Chapter 5
I looked up. The sky certainly look bluer today than it was yesterday. A sky unpolluted by busy city lighting at night, how refreshing! My spirit is indeed quite lifted.
Today begin my first day as a mob.
Well, to be more exact, I have high aptitude to become a character type that would be found in a mob.
I currently am hunting for a job as a farmer, and am for the time being staying at an inn nearest to the fields. With Tom's letter of recommendation, I could apply to be a farmer, and with the head maid Laura's recommendation letter, I'd likely score a job as a cleaning maid.
Just thinking about my precarious position in life a few days ago give me shivers. I'm much more satisfied with this mob life. After all, it is the life of a minor character that passes my day carefreely without being hurt by advanced magic or having to go on a cycle of hurting people and being hurt by others' scheme. Even if I were to apply as a princess' maid, all I'd need to do would be to clean her room while she faces problems such as dealing with doom and evil magic users and war-waging turmoils, things that would strike fear in one's blood.
Yess. Whatever people might say, Maid A or Farmer 1 is a good role indeed!
After this, I have to find a job and build good relationships with the neighborhood. How busy I am! How lucky I am to be this busy!
The first step I took was putting forth effort to train myself to be a commoner. The second step was exiling myself, effectively breaking off the engagement with the third prince. Of course I'm very excited to have come this far, it was really a big deal.
However, the third step was to protect my status as a commoner. If I can't protect myself now, then there was no point in everything else that I did.
Since valid family registration isn't a strict requirement for obtaining housing or a job outside of the capital and large cities, in cases when self-identification was required, family members, relatives, and friends were needed for verification.
This is why I do not need to forge a new family background on paper. As long as I build up trust level from zero, convince the villagers to help me with any legal verification, and make use of my past life's familial memories, I can pull off this role.
While eating simple salad breakfast at the inn's dining house-which incidentally also serve as the village's gossip place-I listened for information. Who was sick, who was pregnant, who went away to academies in the capital. Essentially I grabbed at all pieces that could score me a job opportunity aside from the less favorable village newspaper, which mocked me with its headline of a certain missing person.
Description aside, I wonder when Gerald got this block print carved. The sparkly figure in the newspaper just doesn't look like me. Figuratively and literally.
Even though I had died technically twice, once physically and once transformatively, I couldn't detach myself enough to call it the end. I was overwhelmed with reading what made me feel like I cannot move on from my past. It's all I can do to be optimistic in the now.
Honestly, human relations is like gambling. There was no shield or escape I could put up if I was robbed on the way here, or if certain individuals of this village thought it suitable to kill me because I was carrying a large amount of physical money befitting of a noble girl's savings. Consisted of my allowance, money made from goods sold, and lavish birthday gifts, the amount was large enough to rent room for several months or serve as initial down payment for livable land. I gathered the sense that the people of this village were nice people because they avoided touching on such financial topic.
As a commoner in this world, you won't find a single home not troubled by the shortage of food, or people who doesn't shiver at incoming winter cold. But compared to those noble ladies whose entire life is dedicated to chasing after royal titles, living in a constant state of chess playing, commoners can be said to be living in extraordinary happiness.
It may be pointless to compare the two lifestyles through rose colored lens, given commoner difficulties I've listed based on my limited knowledge alone. Of course in my past life living this lifestyle was taken for granted, but changing from a noble to a commoner like this, I felt that happiness was very hard to obtain.
So in other words, I simply chose the future that gave me the slightest chance of being happy.
I didn't want to sacrifice myself in a non-reciprocal marriage for my parents' happiness. Though they are my parents of this world so I don't wish for them to fall into misfortune either.
If Gerald rejected me I'd go play with snakes but that's a whole lot different. I couldn't stand repeatedly pursuing someone just for the sake of my family.
The me that received reincarnation memories couldn't become a kind child who sacrificed herself like a gentle saint in that way.
If it is about lying or strenuous deeds done to attain an ultimate goal, the original Katarina of this body wasn't the only one that lied, you know.
Normally, a cosseted noble who had been thrown into an unfamiliar area alone can be judged to be as good as dead. There were many things they typically refuse to do due to their pride, or coping methods for survival that they did not know about. The common sense of nobles were different from commoners. There are people who end up committing suicide after their funds run dry, or they end up socially separated from the rest of the village or town and end up living in poverty on the wild outskirts of civilization. And that type of exile was the good ending for Katarina by the game creators' yard stick.
My. Since there will be no end to this topic if I keep talking, I suppose it is sufficient to end such internal ranting dialogue here.
Food won't be a problem as long as three meals a day is eaten in the inn dining house. Meals are at a discounted cost for staying customers. Most importantly, I'll have to go to the post office to register a mail box and a safe box to store my savings. As for pens, notebook, ink, and clothes. I'll have to walk to the market to buy those, but it should be no problem. Cotton shirts are a must have for interviews for sure. If there's still time left in the day I'll go hunt for any bakeries that sell delicious sweets!
--
"Ma'am Raquel's kid went away to the capital. Kid said he needed a better job than farmin'. Didn't want to dedicate his life to cucumbers and watermelon." a man with a thick beard laughed, sipping his beer.
Suddenly, he felt a dark powerful aura permeating the space. The person at the center of this dark cloud was a single small lady.
The girl was smiling. Such an evil smile can raise hackles.
" A cucumber farm?! That's amazing! May I know where Mrs. Raquel's farm is?" the short haired girl raised her cheerful face. The dark aura dissipated immediately. The bearded man thought he must've been hallucinating.
That is to say, Katarina's original villainous smile hadn't faded even with a new look installed.