War Makes Someone Fat (5)
Bonus chapter thanks to @Elinis
With those words, Isabella quietly left the store with Jason.
She knew from the beginning that she couldn't get the answer she wanted in this place, but she didn't force the answer from Rockefeller. She believed that time would tell the answer instead of his words.
As she left, she suddenly thought.
Would he still look the same when she had the chance to return here in the future?
Or would he have completely changed?
'I'm curious.'
Rockefeller watched Isabella leave quietly, different from before, and narrowed his eyes for a moment.
'Nightlord...'
Meeting the heroine of the novel was more interesting than he thought, but for some reason, Rockefeller couldn't shake the feeling that this wouldn't be the last time he met the characters from the novel.
There was no force that didn't involve money.
And if he was at the center of it all, wouldn't he have the opportunity to meet others besides the Nightlord?
'I've seen that woman, so I'll probably see the Blade Queen and Trinity someday.'
At that moment, another assistant approached Rockefeller.
It was Joshua, Rockefeller's younger brother, who had been helping Carter inside the store, working on the gold coins.
Joshua had joined Rockefeller and started learning from Carter Banco, and he was in the process of learning gold coin engraving techniques to become a goldsmith in the future.
"Rockefeller hyung, who was that just now? A customer?"
Rockefeller smiled faintly at Joshua.
"That's right. A very rare and precious customer."
"Who is it?"
"A magician."
"Really? A magician was just here?"
"Yes, a magician."
Joshua hurriedly ran outside the store to search for the two magicians who had just left. He looked around the streets.
Was he lucky?
Joshua could see the two magicians disappearing into the darkness far away.
"Wow! A magician! That's amazing."
His excitement at seeing a magician was only for a moment.
Joshua returned to the store and began to brag to Rockefeller.
"Rockefeller, I just saw a magician! They disappeared in an instant with magic!"
As the excited Joshua made a fuss, Carter, who had heard the noise, came out and raised his voice.
"What's going on? Who came and went?"
"Carter, it's amazing! A magician just came to this store!"
"What? A magician?"
"Yes! A real magician! I just saw them disappear with magic outside!"
"Really?"
Carter was also surprised, but not as much as Joshua.
"I see. A magician came and went... So they left completely?"
That question was directed at Rockefeller.
Rockefeller nodded his head slightly and confirmed it.
"Yes, I asked and they said they were leaving."
"It must be difficult to keep a Sinclair magician here for a long time. The price wouldn't match in the first place."
"That's probably true. They must have stayed here for a relatively low price, believing that it would be beneficial for their growth or something like that. The exact details would be known to the parties involved, but I can guess that much."
"I think so too. They wouldn't have stayed here for so long without any reason."
Rockefeller was the biggest beneficiary of the Totem War.
While the local lord was getting poorer due to debts from the Totem War, Rockefeller, who had lent money to the lord and even traded with the dwarves, had become incredibly wealthy compared to before.
Carter, who suddenly thought of the church, swallowed his regret and brought up the past.
"By the way, looking at how quiet it is outside lately, it seems like the war near the border will end soon. There was a rumor that the goblins provoked a war with the dwarves to take over the magic stone mines held by the orcs, but we can't know that for sure."
Carter glanced at Rockefeller as he spoke.
"Once the war is over, it will only benefit us. And you, who have an exclusive deal with the church."
Carter finished speaking and paused for a moment before letting out a regretful remark.
"I should have been involved in that too. If I knew that they would borrow money for that reason, I would have joined in. What I have left is money..."
"It would have been nice if that happened. But I wasn't sure about that either. It's something I can fail alone, so there's no reason to drag you into it and fail together, right?"
"Still, though. Have you ever failed at anything? Next time something like that happens, don't just do it yourself, let me in on it too. Don't let only you benefit."
At that, Rockefeller chuckled.
"Carter, it's not just me who benefited, is it? I did it with the church."
"But the lord still doesn't know about it, right?"
"He knows. I happened to meet him before. When I told him that I lent money to the church without interest, he was quite surprised."
Lending something without interest.
It was a difficult concept for Carter.
"What's the difference between lending money without interest and just giving it away?"
"You can't see it like that. If I hadn't lent money like that, the church wouldn't have been able to monopolize the beer-related business."
"That's true, but..."
"That's why I did it alone. If I fail, I fail alone. But I had some fun with it. I saw it on a larger scale."
To make a lot of money, Rockefeller had two main methods.
One was business.
The other was sitting back and collecting passive income.
"Hmm... I guess you do need some guts to make money. It seems like I don't have that kind of guts."
"It's not necessarily like that. Bringing me in was an adventure for you, wasn't it?"
"Well, that's true."
Carter, who unknowingly nodded his head, suddenly thought of the lord and asked Rockefeller.
"By the way, is the loan to the lord going as you said?"
A year had already passed since Rockefeller and his associates lent a large sum of money to the local lord.
During that time, the lord, burdened by debt, began to repay the interest with worthless promissory notes instead of gold coins, just as Rockefeller had predicted.
He began to deceive the two by keeping the "real money" collected from the domain's taxes and repaying them with "fake money" created with his own credit.
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