Chapter 138 (1/2)

138. Rudina

At the age of 12, I left the orphanage.

There is a limit to the number of children that can be accommodated. If I leave, one young child will be admitted instead.

Maybe I was admitted to the orphanage at the age of four. So, I can only be thankful, I have no fragment of resentment. 12 years old is old enough to live alone. At least, compared to a 4-year-old who fished in a trashcan on the back street…

Of course, when leaving the orphanage, the headmistress always tries to find employment in various professions. And I decided, on the job of working at a certain store.

Only being fed and given a thin blanket, treated like a slave with a meagre pay.

… was not bad. At least compared to garbage fishing life.

At the age of fifteen, you are no longer obliged to be under adults protection and can live freely. The choice of employment would be greatly expanded, and it is no longer necessary to stay in a store that looks down on orphans.

Maybe I think this store will be usable for a long time, but I'm not that stupid. That's why I study a lot about business in between work.

I am grateful to the headmistress who taught me reading and writing for the future. I have to give back the favor someday.

Three years of patience until I turn 15 years old. I could just use the time to study and prepare.

… or that's what I thought, but one year later, the store was crushed.

… Aha. Ahaha. Ahahahahahahaha!…… Haaa.

At the age of 13, there is no decent employment.

It would be nice if I could be hired as an apprentice servant even if the pay was just meals, so that I can survive. even so, most of them are occupied by the children that has connections. It's not something that the likes of an orphan can get their hands into.

Such children could only do crimes such as pickpockets, sc.r.a.ping, or engage in prost.i.tution.

Only 2 years more.

I hope I can survive for two more years before I can get a normal job.

If possible, I don't want to dye my hands in criminal acts or prost.i.tution…

If I could do that easily, I didn't have to endure three years at such a store. It would have been better to do that from the beginning.

In this country, human lives are trivial… especially the lives of orphans.

And, of course, the pay for human labors are beyond cheap.

The small coins in my pockets is already gone in just a few days of food expenses, it is already three days after the owner fled from that store at night, I've been wandering around looking for work since then just to be driven away from one after another.

The orphanage provided an [asylum-aged worker permit], but the store owner took it so that the children can't move to another place, and he didn't return it.

Did he just forget to return it, did he intend to falsify it and use it for vagrants, or did he intend to sell it to a forged doc.u.ment broker…?