Supreme Monarch

Chapter 104: Currency

The wooden door closed with a thud.

The room was bare, apart from a pair of decent wooden bed frames with accompanying chests. There was a single open closet to the side and no other furniture in the room. It looked like they had just converted a slightly larger single room into a double room and couldn’t be bothered to add another closet, instead, it looked like they were meant to keep their stuff in each chest or decide who gets the closet.

After opening the window blinds, they could directly feel the cold air and moonlight that shone in through the thick ashen clouds.

Tyler was somewhat disappointed as he finished his circular sweep of the room. Although he had not expected much from an inn, the merchant guild had still hyped up this place as high class. Perhaps this was what high class meant for commoners or they were just messing with him. 

Even the abandoned Demon king’s castle was a hundred times better than. this. Of course, comparing a castle to an inn for merchants and Hunters was unfair.

“I can’t believe he would call this place high class and dare let you stay in a place like this, Lord Ty.”

“Don’t mind it, this is only for the night, once we join the magic institute we would be provided with better lounging.”

Tyler tried to soothe Nadine after closing the window blinds, without expressing his dissatisfaction. The room only possesses a single magic lamp that barely illuminated the entire room. But Tyler’s vision was almost perfect at night, perhaps it was due to the racial change he went through or something else.

Nadine was a beastman and therefore had Darkvision so she was fine as well.

Still… the life of the hunters we’ve met so far and the once downstairs seem to be pretty banal.”

“Hunters huh.”

They were practically the same as adventures in the human continent and there was a time Tyler was one of them. Aside from hunting monsters and accompanying merchants on protection duty, they mostly spend their time drinking, eating, and having sex with whores as well as each other.

He supposed that could be called banal, well when the great war had started, they were forcibly enlisted into the fray so maybe despite all that, it had been a lot more interesting then.

Hunters tend to be an integral part of a monster siege and they were mostly the ones that kept monsters from attacking the small towns and villages by actively hunting them down. In a perfect world, they would be lookup upon like heroes to the common man but this world was not perfect.

While the strongest of the bunch were hailed as heroes or in the Demon continent, behemoths. Most of them weren’t. This was because the ruling authorities or nobles did not smile at the existence of armed groups which they could not control. Therefore, aside from the prices they commanded, hunters did not have much status until recently and those that do were still only the powerful ones.

Basically, it was all down to strength, the strong got stronger and the weak remained the same.

According to the information he got from Zomatsu, some regions actively recruited hunters with absurd wealth and status while others had banned them from their region entirely.

Tyler banished the thoughts from his mind. There was no point in worrying about those regions for now. He still had several agendas on his list before he could visit the magic institute tomorrow.

Tyler took off the thick coat on him revealing his outfit underneath. He wore a white T-Shirt and black pants. His half-boots were made of a reddish-black leather, and they were embroidered with silver thread.

Tyler took off the black gloves he wore to hide the single ring on his left middle finger and place them in his storage ring. His ring was very different from the typical storage rings. Even though most of them had slightly different designs they were mostly the same.

He wasn’t sure if anyone would notice it or not but he didn’t want to take any chances. 

Tyler worked his shoulders and savored the sensation of being free from his thick clothing. Just then, Nadine asked a question:

“Speaking of which, should I deal with those five in the corner?”

Tyler had no idea who the hell she was talking about, but he knew she could keenly sense the intent of all the gazes locked on them and had probably noticed an abnormality. Why she didn’t say this about all the guys that were giving him deathly looks because of her he had no idea.

Tyler kept his composure and with a straight face, he replied as though he was already aware. “Ah, the ones in the corner. We don’t have to worry about them for now, there is a chance they could lead us into a golden opportunity.”

“But, but, what if they end up causing problems for you lord Ty.”

“Well, if that happens then we would have a legitimate reason to handle them however we see fit. It would be bad if we are the ones stirring up trouble and are found out. All our work thus far would be wasted.”

“I understand Lord Ty.” She said nodding her head.

“Hm, hey, don’t call me Lord when we are in town, just call me Ty, or better yet Lix.”

“Understood, er… um… Mr. Lix.”

“Maybe don’t just call my name in public and we’ll be fine.”

“Understood.”

Tyler took a seat in one of the beds and continued their conversation. “Let’s go over the plan for tomorrow.”

“Yes!”

Tyler turned around and found Nadine genuflecting before him which had startled him for reasons that were unknown to him. He was glad her head was currently lowered and she hadn’t seen his reaction but he still wanted to ask what the hell was she doing before suddenly remembering something.

Technically, he was still her master and she had probably judged that this was the best attitude of a vassal awaiting orders. Which had further threw Tyler off as he hadn’t expected this from what he had come to understand about her personality.

The situation was a little annoying for Tyler but he couldn’t fault the girl for trying so hard to be polite even against her normal personality.

Though he had locked the door and the other rooms were supposedly empty. He had no idea what would happen if someone saw this scene.

“Stand up.”

“Yes sir.”

“Sit down there.”

“Um okay.”

“Good, now let’s continue.” Tyler sighed in slight exhaustion as he sat on the bed opposite her.

“Firstly, aside from joining the magic institute. We have the original objective of selling the ores and beast cores as well as the monster corpses we have in our possession.”

“All of this is handled by the Hunter guild but we could still probably get the Merchant guild to handle it for us, however, we would miss out on a chance to build some connections. Joining the Hunter guild is also not an option.”

“Why’s that?”

While the Merchant guild does not particularly deal with monsters and anything related to that, including ores and cores as they only focus on exotic goods including spices, herbs, food, wine, fur, fine clothes, jewelry, and many other luxurious goods. They could still establish contact with the Hunter guild on the behalf of their VIP members for a small commission.

Tyler nodded his head before proceeding to answer Nadine’s question. “Joining the guild wouldn’t achieve my objective as it takes a long time to rise through the rankings of the Hunter Guild. It was also more convenient for us to use the Merchant guild.”

“As expected of you lord Ty.”

Tyler didn’t know if she was being serious or maybe she was messing with him. What he had done was a simple deduction based on the information he had. Things definitely wouldn’t have gone smoothly if they hadn’t encountered Zomatsu and gotten so much valuable information out of him.

Most of what had happened today had gone exactly as Z had predicted. Tyler had to admit, the man might be a genius and had surely proven how useful he could be. He should remember to contact Albert in the mourning and get him to let Z out of his confinement.

The situation in the city was also as he had described it which made it a lot easier for Tyler to handle. It was a wonder how Z had gotten such detailed information about the merchant guild leader and his personality but Tyler could only thank him for it.

He also couldn’t be careless around Z as the dude didn’t seem to be the type that was also trusting of others. Tyler generally didn’t have the luxury of slacking off around the ones in the castle but he needed to be extra careful around someone as smart as that.

Bringing his attention back to the matter at hand, Tyler then proceeded to explain the rest of the plan to Nadine. He had already given her the gist of it in their ride here but not in so many details as he didn’t want her to overthink her role.

From this point on there wasn’t anything special he needed her to do. They had accomplished most of their initial goals and had already laid the foundations for everything else. Although he hadn’t expected the goods he sold to the merchant guild to go for such a high price. 

Tyler had learned quite a lot about the currency of the demon continent from both Albert and Z. The currency system in this continent was a little different from back in the human continent, as while everyone there used platinum, gold, silver, and copper coins, each kingdom or empire had their own variation and depending on the size, shape, and weight, the coins from different nations were all valued differently.

However, in the demon continent, every region used the same currency called demonic coins. They are made of silver, gold, platinum, and Orichalcum. The sizes shapes and weights of the coins were all generally consistent and seldomly varied.

That was probably due to the consistent method of the manufacturing process no matter what region made them. Unlike the humans that had different designs on the heads and tails of their coins like the faces of past kings and emperors, while the other side had the precise specification of the amount the coin were worth as payment in exchange.

The demonic coins were a little different. It only had a single symbol on the head of the coins that represented numbers which were the value of the coins.

The tails had symbols that represented the seal of the ruling power that had created the currency. It was not the seal of any of the Great five but the demon king.

The symbol on the front represented the numerical value of the coins, ranging from 1-1000. The silver coins had values of 1, 2, and 5. Which were the most common denominations used in the streets as 1 or 2 DC’s could buy a decent meal from a low-class restaurant.

Food was the cheapest commodity one could purchase but that only meant the value of other things would skyrocket. When primary industries are cheap, secondary industries become expensive.

Gold coins had a value of 10, 20, and 50. A middle-class worker would generally earn around 30-50 DC’s in a week. If you were to convert the price of the largest silver coin which was valued at 5 DC into dollars, it would be about 10 dollars. and the largest gold coin would be around 200 dollars.

There were also platinum coins that were valued at, 100, 200, and 500 DC’s. Platinum coins were mostly used by merchants and high-class citizens or for large purchases. The pouch Tyler had from the merchant guild contained mostly silver, gold, and platinum coins as Orichalcum coins were rarely used.

They were valued at 1000 DC and were only circulated amongst the nobles. Even high-ranking merchants would be lucky to see one, much less own it. Tyler split the coins in his pouch into two equal half’s and handed one to Nadine.

He placed the rest in his spatial storage and proceeded to conclude his explanation on their plans for the week. The time was already way past midnight and Tyler could no longer patrol the surrounding area as he had planned so they went to bed.

Naturally, they slept in their own beds but Tyler did not go to sleep. He no longer needed to sleep as often as he once did so he chose to keep watch while Nadine got some rest.

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