I Have An SSS-Rank Service System: Hire Me For Anything!-Chapter 4: So That’s How Metals Are Made! Anyways, I Got My First Deal
A new day came and went. Then two days. Then three.
Liam gave him food secretly for the first two days, but Dory didn’t eat it.
On the third day, Horg had dragged Dory back to his house with the villagers behind him. But his effort was wasted, as Dory was back in front of the cottage minutes later.
Horg got annoyed and complained to the village chief, who only told him that Dory was a kid, and kids can be very adamant.
Now, it was a week later.
Dory looked like a corpse.
His skin, already pale from a year of not eating regularly, had now turned a sickly shade of gray. His clothes were no longer just rags; they were a crusty shell of dried mud, rainwater, and dust. His hair was matted to his forehead, and his eyes were sunken deep into his skull, surrounded by dark, purple circles.
But his eyes... they were still alive and determined.
Every time Horg stepped out of that cottage, those sunken eyes followed him. Dory didn’t beg. He didn’t ask for water. He just sat there.
The villagers had stopped muttering curses. Now, they walked past him in a hurry, crossing to the other side of the street. It’s one thing to hate a scammer; it’s another thing to watch a boy commit slow-motion suicide on your doorstep. The atmosphere in the village had shifted from anger to a heavy, uncomfortable guilt.
Horg came out for the morning chores, his boots heavy on the wooden porch. He stopped, looking down at the shivering heap that used to be a boy.
"Seven days," Horg growled, his voice cracking. "You’ve sat in the mud for seven days just for a chance to offer me a deal? Are you truly that mad, Dory?"
Dory’s cracked lips peeled back, drawing a tiny bit of blood. He didn’t have the strength to laugh, so he just whispered in a dry rasp:
"Consistency... is the soul of... a good business."
Horg stared at him for a long minute. He looked at the villagers watching from a distance. He looked at his son, Liam, who was crying silently in the doorway. Finally, the big man let out a long, defeated sigh and dropped a shovel at Dory’s feet.
"Inside. If you die in my backyard, the Chief will never let me hear the end of it."
[Horg seems to pity you. Trust advancing]
[Ding! Trust Threshold Reached!]
[Client ’Horg’ is impressed by your ’Professional Persistence’.]
[Hidden Requirement Met: Extreme Dedication.]
[System Reward: +500 SP (Service Points)]
Dory felt a surge of warmth as the System acknowledged the "Job." He tried to stand, his knees popping like dry twigs. He stumbled, grabbing the fence for support, his vision swimming in shades of red and black.
’Finally,’ he thought, a predatory glint returning to his eyes. ’The contract is almost signed.’
Before they began, Dory was asked to take a bath in their house. He gladly ate this time around and rested for a while. When he was done, Horg sat in front of him in his shop, and they began their discussion.
"You see, Dory, you’re a kid. But still, you know a lot about business and economy. But may I repeat that you’re still a kid? There are things you might know but won’t be able to handle." Horg’s voice and expression were concerning, lacking his usual rage.
Dory smiled lightly. "I know, but still, in business, age doesn’t matter. The benefit does. And before you say I have failed you once because I am a kid, I just want to tell you: that was a month ago, which means I’m a month older now."
Horg laughed. "Okay, kid, tell me. What have you got?"
Dory stared at the iron ingots, prompting Horg and Liam—who had been listening to their conversation—to turn slightly and stare at the iron ingots with confused expressions.
"You’ve got a lot of ingots here," Dory said. "Say, do you mind explaining how these are made and the cost?"
Horg leaned back, his massive chair creaking under his weight. He looked at the iron ingots, then back at Dory. The boy’s eyes weren’t looking at them like a blacksmith would; he was looking at them like a man counting coins.
"It’s simple enough," Horg grunted. "We get the ore from the miners at the Foothills. I melt it down in the forge, beat out the impurities, and cast them into these bars. Each ingot costs me about four coppers in raw ore and charcoal. I sell them to traveling merchants or town builders for six. That’s two coppers of profit for a whole day of sweating over the fire."
Dory nodded slowly, his mind already running the numbers. "And how many can you make in a week?"
"If the heat is good and my back doesn’t give out? Maybe twenty," Horg said. "But the merchant only comes twice a month. Most of the time, these just sit here, gathering dust and rust while my coin stays locked inside the metal."
Dory stood up, though his legs still felt a bit like jelly. He walked over to the pile and ran a finger over the rough surface of an ingot.
"So, you have a storage problem, a liquidity problem, and a quality control problem," Dory said.
Horg blinked. "I have a... what?"
"You have money tied up in metal that isn’t moving," Dory explained in simpler terms. "And look at these. They are rough. They have slag pits. A merchant sees these and bargains you down because they aren’t ’clean.’ If I can show you a way to make these ingots worth ten coppers instead of six, and make them faster, would you give me a cut?"
Horg scoffed, but he didn’t reach for Dory’s collar this time. "Ten coppers? For a bar of iron? You’d have to be a wizard to change the price of metal, kid."
Dory’s smile widened. "What do you think metal is used for?"
Horg looked at the ceiling as if the answer were written in the soot. "Tools, boy. Nails, shovels, horseshoes, and swords for the guards. What else would iron be for?"
Dory shook his head. "That’s what they are used for now. But you aren’t just selling iron, Horg. You’re selling a resource. People don’t want a lump of iron; they want what the iron can do for them. If the iron is pure, the tool lasts longer. If the tool lasts longer, the farmer saves money. If the farmer saves money, he pays a premium for the better iron."
Horg blinked. "That’s the problem, boy. People don’t buy it in time when it is still pure. I was hoping to make a great sale over the next few weeks since there’s a war between..."
Horg’s voice trailed off as he gestured vaguely toward the north. "The border lords are bickering again. There’s a war brewing between the Duchy of Valerius and the Northern Clans. When lords fight, the merchants need iron to resell to the blacksmiths who make weapons and armor to sell to the clans."
"Exactly, Horg! Why don’t we do this: I’ll take all your ingots alongside Liam to the market square tomorrow and sell them all before the week’s end, and you pay me just twenty percent of your earnings. How much does everything here cost, by the way, if added together?"
Horg was about to reply, but Liam beat him to it as if he had already calculated it a long time ago.
"Two hundred and forty coppers," Liam said quickly. "That’s forty ingots in the shop right now, each at six coppers."
Horg let out a low whistle, his eyes darting between his son and Dory. "Twenty percent? That’s forty-eight coppers, boy. You’re asking for enough to live like a king for a month just for walking to the market square."
Dory didn’t blink. "Yes. But that’s if I sell them all. If I don’t, you keep the money for the few I sold. If I do, you might even be willing to add more to my pay. Deal?"
Horg paused for a while, contemplating the offer.
"Deal."
Dory smiled. "And oh, remember I said I’ll sell it for ten coppers each? That will be four hundred coppers. Eighty for me, three hundred and twenty for you."
