Chapter 11

To deceive customers based on the credibility that you had, until now, regarded as your life.

It was truly a novel yet fun idea.

‘He’s certainly…not wrong. As long as people believe in me, they will believe that the gold coins they have entrusted to me will be fine.’

Carter couldn’t help but nod his head involuntarily.

“Now that I think about it, there is logic to your words,” Although he agreed, there was something he was a little skeptical about.

“But how was it that you came up with that idea?”

“It just suddenly occurred to me – but more than that, what do you think of my idea?”

It was surprising that the person who had proposed this idea was not a goldsmith or even an adult, but rather, a 15-year-old boy.

“To be honest, there are many goldsmiths in Lyon who do business in that way – but I didn’t like that. I was afraid that the customers who had deposited the gold coins would come one to to get them back,”

It turned out that not all the goldsmiths were cowards like Carter, there seemed to be goldsmiths out there with some guts, who did business like Rockefeller had thought.

‘I see there are some guys who have gone one step further than here – not everyone’s the same.’

The loan business of goldsmiths also had its own development process. Here, Carter’s method of lending only his own money was the most primitive.

And the next step, as the goldsmiths from Lyon do, and as Rockefeller suggested, was secretly using the customer’s gold to run the lending business.

‘The Goblin Bank, which was considered a bank in it’s own way, wouldn’t be much different from the goldsmiths in Lyon – at most, it would be a form of profiting from lending the customers money in a more open way,’

For Rockefeller, who majored in Economics and History – it was a game of money at the level of children’s pranks.

‘People here don’t know deception. Real deception.’

“How about now? Are you thinking about doing it now?” He asked,

Carter seemed to be a little baffled. He had greed, but the problem was his timid personality.

“I am drawn to it but…”

“Did you not smuggle with me? Isn’t the person who did that, acting too timid now?”

“Smuggling at that level is barely noticeable so it doesn’t really matter. But if this goes wrong once, it’s a matter of destroying all the foundations I’ve built so far, so I can’t make a decision easily.”

If he had the guts to secretly lend customers money with a little persuading, he would have done it sooner.

Rockefeller saw his inability to make decisions and got a good idea of his timid personality.

‘He’s not without greed but there’s fear too,’

Rockefeller decided to perform a little trick – either way the point of this conversation was to prove his worth and the result he wanted was a job.

‘Then let’s do this, after all, my goal is to get work under this person,’

“Then how about this,” when Rockefeller began to suggest something, Carter raised his gaze in interest,

“What?”

“I will work under you, what do you think about this?”

“What? You’re going to work for me?”

“Yeah,”

Although it wasn’t like he didn’t have work, he wasn’t so busy that he didn’t have an assistant in a small territory like this.

“That would be a little difficult? I’m not so busy that I need an assistant and even if I did, why would I hire you, who I don’t even know that well?”

“The reason you can’t do what I suggested is because you’re worried about getting in trouble later, right?”

“That’s right,”

“Then I will take responsibility for that work. Then couldn’t you use me as an assistant?”

It was an unexpected offer.

‘You’re going to take full responsibility for it?’

“What – what did you say just now?”

“It’s literally what I said, I will take responsibility,”

“Are you saying, if we get caught, you’ll take the blame for everything?”

“Yes, that way, even if it’s a problem later on, you would just be able to blame everything on me – either way, if you got caught we wouldn’t be able to continue this work anyway,”

There was nothing to worry about as long as Carter could avoid taking responsibility if things went wrong.

As Rockefeller said, if one secretly lent out their customer’s gold coins, the interest income would increase several times compared to now.

‘If I don’t just lend out my gold coins, but also lend out the customers that I haven’t been able to touch – without anyone knowing, then the interest income would double from now. If that was the case it wouldn’t hurt to use an assistant…’

No matter how much he calculated in hi shead, it was a business that could only be left with profit. So of course from Carter’s point of view, it was tempting.

“It’s fine for me, but from your point of view – do you really need to go that far?”

That was when Rockefeller began reciting the answers he had prepared like he had been waiting for the question,

“Sir, as the Head of my family, I have four younger siblings that I have to take responsibility for. Doesn’t it take a lot of money to feed all those kids? I can’t guarantee how long I’ll be able to do what I’m doing right now and if I can find a job here, I would very much welcome it,”

Carter didn’t even try to question that because the reason for wanting to work, even with that big risk, was understandable.

But there was something else to worry about.

“Still, the thing here is, that it’s not work that simply anyone can do. You have to be able to read texts and books – and especially being able to calculate is important. Its work with gold coins so there’s a lot of calculations involved,”

Even the Lord of the territory had blackened-eyes, not everyone was literate even if they had the status of commoner.

But Rockefeller was different, he was someone who had already prepared for this.

“If that’s the case, then don’t worry too much. My father was a tax collector right? What else would his son learn?”

“My god, do you even know how to count?”

“I can solve simple calculations with mental arithmetics and complex calculations can also be solved without any problems – or, would you like to test me?”

Carter agreed and posed a few simple questions to test whether Rockefeller really knew arithmetics.

Although they weren’t the most complex questions, they were ones that could not be solved without some level of education, but Rockeller solved all the problems he posed easily – and that too with mental arithmetics.

“Haa… how surprising. I didn’t know you were such a genius,”

“I’m not a genius. I just learned a lot,”

“Can it be to this level after simply learning? Where did you learn it?”

“I told you, from my father,”

“Was that person this well educated…? Well… I did hear that his background was in the Academy,”

Contrary to what Carter had initially worried about, Rockefeller was well on his way to becoming his assistant. Infact, he had no real shortcomings.

‘I don’t think there will be any problems if I use him as an assistant,’

“Are you confident that you can take responsibility if there is a real problem?”

Rockefeller smiled easily, he looked as confident as he felt.

“I assure you, nothing that you are worried about will happen. Didn’t you say so earlier, sir? Until now, customers have never come to visit all at once to retrieve the gold coins they have entrusted to you – so will I have any issues?”

“Well, it should be so…”

“You don’t have to worry about taking responsibility for that matter – if you have any problems you can leave it all to me,”

In Banco’s work, where numerous gold coins were exchanged, the honesty and trust with the workers came first so Carter was a bit reluctant to have someone he didn’t know very well be his assistant because he wanted to avoid any bad situations…

But his greed was never small enough to throw away Rockefeller for just that reason.

“Alright, your situation is pitiful and it’s not like I don’t have any greed towards money, so let’s try to form a mutually supportive position. In return, if I run into any problems while doing what you suggested, I will claim ignorance since I hired you despite not needing help for that very reason.”

When Rockefeller was inwardly excited about securing a job, Carter began to look at him more seriously and began to warn him in a tone, different from any other time he had spoken to him.

“And there is something you should keep in mind. You shouldn’t try anything unsavory while working here. I am someone, who, at the end of each day, counts all the gold coins that I have traded and one-by-one makes a record of them in my ledger. I’m so meticulous that I will always notice if something is wrong – and there’s never going to be any money leaking. And if there is such a thing, then I can reasonably suspect you as the culprit,”

So Rockefeller then decided to tell him about the trust and reputation that the Rothmedici family had built up over the years to show Carter that he could trust him.

“Sir, my grandfather was a doctor who healed the sick, and my father was also a sincere tax collector who never caused trouble while working for the Lord. With such an upstanding grandfather and father, would I dare to fool around here?”

Like the very same goldsmith who deceived customers on the basis of trust and reputation, Rockefeller also gave him confidence by citing that very same trust and reputation that the Rothmedici family had built up.

“Of course, I have been involved in smuggling for now to make a living, but if it had not been for the risk of starvation, I wouldn’t have touched such a thing,”

Hearing Rockefeller’s words, Carter thought for a moment then smiled, and extended a hand out to him.

“Then, let’s do well together in the future,”