Ruby got the mentorship.

Opal was impressed by what Ruby had accomplished, but that didn’t mean she was a fan of how it was done. Going behind her back and altering the smock more than necessary was something she shouldn’t have done and Opal was livid about it.

On the other hand, Ruby had gotten what she wanted, despite the trouble she brought. Was it worth it? Yes.

She learned that day that both her scarf and the gown she had made had gotten the ‘Adaptable’ trait. Ruby still didn’t know much about the system thing and how it worked, but apparently she had added this trait to both items. It was a basic one, according to Opal, but one that wasn’t a miracle worker either. If she had made a normal dress with the Adaptable trait, it wouldn’t have fit the pregnant woman down the line anyway, so it was good to make it with that in mind.

Unlike the old elf, however, Ruby was elated she literally had made magic without knowing she could.

“No wonder standard-size clothes were never made. If everything can magically stretch to fit your body, what would be the point of it? It’ll be a waste of fabric.” She mused, now on her way to her first day of work.

Mrs. Sianna had given her a very surprised congratulations, while Aurelia had seemed happy for her, though she didn’t say anything. She had been distant, sour, and very much not herself for the last few days, though Ruby knew the girl was trying hard. Her eyes told her as much, the bruised one more than the other.

When Ruby got back to the workshop, she was introduced to the other girl she would be working with. Her name was Nina, a devil – Not demon, apparently, she had learned those were monsters – with white-marble skin, bright yellow iris, and straight long hair in a very ashy grey tone. Nina towered over her, reaching at least six feet in height.

“Was she related to Xanis?” She thought as the devil girl gave her a short bow.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you! I hadn’t known Mrs. Opal would be mentoring a human as well.”

“Oh, yeah, it was a last minute thing yesterday, haha…” It was still a bit unnerving to look at a devil’s eyes, but she didn’t feel like the earth was going to swallow her after surviving Xanis’ stare of death last awakening night.

Luckily for Ruby’s awkward social skills, Mrs. Opal quickly interrupted them and stopped all matters of idle chatter.

“Quick, girl, you’ll be cleaning today. Nina needs to catch up in her sewing. You’ll be doing Mrs. Nuggalys new requests for now. Don’t mess up! I’ll come check on your progress soon. And you, girl, don’t make trouble while I’m not looking, I warn you now. Understood?”

Both girls looked at each other for a moment before quickly nodding.

Mrs. Opal was not a woman used to dallying, so after one more glare, she closed the door behind her.

Ruby didn’t linger and quickly went to take some of the dust that quickly accumulated in the top shelves and cabinets first. The workshop was similar to the one she had before so she was used to this, though she preferred using a vacuum over just a rag and water, but this is how life was now.

“So… Ruby, right? What did you do?” Nina broke the silence, her eyes still focused on her hands, trying to thread the needle.

Ruby stared.

She half-understood why Nina was the one sewing and everything, it made sense, but didn’t it also make sense for her to continue working for the same client? She didn’t voice her question though.

“What did I do? Shouldn’t you be the one answering that question? I heard you wanted to be a Seamstress, but here out of all places? You got rep?”

“Rep?”

“Reputation. Infamy. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Ah, no, haha, nothing of the sort. My mom’s just been friends with Mrs. Opal for years and she’s the only Seamstress she knows so… you know.”

She did know. It was always much easier to reach this stage with connections like that, didn’t even have to do a test to prove herself capable and everything.

Nina was… trying, for what Ruby could see while standing on a chair, cleaning shelves.

“You?” Asked Nina, eyes still on what she was doing.

“Oh, I got rep for sure.” That distracted her.

Might as well just go out with it and avoid future problems for hiding stuff.

“Haven’t you heard? I’m the Future Breaker around these parts. Should be careful around me, Nina, or I might make you get the Sweatshop Worker Class or something, I’m scary like that.” She huffed in fake pride.

Was Ruby still sour about that? Definitely yes. She didn’t know why she ended up in Ruby’s body, but if she was going to end up in another world, why couldn’t she get someone else? Like a princess or the daughter of a rich merchant, those didn’t sound like bad options.

Nina, on her chair, just stared in surprise for a moment, but then closed her mouth and went back to work, her face showing she had serious thoughts going through her mind.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Nina broke the silence again, her hands still busy, though Ruby could tell a mistake the girl had made.

“Eh, you get used to it.” She said in a nonchalant way, a bit more relaxed now that she knew she wasn’t going to straight up fight her or something. With a quick step, she got off from the stool and approached.

“Here, you’re doing this stitch in the wrong place. If you keep doing it in that direction, you’re going to pull the thread and it’s going to break.”

“T-thanks.”

Nina had seemed a bit scared of her at first, but both girls quickly hit it off, continuing with their chores as the days went by.

Apparently, Mrs. Opal would actually sit and teach them stuff like, once a week. The rest of the week – days in which they still had to go work at the workshop – they would be given simple tasks as, according to the older elf “you’ll learn by doing stuff. I’ve been in this business for over two hundred and fifty years, girl. Learned most of it on my own, so stop whining and clean.”

What little she had learned from Mrs. Opal and Nina in their conversations had been enlightening though.

Was the effort she put into getting the mentorship worth it enough? She wasn’t sure, but one part of her was really grateful for having a routine once more.

Mrs. Opal’s Class was that of ‘Seamstress’ which, unlike Tailors who were better at measurements and making changes to already-made fabric, she was much better at using the thread and needle to make things from scratch and little confections. She had disclosed that, after two hundred and eighty years in the business, she was a proud level fourteen, making her better than many in this part of town.

Ruby still wasn’t really familiar with the ‘leveling’ thing, but she could take educated guesses. Nina had mentioned something along the lines of getting experience from challenging things, which made sense to Ruby.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Apparently, there were so many adventurers because killing beasts was often-times one of the most hard and difficult challenges you could ever face, mostly because you were putting your life on the line, though there’s so much you can level if you don’t change things up for harder monsters to beat. It was like… working out. You put weight into your exercises to get stronger, but you won’t see further improvement if you don’t keep adding weight. Easy enough to understand.

“Then how do ‘Tailors’ level?” Ruby asked, just taking the chance to go at it now that both she and Nina were better acquainted.

The devil girl gave her a side-glance, her burning yellow eyes searching for mockery or signs of jesting in her face.

Not finding any, she just replied. “Challenging stuff is the key. You didn’t know? Sure, we can get experience killing stuff, but considering what we do, it’s just easier if you do hard commissions and job offers like that. That’s why most people around these parts are below level ten. Ugh, wait, can you show me how to do that knot again?”

Level ten was a big milestone around these parts. Considering that most people did the same activities over and over, it took many years for people who had a daily job to level since their daily routines were less and less challenging as they kept on leveling. Nina seemed to be in a rush for hitting level ten, though Opal kept on saying that slow and steady was always better. Well, except for Ruby, who would ‘probably die of age before reaching level five’ if she took it too slow according to the Seamstress.

As the days had been going on, Ruby kept on just getting cleaning duties, occasionally stopping to help Nina with her thread-work. The old elf had yet to give her at least a single sewing task, but Ruby was holding strong. She even took the opportunity to finally alter her own clothes and make them more suitable for her daily work, after all,sShe had to milk this cow as much as she could.

Now, in terms of real work, she knew she would get something soon, as the word started to spread a bit around that she was under Mrs. Opal mentorship. Even more so when she finally had the chance to do something.

It wasn’t actually a commission, but she was fired-up now on getting the chance of using her hands for something besides dusting. It was finally her time to teach Nina how to knit her scarves.

----------------------------------------

The winter in Ronzés was harder than she thought it would end up being.

Until now, she had been wearing nothing but a dark robe and a pair of old worn shoes. It was her scarf, however, the one that had been enough to protect her from the harsh cold winds that blew from the far away mountains. Then, the snow started.

For the first time since she had arrived in this place, she noticed how people started to change what they wore. The women took out long coats filled with fur. Some were cheaply made and could tell it was made by someone who was not a Seamstress, but it did the job and stuck to the trend. Men, on the other hand, started to wear knee-high boots and thick velvety coats that reached to their shins.

Besides clothes, people from all neighborhoods – including her own – started to display skills and spells much more openly. Awakened from all races had abilities that allowed them to control the ice, snow and water that started to swamp the streets.

Not knowing any better, Ruby asked Nina about it as she observed the girl continue her slow knitting rhythm.

“That? Yeah, there sure are a lot of them, but I guess it’s to be expected considering we have like... almost seven months of pure winter? Three of my fathers are Ice Controllers, so hopefully we can get the workshop covered soon.”

Ruby stared. “One question at a time Ruby. One at a time. Stay on topic.”

“Covered?”

“What? The orphanage of yours was never covered? That’s strange. You know, since we get so much snow and the like, we use it to cover our houses to get some isolation. It feels really cold at first, but when the snow is compact enough and at least a stride thick, you can barely feel it. I don’t mind the cold so much, I even wear my summer dresses when our home has been covered.”

The new piece of information was fascinating. Seven months of winter? Magically-made igloos? Ice Controllers? It sounded like a profession she wouldn’t mind having, but also one that depended heavily on the weather and if there was any snow around to make yourself useful.

Lately, Ruby had been thinking a lot about what she wanted to do with this new opportunity in life. Sure, she wanted to do fashion, but could she make it to level fourteen like Mrs. Opal before she died? The old elf had said it took her over three hundred years to reach the level she has now. Is reaching further than that even possible?

What about traveling? When she was Amy, she had barely traveled, though that was mostly because she was busy with her business and didn’t have the money to do otherwise. Now? Well… there were monsters outside of towns and seemed rather unsafe, but she wasn’t closed to the idea.

“This world seems bigger by the day…” She sighed to herself, moving to correct Nina once more.

“Hey Ruby?”

“Hm?”

“N-no, nothing.” She corrected her mistake and kept on knitting. Ruby, focused on her own almost complete scarf, didn’t even look up. If she didn’t want to say anything, she wasn’t going to push it.

She didn’t know Nina for long, but what she did know was that she had a tendency to really think her words. If she really wanted to say something important, she would at some point. Or maybe she wouldn’t.

While the possibility of a real good new friendship seemed like an amazing future prospect, Ruby had her thoughts somewhere else.

Word started to spread about her mentorship here in the Gilded Mirror and things were not necessarily working her way yet. In her walks from and towards home, she would often hear women gossiping by the wells and notice how they would give her stares, talking about her or the possibility of Mrs. Opal having lost her mind.

“I don’t think Opal is in her right place anymore.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s been working too much. Last time I heard, she’s been a Seamstress for over three hundred and fifty years.”

“Nonsense, my husband is friends with the carpenter who worked for that one bakery in Cloud Alley. He heard them talking, you know. Four hundred years.”

“What? Four? No wonder she got the Future Breaker! She probably doesn’t know, the poor thing.”

“Trick as old as tale. Wicked girl that one.”

“I know right, abusing the poor old woman like that?”

“Wait, shh. She’s coming.”

Ruby had been ready to hear that kind of stuff. She had used it as an argument to make sure she could, at least, have a chance at the mentorship, but she had said that with the expectation it would create a buzz that would attract people, not moths.

Maybe she had to keep on waiting? As the days went by, they were not getting much more clientele than the really old friends of the elf. No new customers at all. She expected to be a repellent, but never to this degree.

“If they are so concerned with her state of mind, why don’t they come over and warn her about me then?” She grumbled, frown clear on her face.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“Hm? No, nothing. Sorry, I was just thinking aloud for a second.”

“Oh, okay… Hey Ruby?”

“Yes?”

“I… I… I- Your scarf is already touching the floor, careful with getting it dirty.”

This made her look up. Ruby paused her hands and looked at Nina for a second, trying to decipher what she was not saying, but quickly recovered and got her scarf off the floor, getting back to her work with a simple thankful nod.

Her mind soon came back to the lack of clients. Would her mentorship be in peril if she doesn’t live up to the hype? They hadn’t made many scarves yet, and by ‘they’ she meant herself, since Nina was still working on her first one. She was awfully slow, though she couldn’t blame her completely as she was a total beginner.

Ruby secretly hoped that the scarves would make some impact once they were put to sell. She didn’t just want the thing to work, but needed it. Sure, Opal had barely taught her a thing, and it was mostly related to her own skills and how she wanted the work to be done, but it was better than nothing. It wasn’t so much about being explicitly taught, but the experience of being in a workshop what mattered the most for Ruby.

She had learned more about skills, levels and classes. The Seamstress class was really calling for her after knowing what it could do, and Nina had said she was aiming for the same. It didn’t sound half-bad. In fact, unlike her time as Amy, it really sounded like a Class was the equivalent of an immediate Job. Back on Earth, you had to do the whole social media thing, focus on advertisement and trust that positive reviews would pop out, hoping it would be enough to attract customers. Here? You just had to say your level and that was immediate proof of your skill and talent.

“Maybe if I reach level fourteen than I-”

“RUBY!” Nina cut her off between another stray thought.

Her own green eyes landing on the shining beacon of yellow light floating in the darkness that were Nina’s eyes.

“…”

“Come on, Nina. What is it?” She was getting tired of this, but stopped herself from pushing her even more.

“I… I… You know how Mrs. Opal made you teach me how to make the scarves you make?”

“Yes?” She arched an eyebrow.

“That’s because you make them, right? Originally I mean, like the one you’re wearing?”

“Yes…?” Where was she going with this?

“I- I thought so… The thing is… I-”

“Spill it out already Nina! Jesus!”

“W-what’s yisus?”

“Nina!”

“R-right. Sorry, I- ehm, I heard Mrs. Opal talking the other day about the scarves. She is already spreading the word about them. Before we put them for sale that is. The thing is…”

Ruby signaled her to keep going.

“She kinda… said they were her idea.”