Jong Mang came back three days later. Not to the shop. To Rin's workshop.
He brought flowers. White lilies in a crystal vase, the kind you sent to a business partner you wanted to impress. He set them on Rin's desk before she could object, sat down in the chair Joss usually occupied, and smiled.
"Ms. Thaler. A pleasure."
"Mr. Mang. This is unexpected."
"I like unexpected. Keeps things interesting." He glanced around the workshop -- the enchanting array, the tools, the half-finished accessories on the bench. "You're doing enchanting work out of this space? You should have a proper workshop. The guild district has openings."
"I'm comfortable here."
"Of course." The smile stayed fixed. "I'm not here about the workshop. I'm here about Harvest Market."
Rin folded her hands on the desk. Her ledger was closed, face-down. She'd developed a habit of flipping it whenever someone unexpected walked in. Trade secrets were ink on paper, and ink was permanent.
"What about it?"
"It's impressive. Three locations in eight weeks. Revenue that puts some guild outlets to shame. And your supply chain..." He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. "Nobody in the city can figure out where you're sourcing. I've had my analysts running the numbers. The volume doesn't match any known farming operation, any guild supply contract, or any bulk purchase history in the market database. It's like the inventory materializes from thin air."
"We work with independent farmers. A network of--"
"Ms. Thaler." Jong Mang's smile didn't change, but his eyes sharpened. "I respect the cover story. It's well-constructed. Multiple supplier labels, staggered deliveries, diversified origin tags. Very professional. But I didn't build the Tiger Slayer Guild by accepting cover stories."
He reached into his jacket and produced a thin folder. Inside were printed spreadsheets -- Harvest Market's transaction records, cross-referenced with market-wide supply data. Joss would later learn that Jong Mang employed a data analytics team that monitored every significant trade in the city.
"Your rare-item inventory exceeds the combined output of the top twenty independent farmers in the eastern zone," Jong Mang said, tapping the spreadsheet. "By a factor of three. And your legendary items..." He shook his head. "Thirty-one legendary-grade items in six weeks. The Tiger Slayer Guild, with four hundred active members farming optimized routes, produces maybe twelve per month."
Rin said nothing.
"I'm not here to threaten you. I'm here to offer." Jong Mang closed the folder. "Two hundred million gold. Buyout. Harvest Market, all three locations, full inventory, and a three-year exclusive supply contract with the Tiger Slayer Guild. You and your partner walk away rich. I get the supply chain."
"No."
The word came from the doorway. Joss had arrived two minutes earlier and had been listening from the hall.
Jong Mang turned. His smile widened by a millimeter. "Ah. The partner. Joss Mercer, correct? Level 18 Warrior. Underground-born. Impressive gear for someone your age."
"The shop isn't for sale."
"Everything is for sale, Mr. Mercer. The question is price."
"The shop generates two hundred million per month. Your offer is one month's revenue."
"Fair point. Five hundred million."
"No."
Jong Mang's smile held steady. His eyes did not. Something behind them shifted, a recalculation, the kind of quick reassessment that happened when a negotiation went off-script.
"The shop is not for sale," Rin said. "But we're open to wholesale partnerships. You need supply, we have supply. A standard wholesale arrangement would give the Tiger Slayer Guild access to our inventory at bulk rates without requiring acquisition."
"I don't buy wholesale from shops I could crush."
The room went cold. Not literally. The temperature didn't change. But the quality of the air shifted, the way it does when someone drops a mask and shows you what's underneath.
"You've been operating for eight weeks," Jong Mang said. His voice was still friendly. Still warm. "You have three locations, thirty employees, and a client base that's growing nicely. That's commendable. But the Tiger Slayer Guild has four hundred members, twelve dungeon contracts, exclusive zone access in three high-level areas, and a market share that we've maintained for two years. If I decide to compete with you directly -- flood the market with underpriced materials, pull strings with our guild partners to deny you supplier access, leverage our auction house connections to freeze your high-end sales -- how long do you think Harvest Market survives?"
Joss looked at Jong Mang. The man sat in Rin's chair like he owned it. His suit was pressed. His nails were perfect. His posture said "I have done this before and I will do it again."
"You'd lose money," Joss said.
"I'd lose money temporarily. You'd lose everything permanently."
"How much would it cost you? To flood the market, pull strings, freeze our channels. How much?"
Jong Mang's smile tightened a fraction. "Enough."
"Eighty million? A hundred? The Tiger Slayer Guild's quarterly revenue is about four hundred million, based on public filings. A sustained price war against a three-location retail operation would cost you roughly twenty percent of quarterly revenue for every month it lasts. That's eighty million per month in lost revenue and dumping costs."
The room was very quiet.
"You've done your homework," Jong Mang said.
"I grew up underground, Mr. Mang. Where I come from, you don't walk into a negotiation without knowing exactly how much the other side can afford to spend on hurting you."
Jong Mang stood. He picked up the folder of spreadsheets and tucked it back into his jacket. The flowers stayed on the desk.
"I like you, Mercer. You think clearly. That's rare for someone your age." He adjusted his cuffs. "I hope we can be friends. I really do."
He walked to the door. Paused. Turned.
"The wholesale partnership," he said to Rin. "Draft a proposal. Standard terms. I'll review it."
He left.
Rin waited thirty seconds. Then she pushed the lilies off her desk and into the trash.
"That wasn't an offer," she said. "That was a warning."
"I know."
"He'll be back. With more than flowers."
"I know that too."
---
Joss spent the next three days farming harder than he'd ever farmed.
Not because of Jong Mang. Jong Mang was a problem that required strategy, not brute force. Joss farmed because he needed to think, and killing things was how he thought.
The wolf den had become his primary zone. Level 20-25 wolves, three to four per pack, forty seconds per fight. His Whirlwind Slash was clean now, the rotation tight and efficient, the blade cutting through wolf hide like it was meant to. Quick Step's enhanced range let him reset from flanks instantly. Boar Charge could one-shot wounded wolves.
He was getting better. Not just statistically -- mechanically. Three weeks of constant combat had built reflexes that the system couldn't teach. He could read a wolf's attack angle from its weight shift. He knew when a pack was about to split and when it was going to rush. He anticipated charges before the wolves committed, positioning himself in tunnel sections where their flanking instinct worked against them.
Level 19. Then 20. Then, on the morning of Day Forty-Five, level 21.
The loot tables deepened with every zone push. Wolf pelts stacked by the hundred. Wolf Hearts accumulated alongside Greater Boar Hearts in the Void Ring's growing collection of rare alchemy reagents. Spirit Medicine Fragments ticked upward -- 67, 78, 91. The second Spirit Medicine was approaching.
And the NPC shopkeeper said something.
Joss was selling a batch of common wolf bones at the northern trading post when the NPC, an elderly man with the generic pleasant expression of system-generated characters, deviated from his script.
"The system was kinder in the first days," the shopkeeper said, sorting the bones into a bin. "Before the patches."
Joss froze. "What did you say?"
The shopkeeper looked at him with empty, friendly eyes. "I said, 'Thank you for your business. Have a pleasant day.'"
"No. Before that. You said something about the system."
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't recall making such a statement. Would you like a receipt?"
Joss took the receipt and walked away slowly. NPCs ran on scripts. They responded to transactions, answered FAQ questions, and provided directions. They did not editorialize about the game system. They did not say things like "the system was kinder."
Unless the NPC's script had been modified. Or unless the thing that had spoken wasn't entirely the NPC.
He filed it away. Right next to Dol's tingling hands, Lenn's material resonance, Wes's flavor sense, and the 91 Spirit Medicine Fragments that the game system refused to acknowledge existed.
The world had layers. Joss was beginning to see where the paint peeled.
---
Jong Mang didn't send flowers again. He sent a price war.
On Day Forty-Seven, the Tiger Slayer Guild dumped 50,000 kilograms of boar hide onto the open market at 60% of standard price. Every boar hide in the city became worth less overnight. Harvest Market's boar hide inventory, valued at 2 million gold on Monday, was worth 800,000 by Wednesday.
Rin took the call at 6 AM. Joss was at the penthouse, eating breakfast with his parents, when his system message lit up.
**[Rin Thaler: They dumped. Boar hides. Sixty percent of market. Our entire hide inventory is underwater. Get to the shop.]**
He was there in twenty minutes.
Rin was standing in front of her pricing board, crossing out numbers and writing new ones. Her handwriting was angrier than usual.
"They stockpiled," she said. "Weeks of guild farming output, held in reserve specifically for this. They can absorb the loss because it's a fraction of their operating budget. We can't absorb it because hide sales account for thirty percent of our revenue."
"How much are we losing?"
"If they maintain the dump for a week, we lose approximately 1.2 million in margin. If they sustain it for three weeks, we lose 3.6 million and our hide customers switch to guild pricing permanently."
"Can we match their price?"
"We can. But if we match at 60%, we're selling at a loss. They have the reserves to sustain a loss. We have reserves too, but theirs are deeper."
Joss looked at the pricing board. Numbers. This was a numbers game. And in numbers games, the player with the most resources won. Jong Mang had four hundred guild members, twelve dungeon contracts, and quarterly revenue of four hundred million gold.
But Jong Mang didn't have Infinite Harvest.
"Match the price," Joss said. "Sixty percent. On everything, not just hides. Drop all common and uncommon items to sixty percent of current market."
Rin stared at him. "That's a loss of--"
"They can undercut us on price. They can't undercut us on volume. If we drop everything to sixty percent, every customer in the city will walk through our doors. We absorb the loss by increasing volume so dramatically that the thin margins become livable."
"For how long?"
"As long as it takes. I can produce inventory at a rate they can't match. If they dump fifty thousand kilograms, I'll produce a hundred thousand. If they drop to fifty percent, I'll drop to forty-five. The question isn't who has more gold in reserve. It's who can produce more product per day. And that's not even a contest."
Rin looked at him. Then at the pricing board. Then at her ledger, where eight weeks of careful margin management was about to become irrelevant.
"You're sure."
"I'm sure. The only thing they can't match is my supply rate. Use it."
She picked up her pen and started rewriting prices.
The price war had begun.
