Free Web NovelChapter 31: Old Street
"The Old Street in this city is pretty lively. It’s better than the Old Street in Thorne City." Clara admitted admiringly.
"You’ve never been here before?" Lucius asked, surprised.
She shook her head. "I just arrived in the city a short while ago; I hadn’t had time to come. My family is hounding me just to bully me. Some subordinate families found out, so they’re doing the same. Then there are the families that want to subordinate themselves to my family—they have no idea and think they can get in on the action with me... Sigh. It’s been a difficult move."
Lucius laughed. "You’re always complaining," he told her.
She shook her head in frustration. She’d already noticed that herself.
"What about you? Don’t you complain about what your family did to you? You moved recently, didn’t you?"
"I didn’t have to move anything, to be honest. I don’t have anything. Why do you think I dress like this when I’m not at the academy?" Lucius showed off his clothes.
Well, technically they were clothes, but...
"Um... I thought you were doing it to hide yourself. Are those rags your clothes?"
"Hehe, you’re hurting my feelings, but yeah. They’re my clothes. I need to buy new ones, but clothes are so expensive these days. It’s absurd that a single item can cost more than one credit. Tsk."
"Do you think paying one credit is expensive? I’ve seen two-for-one deals on clothes for one credit. Even though they’re pretty disposable, they’re more presentable than what you’re wearing."
"One credit for two? No, forget it. Unless they give me three pairs, I won’t pay a single credit for that. Those are clothes that last a week, Clara Thorne. A week! If I wore two pairs a week, that would cost me four extra credits a month. I plan to buy better clothes once I get paid the credits for the feats I’ve recently accomplished and the followers I’ve gained. For now, forget it—I won’t spend my precious credits on that."
Clara, for the first time, looked at Lucius with a strangely dazed expression. An "O" formed on her lips.
"I never thought you’d be stingy with money..." she said, perplexed.
"I’m not stingy with what’s worth it. But I don’t have any money. How much money did you have when you were kicked out of the house?" he asked, curious to see that she wasn’t like that.
"I had 50,000 credits in savings, and the agency gave me an extra 200,000. It’s not much, but it’s helped me get settled here."
This time it was Lucius who gaped in surprise.
"I-is that too little?" she asked nervously. "I felt like I was being ripped off. My family has so much money, why the hell are they only giving me 200,000? My brothers spend that much in a month."
That was when Lucius understood one thing... they weren’t the same.
While she was a rich girl whose family didn’t love her but still supported her, he was a... wretch who was practically murdered by his own father.
He swallowed hard and decided to ignore his own misfortune; he just clicked his tongue before continuing down Old Street.
"Hey, what’s up?"
"Shut up. You tricked me," Lucius retorted, feeling helpless. frёeωebɳovel.com
"Huh? I cheated on you? When did I do that?" Clara stared at him in shock.
"I thought we were equals..." Lucius whispered.
"The same?" She caught up to him, practically running. Lucius’s height allowed him to take such long strides that three of Clara’s steps equaled one of his.
That’s why she practically had to run.
"We’re clearly the same. We were expelled from..."
"How can we be the same? You’re a fucking rich girl. I’m..." He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pain in his heart and sighed.
"Rich girl?" Clara felt offended, but when she thought about arguing and saw Lucius’s dejected, helpless expression, she thought twice. "Didn’t they give you money when they expelled you? The unwritten rule says that when you expel a young person from the family, you have to give them money for their upkeep... At least for the first few months."
"Stupid rules that nobody—except the Thornes—follows," Lucius grumbled to himself, but since she wanted to pry, he decided to speak up.
"Try to guess how much money I had when they expelled me. You’ll be surprised by the answer," he said with a self-deprecating smile.
Although she had the urge to ask, "How much?" she realized he genuinely wanted her to guess, so she gave it a try.
"A hundred thousand?" she offered her first guess.
Lucius stared at her. "Do I look like I have a hundred thousand credits?"
"Certainly not..." She laughed sheepishly. "Fifty thousand?" she offered another guess.
"You’re still way off. It’s so high it embarrasses me." Lucius replied.
"Well..."
’If that number is already high, could it be less than 10,000?’ She frowned and tried to lower it as much as she could.
"Five thousand." She said. In a family like the Astorias, who wouldn’t have five thousand credits? Even a low-level servant could have that much.
But Lucius scoffed. "The fact that you tried to lower it as much as possible and still ended up with a number a hundred times higher is painful."
"Huh? A hundred times higher? Did you have 50 credits?" she asked, completely shocked.
"No. Actually, it was 30."
"Oh."
The same expression repeated itself...
"Don’t look at me like that. I have more now because I went hunting and sold some tools. But I don’t have enough to buy designer clothes for now. That’ll have to wait until my plans are finished."
Clara didn’t know what to say for a moment. She simply stood there frozen, in the middle of the street.
Lucius also stopped and turned to look at her. "What’s wrong? We’ve already passed the area where only scammers sell stuff. We’re about to enter the good area."
But just then, an advertisement for The Link appeared before her eyes.
[The Link Interbank System.]
| Clara Thorne is sending you 10,000 Credits.
| Subject: Here you go. I’m sorry that not all the Founding Families follow the rules.
[Click the button to accept them.]
Lucius was taken aback and turned to look at Clara. She was smiling kindly at him.
Lucius sighed. "It’s not necessary. It’s your money, and you should keep it," he said, declining the offer.
"You declined it?" Clara watched as the system informed her that Lucius had declined it. "Why?"
"I don’t like receiving gifts because then I end up owing someone something. Unless it’s for a favor I ask of you myself, don’t send me money again," he said, before turning away to keep walking.
There was also the issue: Receiving money from a pretty woman? Where would his pride as a provider go?
"Tsk. The curse of the poor." He shook off his poverty, though he couldn’t actually get rid of it, so he just shook off the loose threads from his clothes. It looked as if his clothes were about to fall apart.
Clara kept pestering him for a while longer, but eventually gave up.
They arrived at the main section of Old Street.
Old Street began in the Iron Suburbs and ended in the Upper District, with most of the major shops located in the Upper District.
Since the Academy is partly in the Iron Suburbs and partly in the Upper District—where ranks below C only have classrooms in the Iron Suburbs section—they had to walk a long way to get here.
So when they realized they had reached the main area, it was because they had already passed the famous barrier dividing the two districts.
Even the atmosphere here was completely different.
"Wow. It’s so different from what I expected," Clara said, her mouth agape.
Unlike the first area, where most of the "shops" were run by street vendors, here the stores were all housed in extraordinary, towering buildings. They were beautifully decorated and lit with blue neon lights.
Every corner had its own lighting fixtures. The streets were clean. There were no street vendors.
Inside the shops, all the tools on display were certified as being of a certain age.
On this street, there was one rule: Only items at least 50 years old could be sold.
There were many tools over a hundred years old, and it was even possible to find some that were 500 years old at affordable prices.
If you wanted tools that were over 500 years old, you’d have to pay a fortune. No one knows why, but there are very few tools that are 501 years old or older.
This isn’t new, nor is it unique to this Island of Civilization.
On the Island of Gaia, where the previous Lucius lived, it was pretty much the same. Any tool over 500 years old—even just one year older—could cost a fortune.
Although you can find tools over a thousand years old in those places, they’re hard to afford. Only true millionaires could get their hands on them.
"I wonder what happened 500 years ago that makes it so hard to find tools from that era," Lucius thought, before opening the door to a random shop.
Because of his clothes, some people thought he wouldn’t be allowed in as he approached the door.
But the door didn’t turn him away, and the system immediately scanned him.
[Initial scan...]
[Lucius Asturias, the Rising Star.]
[Local Rank: 1,503.]
[Access granted.]
