I am leaning on Caren's massive white table. It has dark yellow stains all over it because of vegetable oil, and it’s laden with baskets full of fruits, vegetables, and ground provisions. The table is pretty long, so I'm at the right end and he's at the left.
It’s market day, the last day of the week, Yupochalsp. As a result, stalls and tables are lined up at every part of this town's market square.
What does that mean for me and Caren? Competition…
Hundreds of people are walking up and down, buying and inspecting produce. Despite that, getting a sale isn't easy. And I have too much pride to heckle.
We have only been here for a couple of hours, but I want to go home. Why? Because It's so fucking hot!
Hell, my blue blouse and wrinkled shari (a long, flowing garment that’s wrapped around my waist, tucked in at the waist, then wrapped around my right shoulder) looks like it was soaked in water.
I am basically DYING!
And hear this, not only is the sun beating me senseless, but there are all the annoying thunder sounds. And no, they aren't from clouds. It's just a bunch of thunderdragons being bastards.
Anyway, since I am not interacting with anyone right now, I am just looking around, seeing what others are doing, and so on.
A woman is looking around for her son who must have run off when she was purchasing hulas(green T-shaped fruits) from the guy near me.
Hulas taste disgusting as shit (It literally tastes like doo-doo), but it’s really good for health.
Have an infection? Eat Hulas.
Have joint pain? Hulas.
I even heard some old men mixing it with double-headed fish kidneys to make their dick rise from the dead. It's also rich in calcium and protein.
Suddenly everyone stops what they are doing, and stares at two individuals like they don't belong.
It better not be some drug lord.
“Yo.” A strong voice is directed to me.
I shoot up, standing straight like a soldier waiting for an order. It’s a TALL man (maybe 6”11) with black hair, and a couple of scars on his face. But most importantly, he’s donned metal armor and has a massive sword tied to his back. Also, why the hell does he look like a fucking elite model?
Standing beside him is a Tall woman(Two inches shorter than him) with pink bubble-gum-like skin. Hell, she reminds me of Kid Buu from Dragon Ball Z, save for her fluffy white hair. She too is ridiculously beautiful.
Adventurers…
Silence hangs in the air for a while before I catch myself. I clear my throat and hid my massive grin.
I can make some goddamn money today.
“How can I help you, my good sir,” I say, mimicking how the villagers said nobles speak. Like they have a fish up their ass. On second thought, perhaps I shouldn't have done that.
“He gestures towards the wooden basket filled with pink-terras, placed between the largest basket brimming with yellow cabbages and another containing round loop carrots.”
He asks, “It's ripe?"
I pick up the pink-terra, a pink wrinkled apple that releases a bitter foam when bitten into.
I gesture at the wrinkles with my finger, “Yes."
The one I have in my hand looks like a 120-year-old man's balls.
The woman says, “But it's not very pink.”
"That doesn't matter. 'The pinker, the riper' thing is just bullshit. Once it has a lot of wrinkles it's ripe.”
The fruit industry is notorious for spraying fruits to make them shine better to appeal to people.
“I will have to ask my friend about that.”
“I will take ten of them,” the guy says, pulling out his wallet. “How much will that cost?”
“Hm…” I think hard before saying, “Seventeen bronze pints.”
He arches his right eyebrow. “ 'Bit expensive, but okay.”
Yes. I am overcharging you, my good sir.
He picks four-inch long and one-inch wide bronze poles one by one from his wallet.
While doing that, I look at the skin of the Julioes woman.
She notices my gaze and asks, “What is it?”
“Your skin looks... Pretty,” I respond. Like gum.
She seems taken aback. She looks at me weirdly before shaking her head like she is dealing with an annoying disrespectful kid.
I think I ticked her off. Shit.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude," I say.
“You weren't. Why isn't your father doing the trading?” she asks.
I turn my gaze towards my ‘father’, Caren.
He is a very big man. His hair is covered with a hair scarf like every man and he has a black tunic shirt on, paired with white pants.
At the moment, Caren is engaged in a bargaining match with a customer, a man with grey hair coming out of his ears.
He’s probably the only customer who didn’t stop when those two entered the market square.
Mhm. It’s definitely a match.
I turn back to her. "Well, he is clearly busy. I may look young, but I am smart enough to handle such things.”
I was studying economics before I got reincarnated into this damn world. Kinda studying it. I hated everything about it and barely paid attention to class, save for when Sir Frank was looking extra fine.
I can still remember those days and dreams.
Sigh.
She responds, “Oh. You are already a well-trained farmer?"
I shrug and take the seventeen bronze pints from her friend, count them, and then store them in the purse.
“I wouldn't say well trained, but I am a big help to him.”
“Nice."
He creates a water eclipse in the air and throws the pink-terras in it.
A small white dagger slips through the water eclipse of his. I grab it so it wouldn’t fall on the dirty ground.
Some kind of inventory.
[White sharp dagger]
[+ 12% strength]
Damn, this is much better than the knife I have.
"Sorry," he says as he gently takes the dagger from my hand.
“Yeah,” I respond.
Damn it, he could have given it to me as a gift. Sure, I already have a knife, but I always wanted to have an array of knives hidden in my clothes. Like an assassin.
I blame that desire of mine on all the ninja and spy movies I watched back on Earth. The movies could be hot garbage, but if a badass chick was doing cool shit, I would be in love.
He bit half of it, she takes a bite, and the two just stand there chewing, making weird facial expressions.
She finally swallows what's in her mouth and says, "Gross..."
"Tastes like ass..."
Did someone prank them into buying pink-terras?
I notice some older people staring at them as they pass by. The woman turns towards them, causing them to immediately avert their gaze.
“Thanks for this... Bye,” he says, turning away from me.
“Bye.” I wave.
A bright light comes from the ground near the woman and a blue and white snake, the size of a horse is formed. The head is made out of pure white electricity and even the air is crackling. The head on its tail is blue electricity instead.
As the two individuals mount the electrifying snake creature, everyone else backs away in fear. With a swift leap, the snake takes to the skies, disappearing from sight.
Huh. That's pretty damn cool.
Caren comes over and inspects the purse.
“Oh. They didn’t steal from us?” he says in surprise. His voice sounds like broken glass grinding against each other.
“They were very nice. Also, your timing is way too perfect. As soon as they went away, you show up?”
“I was keeping my ears on the conversation. I know you are a smart girl, so I trust in you.”
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“Thanks.”
“Just... be careful with those vlandos.”
Whatever.
"Anyway…" Caren stretches his back. "It’s getting dark.”
“Right... let’s start packing up.”
“Yup,” he says as he continues stretching his back, making painful groans in the process.
“You might want Marvin to check your back. It seems to be getting worse,” I respond while helping him put all the produce into two massive bags so we can fold the plastic table.
Last year, when he got into a fight with the neighbor over the guy’s sexual comment on Natasha, Caren’s wife, and this body’s biological mother, Caren got a back injury.
I was so disappointed. I expected him to beat up the guy. Like, use that fat man’s strength or something, not run out of breath in just twenty seconds.
“When he gets a better reputation, I will think about it.” he replies.
Hmm.
He has a good point. Marvin's reputation is pretty much in the toilet. He is a frail old physician without teeth, who likes to gamble with his wife’s money. And he used to be abusive.
It took him getting stabbed by his wife’s brother for him to stop abusing her.
Before he was stabbed, almost every weekend, you could hear shouts from their house.
Caren spoke to him once, saying it was creating a bad environment for his kids and whatever, afraid to be direct since he is the village's only physician and his friend.
Marvin agreed but didn’t change. But the knife did change him. Too bad it didn’t get rid of the money-stealing part of his brain.
After we are done packing up, Caren picks up two heavy bags of what didn't sell today, and I carry the folded table.
And so, we exit the small town of four hundred and fifty houses and make our way towards home.
I have barely even started, but I am already dreading the idea of walking for nearly an hour.
We scarcely come across adventurers on our way home. But every time we do, Caren stares at them. However, when they look in his direction, his hateful expression disappears and changes to anxiousness, like a child caught stealing money.
“Lil Verni,” a green-skinned man with floating hair locks says as he walks past us.
Oh, him!
“Yo! Thanks for the gift again!”
He waves his hand above his head, basically dismissing my gratitude.
Rude.
Caren raises an eyebrow, suspicious. “Gift? What gift?”
“A wristband. Don’t worry, I lost it.” A lie.
“Vernisha. Why do you interact with those things?” he asks, trying his best to suppress his anger.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t. I have met nice vlandos, and the ones I interact with are nice.”
“This bullshit again,” he stops walking and shuffles the bags on his shoulders. “Are you human or not?”
“What kind of r... stupid ass question is that?”
“Language. Answer the question.”
“Human, obviously.”
“Exactly. We're humans. We don’t interact with vlandos. We have nothing to do with them.”
“But--”
He grunts, groping his back, the pain returning. “Forget all that propaganda your mother tells you about vlandos,” he says.
“Those notebooks I have, a vlandos gifted me them.”
“What...?”
“Miss Apala. She says I am smart and should go to school and whatever. So, she gifted me those books.”
“And you kept that a secret from me...”
“I didn’t want you to burn them. Anyway, the point is that they are not all bad. And... I think if you keep saying stuff like that, then if one of your children becomes a vlandos, it will just drive them away from you.”
“I don't want to think about that.”
“But what if... Ulah did awaken the system?”
He turns towards me with an unsettling glare. “I will hope it’s a bluff. That’s my only son, I wouldn’t want to lose him.”
Lose?
“B-but you could just raise him to be good! He could be one of the good ones!”
“A good vlandos... is a vlandos that stays the hell away from society. Or better yet, dead.”
“You're being absurd.”
He sighs. “Vernisha, this is a world with people that look like you, think like you, talk like you, but secretly wish for your extinction. In the blink of an eye, they could punch a hole through your head. You could be chatting with someone, falling in love with them, and maybe you hurt their feelings a little bit. The next day, against your own will, you could ‘willingly’ pick up a knife and slit your own throat.”
I did hear stories of that happening; a lot of stories.
He continues, with a tired expression, maybe thinking, ‘What if my child did become a vlandos’. “I had a brother who was a vlandos, I bet you didn’t know that.”
“Did your parents kill him?” I ask without emotion.
“No. They couldn’t stomach killing their own child, so the village did it for them. It was a hard choice, but necessary to protect us.”
...
“Don’t you think that’s insane?”
“It is. But sometimes you have to make 'insane' decisions.”
I choose not to respond. What’s there to say anyway. Nothing.
If he finds out about me...
I look at my bandaged palm as I think about that.
He notices my cold expression and tries to lighten up the mood by asking, “What do you want to eat for dinner?”
I ask, still frowning, “We can afford to have dinner? Damn, we must be rich.”
“Well... your mother caught a lot of fish last night...”
“Didn’t she sell all of them? She and Palia were discussing selling it to Portrum.”
Portrum is east of where we live, and far away from water bodies, thus they value fish a lot.
“She must have saved a couple.”
I think hard about it before shaking my head.
“I doubt.”
“Maybe we can go out and catch some.”
"I am tired.”
“That’s... fair.”
And so, we continue walking.
No matter how much I try to not let his words bother me, I can’t help it. What’s worse is that I heard worse from his friends.
I recall him conversing with his friends on how they would kill or torture vlandos at a campfire while drinking cheap homemade alcoholic beverages:
A drunk man with a head full of white hair and a face painted with wrinkles threw his bamboo cup into the fire. “I killed one one time. The little bitch was maybe eight.”
He clenched and unclenched his fist like a man without the will to live. “I strangled her. She cried for her mother or father; I think. I am not sure. It was hard to understand what she was saying behind all the crying…”
One asked, “How did you find out she was a vlandos?”
The old man blinked; his expression stiff like a traumatized soldier. “I think I saw an M on her shoulder. It was dark, so I am not sure. But it looked like an M.”
If not for the popping and crackling sounds made by the campfire, there would have been a long silence.
After a while, one of them said with an anxious chuckle. “That's... That's a little fuck up for even me.”
I think that was the day I understood how much we are hated.
**
Night falls, but we are accustomed to it. However, we have to make a couple of stops because of Caren’s back pains.
He sits down to take deep breaths of air while I wander around.
"Don’t go too far," he mutters.
"Yup Yup," I reply as I proceed to do the opposite. Above this small hill is a Balash temple; Natasha always tells me to never go into one, but I always wanted to know what happens in one.
Also, I hear they give food to kids and those that look poor. I want food. All the leftover produce in the bags are mere fruits. In other words, they don’t do shit to fend off my hunger.
I take the knife from my sheath and hold the handle in my mouth.
[+4% Strength]
Heh. I got this from an adventurer by begging really hard. The same punchio (green-skinned guy) adventurer I met on the way here.
I was on the floor, fake crying, “Please sir! I need a weapon to defend myself at night! I don't wanna be kidnapped and sold!”
“Kids don't get sol—” (LIES!)
I quickly responded with, “Tommy, Sarah, and Janx were kidnapped by their parents' friend to pay off a gambling debt last month.”
Although, I think he gave it to me because he was annoyed and wanted me to stop crying. After all, what adult gives a ‘kid’ a knife?
I look around to see if anyone is looking at me, and once I see it is clear I make a meter-long bound and grab onto the stones poking out from the hill.
I climb quickly, hopping from stone to stone like an amateur rock climber.
After a minute, I finally reach the top.
Damn, that’s tiring...
I wipe the sweat off my face and spot people dressed in long white habits entering the massive golden temple.
I drop low and crawl to the side of the temple and then lean my back against it. There are people talking and I get excited.
"Little boy, do you know why Balash is important to us?"
"Um... so that monsters wouldn’t... win?"
"Yes, that’s one of the important reasons. And another important reason is..."
I don’t care about this. When is someone going to knock and ask for food so I can join them?
If Caren wasn’t so anti-vlandos, we would be filling our stomachs with food right now. And Natasha doesn't like the temple and Balash, so I never went there with her.
I keep listening, hoping for food to be delivered, but that never happens. Also, I can hear Caren shouting for me.
He doesn't sound too worried. I used to run away and ignore his calls of worry a lot when I was depressed and frustrated that I had to live as a peasant in another world.
No shade to my fellow peasants, but I somewhat loved the life of mediocrity (only because I must live in this bullshit).
Digging up holes to shit? One meal a day?! That was hell to adapt to. I am just glad my menstruation cycle hasn’t started yet. When it does start, and if the cramps are like what I had on Earth...
Ugh! Just thinking about it makes me want to scream.
Actually, thinking about it, it is a good damn thing only the very wealthy can afford guns because I would have blown my brain out at just age three.
Imagine this:
A toddler who can barely walk dragging the food stained, four legged chair to where her father keeps his gun, she climbs up the chair, pulls the gun off the small table, throws the cheap tree bark papers on the ground in the process, then adjusts the barrel to her mouth, and with a salute to the heavens, she screams before pulling the trigger, “Fuinak thuhsk worfsls!” (translation: Fuck this world!)
I am ashamed to admit it (Like hell I am), but that would have been me.
I see a person putting a basket of hot bread rolls out on a table.
Natasha told me to not enter the temple, not that I shouldn’t take food from them. Besides, I am a vlandos too. If they see vlandos as a blessing from Balash, they should treat me...
Scratch that idea.
Sorry, Natasha, please forgive me, but I am starving, and the house almost never has food.
I stand up and tiptoe towards the entrance. Obviously, I stick myself to the wall, moving like a thief in the middle of the night.
The hot and delicious bread air wafts to my nose...
Saliva is even escaping my mouth, and I envision myself biting down on the bread. I just want... three of them. Yeah, one for today, tomorrow, and... Damn, I would need to give Ulah and Natasha one. Maybe Caren too? But he has been pissing me off a lot, so I am not sure.
Okay, I have made up my mind: I would steal a ton of them!
But what about the other hungry people?
Damn it!
I stop thinking about such things and rush towards the table. As soon as I am in front of it, I take as much as I can and fit them in my shirt. My max is five. With that done, I run away at full speed.
Sweet, I am not spotted!
While running, I misstep and hit my head on a rock. It hurts like absolute hell, but I quickly get up and make sure the bread is in my shirt.
I run towards the end of the cliff where I had climbed, and then think about the fact that I can only use three limbs since I still have the bread in my shirt.
I look around for any onlookers. When I spot none, I use my healing power. It is always occupied by a red glow, so it could easily out me. After a couple of seconds, my forehead is healed. Then I climb back down and nearly fall six times.
Caren complains and whatever, but I present bread to him and say I bought it by selling my knife to a merchant. It shuts him up a bit.
We enter the village and say good night to a couple of villagers on our way home, a small weak shaky house that could be blown down with a powerful enough sneeze.
I am still begging for a good harvest so that we can stop being so disgustingly poor.
Oh, and for all the other farmers in our territory to DIE! Since they basically force us to lower our prices to compete in the market.
Not going to lie, I did attempt to sabotage a couple of farmers' carriages to lessen the competition. Don’t worry, I only targeted the rich ones.
Why would rich farmers live in a dirt-poor village?
Uh…
Stop being classist. Anyway!
I stopped because of moral— I learned one of their fathers used to traffic little kids to Holvious Queendom.
I then proceeded to have anxiety attacks, wondering if I was going to be next.
It never happened.
If I had access to real alcohol like red cap and vodka like back on Earth, I would have celebrated my luckyness by getting drunk as fuck. (Yes, I used to like to torture my taste buds with dog shit-tasting liquor and make my chest burn like shit.)
Caren opens the door and is greeted by the light of a candle and the sounds of Ulah using my pencil to scribble bullshit in one of my notebooks.
I have to stay calm... It is just a notebook, containing lined white paper(Oh wait, they cost a lot in this world!) after all, and he is just a kid.
I ask him, "Where’s mom?"
Caren rubs his chin. "She left you here by yourself...?"
"Nah, Mom fell asleep over there," he points to Natasha who is sleeping on the floor. I guess she is really tired since she is still in her stained blue shirt, which has multiple tears on the sleeves thanks to the tails of razor fishes.
Ulah locks eyes on the bread rolls rolled up in my shirt. I throw him a bread roll, which he catches with his oil-burned hand, and thank me.
I go over to see what he’s scribbling, and realize it’s another song.
I ask, “Going to get rich with that one?”
“Yeah and get us a huge house.”
“Wow!” I fake excitement. “How big?”
He stands and spreads his arm wide. “Bigger than… the sea?”
“Damn. That’s pretty big.”
“Yeah!”
I continue walking and put a bread roll in Natasha’s sleeping hand. I am now left with only two bread rolls.
I bite down on it and basically go to 'my' room, which is super small and has no bed. There are blankets on the ground; I go over to mine and throw myself down on it and stretch my limbs wide.
While eating the bread, I think about the temple.
I am sure I did as Natasha requested; I didn’t step into it. Hopefully, stepping near the entrance didn’t count, it shouldn't have.
Hm... The bread is kinda of warm, and chewy and feels weird in my mouth, like biting down on a piece of meat. It doesn’t taste like any kind of meat or bread.
It’s just really… bland.
After a while, my eyes start feeling heavy.
I feel sleepy. I try to stay awake, but it’s to no avail.
**
Vernisha’s grip on the bread roll loosens and it rolls on the blanket, stops, rolls back to Vernisha’s hand, all while the shape of it squirms around like a pack of maggots working together…