Chapter 110 Millicent
Millicent Atticus Bojangles Minerva Bigmouth Minimight was born the fourth daughter of two gnomes, named after her father's sister. Her middle names were all her grandparents' names, and she took her mother's last name because her mother felt left out in the naming process. Gnomes often had odd names like this. It was either completely normal, a single-word name like Jeff or Fartbuckle, or an incredibly long name like the one she had.
Gnomes went with the flow and followed their dreams. The poisons she brewed as a child and fed to her brothers and sisters made it clear that she would get a class related to poison. Her parents were honestly shocked when she got a class like alchemist. It was probably because, although she poisoned her family, none of them died; some of them even gained higher poison resistance… Which could technically be considered helping them…
Sometimes the classes people gained didn’t really make sense, but the truth was, deep down, Millicent wanted to help people. The next problem was that most cities already had an alchemist. That was what happened with most professions: if you weren’t skilled enough, didn’t come from a richer family to support you until you were at a higher level, didn’t want to work under someone else, signing terrible contracts giving away most of your rights, the only choice was to move away.
Millicent loved her family, but gnomes were also very carefree and whimsical. She would move away if she had to in order to level her class, and that’s exactly what she did. It would have only taken her a few villages to find a good spot to settle down, but sometimes luck just wasn’t on her side. A few years prior, there was a massive alchemist boom; many new alchemists spread themselves all throughout the country, meaning most villages had an alchemist with years of experience beyond hers.
She kept moving, burning through most of her funds until she finally found a location without an alchemist… All the way on the edge of civilization, which would have been a downside to most people, but it was a big plus to her. Experimenting on people was viewed as ‘morally reprehensible’ and ‘something good folk wouldn’t do’, but experimenting on monsters… That was just par for the course at this point in time.
The casualties from goblin raids lessened dramatically when she moved in, because when they did decide to raid the village, they were now met with ever-increasing poison fumes that had started just by weakening the goblins, but had improved to being extremely deadly very quickly. If she had offered to sell poison to the guards, she might have made some serious money, but she really didn’t have the business sense to do so, so she was broke most days; only a few hunters buying her poison kept her from starving to death the first year or so when she moved in.
It wasn’t sustainable; she had to start making money because that was the only way to make stronger poisons. She ‘regrettibly’ started making medication and cosmetics to help people, and quickly learned that she actually liked it. She thought making salves to heal burns or beautifying cream would be boring, but it was just another part of her job, and while they weren’t as good as making health, mana, and stamina potions, it still helped her start leveling through the early levels, which were the most difficult.
The surplus of alchemists meant that most herbs were priced higher than they should be; the supply just wasn’t there to meet the demand, which meant that she was leveling incredibly, ridiculously slowly. It was just… How all alchemists were, at least on this continent. To the north, there were special desert herbs, and to the east, there was an alchemist's guild designed to help get promising alchemists through the hard beginning levels… But, to the west, there was nothing; it was sink or swim for most alchemists, and unfortunately, most sank.
Alchemists had another name. The dead-end class, because the chances of an alchemist reaching the uncommon rank weren’t even ten percent. Most gave up, choosing other jobs; some starved, some died trying to find herbs or while doing experiments, and the rest, the small fraction remaining, would spend years, if not decades, grinding through all of their money to finally reach the higher levels, which often crippled their potential.
Almost no alchemists took the time to purchase skills, because most would only slow down their progress. Sure, some might be helpful, but very few actually helped them save or make more money. Millicent spent a decade slowly grinding out skills; she knew it would be worth it eventually, even if it took her twice as long to reach max level as other alchemists; it would all add up to her being better than them, which would help her make more money when she finally could.
That all changed when the farm boy moved in. Well, not at first. At some point, he started selling herbs; it didn’t really make sense for farmers to grow them, but for some reason, he tried. In his effort, she was finally granted some easy levels by making potions. It was a relief, like a sudden path was opened up for her; she almost jumped him when he started selling the herbs, but she waited.
Gnomes had the problem of falling quickly and deeply in love. That doesn’t sound like a problem until they fall in love with the wrong person. She had seen her aunt date a man who beat her and her children, another aunt falling in love with someone who barely cared for her, and an uncle whose wife stole everything of value before leaving him.
She was guarded because of this; even though she wanted to, she held back. But then he just kept being… So god damn fucking amazing, it made it harder and harder. He brought extremely valuable books with him once, and she was ready to offer herself to him right there for the right to keep them, then he did something impossible… Well, not impossible but… Yeah, something that had never been done by a farmer before, or at least for thousands of years.
He created a new herb, not just that, a new herb that would fundamentally change the way beginner alchemists would level… And she had the first rights to make those potions and salves. She wanted him, willing to drug him just so he would feel obligated to add her to his harem. But the man fought against it, waiting for the aphrodisiac to be out of his system before they did anything.
Most people, even if they didn’t mean to, had a disgust toward sleeping with smaller races like hers. They wouldn’t say anything; many would even sleep with them, but it was in subtle things that they didn’t even realize they were doing. Milly had seen it before, and had a boyfriend when she was younger and more foolish who liked her a little too much, the opposite and possibly worse problem, but the farm boy didn’t behave like either.
He appreciated her as a woman, something she didn’t really know she needed. And then they had sex, and all those guarded feelings against him were broken when his cock pounded against her cervix, a single time with him put him above everyone else but her direct family in how much she cared for him. The crush she had on him when he helped her level her profession became full-on infatuation, which would have been a problem if they weren’t together… But now they were, and Milly was going to take advantage of his insane bullshit luck and stupid fat cock until she was so happy she exploded.