The Founder of the Great Financial Family

“Then, did we make a big mistake before?” 

As Joshua looked up at him with teary eyes, Rockefeller smiled gently and shook his head, 

“No, it wasn’t such a big mistake. Because we’re young, adults wouldn’t believe you even if you say things like that. But later on, when we start making money, and it becomes more visible – the rumours will reach the ears of the Lord. Then the Lord or one of his retainers will probably come asking to try and find the source of the money we make. That’s when we might face some unexpected problems.” 

“Then, wouldn’t that be a big deal?” 

“It might be a big deal, or it might not. So you don’t have to worry too much. As dad did and uncle Bikip from next door does. We just need to take a portion of the profits and give it to the Lord. Of course, that’s if everything goes down well,” 

Andrew, who had been listening to the conversation between the two, spoke quietly, reflecting on his actions from earlier, 

“Rockefeller-hyung is right. We were too careless before. In the future, we shouldn’t tell people where we’re going or what we’re doing since they’re strangers that have nothing to do with us. They don’t care about us,” 

Maybe it was because he was the second child who often hung out with children his age, but he seemed to have a clearer idea of human relationships than the other siblings. 

When the second child said that, the third child also reflected on his mistake, 

“I’ll be more careful from now on. I was so excited that I was careless. I acted too rashly before,” 

Rockefeller nodded and decided to drop the issue there. Instead, it was a good lesson for his siblings to learn, which was rather good for him. 

“You just have to be careful in the future. Even if you lose something small, it’s okay as long as you don’t lose something big – since what you have left is more than what you lost.”

Rockefeller continued, 

“Everyone makes mistakes, whether big or small. Never be ashamed of your mistakes. Instead, make sure you never repeat your mistakes since that’s what idiots do. Do you guys understand?” 

His younger brothers must have understood, as they all nodded. 

After that, how long did they walk?

Rockefeller and his younger siblings arrived at a stream a long distance away from the village. 

“Why are we here? Can you make money here?” 

“We didn’t come here to catch fish, right?”

When the younger siblings expressed their doubts, Rockefeller explained to them their reason for coming here, 

“From now on, we’re going to dig for placer gold,”

Until they arrived, Rockefeller considered the most effective and promising way to make money. 

He pondered the course of action which would create the most wealth for his efforts. When he combined the novel contents that he knew and what he had learned and experienced so far, he saw one way. 

And that was gathering the ore and dust, which would be eroded from the gold vein and deposited in the river. 

‘It’s been a while, but I went to the placer mining meetings as well,’

It might be a peculiar hobby for some, but like there were meetings of people who would go mountaineering or biking together, there were also meetings to gather gold.

Most of the gatherings were made just for fun because the number of raw minerals you gathered compared to the effort was minuscule. But Rockefeller had been active in such groups for a time. It was because of this experience he came out here to this steam.

‘Placer mining. I saw a few videos on YouBute and got interested, so I attended maybe twice? I only learned the basics and stopped, but who knew it would become a helpful experience here?’

If he’d had no idea about placer mining, then he probably wouldn’t have come this far. However, he had some idea about the method, so for Rockefeller, this was a challenge that he had some expectations towards. 

‘If the Gold Vein War breaks out here, it means there are huge gold veins in the area – then even in a stream like this, there should be some gold mineral deposits.’

Some might ask, 

If it was digging for gold anyway, wouldn’t it be better to go directly to the gold mine and dig gold ore rather than placer?

No. Placer mining can be done easily by a non-professional who knows next to nothing but digging for gold ore is entirely different. In the first place, it was challenging to find the gold veins, and the process of extracting gold from ore was complicated, so not just anyone could do it. 

There was also the risk of encountering wild animals or monsters in an abandoned mine. From Rockefeller’s point of view, collecting gold dust and bits of ore was the best option considering safety and their general unprofessionalism. 

‘That is if there’s placer gold here,’ 

That was something Rockefeller couldn’t be 100% sure about. 

Nothing in his memories nor anything in the original Rockefeller’s memories suggested that gold had been found here. 

‘People here probably wouldn’t even imagine gold coming out this place,’

If placer gold does come out of here, on top of that, if a lot of placer gold came out of this place, then how could you interpret that?

Rockefeller used his knowledge of the novel and his understanding of the Montefeltro estate to come to the following conclusion, 

‘First, only I know that new gold veins are found in this estate. It’s not yet known to other people.’

A long time ago, this land was known as Azrak Goldmine, the largest goldmine on the continent.

If it was land those childish and stubborn dwarves had abandoned, then it was pretty much considered dead land already. 

The Empire wouldn’t have placed any expectations on this land when it incorporated this palace into its territory. It was pretty much picking up land that had been thrown away by someone else.

‘If they had any expectations, they wouldn’t have just left everything alone, like this.’ The fact that there were no gold mines in operations right now, and considering that it was pretty much a fact of history that this land had once had gold, was an indication of how unrelated they considered gold to the current land. 

‘So did everyone forsake the potential of this land? To the point where they thought there was absolutely no gold left? If that was the case, then it makes sense….’ 

As he considered this, Rockefeller pressed a hand to his head without realising, 

‘Hell, if I didn’t know that a gold vein was going to be 

discovered, then I wouldn’t have thought to collect placer gold either. I would have thought that there was no possibility for it, and since this place is dangerous, I wouldn’t have come here.

This place was close to the next village, and it was also a place where one might encounter orcs occasionally. It was around here that the story of an orc encounter would come about at least once or twice a year. 

There weren’t so many orcs that people had a hard time living with, but occasionally, if someone had bad luck, it was a place where people would encounter orcs. 

‘I wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t thought of placer mining for gold,’

Snapping out of his thoughts, Rockefeller began to talk to his waiting siblings, 

“We’ll find gold here. Did you know that there were a lot of gold mines here in the past?”