WebNovels

Chapter 74 - Chapter 74

Though the front backpack was now empty the trip to the mall remained arduous, thankfully there was a working escalator not too far from the Butcher's shop so he could easily get upstairs without expending too much effort. 

There was only one thing on his mind, getting rid of the damn machine gun, it was excessively heavy and annoying to carry, luckily the weapons shop was closest to the entrance to the mall. Jay gave an amused look as Adam walked into his shop.

"Found enough stuff?' He said with a teasing tone.

"I wish I had a robot to carry all this for me." He said as he hoisted the gun and the duffle bag onto the counter and sighed in relief. "This can't be good for my back." Jay chuckled.

"That's why most other scarves don't bring back a brahmin's worth of goods. But I see you were built different." He chuckled and then looked at the quad assault rifle machine gun monstrosity. "What in the lord's name is this?" He asked as he easily picked it up with one hand to inspect it, proving his big muscles were not just for show.

"A weapon I used to kill a boatload of lakelurks." Adam smiled as he pulled off his backpack and placed it on the ground.

"I bet, who'd you take this from? This looks like a mad man's design?"

"Raiders."

"Ah, well that'd do it." He then put the gun back down and looked at Adam. "Well I got good news and bad news about it, which do you want first?"

"Good news."

"Well the good news is that 4 assault rifles that fire, regardless of their condition, are going to be worth a pretty penny, so you did well to carry this here, even if it looks like you strained yourself."

"And the bad news?"

"Bad news is the modifications done to this…beast are shoddy, it works, sure, but I doubt any genuine arms dealer would be willing to sell this, especially when they could buy a proper machine gun. Which will leave me with the unfortunate situation of having to either disassemble all of this or hold it until it finds its owner." He paused. "I can buy this from you for 400 caps, not a cap more.' He said firmly.

"That's more than enough." Adam smiled. "400 caps to have lugged this all the way over is definitely worth it."

"Good." Jay grinned and then picked it up and put it on the ground next to him. "What else you got?" 

Adam unloaded the rest of the weapons from his bags and the excess ammo he had picked up from the storeroom was not nearly as much as when he had raided the gun store near Naper but it was more than enough to make a pretty penny. He became assured of this when Jay gave him the price.

"565." He said firmly after he finished inspecting. 

"I can do that too." Adam grinned.

"Good." Jay smiled. "I like a man who doesn't like to mess around with haggling." He then got out the 965 caps he owed Adam and handed it over.

"If you find any more goods like that, keep sending them my way, I think we will have a great working relationship." 

"I think so too." Adam said as he began to grab his bags again, this time putting the excess into Salvatore's bag still strapped to his chest and stuffing the empty duffle bag back into his backpack.

"Oh, before I go, you still have that scope?"

"Oh yeah, sure, I got it right here." Jay returned with a broad smile as he placed the scope Adam saw last time on the counter.

"Perfect, 200 caps right?" 

"Yessir." Adam handed back two slips for 100 caps that Jay had just given him as payment.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

"You too." Adam then left the shop heading to his last destination before he could finally be rid of all this excess weight he was burdened with. At least now the heaviest things were out of his bags, the rest was going to Lune.

Upon arriving he did not see Lune but saw the Mr. Handy he fixed up floating at the register.

"Oh hello there sir! How may I be of service today?" The Mr. Handy said as if he had never seen Adam before. Not like Adam had just fixed him a day ago or anything, whatever.

"I would like to sell all of these." Adam said as he dumped the items left in his bags onto the counter for the Mr. Handy to see.

"Of course sir! I would love to engage with you in commerce!" He said with a chipper tone. "Please note that all prices were set by the proprietor, as such there shall be no haggling allowed. If something does not have a price I will be unable to accept it. If you agree with my statements then we shall proceed with the mercantile exchange!" Adam chuckled.

"Alright, yes, that is fine with me."

"Wonderful! Then please, allow me a moment to look over the objects you have brought! In the meantime I suggest you peruse the varied and wonderful items we have in our lovely little shop here! I'm sure you will find something to tickle your fancy!" The Mr. Handy said as he began to inspect the items. Adam decided to heed his advice and look around while he was waiting. The shop did have quite the eclectic collection of items, who knew what he would find.

Among the more interesting things Adam found, he noticed a copy of automatron, a holotape based game, a copy of ¡La Fantoma!, and another vault-tec bobblehead. This one was holding a little wrench. It was actually pretty cute.

"I am done sir! If you are ready to begin our exchange!" The Mr. Handy said energetically from his spot by the counter. Adam broke from his shopping to walk back over.

"I have calculated the total value of all the items you have brought here, with the exception of the items you have left in the bags, which I assume were meant to exclude them from consideration, the total value of the items you have here today comes out to 481 caps. Do you find this acceptable?" Adam looked at the items, judging if they were worth more than he was getting but as per usual his sense of item's value was not yet honed, he was starting to get a sense of worth for the items but he still had a long way to go before he could truly tell an object's worth, even with Chuck's tutoring from before.

"Alright, that sounds fine to me." Adam said after a moment of contemplation.

"Wonderful! Allow me a moment to get your earned caps!" The Mr. Handy reached under the counter and opened a box to begin dispensing the caps to Adam.

"I was curious, how much is that bobble head over there?" He asked. The Mr. Handy, without breaking his counting of the slips and caps, looked over to the bobblehead in question with one of his eyes. 

"That sir is 100 caps!" 

"100?!" Adam said, shocked. 100 caps was an insane amount of money for something that was nothing more than a hood ornament. Maybe if it magically made him better with wrenches or repair or something it would be worth it, but just to sate his curiosity and grow his collection that was not worth it. Not when he has so many other things he needs to buy.

"Alright, what about that game over there?" He said, pointing to Automatron.

"That is 25 caps!" Adam nodded. 

"Alright, I'll take that."

"Wonderful sir! I shall subtract its price from the total." After a moment he handed over the money. "There you go sir! 456 caps!" Adam added them to his pouch and then slipped the bags back on. 

"Thank you." Adam said as he got his stuff on and started to head over to the game he had just bought. As he did he remembered he still had the other holotape inside his pip-boy so he took that out and threw it into his bag. He could reformat it later, empty its memory and then it would be usable as a blank holotape, certainly worth a bit of money to someone he was sure.

'No, thank you sir! Pleasure conducting business with you!" The Mr. Handy said, still chipper as always.

"Oh." Adam said as he reached the exit of the shop and stopped, turning around to look at the Mr. Handy again. "Tell Lune I said Hello."

"I can do that sir! Who shall I say this message is from?"

"Adam."

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