"If someone greets you, warmly embrace them. If it's a woman, compliment her looks. If an unexpected situation arises, just laugh it off and say, 'What a nice day it is today...'"
Charlotte Mecklenburg kept encouraging himself, trying to appear calm and composed, unhurried.
About ten days ago, Charlotte Mecklenburg was still called Huang Haisheng, a high school math teacher from Earth with a standard university education.
He doesn't know how he "died."
In the last moments of that life, his consciousness was hazy, with no memory at all. When he woke up, Huang Haisheng had become Charlotte Mecklenburg, a civil servant of the empire on vacation.
Charlotte Mecklenburg works in the Central Government Office, holding the position of a Grade 1 Clerk, ranking forty-first in the empire's bureaucratic system, responsible for some clerical tasks.
The country he works hard for and receives a salary from is called the Faris Empire!
A powerful nation that Huang Haisheng had never heard of in his memory.
Charlotte Mecklenburg is a native of the Old Continent, born in the Duchy of Behemoth (note: a vassal state of the Faris Empire). After growing up, he came to the empire to study, and after graduating, he successfully secured a well-paid job in the capital, Strasbourg.
In the first few days after transmigrating, he was very panicked, and anyone would be unable to stay calm in such a situation.
Fortunately...
At that time, Charlotte Mecklenburg was on vacation.
He rented a small house by the seaside in Saines, alone, with neighbors who were all strangers, giving him enough time and space to calm down.
Huang Haisheng quickly figured out that taking over Charlotte Mecklenburg's identity and living life as usual was his best option.
Upon transmigrating, he inherited most of 'Charlotte Mecklenburg's' memories and acquired some ancient knowledge, allowing him to blend perfectly into this fantasy world with a classic European style.
Yes, this is a fantasy world.
There are gods, magical creatures, forbidden ancient artifacts, giants, shamans, vampires, magic, battle qi, alchemy, and even superhumans and extraordinary items.
This world is ruled by nine deities.
In an indescribable ancient era, the nine deities formed a sacred covenant, the 'Divine Law,' which stipulated that the nine deities would take turns ruling the world, each for a hundred years, and this period is known as an era.
It is now the thirty-fifth year of Lady Black Moon's rule, and the fifth era of the Faris Empire's existence.
Charlotte Mecklenburg stepped into the government office, wearing a composed smile, greeting everyone he saw with a gentle hello.
Everyone who passed by seemed rather vague; the original owner of this body had too few memories of most of his colleagues' appearances, making it impossible for him to recognize anyone.
It's like how, even though we can recognize most of our acquaintances on sight, we struggle to imagine their faces when we're alone—a small flaw in human memory.
He made his way to the office he remembered, where he shared the space with more than twenty other clerks. Though it wasn't a private office, it was far better than working in the main hall with other colleagues.
As soon as he opened the door, he heard a stern middle-aged woman say, "Mr. Mecklenburg, you will have a special assignment for the next few days."
Charlotte smiled slightly, piecing together the speaker's image from his memories.
This middle-aged woman was his immediate superior, Mrs. Aldegonde, a strict and authoritative senior government official.
"Yes, Mrs. Aldegonde. I will do my best to complete the task."
Mrs. Aldegonde was slightly surprised. She had expected Charlotte Mecklenburg to refuse; the task was notoriously difficult, and almost no one was willing to take it on.
"However, since Charlotte had already agreed, she wouldn't make things more complicated. She said calmly, 'Take this identification proof to Kilmainham Prison; someone will assign you your next task.'
'Here's one écu as a supplement for your temporary work.'
Charlotte smiled slightly as he accepted the envelope from Mrs. Aldegonde and searched his memory, quickly recalling the details about the empire's currency.
The empire has three currency units: écu, florin, and centime.
One écu equals ten florins, and one florin equals one hundred centimes.
In the empire's language, écu means shield, and there are one-écu and five-écu denominations, minted in gold and highly valuable. Nowadays, only the wealthy and high nobility possess a large number of écus, and they have become collectibles, rarely circulating in the market; hardly anyone would spend them.
Florin originally was a weight unit for currency, equivalent to one pound of silver. In the third era, it was minted as silver coins, which the imperial citizens referred to as 'old florins.' In the fourth era, paper money of equivalent value was issued, called 'new florins,' in denominations of one, five, ten, twenty, and fifty. Since the switch to paper money, the silver-minted florins, like the écus, have become rare in circulation and have effectively been withdrawn from use. One florin has roughly the purchasing power of 1,800 to 1,900 RMB.
Centimes come in denominations of one, five, ten, twenty, and fifty, and are the only coins still widely circulated.
One écu is considered a very generous extra compensation for an assignment, equivalent to about a month and a half of Charlotte's salary.
Indeed, as a Grade 1 Clerk of the empire, Charlotte is a highly paid individual with a weekly salary of one florin and seventy centimes, and he even enjoys annual vacations.
Apart from the fact that his tenure is too short to have accumulated much savings to buy a house and must rent, he is considered a standout among the empire's young people.
This is also why, at social gatherings, girls would flirt with him—Charlotte Mecklenburg is an excellent man in the empire, with a promising future.
Mrs. Aldegonde, a strict and laconic person, returned to her desk after giving the task.
Charlotte turned and left the office, exited the government office building, and casually hailed a public carriage on the street. The coachman waited for Charlotte to board before setting the horse into a trot.
Sitting in the carriage, Charlotte experienced the bumps of this ancient mode of transport while opening the envelope to find a ten-florin banknote and an official introduction letter.
The empire did not issue any banknotes in any écu denomination; there were no one-écu or five-écu banknotes—écus only existed as gold coins.
For these reasons, the empire had a custom that puzzled transmigrators: they habitually referred to a ten-florin banknote as one écu!
Charlotte placed the ten-florin note in his wallet, tucked the introduction letter into his coat pocket, crumpled the envelope, and casually tossed it out of the carriage, landing it perfectly in a street corner trash can—his accuracy was impressive.
His Majesty Julius, the empire's sixth emperor, had a natural aversion to filth. He could no longer tolerate the ubiquitous stagnant water and piles of garbage in the city, so he pushed for a municipal project to install trash cans. However, the emperor also found there were some things even he couldn't accomplish—the project was not fully successful, and only the Val-de-Vaz District retained the trash cans.
Val-de-Vaz District houses the palace, the Central Government Office, the nine major temples, and the four most prestigious universities.
These high-ranking nobles also preferred to enjoy a clean living environment.
As for the other districts, they let the wind take care of it."