Chapter 16

It was around a month after Rockefeller had started his job at Banco that a group of people, whom he had never seen before, came to Banco.

Unlike ordinary people, these outsiders were armed with swords and bows and even on first glance, looked strong and tough. The smell of sweat and blood clung to them as if they hadn’t had a good wash in a while.

Unlike Rockefeller, who became cautious upon seeing them, Carter saw through them at once,

“Ah, we have guests,”

The Seer barracks were right next door and the number of guests they usually had in the day was around 3. Since they were far too bold to be robbers that had come to rob Banco – Carter realised they were indeed not robbers but guests.

Fortunately, his deduction wasn’t wrong.

“Why so stiff? We’re here to exchange money,” Unlike their rugged faces, they smiled brightly, which completely melted the nervous atmosphere of the shop.

Despite having frozen for a moment, Rockefeller was soon able to infer their identity; ‘Are these the merchants hired by the Lord?’.

Due to the increasing number of Orcs loitering around the estate, the Lord was rumoured to have hired outside mercenaries to take care of it so it wasn’t hard to guess.

‘I should be right.’

“Are you perhaps the rumours hired by the Lord? It’s just, I’ve never seen you around,”

One of the men facing Rockefeller scratched his cheek and smiled,

“Looks like you know the situation well. Hey owner, what are you doing? I’m so busy I feel like I’ll die – hurry and do the exchange,” the mercenary said,

At that point, Carter left the job with Rockefeller and went straight inside to the back of the shop.

“You take care of it,”

“Okay, if there’s an issue, I’ll call you,”

Although one of the reasons was that he didn’t want to deal with troublesome customers – he also left it to Rockefeller so he could get more experience with the job.

When the owner went off and the little boy stepped up to deal with him, the mercenary, who felt it was weird, tilted his head and gave Rockefeller a long look,

“What’s a kid who barely learned to walk doing business for? Are you the owner’s son or something?” It was a blunt remark thrown out without much thought, the mercenary didn’t feel that the two particularly looked alike.

“No sir, I am the assistant working under him,”

“Assistant?”

It wasn’t that strange to have an assistant in a Banco but he recognised that this Banco was small and located far to the outskirts of the Empire.

It was somewhat surprising that there was an assistant in a Banco like this – it wasn’t like it was the Imperial City or a special location like Lyon where commerce was well developed.

“Unlike how it looks, business seems to be doing well,”

As he was a very experienced mercenary who had wandered around the entire continent and seen many things, it was very easy for him to take one glance and understand that despite being in such a rural area, business was going well for this Banco.

“Yes, I’ve heard that the store’s income has increased a lot since I came in,”

The mercenary whistled at the confident words of the young assistant,

“Oh yeah, contrary to how you look, it seems you have a knack for handling money?”

At the same time, the two mercenaries behind him muttered a few words to each other; of course they weren’t pleasant words.

“Goblin-like bastards,”

“Being good at playing with interest – does he go beyond hell?”

The first mercenary didn’t pay attention to his colleagues words and began to speak once again – he threw 3 Talents at Rockefeller carelessly,

“Change everything to this territory’s shillings, we’ll be here for a while,”

They were mercenaries who wandered all over the continent so they preferred keeping imperial gold coins – Talents with them so that they were able to go to any territory and exchange them for the shillings of that particular territory.

As long as they had Talents, they could easily exchange for the local currency as needed.

“Three talents – then at 32 Shillings a piece your total exchange will be at 96 shillings. 12 Shillings will be deducted from that as the exchange fee, is that okay?”

“What? 12 shillings?” The mercenary facing Rockefeller looked flustered and the mercenaries standing behind him looked taken-aback as well. It seemed their fee was high compared to other places.

“What kind of exchange fee is four shillings per talent? Isn’t that just robbery?”

“No, is this the only place I can exchange money? You’ve got a lot of nerve,”

At the response that was pretty much expected at this point, Rockefeller held a smile around his mouth,

“We have to make a living too, after all,”

The mercenary that had been facing Rockefeller looked at him with a crumpled frown,

“Hey little kid, you know why we’re here, don’t you?”

“Weren’t you hired by the Lord due to the trouble with the Orcs?”

“You’re well aware, then do you know where we’re from?”

“Of course, you are mercenaries from Hound, aren’t you?”

Montefeltro was looking for a fairly reputable mercenary unit to make sure the orcs were deal with in one blow and so he had commissioned the Hound mercenaries who’s name was well-known around the continent.

“You’re aware of that too, then do you know how rough the Hound mercenaries are?”

“Rough?” Rockefeller tilted his head innocently,

“I don’t know about that, but I heard you’re very credible. I heard that once you take on a job you finish it thoroughly, that’s why the Lord hired you this time to exterminate the orcs,”

When the young boy smiled boldly at him, the mercenary looked like he had lost momentum and turned back to his colleagues for help, but the two mercenaries behind him seemed to find his position funny and were hurriedly trying to hold back their laughter.

“Ahh, I heard that even children would hold back their tears if they heard the Hound mercenaries passing,” he sighed,

“I’m already past that age though,” Rockefeller smiled,

“Are you going to keep smiling like that? It’s annoying!”

“I apologize if my smiling was offensive, in that case, I’ll take just 10 shillings for the exchange fee, that’s enough right?”

“What 10 shillings?!” Set’s expression looked even worse,

“Why is it 10 shillings out of the blue! It’s usually one shilling for every Talent at most!”

“It depends on the circumstances of the estate, and since we’re in the outskirts, You have to take into account the high marginal costs.”

“Do you think this is the only place to exchange money! I can just go out to some rich guy and get him to exchange some gold with me!”

“Then you’re free to do that. However, if you come back wanting to deal with me again, it’ll be 12 shillings then, I’ll take back the discount,”

“This punk!”

As Set raised his voice, one of the mercenaries who had been watching the exchange from behind shouted out in warning,

It was the signal to remind him that they could not make a disturbance in the store because the Seer barracks were next to the store.

“Ahem,” the mercenary, Set, immediately coughed, clearing his throat and glared at Rockefeller,

“Okay, let’s do 8 shillings,”

“No, I can’t accept 8 shillings, I’ll let you exchange for 9,”

“Oh my god… 9 shillings doesn’t make sense in the first place!”

When the harshly frowning Set looked back at his colleagues once again, one of his colleagues, who was keeping an eye on what was happening outside, nodded,

It meant to trade as the boy said because there was nothing they could do about it. They had to bear some damage since it was territory on the outskirts of the Empire and had only one Banco to trade with.

“This is driving me crazy! What kind of exchange fee is 3 shillings for a Talent?”

Rockefeller just waited silently without saying a word, they needed a place to exchange money and this was the only place – they were just unwilling to accept it without complaining first,

“If you love money that much, you’ll end up in hell like a goblin you know,”

Set, who had been forced to pay the currency exchange fee of three shillings per Talent, grumbled at him, but Rockefeller smiled at him as if the words didn’t affect him at all,

“That’ll be something to think about after I die, right?”

“Would you look at that boldness,” the mercenary scoffed.

Rockefeller received three talents from him and checked the authenticity of the talents the way Carter had taught him.

They were bastard talents, but that was acceptable.

All three talents given by the mercenaries were copper-mixed bastard talents, but they were all acceptable, so Rockefeller handed him 87 shillings – with the fee deducted.

“There you go, it’s 87 shillings in total with the exchange fee deducted,”

The mercenary was still very unhappy with Rockefeller, who still had that mask-like customer service smile on his face.

“You’ve got a lot of goods, if you carry on like this, this shop will go down you know,”

“If we go down, then who would be there to exchange your gold coins ajusshi? So we can’t go bust, can we?”

“My god, you should know how lucky you are, we’re normally not this easy going – do you even know how tough Hound mercenaries are?”

Rockefeller was still smiling brightly,

“Please use our shop next time as well, we’ll be good to you then too,”

The three mercenaries, who thought there probably wouldn’t be a reason to see him again, left the store and Carter, who had been quietly waiting inside, listening to the conversation, came out to speak to Rockefeller.