"Boss, should I kick him out or tell him that you are away?" The receptionist wondered.
"Idiot! Are you trying to get us burnt to ashes?" Mr. Zaztlatl cursed while standing up, finally deciding to balls up and meet with Felix.
"Go withdraw the dragon scales and other parts from the shelves as fast as possible." Mr. Zaztlatl said, "I will buy you some time."
"Is he...Is he..."
Upon hearing so, the receptionist finally realized their guest's identity.
"Yes, f*ck off already!"
Without an ounce of hesitation, he dashed to the first third floor and started to remove the mentioned items with a horrified look.
He didn't dare to imagine his fate if a dragon saw that they were selling their race's body parts!
Unbeknownst to them, Felix had been using his infrared vision ever since he entered the store, making him observe the receptionist sprinting from a shelf to another.
Felix got curious and activated his x-ray vision too.
The moment he spotted a couple of giant bones on display and that the receptionist was beaming them away, he immediately realized their origin.
'As expected of the black market, they are daring enough to sell even dragon remains, I doubt they will have any boundaries.' Felix raised an eyebrow in surprise.
'For them to remove them, it looks like he has been tipped off about your fake identity too.' Asna chuckled, 'You know what to do.'
'Heh, I won't be called Felix if I don't rip them off clean.' Felix grinned.
"Hello, kind sir, thank you for your patience." Mr. Zaztlatl bowed with his hands held together respectfully after emerging from behind a door.
"Drop the pretence, you know me." Felix replied indifferently.
Thud!
Instantly, Mr. Zaztlatl fell down on his knees and greeted with a devoted tone, "This lowly subject is honored to be in the presence of a royal dragon!"
"Hm." Felix made a noise of acknowledgement and forwarded a new list to him, "Get me everything on this list."
Mr. Zaztlatl took a deep breath and lifted his head. The moment his eyes came in contact with the list, he almost fainted on the spot!
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt'This...This...This.' He was completely frozen in shock and horror.
He wasn't even concerned about the fact that Felix was requesting his entire stock of natural treasures or materials.
How could he when all dragons' body parts were written on the list too!
There was the heart, the bones, the tendon, the gland, the liver, brain, and the list goes on and on...
"Royal dragon...I don'.."
"The first sentence that comes out of your mouth better not be a lie." Felix interrupted with cold eyes.
Mr. Zaztlatl swallowed the rest of his sentence, feeling like he was truly seeking death attempting to lie before a royal dragon.
"Your order will be completed in ten minutes." Mr. Zaztlatl assured while standing up.
Then, he turned around and went towards his receptionist, who was still getting rid of the dragons' body parts.
Felix watched him slap his receptionist in the face over and over again before pointing his finger at the first floor.
'He is really venting his frustration on his worker.' Asna said.
'Well, either that or he will have a complete breakdown.' Felix snickered, 'Dragons' body parts are extremely rare and useful, making them overpriced as hell. Now, he will be handing them over to me without a single coin charged.'
Although the price wasn't discussed, there was absolutely no way that Mr. Zaztlat was going to sell them to Felix.
In his eyes, he should be relieved that he still had his head attached after being caught red-handed like this.
That's because selling dragons' body parts was banned universal wide...Queen was entitled to report anyone owning them to the proper authorities.
Unfortunately, whenever there was shitload of money to gain, there would always be people finding loopholes to make it happen no matter how illegal and risky it was.
'For them to not get reported, they must have used a solution to disguise the dragons' body parts and fool their bracelet scanning system.' Felix guessed inwardly.
He wasn't certain if his guess was right, but he knew that many black market merchants use a special solution called the Modifier for many banned items and treasures.
In addition to a shitty first generation AP bracelet that had the worst scanning system, the merchants were capable of beaming banned items into their AP bracelets.
Since Queen Ai was allowed to only report those with possession of the banned items, the merchants were safe even if they literally sold them while saying their names.
Felix knew that the SGAlliance could easily reinforce the rules and make all their efforts go for naught...But just like slaves, the black market was too big to be given up on.
After all, the race leaders and other authoritative figures were actually the ones taking the most advantage of the black market since the things they usually want, were always banned.
For example, tasting the meat of a dragon or other exotic creatures...Banned potions that had absurd effects...Slaves from protected strong races like high elves...etc.
Hence, SGAlliance turn a blind eye on the method used by the merchants and keep the status quo as it was.
Still, this didn't mean that if one got caught red-handed, he could walk away without suffering the consequences.
Mr. Zaztlat was more than caught red-handed...
...
Ten minutes later...
"Everything is here." Mr. Zaztlat said as he handed Felix a spatial card with his heart beating rapidly in agitation.
In his mind, he was still not completely out of the danger zone.
"Total?"
"Please, consider it as a gift...You have already paid me with your honorable visit to my unworthy shop." Mr. Zaztlat stressed.
"Do I look like a beggar?" Felix frowned.
"No..no..no, I am sorry, I am so sorry!" Mr. Zaztlat stuttered with his head affixed on the ground, feeling his back turning damp from the cold sweat.
Seeing that Mr. Zaztlat wasn't having a good time, Felix decided to lay him off for now.
He wired him the money for everything besides the dragon's parts. If it were up to him, he would have taken advantage of Mr. Zaztlat and took everything for free.
But he knew that would draw suspicion on him since it was a universal truth that dragons never receive gifts unless it came from others of equal status.
Thus, to keep the ball rolling in his court, he had to keep acting as a true royal dragon.
...
Felix exited the Mr. Zaztlat's shop a few minutes later.
The moment he was gone, Mr. Zaztlat closed his shop, too stressed out and scared to dare sell anything for today.
'I bought so much, yet I paid even less than at Sharx' store.' Felix smiled, 'Black markets are really the best.'
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmNaturally, the merchandise in the black market were not taxed...In other words, Queen Ai consider them without owners since no one paid taxes for them.
If it was up to those sellers, they wouldn't blink an eyelid before paying the taxes.
That's because having taxed products meant that Queen Ai was their insurance in case their products got stolen.
The thief would get caught eventually and their products would be either returned or at least compensated.
It was like paying for insurance as well as taxes.
However, because the origin of those black market products wasn't really legal, taxing them meant that the first person to get f*cked by the system would be them.
For example, the natural treasures and materials here were defintely harvested without a proper license like the one Lord Sharx owned.
If the gatherer decided to legalize his harvest, he would be reported instantly by the Queen...The softest punishment would be deportation from this paradise.
'Do you want me to steal some items for you Sir Felix?' Mistress Candace inquired causally.
'No need.' Felix shook his head.
Although he was more than able to take everything here without any of them making a complaint about it, Felix didn't feel like it.
He knew that the sellers here had taken considerable risks to get their products and sell them here. He wasn't such a dickhead to rob them clean when they hadn't done anything wrong to him.
...
One hour later...
Felix could be seen sitting on a soft king-sized bedroom inside a breathtaking suite...He already raided the other two stores and also a few more unrelated to the items he sought.
Unfortunately, the other two stores didn't have dragons' remains...Felix had made sure that they weren't lying to him by abusing his fake authority.
Honestly, he wasn't that surprised about not finding any.
The only method to find dragons' remains was true sheer luck.
That's because when dragons die in fights against each other, the winner make sure to completely erase the loser's remains to avoid ending up in the hands of the wrong people.
Everyone knew that dragons' bodies were treasures on their own. No dragon would want to have his corpse getting devoured or used as material.
This left the only proper method of finding their remains was by exploring deserted planets in the galaxy, and hoping to luck out on dragons' burials.
Fortunately for the explorers, dragons' bodies were almost immune to decay and decomposition, making them strike rich every time they find a burial.
'I got half a heart, a quarter of a liver, a quarter of a spinal cord, a couple of teeth, the gland, and lastly, red reflective scales.' Felix thought while eying the content of his spatial inventory.