Leonar lost his smile and quickly picked up the box. He opened it to check the gem and then let out a sigh of relief.

Seeing his reaction, Hwee-Kyung thought to herself, ‘That’s good. I guess it didn’t break.’

She probably had more than enough money to pay for the jewel in the box, but she did think it wouldn’t have been worth it to compensate them for the broken gem just because she wanted to show them she was angry.

Leonar dusted off the sand on the box and handed it over to another Elf merchant.

Leonar then said in a colder tone, “How much do you want?”

“I’m not sure…”

Hwee-Kyung trailed off while ripping off a hangnail on her finger. Leonar impatiently waited for her to continue. Hwee-Kyung looked down at the back of her hand, which was well taken care of, and then looked at Leonar.

“But do you want to go this far? If you bribe me like this, I don’t think you’ll really benefit from your trades in the end. And I’m the most powerful one in this region. I can always go back on my promise at any time. I know well that there aren’t any other Elves around here. It won’t matter if I take the gem and not honor the promise.”

Leonar regained the smile around his eyes.

“Well…it’s to build a good relationship with you. I can take that much of a loss if it’s...