The Rise of the Urban God

CHAPTER 16

The name of the bank situated in this village was called the Bright Moon Bank. Every village bank had a different name, and their managers were different, but they all still answered to the authorities.

The banks signaled status in the city.

Not just anybody could enter the bank because there’s the rule of paying 1 silver coin every time one entered the bank. This was why the crowds never rushed to the banks, and only those who could afford to waste a silver coin easily would use the banks often. This would include big businessmen.

But the likes of Dustin who only had a small restaurant would not dare to enter the bank any more than once a month or once in two months as one silver was not a small amount for the Revers family. And also Dustin was not the kind of person to waste even a single copper coin.

As Ayana kept telling Ulmer about the city and about her parents, Ulmer understood that Dustin and Robin weren’t depressed just because there were no customers coming to the shop but also because they had to waste a lot of food that they made. Nobody came forward to their food.

This was where Ulmer also got his idea from.

Would the customers not visit the restaurant no matter what he tried to do? He just wanted to test his theory and see if he would succeed or not. 

Soon, they reached the bank. It was a ten minute walk.

The bank was not as big of a building as he thought, but it looked very new and bright compared to other nearby buildings because of it being newly painted. Clearly, these banks are always profiting no matter what they were, or so Ulmer thought.

There was a guard standing outside. He was fat, but he had a baton in his hand. He didn’t have any gun, at least as far as Ulmer could see.

“Why does the guard have no gun?” Ulmer couldn’t help but ask.

“Gun? What for?” Ayana asked.

“What do you mean? What if someone attacks the bank?”

“Haha, that’s not going to happen,” Ayana confidently said.

“Why? How can you be so sure?’

“Because if anyone steals from the banks, the punishment is the death penalty, and everyone related to those criminals would also lose their ability to use banks for three generations!” Ayana said, shocking Ulmer.

“But is death punishment enough to stop criminals?” Ulmer couldn’t help but ask. “I mean, as long as they don’t get caught, nobody will know who they are, right?”

“That’s not possible because these banks are installed with cameras that are run by a super computer,” Ayana said, “which is driven by some powerful supernatural system. It is not only possible to figure out the identities of the people through those cameras, but they can be used to shoot and injure the robbers. They won’t even be able to escape the banks and will get killed before that. That’s why, nobody has successfully robbed the banks and gotten away with it for as long as I can remember.”

“That’s awesome but also scary,” Ulmer was looking at the cameras, and there were in fact too many of them. He could see at least a dozen cameras in that small bank which was built in about 300 sq ft.

And there were four workers working there, but they were all cracking jokes among themselves right now.

“Excuse me,” Ayana called for them, but they didn’t respond. There was a desk between two parties, and Ayana patiently asked them again. “Sir, we’re here to withdraw some money.”

“Can’t you see that we are busy?” one of them barked at her. “Sit there and wait for a few minutes.”

“How can you talk to a customer like that?” Ulmer asked them immediately.

“Huh? Who’s this clown you brought alone?” the worker who was the oldest among them asked. “Teach him some manners first.”

“Manners?” Ulmer was talking back, but Ayana stopped him and made him walk back and sit down on a wooden chair. “Why are you stopping me, Ayana?” he asked her. “How can you just let them talk to you in that manner?”

“They are always like that,” Ayana said in a low voice. “If you annoy them, they will only make it difficult for you to get the bank’s services.”

“Aren’t there any online services so that we don’t have to deal with these punks?” Ulmer asked.

“Online? What’s that?” Ayana looked clueless.

Ulmer just realized that there was no such thing as the internet in this city.

“Nevermind,” Ulmer controlled his anger.

One of the workers went to the landline phone and called someone.

A few minutes later.

Henry entered the bank with a couple of officers with him. He came and stood not far from where Ulmer and Ayana were.

“I came here to check my bank balance,” Henry said aloud, taking out his gold bank card.”Tell me how much money is there right now.”