Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman

Chapter 747: Chapter 747: Opening the Crates

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”Malaka, you people really are a bunch of monsters. Genghis and the others are one thing—I’ve seen what they can do. But Henry, you’re no weaker than them either.” Cassandra complained.

Henry laughed it off without responding. Instead, he casually picked one of the crates and rubbed away the mud, sand, and other deposits clinging to the wood and chains.

”Is this one of the crates you used back then?”

”Hmm, I don’t remember. Find a tool and cut through the chains. It should be easy enough. Let’s see what’s inside.”

The moment Cassandra said that, Henry simply pulled the chain apart with both hands. The Spartan woman was left speechless. In the end, she could only add, ”You could have just broken it by hand.”

Wood submerged in seawater for a long time did not necessarily rot as quickly as ordinary people might imagine. The deep sea was not only cold, but also extremely low in oxygen, and microorganisms capable of decomposing wood simply could not survive at those depths.

However, the wood would attract other deep-sea organisms, along with larger deep-sea creatures that preyed on them, forming a miniature ecosystem centered around the wooden treasure chest.

Once such a wooden crate was suddenly brought above the surface and exposed to air, the deep-sea microorganisms clinging to it would cause it to deteriorate even faster than expected.

Even though Henry’s control over his strength had reached an extremely fine level, when he tried to open the crates as carefully as possible, he still ended up ripping the lid apart in one pull.

Even after seriously thinking back to the archaeological tutorials and books he had read, Henry couldn’t recall anything explaining how to handle objects recovered from the deep sea. So all he could do was watch helplessly as the wooden crate shattered across the deck and its contents spilled everywhere.

The objects scattered across the deck were not the Isu equipment Cassandra wanted. Instead, they were small, coin-shaped objects. There had to be more than a thousand of them—a considerable quantity.

Cassandra picked one up and rubbed it with her finger, wiping away the stubborn grime accumulated from its long immersion in seawater and revealing its golden-yellow surface underneath.

”This is a Hadrian aureus. On the reverse is Romulus Conditor holding a spear. He was the legendary founder of Rome and one of the three principal gods worshiped by the early Romans. He was a god of war.”

”Hadrian! The one among the Five Good Emperors of the Roman Empire?”

”Yes. The beginning of the Roman Empire’s first golden age.”

”Roman gold coins.”

Each gold coin weighed roughly seven grams. Depending on its condition, a single Hadrian aureus was worth between sixteen hundred and twenty-five hundred dollars.

Henry counted them. There were more than 2,200 coins in this large crate. If they were all the same type of gold coin, their modern value would be somewhere between 3.5 and 5.5 million dollars.

”Hmm... Should we throw them back into the sea?”

”Don’t you want to sell them?” Kinger asked from the side.

”These are antiquities. They wouldn’t be easy to sell.” Henry’s answer left Kinger with no way to argue.

Looking at the ruined crate and the coins scattered across the deck, Cassandra said with some hesitation, ”I think we should pack these up first. We can find a way to donate them later.”

”Sounds good.” Henry readily agreed. He had never intended to keep everything for himself.

They had recovered the artifacts illegally, and these were historical relics with genuine cultural value. No matter how they handled them, there would be trouble.

Henry had no connections in the black market for artworks and antiquities. Besides, the prices mentioned earlier were the value of individual coins sold at auction. As the saying went, scarcity created value. Dumping more than two thousand coins onto the market at once would only drive the price down.

Even if they wanted to sell them slowly, did anyone really think the market for ancient coins was that large? After selling one batch and reaching into their pockets for another, it wouldn’t take more than two or three rounds before even interested buyers became cautious. They would first want to know how large the seller’s collection really was before deciding on a price.

Melting the coins down and selling the gold would be a waste of their historical value.

They might as well donate them.

Cassandra seemed rather surprised by how readily Henry agreed.

”I thought you would insist on keeping them.”

”Do you really see me as that kind of person? That’s hurtful.” Henry picked up one of the coins and rubbed it slightly. The same golden-yellow color appeared underneath.

”Fine. I admit I think dealing with antiquities would be a huge hassle. But I’m not going to destroy them or sell them off for scrap. Donating them is the best option. At most, I’ll keep a few as souvenirs.”

Cassandra shrugged, indicating that she had no objections. His behavior fell somewhat short of the noble character she had imagined, but at least he was honest. And this approach was still within what she could accept.

The two of them swept the coins, along with the fragments of the wooden crate, to one side before bringing over another crate.

”Will this one contain the same thing?” Kinger asked curiously as he approached.

”No idea. We’ll have to open it and see.”

Using the same method, Henry tried to open this crate more carefully. But the wooden crate, having suddenly been dragged up from the seabed, still met the same fate as the first.

This time, however, the contents scattered across the deck were not coins, but gemstones such as peridot and emeralds.

The most valuable items were two fairly large pieces of red coral, along with a considerable number of red coral beads.

Some scraps of fabric still clung to the objects, apparently having been used as padding inside the crate.

After seeing these things, Cassandra had only one thought.

”Did you stumble across the wreck of a Roman merchant ship?”

”I don’t know. I didn’t see any shipwreck, just the crates.”

Henry picked up one of the pieces of red coral and examined it. Something like this was truly a matter of luck. In particular, there were no obvious traces of history on it. The same applied to the gemstones scattered across the deck.

”Looks like these can only be treated as spoils. Aside from these two pieces of red coral, the other gemstones wouldn’t be particularly easy to sell even if we wanted to. And they’re not exactly high-end pieces either. Judging from their quality, they’re fairly cheap stuff.”

Cassandra did not disagree. Instead, she smiled and said, ”Emeralds and peridot were gemstones produced within the Roman Empire during that period. They were very popular among nobles in the frontier regions and neighboring countries.

”By the standards of that era, the quality of these pieces was already quite exceptional. These two pieces of red coral, however, are genuinely unusual. I wonder where they came from and where they were supposed to be shipped.”

The Spartan woman, who had lived all the way into the modern era, also understood that even if they donated these objects, they would simply be regarded as valuable commodities rather than antiquities. The red coral was one thing, but the emeralds and peridot were rather awkward.

Contrary to what ordinary people might imagine, gemstones of unknown provenance—including stones without certificates of authenticity or gemstones with crude cutting techniques—were not something many jewelers would dare purchase.

It wasn’t so much that they were worried about counterfeits or stolen goods. Rather, the way legitimate jewelers made money from gemstones depended on controlling supply and creating hype.

If some random person suddenly brought in a large quantity of gemstones of unknown origin and wanted to sell them, that would be called disrupting the market.

Any reputable jeweler would be out of their mind to give such a seller a warm welcome.

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