The Founder of the Great Financial Family

To deceive customers based on the credibility that you had, until now, regarded as your life. 

It was truly a novel yet fun idea. 

‘He’s certainly…not wrong. As long as people believe in me, they will believe that the gold coins they have entrusted to me will be fine.’

Carter couldn’t help but nod his head involuntarily. 

“Now that I think about it, there is logic to your words,” Although he agreed, there was something he was a little sceptical about. 

“But how was it that you came up with that idea?” 

“It just suddenly occurred to me – but more than that, what do you think of my idea?” 

It was surprising that the person who had proposed this idea was not a goldsmith or even an adult, but rather a 15-year-old boy. 

“To be honest, there are many goldsmiths in Lyon who do business in that way – but I didn’t like that. I was afraid that the customers who had deposited the gold coins would come one to get them back,”

It turned out that not all the goldsmiths were cowards like Carter. There seemed to be goldsmiths out there with some guts who did business as Rockefeller had thought.

‘I see there are some guys who have gone one step further than here – not everyone’s the same.’

The loan business of goldsmiths also had its own development process. Here, Carter’s method of lending only his own money was the most primitive. 

And the next step, as the goldsmiths from Lyon do, and as Rockefeller suggested, was secretly using the customer’s gold to run the lending business. 

‘The Goblin Bank, which was considered a bank in its own way, wouldn’t be much different from the goldsmiths in Lyon – at most, it would be a form of profiting from lending the customers money more openly,’ 

For Rockefeller, who majored in Economics and History – it was a game of money at the level of children’s pranks. 

‘People here don’t know deception. Real deception.’ 

“How about now? Are you thinking about doing it now?” He asked.

Carter seemed to be a little baffled. He had greed, but the problem was his timid personality. 

“I am drawn to it, but…” 

“Did you not smuggle with me? Is the person who did that acting too timid now?” 

“Smuggling at that level is barely noticeable, so it doesn’t really matter. But if this goes wrong once, it’s a matter of destroying all the foundations I’ve built so far, so I can’t make a decision easily.” 

If he had the guts to secretly lend customers money with a little persuading, he would have done it sooner. 

Rockefeller saw his inability to make decisions and got a good idea of his timid personality.

‘He’s not without greed, but there’s fear too,’ 

Rockefeller decided to perform a little trick – either way, the point of this conversation was to prove his worth, and the result he wanted was a job. 

‘Then let’s do this. After all, my goal is to get work under this person,’

“Then how about this,” when Rockefeller began to suggest something, Carter raised his gaze in interest, 

“What?” 

“I will work under you. What do you think about this?” 

“What? You’re going to work for me?” 

“Yeah,” 

Although it wasn’t like he didn’t have work, he wasn’t so busy that he didn’t have an assistant in a small territory like this. 

“That would be a little difficult. I’m not so busy that I need an assistant, and even if I did, why would I hire you, who I don’t even know that well?” 

“The reason you can’t do what I suggested is that you’re worried about getting in trouble later, right?” 

“That’s right,”

“Then I will take responsibility for that work. Then couldn’t you use me as an assistant?” 

It was an unexpected offer. 

‘You’re going to take full responsibility for it?’

“What – what did you say just now?” 

“It’s literally what I said. I will take responsibility,” 

“Are you saying, if we get caught, you’ll take the blame for everything?” 

“Yes, that way, even if it’s a problem, later on, you would just be able to blame everything on me – either way, if you got caught, we wouldn’t be able to continue this work anyway,” 

There was nothing to worry about as long as Carter could avoid taking responsibility if things went wrong. 

As Rockefeller said, if one secretly lent out their customer’s gold coins, the interest income would increase several times compared to now. 

‘If I don’t just lend out my gold coins, but also lend out the customers that I haven’t been able to touch – without anyone knowing, then the interest income would double from now. If that were the case, it wouldn’t hurt to use an assistant…’

No matter how much he calculated in his head, it was a business that could only be left with a profit. So, of course, from Carter’s point of view, it was tempting.