Goblin Locke

Diagon Alley.

Murphy once again walked into Gringotts with gold worth more than a hundred thousand pounds in his possession.

After the first batch of orders had been handled according to Patrick's suggestion, they had already been delivered.

Patrick expected a second batch of orders to come soon, and there might even be an immediate explosion in order volume.

Although the diluted processing method meant the previous stock solution could still last for a while, he could not just sit back and consume his reserves. Murphy still had to solve the raw material problem.

"Mr. Darkholme." The goblin supervisor saw Murphy and greeted him of his own accord. "Here to exchange gold again?"

This was his third time coming to Gringotts to exchange gold. He had come once before to replenish potion ingredients.

Murphy placed the bag on the counter. "Yes."

"Your ancestors really buried quite a lot of gold," the goblin supervisor said.

"What, are you lot going to police my ancestors' hobbies too?"

"Heh heh, of course we have no say in that. But whether this gold of yours was truly buried by your esteemed ancestors, I'm not so sure."

"Guess what? The other day I dug up a gold mine in my ancestral fields," Murphy said.

"You must be joking!"

"You know that too? Stop fucking yammering and wasting my time. Are you exchanging it or not?"

The goblin supervisor's face turned cold. Only after quite a while did he say, "We will. But this time, we'll add a 5% handling fee."

"Merlin's black heart! Five percent? Why don't you damn well rob me?" Murphy was furious.

Exchanging gold for Galleons was already a terrible loss, and they were still charging such a huge handling fee. The greed of these goblins was more disgusting than maggots in a cesspit!

"As long as you tell us the true source of the gold, I can waive that handling fee."

"Go fart through your mother's hoops!" Murphy exploded. "How about I hand over the treasure map my ancestors used to bury the gold?!"

"That would indeed be conclusive proof."

"Fuck your mother! You short pig-troll and goblin-bred bastard!"

Murphy spat out another sentence in Chinese.

"What did you say?"

"I said Gringotts is truly civilized and elegant, and you are truly beautiful and adorable."

"Thank you for the compliment."

"A troll's rotten yellow teeth! Take it, then. I wish you an early trip to heaven."

Murphy pushed the gold over.

There was no helping it. As the wizarding world's only bank and currency issuer, once Gringotts started acting shamelessly, he, an ordinary young wizard, really could not withstand it.

Besides, the source of his gold really would not stand up to investigation.

Murphy walked out of Gringotts with a grave expression.

He could not come back to this place again. Those goblins had already grown wary of his large-scale gold exchanges. If he came again next time, what waited for him might not be an added handling fee, but a squad of Aurors.

But aside from Gringotts, where else could he exchange pounds for Galleons in large quantities?

As these thoughts spun through his mind, Murphy's scalp suddenly tightened.

Something was wrong.

Someone was watching him!

The feeling grew stronger and stronger, until it was as if someone were pressing a wand against the back of his head. Waves of alarm made his scalp tingle.

A premonition!

A wizard's sixth sense was, to a great extent, not groundless. Having taken Divination, Murphy knew this was his own magic warning him of danger beyond his perception.

However, his grades in Divination had always been poor. This was the first time he had ever had such a strong premonition.

Who was it?

Aurors?

Or dark wizards who had set their sights on his gold coins?

Many people had seen him exchange gold coins in Gringotts. So many Galleons were indeed enough for some fellows to take the risk.

After thinking for a moment, he, who had originally planned to go straight to Slug & Jiggers Apothecary, changed his mind at the last second. After walking a few steps, he suddenly turned into a narrow alley, then said, "Disler-sunment."

The Disillusionment Charm immediately rendered him invisible.

He stood motionless in the alley and waited, having made up his mind that no matter who came, he would fucking hit them hard.

Before long, a short figure hurried into the alley, then looked around in confusion.

When Murphy saw that figure, anger shot up inside him. "Tongue-Tying Curse! Crucio!"

After firing off an Unforgivable Curse, he watched the goblin lying on the ground, convulsing soundlessly, and a smile of pleasure rose unconsciously onto Murphy's face.

Fuck, he had wanted to do exactly that back in Gringotts.

After a long while, the torment ended. Murphy hit the goblin with a Body-Bind Curse, rendering his limbs immobile, then lifted his Silencing Charm.

"Please, please, no! I'm not an enemy, I'm not an enemy!"

The moment the goblin was allowed to speak, he immediately began begging for mercy.

But Murphy did not intend to rely only on what he said. Wizards had a more convenient way to obtain information. "Legilimency!"

A moment later, Murphy let out a breath. "Locke? Your résumé is quite interesting."

In the goblin's memories, he saw the fellow's past. He was actually a half-blood goblin; his maternal clan had once mixed with wizard blood, and because of that trace of blood, his appearance was slightly different from ordinary goblins—he was taller than they were, and his ears were not quite as pointed.

This had caused him to suffer discrimination within his own clan. He had not been allowed to come into contact with the goblins' traditional forging techniques, much less enter Gringotts to work, even though he believed himself smarter than his own kind.

After coming of age, Locke had become a broker, specializing in shady transactions for wizards or other residents of the magical world who found it inconvenient to show their faces personally.

He had made a fortune from it, then bribed one of the clan's higher-ups and obtained a job at Gringotts.

This was no ordinary Gringotts goblin.

And in the other party's memories, Murphy also read his purpose. "You want to exchange gold on my behalf?"

"Yes, yes!" Locke forced himself through the waves of weakness left after being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse and answered, "Bogrod already suspects you. He thinks your gold came from an improper source. You can't go to Gringotts again. They'll have the Aurors arrest you and interrogate you!"

"They can't just interrogate a wizard at will. I haven't committed a crime."

"True, but Bogrod has fabricated plenty of reasons. He'll report to the Aurors that Gringotts' gold mine has lost some of its inventory, and that your gold is very likely the gold missing from the mine."

"They have no evidence."

"But you also can't provide the source of your gold, can you?" Locke said. "I know those gold pieces actually came from the Muggle world! Their gold-refining technology is more advanced than Gringotts'. Only Muggles can produce gold with a purity of 99.99%!"

Murphy frowned. Although he had already transfigured that gold, jewelry stores did indeed sell so-called pure gold and ultra-pure gold. When he transfigured it, he could not change its purity, so among those gold bars, there would indeed be some with extremely high purity.

He had not realized this loophole at all before.

"You know this gold came from Muggles, and you still dare to help me?" Murphy asked.

"Gold is gold. Whether it comes from goblins or Muggles, that does not erase the fact that it is gold. As long as Gringotts continues to use the gold standard, they have to face this risk. We are merely exploiting a loophole they already had."

Murphy was a little surprised. "The gold standard. That's a Muggle term."

"Exactly. In currency and economics, Muggles are four centuries ahead of goblins! And the laughable thing is, those clansmen of mine still dare to mock Muggles as ignorant fools!"

"Interesting. You are very interesting."

A goblin with Muggle economic thinking?

That was far too interesting.

Murphy lifted Locke's Body-Bind Curse. "How do you plan to help me?"

"I can open an anonymous account for you. Those fools of my kind don't even know how many vaults they have in total, nor how much money is in those vaults. With just a few small measures, you can possess a completely anonymous vault."

"Gringotts already has services for recycling old coins and purchasing gold for recasting. By taking advantage of a few small loopholes, I can exchange your gold for Galleons and deposit them in your vault. You can withdraw and use them legally at any time."

"Of course, in the process, I will take a small commission. But believe me, I am nowhere near as greedy as my clansmen."

Murphy pondered for a while. "But I don't trust you."

Locke smiled. That ugly face actually revealed a rather humanlike smile. "You don't need to trust me. I have already experienced your power just now. You are not the kind of weak wizard I could possibly resist, are you?"

After saying that, he handed Murphy a gold coin slightly larger than an ordinary Galleon. "You can think it over. If you need me, you can use this to summon me at any time."