Shoulder length brown hair, pale, freckled skin, almond-shaped eyes the color of early dusk, and a soft-featured face. All of these are very distinguishable from the rest of the populace, and they are also very familiar to those who hunted her.
Which is why they need to go.
Liberty stood in front of a bronze mirror, the reflection of her face barely visible on its surface. To her right is a bottle of hair dye, the expensive kind, and one that will last her for months if needed, next to that is a comb, and then a brush, a bucket of water and a scissor is on her left. Her hands are gloved.
With trembling hands, she splashes water onto her head, it was cold. She repeats this until every strand on her head is soaking wet, Liberty shakily reaches for the scissors, her eyes closed momentarily as she touched her hair.
'I need to do this.' She grits her teeth and force her fingers to move, the tool slices her hair and the cut falls to the floor. A relieved sigh came out and she was able to work through the rest of it.
Half an hour later, a bowl cut sits on her head, it doesn't look bad by any means and the hairstyle helps her by showing off more of her face, which actually does make her look different compared to when she had shoulder-length hair. The change was interesting to see, honestly.
Next up was the dye, which after removing her beloved hair, made it easier to apply. The smell of ink and oil filled the room as she worked. It stayed even after Liberty finished coloring her hair black, she actually had to open a window in order to ventilate her rented apartment.
She shook off her gloves and tossed them in a nearby bin, then she checked her medical supplies, her wardrobe, as well as the various cabinets in the kitchen. Most of them are empty.
Liberty almost hissed when she opened her coin pouch and saw that it was mostly empty. Even after the merchant paid her for tending to his wife and the Hunter's Guild compensation for healing their patients, Liberty still came up short in money.
The rented apartment she is in right now costs over 150 Stappe every month and worse still, she needs to spend 10 or so Tarchs in order to buy water. The predatory practice was not lost to her, but sadly, this is normal in this world.
'I should be thankful that I'm even in the middle class honestly.' Because if she were to be honest, there's no realistic way that people will be able to reach the upper class without marrying into a family or selling their soul.
Well, the guilds do exist, and becoming director often means that one is on the way to reaching the top of society's financial hierarchy but most of those positions are filled by the sons and daughters of rich families already.
The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer rings true even in this world, which, while unfortunate, is probably how most realities operate, fantasy or otherwise. Those in power would want to keep it for as long as possible, and unfortunately for this world's locals, magic isn't so overpowering that some random peasant can become a demi-god so the rich don't have to worry about the occasional uprising.
Generational power matters more than talent, which means accumulated wealth within families can and will keep them at the top.
Liberty cleared her head of thoughts and excess hair dye while rinsing it with water. She wrapped her head with a towel, when it was taken off, gone was the dull brown hair of yesterday and it is now onyx black, a very common hair color. No one would find her suspicious with this.
Wiping herself clean with a wash cloth was the next task in line, and after she no longer smells like oil and ink, she left for the city to spend all of her money on supplies. She can still heal people with what's left in her bag but that kid with the parasite two days ago proved that it wasn't ideal.
'And it's not like I'm financially struggling right now.' It's worse than that, she's financially getting tortured. 'Even then, I can't risk my reputation falling apart just because I failed to heal one person, who will want to come to me then?'
As someone whose profession relies entirely on her success rate, Liberty cannot risk herself getting mistaken as a fraud, and while she can technically work as a receptionist or even a farm hand, she has spent a lot of time learning medicine to just throw it all away.
'If I ever lose my job because of my own failure, I will never live it down.' No really, she refuses to accept that it is her own mistake that will force her to lose such a lucrative career.
This medieval world already lacks the kind of knowledge that modern earth had so she can pretend to be a doctor after only studying the art for 1 and a half years, failing that while possessing otherworldly knowledge is just pathetic.
'And it's not like factories can exist here anyway.' Well, merchants are definitely trying to automate things, but so far, their experiments have only resulted in the gas technologies present within cities like Valdrosen.
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Liberty's first stop was a farm, the one which takes care of slimes. It is located on the outskirts of the city, where smoke and steam don't pollute the air and human waste does not infest the ground. Yet.
There is a well on the edge of the property, next to an out house made with all kinds of boards, the door also looks like it was frankensteined from three different things, one of them was definitely a table, as proven by the strange looking handle, which just looks like a sawed off leg.
A slanted shed with a wooden window made with thin pieces of wood crossing each other, leaving tiny square-shaped gaps in between, stands a few meters away from it.
Between them is a well constructed with stacked bricks, there are two bars of wood on either side of it, reaching high and carrying scrap metal on top, this forms a roof. Slightly below that is a wooden beam attached to both bars, a thick rope coiled around it, the rest of the line is in the depths of the well, probably holding a bucket.
While the well is close to the out house for easy access, the buildings people actually lived in are built further away. This is no different for the owners of Silire Farms, where the main house is built so far from the out house that a dirt path had to be stomped between them to make it more recognizable.
Liberty was walking on this exact same path, she passed by a lantern post, currently empty. Then after a few more steps she passes a bug catcher in the middle of a field, several of them even. The smell of honey is so strong that Liberty could smell it from the path.
'I wonder how the insects feel about it? Other than being tempted, I mean.' The poor bugs must be constantly fooled by those things, only to then get trapped.
Soon, she reached the home of the ranchers, and they lived inside a two story house. Liberty assumed it was just an extra big box on the way here but she was wrong, it's at least half the size of a standard apartment building and looked even better because it isn't made with brutalist architecture in mind.
Painted wood was the main material used during construction, with hints of concrete at the foundation and lower walls, but after that? It is all wood. The roof cannot be seen but Liberty could tell that it is layered brick tiles due to the chimney jutting out from the back.
In this economy, a home like this is incredibly rare and speaks of upper middle class wealth.
The front of the house has 4 windows in total, two on the bottom, and two above, a screened doorway sits at the back of a well maintained porch gated by smooth wooden fences, behind those is a pair of rocking chairs by the door. Currently, no one occupies them.
Liberty walked past the mail box and entered the general vicinity of the house, she constantly looked around even as her shoes touched the gravel that surrounded the property. She soon spots a garage by the side of the house, or maybe something else? What did people use those things for when there are no cars?
'Well, tractors do exist, so maybe it's in there.' Well, she says tractors but those are called Ronflats here, as they have bulky, steel wheels instead of rubber to prevent it from melting.
After walking some more without encountering anyone, Liberty decided to call out, "hello? I would like to buy jelly?" Ugh, she really hated using that term. "Heloooo?"
But more than anything, she hated being ignored like this. Granted, she probably isn't being ignored but the point stands! It is incredibly annoying for this to happen, she hated calling for people and not getting an answer in return.
"Ah! Miss?! Did you say you wanna buy Jel?" The door opens and out comes a man? They're the same age? Maybe? He's slightly older? She really found it hard to gauge thanks to the thin stubble on his chin and the bit of mustache under his nose.
"Yes, I want to buy Jelly." Liberty confirms, she inspects the guy who greeted her, and he was rather attractive, with a sharp jaw, green eyes, and muscular visible under his clothing. His biceps also spoke of hard labor under the sun, with the kind of bulk only present in farmers.
"Well I'd be! I was right!" He laughed and pulled on the strap of his coverall. "Never seen someone like yous before! Ya knew?"
"You can say that, yep." Liberty didn't understand why he had an accent, given how close his house is to Valdrosen but maybe his parents moved here at some point?
"Ha! Didn't know folks from far away come to Valdrosen! Don't know what yer here for' but welcome!"
"Thank you." Liberty didn't point out the fact that his parents might also be in the same situation as her. "So, uhm, where are we going now? I want to check your farm and pick a slime for myself if that's okay?"
"Course it is! Follow me!" With a peppy step and happy-go-lucky grin, the kid went down the porch and went over to her. "Names Alosin by the way!"
"Liberty Hazelwood."
"Oh, a last name! Reckon you'd be the same as me, ha." He shakes his head. "That was not a good joke."
"It's okay, I thought it was pretty decent." She lied, she didn't understand anything about it.
"So yer one of those mountain people right? Ones with all the dolls and stuff?"
"I'm not actually a true Lampiy, just trained with one." Liberty decided to be honest, her reputation is already set in the city anyway. "I'm still a pretty good Leech though."
"That so? We have cattle that may need yer help?"
"I'll see what I can do, for now, can you lead me to your farm?"
"That's what I wanted to do, yep!"
Liberty was brought to an enclosure surrounded by heavy metal bars and a moat of brine, the walls of which are concrete to prevent the water from seeping out. This is the common way slime ranches are built, the bars are there to stop animals from entering and contaminating the horde of slimes while the moat is to stop the slimes from escaping because they easily dry out when exposed to salt.
Gravel serves as the floor in which the slimes crawl on, as unlike concrete, the loose gravel allows for whatever counts as slime waste— which is unsurprisingly just more gel. — to filter through the gaps.
The Silire Slime Ranch wasn't the best one Liberty has seen, but it is definitely one of the better ones out there. 'The place seems clean at least, so their slimes shouldn't have any diseases...'
And she really hoped this is the case, she didn't want to personally cultivate a slime since that would be far too time consuming and she would also need to set up a terrarium that's just perfect for a slime to live in. Doing it every time she needed to make a potion as well? Not ideal. She'd rather buy a fresh slime.
"Well, here we are! Take yer pick!"
