"Do one job, love one job" is the code of conduct for experienced corporate drones... just kidding, experienced corporate drones are long past tired; they just want to lie flat and be a salted fish, doing nothing at all.
This salted fish mentality reached its peak after Illumi and I parted ways. Ah, it feels so relaxing to be alone, I really want to keep relaxing like this and become a salted fish.
"Wuyue, you will teach Little Snow the rules from now on."
"Okay."
The woman who appraised me and Illumi was called "Elsa." She assigned a girl about fourteen or fifteen years old to be my tutor and gave me a pseudonym, "Little Snow." Illumi was given the pseudonym "Little Illu," which is quite a lazy way of naming.
No, given the current industry, it shouldn't be called a pseudonym, but rather a "stage name." (Laughs)
Although in Elsa's team, I've only seen one pretty boy so far, with all the other members being attractive girls, Elsa's willingness to buy Illumi indicates that male attractiveness also has a market in Meteor City. Just because something is niche doesn't mean it can't make money; in fact, some niche markets thrive on quiet wealth accumulation.
After buying me and Illumi, Elsa's first action was to have us wash our faces.
Due to the scarcity of water, we, mainly starting with me, gradually got used to washing our faces only once a week. It so happened that Elsa saw us on the sixth day without washing, when our dirtiness reached its peak. Our hair and faces were covered in dust and blood, making us look like stray cats emerging from a garbage heap.
Having experienced countless times of our faces becoming grimy again from Meteor City's smog and battles immediately after washing, even the neat-freak eldest young master of the Zoldyck family, Illumi, had resigned himself to the harsh realities of life and chosen to conserve the extremely precious resource of water.
We were overjoyed to have the opportunity for a free face wash, and both Illumi and I were very enthusiastic.
When the scumbag man A sold us, he claimed we were habitual thieves and that he had "taken some effort to catch us." Elsa was understandably wary and didn't untie the ropes binding our hands. She personally washed our faces.
I recall the last time someone washed our faces was at a church in District 13, where twenty-eight children shared a single, unidentifiable rag. The living conditions in District 6 were far better; they used towels, and the towels were even snow-white. Astonishing!
Elsa, after wiping my face, was also quite surprised, as if she had succeeded in gem appraisal and discovered a large piece of beautiful jade inside a plain-looking stone with the joy of... does dirt really affect appearance so much?
Then, she seemed to realize something and felt relieved, perhaps understanding why I hadn't been assaulted yet. Everything has two sides. Being dirty had its advantages, and it wasn't just me who benefited. Otherwise, if she encountered someone who wasn't picky about gender, Illumi might have also suffered.
Whether it was our good luck or the fact that people in the outer districts lived in greater hardship and prioritized basic necessities more, the opponents we encountered were all greedy for wealth and showed little interest in us two little ones. Looking back, those people were endearingly simple.
As if a beauty reluctant to leave her mirror, Elsa held my chin and examined me from every angle, lamenting, "What a pity."
No, there's no need for pity. Even if I weren't mute, I wouldn't join your profession. I was sold to the Zoldyck family enterprise from birth. This enterprise is a Fortune Global 500, with extremely high salaries, immense prestige, and the dream of countless corporate drones and the entry desire of countless young girls. There's no better job than this!
Although it's said that "every profession has its champion," most people naturally prefer industries that are both respectable and profitable. The sexual industry, with its low social status, short career span, and not-so-exorbitant earnings, is mostly chosen by those with no other option or those unable to find higher-paying professions. Alas, if given a choice, who wouldn't want to earn money respectably? This is simply another form of helplessness and compromise in life.
The me in the "real world" sells my labor, and the workers in District 6 sell their bodies. We all earn money by selling our own value, constantly pushing ourselves for more money. Once we lose our value for earning, our existence becomes meaningless.
It's better to be born into a good family, and then there are no more worries.
It's more worthwhile to die, and then nothing else matters.
"Can you write?" Elsa asked me.
I nodded.
"That's good," Elsa said, slightly relieved.
Indeed, a mute person who can use written language can save a lot of trouble in communication and pre-job training. Companies are not unwilling to train newcomers from scratch; they are not charities and need to consider training costs appropriately.
A girl brought two cups of water on a tray. Clear drinking water is a precious resource in Meteor City. In the "real world," experts say the healthiest way is to drink eight glasses of water a day. In Meteor City, drinking only one glass a day, just enough to meet the minimum requirement, is common—no one would refuse an extra glass of water.
The ropes were untied, but Illumi and I didn't rush to drink. It wasn't that we were worried about the water being problematic, but rather we already knew it was likely problematic and wanted to discern the difference between this water and ordinary water.
According to scumbag man A, when District 6 recruits newcomers, they give them a cup of water. After drinking it, no matter where the newcomer goes, the managers of District 6 can find their location, and they can never escape.
According to the original story's setting, this should be someone's Nen ability. The activation condition is drinking specially prepared water, and the effect is to track the location of the person who drank it.
"I know how to break this 'magic'," scumbag man A declared confidently. "If you can complete the bet, I'll tell you the method."
He wanted us to kill any one of the gangsters who came to District 6.
"The reason? Of course, it's... because I'm unhappy," scumbag man A shrugged casually. "Those gangsters have been interfering too much in Meteor City. They even sleep with our women. I've been unhappy with them for a long time. You must do it in a way that attracts attention, so I know you've completed the bet."
Should we trust scumbag man A? In fact, it doesn't matter whether we trust him or not. We can't avoid drinking this water; we have no choice but to hope that scumbag man A's words are true.
I don't know if Illumi could sense the peculiarity of this water, but I couldn't.
Lingering too long might arouse suspicion, so I had to pick up the cup and pretend to be oblivious, drinking the entire cup of water.
It tasted ordinary, and after drinking it, I felt no special sensation. I hope scumbag man A's story is false.
Alas, whether it's true or false, we'll find out later.
Seeing us finish the water, Elsa warned us that "stealing" and "escaping" were the two biggest taboos here, and violations would be severely punished.
Other detailed rules would be explained by our respective tutors. Thus, Illumi left with a pretty boy, and I followed the girl named "Wuyue" to familiarize myself with the situation here.
The communal sleeping arrangements in the District 13 church did not distinguish between genders. The children housed there were generally younger, and cohabitation between boys and girls wouldn't cause much of a problem.
District 6 is primarily inhabited by adults, and the children I saw were all over ten years old. The distinction between genders is quite necessary.
It seems Illumi and I will have to find another opportunity to meet.
Led by Wuyue, I received bedding, a pillow, an old book, and a ballpoint pen with most of its ink remaining. The latter two were clearly recycled items. The old book wasn't for me to read; what was useful were the blank spaces on its pages, where I could write and communicate with others.
On the way, I met two girls around Wuyue's age, one carrying a food tray and the other holding flowers, about to deliver them to other rooms. Since they were employed in the best-decorated establishment in the red-light district, their appearance was at least above average. What was crucial was that their faces were also clean, free from any dirt, and they stood against a backdrop of a tidy courtyard.
Suddenly, it felt as if I were somewhere outside the garbage-strewn Meteor City.
Oh, it has that dating sim vibe.
Wuyue introduced me, explaining that the work for girls who were about to formally receive guests primarily involved miscellaneous chores. The work system was divided into two shifts: day shift and night shift. The day shift was from 8 AM to 8 PM, and the night shift was from 8 PM to 8 AM the next day. The assignments for day and night shifts rotated weekly.
In the "real world," this would be considered the most grueling sweatshop labor schedule, the kind that drains one's life.
Ah, poor corporate drone. After enjoying a period of carefree days eating roasted crows and leveling up, I have to be a corporate drone again, and with a two-shift system, twelve hours a day. Life is just a continuous cycle of suffering.
Well, the quality of people in this world is different from the "real world." The girls' complexions were all normal; they didn't have dark circles or dull skin from lack of sleep. One cannot judge based on the norms of the "real world."
Then we arrived at the girls' living quarters. It wasn't communal sleeping; it was real beds, bunk beds, the kind you find in eight-person dorm rooms, just like my high school boarding dormitory.
Before opening the door, Wuyue cautioned me that the girls working the night shift were still asleep inside and that I had to be quiet upon entering.
I placed my personal belongings on an empty bed in the corner, and then Wuyue took me to bathe.
The small room of about four square meters at the end of the corridor was the so-called "bathroom." New employees would have their first bath here. Normally, they would just wipe themselves with a wet towel. The next bath would be when they officially received guests.
When Wuyue asked me to wet my hair with water from the bucket, I thought with relief that I hadn't washed my hair since I came to Meteor City, and I was rather unwilling to recall exactly how many months it had been.
Living in the dry and resource-scarce Meteor City, hair rarely gets oily. Rather, the oil is important, protecting the scalp in the dry environment. Therefore, the main factors making hair dirty are dust and... bloodstains from battles. I dare not imagine what color my silver hair had turned. Black hair is better; what could be dirtier than black?
There was no shampoo or body wash. The cleaning product Wuyue gave me was a box of white powder that looked like talcum powder. Mixed with water, it was applied to the hair and body, and then scrubbed with an old cloth. It produced no foam, but the dirt did remain on the old cloth.
My skin became red from scrubbing, and I used six old cloths. The seventh old cloth finally came out clean of black mud.
Ah, how terrifying! After just a few months, my body had accumulated so much ancient dirt?
"..." That I would ever be this dirty makes me question life itself.
I believe the clean freak Illumi must be questioning life even more. I suspect he might scrub himself until his skin breaks due to his obsessive-compulsive disorder, bleeding profusely. Yikes, that image is too horrifying.
On another note, male bathhouses always have more stories than female bathhouses. The pretty boy leading Illumi is an adult, and Illumi is bathing in front of him. It should be fine, right? He won't get his butt hurt, will he? It's too pathetic. Although he will be a complete pervert in the future, he is still a pure child who only wants to get stones!
You can't blame me for overthinking. It's normal to have strange associations in special places!
To scrub off the black mud from my body, the bath took much longer than I expected. By the time Illumi and I returned to the dormitory, the three girls working the night shift had already woken up.
Wuyue introduced me to them. Hearing that I couldn't speak, they very sympathetically and solicitously held my hands.
"It must have been very difficult in the past, right?" "It's okay, it's much safer here than other places." "Don't be afraid, you can share any worries with us."
The disadvantaged members of the lower class offered branches of "huddling together for warmth."
The fastest way to bridge distances is through shared experiences. They briefly recounted their past experiences.
Their experiences fully proved the rule that "beautiful women born into the lower class are all tragic."
Even in the highly lawful "real world," the law cannot guarantee that every weak person will be protected from harm. I have seen many similar stories in the news of the "real world." Unlike my one-sided image of the victim, their emotions were very stable, as if they were telling someone else's story, and they appeared very strong.
They willingly chose to work here because they couldn't protect themselves from harm... Chastity was secondary; they didn't value it that much. The main concern was that being dragged away by a group of people could be life-threatening. Here, at least, they could grow up safely, serve customers normally, and if they could save enough ransom in the future, they could gain freedom.
Is this a competition of misery?
Without a tragic background character like me, I felt out of place.
Fortunately, I am mute, so I don't have to bother fabricating lies to fit in.
As per usual, newcomers are scheduled for the night shift in their first week. They instructed me to never act alone while working because I couldn't cry out for help if I were dragged away. If I encountered someone rough, and I am so small, I might die on the spot.
Yes, people who come to District 6 are almost all with the clear goal of "resolving physiological needs." It's a gathering point for potential sexual offenders, and the danger index for chastity is off the charts.
If I encountered that kind of scum of scum who is lustful towards children, I might just kill him.
What if I encountered someone powerful?
The original story has a certain character with a very obvious pedophilic tendency, who is also a very strong pervert.
Another character with a more subtle tendency is also very strong.
Come to think of it, most of the strong individuals in this world are perverts.
"..." I might not be able to uphold justice. If I encounter such scumbags, it's best to escape.
What if I can't escape?
Alas, chastity doesn't seem to be highly valued in this world. As long as it doesn't endanger life, the people Zoldyck is secretly observing (a self-imagined existence) wouldn't casually intervene, right?
Actually, I don't value it that much either. It's just a game, but this is a first-person RPG. If I encounter an ugly character, the experience would be too terrible.
Appearance is very important; the visual experience would be much better. If I were to encounter a handsome character, I could even imagine that I was paying to pick him up.
Ahem, I've gone off on a tangent. To avoid the worst-case scenario, I should try to avoid acting alone and, by the way, worry about whether Illumi will get his butt hurt.