Only to be rudely awakened by the alarm I had set two-hours prior.
Slowly sprawling out and rolling out of the bed, I realized halfway through that the kittens had ended up sleeping with me for the extra warmth. I guess they thought I was their parent already. Careful not to wake them, I made my way outside and towards the barn where the rancher was supposed to meet me.
Along the way, I couldn't help but notice a herd of cows grazing in a fenced-in area. They were most likely the milk cows that he was selling. Walking over to one, I tried inspecting it and to my surprise, a small window appeared before me detailing the cow. As if I had tried to inspect an animal or an item in-game, it opened up right in the middle of my visual field.
The cows were rated in the same way as the NPCs were. The ones that I picked from the recruiter. There were potentials in different categories such as milk quality, meat, and leather. It was somewhat strange to look at, but since I wasn't familiar or learned in the art of grading livestock, most of the potentials had a tilde at the end denoting that it was a rough estimate. All of the cows were around a rated 7.0~/10.0 overall, with the older ones being slightly lower.
A few minutes later, and I had found myself at the entrance of the barn with the cattle rancher standing just inside, next to an array of calves. I let myself in with a light knock on the door frame to alert the man and then gave him a slight wave.
"Morning, hope I'm not too early," I cheerfully greeted.
"Good mornin', these here are the heifers and the bulls under thirteen months of age," he quickly replied, not wasting a moment to get down to business. "You won't find them lacking, they're good ones."
Walking up to the closest calf, I tried to inspect it in the same way I had viewed the milking cows that were out in the pasture, but it failed as a message popped into view. To my dismay, I was unable to inspect the calves' potential and quality as my proficiency in animal husbandry was too low to accurately determine their statistics. The status window was left with nothing more than question marks and empty stats.
I was a little confused.
Not more than five minutes prior, I had successfully viewed the cows that were grazing without issue. Now, I was supposedly not proficient enough to do so.
Well, if I were to guess… maybe it was because the other cows were already developed, and these had yet to do so. That didn't seem too unreasonable, so I figured I would go with that.
Left to my own devices, I continued my inspection the manual way.
Checking each and every calf head to toe, inspecting their eyes and teeth, I did my best to evaluate how healthy each animal looked and then went by how energetic they looked. One of the heifers looked either sick or extremely lethargic, so that one was removed from my potential list. Another had bad teeth, so I crossed that one off. And down I went, until I finally found three heifers and a bull that I was satisfied with.
"I'm interested in these four here," I finally stated after some time had passed. "You were asking for eight silver coins per heifer and ten silvers for the bull, correct?"
The cattle rancher stood idly by and looked on rather emotionlessly as I picked out each calf. He knew which ones were the best but he set the prices for his best stock, most likely. If I had chosen the worst ones, he would have surely charged me the same price for a small gain on his part.
"Yep, that's correct," he replied after a few seconds had gone by. "I believe you'll find it to be more than a fair price."
I couldn't argue there.
The prices were on par with what the middle kingdoms were currently asking, and this far north, that was something else. I had no qualms paying him his asking price, as I started to think about whether or not I should grab a fifth one. Eh, four would be plenty to start with, I figured.
"No, I agree that's a fair price, I'll pay it," I said without much hesitation while fiddling with my bag. "Though, would you be interested in a little bartering?"
As I said that, I brought out the pelt of the [Northern Forest Cat] that I had skinned the day before. It was a beautiful long-haired coat that was wonderfully soft to the touch, and was probably worth as much as a wolf pelt in quality of the fur alone. Adding in the value of the aesthetics and the rarity, and I could easily see it fetching three times the price.
"I don't barter unfortunately, I only take coin-" the cattle rancher had started to reply, without looking at the fur I had brought out. But as soon as his eyes came across what I was holding, he began to trail off and stopped his verbatim mid-sentence.
"Ah, that's too bad," I quickly cut in. "I thought you might be interested in this."
"Well hold on a minute now," he instantly replied while raising a hand up. "You didn't let me finish. As I was saying, I only take coin but I think there are always exceptions. I may be interested in that pelt there."
Yeah, that's what I thought.
I smiled at him and nodded, handing the pelt over to him so he could inspect its quality. "It's quite a fine piece, and I believe it to be somewhat of a rarity around these parts." Of course, I didn't know if that was true or not, but I believed it to be the case. There was no real information on the cats, so logical leap indicated it was probably quite rare. If it weren't, he could set me straight right here.
"Well, in all my years I've only seen this type of pelt come around a few times," he said with some nostalgia that I didn't quite understand. "It's certainly rare, are you selling or looking to barter?"
Now we were talking.
"As a fellow trader, I believe in fair bartering," I said with a smile. "Whatever you believe it's worth, and then I'll make up the difference in silver for the cattle."
He looked the fur over another time, before nodding at himself and locking eyes with me. "If you include the pelt with thirty silver, I'll consider it an honest and fair trade," he said with conviction.
Extending a hand out, I replied, "you have a deal then."
In truth, I wasn't expecting more than three silvers or three-hundred copper coins for the pelt, but straight trades of goods for coin tend to devalue a product. When bartering and exchanging goods, the values can fluctuate quite a bit more depending on rarity or scarcity, and I figured that would help me. He sold cattle and that was his business, he could take a little off the top in trades and still make money. I on the other hand, picked it up off a dead animal, and had nothing to lose either way.
My twenty mile excursion had proved to be quite valuable.
Seven kittens, four calves, and a couple silvers left to my name, all in a day's work.
Now, all I needed to do was conquer that fifth floor, and return to Dragon's Breach… Selene and Katherine were waiting for me and it wouldn't do to keep them waiting indefinitely.
That would be rude of me.
Chapter 50: Return to the Fifth
(Thursday, June 24th Game Day / Sunday, February 28th Real Day)
Night had already fallen by the time I made it back to the dungeon town but I was actually glad for it as it kept prying eyes off my precious cattle and kittens. They were a national secret, after all. My kingdom's ultimate treasure at the moment were these little fellas, and so long as no one caught wind of my plans, I would have a leg up on the competition for a little bit longer.
Sneaking into the back of the stables behind the inn, I tied up each calf in its own pen where it could munch on some hay and get some much needed rest. I figured they would be safe there for now, especially since no one actually had a horse yet.
Entering the inn that I had been staying at, I paid the fee for four pens and informed the inn keeper that I would be staying for nine more days. The inn cost me ten coppers a day but it was reasonable, as the inn was fairly upscale compared to the others. Storage space via a locked chest was included in each room, which was quite large in its own right. There was a full-sized bed, a small table and chair, a personal washstand with a small mirror situated just above, and magic-powered lights that had a soft amber glow to them. Compared to some of the other inns that only provided a small twin-sized bed and not much else, this inn was like going from a one-star motel to a three-star hotel.