so we've come to the present, with me walking around the streets of the capital. I had no idea if 20 gold coins was a lot or nothing at all, but at any rate I'd been given enough money for me to at least live for a while.
I thought to myself: I need to hurry up and learn more about this world, starting with the value of currency, don't I? And then I'll need to leave this country as soon as possible.
With the king like that, I can't imagine this country is a good place to be, and I don't think anything good will happen to me if I stay, either. Okay, with that decided, let's hurry up and take action.
This capital resembled a town out of medieval Europe.
I started off by calling out to some children who were idling about on the street nearby.
"Hey, do you guys have some time? I just arrived from way out in the country so I'm not really familiar with this place. I'll treat you to some skewers from the stall over there, so can you teach me some stuff?" They were wary of me at first, but they couldn't win against their stomachs and so they eventually agreed.
I bought the children two skewers each and listened to what they told me.
The first thing I asked them about was the value of the currency here, which one could argue was the most important thing to learn, and came to these conclusions based on what they said:
1 iron coin =10 yen
1 copper coin = 100 yen
1 silver coin = 1000 yen
1 gold coin = 10,000 yen
1 large gold coin = 100,000 yen
1 platinum coin = 1,000,000 yen
The skewers I treated the children to were 5 iron coins each. If a family of four had 6 gold coins, they could probably live off of that for at least a month.
I also heard of the existence of the Adventurer's and Merchant's guilds, which weren't attached to any country (both of these were basically mainstays of any fantasy novel), and that belonging to either of these guilds would make moving from country to country or town to town smooth. Basically, it would lessen the costs of doing so. If one had a form of identification not from either the Adventurer's or Merchant's guilds, or no form of identification at all (those from rural areas or children living on the streets often didn't have any of this), one would get taxed when trying to get into countries or cities therein. This kind of stuff is common in this genre.
I also asked about this country. And I heard that, while the conflict with the demonic race was real, apparently this country was the aggressor. The stated reason was to destroy the demons that cause harm to humans, but in the end,their real aim was the demonfolk's land. This country has also been making suspicious moves towards the neighboring human-led countries too, so people have been leaving the country little by little for a while now. The children also told me that they were orphans whose parents had died in the war.
These children knew more than I expected. Apparently, they see and hear a lot because they take on a lot of menial jobs to earn money to live. Orphans are really tough...
Anyway, I'd planned to stay at an inn tonight and leave the capital tomorrow. I heard from the children that there's a stagecoach that goes to a town called Kiels which lies on the border to another country every day, so I was set on riding that to get out of here. After that, I was going to cross the border, and figure things out again from there.
At any rate, getting out of Reijseger Kingdom was the most important thing. In order to do that, I'd need some funds, but I had an idea for that. I also already had the 20 gold coins I was given from the country. They probably gave me a bit more than was necessary because they were feeling a little sorry that they summoned me in a fashion like a pseudo-kidnapping. Well,it's convenient for me that this shady country gave me this much. Let's live off these funds for a while, I thought