The royal post office was probably open at this point, so I made my way to the next destination on my agenda.

  On the way, several people greeted me in the hallway.

  “Good morning, Hana.”

  Evidently, the news that I had been turned into a sve hadn’t spread like wildfire yet. I was sure that people would find out eventually, but I suspected the rumors were spreading slower than normal in part due to the fact that I was still openly walking around in a maid uniform. I didn’t look or dress like a sve, so this obvious contradiction would certainly make most people to second-guess the accuracy of the wild gossip that they heard on the grapevine.

  I returned the greetings politely.

  Nobody gave me any strange or unusual looks.

  It was hard to know exactly how much longer I’d continue to receive this amicable treatment.

  + + +

  When I reached the post office, I greeted the mail clerk by name.

  “Sending your monthly letter to your sister?” He asked me.

  “Yes,” I replied. “The usual package.”

  The two of us had this routine exchange nearly every month, so we knew each other quite well. As a matter of fact, the the clerk pulled out a pre-filled mailing slip that he had already started for me. The name, address, and generic fields had already been filled out with my information. Evidently, he had saved this form behind the counter since it was virtually guaranteed that I would show up for my monthly package sooner or ter.

  We shared some inconsequential small talk while I filled in the remainder of the paperwork.

  Ordinarily, I avoided sending any physical cash directly through the mail.

  There was always a risk that it would be lost or stolen, so a promissory note from the bank was a better option. They were simir to checks (cheques) on Earth, except that nobody in the Kingdom of Galuterica carried their own checkbooks. Instead, the standard practice was to purchase bnk promissory paper from a store (a single sheet cost nearly as much as a full day of my wages), which could then be used to write a brief note instructing the bank that a certain amount of money could be transferred to a different individual.

  Promissory paper was essentially a magic document that was commonly used to verify the legitimacy of the writer. It served an anti-fraud function in society, and it was used for many other purposes beyond writing bank notes. Promissory documents were notable for a magic wax seal that would turn bck if it detected fraud. For example, if a scammer tried to forge a signature or if a bankrupt merchant tried to purchase something even though they cked the funds, the magic fibers woven in promissory paper would react. It was simir to swiping a credit card on Earth — if the credit card was bad, it would be immediately rejected by the vendor.

  Most people looked straight at the wax seal, and if it was white, everything was fine.

  I started to write a promissory note for my family members right at the clerk’s desk.

  The post office clerk didn’t even look twice when I wrote Kang Jiesu’s name as the individual who owned the account that I was withdrawing money from. He was still chatting about his eight year old son, who had recently started a coveted apprenticeship with the royal carpenter. I humored the mail clerk with a friendly conversation while I printed my name underneath Kang Jiesu, clearly indicating that I was signing on his behalf as a proxy, and then I added my signature.

  —The wax seal remained white.

  I passed the promissory note to the clerk and he accepted it without even reading the document.

  This was going much more smoothly than I could have possibly hoped.

  The mail clerk seemed to be in a particurly good mood, and he finalized my package before setting it off to side to be delivered with the rest of the daily mail.

  Before I bid my farewell, I bought ten more sheets of bnk promissory paper. Then, I asked the clerk if he could pass a message along to the local merchant’s guild. There were a lot of errands that I wanted to run today, and it would happen a lot more efficiently if they were aware that I had some business to discuss in person.

  + + +

  I briefly returned my quarters to grab a bite to eat (the stale bread from two nights ago), and also to change out of my maid uniform into civilian street clothes. I picked one of my nicest dresses for the inner yer, but then I covered myself in a pin-looking brown shawl that looked rather old and worn, which completely obscured the stylish outfit that I was wearing underneath.

  Meanwhile, I took a few minutes to write a few sentences on the promissory notes that I had just purchased.

  My next intended destination was the bank, however it wasn’t located within the grounds of the Royal Pace.

  The nearest marketpce in the Royal Capital that was just under a kilometer away, however, there was some risk involved given that I knew that the Obedience Crest prevented sves from traveling a certain distance from their masters. From my brief research in the library this morning, it seemed like one kilometer was a very common restriction, but I hadn’t yet tested the actual limits of the tattoo on my body.

  From what I heard, vioting the distance restriction could hurt a lot — simir to how a dog with a training colr might be shocked with electricity for crossing a wireless boundary.

  I didn’t really want to experience that kind of pain unless I had no choice.

  It was impossible to know for certain exactly how far away I could travel before I’d be punished.

  + + +

  Nonetheless, I steeled my resolve and took the 15 minute walk to the nearest bank.

  I was very careful to stay within the one kilometer radius, and I was very relieved to confirm that my Obedience Crest had no issues at this distance.

  However, I still had another hurdle ahead of me.

  Galuterican banks exhibited a great deal more security than ordinary shops in the marketpce, so there was definitely no way for me to masquerade as a maid. Banks and prisons employed very sophisticated barriers, and the bank tellers would immediately know that I was a sve as soon as I walked inside, even if I was visually disguised as an aristocrat. There were also magical devices that could verify a person’s identity at the click of a button.

  I would be asking for serious trouble if a sve did not act and look like a sve. If they determined that I was suspicious, they would surely investigate my circumstances and quickly find out that Kang Jiesu had given me inappropriate rights for a sve — and there was quite a strong chance that some irate government officials would find ways to fix the gring loophole.

  This was the reason why I had intentionally put on an old ugly-looking shawl. I also unwound the bandages around my left arm so that the magic seal on my hand was visible in pin sight. The hope was that I looked something more like a stereotypical house sve who was running an errand for her master, although I was definitely very nervous that my sve cospy wouldn’t be convincing enough.

  As a matter of fact, I had already judged it would be too dangerous to approach the main bank counter.

  There were never any sves at the customer support desk.

  Instead, I silently lined up for the dispensary kiosk with my head fully lowered, staring soullessly at the floor. The dispensary kiosk was the Galuterican equivalent of an ATM, in the sense that it was used by people who were cashing in promissory notes that they received from someone else. Unfortunately, the process couldn’t be automated, since there wasn’t any text-recognition software in this isekai universe, so it was still necessary for a bank teller to read and verify every single promissory note by hand.

  It was an extremely rote and boring job. A single banker acting as an ATM could go through a hundred promissory notes in a single hour, and I had the impression that they didn’t scrutinize each case as carefully as the other bankers who were assigned to a customer support role. The lines outside of the dispensary kiosk could get depressingly long, as virtually every free citizen in the kingdom needed to use an ATM machine at one point or another. It was also retively common for higher-sary jobs to pay their employees with promissory notes rather than physical cash.

  Today, since it was very early in the morning, the wait was retively short.

  It only took 30 minutes to move through the entire line.

  As you might imagine, a busy aristocrat might send a servant to cash in a promissory note on their behalf instead of waiting in line themselves. It was rare, but I had seen a handful of sves who had been entrusted with that type of task before. I wouldn’t have pursued a pn like this if I had never seen any other sve do it before.

  When I reached the bank teller, I turned over the promissory note and silently presented my left hand so that the banker could see the silver mark which indicated I had explicit permission from my master.

  I avoided eye contact and didn’t say a single word.

  I had taken a lot of care to phrase the promissory note ambiguously so that it didn’t look like I had written it. An ordinary sve could not read or write, so I didn’t want the banker to think that I had signed my own note. Frankly, sves weren’t supposed to be able to sign any documents at all.

  The exact text was as follows:

  “Please withdraw 300 gold coins from my account (Kang Jiesu) and dispense it to my personal sve who bears this promissory note. Signed by, Hanamarie Stiria, scribing on behalf of Kang Jiesu’s will.” (valid seal)

  The idea behind this convoluted scheme was that anyone reading the note would hopefully assume that ‘Hanamarie Stiria’ was a professional secretary who had drafted the document according to the direct instructions of her lord. This was a retively common practice, and it would hold up to scrutiny so long as the banker didn’t feel a need to search for ‘Hanamarie Stiria’ in his database of names.

  Meanwhile, the ‘personal sve’ was kept anonymous, and I quietly omitted the fact that the sve and secretary were the same person.

  Everything would fall apart if the bank teller randomly decided to use magic to inspect the identity of the sve (me) who was standing in front of him. If that happened, he would immediately see that the name of the sve and the secretary were identical, which would be suspicious enough to prompt a deeper investigation.

  Normally, it was standard practice to verify the recpient’s identity whenever money was being withdrawn. However, I was counting on the fact that my promissory note had not named any specific recipient. Without a specific name, there was nothing that the banker could verify. There wouldn’t be any no point to using detailed inspection magic since there wouldn’t be anything to cross-reference even if the banker learned the sve’s name.

  …At least, that was what I hoped.

  It was human nature to avoid doing more work than strictly necessary, right?

  I had considered the rationale behind this scenario very carefully.

  However, it was definitely still a significant risk.

  + + +

  To my relief, the banker didn’t even spend more than a second on the note that he received.

  From the banker’s perspective, it was an internal transfer (Kang Jiesu withdrawing money that remained in Kang Jiesu’s possession), so there was very little concern for thievery or fraud. Furthermore, both the wax seal on the document and the stamp on my hand were perfectly valid, which altogether added to the overall confidence that the transaction was legitimate and secure.

  He reached into the money drawer and pulled out a bag of golden coins, weighing it on a scale to confirm that the total amount was correct.

  Minutes ter, I was walking away from the bank with a year’s worth of my sary in my hands.

  ?