Chapter 19: Only an idiot kills a goose laying golden eggs to make a soup

Chapter 19: Only an idiot kills a goose laying golden eggs to make a soup

"Come in."

It was such a simple sentence consisting of just two words. Its meaning was equally as simple,

And yet, in this specific moment, the importance of those two simple worlds was beyond anything I've faced on this side of my portal.

Still, now that I knocked, asking the man inside to wait would be extremely rude. And so, I pushed the doors open and stepped inside while making sure to close the doors as I entered the small office.

"Who are... Wait, aren't you a bit too young to be here?"

A look of surprise appeared on the face of the man sitting behind a simple desk.

Just by taking a single look, one could never tell that this was the office of one of the lieutenants for the local boss of the underworld. There were no explicit markings that would give away his gang affiliation. There were simply no decorations anywhere in the room, with every inch of free space occupied by shelves and special stands for bookkeeping and writing.

"That depends," I replied, not admitting to being too young to enter the brothel for the very first time since I approached the bouncer. "Am I too young to be in a brothel? Legally yes, practically no," I said before shrugging my shoulders. "But I'm here not for the girls, I'm here to talk with you."

Strangely enough, even when facing one of the more powerful people in the entire area of the town's backstreets, I felt no fear or even the tiniest sense of intimidation. For some weird reason, in my eyes, the man before appeared like just another bureaucrat, busy making sure no official could ever find any fault with the documentation of the business he managed.

Still, my words managed to force the man out of the mundane routine of every day. And as he raised his eyes to look at my face now with proper attention, I could see sparks of interest dancing in his eyes.

"I did not," he easily admitted, most likely prompted by the curiosity the hints of which I could see every now and then. He was a mobster, not a damn actor or a poker player, after all.

"Aren't you curious where it came from?" I asked, only to put a wide grin on my face. "No, it's better if you don't ask. Because while it wasn't obtained illegally, I would rather not explain how I got it."

The mobster stared at me from beyond the barrier of his simple desk.

"And you brought it here..." he muttered, only to suddenly pull forward, resting his elbows on the table, and stare directly into my eyes. "Have it ever occurred to you I could just take it from you before throwing you out? Or that you might not even be able to leave this building?"

There was a small, amused smile on the man's lips... But there was no threat in his eyes. After witnessing the moment of anger and how the eyes of that massive fox changed at that precise moment... I could tell that despite the harshness of his words, this man didn't really mean anything he said.

"It occurred to me, but I dismissed those worries fairly quickly," I replied while shaking my shoulders. "I don't know you. It's my first time talking with you. But I assumed that if someone makes it to your rank in the group, then they can't be an idiot," I spoke, perfectly aware of how close I was getting to actively insulting the man... even if my words actually praised him instead.

In tense or complex situations like this, people were more likely to just hear the insulting words, not the context they were said.

Still, regardless of how dangerous the game I was playing in this meeting, I forced a small smile on my lips.

"And only an idiot would kill a goose laying golden eggs to get himself a bowl of soup." I shrugged my shoulders again before relaxing a little. "To put it in a more direct way, if you take this coin from me, you will be a few grams worth of gold richer. But if you help me out with selling it, I will be likely to keep coming back with more and more of them."

This time, the sparks of curiosity openly burned in the man's eyes.

'Good,' I thought, breathing a small sigh of relief while stopping myself from wiping my forehead clean of all the sweat it produced.

As much as I wanted to play it cool, it was all but an act. During every second of this interaction, I was perfectly aware of how close I was to finding a lead nugget stuck firmly where only my brain was supposed to be.

"So, what I wanted to ask you is simple," I added after giving the man some time to process my words. "How much will I lose by exchanging this gold with you guys, if I'm really against sharing how did I get my hands on it?"