Under the Oak Tree

Chapter 61 –  Her Unofficial Help (1)

“Th-then this small go-gold coin… How much is o-one de-denar worth in li-lirams?” Max asked about the part she was most confused about.

“It doesn’t come to an exact number. Five lirams are worth three denars.” Ruth answered as he pushed the gold coins from the South and the large silver coin from Roem forward. She quickly wrote his words down on the paper. Five lirams equal three denars. Watching her, Ruth sighed softly.

“I assume you are confused when using lirams and denars together. Soldems are a large unit hence infrequently used; the same goes with derhams because they are too small. Silver lirams from Roem and golden denar from Rakasim serve as the regular medium of exchange between nobles and merchants. For that reason, it’s a real pain as they’re not converted as easily as we would like. It’s not like we can crush the coins into smaller pieces… In the end, we convert all of them into derhams and it becomes easier after that.”

Max nodded gloomily.

“I-I didn’t k-know t-there were… s-so ma-many different ki-kinds of mo-money…”

“This is nothing. There are coins from Balto in the North and Suikan in the East. The purity of the silver and its weight are the same as soldem and lirams, so they’re not used separately like the denar and derhams… but it will be useful to keep in mind the different shapes at least.”

Ruth rummaged through the pouch and frowned.

“I don’t have any gold coins from Balto and Suikan. I’ll try to get them later.”

Max was only terrified at the names of more coins and regions. It was only going to confuse her more if he brought them to her.

“D-do I ne-need to kn-know them if the si-sizes are si-similar to so-soldems and li-lirams? I’ll ju-just need to ch-check the si-size…”

“Recently, there is a growing number of feudal lords producing their coins to show off their wealth and power. But most of them are mixed with lead and copper, so you must filter them out. On the other hand, the coins from Balto and Suikan have high purity, so it’ll be extremely useful to know how to distinguish them. Soon, there will be merchants from the North and East coming into Anatol.”

“O-okay…”

“The coins with high credit are soldem, liram, denar, derham and copper segals used by the commoners and dants used by a few prominent people… That should be enough for you to know.”

“Ho-how m-much is da-dants worth?” Max asked, having never heard of it before.

“Dants are the most valuable coins in this world. It was manufactured during the wealthiest periods of the Roem Dynasty. It’s made of Orihalcon and is the size of a palm, and only 600 exist in the whole continent. I believe Lord Calypse has 160 of them.” Ruth replied with a flat voice.

Max was surprised that he owned 160 of those precious coins.

He then switched to a bragging tone as if they were his. “They were found in the den of the devils in the Osiria Canyon, six years ago. At that time, Lord Calypse frantically hunted after evil spirits and collected their treasures as if he was possessed by something. Dants were one of the precious things he collected. Initially, he found 200 of them but used 40 dants for building a rampart, getting maintenance work done on the castle and installing a road in the village.”

“Y-you can d-do all that wi-with o-only fo-forty co-coins?”

“He used twice as much as the estimated cost. He paid the workers several times more to speed up the construction process.”

Ruth explicitly put on a displeased look on his face. This wizard seemed to be strict about money.

“Y-you must have kn-know Ri-Riftan fo-for a lo-long time.”

“I’ve known Lord Calypse since he was a soldier. That was about twelve years ago.”

Her curiosity soared when she heard this. He would’ve been fifteen then. Was he a soldier since? She’d heard that he was eighteen when he became a knight. Normally, it took three years of training and a year of serving as a chamberlain to officially receive a sword to become a knight.

“Now, now. Let’s stop the small talk and continue with the ledger. We should finish this before the merchant arrives, shouldn’t we?”

Max swallowed her questions and returned to the ledger at his reminder.