Secret Agent Chapter 079 - Negotiations and Conditions (Patreon)

“For your size, and budget, you’ll want to visit Madame Ponz’s Pawn shop, in Entin Alley. There’s a gambeson been sitting there several weeks now, and she’s looking to offload it quickly.” So answered the mysterious blue-hair-and-eyed Cori.

“What do you think a fair price for it would be?” Zack Adder asked, intrigued.

He hadn’t expected her to know of a specific gambeson that would suit his needs.

Cori giggled. “Oh, no, Mister Jack. That’s too much, I wouldn’t want to spoil the haggling for you.”

“My budget’s a bit tighter than you’d think,” he said. He wanted to test her a bit further. “I was thinking of making my own.” A gambeson was essentially a layered, quilted undergarment designed to absorb the impact of blows. If he really needed to, he could create a similar effect by wearing a dozen shirts at once, but a proper gambeson would be more effective and easier to put on, take off, and maintain. “Do you know a good place I could get some cloth?”

Cori raised both eyebrows now, but…

Zack had noticed her eyes had been about to narrow.

It was extremely subtle, but he was watching her face very closely

“Oh, you can [Sew]? How unexpected! Not something I’d expect from such a… rugged looking man.”

Roxy puffed out her chest. “Jack’s really good at [Sewing]! Millie trained him herself!”

“I’m not nearly as good as Millie,” Zack demurred, even as Roxy’s desire to brag played right into Cori’s hands, giving her more information.

“Right now, it doesn’t matter much where you go,” Cori said, but then she grinned, and the impression of a fox was once more thrust onto Zack. “But if you wait a week, a trading ship is due. All the trading companies will update their stock.”

Zack started to nod, impressed, but Cori continued.

“The trading companies will update their offerings,” she said, blue eyes sparkling, “and the [Tailors] and [Seamstresses] will buy the newest cloth. I’m sure my friend Nancy would be willing to sell you some of her old cloth for cheap, if I introduced you. For a gambeson, fashion doesn’t matter much, now does it?”

Notably, she didn’t tell him anything about how to find this Nancy.

Oh, yes.

Cori could be very useful.

The corners of his lips rose almost unintentionally. Cori was already smiling smugly, but her eyes narrowed just the slightest bit.

Game recognized game.

It was Sister Paula who put an end to the posturing and verbal jousting.

“Cori, I’m afraid you’ve come at a bad time. We were having a discussion with Mister Jack about something important, so if you could come back at a different time…”

“Oh, really? Darn. Jack is just such a fascinating man… and I believe he owes me for his rude comment earlier.”

Sienna shifted on Zack’s shoulders.

Danger woman.

Her tongue flickered in and out.

But Zack could already see where this was going.

An excuse for a second meeting in a more private setting, where they could get down to real business after feeling each other out.

“And what do I owe you now?” he said gruffly, playing his part in the dance.

“You can buy me dinner. Tomorrow night, at Finney’s.”

Zack frowned. “I just told you, my budg—”

He was going to feign poverty. Paying for a full dinner was overkill for a snide comment about her age that had been so obviously off the mark, anyway. Cori was clearly eighteen at the oldest.

But it was Roxy who went off next to him.

“Huh?! No, no, no! Get in line, Cori! You can’t just go straight to a first date like that! Jack doesn’t owe you that much!”

Sienna flinched from Roxy’s shouting, and Cori just lifted her chin and looked down her nose at Roxy through the fence.

Sister Paula sighed and clasped her hands together at her waist, gripping them tightly. Henrietta… was watching with wide eyes, holding her breath, her cheeks tinged pink with a faint blush.

Zack rubbed his jaw with a hand.

“A date?” he repeated. “I dunno if I have the manners to match yours, Cori.” A small jab at the hints of her class her acting failed to disguise.

And yet she didn’t react to that. Which Zack figured meant that she was aware her act wasn’t perfect, and didn’t care if others knew.

“Yeah!” Roxy agreed vehemently and slightly rudely. Zack’s heart sank, just a little. She really thought he had bad manners? “Besides, I already called dibs!”

“Hang on,” Zack turned to her, and Sienna twisted her head to keep her gaze locked on Cori. “Dibs?”

“That’s none of your concern, Jack,” she said definitively.

“No, I think that rather is something I should be concerned about.”

Cori interrupted with a sigh. “Well, if you already called dibs, far be it from me to cut in line,” she acquiesced graciously over something trivial, petty, and irrelevant.

“That’s right! Jack, you can do much better than a rude gossipmonger like Cori!”

Cori’s eye twitched.

Oh, so Roxy thought it was Cori who was ill-mannered. That made sense.

“Fine, instead of dinner, you can pay for my drink. You can afford at least that much, right? Mister Adventurer?”

Zack did want to meet with Cori again, so he took the bait she had dangled earlier.

“And if I do, you’ll introduce me to Nancy?”

“Jack!” Roxy cried.

Cori smiled and her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps. Meet me at Finney’s after sunset tomorrow.” Her demeanor shifted and she turned to Sister Paula. “It was good to see you, Sister! I’ll come back another time when you’re not so busy!”

She spun around, causing her skirt to flare up and show a hint of ankle, and then sashayed through the square and back towards the road to the safer parts of the city.

“Jack…” Roxy whined. “She’s not your type, is she?”

Henrietta was still watching wide-eyed.

Zack looked at Roxy. He thought about teasing her, but her pleading expression tugged at his heart-strings, even through his [Resist Allure].

Though how much of that was sincere, and how much was [Acting], he couldn’t be sure.

He decided on flat honesty.

“I have absolutely no intention of dating Cori,” he said, intending to end the thread of the topic there.

But Roxy and Sister Paula frowned, and Henrietta even leaned forward.

“Jack, that’s not an answer! She is your type, isn’t she?!” Roxy pressed him. “You think she’s pretty, don’t you?!”

Zack turned to Sister Paula. “Can we get back to business?”

“Mister Jack,” Sister Paula said sternly, frowning at him. “You mustn’t play with a maiden’s heart like this.”

Tears swam in Roxy’s eyes and Zack was pretty sure she was hamming it up, now.

He sighed and took a seat, looking up at Roxy. “Roxy, yes, I think Cori’s pretty. That doesn’t mean I’m going to date her. My type is pretty women, period. But if I had to choose, I like you much better than I like Cori, and I certainly don’t trust her like I trust you.”

How could he?

Roxy and he had shared secrets, and Roxy had saved his life, and they had worked together for weeks now in the Theater.

Cori had shown up, threatened his business plans, revealed an almost-stalker level of knowledge about him, and then tried to coerce him into buying her dinner.

Plus, Sienna didn’t seem to like Cori, either.

Roxy blushed slightly when she heard his response, and Henrietta flushed bright red.

Zack raised his hands, palms up and slightly out to the side, in a not quite shrug. “Anything else?”

Roxy gazed into his eyes for a moment, and then looked away. “No,” she said in a small voice, and then sat down, and avoided meeting his gaze.

“Oooohhh!”

A bunch of children were pressed up against the line, looking at Roxy. They had been attracted by her yelling.

When she saw them, she covered her face with her hands.

Sister Paula sighed. “Mister Jack, please be careful with your words.” Then she looked at Henrietta. “Henrietta, calm yourself. We need to start preparing dinner, soon.”

“Ah, uh, yes, Sister Paula,” Henrietta said and sat down. She took a deep breath, held it, and let it out, and the blush faded from her cheeks unnaturally quickly.

Perhaps she also had the [Calm Down] skill.

Roxy, instead, leaned on her [Acting] and feigned composure.

“Ahem, yes, let’s return to business,” she said.

Sister Paula sat down. “Now, where were we?” she asked.

“Well, we were talking about the information cards. I’d like Henrietta, and any other children who can, to make copies as needed. I’ll provide the materials, the paper and ink and paints, and pay them for their labor. I’ll also provide the designs, and I’m going to try to arrange to have the Guild handle renting them out and collecting the money.”

Adventurers who borrowed the cards would be more likely to treat them with care and return them if a receptionist handled it, compared to another adventurer. But even if it came to that, Zack figured he could make it work. He just needed to hire an adventurer, or even some other person, to hang out at the Guild and do it.

Five lindra for a card that enabled harvesting over a fortin’s worth of herbs in a morning was a steal. And there were dozens of material requests up on the board. They were overshadowed by the high rate for thurgenrat tails now, but soon the swarm would subside and adventurers used to easy money would be looking for the next high paying job.

Plus, the requesters would be happy to get high quality materials.

Win-win-win-win. Himself, the orphanage, the adventurers, and the requesters.

“I have one condition,” Sister Paula said.

“Yes?” Zack figured she’d want some pay up front. Certainly getting the orphanage building repaired was a priority, and their food stores had been ruined by the thurgenrats…

“I want you to come by every now and then, and teach some of the older children to read.”

Zack blinked, and Sister Paula gazed at him steadily.

Roxy was still avoiding his gaze.

“It might be too late for Henrietta, here, but if some of the older children can learn to read, they could teach the younger children, and then they could all get better jobs…” She trailed off, and then waited for his response.

Zack was silent for a moment, and Sienna shifted on his shoulders. Slowly, he furrowed his brow.

“Why would it be too late for Henrietta?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl fidget.

Roxy answered. “Henrietta’s almost old enough to start a trade. Have you found anyone to apprentice under yet, Henrietta?”

“Well…”

“There are a few options, but she has yet to make up her mind,” Sister Paula said.

Zack frowned outright, now. Henrietta was crucial for his plans. “How long does she have before then?”

“About half a year. She has until she turns fourteen, when she must leave the orphanage,” Sister Paula explained.

Zack’s chest tightened.

Kicked out of the orphanage at fourteen?

Henrietta was wearing a glum expression.

Back when he was fourteen, he would have leapt at the chance to be considered an independent adult and take care of himself.

But he would have been running away from his awful home life and his substance-abusing parents.

That wasn’t the case for Henrietta and the orphanage.

But he could also see the logic.

Resources were tight anyway, and the orphanage seemed to be barely scraping by.

The sooner Henrietta could support herself, the sooner those resources could be reallocated to the rest of the orphans.

Six months was the limit, and sooner would probably be better.

Zack clenched his jaw.

His whole life he had been looking out for himself. It had felt like all he could do was barely keep his head above water, even as his career accelerated beyond his wildest imagination.

But he had never tried to help anyone else.

He hadn’t had the slack to do so.

“Henrietta,” he said, and she stopped looking all over the place and turned to him.

“Do you want to learn to read?”

“Uhm, if I could…”

“Do you want to learn to read?” Zack repeated, a little more firmly.

“...Yes.” Henrietta met his gaze, and Roxy stopped looking away and looked at his face, too.

“Okay.” Zack turned to Sister Paula.

“It’s not too late at all. I’ll teach Henrietta to read, too.”

Sister Paula looked at him skeptically. “Are you going to have time for that? The theater, adventuring, now all this…” Roxy showed concern, too.

Zack shrugged, and Sienna flicked her tongue at his ear.

“Lots of people have helped me out,” Zack said. “It’s about time I started paying some of that forward.”