Preferential treatment

"Sure. As long as you will take care of it all, we can split the profit between the four of us. I don't know how things would go, but I expect that this would not be my last hunt, so work hard and this could be the start of profitable cooperation."

"!!!"

"!!!"

"!!!"

The young man assured and the three children all perked up and immediately rushed towards the piles of various parts of mole-rabbits without speaking another word.

"And don't try to scam him – I will make sure to ask the guard in charge of buying the materials to tell me how much he paid you. If you will take even a single bill to yourselves without telling Viria, I will be adding theft to your crime list! Alright, let's go. I will show you to the bathhouse."

Bossac called at the kids before waving at Viria and the young man followed him after glancing at the children who looked very serious about their new task.

"...so... the bathhouse you are taking me – is it like a communal one or...?"

The young man asked, peeling layers of coagulated blood from his hands and sleeves of the formerly gray prison outfit.

"There is a communal one that is free, but it is always full in the morning, and queueing can take up to an hour. I am taking you ta a much nicer one, although as everything is nice here, this one costs money to partake in."

Bossac answered him with a shrug as the first barrier disappeared from their sight.

"A money that I do not have..."

Viria pointed out looking meaningfully at the guard.

"Yes, you do. The mole-rabbits back there are worth quite a lot, you just don't have the bills in hand. As a guard, I can vouch for you and you will be able to have a nice and then pay it off later... After you will get your hands on the actual currency."

"Convenient."

Bossac denied and explained making the young man nod in almost believable admiration.

Just as Viria was beginning to wonder how come they did not meet anyone else heading to the first barrier to hunt, the two of them passed through the second barrier and stood in front of a crowd of annoyed people being blocked off by two other guards that the young man haven't met before.

"The prisoner under my supervision hunted down a lot of mole-rabbits through the night and the three juvenile convicts from block A-9 will be moving it all to the trade point. Make sure that they have a peaceful time."

Bossac said to the other guards and slipped each one a green slip of paper.

Both men took rubbed the corners of their slips almost at the same time and smelled their fingers.

"Sure thing, Bossie."

"Redro, you stay here and keep the convicts in order here. I will go check on the amount of the materials. Some of the guys here like to take the easy route whenever they get the chance."

The first one nodded to the guard by Viria's side, while the other one turned right around and walked through the gate of the second barrier.

"Enough monsters will spawn throughout the day for all of you, don't bunch up like that!"

Bossac raised his voice and walked towards the crowd, making everyone move to the side, creating a path for him and Viria to take.

"This feels... slightly different than I expected..."

The young man voiced out his observation, glancing at the other convicts staring at him with varying degrees of surprise, annoyance, or even jealousy of all things.

"We are the guards, they are the prisoners – I did say that most of the people who settle on this floor were sentenced unjustly, but there is quite a sizable amount of people who actually committed some sort of crimes. You cannot be friends with everyone."

"You seemed to be pretty good pals with Chux though... and he was originally sent to the second floor..."

Bossac said, keeping a straight face and making Viria think...

"Chux is a completely different case than the rest. He is... very cooperative."

The guard hesitated for a moment, which honestly didn't give Viria a good feeling about the whole thing.

"..."

The young man opened his mouth and almost asked what was different about him then, to get such clearly preferential treatment, but he ended up closing his mouth and swallowing his words.

There was no need to wake up a sleeping tiger.

Especially since Viria had no idea how deep was that sleep...

"Say, what were those green slips of paper that you gave the other guards, and why did they rub them and smelled their fingers?"

The young men tried to remember the exact way and road the guard was leading him through and decided to ask a reasonably safe question.

"Hmm? Didn't we... Ah, right – you haven't seen me use any bills yesterday."

Bossac raised his brow and started to ask in a confused voice, but then she realized something, and his expression cleared out.

"We don't use actual currency in this place. Instead, we have those differently colored bills that still count as money. They do not have a certain value, but depending on the color they give you different buying power."

The helpful guard pulled a few slips out of his pocket and started showcasing them one by one.

"Yellow one can get you a meal. Depending on the place you would be allowed to enter that could mean either a perfectly seasoned mole-rabbit roast and locally brewed wine or a hard piece of dark bread and a glass of lukewarm water. The Blue one is for weapons, armor, and other types of equipment. The Green one is for all kinds of services. And black is for housing. All of them depend on whether you are allowed to get the thing that interests you or not, and each one is interchangeable with the others at a ratio completely depending on the two parties involved in the trade. Originally there was an actual ruleset about how much a bill of one color is worth compared to another one, but we steered away from it. The system we have in place now has proven to be more functional... although I doubt it would work in any other place."

Bossac explained and hid the slips back in his pocket.