"Mom, do I have to do this?" I have never been one for makeup, let alone wearing pretty dresses. Even the clothes that I've casually worn all this time weren't "pretty" because my mother knew I was just going to get them dirty by the end of the day anyway.

  "The village is celebrating your first real act as an adult, of course we do!" Atterson chided me with a nagging tone before going back to working on my face. "It's been a while since I bought and used makeup, I'm glad that I still know how to do it!"

  "And even then, you still look good." I roll my eyes. What was she getting at? We have the same face!

  "Don't flatter me, this is your day so you need to think for yourself instead."

  "I was trying to say that we both look the same, which means I'll look good without makeup anyway." And that's the simple truth, mom looks good, I do too.

  "But you'll look even better with make up don't you think?" She responded with a smirk, clearly proud that she won the argument. That or she's happy I complimented her or something.

  "I guess so." I just decided to agree, it wasn't worth the effort to argue about this any further. Not when she's so eager to get me to dress up and look good.

  For today, the Aberrant Crayfish that I caught will be eaten by the entire village. That's what happens when someone hunts a notable creature for the first time, Flotol celebrates and it's a weird sort of home coming.

  Did I mind that my catch is gonna go to everyone else instead of myself? Not really. I can always catch a new one.

  And I already paid for all the stuff that I got from the storage shed and dad even said he'll buy me several things later so I don't have to worry about not being able to catch another crayfish tomorrow.

  In the future, when I do hunt another aberrant, the cut I'll have to give to the people who would help me bring the fish back to Flotol isn't ideal so I probably have to carry a cart and possibly even a butcher's knife if I want it all for myself. A cart should make it easier to carry after it's been chopped to pieces.

  Maybe I can get Howaph's friends to help me? They're still young so they wouldn't mind getting a small cut and they also barely know how to haggle so a good argument will just turn anything they say to me useless.

  Does Howaph have a butcher friend? If he does then that means I can possibly just get one guy, have him cut the crayfish for me and then voila, I can stuff them on a cart and be on my merry way.

  Or better yet... Maybe someone from the pier has a [Butcher] class? That would be even better!

  Or... Or! I can just give people there food, and in exchange they help me carry the giant crayfish back to Flotol! That's such a genius idea! If not a bit capitalistic but I'm willing to throw my morals away and take advantage of the struggling masses if it means I make this more efficient!

  After all, I need to reach my goal.

  And what's that goal? Surviving of course! And to do that I need power, both financially and literally. Both things also affect each other because practicing magic is expensive but can be quite lucrative once you're a mage.

  But we're poor right now and could barely afford a single spell book let alone the ones that I need so I need to fix our financial problems first.

  Once that's sorted out, I'll start working on my passives and stats, and then I'll learn spells and stuff. Hopefully I'm a functional mage by the time the Day of Piling comes around since I want to get myself a magical tutor. I know that adventurers would want to stay around here for weeks before winter officially strikes so that's the perfect time to find someone who would teach me.

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  I also want to set up a food stand and earn more money to buy more spell books during the celebration.

  After that, maybe I can join in on the yearly culling of the Aberrant Crayfish? I've always wanted to do it but my dad and brother didn't let me since I didn't have a class yet, now that I do they don't have a reason for me to not go!

  "We're done." My mom's voice forced me to come out of my head and focus back on the real world. I looked at my reflection and realized that nothing much changed.

  A lot of time was spent on this and I can barely see the difference. Seriously?

  "Stop being so grumpy, do you know how important it is for us to celebrate this occasion? You should do it with a smile! A. Smile." My mother emphasized each word. She even grabbed the corners of my lips and forced them upward.

  "I know!" I pushed her hand away and scowled before resting my features. I put on a smile. Years of me practicing how to do this and make it look natural even through stress is finally paying off.

  "Good." She nodded, satisfied. "Now let's go and eat that aberrant you caught. I can't believe that my own daughter is capable of doing something like that!"

  She grabbed my cheeks and pinched them, probably ruining the make up she put on me too. I frowned. "It's not that big of a deal."

  "Oh it is! Only nobles are capable of killing high level creatures a day after they get their class. That or you know, geniuses!" My mother cackled. "You are gonna get such a good husband in the future I can't wait!"

  "Yayyyyyyyyy." I didn't have any energy in my voice, I'm not exactly happy when hearing something like that. I'm more than just a broodmare you know? I'm a future genocidal maniac.

  Literally. I should probably work on that before I find myself a partner, it'd be pretty bad if my hypothetical lover dies because of me.

  "Oh don't be like that, you'll get yourself a boy eventually, and I'll be here to support you! Now come on, let's go outside and celebrate with everyone else."

  We left our house silently, my mother was looking poised so she didn't want to talk and ruin the image while I was just glad that all that talk about finding a husband is finally behind me. I genuinely don't get why she brought that up so suddenly, it's annoying.

  Flotol was in celebration so the bleakness that's usually omnipresent in the village has now been replaced by the sounds of cheering and a joyous mood in the air, everyone was clinking wooden mugs and laughing.

  Everyone I passed nodded at me, giving me congratulations and calling me all sorts of compliments. It was a pretty new development especially since they've all been treating me as a weirdo all this time.

  If I was a regular kid, this type of thing would have definitely gone to my head. And I'll be honest, it's already starting to happen but the reason why my ego isn't the size of the moon is because of my adult mind being practical.

  I told myself that it's just a crayfish, albeit a giant one. I'm gonna hunt more of those in the upcoming days and my real goal is to prevent the tragedy that will befall this place because of whatever it is I'll do in the future.

  Atterson took me to the village center and there, on a giant table surrounded by people, sat several dishes made from the crayfish that I hunted. Everyone was eager to feast on an aberrant this early in the year so a lot of people were having second, third, and even fourth servings.

  Personally, I'd moderate myself since I still need to hunt another aberrant tomorrow so what I got wasn't that big: It was just a single bowl with stewed crayfish on it, I was even given a large piece even though I protested against it.

  "This is way too big." I murmured with a bit of disgust, yet despite that I'm eating my bowl like it's the best thing in the world. It's really different if you hunt the food yourself. "It doesn't taste that bad, at least. Did people bring out their spices or something?"

  That's an actual thing here. The lack of spices I mean.

  Since Flotol is pretty remote, we don't actually get that much salt coming over here so it's incredibly expensive, usually families– if they even have salt to begin with. – only use it to preserve food in winter by brining hunted aberrants alongside vegetables during the annual cull but I guess salt got brought out early because of me?

  There are other spices here too, like pieces of hard bread, dried egg yolk, and fermented fish liver but compared to all of that, salt just has a way of making things tasty so it's leagues better than everything else.

  My bowl didn't take long to become empty and once that happened, I stood up and asked for more food. I gathered as much as I could but this wasn't for me, I'll bring this to the pier and give it to Wardcruncha and his buddies, I know they'll love it.

  Without making a single sound, I left the village center and headed for the most decrepit area in Flotol.