Chapter 57: Elves, Coins, and Irrigation

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

As soon as Amber’s voice fell, Gawain turned his head and stared at her fixedly, giving her the creeps. “What… what’s the meaning of that look of yours…”

Gawain looked as if he was staring at an alien. “Why would you know a druid?”

“Why can’t I know a druid!” Amber had her arms akimbo. “At the very least, I’m a half-elf, okay? All the druid factions in the world originated from elves, don’t you know?”

If it was anyone else with pointed ears who said that it would have been convincing, but not when this elven disgrace said it. Gawain looked up and down for awhile at the bandit girl still looking bold and confident in justifying herself, then he finally came out and said, “You mean you know him in the sense that you stole something from this guy, and he tried to chase and kill you?”

“That’s an insult!” Amber jumped up instantly. “How could anyone catch me stealing!”

Gawain: “…”

Why did it seem like there was something off about her rebuttal?

However, although he verbally doubted her, from the look of her, she seemed like she really did know a druid, and she even introduced him like she was a salesperson, “Lemme tell you, this guy I know is not just a druid, but a scholarly druid. He knows a bit of everything. His druid faction is the proper ‘Forest Heart’. He is particularly good at dealing with plants and animals. He is absolutely reliable…”

Gawain could finally believe her words, but he did not probe about how Amber and the mysterious druid came to know each other or his name and origin. Obviously, it would not be polite to ask these questions now. After listening to Amber’s sales pitch, he asked only two questions, “Can you still reach him now? If so, how long will it take you to bring him here?”

“It’s easy to reach him even though people say that druids are hard to find, but this guy that I know of has a rather fixed area where he operates. He’s just in the area along the southern borders. As for how long it will take to bring him here…”

As Amber continued talking, she kept giving Gawain the meaningful look. “I could use shadow walk when getting to him, but to get back, I’m afraid I would have to come back using the normal way and hurry the pace. How fast we come back will depend on the means of transportation, you know?”

Gawain immediately understood what she was meaning to say. With a wave of his large hand, he placed a few coins in her hand. “Go and buy new shoes.”

Amber stared at him. “… I won’t take this! And you should at least give me some money to give the guy a down payment, right? Even if we are acquaintances, you still have to pay to employ him, okay!”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Gawain was only joking with Amber. After all, it was fun to see the girl jumping up and down, but putting jokes aside, he grabbed some more gold and silver strips that were compressed into uniform sizes from his other pocket. “Take it. Get it done, and whatever remains is all yours.”

Amber immediately took the glistening treasures.

Because the mint required to make coins was not yet ready, “Cecil currency” was still merely a concept. Thus for the time being, Gawain asked the craftsmen to get some gold and silver from the treasury and turn them into smaller pieces for trading with the rest of the world.

Using precious metals directly for trading was not uncommon in this world. Moreover, trading was still very primitive. Gold and silver with a certain degree of purity were considered as currencies. Usually, gold and silver were made into coins just because it was easier to carry, inspect, and count. But merchants also accepted using gold and silver directly for transactions. It was just that this type of transaction would include the additional process of inspection of purity and calculation. Thus when buying goods directly with gold and silver, the price would be increased slightly.

Of course, this was all based on the premise of the currency’s credibility. If there came a day when the impurities in the nobles’ coinage reached a level that could hurt the merchants, then the unofficial gold and silver bullion would in turn prevail over the currencies issued by the royal family and the grand dukes and become the main form of currency, and if you used gold and silver coins to buy things, it would instead be more expensive.

This was why the emblem of the god of trade was a pair of scales. On the two sides of the scales were placed a pair of scissors and an eye. The scissors and the scales were both things that the merchants carried with them. The former was used to cut gold and silver strips while the latter was used for weighing. As for the eye, merchants needed good eyesight in order to tell the purity of the metals.

Actually, if not for Gawain’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, that he wanted to cast the metals into refined and unique coins, he could totally use a simpler and cruder method to make the coins. He just needed to cast the metals into round rods, then cut them into thin slices. Then use a steel seal to apply Cecil’s emblem. In Anzu’s year 536, the Grand Duke of the West used this method in order to save time and labor and reduce the cost. The coins in that year were thusly nicknamed “the miser’s extortion toll money”. It was because at that time, the western law required that all merchants entering the western region must exchange one-third of their coins for the western coins. And whenever crossing any checkpoints, they had to use these inferior coins to pay the tolls.

This world’s currency and economy were just so perplexing.

Amber left happily, and the half-elf girl almost ran away floating as everyone watched. Herti could not help but worry. “She’s not going to run away with those pieces of gold and silver, is she…”

“Embezzling funds?” Gawain muttered. In his brooding, he wondered if that elven disgrace might actually be capable of such a thing…

Never mind. At this juncture, he should just have some trust in her. He had nothing else to count on anyways.

There was no one else who claimed to know druids, was there?

After Amber left, Gawain turned his attention back to the issue on the cultivation of the land.

Norris, the old farmer, had kept his head down quietly and waited, unlike the ordinary poor people who would fidget, glance around, and rush to speak. Instead, he seemed as if he was waiting for Gawain to ask questions.

“Is there any other problems in this land?” Gawain asked. “It is best to bring up any problems that might arise as early as possible.”

“If I must say, I would say that the land is higher than the river bank, making it hard for the water to be channeled into the canals. We would have to dig ditches from upstream or wells,” Norris replied. “But the good thing is that during torrential rains, we don’t have to worry about flooding of the land.”

Channeling water… If there was a pump or some lifting machinery, this would be an easy problem to solve. Or perhaps, they could rely on the “characteristic technology” of this world by finding a mage specializing in water elements to perform the irrigation. But obviously the second way is unreliable. Once the the camp starts normal operation, there would only be increasing amount of responsibilities on Herti’s plate. She would no longer have the opportunity to come over and serve as a human water pump. If they were to hire an official mage to be responsible for irrigating the land… Not even the Violet Kingdom in the north or the elves in the south would do something so extravagant. Besides, even if there was no limit to Cecil’s monetary resources, how many mages would be willing to do “dirty work” that only the lower class would do?

They would rather take half the compensation to set off fireworks for banquets at the King’s or nobles’ castles to please those aristocratic madames and misses who stuff themselves with pills to the extent of getting the deathly pale complexion that made them look neither humans nor like ghosts.

Thus Gawain immediately dismissed the idea of finding a mage to be a human water pump, and instead considered the solution from a mechanical perspective. Of course, if he were to do things the way that was usually done in this world, the way that the nobles would solve such problems would be to put more serfs to work. But in Gawain’s opinion, it was too much of a waste to use manpower on such matters.

Just then, an ancient and effective machinery came to mind. “Have you ever heard of something called a waterwheel?”

Herti, Norris, and Knight Philip were all dumbstruck.

Sure enough, no one had heard of such a thing.

Gawain looked at Herti. “Do you have pen and paper?”

After getting the pen and paper, Gawain began to make a simple sketch. It was a tall wheel-like structure supported by spokes. On the outer edge of the “wheel” were fixed neatly arranged inclined drums and wooden boards. On the side of this “wheel” was drawn a water channel that extended outward.

Due to limited time, he only drew a part of the waterwheel’s structure, and it was a rough drawing. But this simple yet astounding machine had an amazingly simple principle. He only needed to give a brief explanation. “This thing is a waterwheel. The river water flows underneath, pushing these wooden boards, driving the rotation of the waterwheel. Then the waterwheel will carry the water-filled drums to the top, and the water is poured into this channel. This process will continue, resulting in the water being raised to a higher ground. How high it can go depends on how big the waterwheel is, and as long as the materials are strong enough.”

With that said, he added, “Of course, this is just a sketch. The principle is also very simple, and many different models can be built based upon this principle…”

Herti was speechless as she was totally enthralled by this simple yet incredible contraption.

She could easily deduce that this machine would absolutely be useful. But before seeing this sketch, she really never thought that such a thing could exist.

It did not need manpower, nor did it require any extraordinary powers. It could work around the clock, perform work that would otherwise require lots of serfs, and it was driven by the power of nature.

She suddenly experienced “beauty” upon seeing such a machinery, a word that would normally not be associated with such a crude structure.

However, Gawain still sighed. “Unfortunately there is no bamboo here, otherwise it would be much easier to build…”

Herti did not catch what he said. “Ah? What did you just say?”

“No, nothing.” Gawain waved his hand. “Do you have any thoughts about this machine?”

Herti was about to say that it was a genius design when she saw Norris pick up a pen and draw something on a blank piece of paper. The old farmer said as he sketched. “If we were to set it directly at the river bank of the White River, it would be prone to be affected by the river’s condition. It would not be useful during the dry season. If another channel could be dug from the river, during the dry season…”

Noting the sudden silence around him, Norris quivered and immediately threw the pen away fearfully, trembling as he stepped back, “Lord, I was only…”

However, Gawain’s response surprised him. “Can you write?”

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