Ellergest finally came back from the bathroom, it felt as if he went down the toilet because he took almost half an hour to come back, nonetheless, he brought my pay. A big sack of coins.
He put the sack on the table, as the other priests all looked into the sack of coins with surprise and awe. They had never seen so much money together I suppose.
"Here it is your pay, Blank… I also included the bonus that the ladies gave to you for helping them bring Emilianna to Charlotte, and so on… In total, it is about 150000 Telis. I also decided to add the bonus of my own for your good job of 20000 Telis." Said Ellergest.
"Telis? How much is this in coins?" I asked.
"What? You don't know Telis? This is the currency that most of the nations use… Sigh, you're really a serf kid, did you just buy everything by coins and not Telis? I suppose even the people that sell things here don't know very well." Sighed Ellergest. "Anyways, Telis is the currency we use in this nation, and in several others as well.
A small bronze coin is 50 Telis, a big bronze coin is 100 Telis, a small silver coin is 500 Telis, a big silver coin is 1000 Telis, and a small gold coin is 5000 Telis, while a big gold coin is 10000 Telis, like that. You get it?
Easy, I didn't have enough Gold Coins and they paid mostly with a lot of Bronze and Silver coins so this is why it is so much, big gold coins are rare to find so we have to make up with many cheaper coins."
"How strange, I remember that in the past there was a merchant that sold things by coins." I sighed.
"Well that's not so strange, he was probably from a nation where they treated it like that, but the prices must have been the same anyways… This small-town deals with coins of other countries, that merchant probably used Mixed Currency, which is often allowed.
The coins you have which you've showed me have different values depending on it, those that might had been buying your products were buying them for these lesser coins, which are way smaller than the country coins." Said Ellergest, he compared the coins of Telis with the ones I had, they were indeed very different-looking, even the "gold coins" I had were actually very small compared to the big almost doubloon-like big gold coin of Telis, interesting.
There is so much complexity to this that I have begun to not care so much. I will just hoard a lot. Perhaps I should change the coins I have with Telis soon. However, wasn't that merchant from this country though? Perhaps he scammed me and gave me coins from another country's coins?
But the other sellers also accepted them anyway… Come to think of it, I do have some small Telis mixed with my other coins. Ah, this currency thing is such a mess, I wished there could be Credits now, although I had criticized it in the past, now I really want them back.
"Nonetheless, whatever the case was, with this money you can easily pay for your entire family to get out of being serfs and become commoners. And even go to the capital and get yourself a small, rented house. They usually go by 80k Telis a month." Said Ellergest.
"That's a lot of money, I don't know if I can even make so much every month." I sighed. "Also, don't commoners need to pay taxes for living in the city? That would be annoying…"
"Yes they need to pay taxes, it usually depends in how much you make a month, but sometimes taxes increase when the Duke requires more funds… Usually commoners are paying around 10k Telis a month for each person, having too many children without a good-paying job is not convenient." Said Ellergest.
"Hmph, it certainly isn't…" I sighed.
Life will still be hard even if I get us to the capital, I will have to somehow find a job that could at least give us 150k Telis a month, which seems completely insane… Could there be demon or monster subjugation requests though? Maybe becoming an adventurer and hunting monsters to earn Telis could be profitable? But they would need to be high quality monsters.
Things like Gray Wolves or Imps barely sell for anything, Wild Boars sell well but they're too rare…
The other option is to invest and become an alchemist, sell products, and earn money to make even more products, eventually building a shop that I can expand into something greater, such as a company.
My skills at the market are amateur level in my previous life, but it seems that people here is overly stupid, so even being an amateur in the Outer Universe market between many worlds and star systems seem to be very good in here… Ah, if I could have that one greedy dragon I once tamed, he was very good at negotiations and all of this. Maybe I should try summoning him in the future.
I suppose becoming an alchemist/crafter while also hunting for my own materials would be the optimal way of doing it. I have to put both of my talents into play to generate the most profits after all… But for that, I need to grow even stronger than how I am currently.
"I see… Thanks for explaining this to me." I said, grabbing the big sack of coins and storing it away.
"Uugh, that's a lot of money!" Said Jack. "W-Well, I got even more in my savings anyways…" Jack crossed his arms.
"Hmph… I am a noble so my savings are rather high, my parents are also sending me money every month, I am investing a part of it into stocks from large companies in the city, I can generate small profits out of it passively." Said Seth with a smile.
Hm, so stocks also exist in this world? I could perhaps spend a part of my savings into doing that then, although the gains would be so small, but over time, the money would accumulate, the more you invest, the more you earn over time.
"Stocks?" I wondered.
"Yes, it is investing in successful companies and buying a small part of their actions, you slowly earn some money over time if you pay a manager that will sell your actions when they are higher than before you paid them, and then he'll buy them again when they're cheaper. There are other more advanced methods as buying large quantities, you're given a small percentage of what you invest.
So you should spend hundreds of thousands to make a good profit every year." Said Seth. "I have invested a few dozens of millions by now, and over the years they had tripled. I'll use this money for my retirement."
"Hm… Interesting." I said.
"Are you interested in such a thing, young Blank? I could become your handyman in that, you got a good capital, so why not?" Wondered Seth with a greedy smile.
I don't know if I can trust him.