods so I started selling. Truth is, I have a lot of makeup in my storage box.

After a few minutes of waiting, she finally stopped after spending 29 whole levels. I thought that was a bit odd until I realized that that was the max number of levels that a non-super usually has. Of course some can have more while others can have less, but 30 is usually the max.

"Thank you for your patronage."

She looked up from her status screen while I looked at my own. After looking at my level I wasn't that surprised that I had only gone up a single level.

The higher level you are, the harder it is to raise it.

"Do you take other forms of payment?"

I looked at her with a poker face, but inside all I could think about was how useless this woman was.

"You can always put it on credit… You would owe the seller all of your property if you can't pay them back. Or you can co-sign on a loan."

She looked a bit uncomfortable on the first offer so I gave her the second option.

"Cosign?"

"All you need to do is think about sharing your thoughts with your subordinates and people and they will all receive a similar but weaker status screen. That status screen will extract the levels from your subordinates and they can't back out if they've already agreed."

The people in the room all had wide eyes. They had never heard of such a thing. How could such an evil thing exist in this world? They all thought it was evil but the queen looked on in glee.

Honestly speaking there were many other forms of payments, but she still needed to pay in levels as a toll to use my shop. She was going to find out about cosigning anyway. I'm not the bad guy am I? 

"Everyone, announce to the people. To agree to these terms."

After that everyone in the city saw a status screen with a symbol that said [DO YOU ACCEPT: YES\NO]

Not a very convincing argument, but she's the queen and she can do what she wants.

Everyone looked at each other, some of the people in here were strong, and brave warriors who had fought in many wars against the dwarves. They were all bound to have decent levels.

I didnt sense anyone at B rank but that didn't mean they weren't all high level. Some people could even be at level 100 and still not be B rank. Ranks represent strength and the amount of energy they could use, levels were a symbol of lifeforce stolen from others after all.

Lifeforce can dictate the amount of energy a person has but only barely. A person has to train hard to increase their energy output.

"Your majesty… I'm not sure this is a good idea…"

"Your majesty, he's right. This magic sounds evil, he's clearly using some kind of dark arts."

A few people spoke up in silent protest, but weirdly enough they all seemed slightly scared of this woman.

"You can get your levels back in the dungeons. Sign. It." The queen spoke the last two words through gritted teeth, clearly fed up with having this conversation.

Wow, what a useless queen.

Alora and I just watched all of this like we were watching a movie, and very soon messengers were sent out to the people ordering them to accept the contract or face capital punishment.

I had to admit I felt like doing something a little… underhanded. Well more underhanded than what I was doing already.

Do you remember when I first arrived in this world? I actually received a special item as a gift from Pilfer. I'm sure most people forgot about it, heck even I did. 

Soon I made a new offer and after browsing for a while, the queen finally noticed it.

[BRACELET OF FEAR: This bracelet is highly fashionable and quite popular in the demon world.

This bracelet is a divine artifact capable of instilling fear in all living beings. They might not know why they are afraid they just know that they are. This bracelet temporarily gives you the [FEARED] status, which enhances your charisma and ability to get what you want.

NOTE: "Courage fades when fear takes the stage!"]

I always hated that note. I don't know who came up with it but they're clearly no poet.

The queen soon found the bracelet and I could see the visible excitement in her eyes. She had this big smile on her face like she was a child who just discovered the candy store.

In a way she did.

After a couple of minutes of waiting she finally decided to buy the bracelet. The problem was… it still wasn't enough.

"WHAT?! How is this still not enough?! You! How do I buy this? Can I use credit?"

"You can, yes. Or currency, food, materials, artifacts, knowledge. That type of thing."

She looked at me then at the status screen, until she finally made a decree.

"Open the treasury!"

All of the elders looked at her in shock and horror.

"Your majesty! Surely we don't need to pay more?"

"This is an insane amount already! We'll soon go bankrupt!"

The queen looked upset and angry. She was finally getting fed up but even she admitted that her demands sounded unreasonable.

"He's offering a divine artifact."

She said these words through gritted teeth. She was clearly getting angry and impatient. 

I wonder if she has a good dentist. Clearly she needs one considering how she grinds her teeth so much. I'm getting distracted.

Anyways fortunately for her. And fortunately for me. Everyone knew the importance of this. They all stood up straight and bowed in silence before they all ran off to the treasury room. After a few minutes they came back carrying a chest full of gems, crystals, gold and great artifacts.

They tried offering it to me but I just told them to hand it to the queen. The queen looked confused until I told her about her own [ITEM BOX] where she could store anything she wanted. With no limit to the amount of space, she sounded excited to hear this as she grabbed all the items and put them in her storage.

As soon as I put the bracelet up for sale I was actually getting several offers from people all over the central continent. These guys were actually willing to buy this bracelet in exchange for other divine artifacts and other goods just as valuable.

The offers were tempting, but nobody had anything that could compare to the bracelet. So why was I selling it for what's basically trash you ask?

Don't worry about it.

…

After a few minutes of loading things up, the queen noticed that she was still unable to buy the bracelet, and she was getting furious.

"What is this? Why can't I buy it?"

"Unfortunately the seller of the bracelet is getting other offers at the moment. As the proprietor of this skill I can show you the offers just because I like you. Don't tell anyone else. This is our little secret."

The queen looked at me briefly and smiled seductively a little. Clearly she thought she could get more out of this deal, but honestly I wanted to punch her in the throat more than anything right now.

Alora didn't seem to get that I was lying as I could feel the menacing glare on the back of my head.

I ignored that and decided to show the queen all of the offers that this 'mysterious seller' was getting. When she looked at it, she noticed that they were all either divine artifacts or other rare and god-like items.

Even I was surprised.

"F***! These people are offering more than one divine artifact for this thing!"

Everybody looked on in shock, nobody knew what to say or do, all they could do was stare in awe and worry as the thought of losing such a precious item that they didn't even know about could potentially be lost on them.

"My clan will donate our entire fortune in exchange for 10 uses of this item!"

"What!? My clan will donate our entire fortune as well for 10 uses!"

Holy crap guys. The queen hasn't even told you what this thing is yet. Imagine their disappointment when they find out…

Don't get me wrong, the item is valuable. Crazy valuable, but it depends on who's using it. Why would a baby need to be feared? Why would you need to be feared? It's great if you want to tame a few powerful beasts but the bracelet is undoubtedly made for a tyrant. That's why the queen is the best customer a man could ask for.

After a few minutes everyone started offering their prized possession while sending out people to go retrieve them all.

After two hours the hall was filled to the brim with gold and artifacts. Storehouses were raided, treasuries ransacked. Even the people were not spared. Shop keepers had their wares removed. Citizens had their homes broken into. 

Heck even houses were torn down brick by brick, and the local library was emptied of all its books, and butchers had the meat of powerful magic beasts removed from their shops.

Honestly at this point I was definitely feeling guilty.

After a few minutes of the queen spamming her [ITEM BOX] on everything she saw, did she stop. 

She looked at all of this hoping the mysterious seller would accept the deal, but still nothing happened.

"Why isn't this working?! We need more!"

"Your majesty, we don't have anything more. The people are banging on our gates demanding answers. We can't keep taking anything."

At this point in time there was a part of me that was screaming. 'Stop dude! Just accept her deal.'

While a bigger part of me said, 'Nah. We can take this further.'

"Maybe I can help."