Sarah's Story Chapter 036 - High Risk Money Transfer

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief at the same time as Mr. Tenns.

Clark, the Treasurer’s assistant, stood and turned to Beth, avoiding meeting Sarah’s gaze. “Beth, if you could just leave me a note whenever Brawler Sarah makes a payment, I’d appreciate it.”

And then he, too, left the room.

Beth finished her notes and then sighed, before sternly narrowing her eyes at Sarah.

“Fifty silver? Really?!” she hissed. Then she turned to Mr. Tenns. “Is there even enough jobs outstanding to pay that off in a month?”

He shook his head, but he was smiling. “Not good ones, although I do know a few Sarah would be a good fit for.”

“But what about the Golden Swan?! We already told them–”

“It’ll be fine. The School of the Immortal Sword has been pestering me, but wouldn’t make a request because they couldn’t do a named request for an E Rank adventurer.”

Sarah tilted her head. Why did that name sound familiar…

Now Mr. Tenns looked at her sternly. “Sarah, you’re done with Scout training. And you need to raise your rank already. I want to get you up to C Rank before the Golden Swan gets here.”

“Huh, why?” Sarah asked, “I’m fine with E Rank…”

He sighed. “Yeah, you’re fine, but it’s a bad look for the Golden Swan. And frankly, I can’t stop you from doing what you want on your own time, but within the Guild, you’re not going to get taken seriously asking for Scout training as an E Rank. You’re only even up for consideration for the Golden Swan’s request because of your skills as a Brawler, and because the Golden Swan is particularly thick about things like reputation.”

Beth put her head in her hands. “Sam, you’re sure she can pay this off before they get here?”

“Yeah, pretty sure, anyway, if she works hard.”

Beth groaned, and Sarah pulled her coin purse out of her shirt and poured a pile of coins into her hand. Beth looked up at the sound and then snapped up straight, eyes wide.

“Sarah! Where did you–”

“Oh, I’ve been saving the money I get from Nathan and the others I do extra sparring practice with. Oh!” Sarah remembered now. “That’s where I heard that Immortal Sword name, Nathan says it a lot!”

Sarah quickly counted out three silver and twenty copper and dumped the rest of it on the desk in front of Beth. “There, can I put this towards my tab?”

Beth quickly tallied it up. “Sixteen silver and thirty-eight copper for a total of nineteen silver and eight copper, applied to your tab of fifty-one silver, three copper, leaves your debt at thirty-one silver, five copper. Plus the ten silver you’ll owe when a Bounty Hunter finally shows up.”

She wrote a quick receipt for Sarah absent-mindedly.

“Ooh, yeah, Sarah’s not going to have any problem clearing her debt, Beth!” Mr. Tenns said excitedly.

Beth was just over it. She just knew Clark was going to give her an earful when she told him Sarah was just casually carrying around nearly twenty silver and not paying her debt.

“Sarah, make sure you give me all the debt payments directly so that I can let the Treasurer’s assistant know right away.”

“Okay, Beth!” Sarah smiled brightly.

Beth forced a weak smile in return and left the room. Best to put all the money in the safe right away…

As it turned out, there were a number of high-risk, low-paying jobs in the capital that could be done pretty much immediately. Although the city was fairly safe and took a no-nonsense approach to thievery, there was still a large risk moving large sums of money around.

Too many people had value-detecting skills, and the temptation could overwhelm otherwise honest citizens.

The Royal Bank did a fairly good job of balancing accounts in the short and medium term, so that large sums of money weren’t constantly moving about the city at risk, but over time money did need to physically move from place to place to settle accounts. And they did have a relationship with the City Guard – who also worked for the Royal Family – to provide security for transportation of large sums of money.

The problem was that hiring the City Guard was expensive, so nobody wanted to do it, and it was easier to keep putting things off. Which increased the risk of moving the money in the first place. Which created a vicious cycle where money sat in vaults, the wrong vaults, all over the city and never got moved to the right vaults.

Requests were made to the Adventurers’ Guild as a sign of good faith, that the vault-owners wanted to move the money, but they just couldn’t find anyone willing to ensure the job was done properly at a reasonable price. The ‘reasonable price,’ of course, being a massive lowball for B Rank Adventurers.

But, beggars can’t be choosers.

There was some risk for Sarah, as well. If she lost the money en route, she’d be held responsible to a hefty eighty percent of the loss which would become personal debt. On the other hand, successfully delivering the money as agreed would put three silver in her pocket for the work of two hours.

Naturally she started with the smallest, safest request. Taking a sum of two hundred silver from the City Guard office at the main gate to the Royal Bank, the money collected from entry fees.

Even the City Guard didn’t want to move their own money.

Sarah wore a green and white armband on her left arm, signifying that she was acting as an agent of the Royal Bank, as well as a red and black armband on her right arm, signifying that she was acting as an agent of the Adventurers’ Guild, and that she was of high but unspecified rank. She also wore a bag strapped to her front that served as a lockbox, ensuring that she herself couldn’t get at the money. Only special Royal Bank keys could open it once locked.

Sarah could feel the gazes on her as she walked to the City Guard office. The entire getup just made her more of a target, and the lockbox pulled her slightly off balance.

The guards had even nearly refused to let her do the job, until–

“Oh, you’re Mistress Helen’s daughter, aren’t you! Sarah, right? Okay, you’ll be fine. Tell your mother Clarissa says hi and thanks for the recipe.”

The vice captain of the guard happily signed the form and counted out two hundred silver, although it was far more copper coins than silver coins, and Sarah confirmed the count, put the money in the box, and also signed the form which also went in the box.

“Good luck!” he called from the comfort and safety of his office.

Thankfully the box was padded on the inside, so there was only the faint clink of coins on coins as Sarah walked. Though that might as well have been the city’s emergency bells for the city’s poor, desperate, and covetous.

[Sensitive Hearing]

[Danger Sense]

[Threat Awareness]

[Battlefield Awareness]

[Brawler’s Domain]

Fwip!

A throwing knife hurtled towards her neck from ahead and to the right, out of a dark alleyway just down the road from the main gate.

Sarah plucked it from the air and tossed it to the ground, unconcerned.

But when the second knife came flying she got a little annoyed.

This one she caught and threw back.

“Agh!” someone screamed and scurried off.

For the next few blocks, nobody bothered her, but then a small arrow came flying at her head.

She simply leaned to the side and let it pass, then turned and made eye contact with the man up in the window overlooking the street and pointed at him.

He disappeared deeper into the building.

She sighed. It was broad daylight, what were these people thinking?

Every few blocks some moron would take a shot at her, as if she she couldn’t see them coming from a mile away. Literally, a mile up the road she could see people looking at her approaching and making preparations.

Getting closer to the center of town, where the Royal Castle was and where the Royal Bank was also located, there was a suspiciously empty, small plaza.

Sarah sighed and stepped forward anyway.

Two men jumped out in front of her brandishing wicked looking daggers, dripping with some foul-smelling liquid.

“Drop the lockbox, girl! It ain’t worth yer life!”

Sarah continued without hesitating, a hand casually in her pocket.

“Oi!” Seeing that she showed no signs of stopping, they rushed her. She threw her handful of pocket sand into their eyes.

“Aagh, my eyes!” the would-be bandits cried, halting their charge.

Behind Sarah, a large bull of a man charged, trying to tackle her to the ground. She simply turned and swept him off his feet, throwing him into his two companions.

They fell to the ground, tangled up in each other’s limbs, and had no time to react as she skipped forward and kicked each of them in the temple, knocking them unconscious.

Then she jumped back and an arrow struck the ground where she had been standing. She pointed up at the man with a rag tied around his face, leaning out the window. “Get your boys and piss off! If I see any of you again today I’m dragging you to the Guard myself!”

Without waiting for a reply, she continued walking up the street, keeping an eye on her surroundings. After that last altercation, the opportunistic thieves up ahead retreated, leaving her a free path up to the Castle gates. The guards there waved her through upon seeing her armbands and the lockbox, and so Sarah took her first step on Castle grounds.