"Wait, it seems like you’ve marked the whole South."
"Can’t I?" Jones looked expressionlessly across the counter at the goblin.
"Um... you can. Of course, you can. Just so you know, we don’t deal with exchanges below a thousand Gold Coins because it’s not profitable. May I ask how much you want to exchange?"
"A hundred thousand Gold Coins."
"A hundred thousand for each location?" the goblin exclaimed in shock.
"No, a total of a hundred thousand," Jones corrected, "The thing is I don’t know where I can get it from right now because I’m not sure who will lend me a hundred thousand Gold Coins. So I had to reserve them all."
The goblin looked at Jones without emotion.
Jones also looked at the goblin without emotion.
"This sounds like a joke."
"No, I’m not joking."
"Well... please come back when you know who’s willing to lend you money. Next in line—!"
Jones was politely shown out of the bank.
However, in any case, the matter was settled; it can be done. It’s just that the handling fee is a bit expensive.
"Thinking it over, I’ll have to borrow a hundred and ten thousand, or else it won’t be enough after deducting the fees. Hmm... What next? I need to find out where I can buy a castle. Hey, excuse me, do you know where I can buy a castle?"
Jones grabbed a passing Blood Clan freeman. The Blood Clan freeman was stunned for a moment, then pointed to the place Jones had just left.
"Um... the bank again."
Across the counter, there was the goblin again.
He looked at Jones without expression: "Have you figured it out?"
"No, not yet. I’m here to inquire about another matter."
"I want to buy a castle. Do you sell castles here?"
The goblin skeptically pulled out a few sheets of paper from a large stack: "Yes, what kind of castle are you looking to buy?"
"Um..." Jones thought for a moment and said: "I’m not sure how to describe it. It first needs to be a castle."
"Of course, all our castles are castles. They won’t be something like a thatched hut." The goblin lit a cigarette silently, smoking while looking at Jones.
Jones said seriously: "And cheap enough, as long as it’s cheap enough!"
"We sell them very cheap." The goblin pulled out a paper and handed it over: "This is our cheapest castle, only twenty thousand Gold Coins, facing the sea, and as soon as the sun rises, you can enjoy the first ray of sunshine."
"But I’m a Blood Clan."
"That’s unfortunate, but no worries, you can still enjoy the beach at night."
"Wait, it says here that the castle gets flooded at high tide at night."
"But can’t you fish?"
"And then I would smell like fish all day?"
"Um... okay, I get it, you want a castle that doesn’t flood at night."
"Isn’t that a normal request?"
"Alright, then take a look at this. For only forty thousand Gold Coins, it’s a grand scale, and you can enjoy the snow scenery all year round."
"No, I can’t take this one. Nothing grows there, almost no output at all. I won’t be able to pay back the money that way."
"Hmm... You mean it has to have output?"
"Then take a look at this one. Sixteen thousand Gold Coins, located on a very fertile plain. If you use zombies for farming, there’s only one bad harvest every five years. There are also large forests around and mines."
"Four bad years out of five?"
"Yes, you have to know this is the Kolin Peninsula. It’s already quite good."
"No, it’s too expensive. Is there anything around ten thousand Gold Coins, a bit more normal? Like my home."
"What is your home like?"
"Just, you know, very ordinary. A very normal castle."
"Ahem!" The goblin scratched his head helplessly: "Can you accurately describe the various attributes of your home castle? Otherwise, I can’t judge."
"Almost never sees sunlight all year round, even on sunny days there’s no sunshine. There are two mining veins, surrounded by forests, but mostly dead wood..."
When Jones walked out of the bank, he finally realized how poor his family was.
He looked down at the blueprint of the castle he was holding.
Eighty-eight thousand Gold Coins, no discount.
No sunlight means very little agricultural output and can’t support many vassals, which means zombies. Yes, zombies consume a lot of food. A few zombies can indeed be managed by killing two deer. But when you have hundreds of zombies and the territory is barren, that’s where the problem lies.
As for those two poor mining veins, they can generate about two thousand Gold Coins a month. After deducting various operating expenses, normally, there’d be a few hundred Gold Coins left. If you further deduct the maintenance cost of the castle, your own living expenses, and the necessary expenses for your subordinates, then it basically amounts to nothing.
Buying such a castle would mean you’ll never want to pay off the debt.
"So, when father bought the castle back in the day, was it with money from grandfather?" Jones looked around, a quarter of the street consisted of Blood Clan freemen.
Yes, Blood Clan freemen, not Blood Clan Lords. If it were that easy to be a Blood Clan Lord, then why are there still Blood Clan freemen?
It seems, making money is not easy.
Turning his head, Jones looked at Goya: "My mother definitely doesn’t know you’re worth about half of our family estate."
He sighed, gritted his teeth, and went back to exchange for a different introduction.
Yes, the introduction for the flooded castle.
"Fishy smell it is! At least fishing is a source of income, right? Twenty thousand Gold Coins doesn’t seem that much!"