Shovels In Spades

Daz grasped the situation quickly and replied to the four-armed man, "I'm new to the system, so if it's not a bother, could you answer some questions for me?"

"Absolutely, Sir Reaper. That is my job and my honour," with a bow, the man answered humbly.

"Okay." Daz collected his thoughts and asked, "First, why can't I see anyone's faces except for my own and you employees'? I'm assuming you're an employee, by the way. Correct me if I'm wrong, please."

"Very astute, Sir Reaper. I am indeed an employee," the man praised Daz as if he were a child, but somehow, it didn't come off as condescending and he even seemed to be genuinely impressed.

"Ah, I apologize, Sir Reaper, if I offended you with my words. It is simply far too rare for someone with so much common sense to be assigned to me, that is all," he happily explained after realising how easily his words could have been misinterpreted.

"Okay," Daz replied indifferently. He didn't really care, he just wanted answers.

'A tricky one, huh?' the four-armed man thought. "As you pointed out, Sir Reaper, everyone that enters the Midechhe Travelling Bank will have their faces distorted to protect their anonymity. After all, many of our clients are notorious across the system and have many enemies that they would rather avoid."

"You wouldn't have noticed it yourself, Sir Reaper, but even your visage is obscured and I cannot see it without your express permission." The employee gestured lightly to Daz's face with one of his blue arms.

Calmly holding his cheek and feeling no different, Daz simply replied, "That's handy."

"Indeed. Well, Sir Reaper, have you any more enquiries?" This member of the bank's staff was very happy to have been assigned to a seeming reasonable young man. Some of the clients could certainly be a handful to manage at times.

"Yeah," Daz nodded. "Are you the employee assigned to only me, or are you responsible for all of the people at my base or on my home planet? Then again, the answer could be neither..."

"A good question, Sir Reaper." With a smile, the man explained, "I am in charge of your specific base. While Earth is a new planet, it has a very large amount of surviving sentient beings. In lieu of this, the manager of this branch of the company has decided to allocate a different employee to each base on Earth that purchases a copy of our travelling bank."

"I see... Hmm, in that case, are there more people than just myself from my base in the bank right now?" Daz had suspected that a few of his citizens would have entered the building upon seeing it.

They knew by now that any sudden structures that appeared out of nowhere were their lord's doing and they understood that the only place which was off limits was his cabin in the inner fort, so curiosity would naturally drive some of them to the bank.

"There are. Currently, including yourself, Sir Reaper, a total of six of your base's residents have entered the bank and are being served by my clones." This employee was getting more and more impressed by Daz's keen nature and on-point questions.

"Your clones?" Daz's interest was piqued.

"Indeed. All of the employees of the Midechhe Travelling Bank must be able to produce at least one-hundred thousand clones capable of speech and basic actions," with a prideful tone in his voice, the four-armed man answered Daz.

'One-hundred thousand?! Fucking hell, that's surprising if he's telling the truth... I was going to identify him, but I think I'd better not for now,' Daz sighed in relief.

As if a lightbulb had gone off in his head, Daz asked another question. "What happens if a base has more than one-hundred thousand people in it and they all use the bank at once?"

"Then another employee shall be assigned to your designated base. If the number of concurrent clients surpasses two-hundred thousand, then a third employee shall be added and so on and so forth," the man patiently answered.

Daz held his chin and seemed to be locked in thought, so the member of staff felt it was right to prompt him a bit. "Have you any more questions, Sir Reaper?"

"I guess not. Ah, the interest rate on stored merit points, is that fixed at two-percent, or can it fluctuate?" This was very important information to Daz.

"It will change depending on the amount being used by the base in question's citizens, so it can easily decrease if there is very little wealth being stored in the bank and easily raised if a large quantity is being deposited regularly," the man replied, pleasing Daz greatly.

"That's good to know. Well, my last request," Daz smiled.

"Yes, Sir Reaper? Please, do not hold back and ask me anything at all." The four-armed and blue-skinned man requested with an amiable smile on his lips.

"I only have a few hundred merit points since I wasn't expecting to buy this building today, but do you mind storing them for me?" Daz openly admitted.

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"Absolutely, Sir Reaper, and please, do not feel ashamed for having such a small sum of merit points. It is amazing that you have managed to purchase a branch of the bank on your seventh day with the system considering it costs two-hundred thousand merit points." The employee's words were genuine and he didn't hesitate to do as Daz had asked which forced two grey screens to block the Reaper's vision.