Chapter 5

It was Andrew who responded to Rockefeller’s words,

“I think I’ve heard of it! There used to be a lot of dwarves here! And they dug out all the gold,”

Joshua added,

“I’ve heard of it too! There used to be a lot of gold in the mines. Lots of it! But there’s nothing anymore…”

The reaction of the younger siblings was easy to predict.

“First of all, since you all have to learn how to do it, Andrew and Joshua, you two need to dig the dirt under the stream, dig as deep as possible and give it to me. Then Hyung will show you how to find the fold in the soil so that you can learn and follow it,”

The method of collecting placer gold was simple. The highest proportion of gold dust and ore would usually settle deep in the bottom of the stream.

So if you dig deep into the stream and place the dirt into a big plate called a panning, washing it would cause all the heavy minerals like ore and gold fragments to sink to the bottom and only the dirt would float at the top.

After that, they just needed to pick out the separated sparkling gold and clean them, that was the way to collect placer gold – also known as Gold Panning.

‘When I did it, I had to do it so many times just to get a few pieces of ore, but what will happen here?’

Rockefeller was slightly dubious about the results but he took the dirt dug out by his siblings and lowered the panning dish into the stream, using the running water to clean the pebbles and dirt away.

He quickly picked out the visible pebbles and sand the third under was washed away.

Joshua, who was watching the panning eagerly, swallowed against his dry throat and said,

“Is there any gold, everything’s is washed down…” a little impatiently,

“Idiot. Gold is precious! How can there be loads, wait while Rockefeller hyung searches for it!” Andrew exclaimed, even with his eyes glued to Rockefeller,

Even Leo, who was always somewhat silent, opened his mouth as he watched the dirt flowing from the panning with his bright, expectant eyes,

“Is there really gold there?”

Rockefeller remained silent, focused on the panning plate as he looked for gold.

‘Please, please even a little bit… let us live too!’

When the panning work was over, he could see the sparkling gold powder that could be seen right away.

It was a lot more than expected.

‘Are you telling me this much came out?’

It was incomparable to the amount he had in the panning dish from when he had tried this in Korea.

While his younger siblings, who had been collecting placer gold for the first time, were confused because they didn’t know what the situation was right now. But for Rockefeller, it was hard to hide his excitement.

‘If it’s this much… then at least we don’t have to worry about starving to death.’

It was at that moment that he saw a beam of salvation for the first time since he fell into the world of this novel and wandered through the long darkness of an unknown end.

‘No, if it’s this much, then it can change your life. Having this much wouldn’t directly change your life, but if we grow based on this…?’

When Rockefeller didn’t snap out of his daze for a while, Joshua, who was staring at the panning dish said,

“Is that all gold, the sparkly things?”

Even though the younger sibling knew what gold was, they all seemed disappointed at the amount that was less than they had anticipated.

“But isn’t there too little? How can we eat and live with this?”

If there were geological experts who had done traditional placer mining, it would have been enough to make them faint, but it was a reaction that came out because they were children who didn’t know this.

At Joshua’s disappointment, Rockefeller spoke,

“No, a lot of came out,”

Like Joshua, Andrew had also looked disappointed at the gold dust and said,

“Is this really a lot?”

“I couldn’t even imagine we would find placer gold to this extent. Just because you can mine for placer gold somewhere doesn’t mean so much will come out,”

“Ah really? So a lot came out? Wow!” Joshua said half-heartedly,

Rockefeller was already imagining getting out of poverty and living his life as a rich man.

‘If it keeps coming out like this, it might not be a dream to become really rich. It’s a goal!’

Although he couldn’t be a swordmaster or an archmage because he didn’t have talent with swords or magic, at least he could become a rich man with enough money to lay rotting.

‘If we can get all the placer gold from here… jackpot! It’s a real jackpot! Awesome!’

While Rockefeller was excitedly thinking about what to do next, this younger brothers were talking,

“Then does that mean we don’t have to starve anymore?”

“Forget starving! We’re going to be rich! Right hyung!? We can be rich, right?”

Even Leo, added his voice in among his excited older brothers,

“What a relief, I’m really glad…”

Their younger sister was holding on tightly to Leo’s hand and soothing her hunger by quietly sucking on her thumb without really understanding why the brothers were so excited.

“Lets make money!” Andrew shouted and Joshua quickly followed. The two of them moved the most passionately, and even Leo began to lend a hand here and there while taking care of Lucia.

‘Ah, this land really isn’t dead yet’

In a land where others thought it was all over, Rockefeller found the possibility of changing the tedious situation for himself and his siblings in an instant.

‘I’m getting a little excited’

To others, it would have simply been a piece of placer gold, not even pure gold but Rockefeller saw a dream that could be realised beyond that.

‘To be honest, I didn’t want to be a swordmaster or an archmage. I’m not that type of person, there was no aptitude or talent and it’s a waste of time and money,’

He wanted to avoid walking that path.

However as a student of History and Finance, there was a challenge he wanted to try in this world – and that was to develop his own financial system.

‘Yeah, what’s so great about archemages and swordmasters? It’s all dangerous work.’

It was the same when he was in Korea and it was the same in this moment too. The most important thing for him was first money and second money.

‘In the end, money was the best. I don’t need anything else, money really is the best.’

Power, fame, you could have it all if you had money. You could buy everything.

‘You can even buy safety. Money is the all-round cheat key that makes everything possible.’

It wasn’t until late afternoon that the gold dusting that started like that could be finished.

“Gather everything and lets go,”

After returning home, Rockefeller sat down with his siblings at the old table and checked the placer gold they had collected.

“This is the amount we have earned through our efforts today. It’s the value we earned for our legitimate work,”

The amount of gold that could be gained through one panning was small, but when the results were out together, it was so large that one’s eyes would go round in shock.

Today, they had gathered enough gold to make one small gold coin.

“Wow, did we collect that much? There’s so many pieces,”

“I’ve never seen so much gold, aren’t we going to be really rich like this?”

The younger siblings, including Rockeller, hadn’t spoken at all on the way back because they had been tired from working at the stream all day, but they couldn’t hide their excitement in front of the gold dust that was beyond anything a commoner could normally see.

“You’ve all worked hard today, if we try hard like this every time, we won’t go hungry anymore – we can even live a richer life than most people,”

Joshua and Andrew were the most excited to hear that,

“Really?!”

“Are we really going to be rich?!”

The younger siblings were getting excited with the idea of getting rich by selling the placer gold straight away, but Rockefeller’s mind was thinking of other things,

‘The question is how to deal with this…’

In principle, everything produced in the estate was the property of the Lord.

So if you look at it that way, then the placer gold that they had collected was definitely not theirs’.

‘We can’t sell this on the market. There will definitely be problems,’

Still, it would be stupid to report this to the Lord.

‘It would be fortunate if he complimented us. But he would never let this go,’

It was questionable whether the lord would leave them alone after they had collected this gold.

Whether he punished them or rewarded them, it would be up to his mood. If he didn’t like it, then he could punish them.

While Rockefeller was considering their options, Joshua’s excitement began to dampen and his expression fell,

He had started having similar worries to Rockefeller,

“But how would we sell this? Wouldn’t it be a problem like Rockefeller hyung said in the morning, if we tried to sell it in the market?”

Andrew’s face fell,

“Right, if we say we got the gold from the stream then the word will spread. Even for hunting in the forest, we have to have the permission of the Lord, though they do tend to look over little things like rabbits and weasels…” Joshua trialed off,

Since everything in the Montefeltro estate was the property of the Lord, even hunting beasts living in the forest required the permission of their owner, the Lord.

“Would it be okay to inform the lord of this?”

Andrew became angry at Joshua’s question,

“No way! What do we do if the Lord punishes us!?”

“That… Well, if we go and say sorry first, then won’t the Lord let us get away with it?”

“How do you know that? If we get punished will you be able to take the responsibility for it?!”

While the two brothers bickered, Rockefeller also thought about it for a moment.

‘We can either let the Lord know, or do it ourselves,’

If the lord showed a favorable attitude after we notified him about this, then it might become possible to do placer mining legally, without having to worry about other people’s eyes.

‘If that happened, it would be easier mentally but we can’t bet on his mood and we’d have to give that jerk a big portion of the amount we harvest in the form of tax. It’s usually like that.’

And that was only if things worked out okay.

Rockefeller and his younger siblings could be punished if things worked out badly and there was a possibility that the lord would monopolise the placer gold and put the Serfs in his estate to work mining it and they would be left with nothing.

‘It’s very much possible. If it’s coming from your land and you’re a greedy guy, you won’t want to share what’s yours with any other. Rather, you would order the serfs and slaves under you and take everything for yourself,’

So the conclusion was,

‘There are too many uncertainties about telling the Lord. We can’t do that.’

Plus, no matter how badly, or well this worked out for them, giving up a portion of the profits to that jerk of a Lord was enough to make his stomach hurt.

‘It’s a saying that the bear does the trick and the trainer makes the money. I can’t foolishly become a bear,’

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the Lord know about our work.”

When Rockefeller spoke, his brothers turned to look at him, the first one who voiced his doubts was Joshua,

“Then what do we do? There’s no way we won’t be caught every single time and if we do get caught later on, it could make things worse. Wouldn’t it be better to just tell the lord?”

It was Andrew who refuted his question,

“Idiot! So we just have to go and quietly mine, it’s dangerous near the stream anyway so people don’t go there,”

“But can we keep doing it without being caught?”

“Sometimes we can catch fish as well, that should be enough to trick people’s eyes and stop them asking questions – and it’s better if more people are watching when we do. After all, we’re not doing it alone,”

“Yeah, but…”

Rockefeller stepped in and explained to his brothers about why he thought they should not tell the Lord about placer mining and soon, even Joshua seemed convinced to some extent.

“Rockefeller hyung, you’re right, I might have thought about it too simply, it wouldn’t be good to tell the Lord after all,”

Andrew sighed softly, after all, they didn’t really have an answer to the question yet.

But that wasn’t the case for Rockefeller,

“But we can’t give up trying to find a way to live because of that right? So let’s do something else,”

“Do you have an idea?”

“So what do we do, Rockefeller hyung?”

To his younger siblings, who were looking up at him with expectant eyes, Rockefeller shared his thoughts.