Savior of the Slums
Peluah's Third District, the trade city's impoverished quarter. Narrow, damp alleys teeming with the poor. For commoner Hans, life had been a relentless battle against itching from the moment he was born.
All he owned was a single coarse, thick woolen tunic and pants made of scratchy linen. For Peluah's commoners, clothes weren't just protection—they were shackles of agony. Wool kept you warm but repelled sweat, turning into a heavy stone when wet. Washing it meant his wife trekking to the river, pounding it with a club for half a day, then drying it for days. Naturally, commoners washed their clothes only a handful of times in a lifetime.
The results were gruesome.
"Ugh, bit again." Hans scratched his side absentmindedly. Lice and fleas bred in the thick seams. His skin was perpetually covered in red rashes and pus-filled sores of unknown origin, and his sweat-soaked clothes reeked like animal musk.
But to Hans, his own itching was bearable. What truly drove him mad was the newborn in the cradle.
"Waaah! Waaaaaah!"
"Honey, what do we do? The baby's skin is all festered again..."
His wife sniffled as she unwrapped the worn linen swaddling cloth. The infant's delicate skin was rubbed raw by the rough fabric, swollen bright red, dotted with bug bites and crusted pus. All poor parents could do was rinse the stinking rag in water and wrap it back up.
"I'll find some work somehow and buy even a scrap of soft silk." Hans soothed her and trudged out with heavy steps.
Today was the hiring interview at the Second Commercial District's mill. He needed a job to afford medicine for the baby.
But crossing the market, Hans's steps halted abruptly.
"Come on, folks! Pick and grab! Finest cotton straight from the Carnoble factory!"
"Insane prices! This pure white cloth you wouldn't have glanced at before—for just a few coppers! The whole roll won't even cost five silvers!"
In the market's heart, atop a massive cart piled mountain-high with dazzling white fabric. At the edges, the deep blue Carnoble Mark stood out sharply.
"A few... coppers?"
Hans approached as if entranced. Cotton fabric—the soft cloth nobles wore. Once as pricey as gold because it was handwoven thread by thread on looms, now flooding the streets for the cost of a few loaves of bread!
He didn't know it, but Elpanso Carnoble sold rolls for three silvers wholesale; retailers marked them up to five. Small cuts went for a few coppers. An item that once cost a silver was now coppers! People's eyes bulged.
"Hey, give me some now!"
"Just a few coppers? Quick, ten bolts!"
"I need this right now!"
Hans, too, emptied his pockets with trembling hands and bought two bolts. Hugging the cloth to his chest, its cloud-like lightness and softness nearly brought tears.
That night, a small revolution brewed in Hans's cramped home. His wife stayed up all night cutting and sewing the pristine white cotton. Not outerwear, but the thin layer touching skin first and foremost. A concept new to commoners in human history: underwear.
The next morning, dressed in white cotton undies under his old tunic, Hans shivered at the wondrous sensation enveloping his body.
"Gods... no itching."
The coarse wool no longer pricked his skin. The soft cotton wicked away sweat, no stickiness. His body felt feather-light. And his wife discovered the cloth's true miracle.
"Honey! Boil it in a raging pot, scrub it hard—it doesn't shrink! Hang it out, and it's fluffy dry in half a day!"
"Haha, of course. It used to cost three silvers a roll! Quality's top-notch."
Hans didn't fully grasp it, but even at three silvers, he couldn't have matched Carnoble cloth's quality. Boiling in water—it sterilized lice, fleas, and invisible demons (bacteria) perfectly.
After a proper bath and donning the boiled, sun-dried white undies, no more sour slum stench clung to Hans. Instead, a cozy, fresh sun-dried scent.
Arriving at the mill interview, amid dozens of ragged, reeking paupers, Hans's neatness shone like a crane among chickens. The mill owner eyed him up and down and nodded.
"That white peeking from your collar—spotless. No smell. For a mill handling food, a hygienic, diligent guy like you is perfect. You're hired. Start tomorrow."
"H-hired... Thank you! Truly, thank you!"
Rejected paupers glared jealously, but Hans felt like he owned the world. It wasn't sudden talent. It was the clean cotton hugging his skin.
"Honey! I got the job! We can buy medicine for the baby now!"
That evening, rushing home with fresh bread and a hunk of meat, Hans froze at the door. No piercing infant wails echoing from the alley, as usual.
His heart sank. Had the fever claimed the baby?
"Honey! The baby—the baby...!"
Bursting in, the sight that greeted Hans was peace he'd never imagined. His wife smiled while sewing; in the cradle, the baby slumbered angelically, swaddled not in rough linen but boiled-and-sun-dried white cotton.
"...Huh?"
Hans approached dazedly, stroking the baby's cheek. The pus and rashes had magically subsided, revealing creamy skin. Nights of scratching from bites—gone, thanks to clean cloth.
"Amazing, isn't it, Hans?"
Then, old Marta from next door, simmering hearty soup in the corner, approached with a wrinkled smile. A wise crone who'd seen decades in this alley, every hardship imaginable.
"M-Marta, Granny. Our baby..."
"Aye. Sleeping soundly. Fever's gone, breathing steady."
Marta gently stroked the white swaddling with rough hands.
"Lived over sixty years in this alley, seen hundreds of newborns die from red spot fever. Everyone called it the poor's fate, demons' curse."
Her deep eyes met Hans's.
"But no curse. Just bugs and disease hiding in these filthy, heavy, stinking fabrics. Cloth you can't boil or change often."
Tsking, she pointed out the window to the Rene River's distant bank, where a massive red-brick factory churned ceaselessly.
"The man running those machines—Acting Guildmaster Carnoble, right? Nobles yap about how much gold it rakes in..."
Marta patted Hans's shoulder.
"But he didn't just make money. He gave us commoners cloth we can wash daily and wear against our skin. Swaddles to wrap newborns cleanly."
"..."
"Without Carnoble's cheap, clean cloth in the markets, your child would've died in days. He saved your baby's life."
Hans's eyes reddened. He gripped the sleeping baby's tiny hand. The fluffy cotton scent was pure bliss.
A life without itch. Daily fresh undies, babies not dying from skin disease.
While nobles and merchants schemed over power and gold, biting and clawing, among Peluah's bottom-dwellers, Elpanso Carnoble's name etched not as mere merchant, but savior.
"Thank you... truly, thank you, Acting Guildmaster."
Hans bowed deeply toward the red-brick factory, like a devotee to a temple.
It was proof: an unbreakable fortress of public sentiment building solidly from Peluah's depths. The mightiest wall no schemer's plot could breach.