It was nearly five in the morning, but dawn hadn’t broken past the horizon yet. When most people were still in their dreams, Aldersberg’s market got lively. All of the most hardworking people in the city were toiling in the market.

Manual laborers went through the streets delivering heavy packages, while vegetable and fruit sellers dragged their carts of merchandise along the way, hollering at the people in the market, trying to get someone to buy what they sold. Some booth owners were shivering from the cold morning wind, but they quickly stacked their merchandise on the racks. Young, bearded men were adding spices to their kebabs, the smoke from the charcoal wafting across the air, bringing the scent of food everywhere. Livestock merchants were pointing at their merchandise in the coop, haggling with their customers, who were getting red from the cold.

Roy squeezed through a few crates of muddied, freshly plucked parsley and watercress before arriving at an herb booth.

The booth owner was a man in his forties. He was wearing one thick felt hat and a grey overcoat. His hands were hidden in his sleeves, but Roy knew the owner was rubbing them together. Wrinkles were strewn all over his face. He looked like an honest man, but his eyes had the cunning gleam of a businessman.

“What would you like, my friend?” The owner looked at Roy’s young, handsome face and rubbed his fingers together suggestively. “Something to treat hemorrhoids?”

PR/N: LMFAO this old man… is too much.

Hemorrhoids? Why is he talking about that? Roy was stupefied. He can’t be thinking that I was… Roy looked disgusted. “I’m not here for herbs. My name’s Roy, and I just came to Aldersberg, so I’m here for a job. I heard the marketplace needs workers, so I came.”

“I see. Roy, huh?” The businessman nodded. He crossed his arms and gave Roy an observing look. “You don’t look strong enough, so manual labor’s off the list. Do you know how to count? How to read? Tell me about your strengths.”

“I can count, but I can’t read.” Roy looked at the merchandise on the rack and smiled after seeing all the herbs. “And I know herbs very well. For example, the oldest herb you got here is right in the center. It’s a five-year-old mandrake root. A great herb to treat rheumatism, pustules, and asthma.”

The merchant was surprised to hear that. He didn’t expect the young boy to have such a good eye for herbs. “What about this one, then?” The merchant pointed to the herb at the mandrake root’s left. It was a yellow, cone-shaped root.

“That’s wolfsbane.” Roy blinked. “Three years old, around and about. Treats… Well, it can treat erectile dysfunction.”

The merchant asked him about all the herbs on the rack, and Roy had everything correct. “Wow, you know this is a beggartick? Looks like you have experience.” The booth owner extended his hand. “Roy, is it? Call me Tross. I’ve been running this booth for decades, and everyone knows me. My reputation’s good, and so is the shop’s. Why don’t you work for me? You obviously don’t sound like you come from Aldersberg. Everyone else here isn’t that easy to get along with.”

Roy felt relieved. “Can you go into the details? The job scope and pay, for instance,” he said calmly.

“I’m already forty-three, my friend. I have to wake up at around five every morning just to run this booth. Every day, I restock and set up business despite the cold morning winds, but it’s torturous. I might die from overworking before fifty, so I’m looking for someone to help me for the time being. It’s best if they’re familiar with herbs and know how to count. Bonus if they have a good memory.” Tross continued. “You’ll only have to stay here from four to eight in the morning, then I’ll take over. If nothing goes wrong, I’ll pay you five crowns a week.”

Waking up at four was easy for Roy. He only needed five hours of rest after replacing sleep with meditation, but the pay was a problem. Five crowns a week only amounted to twenty a month. It wasn’t even enough to pay rent in the city outskirts.

“You’re trying to trick me, aren’t you, Mr. Tross? Just because I’m a young outsider?” Roy pursed his lips. “Ten crowns a week, and I can start working right away.”

“You can’t ask for that kind of pay, my friend. When I was your age, I couldn’t even make that much in a month.” Tross squinted, and he made another offer. “What about this? Seven crowns a week, and a meal to boot. You can take it from the grilled meat booth right beside us. I guarantee you won’t find a better pay anywhere.”

Roy stared into his eyes, and when Tross was about to lose his patience, he nodded. “Then let’s start today, Mr. Tross. Tell me what I should do. What’s the market price for the herbs?”

***

Roy spent the whole morning at the herb booth asking for the prices of each. They were constantly changing, so Tross recorded the latest prices on a piece of leather beside the rack for Roy’s reference. He taught Roy the basics of weighing and things to look out for. Finally, he told Roy to come at four the next day before letting him go.

***

Roy went around the marketplace again. Since his job at the herb booth would end at eight, he had a lot of time to spare, so he was going to find another job. The best one would be the butcher’s apprentice. He’d make crowns and gain EXP, but just as Hank told him, Roy was in Aldersberg, not Kaer. The city’s butcher wasn’t his relative, so there was no way he’d let an outsider have a cut.

Obviously, he couldn’t be a butcher, but there was another similar job that caught his attention — poultry selling. It was mostly helping the citizens kill their poultry. They only gave him one EXP per kill, but at least there were a lot of them.

The poultry seller’s booth was right beside the coop. The owner was Ruhr, an elderly local with grey hair. After Roy made his introduction and showed his skills in cutting up poultry by easily killing a whining goose, defeathering it, and cleaning its insides, Ruhr agreed to hire him.

However, the pay was absurdly low. Roy would only get a crown for every thirty kills he made, but he could take on as much work as he wanted, and he could leave if he was exhausted. Roy didn’t negotiate with him. He was doing it mainly for the EXP. If Ruhr was right, Roy would be dealing with fifteen chickens, turkeys, or geese every morning. In EXP terms, that meant he would have fifteen EXP in a morning. It was much better than what Roy got in Kaer.

That was one of the perks of big cities. They had more opportunities and more ways to gain EXP without risking his life.

***

Roy heaved a sigh and put down his bloody knife before dusting the feathers off of him. He’d killed twenty geese that afternoon, gaining twenty EXP and bettering his Massacre. More importantly, he could stand on his own two feet then. Even without Letho’s help, he could live in the city by himself. After settling down at work, Roy would get a teacher to teach him common speech.

***

On the outskirts of the city, a sheet of gold rained down —  courtesy of the setting sun —  and Roy came back to the watermill. The smell of dirt, grass, and falling leaves wafted over him, relieving him of the stench of feces. Roy smiled, feeling light. However, he stopped in his tracks when he was a hundred feet away from the mill, looking somewhere afar.

A group of children surrounded the haystack and firewood that were outside the rickety, wooden storehouse. They had unkind looks on their faces —  one that was beyond their age —  and they mocked a girl who was on the ground.

“You’re a camel wretch, you. Why’d you come out instead of staying in that warehouse? You ruined my appetite, do you know that?”

A lanky, freckled boy poked at the child’s head as he cursed her.

“She’s not a camel wretch! Camels are adorable.” A cute girl with pigtails was holding a forked branch with her pudgy hands, and she jabbed it at the fallen child’s protruding back. The child trembled from the jab, and she hugged her knees, her face nearly kissing the ground. “She’s a monster. See this? There’s poisonous water inside. She’ll poison the food of anyone she hates. I bet that’s how my grandma died, and I bet that’s how her mother died! She’s a witch. A wretch. That’s what the books say. She curses someone every day, casting her wicked spells. We should get a witcher to deal with her. Only a mutant can deal with a wretch.”

The child who was bullied suddenly started to sob.

“Did you just cry, you ugly wretch?” The freckled boy smacked the back of her head. “We’re doing this for justice! Just like the revolutionists! You’re the wretch who sides with the baron! Get her!” And then the children pulled her hair, kicked her back, jabbed it with branches, and some even flung pebbles and mud at her. 

“What are you doing, you little bastards? Stop right away!” A faraway shout shocked the children who were bullying Toya. They glanced back and scrambled away without seeing who it was. A moment later, only the girl who was hugging her legs was left.

Her clean white apron was soiled with footprints and mud, the neck under her brown hair littered with bruises. “You’re Toya, aren’t you? Hank’s daughter? How do you feel? Did the little bastards hurt you?” Roy hunkered down beside her and extended a hand.

The hunchback girl glanced at him, her gaze terrified and alert. There were a couple of slap marks on her face, looking like a ruined oil painting. She pushed herself up with her calloused hands that were filled with frostbite. Quietly, she limped into the warehouse, her back hunched like a hill, and she closed the door.

Roy couldn’t imagine how bad her life must’ve been for her to have that look on her face, but he thought he should do something for her. Roy took out the marigold from his inventory space and wrapped it with a piece of cloth before putting it at the doorstep. “I left some herbs for you, Toya. Just chew it and rub it on your wound. It’ll work well, trust me.”

***

When it was dinnertime, Roy complained to Hank about what he’d seen. “I saw some brats ganging up on Toya, pulling her hair and beating her with sticks. Her face is swollen. Don’t you care about it?”

“Oh, don’t mind it, my friend. That girl can take a lot of hits. Those kids can’t hurt her, and teaching her a lesson makes her work harder,” Mana answered matter-of-factly, chomping down on the oily meat.

Roy gasped. This woman’s the stepmother. No doubt about it.

“I know you’re kind, Roy,” Hank chimed in. “But we’re just a normal family. We can’t shelter Toya like a princess. Can’t do anything about it, you know? With her looks, she’s going to be treated like a freak no matter where she goes. Enduring that tiny bit of suffering is the only way she can live. It’s been more than ten years now she’s been this way. That girl’s grown strong.

Tiny bit of suffering? Damn, these people don’t see her as human. No wonder they won’t even let her dine with them. What is Toya to them? Probably just free labor they can exploit and vent on.

“Let’s not talk about her, my friend. You’ve been in the marketplace for a whole day. Did you find a job?” Mana asked curiously. She was more interested in that matter than Toya’s suffering.

“I did.”

The couple was delighted. Now that he has a job, he has money to keep on renting the room.

Roy went to take a look at the storehouse after dinner. He heaved a sigh when the marigold was nowhere to be found, and when he came back to his room, Roy saw a fresh, clean apple on the barrel of water at the doorstep. Under it was the blue cloth he’d used to wrap the marigold.

“Is this a return gift?” I think I might be able to communicate with her.