The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]

Chapter 1094: Business Instincts

"Pricing?" Xavier repeated, despite already suspecting that his wife desperately wanted someone to ask that exact question, so he could enthusiastically explain his idea.

Cute.

Sure enough, the moment Luca realized his husband was interested, the cadet nodded so quickly he resembled a woodpecker.

"I was hoping to identify a pattern," Luca explained proudly.

"I was worried they might price everything per unit regardless of weight, so I didn’t want us blindly selling things without testing first."

"Ah," Xavier hummed in understanding. "So that’s why you prepared different jar sizes."

"Yes!" Luca nodded eagerly. "And because we have three sizes, we can also see if bulk quantities get priced lower overall!"

It was the kind of pain Luca had personally experienced as a struggling orphan back in Tesseris.

Sure, it was convenient that people could purchase goods in sachets or much smaller pouches, but if one actually did the math, buying larger sizes or in bulk was almost always far cheaper in the long run. There was less packaging involved, and manufacturers would benefit from economies of scale.

Unfortunately, when someone was truly destitute, buying in bulk simply wasn’t an option.

Back then, Luca could only afford the smaller packages, even if they ultimately cost far more once everything was added up.

But in their current situation, packaging itself wasn’t really the issue. Because right now, CP was far more critical to them than Star Coins.

And unlike back in Tesseris, where it didn’t matter who could and couldn’t buy, what mattered this time was getting the scarce products into as many hands as possible. That meant smaller packaging, but in far larger quantities.

Well, that had been their strategy when selling to the people of the Empire.

Unfortunately, they had absolutely no understanding of this new target market yet and would likely need to rely on a great deal of trial and error moving forward.

They simply couldn’t tell whether the same logic even applied to the Trove and this strange vending business. Still, there was no harm in experimenting a little to see what their unidentified consumers might actually be interested in buying—assuming they wanted to purchase anything at all.

Hmm...!

The little money-grubber looked frighteningly serious about the entire operation.

If there was one thing Luca had learned over the past several months, it was that he needed to understand business better. He didn’t need to earn absurd amounts of money, but he absolutely couldn’t afford to operate at a loss either.

After all, what about all the people depending on them for work?

"Then if we’re already using three vending slots for different jar sizes," Xavier continued patiently, "what are you planning for the remaining two?"

"Ah!"

Luca perked up immediately.

"I was thinking we should sell apples," he explained, "and then also sell a bundle containing honey and apples together!"

"Huh?"

Now that genuinely caught Xavier’s attention.

"Apples and honey together?"

Golden eyes immediately sparkled brighter as Luca proudly cleared his throat before unveiling what was apparently his grand strategy.

"Well," the cadet began importantly, "the apples would serve as a benchmark."

"A benchmark?"

"Yes!" Luca nodded enthusiastically. "Since we already know the relative value of each apple here in the Empire, we can compare that against whatever value the Trove market assigns to them."

"I figured we could learn quite a bit just by comparing the valuations, even if they don’t use the same currency!"

"Oh, and we wouldn’t even need to set up anything new just to sell apples since we already distribute them in different places anyway!"

The reasoning was surprisingly sound.

"As for the honey-and-apple bundle," Luca continued excitedly, already looking like he was seconds away from drooling over the mere thought of food, "those two naturally pair well together in so many ways! Freshly dipped apples, spiced and baked treats, and even combinations with other dishes!"

"So not only do they complement each other..."

The budding businessman looked increasingly invested.

"But we’d also be able to see whether selling compound products gives better returns than selling things individually!"

Xavier blinked once.

Then again.

Because somehow, his wife had unexpectedly transformed into a deeply analytical merchant while handling mutant bee honey.

Clearly, he was protective of this product.

Meanwhile, Luca’s expression shifted as he continued, this time sounding slightly shy.

"Well, I just figured..."

The cadet looked thoughtfully toward the jars of glowing honey.

"People unfamiliar with honey probably wouldn’t know what to do if they simply received a random jar filled with mysterious golden liquid."

"..."

"Even if we were serving this to everyone here, we’d probably include a toast or fruit alongside it first, so they’d understand how to enjoy it properly."

"Hm..."

The little beekeeper fell into brief contemplation before suddenly turning toward his husband again, this time with those captivatingly widened eyes that usually signaled the beginning of something extremely interesting.

The Prince predicted correctly as those lips he loved began to move.

"It’s going to be a little noisy because of the prompts..."

At this statement, D-29 immediately reacted as if it had suffered deep injustice.

However, Luca merely smiled sheepishly before continuing.

"But if possible..."

His golden eyes brightened even more.

"Husband... Maybe we can still add labels?"

"..."

Xavier could only shake his head slowly in both surrender and amusement.

Honestly, his little wife was probably the calmest person alive under actively threatening and aggressively blinking system prompts.

The dungeon was practically screaming at them to sell something already, yet Luca was still thoughtful enough to worry about presentation and proper labeling.

Meanwhile, the Trove itself appeared perfectly willing to vend entire raw frames of honeycomb without a shred of dignity involved.

Still—

What Luca wanted, Luca inevitably received.

And thus, Xavier Solaris, Imperial Crown Prince of the last standing Empire, ended up personally devoting his time toward designing labels featuring ginormous thumb-sized bees as mascots.

Unfortunately, just as they had finally finished preparing everything and were about to sell their first batch of dungeon-hostaged products...

They were met with a destination they absolutely had not expected.

"What’s this?"

"It’s saying we actually have to deliver them to the Bridge?"

"???"