There was no way…
I walked out of Hello Work and finally realized the reality before me.
What I had walked into wasn't Hello Work. There wasn't a single building or car around.
It was a genuine game-like world, where the background was of mid-century Europe, and people walked around with swords and staves. I wasn't sure if I was inside a game or in another world, but…
This definitely wasn't the Japan I lived in.
I really had to live by myself, and do everything by myself. If I ran out of money, I had no parents or friends to rely on.
The job I was going to be introduced to was my lifeline.
Rofas-san brought over a horse carriage with some luggage.
We sat on the driver's platform.
「Um, about the job you're introducing me to… what kind of job is it?」
「Oh, it's an easy job that even a five-year-old child can do, so don't worry about it.」
…He emphasized five-year-old. Even I was pretty sure I could do a better job than a five-year-old though.
「You pick potions at a potion field.」
By potions, did he mean the ones you use for recovery in games? The ones where if you drink it, your wounds or illness gets cured?
「Um, what about the wage?」
「It depends on how hard you work. For each potion you collect, you can buy a loaf of bread. Young children gather around five a day. The older ones can gather ten.」
Um, if a potion equaled a loaf of bread, and a loaf of bread was about 100 yen, does that mean that even if I worked really hard, I could only make 1000 yen?
Huh? Could I live off of that? Even if I only ate bread…
「A place to live? There's a small hut you can sleep at while you work at the potion field. It takes around half a day to walk from the town to the field, so everybody stays over at the hut. They go home maybe once a month to visit their family.」
Hoh.
Now I had no issues with lodging.
「Hey, young lady, where did you come from? You're not from around here, are you?」
Ah, as expected.
Japanese facial characteristics were rare around here. Everybody here had western characteristics, and many people were tall too.
That meant he called me a young lady because of the infamous「Japanese people all look so young, we can't tell how old they really are」problem…
Even among the Japanese, I had a small stature and a baby face, making me look younger than I really was. I wondered how old he thought I was.
「What about you, Rofas-san, who are you?」
It was a little late to say this, but was it okay for me to follow a complete stranger?
「Hm? Well, I'm just an adventurer ossan.」
Ossan?
「How old are you?」
「Ahh… No, wait, how old am I again? I think I'm turning thirty or thirty-one soon…」
「Eh?」
It turned out he was around my age.
「No, I know what you want to say. I keep getting told to settle down, since I'm around thirty but am still single, with not an engagement ring in sight…」
「Getting married early is not always a good thing.」
I didn't know what the culture was like in this world, but I had gotten married without knowing more about the world, and I only had regret.
I might have felt brief moments of happiness during those times, but I couldn't remember any.
「That's right, that's right. Young lady, you sure understand a lot despite being so young!」
So, so young…
「Rofas-san, how old do you think I am?」
「Oh, my bad. That's right, she told me not to treat you like a child. You must be older than I think.」
Rofas-san began muttering his thoughts. 「Hmm, you look like you're around fifteen, but maybe you're already an adult? But, it's impossible for an adult to be level one…」
I wondered how he'd react if I told him we were the same age.
「What difference does being an adult make?」
「If you're an adult, you can drink and get married.」
So no difference from Japan then.
I didn't really like alcohol, and I was already married.
If I get married here, it would be considered bigamy, right? I didn't feel like getting married, but if one day, someone proposed to me and I accidentally accepted it, it would cause a whole lot of trouble. If it turned out that accepting a handshake from someone meant I was agreeing to marry them, I might end up getting married one day without even realizing it.
If I just said that I was not an adult, then I wouldn't make any mistakes and get married… actually, what was I worrying about? It wasn't like I was popular to begin with anyway…