Chapter 29 (1/2)
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Upon hearing Gawain’s reflexive reply, the mysterious woman who wore a veil was stunned for a moment as she batted her eyes in confusion. “My name is Melita Ponia. This pronunciation may indeed be a little different from the names commonly used in northern regions…”
Gawain quickly recovered from his distracted line of thought. “Oh, sorry. Don’t mind me. I’m the one who didn’t pronounce it correctly.”
He coughed in an effort to regain his seriousness (and to keep the atmosphere from becoming too awkward). “So what brings an agent from the Mithril Vault here so late at night and that you even had to come through the window for?”
The woman jumped down from the window sill and came up to Gawain. “I have no choice but to come in through the window. After all, I don’t know how many eyes are watching this place. And since the thing you left in the Mithril Vault is ‘top secret’, according to the agreement, this process, regardless of whether you are depositing or withdrawing, must be kept confidential.”
She stared at Gawain with eyes that gave off a mild purple gleam under the night sky. Although her face covered by the veil hid her expression, her eyes were obviously watching intently.
Gawain’s mind flew into cerebration.
He knew about the Mithril Vault. Or more accurately, the inherited memory contained records related to the Mithril Vault.
The Mithril Vault was not some mysterious organization. In fact, the vast majority of intelligent creatures in this world knew of its existence, but at the same time, no one would dare to say that they knew what this ‘Vault’ truly looked like.
On the surface, it was a treasury with comprehensive services. It could help you store money and keep your treasures. As long as you paid the fees, you could safely leave anything to them for safekeeping. At least, that was what the Mithril Vault was made known to be. In fact, up till today, there had been no news of things being lost from the Mithril Vault. At the same time, the Mithril Vault also provided lending services. They had countless branches and agents in this world. As long as people met a certain level of creditworthiness, anyone could find them easily and borrow money or other things from them. There were only two things to be taken note of. Firstly, how much you could borrow depended entirely on how the Mithril Vault ‘rated’ you, and this rating criteria had never been made public. Secondly, you must pay it back.
Mithril Vault would ensure that every single coin it lent out would be recovered with interest.
Just as no one had ever heard of items being lost from the Mithril Vault, no one had ever heard of cases where a debt to Mithril Vault was not paid. There was a rumor of a cunning fire elemental lord who tried to challenge this rule. Even though elemental creatures did not need money, this unconventional elemental lord still borrowed a huge sum from the Mithril Vault. Then it returned to the elemental world, intending to laugh at the mortal world. But in the end, it still had to pay its debt.
On the third day after his debt was due, the elemental lord’s core and its elemental fragments of elementals appeared at an auction in the north. The money obtained from the auction turned out to be equal to the sum of his debts and late payment fees.
It was evident that the Mithril Vault not only dealt with humans but also with all intelligent races of this world. Anyone who needed financial help was a potential client of the Mithril Vault. Even the strange elves in the south and the dwarves in the east, who were as tough as rock, were no exception (it was said that the Mithril Vault even had branches in the kobold caves). No one knew which race founded this organization—human, elves, or what have you. It just existed. Even the Dark Wave seven hundred years ago had failed to impact its operation. In fact, a loan was taken for the establishment of Anzu Kingdom, but at least Charlie I paid the money back in the end.
The vault’s agent was still watching Gawain curiously, who remained poised as he quickly sorted out the messy thoughts in his mind. He realized that this unexpected visitor tonight probably came because of a deal made seven hundred years ago. Gawain Cecil, had evidently been a client of the Mithril Vault, but unfortunately…
There was no memory of this!
Gawain had no idea what the ancestor of Cecil Clan had kept in the Mithril Vault seven hundred years ago!
An idea quickly came to him. He was going to come up with an excuse to hide his coming up empty on searching the memory, but as the words were about to leave his mouth, he noticed My Little Pony’s scrutinizing gaze, and it stopped him as he held back the urge to say it.
This woman was very mysterious. Before he understood more about her, he had to reduce the number of variables. Lying might be inconvenient as there were some special races that had the special talents of detecting lies.
He calmed down and looked into Melita’s eyes. “What did I keep back then?”
“You don’t remember?” Melita’s eyes curved slightly, as though she was smiling. “Is it because you’ve slept too long?”
“I slept for seven hundred years. I probably did forget some things.” Gawain knocked on his head. “Speaking of which, even if the person dies, do you still hold the items for safekeeping?”
“Usually, the death of the client indicates the end of the arrangement. After that, the entrusted item will be dealt with in two ways. If there is an assigned heir, we will give the entrusted item to the heir. If there is no legal heir, the entrusted item would be returned to the Mithril Vault.” Merita was really smiling. She raised her hand slightly, and an exquisite little safe deposit box appeared in her hand. “But the things you kept then were very special. You bought an indefinite storage service for it. This means that as long as the Mithril Vault is still running, your item will be stored permanently, and only you can retrieve it.”
She added, “You paid a lot for this service. When news of your death came, we thought this would end up as an annoying dormant bank account. But now it seems that nothing is certain.”
Gawain frowned, realizing that the whole matter might be more complicated than he had initially imagined.
But this was not the time to think about these things. First, he must get that item before he could try to understand this.