Three days had passed since their meeting, they slept in shifts to catch up, sometimes ate together, and Gloria, a strong and capable girl who always remained cheerful, gave Rhea peace of mind.
Gloria's statement that she was an alchemist's apprentice turned out to be true, and she helped Rhea clean tannins for tanned leather in an empty room, as well as finish all 30 wolf skins.
Then they sewed together a new outfit for Gloria and added a hood to Rhea's shawl to hide her silver hair.
Thus, there are only 27 primary-colored skins that have already been processed.
The price for 27 tanned skins was significantly higher than for 3 lost furs, since the process of tanning leather often required contact with toxic substances, and most tanners were short-lived, so the cost of processing fur into leather was high, usually 5 silver coins apiece for such a craft.
This processing, of course, is the fee that the retailer charges the seller for processing, and the fur traders themselves would never rip themselves off with exorbitant prices.
In general, the price of a mountain wolf skin ranges between 7 and 15 silver coins, depending on the degree of completeness, and the price of the finished skin is only 3 silver coins more than the skins.
Even the skin was less prone to rotting even in the rain, which, in fact, reduced the hidden cost of the sudden downpour that caused Rhea to lose so much money.
As a result, Rhea and Gloria were getting closer and closer.
Gloria, however, still insisted that it was just a human duty to hitchhike, refused Ray's offer of part of the money and said such meaningless things as that she would leave when she got to Karafrog.
Ignoring the small emotions of the stubborn girl, Rhea happily squeezed herself into the tiny driver's seat with her, unhurriedly driving the carriage and seeing off the passing merchants with surprised glances - if there was a Fente instead of Rhea now, it would have completed the job.
After all, in four years of working as a merchant, Fente had not met a single female merchant.
In the end, even if the security situation improved, it was still quite dangerous for girls to be alone, so female traffickers were almost a myth.
If you wanted to meet a girl, you had to go to a brothel and pay a lot of money for an emotionless relationship.
Therefore, although single itinerant merchants (and even some married ones) liked to go to a brothel, Fente had never been there.
Now Rhea was even tempted to take off her hood and sing a song in the crowd in memory of meeting Gloria.
As for whether she will be recognized as the infamous witch sucking gold?
You're kidding, but the image of a witch sucking money has always been the image of an empty-handed master who pours drinks in taverns and then runs away with the money, so how can she be a serious businessman with a carriage?
Not to mention that his trademark silver hair is hidden!
No sooner did the traveling merchants take their eyes off the beauty of these two, than they saw the goods in the bucket again.
The leather, piled all over the bunker, is not less than one hundred and fifty pieces in volume....
When I first saw the leather cart, I swallowed hard and calculated the price of one hundred and fifty pieces of leather with my fingers, whether it was a traveling merchant who had just started doing business and still communicated with the village community with a pair of flying legs, or a traveling merchant who also had a cart.
The wealth Fente had accumulated over the past four years was already at the top of a bunch of itinerant merchants, but it was still pennies compared to large, serious chambers of commerce.
Of course, the furs were just a blindfold, the skin was only twenty-seven stripes, the rest was all the golden autumn apples that sounded in the Caraflog - the name was taken by the Chamber of Commerce, which bought apples without permission.
Three hundred kilograms of apples cost 7 silver coins per kilogram, and with a weight of 150-200 grams per apple, there are almost 5-6 apples per kilogram, if you take an average of 5.5 apples, then each apple will be sold to a merchant for 2 silver coins and 10 copper coins, which gives a profit of 6 silver coins and 15 copper coins per kilogram, which is still a conservative estimate.
On the other hand, three hundred kilograms of apples will bring a net profit of 2,025 silver coins, which translates to more than 101 gold coins.
The standard coin system in this world is 20 to 1, that is, 20 copper coins are equal to 1 silver coin, and 20 silver coins are equal to 1 gold coin.
But even if they are both silver and gold coins, the purchasing power of silver coins issued by different mints will certainly be different.
In most cases, the specific value of the currency was determined in accordance with the decision of the World Coinage Conference, which was held every four years. This conference was held under the leadership of the church, and the mint of each lord, king and Chamber of Commerce presented the coins produced and set the value of the currency issued by this mint in accordance with the content of gold and silver and other elements.
The copper coin, which is the main equivalent, is issued by only one mint - Van Millio Vault Mint.
At first glance, the Wang Millio family seems to be very influential, but in fact it is not.
Initially, all the coin houses were capable of producing copper coins, but the Wang Millio family, being the most old-fashioned and elegant of the witch families, was quite restrained and was the most marginal in the Coin Union.
They never made any small movements and issued their coins according to the League's instructions, not one more, not one less, without changing the copper content.
Other members of the Mint believed that the Wang Millio family was simply an uncontested mint, and that forging copper coins was a minor benefit to other lords and gentlemen.
While they were fighting over the value of gold and silver coins, the Wang Millio vault completely dominated the copper market and became the only mint in the Mint Union with the right to produce copper coins.
And when the market was completely dominated, a tasteless operation came.
The Van Millio Mint stopped issuing "bronze" coins, and each time its representatives presented identical bearer bonds to the Mint, claiming that they were bronze coins.
As a result of the long-term issue, about 90% of the "copper coins" currently in circulation belong to the treasury of Wang Millio, so the introduction of new coins now would lead to economic chaos.
In the end, the situation turned into a "piece of paper - a copper coin", and other piggies were left to regret the loss of this lucrative opportunity.
The reason to devote so much space to coins and the system, of course, is that the quadrennial congress of coiners will begin soon.
If the silver coin, which currently costs only 12 kopecks, will be valued at 18 kopecks when the mint decides to increase the silver content during this meeting.
Then even if the silver coin of the mint was issued before the conference, it will be monetized to 18 copper.
Generally speaking, the safest thing to do at such a moment is to exchange all the money for copper coins from the Van Meeuwen vault, because copper coins are the smallest "unit", and there is no possibility of changing the value.
However, if all the silver coins were bought for 12 coppers, and their price rose to 18 coppers, the merchant's fortune would easily be halved.
There was still a month left before the coiners' congress, so now is the time for speculation.
Ria looked at her ledger, her mind as active as ever.
If everything works out, it will be a step forward, not to mention the worst plot, just buy me a whole row of shops on the central shopping street!
If I lose ..., I can turn into a beautiful girl and cast a spell on a rich, lonely and childless old grandfather!
If Grandpa is happy, I'm happy too!
No, what's the difference between that and coming home to inherit the family business?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!
The two share memories with each other, and are even "definitely the same person in terms of fate," but there is also a significant difference in personality, abilities and way of thinking.
Having settled on her brain prone to drift, Rhea felt that she should find an opportunity to switch back to Fante and let his good brain think calmly for a while.
But, alas, Rhea did not want to let Gloria go a step, and she did not find time for it, so she had to take the pen for herself without disturbing old Fente.
Apples and leather were bought for 130 gold with interest, and if they were all sold, they would probably get about 250 gold, that is, the net profit would be a little more than 110 gold, plus 2,100 gold that Fente and Rhea saved over four years of working together, one for the pits, the other for scams.
There were still six months, six months and seven days left before the deadline agreed with my mother, but 1200 gold pieces were still missing before the store opened, and in this situation they would definitely not be enough.
Desperate measures had to be taken.
The maturity date of the apples will come after the new decree of the Coin Assembly, so ... if everything is done correctly, it will mean that Rhea will have 2340 gold coins to buy a large number of silver coins, which will double in price, and then everyone will be happy, 2340 will turn into 3510 in a matter of seconds, and not only will she have enough for the store, but she will also have 80 gold left to open the store! ...
I'm not a traveling merchant, as long as I haven't speculated in coins at least once!