They were all in full bloom.

Helleborus orientalis.

Otherwise known as the Lenten Rose — a perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family that is famous for blooming during the Christian religious season of Lent. In a distant forgotten age centuries ago, “lent” in Old English (short for “lencten”) was also the word for “spring season”.

This flower could be considered a harbinger that marked the end of winter.

It is a resilient rose, able to withstand the early spring frosts.

All parts of the plant are poisonous.

The hillside was covered with them, blooming in the early morning sunrise, in the fields just outside of the city.

 

+ + +

 

I shielded my eyes from the brilliant glare of the rising sun as I crossed the crest of the hill. The wind blew slightly in my face and the grass was still moist from the morning dew. The water of daybreak caressed my bare feet, numbing them from the frigid temperatures of dawn. However, I didn’t pay it any mind because my poor toes had been through far worse.

I was cloaked in a large multi-layer shawl made of patchwork rags. Although each piece was unevenly shaped and obviously reclaimed from spent rags abandoned in the trash, at the very least it was intact and clean. Just by looking, you could tell that the ends were carefully maintained and the fraying was minimal. The multicolor rainbow of hues was heavily faded from its original tints, a testimony to the repeated washings and vigorous scrubbings they had been subjected to. No longer did I wear shredded potato sacks with holes in them.

There was an enormous basket too large for my size on my back. Naturally, it was back-breakingly heavy. However, this weighty burden would have been affectionately familiar to any impoverished woman of this era.

Why else do you think it is that so many poor old hags walk with deeply hunched backs?

 

+ + +

 

I turned back to gaze upon the City, its stone walls like a white sepulcher set against the rising run.

It laid in the distance, farms sprawling around the dirt roads and occupying every inch of land like a collage of pictures crammed full on a scrapbook page. A river flowed along the northern quarter of the urban settlement, bisecting the city into the uneven districts that I had become all too familiar with.

This was the City of Ohm — a sizable inland municipality part of the Kingdom of Galica that laid on the Belt of Riches. It was the last major port settlement on the Escheu River, beyond which the waters were not continuously navigable by river barge. Forty leagues to the north, there laid the Aurus Mountains, the gold basket for this nation. Traders enticed by lucrative ores and aristocrats seeking metaphorical jewels have gambled their fortunes on establishing successful ventures in this city of avarice.

However, not all those lured by the promise of wealth left this place with their reckless dreams fulfilled. Those who fell from prominence quickly found themselves rotting and forgotten in the overcrowded slums, rampant with crime. It was a city where utter destitution awkwardly mingled with flamboyant affluence in an entangling waltz.

In other words, my reluctant home.

The place that had served as my metaphorical prison for the last seven months.

And also the tomb for dozens of people I once called friends.

 

+ + +

 

“Huff… Huff… Oof, are you sure that the ice will have thawed by now, Nez? ...Is this really a good idea?”

A female voice called up from several feet below, its owner still struggling to catch up to me on this steep slope.

 

Nez — short for Nezumi — was the street name I chose for myself after coming to this isekai world. In a certain foreign language that no one understands here, the word means “Rat”, as in a sewer rat that fed upon toxic sludge. My companion's name was Sasha, meaning “Amber Owl.” She, like me, was a young impoverished woman of the city slums filled with nothing but foolish dreams for an unattainable future.

Anyone slightly more mature than us would have shaken their heads, silently disapproving of our youthful folly. Their experience with the world told them that fairy tales were the items of fantasy, and phoenixes were not actually reborn from ashes. Even more so than the Earth where I came from, this isekai world was cruel. “Class mobility” was non-existent. Those who were born poor, stayed poor, and died poor. The system of the world itself was rigged in such a way that castes were practically immutable. Those who found themselves struggling against it were inevitably struck down. Poverty was inescapable.

Did this make me a fool, then, for purchasing figurative lottery tickets when the odds were clearly stacked against me?

A long time ago, I would have said yes — the expected value of playing the lottery was negative, so players of the gambling game itself could only be fundamentally irrational. But these days, I was no longer so sure.

 

My voice was neutral as I responded to my companion.

“I went two weeks ago and the ice was already thawed, although there was still a little snow on the ground,” I said, not looking back towards Sasha yet. My eyes were still fixated on the city in the distance.

Traffic was beginning to steadily trickle in and out of the city gates. The line of wagons into the city was already enormous despite the early hour, a testament to the fact that the people of this isekai world were hard workers in general. In this metropolis, the city gates opened a half-hour before dawn and closed a half-hour after sunset. To maximize the amount of time they could sell their crops and wares inside the city, farmers and tradesmen from the surrounding countryside woke up many hours before sunrise to load and drive their wagons in order to catch the first opening of the gates. The morning market rush was the most profitable time for a local farmer looking to sell produce, so it was natural for the early bird to catch the tastiest worms.

Likewise, my companion and I had been up long before the crack of dawn to prepare for our day-trip in the opposite direction.

“How much longer?” my partner whined as she pulled herself to the top of the hill, panting. Like me, she was carrying an enormous heavy basket on her back.

She tossed in a pretend-complaint jokingly, a teasing smile on her plain freckle-laden face.

“Us city girls aren’t really cut out for this kind of exercise, y’know? My princess thighs can’t handle these slopes. Honestly I think flat is wayyy better than these stupidass big perky lumps everywhere.”

I winced at the disastrous sexual innuendo that my companion had abruptly dropped out of the blue.

...Nice try… Sasha… I’d rate it a B minus for effort. But at least pay attention to the mood...

I tried to keep my facial expression totally deadpan and serious. Despite this, Sasha carefully monitored my pupils for the slightest reaction with her owl-like eyes.

I tried to ignore her as I continued to walk. A few seconds later, she turned away, a bright smile on her face, seemingly satisfied by whatever it was that she saw.

“Four or five hours to get there, depending on our pace,” I answered. “We have to get back before the city gates are shut, so there’s barely enough time on our hands to get everything done.”

“I know~ I know~ You’ve told me already~ Anyways, a bath! A bath~! I’m here for a bath~! I haven’t had a bath in years!”

“We’re not here to play, you know,” I reminded her, trying to maintain a stern voice.

“I know! I’m kidding. It’s work! With a slave-driver like Nez, it’s always work! What’s for lunch, by the way? Let’s have a picnic on the riverbank! It’ll be such a charming vacation away from the city! We can have teacups and serve cookies, sweets, and cake! And then we can wear funny hats and have the knights escort us back with the beautiful setting sun behind us!”

I sighed as I kept walking, my stomach already beginning to growl.

“...I know you love poking fun at the aristocrats… but this doesn’t change the fact we’ll be going without lunch today. It’s the price we pay for losing a day in the city.”

My companion pouted as she crossed her elbows. “You’re such a killjoy, Nez! Remind me why I’m with you again?”

“Because I’m paying you ten coppers to help me carry everything.”

“Muu, you’re such a cheapskate! I can make at least twelve coppers on the streets in a single day. At least pay me more than I make regularly! And feed me too!”

“But you agreed, didn’t you? Somehow, you must have decided something was worth it.”

 

+ + +

 

Sasha’s face was serious as she held out her hands, struggling to count with her fingers.

“How much do you make from selling rags to the Rag Merchant again?”

“A copper per pound,” I replied instantly.

“Washing them doesn’t give you extra, right? I had heard that as long as they’re dry and not caked in mud, he’ll take them no matter how bad they smell or where they came from.”

“Yup. True fact.”

“Then is this really such a smart idea? No matter how I look at it, you don’t make any money doing this.”

“Also true.”

“Muu, I just don’t get it! Nez, everyone knows that you’re smarter than you look, but you’re also so mysterious! Why drag so much cloth outside of the city just to wash it when you don’t make any profit?!”

“Hmm…” I hummed slightly as I felt the fresh wind blowing against my face, sweeping my short hair wildly up into the air.

I was feeling good. I was beginning to think I could see a future ahead of me. Perhaps the end of winter had brought clarity to my mind. The fact I was no longer freezing and starving definitely had a large impact, but in either case I felt like I was beginning to catch sight of some kind of direction again.

There was a new year ahead of me. I had a feeling that maybe it would be a better year than the last.

“I guess I just don’t think of everything in terms of pure gain and loss anymore,” I said simply. “Some things are worth much more than that.”

 

+ + +

 

My name is Nezumi.

People call me the Queen of all things related to sewage and trash.

I think it was sometime around a week after I first woke up this city, when I began to develop a reputation for myself as one of the loners that made a living fighting over trash. I ate trash, I drank trash, I wore trash, I hoarded trash, and I lived in trash. My entire life was trash.

It was actually pretty stupid in retrospect, and I’m sure all of the people in the slums saw it that way, but early on I really didn’t know how to do anything except pick through trash. I started fistfights with people over who got the best pickings from trash on a nearly daily basis.

Yeah, it was totally stupid.

I probably spent more energy getting in fights than I gained from stuff that I sold or ate. Any sensible homeless person knows that conserving energy is crucial, and lots of times wasting precious strength on a pointless fight isn’t worth it. However, back then, I was too dumb for that. I picked fights with everybody. I was possessive as fuck.

That was my trash, and you weren’t going to take it.

People started calling me a Rat after that.

I knew all the best places to find trash and hoard it. I had a palace made out of trash and this was my little kingdom. Nobody knew trash better than I did. 

At some point, someone asked what was my name. I didn’t even need to hesitate at all at that point, because all of the pieces were already in place. It was almost like my name was already chosen for me.

 

+ + +

 

By the time the sun was glaring at mid-day, Sasha and I were furiously at work scrubbing and washing away.

“Cold!” Sasha had yelped earlier, despite the fact that the stream water only reached up to her ankles.

We had at least 150 to 200 pounds of rags to wash between the two of us, and many were still sopping wet with grease, grime, and sewage-laden mud.

Unlike in modern Earth, citizens of this medieval world were frightfully good at recycling. Ordinarily, nothing went to waste. Torn clothes got resewn and remade into new clothes until it was literally impossible to do so anymore. At that point, the old cloth was cut and remade into other items, until eventually every piece of cloth was nothing more than a small rag that was used to wipe down dirty tables. The rag was reused and rewashed until the grease stains could not be removed. For example, a dirty rag was only thrown away if wiping a table with it only made it dirtier than it was before. Discarded, it sat out on the city streets, soaking up sewage, manure, diseases, and everything disgusting until a beggar picked it up.

If the quality was okay, it could be sold to a Rag Merchant, who would then use the rags to make rag paper. A similar industry of rags existed in premodern Europe, and in fact it was the livelihood of many urban poor living in utter destitution long ago in Earth’s past. Currently, this was my life too, as the Queen of everything to do with trash.

 

To the side of us on the riverbank, there were a few chipped yet functional pieces of pottery filled with steaming water. They sat directly atop open fires, constantly being blackened with soot and charcoal as they cooked away. I had brought these here to this remote location several weeks ago as soon as the snows had melted.

When I had first salvaged them, they were literally like treasure in my eyes. Since the pots were still functional apart from a few broken fragments and cracks, they could have each sold for at least seven or eight coppers each — almost a full day’s worth of haulings. I may have punched a person or two fighting over them, but to me they were well worth the bruises.

However, I didn’t sell them for cash, as any other beggar might have.

After all… they were containers to boil water!

Even if others could not fathom why I wanted them, there was no way I would sell something so precious.

 

+ + +

 

Hours ago, Sasha had looked at me quizzically like I was a madwoman when I’d initially dug the pots out from where I had previously buried them. I subsequently began to build a fire with the wooden debris around us. Since this was so far out from the city, few people ventured this far to collect firewood, so I was fortunate to have plenty in this area. It was part of the reason why I’d selected this spot. After starting a small blaze with flint I had definitely not stolen, I began filling the pots with a series of strange ingredients.

The first pot received a bunch of water and white powder as I set it to heat.

What was the white powder?

Answer: lime, or calcium hydroxide.

Where’d I get it?

Answer: From the whitewash that was used to paint the walls of the buildings in the city. Whitewash is made from a mixture of lime and chalk, and there was tons of it in this city where basically everything was slathered and painted in white. It was cheaper than pennies, and honestly it wasn't that hard to snatch away a bucket of builders’ lime when nobody was looking.

What was I making?

Answer: Calcium hydroxide solution, otherwise known as limewater.

The second pot received an enormous heap of bones, foul-smelling animal fat, and basically tons of icky stuff that not even beggars would eat from the trash. Sasha immediately pinched her nose as her eyes went wide as I set this pot of disgusting water to boil.

“You’re definitely a witch!” Sasha exclaimed as she backed several paces away. “A witch! A witch!”

However, I didn’t react as continued to focus on my work while oils rose to the surface.

What was I making?

Answer: Lard, otherwise known as animal fat, which is rich in triglycerides and fatty acids.

The third pot received lots of wood ash (potash) and rainwater as I set it to a boil. As it cooked away, some whitish material started rising to the surface. It was very caustic and I was cautious not to touch the material with my bare hands as I scooped it up with cheesecloth.

What was I making?

Answer: Lye, otherwise known as potassium hydroxide.

The third pot (the largest one) received plenty of stream water, a little bit of soda ash, and a hefty amount of limewater.

The soda ash (sodium carbonate) I did not have a lot of, because honestly I’d begged for just a tiny bit to test it out. Similar to potash (potassium carbonate), which is made from leaching the ashes of burnt wood, soda ash is made from leaching the ashes of seaweed or salty plants that like to grow in salt marshes. Since the City of Ohm had a port, there was still a small number of coastal vessels that make their way inland, and it was possible to beg the sailors for a little bit of the barnacles and seaweed that hung from their ships.

What was I making?

Answer: Water softener to precipitate the calcium and magnesium ions out of river water.

What was I cooking today in these pots beside the riverbank?

Answer: soap.

Soap to wash some dirty rags. Via an ancient reaction now known on Earth as saponification.

 

+ + +

 

Sasha was slightly unimpressed as she made her first comment, scrubbing away with the soapy water.

“It’s so-so,” she said. “The soap that they sell in the market is better.”

Her arms were surprisingly muscular and strong for her skinny figure. This was the case for many of us poor women who were used to long hours of manual physical labor. They didn’t tire even though both of us had been scrubbing away for hours.

“It does work, though,” she acknowledged. “I’m surprised you knew how to make something like this at all, since all the guilds are pretty secretive and stuff. Were your old folks soap makers before you ended up out in the slums?”

“Something like that.” I nodded my head as I also scrubbed away and got up to change the water and start a new batch of soapy brine.

 

This wasn’t my first time making soap in this isekai world. In fact, I had tried it once or twice in the past and adjusted my own recipe after a few failures. To be fair, I hadn't even known that chemistry from Earth would work at all, so at first I had been totally prepared for an utter disaster. Frankly, I was just happy that a simple saponification reaction taught in high school chemistry actually worked. I guess this could count as one of the rare instances being a history geek paid off.

Of course it was obvious that my soap wouldn’t be better than the professional soap that was sold in the markets. I had known that from the very beginning before I even tried to make any. After all, mine was literally made from trash. There was no way it could compete against expensive scented soaps made from plant oils and the best cuts of pork fat. The technology level of this medieval world was not that backwards.

However, a key point was that soap was expensive in the markets. Normally, people didn’t spend money on soap to wash rags. As a result, people threw away greasy rags all the time, thinking they weren’t worth the effort to waste precious store-bought soap on.

Aside from the labor, my soap was virtually free, and that was a critical difference. Nobody else would find it reasonable to wash disposed rags to recover their wasted utility.

 

+ + +

 

As the last bell rang and the city gates closed for the evening, I parted from Sasha after she dropped off my newly washed (and still soaked) rags at my hideout in the city. There was the brief exchange of coins as I paid her the amount that I’d promised, and she waved lazily as she left.

“It was interesting day, I guess. You’re weird. Maybe I’ll do it again. Let’s wait and see until next time!”

“Stay safe on the streets. The Needles have been active in this neighborhood lately, so be careful of the gangs.”

That was our parting conversation as she rubbed her belly and made a good-natured joke about how ravenous she was from not eating the entire day. However, she was a “friend”, and naturally we looked out for each other, at least superficially.

In this tooth-and-nail isekai world, it was not a good idea to be a solo player.

After arriving here, I had quickly discovered that there was safety in numbers, and somebody that you could trust reliably was worth their weight in gold, especially in this place where people are swift to stab each other in the back. It was invaluable to have someone who would keep an eye out when you sleep, or guard your belongings when you were away.

Of course, being too trusting was bad too.

The real world was a delicate balance of many paradoxical values.

In the end, it was just business as usual.

 

+ + +

 

It was well after dark as I slinked through the shadows, stopping by a well-worn hanging sign that marked a place that I frequently visited.

The Rag Merchant’s place.

It was located in a poorly-traveled corner of the Market District that few people knew how to find. Although it was closed for business, all merchant shops of this era doubled as homes for the families that owned them, so the retail staff were still unquestionably present in the building even after regular hours.

I knocked.

I heard the slight fumble of scraping furniture as someone got up to answer the door. Moments later, the sturdy door opened a hesitant crack. There was a pause, and then a few seconds after, it swung widely open as an enormous burly bearded man that looked like a grizzly bear stood at the entrance. He hesitated for an instant before the recognition flashed through his eyes.

“Nezzy! Why, isn’t it Nezzy! My best supplier! Come in! Come in!” He spoke with a booming voice and a twinkle in his eyes.

I accepted his hospitality as I stepped across the threshold. The Rag Merchant — his name was Olum — was especially welcoming as he encouraged me to take a seat in his home.

“Beer? Cider? Tea? Oh right, something sweet? Mead?” he offered me.

“Mead, please,” I responded sweetly, even though I didn’t even like mead.

Even if it was slightly fake, this was all part of the standard default strategy that I had gradually learned from some of my more “knowledgeable” friends over time. At this point, it was such a trained response that it was more automatic than intentional. When it came to doing business, you were a fool if you didn’t make use of the passive advantages you already possessed.

“Coming right up!”

“Thank you, Mister Olum!” I spoke gratefully as I received a mug from the Rag Merchant with both hands.

The Rag Merchant leaned back his couch as he brought his own mug to his lips and took a gulp.

“Ah ~ How long has it been again? I can’t believe how much you’ve grown, missy! You were a real wild one back then when I plucked you out of the sewage. But now it feels like every time I see you, you’re getting more and more refined. You’re growing into a fine lady, for sure. Makes me wonder how my sweet little daughter would be if she were alive today.”

I bowed my head humbly, my voice perfectly fluent and smooth as it spoke in standard Galician.

“It’s all thanks to you, Mister. If you hadn’t saved me that time I was freezing in the streets, I don’t know where I’d be right now. You showed me where to find the best pickings in the city, helped me fix my accent, and even lent me a few books so I could learn a few letters. I wouldn't be the person I am today without you, so I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this.”

“Shush! You don’t owe me anything! It was just a little hot stew and a tad bit of advice. You’re the best rag picker that I have now, too. Everything that you find is always clean and high quality. I don’t have to argue with you about cheating the scale or slipping in bad cloth. The other rag pickers say that you’re rotten rat, but you’re as sweet-hearted and hard-working as it gets. I don’t believe a single word of it!”

I unleashed a wry smile of slight sadness.

“It’s a tad hard sometimes on the streets,” I said. “There's not many people who like me, so I don't have many people I can count on…”

That line seemed to have had some kind of effect. It sent the Rag Merchant into a hesitant pause as he covered the silence with another gulp from his mug. Even though I was sitting several feet away, I could smell the reek of alcohol on his breath. He was clearly thinking about something.

However, it wouldn’t play to my advantage if I left him too long to sort out his feelings. I had to be very cautious not to overstep his sense of generosity. This was a very dangerous game to play, and I wasn’t interested in having this fragile house of cards I’d so tediously built for months collapse on me tonight.

“Anyways, I came today to let you know I have another load coming this week, maybe tomorrow or the day after. Somewhere around 175 pounds. I just wanted to check if you would have the cash ready. One copper per pound, right?”

I interrupted him in his pensive thoughts.

“Ah yeah, sure, sure!” he responded absent-mindedly, his thoughts still elsewhere.

“Alright, I should get going, then! Thank you for the mead!” I said as I suddenly stood up.

The abrupt announcement of my departure took him surprise, and snapped him back to reality.

“Oh! Uh-um, already?” he said, stammering and disoriented. “Take some bread with you?”

“Are you sure, Mister? Business has been rough lately, right? It would be a big problem for me if your shop went bankrupt.”

“No, please take it! A little bit of bread is no issue for me.”

“Alright, then… but take care of yourself, okay? It must be difficult ever since your wife passed, but make sure to watch your health, okay? And please don't drink so much. It's not good for you.”

 

+ + +

 

After we exchanged our farewells, I found myself standing alone in the dark city streets.

There was a loaf of fresh bread in my hands.

I ripped off a piece and put it into my mouth, chewing as I walked away in deep thought.

How much of the things I’d said were fake, and how much had been real and heartfelt?

Months ago, it would have been easy to instantly say “all fake”. However, these days, I wasn’t entirely sure.

Was it possible to lie to someone so much that it became the truth?

Honestly, I didn't know.

∎