(Klaus's Pov)
After my father accepted my proposal, I was handed forty thousand gold. When the gold landed in my hands I had a feeling that this was never a loan from my father. I wanted out of the competition, so I think it was compensation for me but at the same time, my father didn't want me to waste the money.
Forty thousand gold is a lot of money.
A gold coin equates to a hundred silver coins and one silver coin equates to hundred copper coins. This world's currency follows the exact exchange rate trend of fantasy novel worlds.
The difference may be the platinum coin which equates to a million gold.
Usually, platinum coins were used by prominent nobles like dukes, archdukes, and the emperor. They were also used by large commerce chambers which do a lot of overseas trade. They are only exchanged in capital or trade cities where there are a lot of trade exchanges.
A normal family of four can have three meals a day for an entire year at the cost of ten silver coins. With forty thousand gold, I can live a life of luxury for a long time but that was not what I had in mind.
When I first thought to start a business, I was expecting a lot less amount of gold. Once I gain profits I intended to expand my restaurants to other cities and major towns in the archduchy and later the empire.
Now with this amount, I changed my plans a little, no a lot of changes happened in my plan.
I revised my plan to establish two restaurants, one for common people and the other for nobles and merchants.
The one for commoners should be near markets and where ordinary families live.
This one provides different varieties of food at a lower cost and better quality compared to other food restaurants. As it is cheap, there would be no privacy. Tables are placed near to each other, providing only a path to walk. There is also no monster meat available here as it would cost more.
Compared to the one in commoner's grounds, the one in the business area would be costly. High-quality monster meat would be available here and also a lot of privacy. This would ensure that customers can talk shop while having food without worrying about any eavesdropping.
My design for the restaurants is almost the same. The business would only be conducted on the ground floor and first floor. Each floor would have a kitchen that serves people on the floor. The second floor is for the management of the restaurant. A basement to store supplies required for the kitchen.
Along with the restaurant business, I pushed some more plans forward. This includes the production of products like wine, salt, sugar, and honey.
I mean there is salt production but only confined to salt mines. I checked and saw that there is no salt production from seawater. The development progress of each civilization for sure would be different.
As salt mines are few, the cost is high. I can cash on it as much as I can before deflating the prices. There are also no true sweets. People consider fruits that taste sweet as sweets. With that fruit wines are also considered luxury.
For poor people, there is ale. Sweets are luxury, so they can't taste them.
I intended to introduce them but not in a way that everyone can afford them. Many reincarnators think that everyone should follow the rules of the modern world. So they introduce items from the modern world in the medieval world without thinking about consequences.
Yes, I don't oppose the notion that people should have access to education, good food, medical care, and other things but introducing them without buffer would cause a lot of problems in the long run.
For example, many medieval fantasy worlds would have slavery.
When reincarnators enter such a world, they advocate abolishing slavery without thinking.
Any kingdom or empire would have a lot of slaves, who are usually used as cheap labor. Suddenly abolishing slavery would cause the kingdom or empire to have excess people which they can't provide. The slaves would also lose their livelihood.
The owners would throw most of them away as they wouldn't want to waste their money. The slaves would eventually die of hunger or become bandits which would only cause unrest in the kingdom.
Unrest wouldn't trouble nobles as much as it would the commoners. They are the ones who die in large numbers in such situations.
So one should always pay attention to their actions.
One can't change a world within a short time and shouldn't. Change should always be spread over time and should come from within. If exterior forces play too much of a role in such changes only disaster awaits.
I intended to change this world for the better but I planned to do so over an extended time.
For I intended to introduce different foods. These are not only better in quality but also much healthier than what they consumed before (for most people).
I don't intend to break the noble and commoner status or norms. A noble is needed to lead a region. Even if I want that to happen it is impossible. They exist even in the modern world with new names.
I planned to introduce food items with quality. These would be the food that nobles intake. As time passes more items with better quality enter the menu of nobles. The old items would go to commoner plates.
I plan to establish my food enterprise before my dreaded date would come.