บท 7: Chapter 7: Negotiation

The next day.

Grand Line, Water Seven Island, Gally-La Company, Chairman's Office.

"Kalifa, do I have an appointment today for a meeting?" Iceburg asked as he stopped his current work and looked at Kalifa who was on the sofa in his study sorting through the documents that Iceburg had reviewed last night.

Kalifa immediately took the document she always carried with her and opened the note, "You have some appointments today, Iceburg-san. At 9 o'clock in the morning you have a schedule to come to the inauguration of the hotel which has just been opened by the Ire family. Then at 10 am later you will have a meal with the owner of the glass company…"

Kalifa continued to read all the schedules Iceburg had for today.

"Okay. You can stop" Iceburg-san immediately stopped him because he had a bit of a headache after listening to all the schedules.

"Do you want me to cancel all activities today?" Kalifa asked casually as if this activity had been done by him.

"You can cancel all activities for today. I have an appointment with someone today"

"Meeting someone?" Kalifa asked with great interest.

"Ma…Yesterday I was just contacted by a King from the Fortis Kingdom. He offered me to cooperate. Their kingdom seems to have good quality wood."

"Can the words of the King be proven true?" Kalifa asked again.

"Maa.. I don't know" Iceburg shook his head and continued, "However, today the King of that kingdom has sent an envoy to meet me while letting me assess the quality of the wood they have. As long as the wood is of good quality, we can build a cooperative relationship with them. After all, we currently need a large amount of wood because the current orders for ships have also increased compared to before."

"I understand" Kalifa nodded and started to carry out the task she had by canceling all today's appointments.

The two of them continued their work until there was a knock on the door and someone could see someone coming inside.

"Report! Iceburg-san. There is someone named Hashirama Senju from the Fortis Kingdom who wants to meet you. He told me that he had made an appointment with you."

Iceburg immediately stopped what he was doing and looked at his subordinate, "You can bring him here."

"I see, Iceburg-san"

That person immediately went down to carry out the orders given by Iceburg-san. Kalifa who was there also started to tidy up the room since the sofa in the room will be used soon. While Iceburg immediately stopped his work and then walked towards the sofa to wait for Hashirama's arrival.

There was another knock on the door as the door swung open.

"I have brought the person, Iceburg-san"

"Good work. You can come back"

The subordinate immediately left the room.

Iceburg's and Kalifa's gazes immediately turned to Hashirama who smiled friendly at them.

"Please have a seat, Mr Hashirama" Kalifa said politely.

"Thank you"

Hashirama immediately took a seat in front of Iceburg saying, "Hello, first meeting. I'm Hashirama Senju. I am the one sent by His Majesty to bring the wood to be appraised by you."

"I'm Iceburg. I am the Mayor of this Water Seven City." Iceburg also introduced himself and continued, "If you may know. Where is the wood we are going to grade, Mr Hashirama?"

"Are we going to do the assessment here?"

"If possible. We can do it here however, if the wood is currently outside the room. We can go to see it."

"No need" Hashirama shook his head, "I've brought the wood. Please rate it directly here"

"Have you brought it?" Kalifa and Iceburg looked slightly confused at Hashirama.

Hashirama looked to the side and felt that the size of the area was sufficient. Hashirama immediately took out the wood that had been prepared for an appraisal from the storage bracelet. The wood suddenly appeared in the area beside them.

Iceburg and Kalifa were quite surprised to see the appearance of the wood.

"Are you the possessor of a devil fruit ability, Mr Hashirama?" Iceburg asked hesitantly.

"Yes. I am the owner of the devil fruit ability. My devil fruit ability can manipulate any inanimate object into an object that serves as a storage area. However, this ability itself is only limited to use by me. If someone else uses an item made by me, they can't do it."

"Excellent ability," Iceburg said as his gaze fell on the wood to be graded.

Instantly his face immediately changed to a surprised expression because the quality of the wood was in accordance with what Ars said. Although the quality is not comparable to the quality of the wood that comes from the adam tree. However, the quality of the wood in front of Iceburg right now was better than the wood they usually used.

"What do you think of the wood we have, Iceburg-san? The quality isn't bad, is it?" Hashirama asked with a smile.

"This wood is indeed of very good quality even slightly worse than the wood from the adam tree," Iceburg said in a satisfied tone and looked at Hashirama, "If I may ask, how much wood does your kingdom have and how much are you prepared for? to sell to us? Also, what is the price for each of these woods?"

"Currently we have 100 thousand wood ready to be sold to you. Everything is now brought by me and ready for you to use. The price for each wood is 500 thousand berries. That is the price that our kingdom has set." Hashirama paused and continued, "However, our king has other methods of making payments."

"Another method?" Iceburg was a little curious about this.

"Our kingdom is currently in dire need of materials to build. There are many construction projects that require large amounts of materials. However, if we use the connections we have. It will take a long time to collect these materials. Because of that, our King offered a 50:50 payment to Iceburg-san if he really wanted to buy the wood we had. Iceburg-san only has to pay half the cost of the entire cost using money while the other half uses materials. Of course, Iceburg-san can also choose. Do you want to use this method or use the full payment method? If Iceburg-san chooses to use the 50:50 method. Our king will give you a 10% discount. What do you think?"

Iceburg was immediately tempted to listen to the 10% discount, especially since the wood they would get at this time was the best quality wood if they made an exception for the wood from the adam tree.

"Kalifa, are we financially capable of paying for all the wood they offer us?" Iceburg asked calmly.

"Sure, Iceburg-san" Kalifa said as she nodded and looked at Hashirama, "You said that if we used the 50:50 payment method, we would get a 10% discount. That means the total payment we have to pay is 45 billion berries, right? That means we have to pay half of it using 22.5 billion berries, right?"

"Sure." Hashirama nodded.

"Maa… Alright, since we have the money right now. We will buy the wood you have." Iceburg said with a smile, "If you may know. What materials would you like to have?"

"May I discuss this with my King? To be honest we still haven't discussed this matter because we ourselves don't know how much wood you want to buy from our side."

"Of course" Iceburg nodded and looked at Kalifa, "Please take Mr Hashirama to a room where he can use it"

"I understand, Iceburg-san" Kalifa's gaze looked at Hashirama, "Master Hashirama, please come with me"

Hashirama immediately followed Kalifa to the room he was going to use.

" I see. So this woman is an agent sent by the World Government here." Hashirama thought and continued his journey together with Kalifa.

Hashirama was brought to a room while Kalifa prepared paper and stationery.

"I will wait for Mr Hashirama outside"

Hashirama immediately took the paper and stationery then went to the sofa and started calling Ars.

"How was the job there, Hashirama? Running successfully?"

"Going successfully, Ars. Iceburg chose to buy all the wood we had on top of that, he also chose the method of making a 50:50 payment"

"That's great news" Ars paused for a moment and continued, "Then wait a moment. I will determine the price of each item we will ask them."

"Well"

Hashirama waited for a while until Ars finished determining the price of each material they needed. Hashirama calmly began to write down the materials and the amount of the price that had been determined by Ars on the paper given to him.

"Hashirama, as I said before. Chances are you'll be staying there for some time. You currently have no money to use. You can find it by becoming a pirate hunter. However, you should not use your current appearance. Change your appearance when you become a pirate hunter. Also, if you can use the money you get from doing pirate hunting to buy room equipment that will be used by the workers. Buy equipment that is of the highest quality."

"I see"

After finishing, the communication call was immediately cut off and Hashirama immediately walked out of the room.

"Miss Kalifa, I'm done. Let's go back"

Kalifa nodded and immediately brought Hashirama back to Iceburg's study.

"Iceburg-san, these are the materials we need as well as the price of each one."

Iceburg immediately took the paper and looked at it for a moment.

"If I may ask, how long will it take for you to collect the materials?" Hashirama asked again.

Iceburg didn't answer immediately and gave it to Kalifa, "How long do you think we can collect these materials, Kalifa?"

Kalifa received the paper and looked at it for a moment, "It will take us about 10 days to collect all these materials, Iceburg-san. This material has a very large amount. We need time to collect them."

"It took us about 10 days to collect them. Would Mr Hashirama be okay with waiting that long?"

"No problem" Hashirama nodded, "We're not too hasty in building a project either"

Hashirama then took out his small piece of paper and handed it to Iceburg, "This is my den-den mushi number. If Iceburg-san had gathered all the materials we wanted. Please contact me."

"I see." Iceburg accepted the paper and then put it in his pocket.

"My Urusak here is finished. I still have to do something my King ordered. Please excuse me"

Hashirama immediately left the Gally-La Company office and began his temporary job as a pirate hunter. Meanwhile, Kalifa also went straight to her work by starting to contact every boss of the material company to buy large quantities of materials from their side.

Some time passed.

Evening.

Water Seven Island, Blueno's Bar.

"Do any of you know about the Fortis Kingdom?" Kalifa asked her four co-workers.

The four people are Kaku, Lucy, and Blueno. The four of them are CP-9 agents assigned by the World Government to obtain the blueprints for Pluto's design which they assume are in the hands of Iceburg.

"Fortis Kingdom?" Kaku asked while raising his brow, "I have never heard of this kingdom. Is there anything interesting about the kingdom?"

"One of their emissaries previously came to meet with Iceburg to discuss the matter of the cooperative relationship. Their kingdom seemed to be a kingdom that had good quality wood resources. Earlier, a cooperative relationship was established and now the Gally-La Company already has another place to supply wood." Kalifa said calmly and continued, "Do we need to report this?"

"No need" Lucy said calmly, "Our job here is to find the blueprints held by Iceburg. We don't have to deal with this problem. We have to focus on searching for the blueprints for Pluto's ship design."

"We understand." Kalifa and Kaku nodded.

"Oh yes. Blueno. Do you have any information regarding a famous bounty hunter this afternoon?" Kaku suddenly asked.

"Bounty hunter?" Kalifa asked while raising her brow.

"Don't you know? There was a bounty hunter who had destroyed a fleet belonging to a group of pirates. All pirate captains were killed by that person very sadly. Even when that person wants to exchange his gifts with the Navy. That person only carried the heads of each of those pirate captains."

"Your wish cannot be fulfilled, Kaku. I don't have any information about that person" Blueno shook his head, "I think that person just left and started his job as a bounty hunter"

"I have also heard about that person," Lucy said seriously, "There is a possibility that the World Government will try to recruit him to join. Especially that person is rumored to have the skills to use Haki abilities very well."

Lucy paused for a moment and continued, "One of us will likely be sent to try and recruit him. You all have to be careful. That person's strength is not as simple as it seems."

The three of them nodded.

The four of them continued their conversation. However, the four of them did not stay together for too long for fear of being discovered by others. The four of them did not know that the conversation they were having had been listened to by the currently famous pirate hunter, Hashirama Senju.

However, it wasn't Hashirama's real body that came to do the reconnaissance but his clone that Hashirama had sent earlier. The clone immediately disappeared from that location and passed the memory it had acquired to Hashirama.