"This house last sold to its owner for eight mithril, and that was twenty years ago.  Prices have risen since then."

"Really now.  Make you a deal.  We'll go to the Guild bank and look at the record of last sale.  If it was seven mithril or more, we'll buy the house for ten mithril.  If not, we get it for half a mithril.  Bargain?"

"That's an absurdity!"

"Let's go look at some different houses, Bella.  There'll probably be some sellers there who won't lie to close a deal and name reasonable prices, and you can get a feel from there for what the real prices are."

"Yeah, this one is cute but it'd be sort of weird if we'd found the best one this early," she shrugs.

By the time they're walking out of the door together, Laston is yelling after them that two mithril is absolutely his final offer and they're welcome to check the last selling price at the Guild, if they're that uninformed about values in this extremely fine neighborhood.

("Two mithril is about what I'd actually expect," Haroun says in a low voice.  "If we had lots of time, I'd still say to look at other houses first, or hire somebody with better 『Bargaining』, but I don't know what your schedule plans are like.")

("Spending a lot of time haggling instead of getting into classes and working on progressing seems like a mistake but I don't know how much time it'd wind up being to look at a couple more places.")

("Honestly I would not buy a whole house this fast, but you are really in a very different situation than anything I'm used to occupying.  But probably a couple more (1.6 hours) at least, if we actually look inside and around places.")

("Eh, we can finish going all the way around the campus and see if he'll go down to one and a half should we appear to be about to turn the corner.")

He goes down to 1 mithril 17 platinum as they turn the corner.  That's without furnishings, though.  Furnishings demand 1 mithril 27 platinum.

"...might be close enough. What do you think?"

Haroun shrugs helplessly.  "I hope you don't think less of me if I say that I've never actually bought a house and have not much idea of how one goes about it."

"Hey, he probably could have talked me into paying ten mithril for it if I'd been alone. - how bad are taxes going to eat me alive on this, do you know?"

"Oh, taxes are an annual function of the value of the land the house is built on, not what the house itself looks like.  You're looking at a few gold a year, at worst two platinum and that's if he was underplaying how nice of a neighborhood this is."

"Oh, it's not part of the transaction itself? Okay. ...I think I'll just go for it. Maybe quibble over the furniture." She turns back to the salesman and ambles his way. "Is that factoring in having to have all the furniture hauled away if I don't care to buy it?" she wonders.

By the time they're actually at the Guild, the price is 1 mithril 23 platinum with furniture.  Haroun has Bella pay a silver to check the books; the last time this house sold was for 20 years ago, and that was 1 mithril 10 platinum.  A reasonable level of appreciation given Cowcorn's growth since then, so far as Haroun knows.  Taxes are 5 gold per annum.

And soon Bella is the proud owner of a house, with biometric keys for herself, Haroun, and up to three others to be determined.  More than that will take rekeying the locks.

She is in a pretty good mood about her house. Now it is time to have lunch and then to own more than one outfit.

Nom!

So what is Bella looking for in an outfit?  A city the size of Cowcorn has some genuine variety of clothing, though particular shops are still pretty sparse.  Is she looking to sport some casual light-armored adventuress chic?  Somber merchant robes?  Slightly slutty teenage sorceress?  Rich-bitch student?  Rich non-bitch student who is also a light-armored adventuress?  Most of all, is she going magical or nonmagical?

Well, that all depends on what is magical about the clothes.

Self-cleaning!  Temperature regulation!  Sweat vanishing!  Expensive arrowproofing!  Incredibly expensive minor strength boost!  Color-changing!  Unbelievably expensive automatic monthly updates to match the latest fashions from the capital!  Magically expanded pockets just five mithril, if you'd rather have bigger pockets instead of three houses like Bella's house!  Shirt sleeves that clean themselves immediately after you blow your nose on them!  These panties automatically fall off if a boy kisses you hard enough!  Powered flight suit with anti-dragonbreath fire resistance, only 30 mithril plus 2 mithril per month maintenance contract!  Sexy lingerie that secretes an aphrodisiac which is only slightly illegal so just don't use it on anybody important!  Hair ornaments that automatically clean your hair!  Hair ornaments that automatically do your hair!  Hair ornaments that automatically do your hair in the latest fashions from the capital!  Headbands that fit over your ears so it looks like your ears are elven!  Chameleon cloak that can shift itself to match the fashions of the rest of your clothing, on sale for a mere 2 mithril!  Full-coverage assassin suit that perfectly blends into ambient light levels, you must have an appropriate license to purchase this item wink wink nudge nudge.  And if you've ever wanted to wear jewelry that glows brighter than neon bulbs, the luminance enchanters sure didn't stop there!  This iron crown is set with three brilliant white gems that look like they could light up Bella's whole house!

Well, not having to do laundry sounds nice and it's possible one day she will be very glad of having gotten herself arrowproofed. How expensive are those exactly? Normally she'd be tempted by the color-changing but mostly in lieu of buying fourteen of the same shirt, and she has now been thoroughly convinced via days on the road in literally one shirt that there are advantages to owning fourteen instead. Also how does the chameleon cloak work, in case she, uh, wants one?

Arrowproofing costs around +4-6 gold per clothing item, depending on the size; it doesn't protect areas the clothing doesn't cover.  She could get full merchant's robes with long sleeves arrowproofed for +6 gold, and that would cover most of her, but that wouldn't look fashionable or rich on a student Bella's age.  Separate pants and skirt will cost +5 gold each.  The cost of the enchantment on a clothing item is not linear in its surface area.

Color-changing costs +15 silver per item (around +1 gold) if Bella happens to want some of that anyways.  Autolaundry is about +35 silver per item.

The Chameleon Cloak is a loot drop off a Queen Chameleon Slime on the final layer of the legendary dungeon at the center of Relica City, Relica's Capital, brought back by A-rank adventurers only two of whom lived to tell the tale -

"We've been to the Relis dungeon," says Haroun.  "Try telling the actual truth if you want a sale."

- loot drop off a Mutant Chameleon Slime in layer nine of the Relis dungeon.  It's not the assassin-grade drop from Relis's boss monster, which can serve as almost but not quite an invisibility cloak if you cover yourself fully and stay motionless, that would sell for more like 8 mithril.  (Not that an Adventurer could sell it for the retail price, of course; still less after taxes.)  It will, however, adjust to blend in with the rest of your clothing; or look like a cloak of sundappled leaves in a forest; or once you have sufficient synchronization with the item, you can bend your will on it and make it look like any pattern of cloak that fits its cut.  The fact that it's not really all that useful to a non-Adventurer is part of what makes this an expensive prestige fashion item!  All the ladies in the capital are wearing it!  The queen wears it!

Gosh. Maybe depending on how the rest of her shopping goes. (She already has one and can get it back from Haroun now she knows you have to put it on to work it.) What is there in the way of robes that say 'sorceress' instead of 'merchant', like the lady who verified the orichalcum?

Merchant robes are dark, drapy, and somber.  Sorceress robes are theoretically cut for freedom of movement in dungeons; the ones with added arrowproofing tend to be high-coverage and have default shades that blend in with stone.  Some of those also have color-changing to serve more fashionable purposes, if you know what color you want them to be and how to coordinate them with enchanted jewelry.  There's versions that can fold back to expose more skin, for fashion purposes, while trying to still clearly signal that these could be quality adventuring robes if the barely visible flaps were pulled out to cover the chest again.  Aside from that there's a variety of subtle fashions that Haroun is too nerdy to know how to read, and it's hard to get a good answer from the saleswomen because they keep trying to make it sound like anything Bella shows a sign of liking would send just the signal they're guessing Bella wants to send.  It would probably have stood a better chance of fooling Bella if their Social Skills worked on her properly.