Herald of Steel

"Hahaha, indeed as expected of you my lady"

Alexander did not hide his appreciation for Lady Parthia at her the correct answer, gleefully nodding his head, while missing the bitter look Lady Nanazin gave from the side. She cursed herself for missing such an obvious thing.

She was too focused on the front covers.

Fortunately the lady did not linger on this acrid feeling for long, and quickly also turned her focus to the coins’ sides, confirming the presence of the delicately made lines, while running her fair fingernails over to admire the craftsmanship.

"Indeed, it is as Lady Parthia said, there are ridges around the side. And they seem quite well made. "Did you get permission from Ptolo… him?" Lady Nanazin then lifted her head to ask, very consciously avoiding that hateful name.

"...." While Alexander first gave a very revealing smile, then controlling himself confirmed,

"Yes. I got the die to mint ropals a long time ago from His Majesty. He even allowed me to mint new coins, not just the ropals."

"His majesty? Heh, you can drop the charade Alexander," Lady Nanazin however seemed over concerned over that small fact of Alexander’s address, producing a venomous spit with her reply.

"...." Alexander stayed quiet, refusing to take the bair for he did not wish to needlessly poke at the woman’s sore spot.

He had started to address Ptolomy with his proper title in private due to that small mishap with Darrus. He did not want his habit to make him slip up again.

But Alexander did not see any reason to bother Lady Nanazin with such mundane excuse.

So instead, wishing to change the subject, decided to transfer the pair’s focus back to the coin, relating to them the various difficulties in making this ’new’ ropal.

There was the matter of designing the dies exactly the right shape, making it to the exact dimensions, and most of all,

"I must say even with His Majesty’s permission, there were some coin masters who were horrified to hear I wanted to change the design. They begged me to reconsider. Some even refused to do it. *Sigh*, it took a lot of convincing to make them change even this little."

Alexander ruefully shook his head as he iterated his most significant hurdle, both amused and a bit impressed by the actions of those men.

Most of his coin makers, especially the senior ones were taken from Adhan, because Zanzan did not have a native coin producing facility. So there was no existing skill base for Alexander to employ.

Hence he had these men imported from the capital, men who worked in the mints there their entire lives making only ropals and their various denominations.

They knew this coin perhaps better than they knew their own wives.

So to ask them to suddenly change its shape… even if only by a tiny bit, it was no different from asking them to violate a sacred item.

They almost had an instinctive aversion to the act because the royal coinmakers were taught the fact that they were not change the design of the coin they were making in the slightest no matter what from the day they started working there.

Thus it took a lot of oil from Alexander to convince them of the utility of the ridges and how they were making the same coin and then when even this was not enough for some, a bit of threat of the sticks in the form of pay and ration cuts.

Alexander succinctly recounted his difficulties to the listening pair, until at the end Lady Nanazin commented with a snort,

"Hmmp, these men must have their heads kicked by a donkey. To stay loyal to that limp when they have you."

"....." Alexander only gently smiled at the attempted flattery, before changing topics once again,

"Then can either of my ladies tell me why I put these ridges there?"

There was a mysterious undertone to the question, and his eyes twinkled with intrigue as he scanned the pair.

Lady Nanazin felt her competitive spirit immediately fire up hearing this, as she began to seriously consider the answer, repeatedly moving her finger over the ridges while thinking.

’Is it to make it look beautiful and different?’

Lady Nanazin thought of the obvious answer first as in this time period, adding elaborate but ultimately not useful decorations was the fashion.

’No, Alexander is not like that." However the curvy lady was fortunately aware enough to know this was never Alexander’s style, reasoning to herself, ’In his eyes all those flashy things does nothing but add cost. He hates such overt displays. So there must a reason for him to go through all this trouble!’ n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Lady Nanazin understood these ridges had to have a function for Alexander to go through all the hassle.

However despite having spent some time on the matter, other than the surface aesthics, the mature queen had a hard time coming up with an utilitarian use.

"Is it to strengthen the coin? To make it harder to bend?" Until finally, unable to bear it any longer, the regal queen broke the stuffy silence of the room with his hypothesis.

She was very unsure of the answer and almost threw the answer like a blind man throws a dart. But this was the best she got.

"Ummm… I could be…" While Alexander politely smiled at the answer, giving a reply that was a gentle yet clear rejection.

"No. It is to stop clipping!" It was once again Lady Parthia who managed to get the answer right, her eyes suddenly turning sharp in exclamation, "These ridges will make it very easy to detect if the coins’ edges have been chipped off. These… ’uneven’ bits will not match. How clever!"

The explanation was followed by a genuine cry of praise, as the Tibian Queen repeatedly felt the edges, marveling at the work.

"Hahaha! Excellent! Excellent!" Alexander heartily chuckled at the correct answer, his eyes full of admiration,

"To think my lady would be able to answer this quickly. Impressive, truly impressive. You know when I was making them I asked quite a few others about it. None of them were that fast! Haha!"

Lady Nanazin’s eyes turned dim and listless hearing the man of her admiration praise her rival, while Lady Parthia’s own eyes suddenly turned a bit complex.

"No, no, the one truly impressive is you, Lord Alexander… to have come up with such a simple yet elegant solution. *Sigh*! You truly are impressive!"

Suddenly there was a slight bitter undertone to her reply which naturally drew Alexander’s curiosity.

"Is something the matter my lady?" He could not help but ask, intrigued by how the other party seemed almost a bit sad by his invention.

"AhhH!" Lady Parthia also quickly understood her mistake, so she hurriedly shook her head, "No, no, it is not like that my lord. I am very happy by this ingenious design. It is just that I am remembering some things… that’s all hahaha."

Lady Parthia gave a loud, somewhat hollow chuckle as she answered, wishing to use it to gloss over the incident.

However somehow it only worked to highlight the fact, thus making Alexander become even more curious. His inquisitive gaze lingered on the mature lady for quite a while, until Lady Parthia was unable to ignore it any longer and understood she had to confess.

So producing a half forlorn smile, the regal queen succinctly revealed, Read latest stories on empire

"It is nothing much my lord. It is just that some time ago we tried to solve this exact problem. At the time, Tibias had just finished a war and was facing an enormous price hike of all commodities."

"We tried various ways to bring the price down and one of them was to stop people from clipping and shaving off the coins."

"We found that they were trying to cheat in this way so that they would have to pay less for the same goods. But the merchants knew this. So to compensate, they hicked up the prices even more. But that led to even more clippings until.... *Sigh* ultimately we failed. We…."

Alexander instantly understood what the unspoken words were as Lady Parthia trailed off.

The regal queen thought this was one of the reasons Alexander was able to conquer them as with their economy in shambles, the royal court was unable to efficiently raise troops.

And perhaps this thought had some merit as despite such constraints, Persues was able to raise altogether nearly 80,000 men to resist Alexander, proving there was indeed a reason why Tibias had been able to resist its monstrous neighbor for centuries.

Its nobles and people were very hardy bastards.

"So you are saying my Alexander did something your entire Tibian court could not! Hmmp, as expected!"

Lady Nanazin on the other hand seemed to be in little mood sympathize with her rival, especially after losing twice to her.

So instead gloated at her lover’s success, slanting her smoky eyes into a charming slit,

"As expected Alex, you have once again exceeded yourself, coming up with something nobody in the world could!"

"With this, we can stop all counterfeiting in the country. I don’t think you have any idea how many millions the treasuries lose because merchants and peasants shave off tiny bits of coins and then sell in the black market!"

Let us say no to piracy! Don’t take part in a crime! Don’t patronize thieves!

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