After threatening her with going somewhere else with our gold, the old lady’s attitude did a smart turnaround that would make a parading soldier proud.

“Ah, no problems…no problems.”

She reiterated for the third time. There was no need for me to interfere, Hana managed to get a good deal from the old lady and five small gold later she had a better set of clothing than I did. She even purchased relatively decent pair of shoes, although we needed to visit a cobbler’s shop for better shoes. Something seemed odd to me about how a slave could be better dressed than her master. At the end of the day, the old lady successfully concluded a lot of business with us, and you could see it from the way she happily waved goodbye to us as we headed for the guild. I just deplored the way that old lady tested that gold. There was only one more question I needed answering; why was I carrying all of Hana’s clothes when she was apparently the slave?

We entered a small, quiet alleyway with a cul-de-sac so that Hana and I could change into our second-hand clothes. I, like a gentleman, turned my back to her and made sure no one entered the alley while she undressed. When she called me to tell me she was finished I had my first chance to get a good look at her.

“Uh, Shane…is there a reason I need to be wearing this?”

She wore a loose, white cotton shirt with long sleeves under a blue, one-piece dungaree that fitted over her canvas boots. I was admittedly happy at how cute and huggable she looked. I decided from then onwards, we would always wear dungarees wherever possible. For me it was non-negotiable. Dungarees remained practical and versatile, besides we both looked good in them.

“What?”

She asked, looking at her clothes when she realised that I was staring at her. The fashion media would love her if she ever put visited earth. I guessed that no matter what Hanna wore, she always exuded a natural sensuality.

“I’m just curious as to how someone as attractive as you could punch so hard?”

She didn’t answer me, but I think I caught a glimpse of her smiling as she walked past. It seemed that exterior hostility she touted as a façade hid the real Hana.

Rupert, the guild master, welcomed us into his office when we arrived. I wondered if they intentionally intended the pleasant smell of sweet aromatic resin from the Thadlar wood furniture. The fragrance reminded of sandal wood. Rupert offered me some tea while Olivia offered me some sort of biscuit. Although Hana appeared decently dressed, the leather collar still indicated she remained a slave. I noticed their quick looks towards Hana. I suspected they wondered why last time I visited them I could hardly afford to buy a weapon, let alone buy a slave as stunning as Hana.

“Um, Mr. Karosaki. Please don’t take us the wrong way but are you okay with your slave being party to this conversation?”

“Yes, I accept Hana’s presence into our meeting.”

Despite my confirmation he seemed hesitant. I certainly wouldn’t tell him that Hana couldn’t be more than fifty paces from me. We could find her face down on the ground in the guild hall if she did. It was a cruel system, and to think I was stupidly the one that allowed it. I never even thought to ask about a contract. Slave etiquette was a totally alien concept to me, and I would need to tread cautiously when dealing with other people around us. Who knew how others handled slavery. My acceptable could be others’ unacceptable. The one thing I determined I would never do, was to alienate Hana by excluding her in everyday life.

“You haven’t perhaps got one of those clauses where a slave can’t leave their master’s side? I know the slavers sometimes put those on slaves to sway impressionable clients.”

Hana gave me an accusing look as if I were lower than dirt. You know, I made one little mistake. The guild master wisely read the tense atmosphere between Hana and me and cleared his throat.

“Well moving on. You said you have a way to prove when small gold coins are fake?”

“That’s right. And it will work for any coin type when their original’s weights are consistent.”

“Okay that sounds good but before we start, what would you want in return after we accept your method, and keep in mind I’ll need to confirm it with others first?”

“Firstly, I want Hana to become a member of the adventurer guild.”

“Hmm, that might be a challenge, but not an unsurmountable one. You see we generally don’t allow slaves to become adventurers because some unscrupulous owners use them as distractions in battles to draw monsters out. In some cases, they use slaves as shield walls.”

Being a slave was a rough life. Thinking about it, a slave couldn’t tell their owners to get stuffed, the collar would probably force them to comply even if they didn’t want to. The guild master continued.

“I’ll put in a special request for you, but you’ll still need to pay the appropriate guild fees for the application, but I can’t guarantee that you’ll get approval.”

Hana becoming an adventurer remained a critical issue from me. Technically I could still go out on quests, but she wouldn’t have any of the privileges that I enjoyed under the guild.

“Do you have another request?”

“Yes, my final request is that for every gold coin you test, I take one silver coin as payment for my method.”

I imagined that my request would be difficult for them to swallow because of the once percent cost associated with it.

“Done.”

“What, no negotiating? You’re happy to accept just like that?”

They must have been haemorrhaging money like blazes for him to accept my offer that quickly.

“Mr. Karosaki, the issue of the impact of fake gold coins is not widely advertised outside the guild staff, and we ask that you keep this information to yourselves. Understand that the prolific circulation of fake coins in our economy is causing the guild huge losses in revenue. If this continues, the guild will be permanently impacted. Considering that, and because your request is but one percent of that gold, your request is easily granted.”

I mentally kicked myself for not asking more. I guess I needed to grind more on my negotiation skills.

“If you’re happy with our response, we’re all ears for what you’re proposing.”

“Yes, I’m happy. Please bear with me, I’ll need to explain the principle to you and confirm you understand.”

Everyone nodded, including Hana. She seemed just as interested.

“Do you perhaps have a fake small gold coin and two genuine small gold coins for me to prove the concept? I’ll also need three cups like these teacups with small bowls and water to fill them up with.”

Olivia disappeared to get the cups, water and two gold coins while Rupert got a fake coin he kept hidden in a draw. After their return I started my explanation.

“A genuine small gold coin has basic qualities that make it unique. It has a fixed weight, and it consists entirely of gold. Your problem is that you can confirm the first but not the latter, correct?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So, what counterfeiters do, is to take some of the gold out of the coin and replace it with another metal, usually silver. Correct?”

Everyone nodded. That’s how counterfeiters made money, they stole a portion of the gold, swapping it with less valuable metals to make up the missing gold.

“Okay, so when a fake gold coin comes into your guild you can weigh the coin and of course discover the weight is the same as a real gold coin but not it’s outer dimensions. The coin face is stamped with a punch form allowing the coin to deform and that is why all coins are dissimilar in size.”

Kingdoms were lazy in that way. Their treasuries knew that while the weight of the gold was correct it didn’t matter what shape the coin was, it still held up during a sale because all a person had to do was throw it onto a scale using regulated weights and presto, it either measured up or it didn’t. But when someone took some gold and replaced it with silver, the silver being lighter than gold, meant more silver was used to make up for the weight difference and made the coin larger. I continued explaining.

“Unfortunately, just taking a measuring tool and checking the size would not work because no two coins are ever exactly the same. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So what if I could show you a way to be able to measure the volume of coin shape accurately, and easily?”

“I would say you thought of something none of our best minds in the guild could.”

I placed each cup into a small bowl, then filled each cup to the brim with water so that it was a drop away from spilling over. As they watched I took the fake gold coin and gently placed it into one cup of water and the other two real gold coins similarly into the other two cups. In all three cases the water ran over the brim of the cup into the bowl.

“The water displaced in the separate bowls are both easily and accurately measurable by volume and by weight. I’ll bet you all that the water from the two cups with real coins will weigh almost the same, however the water in the bowl from fake gold cup will weigh more.”

It took them a few moments to think it out and when they finally figured it out Olivia was the first to say something.

“Oh, my goodness. It was as simple as that?”

“Yes. Of course, I wouldn’t hold your decision to just this rough example. I suggest you let your people check it out first, and when you’re ready, confirm our arrangement – backdated from today of course.”

The last bit was the miser in me. I didn’t want them to take too long before confirming my arrangement.

“Yes, yes…of course. I’ll take this up and get back to you within a few days.”

“Good. Please excuse me, we’ve a few things to complete today. We’ll take our leave and wait to hear from you. You can either catch us when I come to the guild each day, or you can send a message to Mrs. Violet’s inn.”

And with that we took our leave from Rupert and Olivia who were still looking at the cups as if still trying to convince themselves. Thank you, Archimedes, I’d keep you in mind if we got some mullah out of that arrangement. Before leaving I stopped over at the notice board to see if there was anything unusual. Finding nothing but the usual, I escorted Hana to the adventurer supply shop to see if we could improve our gear. It was time to keep my promise to Olivia that I would upgrade my defensive gear.

The adventurer supply shop sported the all too recognisable masonry stone block building look from isekai fantasy literature. The only difference was that the large glass windows consisted of small translucent glass panels about the size of my hand. Boasting triple floors, the adventurer supply shop was the biggest in the kingdom, and it was plain to see both in endless variety and selection of items. I felt like a man in a large hardware store with so many interesting things and endless options. I found myself drawn in by the large selection of potion bottles lining the wall, each potion with the prices engraved on small wooden sign board above it. I couldn’t resist appraising the entire shelf of items. There were various health potions you could drink or smear onto a wound, disinfectants, hunger busting potions and stamina boosters. It never ended. A cough from behind reminded me that I wasn’t alone.

“Ahem! What exactly did you want to get here?”

Hana’s voice rudely interrupted my hardware dream.

“Uh, yes. We want to find the armour.”

“It’s on the next floor. There’s a big sign pointing to it near the door when we walked in.”

What did I know about Hana at that point? Besides the obvious fact that she was literate, she could count and could punch holes into stone paving. More subtly, Hana never minced her words, something I still needed to get used to. Yet she needed to understand that any hardware shop became a man’s hallowed ground, a place of contemplation, measurement, reflection, and excitement. We were going to have a heart-to-heart discussion about her attitude before we visited there in future.

“Okay, let’s go there then.”

The armoury department was filled with everything defence, from under clothing protection to hardened leather jerkins and full plate gear. A distinct lack of mail armour in the department surprised me, I wondered if technology hadn’t developed to that point yet.

A man, who could be best described as a store assistant in his thirties, greeted us as we arrived at the top of the first flight of stairs. Perhaps it was my earthly bias that the man didn’t strike me as what I would consider as a typical assistant. For starters he dressed like an adventurer, a bulky one at that, and about the same height as Hana. I could easily imagine him as a gym instructor. Well, I guess knowing your trade also gives one good qualities for sales. He greeted us with a deep, friendly voice.

“Good day, good day, lady and gentleman. Welcome to the armoury department of the Shimmerstal Adventurer Store. My name is Tobias and I’ll be your assistant, feel free to ask me anything. What could we help you with today?”

It was refreshing that he immediately greeted both Hana and I as equivalents and didn’t discriminate against Hana being a slave. That meant he was particularly observant to pick up nuances about Hana and me just from the first few seconds of contact we had with him.

“We’re new adventurers and I’m looking for some armour for both myself and the lady, although we’re not sure what we would need.”

“No problem, I can help you with that. How about we start with you sir, then give the lovely lady all the attention she deserves?”

He helped me before Hana because he was still showing respect to me as Hana’s master, otherwise he might get into trouble with the owner of the store for breaking decorum.

He started with the basics and gave us a quick tour of the available armour. There were variations of pauldrons, arm braces, gauntlets, and thigh armours. The prices also varied from cheaper cloth armour of one gold to way-out-of-my-range full plate armour. The assistant’s eyes sparkled when he showed us the plate armour. I would go so far as to say he almost waxed lyrically about it. It was like showcasing the latest sports model car when we were looking for an everyday work vehicle. I needed body armour which gave my body core maximum protection from blades and arrows but with the flexibility for my multi-combat role. Despite plate armour’s superior protection, there was no way I could operate under the weight of full metal armour so that fancy shiny iron fort they advertised at the entrance of the first lever stairs, was out. Not finding anything yet we moved on. Tobias may have left the full metal armour section, but judging by the twinkle still in his eyes, the full metal armour section never left Tobias.

Cloth-armoured garments, the next items Tobias introduced us to, were all crafted. Each small section contained a small hole with thick overlocked edges, all hand sewn into intricate circles. Each of those circles, a thick mass of thread but leaving an opening centre looking like miniature donuts. The idea it seemed, was to create thickened areas on the garment difficult to cut but still breathable through the centre holes. Although it could work in a pinch, the garment felt hot and heavy when I wore it. Moisture and mildew might also be a problem and when caught in a rainstorm the garment might take on water, making it extremely heavy. So not an option for me.

Tobias then showed me another armour, a brown leather armless cuirass with broad shoulder straps that looked interesting to me. The body section made up of three hardened leather segments that wrapped around the body fastening on the sides near the back. I didn’t like reaching behind me to fasten or unfasten three leather straps on each side, which could be problematic when trying to get into the armour in a rush, in the case of a surprise attack for instance. So that item I left as plan-B if necessary.

A black coloured Robert Brigandine armour caught my attention. A thick leather coat with hanging shoulder strips, it hung from just below my neck to just above the knees. A split in the front from the knees to the inner thigh meant it was easy to walk or run and the leather still protected my legs. Four front straps buckled at the front and smaller straps fastened on the sides to allow smaller adjustments. Although it was entirely leather, metal sections fastened on the inside of the coat and were riveted through to studs on the outside of the leather. An inner lining of heavy cloth covered the inner steel plates to stop any chaffing. Overall, it was slightly heavy, but not overly so. I liked that piece and decided to buy it. The three-gold price tag whittled down the little left in my purse.

Hana, on the other hand, didn’t have such problems. She had enough money to buy whatever she wanted but seemed to be having a hard time selecting something.

“Hana, what’s the problem?”

She looked at me like a deer caught in headlights.

“I don’t know what to choose.”

She said softly. It seemed Hana grew up as a slave never buying anything for herself, only getting something when her masters ordered her to. I grew up as an only child, but I certainly read enough web novels to know what to do when a lady wanted things like clothing. Well, it would probably be best if I wasn’t her master that she nearly beat up, but rather someone she wanted to go out with. At that point Tobias, who had been quietly watching us, stepped forward.

“May I ask the lady what her class is?”

“I’m an assassin.”