While the negotiations concerning the Black Plain were taking place on the outskirts of Dry City, a few days passed... Nothing happened locally, and the talks were still going smoothly in this period.
That is to say, Minos' soldiers had lengthened the conversations in these days, contesting several of the points raised by the royal envoys.
Like, for example, for every demand that the Brown family wanted the Black Plain to accept, the administrative soldiers of the Black Plain Army were saying things like: 'we have to study this'; 'we don't know if it's worth doing such a thing'; 'we need to test it;' and so on.
However, despite asking for time to study whether the Brown family's proposals were economically feasible, they had only done so when there was room to do so. Otherwise, the group of soldiers had agreed to other points not to raise any great suspicion.