Chapter 41 - 40: Living is Not Easy

Chapter 41: Chapter 40: Living is Not Easy

After leaving the Magic Pharmacy, Gaode hurried about the commercial district to purchase consumable ingredients for concocting Magic Potions, such as honey water.

These supplementary materials were not expensive, totaling less than three Silver Coins. The main issue was that buying them was a tedious and time-consuming process. The most troublesome part was that in this world’s currency system, the lowest denomination—the Round Copper Coin—had an actual purchasing power roughly equivalent to four dollars and twenty cents in Gaode’s previous life.

It was simply too large of a denomination!

In daily life, such an imprecise and hefty minimum currency unit caused a lot of inconvenience. To adapt to daily trading needs, the people of the Sean Duchy had invented a workaround: directly cutting the Round Copper Coins in half for smaller transactions. Since this practice led to currency depreciation, it was officially banned by Sean authorities. However, because it was so widespread, it had gradually become an accepted, unspoken rule.

These halved coins were called Half-Round Copper Coins, with a purchasing power roughly equivalent to two dollars. Their introduction greatly improved the convenience of daily transactions, but it was still not precise enough. At times like this, people had to rely on rounding up or breaking down accounting units for batch settlements.

Like right now, for instance.

"Rye bread is one and a half Round Copper Coins per pound, and wheat bread is four Copper Coins per pound!" a bakery clerk shouted in a rhythmic, chanting tone.

The bread in this world—especially the rye bread—was much denser and sturdier than the bread Gaode was familiar with. In scientific terms, it had an extremely high fiber content, making it much more filling. A single pound (about 450 grams) of rye bread was enough to feed an adult for roughly two days, or the apprentices in the Medicinal Garden for two and a half days.

For eight people, it would take about three pounds of rye bread a day. Since bread-making technology in this era was relatively primitive and lacked modern chemical preservatives, its shelf life was quite short; it would become hard, stale, and spoiled after just about a week. Therefore, buying a six-day supply was the most practical choice—eighteen pounds of dark rye bread.

Gaode couldn’t help but glance again at the wheat bread, which was much whiter, softer, and bore an overall light golden hue compared to the rye. He took a deep sniff of its aroma—a heavenly blend of wheat, caramel, and a faint smokiness—but ultimately turned his head away with determination.

"Give me eighteen pounds of rye bread," he told the clerk.

The taste and texture of wheat bread were undoubtedly far superior to rye bread. Naturally, the price was also much higher. This was because wheat required stricter growing conditions, preferring warm and fertile soil. Moreover, its yield per unit area wasn’t as stable as rye or barley. As a processed product, wheat bread cost more than twice as much as rye bread and was mainly consumed by wealthy merchants and upper-class farmers. In contrast, rye bread was the daily staple for the vast majority of commoners.

To be honest, it wasn’t like Gaode couldn’t afford wheat bread right now. The problem was that, with the moral compass instilled in him by his modern education, he couldn’t bring himself to practice such blatant favoritism just yet.

The current output of the Medicinal Garden was the result of everyone’s collective effort. Even though he was the main driving force, he felt too guilty to enjoy wheat bread all by himself while leaving the other apprentices to chew on rye. He wouldn’t be able to drop this moral baggage unless he was spending his own private funds. But if he changed everyone’s staple food from rye to wheat bread, the daily expenses for food alone would drastically increase.

Gaode subconsciously began doing the mental math.

"Four minus one point five, multiplied by three, is seven point five Copper Coins. Over a year, multiplying by three hundred and sixty, that equals two thousand seven hundred Round Copper Coins," he muttered to himself. "Converted to Silver Coins, that’s two hundred and twenty-five. Converted to Sean Gold Coins... Non-decimal currency systems really are anti-human..."

While grumbling about this absurd currency system, Gaode arrived at the final answer: eleven Gold Coins and five Silver Coins. And that was just the extra cost for the staple food.

If the standard of the staple food went up, everything else would naturally have to follow suit. Just like during a famine, everyone ate coarse bread and pickled vegetables. When times got better and people could afford white rice, the side dishes had to be upgraded as well—you couldn’t just keep eating pickles with it, right? It was the exact same logic.

"Hmm... the ’team’ is still in its startup phase, so we have to rough it for now," Gaode told himself, nodding as if affirming a solemn truth.

"Eighteen pounds of rye bread comes to twenty-seven Copper Coins!" the clerk calculated rapidly while deftly stuffing all thirty-six loaves of rye bread into paper bags.

Gaode carefully fished two Silver Coins and three Round Copper Coins—change from his earlier Magic Potion ingredient purchases—out of his pocket. He handed them to the clerk and accepted the paper bags filled with bread.

Eighteen pounds of bread was roughly eight kilograms. The weight wasn’t excessively heavy, but the thought of lugging an eight-kilogram load on an hour-long walk back to the Medicinal Garden made Gaode—who was visibly frail from prolonged malnutrition—feel a headache coming on.

The task of buying food had previously been assigned to the two older apprentices in the Medicinal Garden. With two people sharing the burden, this amount of weight was nothing.

Gaode made a luxurious decision. "I’ll take a carriage back."

Since he had decided to hire a ride, he no longer needed to worry about the heavy load. After leaving the bakery, Gaode headed toward the "Pea and Lamb" market, just one street away from the commercial district. In Gaode’s understanding, it was simply a farmers’ market. It was filled with many crude stalls mostly run by local farmers selling their own crops, interspersed with a few permanent storefronts.

Here, Gaode first spent one Silver Coin on two pounds of the cheapest pork, then bought a six-day supply of tender peas, turnips, potatoes, and cabbage. These were all easily preservable vegetables. By intentionally rounding out his purchases, he spent exactly another three Silver Coins.

Carrying bags big and small, Gaode stood at the intersection for just a moment before a sharp-eyed carriage driver spotted him. Deducing that Gaode was highly likely a potential customer, the driver steered his two-wheeled carriage over and stopped right in front of him.

There were two types of carriages in the city: four-wheeled enclosed carriages and two-wheeled light carriages like the one before him. The two-wheeled carriages featured an open design with no roof, just a low rim of sideboards surrounding the seats. This made them relatively lightweight and much faster on the road.

Wearing a distinctive cap and holding the reins, the driver greeted him enthusiastically. "Do you need a ride, sir? My horse is the sturdiest and the fastest!"

"How much to the Seda Medicinal Garden?" Gaode asked.

The Medicinal Garden had always been named after Mage Seda. After years of operation, it had garnered a bit of a reputation in Hogan City—at least, it wasn’t an unfamiliar destination for drivers who knew the city like the back of their hands.

"The starting fare is seven Copper Coins for the first two kilometers. After that, it’s three Copper Coins per kilometer in the city, and six Copper Coins per kilometer in the suburbs. From here to the Seda Medicinal Garden, taking the main road is a bit over five kilometers. The last kilometer is in the suburbs, so that makes it nineteen Copper Coins," the driver swiftly calculated.

If he were walking, the distance from the Medicinal Garden to here was actually only four kilometers. However, carriages couldn’t navigate certain narrow paths and had to detour, which lengthened the trip.

"Alright, let’s go." Gaode took two Silver Coins from his pocket and handed them over.

Taking the five Round Copper Coins in change, Gaode climbed into the carriage. It had two seats facing each other, comfortably accommodating two adults. Beneath the seats was the Storage Space. Gaode carefully stowed his purchases inside. Once he was seated securely, the driver flicked the reins and cracked the whip, setting the carriage into motion.

"I only have one Silver Coin and five Copper Coins left on me. It really is a case of ’earn money in the city, spend it in the city; don’t even think about taking a single coin home’... City living doesn’t come cheap!" Gaode lamented inwardly while enjoying the breezy carriage ride.