Crossing fates

First quest?

-Ahri point of view-

We were going out of the city hall, our little talk with the director ended at a really late hour, the moon was already on the sky, just to make things worse, we don't have any money, even if we received a map of the city, with enough indications to let a newcomer know where is every kind of store, restaurant, hotel and so.

But without money we had zero possibilities of use any kind of service on the city. While I was thinking on a way to make money at least for the night, Horace, who was still with us made an offer.

Horace: I imagine you don't have any money, right?

Me: Yes, we are on a little predicament here.

Horace: Well, my house is a little big, so maybe I could give you shelter for the night.

Me: Oh my, I couldn't accept that, I don't want to importunate you and your wife.

Adelyn: Don't worry, the house feels pretty empty after all, since our daughter leaved to be a royal guard.

Weiss: I don't want to be the negative here but, we are eight persons and a little animal, are you sure your house would be big enough?

Horace: Well, the old room of our daughter could be used by the little Marie, but the rest would have to sleep on the sofa or the ground.

Blake: Is not necessary, really, we don't want to be a burden to you.

Adelyn: Nonsense, we can't let such nice people to sleep on the streets.

I was still thinking on a way to make money, I really don't want to be a burden on the Herdian's house, while I was looking around searching for an idea I noticed something.

Me: Wait, where is Assy?

Ruby: Huh? Wait, he's gone!

Yang: When did he vanished?

Horace: Isn't he over there?

Horace pointed behind us, he was a couple of streets away, looking to a little building, we got closer to him and heard the one-sided conversation that was happening.

???: So, you say you know where to get peach mushrooms? If that's true, I can pay you 1 platinum coin for each one.

When I heard this my eyes widened, I could tell some of the others had their jaws almost on the ground by hearing this. To make things clear, this world, Serath, had a quite simple monetary system, based on different coins used on all the governments of the world.

It was simple, they used different coins made of different materials which gave them certain value; the bottom of the coins was the lapis lazuli, if you needed to give it a value to it, it would be just 1 unit. The next coin was the copper one, with a value of 5; the next was the silver, with value of 20; then gold, with value of 100; and at the top was the most valuable coin, the platinum one, which by the way had a value of 1000. It was a simple and easy to learn system.

For example, an apple usually cost around 2 lapis coins, while a normal meal would cost you around 4 copper or 1 silver. Other things like clothes would be variable depending on who made them, or the materials used on them. But the standard could be bought by some silver coins.

Returning to the actual situation, we just hear that Asriel could receive a platinum coin for each of something, seeing how everybody was dead quiet, I decided to step in.

Me: May I ask what are you gentleman talking about?

???: Hmmm? Oh, you see, I was closing the restaurant, complaining about a little problem here. You'll see, my restaurant is one of the biggest and most refined establishments on the city, we are especially proud of our peach mushroom soup, this mushroom is almost impossible to obtain, since is one of the weirdest mushrooms on the world, and its just the most exquisite ingredient on the world. The normal price for each mushroom is actually what you heard, a platinum coin each one. They are basically the most expensive ingredients in the world too. The meal cost 3 platinum coins so it's not much requested, but we normally are able to sell at least one each three months, also our inventory is really small so it's not easy to prepare.