「…No bites below the belt!」

Straf opens his eyes and proudly declares with his head raised, and face bearing a victorious smug grin. A singular chuckle escapes Lily’s pale lips, which she quickly covers with a half-closed fist. Recovering from her amusement and regaining her serious face, her slit crimson eyes look back up into Straf’s.

「Were you worried about me tickling you with a bite to the foot?… That’s fine by me. Now let’s discuss the price.」

Lily asks with a smirk, then asserts the beginning of price negotiation, much to Straf’s surprise.

「Wait, you mean it wasn’t one for the entire sack?」

Straf points at the coin sack in Lily’s hand, and she scoffs in amusement again.

「Straf, you have a streak of jests today. Do you not know how much a few drinks of a commoner’s blood goes for? Four to eight silver coins, so I’ve heard…」

Lily replies with an amused slanted smile, and shrugs her shoulders with an added tilt of her head.

「…Granted, you’re no commoner, so your blood is worth more. A lot more. There is a little over sixty gold coins in this sack, with a few silver and copper ones mixed in…」

She begins gently tossing the sack again as she explains and thinks.

「Sixty?…」

Straf stares at the sack intently as it hops up and down once more. His brows shoot up and his face gains a tight-lipped expression when he realizes something. Lily doesn’t notice his reaction with her eyes closed in deep thought.

《Shit. I already agreed to the deal but I forgot about the fucking lips! Do I try to sneak them in? Or do I not say a word to not give her any ideas!?》

Straf thinks, staring at Lily. She opens her scarlet eyes, lightly surprised by Straf’s intense glare.

「Is something the matter, Straf?」

She asks, tilting her head again.

「No. Nope. We’re good. So, what’s your offer?」

Straf declares, shaking his head a little with a forced smile. Lily raises her open palm.

「How about five? Five bites anywhere I’d like, until I’m satisfied-」

「Above the belt.」

Straf abruptly cuts in to remind Lily.

「…Of course. Five bites. A commoner’s blood goes for four to eight silver coins, that would make yours worth over ten gold ones, give or take. That’s a pretty good deal, don’t you think?」

Lily asks with a smug smile on her face, still keeping her head tilted.

「Yup, you’ve got a deal-」

Straf nods and reaches for the sack, but Lily retracts it again.

「But you are quite desperate. I may not be a merchant, but I know enough that a desperate seller warrants lower prices. How about eight bites for the whole sack?」

Lily asks with a completely serious face and tone.

「Tsk. Lily… Getting bit hurts real bad. I think you’re being a little unreasonable here…」

Straf clicks his tongue and sighs, hesitating on the deal.

「I will be really gentle, just like the last time. It wasn’t that bad, was it?」

Lily once again entices Straf by clinking the coin sack. Her word selection causes bank tellers to glance at each other.

「Tsk… Fine! Just give me the money already!-」

Straf reaches for the sack again, and Lily once again retracts it with an almost sadistic grin.

「Lily!」

Straf exclaims in utter exasperation.

「Make it ten bites to satisfaction, and you have a deal.」

Lily says, staring straight into Straf’s eyes with a dead-serious expression.

「As if! Eight! That’s the most you’ll get! I can’t believe you’re nickle-and-diming me!」

Straf negotiates the price down, speaking in a raised voice out of frustration.

「Hmmm? This is going exactly as my master intended. An orderly and peaceful, consensual trade of human currency in exchange for blood. Is it not? I’ll admit I drive a hard bargain…」

Lily shrugs her hands, smugly smirking before placing her half-open fists on her hips.

「And I’ll admit I’m desperate, but not that desperate! Eight! Take it or leave it!- Niklaus-」

Straf takes his eyes off Lily and looks at a figure in the doorway, fully expecting it to be Niklaus with his acquaintances. Instead, he sees a man peeking his face into the bank, holding the telltale dragon bill.

Straf nearly chokes, gasping for air quietly with eyes wide open as he reads 50 in the corner of the man’s bill. The man appears to act erratic and looks around the room as if confused with his brows furrowed. His face dips in and out of the bank’s threshold.

He dips out one more time and looks above, then peeks his head back in.

「Sorry, got the wrong building!… Sorry.」

The man apologizes and bows out, departing off to somewhere unknown. Straf gasps all the air he gasped in out, and his face snaps to Lily.

「Okay! Fine! What’s next? Twelve bites!?」

Straf says with a tight-lipped expression, and Lily smirks in response, throwing the sack up and down briefly again.

「While the idea is enticing and I’m sure I could push it further… It would be insulting if I’d pay less than a gold coin for your blood. Let’s say it’s my loss. Ten bites it is, then.」

Lily says, and swaps the coin sack between her hands. She holds her right hand out for a handshake with Straf, holding the sack within his reach.

「Right! You didn’t have to rip me off, did you!?」

Straf says angrily, snatching the sack out of Lily’s open hand. This time she allows it, and smugly smiles.

「Now I am looking forward to hungering.」

Lily ominously declares with a face devoid of any previous smugness or amusement. Her vertically-slit crimson eyes stare directly into Straf’s.

「That’s great. Ten bites, I will be counting each and single one of them. Tsk.」

Straf clicks his tongue and shakes his head, then throws the coin sack onto the bank tellers’ counter.

「There! Now we shouldn’t run out, unless some rich asshole shows up to ruin everything!-」

Straf glances at the doorway, a fat man with armed men arrives the second he completes his sentence.

「Great.」

Straf says with his lips stretched almost ear to ear, and his hand in a fist on his hip.

「…Is this where you buy these drakes?」

The fat man hesitantly makes heavy steps further in.

「What?」

Straf’s head jumps up in surprise at the fat man’s question.

「I’m in the wrong place? Excuse me then-」

He slowly rotates, but Straf hastily steps in to stop him.

「No no no! Wait! You buy drakes here, in a way! You exchange them, really!」

Straf exclaims, but one of the fat man’s armed guards steps in his way, holding his hand on his sheathed sword’s hilt.

「Ah! So I’m in the right place after all! It’s alright, you can step outside.」

He gently pushes the guard away and returns closer to Straf. The guards nod their heads and vacate the building.

「I am Janus, a merchant from Kirkken. I have gotten wind of your new paper money, and I immediately thought of an idea how to make money off of it. I’m going to need large amounts, is that alright?」

The merchant asks, looking around the room. He glances at Lily, and immediately stumbles backwards into a wall out of sheer panic.

「V- V- Va-!」

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He stutters, pointing his finger at Lily who sighs in thinly veiled annoyance.

「Relax. She’s a noble and she doesn’t harm humans… For no reason.」

Straf explains Lily’s nature while the fat merchant grips at his chest, taking heavy breaths with his lips pursed. The guards peek in with their hands on their weapons, but he waves them away.

「Whew… I’ve heard something about a vampire barony… But it was partial information and I dismissed it as rumors. Who would have thought I’d run into a real vampire personally?」

He recovers from the shock and wipes sweat from his face with a cloth napkin pulled from his almost certainly hard-to-reach pocket, before placing it back where it was.

「Anyhow… It’s no problem as long as you’ve got the gold… What is Kirkken anyway?」

Straf explains, then asks the fat merchant.

「Ah, it’s a-」

「A puny and irrelevant principality that will never amount to anything somewhere east of this kingdom…」

Lily interrupts the fat merchant, glancing at Straf before her glare returns to the merchant. She casually insults his home country without missing a beat.

「Lily!- 」

Straf raises his voice at Lily to scold her, but the merchant shakes his head and hand in front of himself, anticipating Straf’s reaction.

「No, no… She is absolutely right. Difficult conditions breed the best merchants, you see. Lady vampire, may I have your name?」

The merchant meekly bows with his palm on his chest, not wanting to insult the deadly creature.

「…Lily Hemaluna, baroness of the night in this city.」

Lily sighs with her loose fists on her hips, looking down briefly at the ground as she hesitates giving the merchant her name, but ends sharing it with him with the bare minimum cordiality required.

「Baroness?… Well, pardon my rudeness, I didn’t know…」

The merchant bows even further, as far as his fat-bloated belly will permit, at least.

「…It is excused.」

She bluntly declares with a displeased expression on her face.

「Now stop wasting Straf’s time. Hurry with your business.」

She says, and walks away from the fat man, almost as if hiding behind Straf to avoid even looking at him.

「Well, to continue… Mister Straf?」

The fat man straightens out, and leans to peek outside the building through the door, waving his hand at someone outside. After a brief wait, multiple men walk in carrying heavy canvas sacks on their shoulders, wincing from the weight.

「May they place them there?」

The merchant asks, pointing at the tellers’ counter.

「Yes, of course!」

One of the women nods her head. The men unload the sacks off their shoulders onto the counters with heavy and relieved grunts, and accompanying clinking of coins from within the sacks.

「From what I estimated, it’s enough for roughly 300 of your… golden drakes, are they called?」

The man explains as his subordinates unload more large sacks onto the counter. At the same time, Niklaus returns, and voices outside start arguing loudly.

「Boss, I brought them with me. Should they start right away?-」

Niklaus points to the doorway, and Straf nearly materializes in front of him with his teeth clenched, gripping painfully at Nikolaus’s arm.

「No, no, no! You idiot! Not right now! Tell them all to shut the fuck up and apologize! Tell them to start after these guys leave!」

Straf points at the doorway, and Niklaus runs out. The voices die down, and hushed mumbling and apologies leak in through the open door.

「Start what right away, if I may ask?」

The merchant asks with a curious tone.

「You may not. Trade secret. Sorry.」

「…Well, we all have those.」

Straf glances at the merchant over his shoulder with a tight-lipped expression. The fat man only shrugs before turning back to the tellers.

Roughly half an hour passes while the tellers and Niklaus ensure nothing is wrong and weigh the gold within the sacks.

「Mister Janus here is correct, it amounts to roughly 300 golden drakes, 6 silver drakes, and 5 copper coins.」

The bank teller informs Straf, and he lets out a large sigh of relief.

「Well, that’s great! Give him the drakes! Finally someone who appreciates the genius of this form of money!」

Straf points his palm at Janus, the fat foreign merchant. The teller hastily walks to the secure storage and disappears for a prolonged while.

「Yes, indeed… When I heard the news, it was obvious to me that this is free money waiting to be picked up off the ground. I may be from Kirkken, but I’m heading up north, you see. Despite the recent border skirmish, Redwing has a lot of interconnected trade with Rankor, and so-」

While they wait, the merchant explains a portion of his trade secret.

「…And so you are going to set up an exchange somewhere in Rankor, and rip people absolutely the fuck off on exchange rates with the drakes, since merchants will prefer to take lighter paper over heavy gold, meaning more cargo to trade with?」

Straf asks, and the merchant blinks. He brushes his thick mustache with his fingers, rubs his triple chin while grinning in amusement, then shrugs.

「Well… You figured it all out. I’m impressed. This trade benefits everyone, but me especially. I mean, even if it doesn’t work out, I can always just come back here and turn it all back into regular gold. There’s no risk!」

The merchant laughs, spreading his arms with a large grin on his face.

「Hahaha, yeah! There’s no risk! It’s free money!」

Straf’s face bears a grin of matching size as he nods and laughs along with the man. The merchant taps Straf on his shoulder, and the bank teller returns with the many denominations of drakes.

「Here it is… Exactly 300 golden drakes, 6 silver drakes, all broken into small denominations with a few large notes.」

The teller lays out the notes, and Janus looks through them.

「…That is some beautiful art! You could sell these for that alone! How did you do this?」

He says, holding the fifty-drakes bill in his hands.

「Trade secret.」

Straf bluntly replies, and the merchant starts laughing again. He pats Straf on the shoulder once more, and scoops all the remaining drakes into his pocket.

「Well, Mister Straf… It was a pleasure. I am off to collect my free money!」

He says and bows lightly, turning to the exit.

「Yeah, it’s free money, it’d be a shame not to collect it.」

Straf says, looking at the fat man barely squeeze through the frames.

「…Except for the fluctuating exchange rates, political instability, liquidity… Man, FX is a mess, huh?」

Straf chuckles to himself with a large grin on his face.

「Does this mean you no longer need to worry about the kingdom’s finances?」

Lily walks back up to Straf’s side.

「No. Right now we’ve got 300 gold worth of some shithole’s funnymoneys. Niklaus!」

Straf calls out to Niklaus with a shout, despite him sitting only a few steps away.

「Yes boss!?」

Niklaus perks up to sit even straighter than before, a feat most would deem impossible.

「Take all this shitty gold and smelt it into our coins. And better none of it go missing, or it’s your ass.」

Straf points at the gold still in the scales, and Niklaus shoots out of his chair, but pauses when he realizes the difficulty of the task.

「I got it boss, but, er… That’s a lot of gold to carry…」

「I don’t care how you do it, but get it done. This is your opportunity to prove you have the ability and common sense to delay your gratification and not steal a thing so you can have a stable salary.」

Straf says, scooping the Redwing Kingdom’s gold coins that the teller left on Niklaus’s desk into his hand.

「I wouldn’t dream of it! I have to keep the kids fed and clothed!」

Niklaus shakes his head, Straf rolls his eyes in response.

「I know. Why do you think I hired you and not that axe guy? I’m taking these, I’ll need every single coin I can get from here on-」

Straf pockets the gold coins, distributing their weight evenly. He abruptly interrupts his sentence and puts his palm on his face with a loud slap.

「Ah, fuck…」

Straf cringes, keeping his palm on his face.

「What? What is it, Straf?」

Lily tilts her head with mild concern on her face.

「I sold myself for a handful of gold coins… I thought I had higher standards than this.」

Very quickly a smug smirk appears on Lily’s face as Straf bemoans the deal.

「Well… I’ve gotten quite the bargain.」

She says, her smug crimson eyes stare into Straf’s tired ones…