Family Business 32 (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 32

-VB-

Marjatta rose up from her bed as the morning sunlight speared through the gaps in her bedroom curtain and lit the room up with a beam of sunlight.

The sun in the south was no joke. Everything got hot. It was why she wore far less than she was usually comfortable with because there was no way she could get away with wearing her favorite fur jacket, even with her magic.

She grumbled as she swung her feet off the bed and onto the hard ground.

As much as she wanted to stay under her sinfully soft cotton quilt, she had work to do just like she needed to wake up before dawn to hunt back when she was up in Freljord.

In a way, she was living a better life. No more having to worry about bringing home food. No more having to worry about starving through winter. As long as she did the work, she got paid and she would survive.

Walking out of the room and to the restroom, she sat down on the toilet with her panties down and sighed as she relieved herself.

Flushing the toilet after she was done, she washed her hands and face before leaving the restroom for the kitchen. She needed to make breakfast for herself, her siblings, and all of their lunch before she went to work.

“Eggs and rice,” she mumbled as she brought out the ingredients. They were the cheapest sources of food; considering how young children were not allowed to work except in the business of their blood relatives, she had to buy food with her pay.

Well, she didn’t want to eat mice, because her coworkers told her how they were caught and how diseases might be among the rat meat. Only the truly poorest denizens of the city bought rat meat to eat if they weren’t already hunting them down themselves.

-VB-

An hour later, she was out in the streets with a full belly and dressed in the local long and wide brim skirt and tight shirt, and she walked confidently down the “streets” she was now familiar with.

Other people of the city walked forward with purpose just like her as they headed to their place of work or back home from their night shift.

She noted again as she always does in her morning walk to her work that the people of the city were different. There was energy to them that was missing back in Freljord and the lands of the marquis. It was the sort of energy that crept into people who lived nearby, and Marjatta learned quickly that it was less that this energy was infectious but the demands of living in a city required it.

To live in a city was to pay more for her room and food. To live in a city was to have a better chance at living a better life. To live in a city was to have opportunities the frozen wastelands of her home and even the tough lands of the marquis did not have.

The list went on and on and on, but from it, she personally took three lessons to heart.

One, the city cared about her so much as what she could offer it.

Two, once the city cared about her and her family, it would make accommodations.

Three, living outside of the city as an outsider to this country might not end happily for her.

She hadn’t wanted to see it, but she saw what happened to a Freljordian family from a different tribe who thought they could try at being farmers. Instead of living a happy life, they were murdered by angry Demacian farmers.

The chief of the city and its surrounding lands executed every single perpetrator involved in it, and he’d been furious.

No, she couldn’t leave the city, because it was a bastion of safety. Sure, some of the other city folks, especially Demacians, didn’t like her because of who she was, but there were other Demacians who were warm and welcoming.

It was paradoxical to her.

It was better than dying of starvation in Freljord. It was better than getting killed because she was different.

She paused as she stopped in front of her workplace, and the gate guards paused.

“Ah, Marjatta. Hold on for a second,” one of the guards exclaimed as he turned around and opened the side door to the gatehouse.

She walked through the side door - the secured side door with locks - and to the glass and steel bar window that faced out to the road that the gatehouse sat on.

Her job, as it had been for the past two weeks thanks to her ability to read and write, was to talk with all of the people using this gatehouse, collect the right about of fee, and give them their mark of passage. If anyone decided to cause an issue, the nearby guards would take care of it.

She took a deep breath in as the gatehouse guards opened the gate and let people through.

“Welcome to Jorasmang City!” she spoke with a smile at the man who looked like he was a peddler. “What is your business here today, sir?”

“Ah, well, I just wanted to come in and see what the city was about, ya know?” he smiled back.

He was lying. Peddlers and merchants paid a higher gatehouse toll than normal visitors.

“Mister…?”

“Raman.”

“Mister Raman, to receive the correct mark of passage, which includes what your business is in the city, you must pay the proper fee. If you have the wrong mark and are involved in the wrong business, you may find yourself jailed and fined, which - let me tell you - is always greater than the toll.”

He started sweating. “Ah. I … didn’t realize that! Thank you for telling me, young lady!”

He was lying. She’d seen him before when she wasn’t working as a gatehouse checker.

“W-Well, I don’t have a lot of money, though… How much is it?”

“It’s five pennies for peddlers and a silver for a merchant, not including his caravan.”

“F-Five pennies! That’s a robbery!”

She took a deep breath in and let it out.

This was going to be a long shift.

-VB-

A/N: MUHAHAHA! Fear me! I turned a beautiful girl into a jaded office worker!
this ain't the end of her story, though, so don't get too angry, please.