Chapter 3: Chapter 3: The Hook

"I know it can be overwhelming, but it's alright." Nate gives her an indulgent but superior smile, and she hates him a little. Marcheline doesn't like being overwhelmed and being unable to do anything about it.

After they reach the registration hall, it's another two hours of lining up and filling forms. Officially a citizen, she is informed of temporary housing, but for a more permanent arrangement. The Kingdom has plans to reclaim a relatively safe spot of the nearby forests, land which she and her friends could develop. Marcheline narrows her eyes as the conditions seem too good to be true.

With their village population of twenty, they have several options. The most popular one seems to be registering as farmers, and promising to give the kingdom fifty percent of whatever they make.

“Can we make a reservation for the land, before deciding anything else?”

The clerk is a heavy, sour-looking, middleaged man. His jowls jiggle as he releases a put-upon sigh, “Listen, girly,” he barks, but he looks her up and down and pauses. He shows a slimy smirk, “Here are your options,” he slams down a set of documents, “Feel free to look for me later when you’ll need help with that.” Then he ignores her in favor of the person next in line.

Marcheline isn’t able to stop herself from recoiling in disgust, but her reaction is covered by the person behind her, politely making his way forward to process his own business.

It’s not worth it right now, she tells herself. Marcheline gathers the documents and feels a headache from the intentionally complicated legalese. She glares at the place she’s lost in the line. Lunch, she should eat.

She finds Nate and tells him go first, as she’s going to take a while still. She hunkers down on a hidden alcove, and sits on the marble floors. She fishes out her dried rations, and goes over the conditions for new settlers.

Basic residency comes with the least strings, but they would have to forget about farming or raising animals. Not only would the area per person be too small, they are strictly not allowed.

They’re not qualified for a research facility, or a Crisis Center.

Marcheline reads the condition for farmers again, and it is downright abusive. Fifty percent of the yield, they say, but there’s a minimum. She takes the list of required crops and studies their cost for growing (all in the provided manual). She’s confident in her calculations that going by the mandatory minimum, the kingdom would take about eighty percent of any average yield.

There would only be enough for day to day living, no prospect for expansion, and they’d be on the hook to provide the minimum yield or else. Marcheline lifts her eyes and huffs. The most popular option is farming, they say.

She flips another page. Military Household. Huh. For something that sounds frightening, these are potentially very favorable conditions, and it also comes with some connections. There’s a chance to back out, but she thinks there’s only a limited area of forest land that could safely be reclaimed. Reserve it first. She’ll ask around later, but they’ll go for ordinary Residency and find jobs elsewhere if this doesn’t work out.

Thankfully, a different clerk is manning the window at this time, and she manages to secure a reservation for their group relatively easily. “We’ll get in contact with our surveyor, and we’ll post your Number and plot in two weeks. Please come back then to finalize everything.”

Once that's done, the tired clerk gives her directions on temporary accommodations, sponsored by the Church. So Marcheline packs up her things and her pet, Varm the Bunny. To her surprise, Nate returns to check up on her, so she tells him she plans to rest.

"That's not far from here, I'll lead you there."

"Please, and thanks."

It's apparently a wide clearing with a lot of tents. They're led to a priest who manages the new arrivals and she's handed a blanket, a robe, and a number that tells her where her tent is. Nate leaves her soon after.

There's about a dozen tents around her, and half of them are already filled with women and children. She notes that families and single men are led to different places. Her tent should be close to the family area.

It's not the worst. Everything is clean at least.

She gets to her tent and settles in. The manager assures her that they allow pets as long as they're not dangerous, so Varm gets a makeshift collar and is let loose for a while. There are a lot of sheep and exactly one herding dog.

Marcheline settles down, lays on the thick blanket and bunches the new robe into a pillow. She removes her outer cloak and worries about a bath. On the road, they would stop by rivers to wash up. Guess she'll find out, it's too late in the day anyway. Marcheline closes her eyes, and exhaustion takes over.

She wakes up to a commotion, and hurriedly gets up and out of her tent, only to see that it's already noon of the next day. There're a lot of dirty little children being chased by the older ones, and their mothers. From their cries, it seems that they've decided to stage a coup against the tyrants that want to wash them.

"Ugh, children." mutters a voice on her right, her closest neighbor.

Marcheline blinks up at the young woman, maybe a year or two older than her. She has brown hair and a sour demeanor. Marcheline says, "Hi."

"Hello." the woman sets down what appears to be a bucket for bathing, "I suppose we should let that run it's course before we get our turn to wash up."

"Yea." a beat, "My name is Marcheline, I'm new here. I guess we'll be neighbors for the time being."

The girl raises her eyebrows, "Fancy name. Mine is Linda. Got here a week ago." She looks Marcheline up and down, "If you just woke up, the next meal is still hours away."

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"That's alright. What's with the commotion?"

"If you got here so late, you're probably from somewhere far so you don't know," almost at the outskirts in fact, "there's a festival tonight."

"A big one?" there's indeed anticipation in the air.

"The one they have every month." then Linda shrugs disaffectedly, but there’s a stiffness to it, like it is a big deal for her. She adds in a low voice, "we're lucky that the capital suddenly decided to accept more people. I've been trying to gain residence here for years, but they were so strict. They won't accept you if you have a place in other cities, and they don't easily accept outsiders either. I entered as soon as I got the chance."

The fall of Grulierre seems to be a good opportunity for others.

Marcheline smiles and nods. She much prefers the countryside life, but more people dream of going into big cities in this world too, huh.

After walking around the Church's grounds, Linda and Marcheline were able to take their turn in the washing area. Marcheline is a bit baffled that Linda proceeds to carefully arrange her own hair, use precious makeup (which should be expensive), and wears her best clothes. Isn't it just a monthly festival?

When asked, Linda says, "For the long-time residents maybe, but this is our first one." that makes sense.

So they eagerly wait for night to fall, and Linda drags her to the city center, a long strip of road which has enough room for merchants to set up stall and still allow carriages to pass to and fro.

Under the yellow-orange lanterns, aromatic smoke rises from various food stalls to attract customers. Some merchants have spread animal hides, on top of which are various knick knacks for sale. Marcheline is happy to see some are buying and selling various herbs that she’s familiar with.

They go into a large building that rents out even more store areas — like a mall. The second floor opens up to a wide area, like a roofed terrace. There are less traveling peddlers here, the merchants look like they’re more of a long-time fixture in the place. You could see the street below.

Marcheline happily hugs her bag and tells Linda, “I’m gonna go ask around if anyone wants to buy some herbs. I don’t have any money!”

“Alright, I’ll be…” Linda spots a group of people buying tickets for a gambling game, “there!” and scurries off.

Marcheline tries to lower her expectations, but the atmosphere is getting to her. Her palms start to sweat from nerves.

She goes to the tents where they’re selling tonics and herbs, “Hello, I’m from the Green Thorn Valley. I was wondering if you’d be interested in some dried herbs from there?” she repeats this a few times to get a general idea of the price, and decides to sell most of her stuff to the trader she likes best.

That’s a few coins. She should be able to survive for a month if she moves out from the refugee camp. But not yet. For now, she has a safe place to stay, and they provide some food too. She hopes the rest of her village won’t have too much trouble along the way.

She passes by the edge of the terrace again. Aww, Linda will be disappointed. There’re storm clouds covering the sky. It should rain heavily, and soon. But… she loves rain.

As expected, it starts to drizzle, then it begins to pour. There are the delighted cries of children from below as they look for shelter.

There’s a brief puff of warm air from the paved roads, the day’s heat rising up from them. The scent of people is cleansed away by the wind carrying the smell of petrichor. Gusts of wind spray the rainwater into their little bazaar. The merchants nearest to the floor-to-ceiling windows pull their wares deeper inside, but without dismay.

Marcheline gets closer to the rain, uncaring of her clothes getting wet. Without anyone hearing, she gasps in childish excitement at this new life. It’s alright to be without magic. It’s alright to be reborn in a world with the same status as an NPC.

As long as she has hope. There’s a way to live in this world, she and the other villagers could survive, still. They could do over. God, she misses civilization after all. There are countless jobs and opportunities here. She could build a life here, here with the sweet scent of rain and freedom and hope.

She closes her eyes and lets the cold rain and wind surround her, acknowledging the beauty of everything.

There’re flashes of light behind her eyes, and she opens them to the glorious hints of lightning behind the dark clouds. The skies begin to roll with thunder, louder and louder.

Just then, a truly massive bolt of lightning arcs through the whole city, and reaches the palace in a second. Marcheline watches in stunned silence as it violently strikes the ominous tall tower near the palace.

This is not followed not only by thunder, but also by the thunderous screams of joy from the entire city.

She looks back and sees that the merchants and the other commoners are glowing, wide smiles on their faces.

There’s a sense of lightness to her being, a sense of weightlessness, and then she realizes she’s glowing too.

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