Malefic Society

13. Money

Crane kept the money safe inside the shirt that he was wearing and the siblings left the hidden room after making sure there was no more secret contained there.

With the puppet in his arm, he looked like a young father carrying his son.

Chris tucked his new knife by the sheath on his pants, covering it with his untucked shirt, while Catherine simply put the rune stones in each of her pockets. The three of them were now armed, and they felt more confident in exploring the new world.

Leaving the warehouse through the heavy steel door, they carefully observed their surrounding.

"No one's around," Chris, who had the best eyesight among them, led the way.

"This area seems to be abnormally quiet. I have a theory that we were transported in this spot, not by accident, but this is a designated spot for that for some reason," Crane nodded.

"This whole Maggazino Street seems to be the quiet area," Catherine said, looking at the street name on the building on her left.

The moment they left that street, the siblings found themselves surrounded by the crowd again. They noticed that people were initially staring at them strangely, but their gaze was quickly directed to the puppet that Crane was carrying.

"What a cute little boy!" an old lady commented.

Quickly, Crane was surrounded by a group of old women adoring the puppet. They looked to be in their sixties, and from their appearance, they seemed to be enjoying an afternoon stroll together.

"Is this your son? How old is he? He's so cute!" 

"Yes, this is my son," Crane smiled politely, "He's Felix. This year, he should be turning four." he then looked at the puppet, "Felix, go say hi to these nice ladies,"

Like a shy little boy, the puppet waved his right hand before hiding his face in Crane's shirt

"Oh my, how adorable!" an old lady with a robust build shrieked.

"Where is his mom? You are not from around here, are you? Are you three triplets?" barrages of questions were directed at them.

"His mother had to leave because of work, and that's why we're here, to meet her. We came from a faraway city, so we're not so familiar with this place," Crane lied, "These are my sister and brother."

Catherine and Chris nodded politely.

"Aw, that's sad to hear such a young boy having to be separated from his mom. Do you know your way around? We can help you find her," a thin old lady offered kindly. She tried pinching the puppet's cheek but Crane quickly made the puppet bury his face in Crane's shirt shyly.

"No, we don't. Actually, it would be great if you could help us find out way around," he accepted the offer.

After that, the siblings asked the location of the places they needed to check out while the ladies enthusiastically explained everything while adding a lot of off-topic information. 

They found out that the area that they were in was near the South End, and that was where a lot of old people lived. The younger generation had mostly moved out closer to the north, where a lot of schools and universities were located. The south was also full of farmlands and factory areas, so young people considered it boring.

Although the public transportation infrastructure in Vieste was excellent, they still couldn't visit their family that often, since most of their family members were busy. That was why they missed children a lot. 

They also found out that the area that they just came out of was rumored to be haunted, and the older generation believed in the supernatural more than the younger ones, so they tended to avoid that area as much as they could.

After gaining enough information, they excused themselves and went to the convenience store, to check out the prices of items in that world. Crane had lied that he had come from another city, so he couldn't pretend to not know such common sense.

"Why didn't you just say we're from another country?" asked Catherine.

"That will indeed allow us to ask more questions since it's normal for a foreigner not to know stuff. But we don't know the political state of this world. We don't even know if another country besides this one exists. Just to be safe for now," he replied.

"Are you sure those ladies are not trying to trick us?" Catherine asked again, almost whispering, even though they had walked quite a distance away from the crowd.

"They're alright. My Votary was an Empath, you remember? Even if I cannot detect lies, I can feel malice in people. They didn't show any, so we can at least trust the information they gave," Crane explained.

"So the nearest convenience store is around 1 km away from here. They said it was on Oceano Street West, so from here, go north and then turn left," Chris explained and then turned to his brother, "If we do have a lot of money, can we buy some snacks? I'm kind of hungry."

"We need to save money. We don't even know how to make money yet in this world and we don't know how long we have to survive here," Crane shook his head.

"Please... If you buy me snacks, I will not tease Cath for two days," Chris pleaded.

"Sigh... alright. Pinky promise me," he raised his little finger, and Chris quickly grabbed it with his own little finger.

"Pinky promise me too, or I will steal your snacks," Catherine interjected.

The promise ritual had been their habit since they were little, and it was strange for them to make a promise without interlocking their little fingers as a gesture.

"What about our lodging? Should we stay near the South End where only old people live, or should we stay near the north? It's full of schools and universities, so all the young people will be there. There should also be a lot of entertainment places targetting those young people," Catherine pondered.

"Staying in the south is beneficial since old people tend to like talking. We can get information easily, but we'd stand out too much since old people like gossiping too. In the north, on the contrary, we'd be just another person in the crown since they said it's a very busy area. The center is out of the question since that's where the government buildings are." Crane suggested.

"What about the east? They said there is the ocean, so it's a famous tourist spot. We can easily pretend to be tourists," Chris said excitedly.

"But they also said rent there is pretty high, so I would not even consider living there," Crane shook his head.

"The west then. It's a lawless area practically based on their description. It's the farthest area from the center, and development hasn't really reached there. Even the slum is located in the west, so rent should be dirt cheap," Chris half-joked.

"Actually that's my number one option. I would never live in such an area if I had a daughter, but our Catherine can protect herself. It's also an area with the most population, so it will be easy to lay low. Crime rate is high, but we should be fine," Crane nodded with sparkling eyes and looked at his brother, "and the most important part is, as you said, rent is dirt cheap."

They arrived at the convenience store that the ladies mentioned, and according to them, it was a famous brand in Vieste. They were practically located almost everywhere in the north and east, albeit more sparse in the south and west. It was a medium-sized convenience store by the name of Viestiazza.

Ring Ring...

The sound of the tiny bell ringing welcomed them to the store, along with the curious stare of the store patrons. At this point, the siblings were used to it, so they no longer paid attention.

"Welcome to Viestiazza. If we don't have it, no one does!" greeted a friendly-looking cashier lady shouting their store's slogan.

"That's a pretty ambitious catchphrase they're using," Chris whispered.

They split up and began looking at the aisle that caught their attention the most. 

Chris went towards where the snacks were, Catherine headed to the book corner, while Crane went over to the perishable goods section.

"A kilogram of potatoes is 12 pennings. I don't know how much that is... The money we have says Guilder on it..." Crane muttered, "It's better not to buy these at the moment. They're not practical to carry around. For now, we should focus on finding a place to live, but I should still note the prices of basic ingredients."

With his supernaturally enhanced intelligence, it was easy for Crane to memorize the prices of items he saw.

"These might be on the more expensive side since this is a convenience store. We should try to buy our basic needs at a farmer's market," he noted. He then walked away with Felix the puppet following him closely behind.

In the meantime, Chris had picked a bar of dark chocolate, a bag of potato chips, and some biscuits. All of them were packed in cardboard boxes, so he could easily stack them up.

Catherine was reading magazines in the corner without intending to buy them. She just quickly looked at the headlines and stored the information in her brain.

"Craane, I'm done!" Chris shouted as he walked towards the cashier.

The young woman smiled at him.

"Are you guys tourists? Welcome to Vieste! Is this everything?"

"Yes. Wait, my brother will pay," Chris replied cheekily.

The young woman started checking the prices of the item on her register book, before adding them all up.

"The total would be 16 Pennings, or 1 Stuiver, sir."

Crane went to the cashier and carefully took out a bill from the envelope after making sure no one was watching. He then handed the money to the young woman.

"Your snacks are worth more than a kilogram of potatoes," Crane whispered to Chris, who just grinned innocently.

"Your bill is 1 Guilder, correct?" she said as if announcing to everyone. That seemed to be a way to avoid false claims from customers, "here's your change, 19 Stuivers."

The cashier woman handed them a stack of green money bills, each of which had a picture of a fat nobleman wearing a regal wig.

"Thanks!" Crane said politely as he took the money, before stuffing it in his pocket. Crane then looked at where Catherine was standing and gave a gesture with his head that meant they were leaving.

"Any time! Come back again!" shouted the cashier lady as they left the store.

The siblings left the store and continued making their way east.

"I still don't know how the money system here works, but it appears that 1 Guilder is a lot of money," Crane said, "A bag of potatoes is less than a Stuiver, so that means, we can buy at least 20 kilograms of potatoes with 1 Guilder,"

"We're rich then!" said Chris, opening the box of potato chips.

"We can survive, yes, but we're in no way rich. We have a total of 19 Guilders and 19 Stuivers now, so it should last us a few months probably after we find a place to rent."

"Urgh, why didn't the chest contain more money...." Chris rolled his eyes jokingly.

"Maybe too much money would attract attention more easily. I won't be surprised if there is a Votary with the ability to detect wealth," Catherine answered.

The siblings crossed the street carefully and walked into a tram stop, which looked like a simple glass box with a solid roof. The small box was open on the side where the tram passed so that passengers could get in easily, and there was a mechanical ticket box where passengers could buy their tickets.

According to the old ladies, each of the City's Ends was too far to walk to, so they had to get a tram or a cab.

"5 Pennings per ride per person, and it doesn't mention distance," Crane read the sign above the mechanical ticket box, "So it's 5 Pennings to go to anywhere in the city. Not sure if that's cheap or expensive," he rubbed his chin.

Taking out one Stuiver bill, Crane put it inside the bigger one of the slots in the ticket box. He remembered that the cashier mentioned that 1 Stuiver equaled 16 Pennings, so it should be enough money for the three of them. After that, he pressed the button that was labeled 'number of tickets' three times.

The paper money was sucked into the slot like someone inside was taking it. At the same time, there was the sound of gears turning and after that, 1 copper coin was dropped into a smaller box attached to the ticket box. 

Clank!

Crane quickly grabbed the coin and took a look at it.

"So this is one Penning," he showed it to his siblings, "It's safe to say that this is the smallest denomination."

"Can I keep it?" Chris asked.

"Nope. This goes into our future funds," Crane shook his head.

Along with the coin, three tickets also came out of the top part of the mechanical box. The ticket was made of thick paper, and it displayed the tram passing by a field of colorful flowers.

"We've got our tickets. Let's wait for the tram," he said.