I’m a Sheep, But Don’t Call Me Soft - Chapter 5

“You can sleep on this mattress here. And once your skills build up and you’ve saved money, you’re welcome to find a room outside and move out.”

Listening to the shop owner couple, I truly couldn’t believe it.

‘A private room?’

I couldn’t believe the fortune of being able to live without hearing other people’s sniffling sounds, coughing sounds, or the sound of swallowing tears.

And fortunes came in succession. The owner couple, with worried expressions, told me that the work might be very hard for me until I adjusted.

But… the work was not hard at all!

‘What? It’s this easy?’

At this large general store, the work I took on was to wake at dawn and sweep and wipe down the sewing workshop and light the stove, then fill the empty supply materials so the dress factory would run smoothly, and from morning until afternoon, together with or alone without the owner couple, greet fine ladies, take orders, and sell merchandise.

Thanks to this very work of selling goods to noble ladies, I was provided with clean, good quality clothes. Clothes made of very fine fabric, even if modest in decoration.

‘How much are the clothes alone worth?’

And from the afternoon when the store closed until I fell asleep, I mended the ordered clothes and sewed according to the skilled workers’ directions.

‘Those lying nuns… said inside the convent was heaven and outside was hell…’

In truth, the convent was hell and outside was heaven.

Moreover, at this workplace, food was given well and on time.

There was no breakfast, but every lunch and dinner, fresh greens picked from the owners’ garden, thick vegetable soup, and half a loaf of sour rye bread were provided. At first, I would eat the soup, which you could ask for more of, so full it reached my throat, then soon realized it was provided every day and stopped the foolish act of shoving it down my gullet.

Anyway, the advantages of this shop were beyond counting when compared to the convent, but among them, there were two even greater advantages. First, from Saturday evening until Sunday, I could rest. Second, at the end of each month, I could receive compensation for working, that is, wages.

‘They feed me and house me and even give me money?’

While the concept of working and receiving compensation brought me enormous shock and joy, the actual monthly wages were an amount that could only buy bread and cheese and some snacks.

‘They give me bread here anyway though? Working this much and earning this little… isn’t there no future in this?’

Part of it was that my wages were low as an inexperienced apprentice, but it was also because the owner couple had “donated” a considerable amount of money to the convent when bringing me. Because of this, I had to work at this dress shop for about five years.

What was fortunate at least was that once the apprenticeship period ended and I became a skilled dressmaker, wages would rise enough to receive a weekly salary.

“I need to quit here soon and go to Londinium and become a dressmaker at a high-end dress shop…”

“Like ‘Worth’?”

“You think they’d take me? I hear getting hired is like plucking a star from the sky.”

“But still, once hired, you can earn an enormous amount of money, can’t you? If you’re lucky, you could even open your own shop.”

And from overhearing the senior workers conversation, there was a somewhat larger pond nearby, this country’s capital, Londinium, and even the skilled dressmakers wanted to move there. And they said that when a popular skilled dressmaker moved shops, her regular clients followed her.

That was why the owner couple tried so hard to curry favor with Domaus, the dressmaker of the dormouse trait who produced the most popular garments at Sable Antelope, fussing over her like servants.

‘Right. I’ve made up my mind!’

After observing how this shop operated for a few months, I made up my mind.

‘I’m going to become a skilled dressmaker fast!’

To quickly reach the level of skilled dressmaker, in order to earn a lot of money.

‘I’ll save a lot of money and if possible, I’d like to open my own shop. That way, I can enjoy a comfortable retirement without going hungry.’

Perhaps because I grew up in the convent, the option of meeting a good man and getting married in the future didn’t exist. I couldn’t imagine that part at all. For now, I just wanted to earn a lot of money and support myself.

Without any interference, exactly as I pleased.