The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

"It would be for the best if we avoided… that kind of language," Mark said, looking uncomfortable. "It would… be optimal for all of us if you simply decided to leave quietly."

There was no severance pay mentioned in my contract, and it really wasn't the norm to have something like that in this world anyway unlike Earth.

Additionally, there was no unemployment dole for those who were fired, so insisting that they fire me wouldn't help me monetarily in that way either.

Of course, back on Earth, something like this would be grounds for a discrimination lawsuit that I would no doubt have won. Unfortunately, such laws to protect workers did not exist within Chipker. Nor anywhere else in this world, I could safely assume.

Reputation was everything to a Liberomancer - if word got out that I had been fired, it would make things far more difficult for me in the future.

Sure, I could perhaps challenge her to a Liberomancer's Duel, but that would accomplish very little. Even if I won and forced her to let me stay, if no one came around to buy from us, or if our revenue was severely impacted because of me, it would end up being of no benefit to me.

That and I'd likely end up earning hostility from the other lizardmen for my actions.

Likewise, Lauren wanted to avoid creating a scene as well. Others might understand her decision to fire me deep down given the current atmosphere in Arconia, but there would eventually come a time when things got warmer between the lizardmen and humans here. And then, this would come off as blatant bullying of someone lower ranking than you; which no one appreciates.

"Does it have to be like this?" I asked him. "I mean, I could always work from home and send stuff here, or just wait until the whole things blows over." No Liberomancers had been involved in the actual fight, just normal people, and I had therefore thought that things wouldn't involve me. But of course, both sides ended up complaining to the Liberomancers of their own species - though again, at the time I didn't think it would impact me in this way either.

"Your writing is too unique," Mark said while shaking his head. "Unless you can write our script?"

I shook my head.

"So I thought - and it does not look like things will go back to normal for some time," Mark continued. "For many months at least."

"I… understand," I said with a heavy sigh. "Can I say goodbye to everyone though? I just… want to get my stuff I have in there, like my pen, and maybe swap a few grimoires?"

Mark wasn't too keen on this idea but didn't stop me either.

From the looks on everyone else's faces, they had already been told about this. Most of them avoided my gaze, though Rose looked like she was almost on the verge of tears.

They clearly didn't agree with Lauren's decision - but at the same time no one would stand up for me either in any way that would make a difference.

I did manage to get some grimoire swaps from my soon-to-be former coworkers, many of whom agreed to trades that were slightly unfavorable on their ends, likely out of guilt.

As I was leaving with my stationary in hand, Mark approached me once more. "This is from Lauren… consider it a gift for your troubles and a token of appreciation for your time spent working with us." It was a Rank Two grimoire - I technically didn't get a severance, but this was essentially the same and a small bribe to ensure that I left quietly and kept my mouth shut. I took it wordlessly. "And… I wanted to let you know it was quite the experience to work with a human." He took out another Rank Two grimoire. "This one is… well, Lauren didn't ask me to give it to you, this is one of my own… consider it a token of my own appreciation."

There was clear regret in his voice, and if nothing else, I was a bit touched that he would go out of his way to do something like this for me. Then again, while strict, he had usually been quite fair as a boss. I couldn't say that he had ever treated me any differently than one of his lizardmen workers. "Thank you," I said.

All in all, I now had seven new Rank Two grimoires. With all the ones I had made and traded for up till now, I would have twenty-four of my Rank Two slots filled by the time I was done. I was just six away from getting to Rank Three in that sense!

Even that thought did little to raise my mood as I thought of all the time I had spent in the shop slaving away - I knew I had made them quite a penny with my work, but that counted for nearly nothing now.

I couldn't help but feel like I had been betrayed, not to mention that aside from Granny Qi, the people I had spent the most time with were in that shop. I couldn't even go back there as a customer or whatever some time in the future just to see how things were doing since they clearly didn't want me loitering around there either.

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Above everything, I felt kind of dumb for not seeing this coming. I had noticed a downturn in traffic to the store, though no one openly said anything to me. If I had been a bit more observant, maybe I would've noticed some hints that something like this was going on. I was sure that they had to have been there for several days and that this wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment decision. Two things likely contributed to why I had been so blindsided - one was that I was not as good at reading lizardmen expressions and mannerisms as I was with humans, and secondly just a general lack of awareness regarding certain social cues that I'd always had. Regarding the last aspect my parents had pointed it out to me a few times back on Earth and even Granny Qi mentioned it in passing a few times; but it had never impacted me so severely like this before.

"What happened?" Granny Qi asked upon seeing my downcast face as I returned from work not even an hour after I'd left. I explained what had gone on to her. "Ah… you aren't even from Chipker, and they chose to lump you in with all of us…" she muttered under her breath.

"Lizardmen usually can't see the difference between humans like that," I told her bitterly. I was in a funny situation, the lizardmen didn't see me as one of their own because of course, I was not a lizardman. And the humans didn't see me as one of their own either as I was a foreigner.

"And what will you do now?" she asked.

"I don't plan on joining another store," I told her. I could look for a human bookstore that wanted a scribe - I knew that initially she had advised against it when I arrived at the city as a few families controlled the trade on the human side, and I was not one of them. The lizardmen bookstores, in contrast, were not so concentrated in the hands of a few people. However, that was before I had been pitted against Master Jiah Pei in the tournament. It had been a while since his offer, but it might have been worth a shot to see if he would still give me a chance - if I was looking to join another shop that is.

The thing was that I had no desire to tie myself to another shop right now. Not to mention, things had changed greatly since the tournament. They could very well end up saying that they didn't want someone who had worked under a lizardman to work for them in the current social climate. "I have enough saved up to last me for a while, and I think I can freelance and do some other jobs in the meantime." If what I was planning panned out, I could quickly rise to Rank Three - and it would be much faster if I no longer had to spend so much time and mana working.

Granted, it was a bit of a gamble since I didn't know if it would pay off, but if it didn't, I figured that I could always go back to looking for work elsewhere. Granny Qi nodded as I went upstairs to begin reading some of the grimoires I had been given.

There were other jobs aside from being a scribe that Liberomancers could do - such as working as healers, or monster hunters, or creating goods. I scratched off monster hunting off the list as though it paid well there was a high chance of getting injured on the job and I couldn't have that- I couldn't risk something like my life for the chance at a slightly higher payout. I did want to go back home eventually, after all. And being dead would be quite detrimental to that goal.

One thing I could do that was relatively simple and easy was to join the workers who were involved with generating clean drinking water for the city. This was a side hustle suggested by Granny Qi as Hei Nan had done so early on in his career.

Arconia had a much higher population than you'd expect for a corresponding city during this time period on Earth, and there were two major reasons for that.

The first, and the most important, was easier access to clean drinking water. Water-borne diseases like typhoid and cholera were the bane of many cities back on Earth before the invention of modern plumbing.

When one thought of magic, they would usually think of very flashy spells like [Fireball] or those with wonderous effects like [Invisibility].

However, I'd be willing to wager that [Create Water] had contributed more to the development of this world than many Rank Two or Rank Three spells. It was exceedingly easy to learn; there were some people who only knew [Create Water] and nothing else. There were thirty different grimoires that could give this spell in Arconia alone, and since it was a Rank One spell there was basically no drawback to learning it as it did not conflict with any other spells. Access to what was basically a faucet at all times was invaluable in this era.

Many wealthy households just made their water on their own so long as they had someone who knew the spell - Granny Qi would do such at her house.

Others would order fresh water instead, and the city somewhat subsidized the delivery of water to certain areas recognizing that the overall benefits to public health outweighed the drawbacks.

I found myself in a warehouse one morning with about forty other people as we lined up to use [Create Water] to fill up as many barrels as we could.

I could maintain my spell continuously for about an hour before my mana ran out completely, after which I took my payout and was initially prepared to leave.

Although this job did consume my mana, it had the upside in that it consumed it all at once rather than slowly as with my work as a scribe. That meant that I could easily do this in the morning, take my money, and then go back home and spend the rest of the day after my mana recovered doing something else.

I frowned when I was handed the payout though - this was not a whole lot. Then again, given how many people had lined up to do this, I couldn't exactly say that the job was hard to do. This was just one warehouse in the city that handled this, after all, there were many more.

The kicker was that since we were paid per barrel that we were able to fill, I was paid far more than most of the others who were here given that I had a much larger mana bar than they did. However, since they would be doing this all day, it meant that our payouts would be about the same.

This was more than what you would get for manual labor, sure, and one could maybe even raise a family on this. However, if you wanted to move up in the world, and wanted to buy more grimoires, this amount was laughably small.

Rather than leave, at that point I turned my gaze to the other workers. They were chatting amongst themselves, after all, everyone except me had exhausted their mana already.

I walked up to them, curious as to a few things, and wanting to see if I could get some answers.