I Have An SSS-Rank Service System: Hire Me For Anything!-Chapter 10: Price Anchoring

[600 Service Points earned]

[1000 Service Points Available]

[+100 Ranking Up Points]

[Congratulations! You’ve Ranked Up to F-Rank ’Retail’ Freelancer]

[You’ve Earned a Title: Lower Based Trader]

[2000 Service Points Earned]

[3000 Service Points Available]

Dory smiled in his heart. He had ranked up from a Dirt Poor Freelancer to a Retail Freelancer in a span of just seven to ten days. It wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t been persistent about helping Horg sell his iron ingots and earning the trust of a few villagers in the process. At this rate, he would also earn the trust of Maya’s parents and ask for her hand in marriage.

Dory smiled.

’One thing at a time, Dory. One at a time.... Did I hear 3000 SP?!!’

The numbers danced in his vision. He had expected a payout for the sale, but this was a windfall. He was already thinking of which package to buy next; maybe this time he would download a real job. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

’Chef should be a good idea... I will purchase the remaining packages related to cooking and automatically earn it as a job.’

"Dory? You’re doing the thing again," Liam whispered, nudging him. "The ’staring at nothing and smiling like a creep’ thing. People are starting to look."

Dory snapped back to reality, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses. The exhaustion that had been weighing down his limbs since they left the village was replaced by a surge of pure, cold adrenaline.

He glanced at his new title.

[Lower Based Trader]

Description: You have successfully bridged the gap between production and the consumer. Your words carry the weight of the market.

Passive Buff: "The Art of the Deal" — Buyers are 10% less likely to walk away during a price impasse.

’Ten percent isn’t that much since five out of ten customers might still leave... Ah, but a win is a win.’

He dismissed the system and sat behind the cart, waiting for a new customer. Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. He stared at the ingots. He knew he had promised Horg he would sell each at ten coppers, but even Horg knew that was almost impossible, so he could definitely try out this new idea.

There were thirty-four ingots remaining after selling one honeycomb to Barry and one piece to the customer who came before Barry, meaning there were only six honeycombs remaining with four individual ingots left.

He turned to Liam, who immediately froze upon noticing Dory’s warm, yet crazed smile.

"Now what?"

Dory’s smile brightened. "Nothing much. Do you know where you can get a large white cloth and some red paint? I’m in the mood to draw."

Liam blinked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "A white cloth? Red paint? Dory, we’re in the middle of a market, not an art gallery. I thought we were here to sell metal, not decorate it."

"Trust me," Dory said, his eyes already scanning the nearby textile stalls. "We’re about to perform a little psychological surgery on the crowd. That ’ten percent less likely to walk away’ buff is nice, but I want to give them a reason to never walk away in the first place."

With his new [Lower Based Trader] status, Dory’s mind was working like a high-speed processor. He realized that the biggest problem in the market was the similarity. Every smith had a pile of grey metal. Every butcher had a slab of red meat. Everything looked the same.

"What ’ten percent is likely to walk away’?" Liam frowned.

Liam, grumbling under his breath but having learned that Dory’s "madness" usually led to copper coins, hurried off toward the weaver’s row. A few minutes later, he returned with a long strip of bleached linen and a small clay pot of thick, pungent vermilion pigment used for marking livestock.

Dory didn’t waste a second. He spread the cloth across the front of the cart. Using a rough brush, he didn’t write "Cheap Iron" or "Best Prices." Instead, he painted four massive, bold words that were unheard of in this medieval setting:

"LIMITED ALLOCATION: EAGLE-MARK"

Underneath, he drew a large, striking red "X" over the number 50 and wrote 45 in even larger characters.

"Dory... what are you doing?" Liam whispered, watching as a small crowd began to slow down, drawn by the aggressive red ink. "We already sold it for forty-five to Barry. Why are you acting like it’s a special deal?"

"It’s called Price Anchoring," Dory explained. "By showing them a higher price crossed out, I’m telling their brains that the value is fifty, but the opportunity is forty-five. And ’Limited Allocation’ sounds much more expensive than ’For Sale.’ It implies that I might run out... that they might not be good enough to buy it."

He then rearranged the remaining honeycomb cases. He didn’t stack them in a pile. He placed them in a staircase pattern, leaving one empty spot in the middle to make it look like someone had just snatched up a case.

"Liam, stand tall," Dory commanded. "Don’t look like a beggar. Look big and buoyant."

Since he had ranked up, his skills had also ranked up.

[Aroma Lure] was much more potent now. He could scent the apple-plum snack and could see Liam almost drooling. It even seemed to have an effect on the ingots. He activated [Environmental Heat Map] and saw a much more vivid description and separation of the surroundings than before. There was fog in some places and red mist in others.

’Cool.’

A group of three merchants, dressed in fine wool tunics and carrying heavy ledgers, stopped. They looked at the red banner, then at the Eagle stamps, then at each other.

"Limited allocation?" one of them muttered, adjusting his spectacles. "Hmm... well, that’s a big word for someone selling iron ingots."

Dory didn’t even look up from the ingot he was polishing with a silk rag. "Only six cases remaining for today’s window, gentlemen. Once the allocation is met, the price resets to fifty."

He then looked up and smiled.

"Care for a snack?"