After hearing that, Shiro asked the system in his mind.
'How much is the actual cost of sleeping powder?'
The older sister had said that selling 1 kilogram of sleeping powder only earned them 1 gold coin.
If the girls used all the herbs in the small farmyard to make the sleeping powder, it wouldn't even come close to 100 grams.
The herbs should grow quite fast. Every month, the yard would be filled with fresh herbs.
However, since it was only a small farmyard, then the girls would have to wait for 10 months in order to get 1 kilogram of powder.
After all that hard work, they would only have 1 gold coin as a profit after a total of 10 months!
Shiro thought that this was impossible and it was definitely too much work.
The amount of work those girls put in should not be paid a small amount only. Something just didn't seem right.
The currency system in this world includes three prevalent coins; bronze, silver, and gold.
Every deal among the traders was universally done using gold coins only, but the lowest rate could still be discussed in bronze coins.
100 bronze coins = 1 silver coin
10 silver coins = 1 gold coin
To spend an entire day lavishly, which included three meals a day for a person, would require at least a single silver coin.
[Host, the market value for 20 grams of sleeping powder is 1 gold coin.]
[As for 1000 grams or 1 kilogram of sleeping powder, the market value would be 50 gold coins.]
Shiro realized those girls were scammed by the traders wherever they sold their sleeping powder.
The people must have thought that these two girls were gullible and naive. So none of them bothered telling them about the actual price of this precious sleeping powder.
Instead, they took advantage of the girls' naivety and charged the sleeping powder at the minimum cost.
Shiro wanted to reveal this information to the girls, but as he thought further, he realized that this would bring a lot of problems to the girls.
Not only would they be hunted by those scammers, but the small farm yard might also be hunted by a lot of people.
If they asked the scammers for the fund that they had scammed off of them, then they might just hire someone to hurt them.
If they asked other adults for help, they would ask for unreasonable prices for their bits of help.
Considering the girls' naivety, their only source of income would be easily swindled by others.
'For the time being, I'll keep this information exclusively to myself…', Shiro thought.
With 1 gold coin, an individual would be able to eat for only 3 days.
That is if it were a normal person who had a normal lifestyle.
If Shiro was not mistaken, this family consisted of 4 people, including the sick mother and the father who likes to gamble.
"Father also borrowed money from others. We need a lot of money to pay back the debt…", the older sister groaned as the little girl pouted.
After hearing that additional information, Shiro felt nothing but pity towards these girls. With that addition, it was a surprise that this family had managed to live for this long.
'No wonder these girls sounded mature for their age…', Shiro thought to himself.
Even at a young age, Shiro was forced to be mature due to what had happened recently.
Moreover, he had also spent some time in the system training space, which made him mature a bit more.
However, he still had a wonderful childhood, with a loving mother and sister who cared for him more than the world.
Even though they were poor, Shiro enjoyed his previous life with his family very much.
Shiro wanted to help these girls out. He thought long and hard before thinking of a good solution.
'I have 200 gold coins. I can give it to them, right?", Shiro asked himself, thinking, the gold coins wouldn't actually come in much handy since he could just complete missions and earn many more gold coins.
However, just as he asked himself, a system notification popped up.
[The system advises the host to not spend when there is nothing to gain.]
Shiro frowned.
'Who says there was nothing to gain? I would be able to see these girls smile. I bet they haven't smiled in a long time. With my help, they would be living a good life for quite some time.'
[Just giving them money won't solve anything, host.]
[They would encounter more problems instead.]
[By that time, you wouldn't be here to help solve them.]
After that notification, Shiro realized that indeed, his decision seemed a bit weird.
These girls' father would probably just wander away with the coins and gamble till he loses all the money again.
Their mother would remain sick without any medication and may end up dying.
Those girls might starve to death with their measly income from selling the sleeping powder.
Shiro pondered for a while before arriving at a conclusion.
'I'll reveal to them that they have been scammed. That way, they would be able to earn more coins themselves if they report it to the local officer…', Shiro thought to himself again.
However, he had a huge obstacle to overcome.
He didn't have the power to solve the case. He couldn't possibly barge towards the scammer and ask for the coins back for the girls. He couldn't take the help of the officers either since he was on the wanted list.
Furthermore, the girls would hardly believe him, after all, they had his wanted poster too!
No one would take him seriously since he was still young.
Shiro might be taken as a lunatic who was there to cause chaos to the business!
Even if he had somehow managed to convince other people that the girls were being scammed this whole time, the scammer could hire others to take revenge on him, and then continue scamming those girls with a lower value instead.
Then there would be no point in helping those girls if he were to be pushed back to square one.
Shiro sighed as he tried to think of another solution again.
Just as he thought about it, the system displayed the main mission. Shiro listened to the notification given by the system carefully.
*Ding*
[…]