Chapter 25: Low-Grade Sleeping Powder
In this world, everyone wore a mask. The mask of obedience in front of the weak, the mask of courage in front of the weak.
The mask of smile and sorrow, joy and pain in front of those they wished to manipulate.
These masks were only removed when they were either alone or in the presence of the ones they trusted.
Acting. This was a skill necessary to survive in society, the ability to change these masks quickly and smoothly. The ones who could make this process look very smooth and precisely change the mask were called good actors.
But these girls didn't come under that category.
They didn't even try to conceal the additional somewhat sour taste. Maybe it was intentional, since finding clean water in itself is a luxury in this city.
It was just as Shiro expected a few seconds later the mechanical voice echoed in his ears.
Ding!
[Unknown Substance Detected In Water]
[Analyzing]
[Would host like to separate the substance?]
'Yes.'
[...]
Ding!
[Substance separated]
[Substance identified]
[Substance: Low-Grade Sleeping Powder]
[Effect: Effective immediately, puts the consumer into sleep, impossible to wake up unless heavy stimulus is given]
[Sleep period: 1 Hour (irrespective of the mass of the consumer)]
He looked at the small little girl, still smiling. Seeing this, she replied with a smile of her own.
"Hmm, I'm a bit sleepy. Is it okay if I take a nap?" Taking a long yawn, he said while handing the mug to the girl.
"Sure, brother! You must have been very tired today…", the little girl replied with a toothy grin as she took the mug from Shiro's hands.
"You can rest all you want. When you wake up, sister will give you some food…", the little girl said in a wavy voice while looking at her elder sister. She nodded too without expressing anything else.
Shiro rubbed his eyes and then laid himself on the floor. Within a few minutes, his breath seemed to become stable as occasionally snoring sounds would escape his lips.
As the elder sister made sure he was asleep, the little girl beside her broke into sobbing.
"Sister, is this the right thing to do?"
The older sister kneeled in front of the little girl as she placed her hands on the little girl's shoulders.
"We have no other choice…" Her soothing voice entered the little girl's ears, calming her.
'Hmm, soothing? Does she have some kind of ability like my spells? Or is she a natural?'
"But I feel really bad for doing it to this." The calm expression was once again replaced, this time by a frown.
"We don't have money."
"Even if we worked hard, we never earn anything…"
"Last time, we tricked that person, and he didn't even find out. Thanks to that, at least one day went by without us having to starve…"
"Didn't we decide that we will do the same thing from now on?"
"Why are you crying for someone else?"
"For our survival, all we can do is trick people and loot them." Determination could be felt in her tone. The look in the little girl's eyes once again changed to determination.
"Also, let me show you something…"
The older sister stood up and walked away after saying that. Within a few seconds, she came back with a large piece of paper in her hands.
"See, this boy is on the wanted list…", the older sister said as she pointed at the paper.
"This boy would provide us with some money to get by."
The little girl's eyes looked down sorrowfully.
"Doesn't that mean we'll be sending him right to his death? Sister, this brother is a good person."
Shiro didn't move an inch, but a wave of confusion hit him. He was urged to open his eyes and see the so-called poster.
A wanted poster of him? What kind of bullshitry was this? Vengeance, he indeed had a thirst for revenge but he had yet to kill a single official, heck, he hadn't even killed a person properly.
"Good person? Listen, Tanya, you have met and talked with him for just 2 to 3 minutes and you think he is a good person?"
"No one with a wanted poster and a bounty can be good…", she said, opposing her little sister's words.
"Listen, we don't have time to think about other people's well-being. Have you forgotten about our own family's condition?", the older sister asked.
"No, sister. I did not forget."
"That day he came drunk... Only If that was the last day he did so..."
She continued speaking. Her words were like bits of a puzzle which Shiro arranged to make up a story in his mind that would be closest to reality.
Apparently, their father used to be the best father in the world.
However, all of that changed one day when he came back home, drunk.
At first, they thought it was a one-time thing. That their father would no longer come home drunk but return to his old self.
Nonetheless, it was not the way they had expected. Their father not only became an alcoholic, but he also started gambling and losing a lot of money. It wasn't mere hundreds, it was thousands!
He always came home furious every day due to the loss of money.
Their mother was the person who received the most consequence for their father's sudden change in behavior.
She was once a healthy lady who was always smiling regardless of the weather.
Ever since their father became a drunkard, she was abused repeatedly every day to release his anger from losing money while gambling.
Eventually, she fell ill, and her body became weak.
Their once cheerful mother drowned in depression and never smiled again since the first day she was abused.
It wasn't just abuse. The man literally beat her half to death. To survive she required a lot of expensive herbs and medicines.
This made the so-called father curse even more and say that their family was poor because they had to buy all those medicines.
With the addition of their father's gambling habit, both the girls had to keep finding ways to earn money.
Their father, no the monster even said that they should join the red-light areas.
"We have been selling those low-grade sleeping powders for a long time now, but even that is not enough…", the older sister explained.
"We could sell the small farmyard, sister…", the little girl said.
"Have you forgotten? No one would want to buy the yard. All of them think it's unsuitable for growth."
"But the sleeping powder we made is from the grass that grows there!", the little girl protested.
"Why would they buy the sleeping powder but not the land which grows the grass?"
The older sister shrugged.
"It's because no one wants to waste their time to farm those grasses when they could just buy it from us…."
The little girl sighed.
"If only father didn't change, we wouldn't be in such a miserable state now.", the older sister said as she looked at her father, who was lying beside the bed while holding a green glass bottle of alcohol.
Shiro was surprised by the newfound knowledge. It seemed like the sleeping powder they placed in his water was handmade by them too.