"How unexpected..." Sinbad remarked as they surveyed the damage from the other groups' fight against the Fog Troupe as dawn crept over Balbadd. Ja'far had just finished relaying his account of the event to him. "That there would be a dungeon capturer in the Fog Troupe..."
"Yes. I've also confirmed that their side has several magical items, and among them is a Metal Vessel," Ja'far replied. "Fortunately, there were no deaths... It's said that 'Wonder Man Alibaba' always uses this tactic to get away. The military is also at its wit's end."
"What's more unexpected, though..." Sinbad continued seriously. "Is that he is the friend Aladdin and the twins were looking for."
"Yes, I can't imagine a magi's friend being reduced to a thief..." Ja'far agreed as they glanced over at Aladdin, who was staring dejectedly off into space while the twins tried to comfort him. Alibaba's alliance with the thieves and his subsequent rejection of their promise with each other appeared to have been a huge shock.
"That jerk..." Faith grumbled darkly, clenching her fist in anger, while Morgiana began to sniff around. How dare Alibaba do that to their little Aladdin! "When I get my hands on him...!!"
"Calm down. The last thing we need is you flying off in a murderous rage. You'll feel better once you've had some rest and eaten," Hope told her. "You, too, Aladdin... You look tired," she said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"..." Aladdin didn't say anything, but he let the twins steer him back to the hotel.
"In the end, though, what kind of person is 'Wonder Man Alibaba' anyway?" Sinbad asked.
"According to the residents... he became active in the Fog Troupe around half a year ago," Ja'far replied. "Every time the Fog Troupe distributes the stolen goods to the residents, they are bound to call out his name, thus he is being seen as a hero by them."
"Hmph... Calling a thief a hero... how absurd," Sinbad said jadedly. "But this also reflects how chaotic this country is..." he added, furrowing his brow when he heard a distant scream from the rundown streets behind them.
"No—someone save me—!" a young woman screamed as a two men held her down and ripped her clothes.
"Hihihi! No one will come 'cause all of the military has been ordered to guard the nobles," one of the men leered at her. "Uwaa!?" he cried out in alarm when L Nando suddenly grabbed him, picking him up by the head with one hand. "Ugrh!" he grunted in pain, coughing up bile when M Nando delivered a harsh kick to his stomach.
"Wh-Who are you guys!?" the other man demanded incredulously, panicking, as their older brother charged at him.
'S Nando body blow!' S Nando thought as he delivered a powerful blow to his opponent's abdomen, knocking him out cold. "Hmph, only daring to snatch a girl's chastity... If you want to steal something, then go for something that has more worth!" he lectured the would-be rapists with disdain. "Hey, woman, go now!" he said, shooing her away. The woman nodded gratefully and thanked them as she quickly gathered up her clothes and hurried away.
"We have actually been reduced to mugging for survival..." M said, sweat-dropping, as they began stripping their victims of any and all valuables they might have on them. They used to target whole caravans. "Why not just sell those accessories we stole from that napping guy, onii-san?"
"We can't sell these babies yet..." S said, patting their precious loot.
"Why is that?"
"The reason lies with this 'huang'," S replied, holding up the paper money he had just taken from one of their victims.
"Huang?" asked M.
"Yes, this is one of the currencies circulating within the Kou Empire. And they have been forcing the countries near Balbadd to use this, too. Using their strong military might to threaten them... And that is why we cannot trust this kind of money. The only money that can be trusted is made of gold or silver!" S explained as they searched for a good spot to bury Sinbad's equipment, hoping to make a short-term deposit to keep it safe. "Let me bury these treasures here first. We'll dig them up again when we're leaving this country, so we can sell them in another.
"Onii-san, then why don't we sell them for gold coins here?" M asked.
"That's because this country doesn't seem to have any gold currency left," S replied with a frown as they left the buried treasure behind. "As we can't escape due to the lockdown of the harbor, the only thing we can do for now is to continue to avoid being caught by the military..."
"Excuse me," someone called out, getting their attention.
"Huh?" the brothers said, turning to face the man, who had long hair, wore slightly tattered robes, and had on veils to cover his face.
"Am I correct in believing that the three of you are the leaders of the rock quarry thieves?" the mysterious stranger asked. "I have a humble request. Can the three of you please follow me?"
"Judging from what happened last night... the ones who attacked you in your area weren't members of the Fog Troupe... but ordinary citizens, am I right?" said Ja'far when he, Sinbad, Masrur, and the twins had gathered again later that evening inside the hotel. While the others were resting, Ja'far had taken the liberty of looking into Balbadd's affairs a little more thoroughly.
"That's right," answered Sinbad. "They were citizens that could no longer endure the hardships of extreme poverty."
"Hmm, but to go to the extent of attacking and raiding the homes of the rich...?" Faith mused with a frown. "How'd it get this bad?"
"It seems that Balbadd is experiencing a major economic gap... judging by the amount of homeless and unemployed we saw while walking around the other day..." Hope said thoughtfully. "I'd say they've probably fallen into a big economic slump, similar to our country's Great Depression... but this country's government doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. Unlike our government, they don't seem to have made any noticeable attempt to fund work projects or to try to create new jobs or welfare programs. As a result, the people probably feel they have no way to earn enough money to support themselves through legitimate means, and so, like that mother who was tired of losing her children, they eventually snapped and decided to take drastic measures with their own hands in order to survive..." Some economists have said that FDR's methods actually prolonged the depression, but at least they had given people the illusion that something was being done.
"That's right. This country's economy is in utter chaos right now," said Ja'far. "Not only that, other countries seem to be intervening with this one's affairs..."
"What do you mean?" Sinbad asked.
"Take a look at this," Ja'far said, pulling out a printed money note.
"Paper money?" Faith asked, surprised. It was her first time seeing it in this world, but she knew money when she saw it. The writing and the dragon printed on it looked kind of Asian.
"Ah, I see..." Hope said, furrowing her brow with a frown. There was something strangely familiar about that design...
"See what?" Faith asked, not seeing the problem. They used paper money all the time back home in the form of dollars.
"Well, the problem with paper money is that its value can be very subjective. It's actually a kind of banknote. The perception of banknotes as money has evolved over time. Originally, money was based on precious metals, like gold and silver. Banknotes were seen essentially as a promissory note: a promise to pay someone in precious metal on presentation. It's a form of representative money. With the gradual removal of precious metals from the monetary system, banknotes evolved to represent credit money, or fiat money, if backed by the credit of a government," Hope explained. "And, judging by the economic upheaval this country is experiencing, that's probably a form of fiat money... It differs from commodity money and representative money. Commodity money is based on a good, often a precious metal such as gold or silver, which has uses other than as a medium of exchange, while representative money is a claim on the commodity rather than the actual good. In monetary economics, fiat money is an intrinsically useless object or record that is widely accepted as a means of payment. In some micro-founded models of money, fiat money is created internally in a community making to make feasible trades that would not otherwise be possible, either because producers and consumers may not anonymously write I.O.U.s, or because of physical constraints. While gold or silver backed representative money entails the legal requirement that the bank of issue redeem it in fixed weights of gold or silver, fiat money's value is unrelated to the value of any physical quantity. A coin can be fiat currency to the extent that its face value, a value defined in law, is greater than its market value as metal. But with silver and gold coins, even if the value attributed to it by the government backing it were to decrease, it would still be worth its own weight. However, paper money, once it loses its value, is completely worthless. A fiat money currency generally loses value once the issuing government or central bank either loses the ability to or refuses to further guarantee its value. Also, huge increases in the supply of paper money can result in hyperinflations—episodes of extreme inflation rates. Hyperinflations are usually caused by large persistent government deficits financed primarily by money creation rather than taxation or borrowing. As such, hyperinflation is often associated with wars, their aftermath, sociopolitical upheavals, or other crises that make it difficult for the government to tax the population. A sharp decrease in real tax revenue coupled with a strong need to maintain the status quo, together with an inability or unwillingness to borrow, can lead a country into hyperinflation. But in the case of Balbadd, they seem to be suffering from both hyperinflation and heavy taxes... It's no wonder they're desperate," she concluded with a frown. Fortunately, all of the terms she had just used were pretty much the same in this world, so she hadn't mentioned anything too alarming to the others, but they were impressed with her knowledge of economics. Sinbad and Ja'far suspected that the girls must have received a rather extensive education. They thought the twins must have come from a family that was fairly well off.
"Wow, that's amazing," Faith said, giving her sister a little round of applause.
"You'd know all this too if you had bothered to stay awake during civics class..." Hope reminded her with a wry smile.
"Nah, that's what I have you for!" Faith told her sister with a brilliant shit-eating grin, causing Hope to sweat-drop.
"Yes, it's just as you said, Hope-san," Ja'far told her. "And I've heard that this paper note called 'huang' was issued by the Kou Empire."
"!" the twins' eyes widened in surprise.
'Them again?' Faith thought, furrowing her brow slightly. 'Man, these guys keep turning up like a bunch of bad pennies...'
'Crap...!' Hope thought, biting her lip. A bead of nervous sweat slid down the side of her face, and she shifted a bit guiltily as she recalled how she had told pretty much everything she had just said to Kouen while trying to explain how the 'dollar' worked. This wasn't her doing, was it...? She really hoped it was all just a very nasty coincidence.
"Moreover," Ja'far continued, "when I went to investigate this thoroughly, I found that... the king of Balbadd, Ahbmad Saluja, is engaged to marry a princess from the Kou Empire."
"What did you say!?" Sinbad asked, furrowing his brow. "That bastard... Why didn't he tell us anything about this?" he wondered seriously, holding his chin. His expression made Faith want to do bad things with him.
"More importantly, the biggest problem we have here is certainly the Fog Troupe. Since our opponents have a Djinn's Metal Vessel, as well as that many magical items... if we don't revise our battle plans, the situation will become very serious," Ja'far said grimly. "It looks like establishing contact with Sindria is still the best choice."
"I guess you're right," said Sinbad. "Since I lost all of my metal vessels..."
"Hey, couldn't you teach Hope how to use hers?" Faith asked.
"I could... but it would take time," he replied thoughtfully. "It's not something you can master overnight. By the way, where's Aladdin?" he asked.
"Well..." Ja'far said, glancing at the twins.
"Aladdin's still upset over that jerk, Alibaba!" Faith huffed moodily, crossing her arms.
"Since then, he's been resting in our room," Hope added. "He might be a magi, but he's still a kid... and, to him, Alibaba was a very important friend... His rejection must've been a huge shock."