A Famous Traitor and Treacherous Genius

273 – The Golden Disaster, the Great Depression (3)

I discovered a way to destroy false gold.

However, that method uses the blood of Gibraltar, and it is not a method I really want to use.

“The false gold only reacts to the blood of Gibraltar?”

“Yes, father. If you want to get rid of this…”

“This will be kept confidential. I can only hope that the Imperial Magic Engineering Research Institute or Director Bathory will find another method.”

This also applies to my father.

“Or how about assuming that false gold will not disappear and then creating it in a new form?”

“I came here because of that agenda.”

If the damage to Gibraltar is too great to eliminate false gold, we have no choice but to solve the problem caused by false gold in a new direction.

“How, this time I can engrave the seal of Gibraltar on gold?”

“That would be a new form of currency, and if that were to happen, there would be a major crisis in Gibraltar’s economy.”

“What makes an inspection department gold?”

“There is no need to sell more golden swords since we have already sold enough. If we sell them for no reason, we may create the misunderstanding that ‘even the crime of killing someone is forgiven with gold.’ There are two main ways.”

I took out a gold coin.

“According to the tradition and history of Nostrum, turning false gold into gold coins.”

“Hmm… “

“The fact that even 1 gold was all gold coins may have been the arrangement of the Nostrum founders who knew of the existence of gold.”

The reason why I had to uselessly turn even 1 gold into a gold coin.

“Silver for silver, copper for coupe. In order to distinguish gold coins from other metals, they must have known the amount of gold buried under Nostrum.”

“You mean I didn’t just make 1 gold coin for no reason? Hmm.”

It may have been a strategic choice of the Nostrum royal family, who had to somehow consume the abundance of gold underground 500 years ago.

“But printing Nostrum gold coins is also a big problem. That’s just increasing the amount of currency, right?”

“So, we are trying to convert its use into a currency for special purposes.”

I showed my father the reverse side of the gold coin I had prepared in advance.

“Dragon?”

“As a special currency that can only be used at Gyeongryongjang. Tokens… No, what the empire calls ‘chips’ are made of false gold and can only be used at Gyeongryongjang.”

“Uhm…”

My father tilted his head as if disapproving.

“There might be people secretly stealing golden chips?”

“To recycle it, you have to melt it and harden it again to make it into an ingot. If you want to go that far and take this common, false gold, you should do so. This is actually no different from a magic stone , is it?”

“A magic stone is a magic stone.”

Although false gold has some differences from existing gold, it has some advantages that can be called ‘advantages’.

“Gray. It’s false gold. How much better does mana work than gold?”

“It doesn’t work as well as pure gold. It may be that it wasn’t originally a mineral, but it melts better than gold.”

Real gold and fake gold have different melting points.

It was something that Director Bathory, as well as the Empire’s Magic Engineering Research Institute, discovered relatively early on.

“The problem is that it has a slightly lower melting point than real gold. At a certain temperature, it melts earlier than real gold, but that is at a high temperature that far exceeds the temperature in everyday life.”

“High fever and ultra-high fever, is that the only difference?”

“You can think of it as the difference between a senior knight and a master.”

“For us, there is a big difference, but from the general public’s point of view, it’s either one or the other.”

“Yes.”

False gold is easier to transform.

“It was similar to silver. If it were a different color from gold, we might have been able to utilize it as a new metal. Yes, if it wasn’t gold.”

They may have used it under a new name.

“Easier to handle than gold and easier to cast. It is a magic stone itself that communicates well with mana.”

Dragonix, Orichalcon, or Mithril.

“Ordinary people can’t tell the difference, so we have no choice but to embed social promises like this.”

But it looks like gold, and the color is also golden.

It is impossible to distinguish between real and fake in places other than a blacksmith shop with a furnace boiling like lava, a magic engineering research lab, or Gibraltar.

“False gold is not used as real currency. It is only used in authorized gambling places.”

“Uhm…”

“Father. If you don’t use it like this-“

“I know what you think will work, because you always do.”

My father did not specifically deny the part about ‘making false gold into gambling chips.’

“I’m just worried that you feel like you want to expand the gambling scene or something.”

“…Ha.”

It’s absurd.

“Do you really think I would make something like this because I want to enjoy gambling?”

“If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. Princess Astacia didn’t have a tendency to enjoy gambling… Are you planning to build a gambling house for Habsburg von Tersian?”

“Father.”

“It’s a joke.”

My heart sank as my father raised his voice as if he were wondering if I was doing something for the emperor.

“Oh my god. I was surprised to hear that you were jealous in that way.”

“Why should I be jealous of him?”

My father asked back as if it was completely obvious.

“He is much younger, has the most beautiful wife in the world, and has many talented children.”

From noble mtl dot come

“…”

“I know. Emperors have many more wives and children. But aren’t they different from us?”

“You’re making it embarrassing to talk about.”

“It’s love.”

“…I think it would be right to say such a thing to your mother.”

“Does it feel familiar? Hehe.”

My father laughed lowly as if he had caught my weakness, and I folded the gambling house chip coin in half and put it in my arms.

“In addition to using it in gambling halls, you can use fake gold in all kinds of ways. You can build a house, a train, or even make all the dishes and furniture in your house out of fake gold.”

“…I think it will be difficult.”

The father touched his chin and tilted his head.

“Even if you do that, isn’t it true that it ends up becoming ‘property’?”

“Yes. It is not currency, but it is an undeniable fact that it is a lump of gold in the form of an object. Unless it makes false gold completely useless, it would not be known.”

“It looks like they’ve already thought of a way.”

“Yes. I need to get permission from my father for this, so I haven’t proceeded yet.”

I took out a piece of parchment.

“This is…”

“What do you think?”

“You’re crazy.”

As soon as I took out the parchment, my father laughed and tapped the picture inside the parchment with his finger.

“Let’s make it a decoration?”

There, a golden statue in the shape of a human figure was drawn.

“There’s nothing that can’t be done. Aren’t we in an age where wood sculptures and stone statues can be sold as long as they are carved precisely? There’s nothing that can’t be sold even if it’s a statue made of gold .”

“It’s not like worshiping God, so what is this?”

“It’s a statue of a god. That’s good. It can’t be called a god right now, but in the future it can be said to be a symbol of peace.”

I stepped away from my father, pulled out a sword hanging on the wall of the study, and pointed it diagonally upward.

“We are going to make golden statues at the front and back of the canyon. If possible, they will be about 300 meters in size. We will build them up from the bottom, and at the end, we will make a large-scale statue taller than the Gorge of Gibraltar. You could call it the ‘Golden Statue of Peace.’ .”

“…Grey.”

My father tapped the sketch of the Statue of Peace with half-closed eyes.

“Please explain to me the thing that has the appearance of Habsburg von Tersian.”

Golden Statue of Peace.

His face and figure were very similar to the Habsburg emperor.

“Of course, it’s because it’s made of false gold, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“If it had been made of real gold, of course I would have made a statue with my father as a motif. I would have immediately dismantled the golden airship, collected the gold, and then melted down all the gold coins, including those from the Barcelona gold mine, to create a 300m tall full-length statue of my father.”

“…”

“But isn’t this false gold? Even if Gibraltar’s successor sneezes in front of it, it will corrode and melt. Of course, spilling a single drop of blood won’t cause the 300m high golden statue to collapse.”

In fact, it doesn’t matter even if that actually happens.

“It is false gold. If it falls and is ruined, it means the golden statue of Habsburg von Tersian falls.”

“…If it were him, would he notice?”

“It’s okay. Breaking things in front of people is my specialty.”

I pointed to my mouth.

“Making a golden statue of the Habsberg emperor with false gold, which only Gibraltar can eliminate, is an expression of trust that Gibraltar sends to the Habsbergs.”

“Trust, la.”

“We will not touch the Habsburg emperor. If the statue falls, it means that Gibraltar harbors hostility towards the Habsburgs.”

Gold, which only Gibraltar can destroy, is, to put it the other way around, a statue that is both eternal and immortal if Gibraltar refuses to do so.

“Wouldn’t create a golden statue of the Emperor in the Gorge of Gibraltar be the way to announce true peace on the continent? Also…”

I took out the gold coin symbolizing Saint Geo Nostrum, the highest unit of gold, from my pocket and folded it in half.

“Isn’t it possible that a king who is naturally capable of ruining a country might become jealous and angry and show up at the place where a golden statue is made?”

“…There is a possibility.”

My father snapped his fingers.

“Putting everything else aside, it’s a worthy task just because it’s the bait that can draw out St. Geo Nostrum.”

“…That’s the way it is.”

Actually, that one is ranked 2nd.

5th place. An optimal use for collecting large amounts of false gold.

4th place. A large-scale civil engineering project to create jobs for countless workers in the kingdom and empire.

3rd place. Creating an atmosphere of peace on the continent through the Golden Statue of Peace.

2nd place. A trap to attract St. Geo Nostrum, who is jealous that the golden statue is not of the Habsburg emperor.

“Father. In that sense, I would like you to allow this.”

And 1st place.

Actually, this is the most important part for me.

“Even if the Habsburg statue is made outside the canyon, wouldn’t it be best to place the statue inside the canyon?”

“If you try to go inside…”

“Of course we have to dig the ground. The canyon.”

1st place.

“We are going to destroy the canyon.”

Digging into a canyon.

“The purpose is to place a statue of the emperor, so shouldn’t the Empire’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport take action?”

“Gibraltar is saying they won’t pay.”

“Yes. All we have to do is write a contract. It authorizes irreversible development of the Gibraltar Gorge.”

No refund.

“Let’s destroy the canyon and erect a false golden statue on the land. All that remains is the symbol that there was a canyon.”

Whether it takes 10 years or 100 years.

“Even if in the future only history will know why Gibraltar was the ‘guardian of the canyon.'”

The canyon will no longer be a prison that Gibraltar must guard forever, unable to leave.