episode_0004

With a stiff body, I stretched and got up from where I was.

Somehow, I managed to come to the residential district.

Now I don’t know what I should do.

To avoid that pig guy, and because I wanted to move towards a better environment, I had put escaping the slums as my top priority, but I hadn’t properly decided what to do after that.

Just not smelling like filth is good enough for now, but I can’t keep sleeping on the streets here.

More than anything, I was hungry.

I hadn’t eaten anything from yesterday until today.

If I even had a memory of how I usually ate and got around, I could try to follow it.

I didn’t have any such useful memories.

“…For now.”

Right.

Finding a job would be the priority.

However, in my current state, if I clung to someone asking for work, it felt like I’d get beaten and chased away, so I felt like I should at least wash my face somewhere.

The problem was that the only money I had in hand was just 2 copper coins.

I didn’t know exactly how much this was worth, but after looking at the stalls lined up on the street when I came over to the residential district, it seemed like it could be taken as roughly 1,000 won per copper coin.

“…Going to a public bathhouse would be the best if I could go, but.”

Wondering if that was possible with 2,000 won, I shook my head.

Instead of looking for a bathhouse, I decided to wash my body by the river in the residential district.

Anyway, everyone was doing laundry by the river and stuff.

Nobody would scold me for washing my body there, right?

Limping, I moved my steps.

The gazes of people were heavy, so I moved to the most secluded place possible, and it took quite a walk to reach the riverbank I had seen on the way.

As I showed myself on the street, I could feel people’s eyes focusing on me.

Whether I smelled bad, they covered their noses, and someone muttered curses almost audibly.

It felt unfair.

I didn’t want to be here.

I didn’t want to hear those gazes and curses.

There was no reason why I should receive such treatment.

However, I couldn’t bring myself to argue against the hateful gazes around me, so I could only hunch my body and hasten my steps with my eyes fixed on the ground.

Thwack-!

A shock was delivered to my head, and pain assailed me.

Grasping my head, I slumped down right there.

Tears welled up, and when I quickly checked the hand that was clutching my head, a little blood was smeared on it.

Feeling flustered, I turned around and saw two children pointing at me and giggling.

For a moment, I was so dumbfounded that I just stared, and those who seemed to be their parents shielded the children and instead began to glare at me.

“What are you looking at! Get lost!”

I was hit by a stone and even heard curses.

Rage surged up, but I could only swallow it down.

This world being shitty is shitty, but I couldn’t guarantee what kind of catastrophe would happen if I uttered such words out loud.

Clenching my hands tightly, acting as if nothing happened.

Enduring the tears, I headed towards the riverbank.

On the way, I experienced all sorts of insults.

Whether it was because of the characteristic of ‘gloomy aura’ or if they genuinely hated me as a person, I didn’t know, but it wasn’t a level of contempt a person could bear.

When I arrived at the riverbank, I saw women lined up doing laundry.

Following the riverbank downwards for a while, I came to a place where there were no people, and slowly took off my clothes before entering the river water.

It was cold.

The water getting into wounds stung, but I somehow tried to wash thoroughly to get rid of the smell.

There was also a river in the slums, but it had been contaminated with filth for so long that it wasn’t in a state where people could wash or drink from it.

The river water here, on the other hand, was clean and looked okay to drink.

Filling my hungry stomach with water, I rubbed my body with my hands for nearly an hour.

Around the time my body started to ache and my senses became strangely dulled and numb, I instinctively realized that it was time to get out, and I got out of the water and put on the still-damp clothes I had washed in the water and hung to dry.

“…I wonder if my nose is numb, or if I just can’t smell the stench coming from my body very well.”

Maybe it’s because this is the average in the slums.

There were times when people covering their noses when they approached me felt like making a fuss.

For now, my hungry stomach was filled, so I decided to sit on a suitable rock and pass the time until my body and clothes dried.

“I want to go home….”

Even if I couldn’t live a normal life because of narcolepsy.

Still, that was 10 times, 100 times better than this life now.

What good is being mentally clear?

If the situation is this bad, I’d say being mentally hazy would be much more helpful.

“……Since I’ve washed my body, the situation must have improved compared to a while ago. I wonder if there’s anywhere that will employ me?”

It would have been much better if my body were at least in good condition.

Rie’s taste was extremely twisted, so she made me into the appearance of this little shrimp.

A dirty, smelly, powerless young girl.

What use is something like this?

I might not be dirty and smelly right now, but the fact that I was a powerless girl hadn’t changed.

Although I washed until my skin squeaked, it was a shame I couldn’t check my appearance because there was no mirror.

If I were at least cute and pretty in appearance, there would be some possibility of people looking favorably upon me.

It was a shame I couldn’t properly examine my face during customization because it was too shocking.

Only after time passed and my clothes dried did I get up.

First, if I stay like this, nothing will happen.

Only by directly confronting it will results come out, slap slap- I slapped my cheeks to snap back to reality and organized my thoughts.

I organized the things I could do in my head, straightened my back confidently, and set out to find shops that would employ me.

“Hello! I’m confident I can do anything you ask! Could you possibly employ me?!”

“Hello! I’m looking for work!”

“Hello! Do you happen to have any work you need done?!”

“Hello! If possible, would you consider employing me?!”

Hello… Hello… Hello…!

Countless rejections.

Among them, some looked down at me with hateful eyes and closed the door before I even finished speaking, or even outright splashed water on me.

“…Sniff.”

Still, if this were the slums, they would have splashed filth instead of water, so it seemed like the people in the residential district still had at least a minimum of conscience.

“……Still, it’s a relief the last person spoke properly.”

They said, ‘There’s not a single person on this street who would employ someone from the slums!’ or something like that.

It’s possible they said things they didn’t mean because they were enveloped in a gloomy aura.

If they showed that reaction because they were enveloped in a gloomy aura, they would have said I was hateful, not the slums,

It seemed the slums were an object of deeper contempt than I vaguely imagined.

“Is it because I’m carrying a passage permit… or do they think I’m from the slums because of my clothes?”

Whatever it was, I definitely knew that to work, I had to shed the signs of being from the slums.

“Achoo-!”

My body was shivering, and I felt the onset of a cold.

“…There’s no time. It can’t be helped.”

I didn’t want to go this far either, but in times like these, acting brazenly and maliciously was the best.

I immediately turned my body around.

While knocking on the doors of over thirty shops, I went to the place that had the kindest attitude, relatively speaking.

It was an old man’s antique shop, where he had lost one eye.

Although the words he spoke while not accepting me were cold, they were clearly also words of concern, so it was worth having hope.

“He said, ‘It’s a place with many dangerous items, so it’s not suitable for a child to work.’”

In other words, the reason he didn’t accept me wasn’t because he disliked me like others, but literally because it was a place unsuitable for a child to work.

“…I was flustered because I didn’t expect him to say such warm words, but thinking about it now, because he said such words, I’m heading there, so it’s not my responsibility.”

If you feed a stray cat out of pity, it’s bound to follow you constantly from then on.

The person who gave the food just did it out of pity, without much thought, but the cat starts following that person.

My situation right now was like that.

My steps were heading towards that antique shop due to the relatively warm words left behind without much thought.

If I stayed up all night for a few days in front of it and begged to be accepted, there seemed to be a possibility, at least more so than other places.

If I even cleaned up the street’s trash for him and kept smiling brightly, maybe something would work out?

Anyway, in my current state, I can’t go anywhere.

In the slums, everyone watched me buy the passage permit.

Urgently, I ran hard, and when everyone’s thoughts hadn’t been sorted out yet.

I crossed the gate and came here.

If I went back to the slums now, just because I bought a passage permit, they would treat me like someone with a lot of money and harm me.

I absolutely shouldn’t go back, and I had no intention of going back.

I absolutely must manage to make a living somehow in the residential district.

Having arrived at the antique shop, I looked around.

It was an antique shop located in a secluded corner that people didn’t frequent.

Fumbling, I leaned against the wall and sat down.

It was cold, but at least there was no filth scattered around, so there was no smell either.

My stomach, filled with water, felt subtly sloshing around, but at least I wasn’t hungry at this very moment.

Given that it’s dragged on this long and Rie hasn’t complained at all, it seems she’s really created a new character and is raising it.

I thought it was truly too much.

My head was spinning, so I pressed hard on my temples.

My body was trembling, indicating my condition wasn’t good.

I had to wait with bright, wide-open eyes until the old man from the antique shop came out.

It didn’t seem easy.

Drowsiness was coming over me.

Yesterday and today, there had been too many things.

*** The old man kept worrying about the child he had turned away during the day.

He could immediately tell it was a child from the slums by the shabby appearance and the passage permit held precious in the hand.

Seeing how little the child had eaten, looking like nothing but bones, the old man felt a primitive sense of pity.

“Although the aura she gave off was gloomy and unpleasant, she wouldn’t have been a child with bad intentions.”

The soliloquy he muttered quietly revealed the old man’s feelings exactly.

Although she gave off an unpleasant aura, there were many items of that kind among the antiques, so the old man didn’t pay it much mind.

He also recognized that what was important in the end wasn’t the aura given off, but the essence.

That’s why the old man could see the child properly beyond the unpleasant aura.

The child had come to the old man and asked to be allowed to work.

She had also said she didn’t need to be paid.

She had said she would work hard if food and a place to sleep were provided.

That there was no lie mixed in those words.

And the old man also knew well that expectation was mixed with anxiety in those words, but perhaps because of the nature of the items he handled, he refused for safety reasons.

“Hmm…..”

He swallowed a murmur.

The thought that perhaps he should have accepted her then and taken care of her by having her do some simple errands lingered in the old man’s mind, but it was already a past event.

Even if he regretted it, it would be far too late.

The old man clicked his tongue with regret and got up from his seat.

As the old man left the shop to return home, he saw a small figure sitting against the wall just outside the door.

In the dark night, the old man squinted his dim eyes and stared at the figure, and the moonlight that had been hidden by the clouds came down and illuminated the figure.

The old man recognized her immediately.

That it was the child he had turned away during the day.

Could it be that she had been waiting continuously since then?

The old man approached the child with a conflicted expression and immediately felt an unsettling sense of incongruity.

The breathing, which should have been audible, was faint as if it could stop at any moment.

“Hey…!”

Rushing over, when he put his hand on her forehead, it was burning hot.

On the other hand, her hands and feet were ice-cold, and even after shaking her a few times, she showed no sign of waking up.

The old man’s dilemma about what to do with this child didn’t last long.

The old man lightly lifted the child in his arms and stepped back inside the shop.

Thinking that perhaps this, too, was fate if it was meant to be.