Herald of Steel

The reason for Alexander’s test was of course obvious.

Without calculators and only the most basic abacus, most businesses relied on mental math to get their daily transactions.

It would be too tedious to get a pen and paper for simple problems like 27 minus 14.

But naturally, they had to be also accurate, not just fast.

A fact that was all the more true for a business like banks. Alexander did not dare imagine the kind of shenanigans that would unfold if the tellers and cashiers started to make basic arithmetic mistakes.

Hence he had decided to test their boss first, presenting her with quite a difficult problem.

And indeed, this little test was much harder than it might seem on paper.

Because remember Alexander did not say anything in the beginning.

There were no instructions on whether to add, subtract, or multiply… heck there were no clues that he was even taking a test.

He had just started speaking out of the blue.

Thus the fact that Lady Nanazin was able to pass this and pass it with such flying colors really showed her mettle. The Adhanian queen had relied purely on her instinct and state of mind to predict Alexander’s move and then preempt it.

It was a level of skill even Alexander himself did not think he had. Nor did he think he would have been able to so quickly catch on,

This memory was not that quick. @@novelbin@@

Although that might be more due to the difference in curriculum between him and Lady Nanazin.

Whereas his one teaching concentrated more on creativity and learning the basics, Lady Nanazin’s family education consisted of mostly reading and memorizing… lots and lots of reading and memorizing.

And then simply regurgitating that she had been taught like a well trained parrot.

Reasonable deductions in those courses were literally non existent- probably because reasonable deduction as a concept had not entered the human psyche yet.

This was one of the reasons why progress was so snail like in ancient times. Almost nobody questioned anything and simply believed whatever was written in the books as gospels.

With little curiosity, new things continued to remain hidden.

The only good side effect of this type of curriculum that Alexander could say was that perhaps everyone who studied had a really good memory.

Years of practiced memorization had ingrained in them the skill to easily remember things that had happened even long, long ago, and with great accuracy.

A skill that would be a really important asset in a time without computers or easily accessible data storage. Being able to quickly remember details was the bread and butter for offering a quick service.

And Alexander naturally also wanted Lady Nanazin to remember notable people she was giving out loans to, what kind of reputation those people had in the community, and even what they were taking loans for.

Social interaction was really important for a bank manager.

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In fact, the job of a bank manager used to be really prestigious, on par with doctors and engineers. He would be well known by the community and if you wanted to take a particulary large loan, you had to know him personally to have him approve it.

Some families would even take their parents and grandparents with them when asking for a loan because they might be more familiar with the local bank manager and so hopefully get a more preferential rate.

Now however, this job has been largely replaced with credit score, and the post has become little more than a glorified rubber stamper.

Fortunately for Lady Nanazin, her job for the foreseeable future seemed still very safe. Alexander was not likely going to invent the computer even in his lifetime.

Hence impressed by her display of memory and quick wittedness, Alexander was not stingy with the praise, thus getting him a flash of pearly whites from the lady opposite of him, "Thank you, my lord."

Yet, Lady Nanazin’s test was not done, as repositioning himself a bit, Alexander moved on to the next part of the exam.

"Then my lady, suppose I were to buy a slave for 20,000 ropals and sell her 25,000 ropals… then some time later I once again buy her back for 30,000 before gifting her to someone for 15,000 ropals… how much profit or loss do you think I made?"

The logic behind this question was to test Lady Nanazin’s very basic ability to differentiate between credit and debit.

Or as Alexander preferred to remember it, in accounting terms, credit was buying- i.e.- ’losing money to buy liabilities ’ and debit was selling i.e.- gaining money by selling liabilities.

"Who is this slave you are buying twice my lord?" While hearing the question Lady Nanazin at first waged the small joke, flashing her beautifully manicured and painted nails in front of her.

"You spent 50,000 ropals buying the slave twice. But you got only 40,000 selling her. So you are 10,000 in the red." The sharp lady sounded almost bored as she succinctly gave the answer, then turned to give Alexander an almost skeptical look.

After the first very tough quiz, this was so easy it almost sounded like a trick question.

"Excellent! Excellent" Alexander however did not mind the gaze and simply producing a light nod, moved on.

"This is the last question. It is a bit long and filled with a lot of very close numbers… so listen carefully Your Highness.

"3 men go into an inn to stay the night. The innkeeper says a room is 30 ropals so each man pays 10 and goes to their room."

"A bit later the innkeeper realizes the room he gave was only 25 ropals. So he sends the barmaid with the extra change. However on the way, the girl realizes she cannot split the 5 ropal evenly between the 3 men. So she lies and gives each man only 1 ropal, keeping the 2 for herself."

"Now… this means that the 3 men each paid 9 ropals for the room, which is a total of 27. Add the 2 that the maid kept, that is 29 ropals. So where did the other ropal go?"

"...???..." As Alexander finished, Lady Nanazin suddenly appeared to become a bit puzzled

"That does not make any sense. Why should the two numbers match?" She asked, confused about the point of the question.

In her mind, 30 was simply the number the innkeeper asked out of mistake. The men did not spend 30 ropals. They got some of their money back.

So why should their spending match 30?

Hence she thought either Alexander was making a mistake or she was misunderstanding him.

"Ahem.. I think I can see the trick here." It was Lady Parthia who was the first to see through this mass of jumbled up information.

Giving a small grin, she chimed in a slightly amused tone.

"The answer to my lord’s question about where the 1 ropal is, is that there is no missing ropal. The three men spent 27 ropals- 25 on the room and unknowingly 2 to the ’light fingered’ maid. I believe my lord has added the 2 ropals the maid took twice."

Lady Nanazin’s face revealed a dawning realization, while Alexander’s thought that this woman really had brains was once again reinforced.

It barely took her half a minute to solve the relatively tricky problem.

Alexander himself remembered that the first he saw this, it took him a while, as he, for whatever reason decided to focus on the maid dividing and giving each 1 ropal instead of the flat 3 ropal.

"Ahhh… if that’s the case, then I have 100 ropals. I spend 2 on a small meal, leaving me 98 ropals. Then I buy a beautiful bangle for 5, leaving me with 93. So tell there where did the 191 ropals come from (98+93)? What a stupid problem!"

The man’s thoughts were however suddenly shattered by this sudden shout from the other mature lady, who could be seen giving Alexander a very angry scowl.

Lady Nanazin felt almost cheated by Alexander, as she determined the question was not well phrased. It asked something- finding the missing 1 ropal, but really wanted something entirely different.

Thus driven by jealousy of her much more successful partner, the curvy lady was not afraid to let her lover know of her distaste.

"Hahaha, here I have to disagree with your Lady Nanazin. I think this is an excellent problem. It teaches us the mistake of counting things more than once?" While Lady Parthia appeared to be in a much more jovial mood, and proudly chuckled her own thoughts.

"Is this what you wanted us to point out?" She then turned to phrase the question, although the absolute confidence in her voice clearly told Alexander she knew the answer.

’This women…’ The corner of Alexander’s very perceptibly twitched at this, just the slightest of creeping fear dripping into his heart.

In front of Lady Parthia, Alexander felt like almost an open book most of the times. As if she could see his thoughts forming into speech bubbles right above his head.

Even the few times Alexander managed to beat this terrifying woman was mostly him using his advanced knowledge.

Alexander certainly did not like this feeling.

Let us say no to piracy! Don’t take part in a crime! Don’t patronize thieves!

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