All‑Master Who Regressed to Bronze - Chapter 121

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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All Master Who Regressed to Bronze Episode 121

Shin Hyeok frowned as he checked Goldrich’s wallet.

[Achievement Points 1,238,571]

“This is all? If you’re hiding more, it’s one hit per 10 points?”

“I, I really don’t have any more! Most merchants don’t even carry this much cash around anyway!”

“Tsk, disappointing.”

“But just how much do you have that you’re oppressing me like this? It hasn’t been long since you bought those items last time, so you shouldn’t have many Achievement Points left either.”

However, Goldrich subtly attempted to resist.

1.2 million points.

This was among the top cash reserves for wandering merchants.

Plus, being a merchant, he had quite a lot of physical goods too.

Like the items he had sold to Shin Hyeok before.

In contrast, Shin Hyeok had recently spent 1 million points buying goods from Goldrich, so his cash reserves should be rock bottom.

At least, that’s what Goldrich thought.

[Achievement Points: 2,712,550]

“Hieeeeek!!! Heeeek! How! How is this possibleeee!!!”

But Shin Hyeok’s world operated in reverse.

Goldrich felt cosmic horror at the massive amount of cash that was twice what he himself possessed.

It was natural.

When he first met Goldrich.

Shin Hyeok had roughly 1.6 million Achievement Points.

After paying 1 million points as compensation, his remaining Achievement Points were less than 600,000.

But in less than a few months, he had suddenly earned over 2 million points, so Goldrich couldn’t help but be shocked.

“What, what did you use to earn this much? Equipment? Materials? No, this is a closed dimension so you can’t even trade with other dimensions?”

But his bewilderment was brief.

Like a true merchant, Goldrich moved to figure out how Shin Hyeok had earned so many Achievement Points in such a short time.

He needed to find out what cunning and amazing method it was so he could earn that many Achievement Points too.

Unfortunately though—

“Goldrich.”

“Yes?”

“Live honestly. Business? Trading? There’s something more fundamental than that, isn’t there?”

“What do you mean—”

“You get Achievement Points when you achieve Achievements. Simple, right?”

“No, wait… Are you saying you earned over 2 million Achievement Points solely through achieving Achievements?”

“Hmm, is this difficult…?”

“Kuk, kraa… Kraaaaah!!!”

Shin Hyeok had simply been diligently mining points.

In other words, he had worked hard at achieving Achievements.

It was a fundamental story.

What should you do to earn money?

You work.

Then to earn Achievement Points?

You achieve Achievements.

It was such an obvious and fundamental story, but there was a reason most people couldn’t do it.

Naturally, Goldrich, who knew this better than anyone, exploded at Shin Hyeok’s genuinely puzzled head tilt.

Well—

“Want to fight? Make a fist. Let’s go at it.”

“No way. Absolutely not.”

That didn’t mean Goldrich could actually do anything about it.

The moment Shin Hyeok clenched his fist and took a stance, Goldrich felt his runaway sanity return on the KTX and seriously waved his hands.

‘How could I possibly face this monster? He’d need to be from an Extraneous Dimension at minimum, or maybe even a Lower Dimension…’

Extraneous Dimension.

A term referring to countless dimensions that don’t belong to the Lower Dimensions.

Naturally, their combat power was low.

But even just the Lower Dimensions were on a different level.

A Player from such Lower Dimensions would need to come out to match up against Shin Hyeok.

Of course, not just anyone from the Lower Dimensions would do—it would have to be a talented Player who had grown to some extent.

Anyway, learning the source of Shin Hyeok’s capital was brief.

“Hmm, how much can I buy with this amount…?”

“You, you can’t buy everything! I need to keep some cash too!”

“I know. That’s why I’m thinking about it.”

Shin Hyeok fell into thought, planning to drain Goldrich’s Achievement Points.

1.2 million points.

It was a lot of Achievement Points, but not enough to buy all the unique-grade materials in considerable quantity.

Especially since he couldn’t spend all his Achievement Points just on buying iron ore.

So Shin Hyeok tapped his chin with his finger repeatedly while thinking, then asked Goldrich.

“What’s the current value of unique-grade materials?”

“Rare and lower materials fluctuate wildly, but unique and legendary materials always maintain consistent value. Iron ore is especially expensive since it’s a special material. There’s always high demand but supply is always short.”

“What about prices?”

“One iron ore chunk would be roughly 5,000 points. If it were refined ingots, it would easily fetch 50,000 points.”

“Good.”

Having confirmed the value of iron ore in the current dimension, Shin Hyeok nodded with satisfaction.

The iron ore chunks filling the warehouse numbered in the hundreds.

Converted to Achievement Points, it was an enormous amount easily exceeding 1 million points.

Especially if he smelted and refined them into ingots, he could get ten times the value.

“But isn’t the price difference between iron ore and iron ingots too big? From what I can see, it would take about five to six ore chunks to make one ingot.”

“It’s the labor cost. Handling unique-grade materials isn’t easy for ordinary craftsmen. Especially when it comes to bringing out the material’s inherent value.”

“Still though. They’re keeping almost double the profit, aren’t they?”

“Well, you know who usually does this kind of work, don’t you?”

“…Ah.”

The reason for such excessive profits wasn’t complicated.

Finding the answer in Goldrich’s words, Shin Hyeok hardened his expression and groaned.

“It’s the Dwarves.”

“Correct. Dwarves connected to Iron Forge take subcontracts to handle it. They’re taking excessive profits from other races. And it’s not like we can refuse. Materials smelted by non-Dwarves are… somewhat crude in quality.”

“Excessive profits from monopoly?”

“Yes.”

Dwarves.

Specifically, Dwarves connected to Iron Forge, an upper dimension, were the cause of the excessive profits.

Like most other races, they didn’t particularly like other species.

If they didn’t even like them much, why would they sell items only they could make cheaply?

It was essentially predetermined excessive profit.

But from this, Shin Hyeok saw an answer.

“We’ll do the smelting for you.”

“Huh? Oh, that’s right, you have connections with a legendary craftsman.”

“Right. We’ll directly smelt the iron ore into ingots and hand them over. Sounds good, right?”

“Hmm, that would be great for me. I wouldn’t have to bow my head to those short guys.”

It was about taking over the smelting of special materials that had been the exclusive domain of Dwarves.

There was nothing bad about it for Goldrich either.

Even if Goldrich bought iron ore chunks here, unless he was going to sell them raw, he would inevitably need to find a contractor to smelt them, and as mentioned before, that was mostly Dwarves.

And since Goldrich wasn’t a Dwarf, the Dwarves charged him enormous labor costs.

And if they just took the money, that would be one thing.

But the dwarves had a habit of looking down on and despising other races.

Even though they were the ones paying and commissioning work, they still had to read the room and bow their heads.

Considering that, if Shin Hyeok took over the smelting and sold ingots, Goldrich would welcome it with open arms.

Of course-

“How much will you pay?”

“Ah…”

Money transactions had to be handled clearly.

Especially knowing that Shin Hyeok was no pushover, Goldrich sighed and flicked his abacus while calculating, then soon presented a price list.

“45,000 points per ingot. How does that sound?”

“Didn’t you just say ingots sell for 50,000 points each?”

“Hehe! That shows how highly I value you as a customer! You understand, right? There’s really no profit left!”

45,000 points per ingot.

That was the price Goldrich offered.

Since about five or six iron ore chunks could make one ingot, it meant investing around 30,000 points to earn 15,000 points.

It was natural for Goldrich to be so arrogant.

But Shin Hyeok wasn’t fooled.

“Hey.”

“Y-yes?”

“50,000 points is just the price when you buy them. The price when you sell them is higher, so why are you conveniently leaving that out?”

“Uh, um…”

50,000 points per ingot was only the story when he purchased ingots from dwarf artisans.

It wasn’t the price when he sold them elsewhere.

In other words, Goldrich had subtly lowballed the price compared to what he paid dwarf artisans for iron ingots.

When Goldrich awkwardly avoided eye contact after being hit right on target, Shin Hyeok went in decisively.

“60,000 points. I won’t sell for anything less.”

“No! That’s too much! I sell them to the merchant union for 70,000 points, so there’d really be no profit left- Mmph!!!”

“Oh ho, you sold them for as much as 70,000 points? My, what a skilled businessman.”

60,000 points.

Goldrich flared up at the price that was a whopping 15,000 points higher than what he had offered.

But that’s where Goldrich made his mistake.

He had inadvertently mentioned the selling price that should never be leaked.

Goldrich frantically covered his mouth with his hands, but words once spoken couldn’t be taken back.

Seeing Goldrich like that, when Shin Hyeok wore a deep smile, Goldrich desperately tried to negotiate.

“55,000 points! There’s really not much left! After interdimensional shipping costs, giving cuts to the higher-ups, and paying tribute, I’ll be broke!”

“60,000 points.”

“Ugh, 58,000 points! I have a sick mother, a fox-like wife, and rabbit-like children waiting for me at home…”

“You’re an orphan and unmarried. 60,000 points.”

“Damn! How do you know my personal information!”

Of course, that wouldn’t work easily.

Shin Hyeok knew Goldrich from before his regression, but Goldrich didn’t know that.

In that information gap, Goldrich felt like everything about him was being laid completely bare.

‘How does he know all this? Damn, 60,000 points is really the bare minimum to not starve to death. Unless he completely understands the structure of the Merchant Union, and furthermore the profit structure of merchants, this would be impossible… but how…’

Goldrich’s insides dried up, not knowing that he had unknowingly touched upon the essence.

Of course, there would definitely be profit even selling at 60,000 points.

Especially if it was an ingot directly smelted by a legendary artisan, that itself would serve as promotional effect, so he could sell it for even more.

Most importantly-

‘I won’t have to grovel to those damn shorties. Instead, they’ll be begging me to please sell them ingots. Ha, I really can’t resist this…’

It was the point where his relationship, which had always been subordinate, would rise to dominant for the first time.

Dwarves.

Thinking about seeing those picky and stubborn beings pleading made Goldrich inevitably conflicted.

And this wasn’t just Goldrich’s personal problem either.

Relationships naturally collapse when one side becomes dominant.

By injecting tension like this and showing that he also had cards to play, the other side wouldn’t treat him carelessly.

In other words, he wouldn’t just be pushed around in future dealings with the dwarves.

When Goldrich’s conflict reached its peak.

“I’ll give you 55,000.”

“Huh? S-suddenly?”

“Yeah, we have a relationship, and pushing too hard would be too cold between us, right?”

“Ha, haha, r-right?”

Shin Hyeok slightly loosened the fishing line.

When Shin Hyeok, who had been pulling taut, loosened the line, Goldrich was bewildered but couldn’t hide his joy.

From 60,000 to 55,000.

It was a 5,000 difference, but you couldn’t forget this was per piece.

Considering it was money he could earn steadily and continuously, he could earn tens of thousands of Achievement points for free with each transaction, so it would be foolish for Goldrich to miss this.

But Shin Hyeok wasn’t a fool either.

Squeeze!

“Ugh! C-customer? No, boss? Could you please let go of this…”

“Since we’re close like that, I can ask you for a favor, right?”

“Hmm, let me at least hear what kind of favor it is…”

“58,000?”

“But! What kind of relationship do we have! I absolutely must grant it!”

“Good.”

When he lightly gripped his shoulder and brought his face close, Goldrich quickly nodded and accepted Shin Hyeok’s request.

He hadn’t even heard what the favor was yet, but Goldrich had no choice.

Having already given a 600,000 point discount, issued precious business cards, and still not even meeting Sejin who was the price of the deal, Goldrich was already firmly leashed by Shin Hyeok.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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