The Founder of the Great Financial Family

While Rockefeller's mind wandered off to other thoughts, Carter glanced at his pocket watch and checked the time – it was still too early for customers to start arriving, but he liked to double-check just in case. 

"I think I've explained everything about gold coins – have I answered all of your questions?" 

"Yes," 

"Alright, then I'll explain what you'll be doing from now on," 

He had already explained the first of the three main jobs of a goldsmith, and Carter began to explain the rest. 

"First of all, the main job you need to focus on is dealing with customers who come here, on my behalf while I'm busy making Talents. I did mention I had three jobs, right?" 

"Yes, you did," 

"Then let me tell you about the rest of the work. I'm sure you've heard something about it here and there?"

"Holding gold coins for other people, and lending money to others and getting interest from it," 

"Yes, that's exactly right," Carter nodded with a satisfied smile. 

"That's what you're going to do in the future. I deal with customers who come to store gold coins with me, and I pay gold coins to customers who come because they need the money and earn interest from them," 

Carter took out his prepared books and showed them to Rockefeller, 

"These are the accounting books, have a look," Rockefeller opened Carter's books and looked through them. 

The books were filled with all the transactions that had been carried out in the store so far. Although he didn't understand all the contents at once since it was his first time seeing them, as he kept reading and flipping through the pages, he started getting a sense of the contents of the books. 

The contents were all pretty similar, after all. 

Since Rockefeller had focused his concentration on the books for a while, Carter asked just to make sure, 

"Do you understand what is written in the books?" 

"Yes, I have a rough idea. Since the lord came to borrow gold recently, even his name is written here," 

Carter asked a few more questions, and Rockefeller answered them faithfully to show that he truly understood the books. Once Carter was satisfied, his mouth curved up in a smile, and he praised Rockefeller, 

"As expected, since you've learned from your father, you're quick to pick up on things. Well done. That's about it. It's a book I double-check every day, so don't ever think about messing with me," 

Rockefeller waived those concerns away lightly, 

"That's never going to happen. You can trust me," 

"In this line of work, there should be trust between each other. I don't think you'd dare to play tricks with the books, but even if you did, there wouldn't be anything good waiting for you at the end of it. Make sure you keep that in mind," 

"Please don't worry, in this line of work, trust and reputation are life, right?"

"That's right, always remember that,"

Still, since you never knew with this creature called human, Carter was being cautious. Even so, he decided to trust Rockefeller and kept talking because it wasn't like he would ever be able to let Rockefeller do the work he had been hired for if he didn't trust him. 

"Well, next, people will come here to leave their gold coins for storage. They will leave it at Banco, and we charge a storage fee to keep the gold coins safe,"

"Wouldn't they prefer to not pay for the storage then?" 

"Well, it's up to the customer at the end of the day. But the Sears barracks is right next to the store, and I guarantee the safekeeping of their coins. So if they don't trust themselves or the people around them, then they pay the storage fee and leave it here," 

"Fair enough," 

"You get the gold from the guests and write down the transactions in this book – And this is the most important thing," 

He seemed well prepared for today since he pulled out a certificate on golden paper and showed it to Rockefeller.

"This is a gold receipt, a kind of borrowing certificate issued, but I store it to prove that a customer has left their gold with us," 

It was simply an IOU – a document proving that ‘I owe you something'. It was something Rockfeller had expected, so he took the document and scrutinised it carefully.

The gold certificate said ‘5 IOU', and below that was an additional phrase ‘The Lyon Guild guarantees this IOU'. 

‘Is this the beginning of paper currency? It's so amazing to see something like this in this strange world,' – Rockefeller thought. 

A meaningful smile spread on Rockefeller's lips even as Carter began to explain the gold certificate to him. 

"It says ‘5 IOU,' right? That means that if you have that gold certificate, I will definitely pay you 5 Talents from my shop,"

Carter pointed his index finger at the gold certificate and poked it a few times to emphasise his next point, 

"And what you need to remember here clearly is that even if a customer leaves a gold coin at this shop, leaves and comes back straight after without the gold certificate, you should never give that gold coin to them. Even if they say they've lost it – even if they say they've lost it inside the store – you should never ever give them gold coins without this certificate," 

"Of course," Rockefeller looked like he understood right away.

"No matter what they say – even if they scream at you, you cannot give them gold coins. Always make it clear to the customers that you can only give them gold coins if they come with the gold certificate and if you lose it, it's over," 

"Yes, I'll keep that in mind. No matter what happens, if they don't have the gold certificate, I'll never give them any gold coins," 

Carter went on to explain why he had such a policy in place, 

"They can always pull stunts like trading using the gold certificate outside then coming back to tell you they've lost it," 

"I see," 

"In that sense, it doesn't really matter who took the gold certificate from here. The important thing here is whether they have the gold certificate or not. If they have this, you can even give gold coins to a beggar – it's the same for all Bancos. It is basically proof of a promise," 

He already knew all the information, but Rockefeller had to act like a child if he ended up showing that he knew too much about Bancos already, then that could cause suspicion as well. 

‘Pretending to be dumb isn't bad sometimes.'