"Hold on, please show your pass."
"Here."
"Oh? Hmm…"
"Ah, you’re working hard. Thank you for your service."
"Oh, you must be a merchant who comes often. I apologize for not recognizing you. You may pass!"
In the blink of an eye, two bribes were exchanged swiftly. The first gold coin helped me bypass the lack of a pass while the second one allowed me to sail through the inspection. The guard, clearly accustomed to accepting bribes, let me through without a second thought.
"Everyone’s working so hard. I just happened to bake some bread on my way here, please, each of you have one. Haha."
Within the rye bread I handed out, hidden under the crust, was a gold coin for each guard. To put things in perspective, a single gold coin here was worth around a million won from my past life. Considering that the average salary for a guard was just under two gold coins a month, they had essentially made a good deal.
These guards, now slaves to capitalism, or rather to bribery, didn’t lay a hand on me as I made my way through.
But,
"Hey! Stop there! How dare you pass through without a pass?"