The pungent odour of alcohol lingered in the air, permeating every corner of the small tavern filled with demons who were seated at round wooden tables and drinking what appeared to be potent alcoholic beverages.
"There ain' nuthing better than some sweet alcohol afte' sum heavy work!"
"Ye bet."
Demons weren't the only creatures that resided in the tavern, as dwarves―or, more accurately, duegars―sat around the round tables, chatting and singing loudly.
In one of the tables near the far ends of the tavern.
"What have you guys found out?"
I asked, looking at the others in front of me.
As soon as we arrived in the city, the very first thing that we did was break up into smaller groups in order to investigate the situation independently.
Information was key in order for us to better adapt ourselves to this foreign world.
Following our initial parting, we don't go more than a couple of hours before we find ourselves back at the same tavern where we'd agreed to meet.
Right now, we were now sharing our findings.
"Should I start first?"
Jin was the first one to speak, crossing his legs and leaning back on his chair.
Though his face was covered by the hood, I could more or less guess that he was currently frowning.
"I'm sure the majority of you already know this, but from what I've gathered, the city is governed by four major superpowers. According to what I've learned, they are referred to as the seven Royal houses, and each is led by a Prince/Princess ranked demon. Each royal house represents a different clan, such as Envy, Sloth, l.u.s.t, and so on..."
Jin halted, then brought his hand up to his mouth and began ma.s.saging what appeared to be his chin.
"I couldn't learn too much given that this is sensitive information, but...from the looks of it, there is an obvious power struggle between each Royal house. Nothing needs to be said about why they're fighting, as most of you are probably aware of why right?"
"Yeah."
I nodded my head.
The answer to that question was kind of obvious.
The houses were engaged in a fierce compet.i.tion for their share of the devil fruits that were harvested from the world tree.
Each year, the world tree would distribute a limited quant.i.ty of its fruits, each of which contained varying degrees of purity, with the purer ones being the most limited.
Due to the fact that they were restricted, they were considered scarce resources, which was ultimately what led to the emergence of the conflicts.
All of the houses were fighting for the opportunity to have more devil fruits.
After all, devil fruits mean more power.
"Each year, the seven houses will compete with each other in order to determine who gets the best harvest. The event seems to be called the 'World's Decree', and it is where all major powers within the planet compete for the chance of increasing their shares over the demonic fruits."
Jin continued, crossing his arms together.
"From what I know, for the past three years, the Royal House of Envy has been the house that monopolized the fruits, bearing the grudge of the other houses. From the looks of it, their monopoly will not last much longer, with this year probably being the most brutal of all the showdowns.
The fact that there were seven houses in Ka Mankut was not a coincidence. It was something that Jezebeth had ordered a while back.
Even though I didn't know exactly what he was thinking, it was obvious that he didn't want one house to have a complete monopoly over the fruits of the world tree.
It was highly likely that he was attempting to stimulate compet.i.tion, and of course, with seven houses that were roughly equivalent in power, a monopoly of resources couldn't exactly exist because the other six houses could decide to collaborate in order to prevent the house with the most power from emerging victorious.
"That's about it. This is what I found out in the past two hours that I was roaming the city."
"My turn now?"
Melissa spoke, her voice unusually grumpy.
"Since he's already talked about the main powers, I'll just share the other stuff that I learned."
Rummaging through her pockets, she tossed three coins on the table and spoke. There weren't many, with what seemed to be about five, in a mix of bronze and silver.
"In the city, the main currency known as the Xariz, which isn't too difficult to understand. Take a look at the coins."
Melissa pointed at the coins she threw on the table.
Before I could say anything, Melissa snapped.
"No, I didn't steal them. I just sold a couple of things that I collected on our way here."
Even though I couldn't see what she was doing, I could tell that she was probably rolling her eyes behind the hood, and I quickly clamped my mouth shut in response.
'As expected, demonic energy and Melissa are a bad combination.'
"The Xariz are divided into four coins. Xur, Rum, Mor, and Jor."
Melissa tapped each coin with her finger.
"As you can see, each is different in size, and so is their value. Although the names are complicated, and it seems like the system is complicated, it really isn't. The Xur is about..."
Melissa tilted her head a little, thinking for a moment before blurting.
"10U? ...I think it's more or less that."
Her voice was a little uncertain at first, but the confusion didn't last for long as she continued.
"The coin isn't really that hard to remember since it's just a bronze coin, while the Rum is silver and worth about 1000U, and the Mor is worth about 100,000U, with the coin being gold in colour. Lastly, there is the Jor, which is worth about a million U, and has a platinum colour? ...I haven't really checked. But apparently, the names of the coins are in some sort of elven dialect, with Xur meaning bronze. Not sure about the rest, but I wouldn't be surprised if they meant silver, gold, and platinum. "
"A million U coin..."
I mumbled under my breath, finding the concept rather strange.
It seemed rather peculiar to me that demons were still employing the use of coins, especially when one considers the fact that on Earth, coins have all but vanished from circulation due to the widespread adoption of credit and debit cards in recent decades.
Drumming my fingers―which were covered by a black glove in order to hide my human hands―over the table, I fell into thought for a moment.
To summarize everything, the currency of this place was known as the Xariz and it consisted of four coins, the Xur, Rum, Mor and Jor;
Xur - 10U
Rum - 1000U
Mor - 100,000 U
Jor - 1,000,000 U
Raising my head, I looked at Melissa.
"Just how much money have you managed to collect so far?"
"Not much."
Melissa responded while searching through her pockets and tossing a couple of additional coins into the air. All of which were bronze.
"About ten Xur, and two Rum."
"So that would be about...Ehm, 2100U?"
"Yeah."
Melissa yawned and leaned back while mumbling something.
"It's just about enough to cover our living expenses for a week."
"I see..."
Indeed, the money would definitely help us cover the fees for where we would sleep for just about a week. However, it was, of course, in one of the poorer districts.
Slowly, I turned to look at Amanda.
"What about you? What did you find out?"
"Every month, there's an important auction in the city. Apparently, they sell a lot of good items there, some of which might even be useful to you. However, the price for each item starts with at least five Jor."
"Ehh..."
I scratched the lower end of my jaw and mumbled.
"I did hear about that, and although I would love to attend, we're currently low on funds, which would basically make it impossible for us to attend...at least for now."
Rummaging through my pocket, I took out a leaflet and placed it on the table.
=== [Ma.s.s event quest]===
Quest a.s.signer : d.u.c.h.ess Pertinol.
Reward : The reward will depend on the contribution, with at least 5 Mor guaranteed for each partic.i.p.ant.
Minimum requirement : Marquis rank.
Description : Request to aid d.u.c.h.ess Pertinol in taming the Abyssal Mammoth, a Duke-ranked monster. The minimum rank required to partic.i.p.ate is Marquis, and the quest takes place on the 300th planetary revolution. The task entails a.s.sisting d.u.c.h.ess Pertinol in bringing down and taming the Abyssal Mammoth, whose approximate strength is close to that of a Prince. The rewards will be determined by the contributions made throughout the quest. If the d.u.c.h.ess is pleased with the performance, several Jor could be rewarded.
===
Pa.s.sing the leaflets to the others, I softly said.
"This will be the best opportunity for us to gain a proper foothold in this city, as well as gain some money for the auction."
I paused and lowered my voice.
"Who knows, maybe...just maybe, we might even be able to put on a performance that may gain the interest of this so called Duke."
From what I understood about the quest, this one was going to involve a lot of people, with many signing up to get the chance to show off their skills to d.u.c.h.ess Pertinol, one of the higher ranked demons within the city, who resided in one of the Royal houses.
"From what I've gathered, this Duke Pertinol is someone that belongs to the house of Sloth. I wasn't able to gather much, but from what I know, she seems to be the daughter of the Sloth house, and having just broken through to Duke rank, she seems to want to tame the Abyssal Mammoth, which, from what I've gathered, seem to be a large elephant like creature that is as big as one of the buildings in the city..."
The request itself wasn't actually hard. If push comes to shove, I could probably do it by myself.
However, given the state that I was in, I knew that I would be put in a precarious situation if I decided to fight against the creature, as the seals would break and the demonic energy that I was stopping from reaching my head would finally reach my head and corrode my mind.
I looked at the others, who were carefully looking through the quest paper.
"In short, we will all partic.i.p.ate in the quest with the goal of making money and building a potential relationship with this so called d.u.c.h.ess."
"Wait, why do we need to build a relationship with the d.u.c.h.ess?"
Jin asked, genuinely curious.
Looking back at him, I asked.
"Why wouldn't we?"
There was not a single rule that said that I needed to make enemies with all the demons here.
After all, making friends was a lot less tiresome than making enemies...