The wagon was a noisy monstrosity with two overgrown wheels in the front. Its brown body looked to be made out of wood or some other lackluster brown material. The wagon itself was filled to the brim with ore of various dark shades.

I had no clue what that meant for the quality of the ore itself, just that guarding it would net me fifty drops…which was about…shit.

“Old man, how much am I being paid again?”

The old man seated by my side gave me a glance as he fixed his gaze on the reins in his hands. The pair of dark brown horses that pulled the wagon appeared to be sturdy enough, I couldn’t tell much else about them since I wasn’t really familiar with the quality of horse breeds.

“You’re being paid fifty drops to help guard my hall. There’s a lot of ore seeing as the miners worked double time to scrap up everything they could find to add to it. The amount from the previous batch would have been fine. But this’ll fetch a better price.”

“No, I mean explain to me what that means. Fifty drops. I…I don’t understand.”

“Huh? What do you mean you don’t understand? Fifty drops. Fifty bronze drops…”

Clearly, he wasn’t understanding that I didn’t have a clue what that meant. Drops were not the currency of Ashtaroth, furthermore bronze or copper was the cheapest coin in any land which meant I was being paid change. Me, this old man was going to regret….

“Mao, doesn’t know what drops are because he is an infamous…”

“Shut up!” Chuu fought against my grasp as I squeezed him in my hand.

Did the little idiot really think telling this fool that I was a demon lord was the best idea? What was I supposed to do if he ran off scared, I don’t know my way around here. Besides if some unfortunate accident happened to befall the geezer then I was the most logical suspect which would do irreparable damage to my reputation. Which as it stood didn’t exist, so I wouldn’t even be at zero.

I’d be at least than zero. Me, Mao, the great flame. Destroyer of Iblis and Mara, less than zero. The very thought burned a fire inside me that just yearned to burst forth and consume everything. The geezer, this stupid wagon full of stupid ore, but most importantly, Chuu, the always annoying pain in my ass.

“Mao, looks cranky. Here, have a cracker, chuu.”

“Ough, ough…don’t just shove salty things in my mouth.”

Chuu floated in the air for a moment blinking absentmindedly. Without another word he sank down near my lap. What was he sad or something…GOOD.

“Anyway. Geezer, I’m not from around here. So, explain this currency, drops.”

“Ah, you’re a foreigner I could of guess that. You definitely stand out. But I assumed most of Terra used drops. I guess I haven’t traveled everywhere. Hmm.”

The old man pondered something for a moment then out of nowhere began bombarding me with information in a rapid fire manner regarding the currency. Ninety percent of what he was saying was useless nonsense that I could careless about. The problem was pertinent information was mixed in so I had to listen carefully for anything that sounded like it mattered.

“Droughts are the lowest form of drops. Each of the three types of coins come in three forms. Bronze, silver and gold, for droughts. Drips, comes in Bronze, silver, and gold. And finally Drops which come in….”

“Bronze, sliver and gold, am I right.”

“Wrong, don’t interrupt. Drops comes in Gold, Platinum and Mithril.”

There was a scowl on my face as I listened to the geezer continued to explain the currency of this world. Based on my understand which was limited at best with the way this fossil explained it. A bronze drought coin was worth a fifth of a silver, and a silver was worth a fourth of a gold. So, it would take twenty bronze droughts to equal one gold.

But wait the conversion fun hasn’t even begun yet. A bronze drip is worth more than a gold drought, Yeah. Why? No clue. Something to do with the amount of metal in each coin. Which also came in various stupid shapes, because being as overtly complicated as possible was the name of this game.

A bronze drip was worth four gold coins meaning eighty bronze droughts was equal to one bronze drip. Silver was worth something around three bronze drips and gold was worth four silver. So that was something like forty-eight gold droughts were equal to one gold drip.

Now for my favorite part of this old man’s bullshit explanation. One gold drop was worth two gold drips, or something like one hundred gold droughts. A platinum drop was worth five gold or five hundred gold droughts. And then there was mithril which was worth ten times a platinum drop.

So that means one mithril equals ten platinum which is equal to fifty gold drops. Or something like fifty thousand gold droughts. Which not that I’d wanted to do this math normally, is something around one million bronze droughts.

“…then how about this, chuu.”

With almost no warning Chuu shoved something down my throat, it seemed like he was really trying to get in there considering half of his body was sticking out of my mouth. Grabbing hold of him was harder than I’d imagined it would be considering I was having a hard time breathing.

As soon as I ripped him out of my mouth I coughed uncontrollable for at least a minute.

“Sweat right, chuu?”

The glare I gave Chuu had no visible effect on him but the geezer seemed frightened. He was trembling in his seat, in fact based on how much he was shaking he looked like he was about to piss himself. Chuu occupied himself by chewing on some sort of golden honeycomb bar. Which is what I assumed Chuu forced me to try.

“Mao…”

“What did I say about talking with your….ough….ough. Mouthful.”

“There’s some weird grey battle unicorns in front of us, chuu. They look kinda angry. Maybe Chuu will share some of his honeycomb bar with them.”

The geezer snapped out of his stunned silence just in time to freak out over the fact that Chuu was eating his favorite snack.

“You, control your pet those bars ain’t cheap you know. And what are you sitting around for? Earn your keep. There are monsters ahead. Deal with them.”

With a lazy look I glanced at the old man and said. “You were a lot nicer when we were in Rockfell.”