There were not many things that could be directly looted away in the Old Alvin’s manor.
Fortunately, there was money for convenient looting.
Except for a few finely crafted sterling silver jewelry inlaid with precious stones, Annan found four bags of silver coins – that kind having fifty coins per bag. In addition, there were fifty pieces of paper money worth one pound each.
No gold coins could be found. Instead, Annan found twelve gold bars hidden in the mezzanine.
Annan quickly understood why Old Alvin stored his riches in such a way.
In today’s Noah Kingdom, gold coins were not a common currency in circulation, but paper money called “gold pounds” was.
Silver Sire’s previous pope, Pope Brilliant III, put forward a theory in his research on economic laws. If someone had two gold coins in their hands at the same time, one with higher gold content and the other with lower gold content, then the person would tend to spend the coin off lower gold content. On the other hand, they would save up the higher-value coin or simply melt it into jewelry.
Consequently, the true value of gold coins and silver coins naturally fluctuated.
Both gold and silver were materials used when making curse vessels in different schools. Gold powder and silver coins were the consumables that Sir Brilliant and Silver Sire’s priests needed to use magic.
In the Noah Kingdom, the demand for silver was higher than that of gold because of the faith in Silver Sire. As a result, the public would save up valuable silver coins and use more gold coins. In the end, only silver coins with smaller denominations would circulate in the market instead.
This was a phenomenon Silver Sire wanted to amend.
Brilliant III proposed a simple countermeasure.
If the church sought to make silver coins into circulating currency among the public, they had to find a way to make ordinary people think that gold coins were more valuable than silver coins.
But, the church could not influence the laws within the kingdom and could not directly abolish gold coins, after all.
So, in the end, the church decided to develop paper money in recent years.
The public could redeem the paper money with gold and silver.
The prominent paper money was off one gold pound value. This paper money could be exchanged into silver coins of the same value in any Silver Sire’s church. Of course, such tasks were simple for the priests. It also eliminated the worry of insufficient stock or counterfeit paper money.
When priests performed divine arts, they would sacrifice silver coins as material to Silver Sire. Priests in other places only needed to pray to Silver Sire. If the reason was reasonable and could convince Silver Sire, they could obtain a certain amount of silver coins.
In a crude interpretation, that was a form of reimbursement.
Gold and silver coins could be exchanged for paper money, but paper money could only be exchanged for silver coins. With this new implementation, the number of gold coins circulating on the market gradually decreased. In hefty expenditure, the public would tend to use paper money. After all, paper money was much lighter than gold and much easier to carry around.
This was why Don Juan brought some gold coins to the Silver Sire’s priest and exchanged them for silver coins at the same worth at the very beginning. The nobles took the initiative to hand in the gold, which greatly pleased Silver Sire.
The Silver Sire priests were also glad to collect the gold coins.
This would lead to a gradual increase in silver coins on the market.
So for Old Alvin, there was no difference between storing gold coins and storing gold bars. Anyway, they had to go to church and redeem paper money during an emergency.
All in all, Silver Sire’s goal was simple and pure.
It was to let the silver coins circulate in the public hands to the greatest extent. The more active the circulation count, the larger the amount, the better it would be. Of course, it should be the silver coins.
Gold coins were not counted in their objective.
The patterns on the gold coins of different countries were different. Similarly, the gold content was at varying magnitude too.
On the contrary, the silver content and shape of each silver coin were identical. [Silver Coin Production] was the most basic Silver Sire magic technique, which could be used to easily refine silver-containing ores and other materials into batches of silver coins that comply with the regulations.
As a result, every silver coin was engraved with the face of Silver Sire.
It was a young man with a monocle [1]. He had a bright and sunny smile, a long and thin face with curly hair, and appeared less than 30 years old.
Just like the typical male teenager next door.
Silver Sire looked no different from ordinary people.
As a matter of fact, all upright deities were like this. The upright deities looked like ordinary people. Therefore, the public would address the deities with more names such as “Silver Sire,” “Mysterious Lady,” and “Old Grandmother.”
It was entirely different with false deities.
When the false deity appeared in the mortal world, his avatar must have at least one non-human feature.
The closer the false deity to the upright deity, the more human it appeared. Those who appeared non-humans must be a false deity. They look hideous and scary. It was discernible who the evil deity was at first glance.
In a sense, one was judged by his looks in this world.
Even among all upright deities, Silver Sire was the easiest to be recognized among mortals.
For the other upright deities, one could only find out how they look in the paintings featured in a church of at least diocese level.
On the other hand, one could see Silver Sire every day.
Commoners won’t necessarily know what the king looked like, but they certainly knew what Silver Sire looked like.
“Are ‘those’ the reason why you asked me to carry these things?”
Salvatore was carrying a bag of silver coins in each hand and a corpse on his back. He appeared like those ‘heroes’ in the deliveries as he gasped for breath and came to the carriage.
“Yes, I love Silver Sire.”
Annan said forthrightly, “I naturally love these little cuties with Silver Sire engraved on them.”
Annan casually carried two bags of gold coins in one hand and heavy gold bars in the other. He followed Salvatore onto the carriage and muttered in a voice that could only be heard by the senior, “Of course, the corpse is the biggest reward.”
“Um…ah.”
Salvatore put the silver coins and the corpse in the carriage and exhaled in relief. He relaxed his muscles, and he was already drenched in sweat.
Then, Salvatore glared at Annan in annoyance, “I can’t let the kid carry the corpse, right?
“It’s fine to take the gold bars. But, is there any need to take these silver coins? They’re so heavy. If you are short of money, you can get a gold bar for pocket money, right? If you don’t have any money, you can borrow from me.”
“I take so much money just to avoid borrowing money from you.”
Annan said sternly, “With this, I can pay back what I have borrowed before.”
Annan was comfortable with borrowing money from the senior.
But, Annan found it uncomfortable to treat Salvatore like those dumb rich guys in the long run. Worse still, Salvatore didn’t seem to feel that Annan had been asking him for money. When Annan asked for it, Salvatore would give it.
Annan had been scamming Salvatore till his guilty conscience overwhelmed him.
Salvatore heard it and commented, “It seems that you borrowed some money from me before? How much was it?”
What? You don’t remember the number.
Annan didn’t know how much he owed Salvatore as well.
But, Annan’s self-esteem and morality still urged him to pay Salvatore’s money back quickly. In other views, Annan returned Salvatore’s money with what he robbed from someone else’s house. Hence, he felt at ease with the robbing act.
Salvatore’s previous analysis is excellent and reasonable. But, all the riches belonged to me now.
—You shall compensate the score about murder attempt on me. I will not make a move on your grandson anymore. I will protect him afterward, knowing that he will inherit your property.
It’s a fair deal.
Annan happily set a new mission for himself.
“Speaking of it,” Annan looked at Salvatore curiously, “Who is our coachman?”
Salvatore seemed to have expected to deal with the corpse long ago, so he came here in a carriage.
But Annan found that the coachman driving the carriage didn’t seem extraordinary, but he was not an ordinary coachman.
This seemed normal still.
How could an ordinary coachman with courage carry a corpse at night, let alone it was a fresh and warm corpse from Viscount?
“He came to you to thank you.”
Salvatore introduced the coachman to Annan.