Liberty looked up at the smokey skyline and let out a sigh, it won't be long before the great cloud forms and heavy rain starts to pour down on every city. Resources will be low for a good while and everything will be more expensive as a result, she needs to find a way to earn 25 Stappe and refill her medicine bag before that happens.
'I'm supposed to be the person taking advantage of others during low resource times, not the one being taken advantage of.' Because yes, she does overcharge her patients during that time, especially the rich, who easily get sick because of all the inbreeding that happens to them.
Oh, and they also don't really go out that much, and so they don't have a very strong immune system while the streets are incredibly filthy, that filth gets carried by the rain into drinking systems and since they don't know what bacteria even is, they don't boil their water and sometimes even drink it from the source.
Pair that with all the insects running around— flies, especially. — and diseases begin to run rampant. In the worst case scenario, Liberty earns more money while getting discounts because the rich are simply that desperate, but she won't hope for that to happen.
'Where do I earn money though?' She asked herself this while continuing to observe the sky. The rising steam from the houses has yet to increase so the great cloud's formation is still pretty slow...
'Should I start recommending people to lower their usage of steam engines?' While that would definitely slow down the incoming rain, she can't heal patients right now. 'And even if I can, I don't think I'll have enough to influence the cloud formation, I'd need to heal hundreds of people every day for me to even come close to succeeding.'
Which means that her only option now is to find a lot of money as quickly as possible.
How? Well, she does have one option...
"Are you really Liberty?"
"Yes." Her disguise made it hard for the receptionist who first attended to her to recognize her, which is a good thing really, she wants to be unrecognizable.
"Why did you change your hair?" At least the woman believed her, was it the voice? It's definitely the voice right?
"I wanted to cut it short and dye it black because it is a pretty big weakness and also to hide better." The woman is gonna ask her why, and although this wasn't Liberty's original intention— well, it was, just not from monsters. — she is more than happy to lie about it.
"Hide better?"
"From monsters, I want to become a Retriever." Which is a term used for, oddly enough, combat medics. Or maybe the better way to describe it would be a one-person ambulance with on-the-field healing? That and they also retrieve corpses but Liberty doesn't really know what those are called.
"A retriever?" The shocked face of the woman was definitely understandable, no sane Leech would willingly fight monsters when they can just sit back and heal people. "... Why? If you want, we can apply to be one of the guild's many hired Leeches! You don't have to—"
"This is what I want." Liberty didn't hate it anyway, and honestly, dying from the hands of a monster sounds better than getting found by her pursuers.
"Okay, fine." The deep sigh of the woman still says she doesn't understand why Liberty is doing any of this. "I won't stop you if you really wish to be a retriever."
"Thank you." Now, unlike being sponsored by the guild, she wouldn't be paid immediately upon registration; however , she did heal people under this woman's observation, making her eligible for payment.
"Very well, if you'll just fill out this form..." A piece of paper goes Liberty's way and she starts reading the fine print first, there's nothing wrong with it and everything is fairly standard and so signs her name in agreement before filling out her information.
Liberty gives it back once she's done and sits back. "How long do I have to wait until I get paid for my prior work in the guild's patients?"
"How long? We can pay you right now." The woman grabbed another sheet from under her desk and this time, she was the one to fill it out. "You healed 8 patients in total, 3 of which were on the verge of death and one is a hazard to the guild itself. Your total is around... 15 Stappe."
Which is a lot really, especially for 8 patients. Usually, a single Stappe is what she gets for healing someone. She assumes that the increase was because of the special cases she handled, healing someone close to becoming an undead must've been worth a lot.
'Thank god for the ultra sterile rooms killing spores.' Without it, she wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to work on that comatose man and earn this much money.
"Thank you." Liberty takes the offered pouch and checks the weight. Now all she needs is 10 more Stappe and her medicine bag will be fully replenished!
'How many retrievals is that? 5? 6? Can I take on more dangerous jobs to get a higher pay?' That's a possibility she hasn't considered, but then again, she was thinking rationally before this and committing suicide by going into dangerous monster dens will never cross her mind.
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"Can we also sponsor you to aid with healing hunters? With your success rate, I believe that wasting someone with your talent is simply too much of a waste." Why was the woman so eager to get her to heal people?
"Will I still get the money from the sponsorship?" Because that's her only real motivation here.
"Of course! And I'll even set up a contract for you which will lower the cut the guild takes from your successful healings!" Well, how can Liberty refuse something like this?
"I accept."
"Thank you, I assure that you will not regret being sponsored by the Hunter's Guild, we treat our people well."
Okay, now that doesn't make sense. Since when did people like her say thank you? That doesn't make sense even if Liberty considers her talent and success rate, guilds aren't short on good Leeches and while they are not as good as Liberty, they do their job well enough.
Quality over quantity is one of her personal beliefs but she's just one person, it doesn't make sense for the guild to choose quality right now.
'Quality only exists when it is controlled, and that's why rich people and merchants fight over resources rather than people.' It doesn't matter if an emerald or gold mine has very ores inside, they are still worth more than an iron mine that has a lot of iron in it.
'Unless, of course, the iron deposit is incredibly rich.'
Using that analogy, wouldn't that mean that if there is enough iron that all of it combined would be worth more than an emerald mine... Wouldn't that mean that it is reasonable to pick the iron over the emerald?
Quantity, in that hypnotical scenario, is worth more than quality.
'Why are you so eager for me, hm?' Liberty was very suspicious. 'Your systems worked before I came around, and I haven't earned enough to even be comparable to that, she's putting her trust on a non-existent net worth over the profits the Hunter's Guild has made over the years.'
Everything about it screams a trap, just what is the trap though?
'Do I play stupid?' The receptionist doesn't expect her of anything, while Liberty has already figured out a piece of what she's doing. 'Not now, soon? Maybe? She was selling my skill and talent to try and reel me in but was completely eager to say yes to my question of payment when I asked for it.'
This woman thought her whole world revolved around her skill set at first— was very common among Leeches, they are very egotistical about being able to heal people. — and got excited once she saw another angle she can chain Liberty with: money.
If she really wanted to, she could begin puzzling out what the woman wants by saying that she's desperate for money. But not yet. Soon.
"Here you go."
"Thank you." Liberty took the sponsored money with a greedy smile, now this girl should think that she heals people because of money, not ego.
"That's around 20 Stappe, the extra 5 is for your loyalty." What the woman was actually implying was: we have more of where that came from, so don't betray us.
"I'll be sure to stick around." Liberty got up, her smile didn't leave her face. "And as for my Retriever license, I'll be waiting for it."
"Please come back soon!"
Both she and the receptionist had satisfied smiles, Liberty was only slightly faking hers, and the same goes for the woman. 'There's no way every smile she has isn't faked, or at least partially so.'
Liberty has seen people like her before, someone so jaded that they are suspicious of everything and anything. And when someone's child-like innocence and sense of wonder is gone, they can no longer smile so genuinely.
With 35 Stappe adding weight to her wallet, Liberty didn't dare to replenish her medical bag with pre-made stuff, she went out of her way to make all of it.
She started with finding a place to work on:
Due to hunters constantly traveling, cities such as Valdrosen usually had rentable storage units, and merchants built these as a way for them to easily repair their equipment between journeys. Thus, these storage units have crafting benches, tools, a heart and cauldron, and sometimes even bookshelves!
Making her own supplies is very convenient because of this, but at the same time, she will have to act smart because she has some closely guarded secrets that allows her to keep a monopoly on her success.
Thus, Liberty the storage unit to first make her potions. And that's it. A single day's worth of rent was still one Stappe so it definitely hurt her.
'These predatory practices are really inconvenient at times.' Liberty's thoughts were heavy as she dropped the crate of slimes onto the workbench with a sigh. The blobs are already squirming within.
She had already fed them an entire bucket of Ghabal's Flower each and it has been a few hours since their last feeding so their gelatin should already possess a powerful digestion trait, which enhances their overall ability to take on the properties of what they are eating, and this stays even after they are killed.
Spotted Yellow Caps were placed on the workbench next to the crates, which Liberty briefly opens to feed the slimes one mushroom each. She sets an hour glass and then proceeds to set the hearth alight, she pours water into the cauldron and waits for it to boil.
In the meantime, she drips some of her newly bought alcohol onto a rag and wipes the workbench with it. She then places Bulb-Headed River Stalks on the flattest part of it and starts chopping.
She separates the head, stalk, and root into three pieces, the head is cut up and grounded with a mortar, turning into an anti-inflammatory powder that then gets mixed with water to form a salve. The stalk on the other hand is dipped in a jar of peanut oil to infuse it with the stalk's anti-bacterial properties.
Lastly, the root is ground up and eaten by Liberty, well, some of it, the rest goes into the cauldron so that the potion has calming properties when drunk. River stalk roots also have the ability to lower blood pressure, increasing the potion's effectiveness because it means it stays in the body for a longer period of time.
The water is boiling now so Liberty decided to mix it together, creating a brew that smells faintly earthy. She stirs it for half an hour before putting a lid on top of it.
And as that cooked, she goes over to the slimes, grabs one and places it in a clean metal bucket, and then removed its core with a pair of tweezers. And as the gelatinous blob died, she shoved a wooden ladle inside and just started mixing it, quickening its loss of shape.
Once the jelly was fully liquid, Liberty left to crush its core with a mortar, the dust entered the cauldron and it began to meld all the ingredients together, everything within melts into one big soup with no solid in sight.
Finally, after all of that, the slime enters the cauldron and makes everything blend together. Steam erupts as the water evaporated, when the jelly is the only thing left, Liberty finally dropped the yellow caps inside and stirred.
She took the cauldron out of the hearth and waited for it to cool, when it did, she used her wooden ladle to transfer all its contents into a single potion bottle. Just one.
'Alright, time to make the second one.' Liberty went back to work knowing that there's no time to waste.
