Carne Village

It was located on the border of the Kingdom at the Empire, near the southern tip of the Azellerisia Mountain Range, just outside a patch of woodland named the Great Forest of Tob.

For a frontier village of the Re-Estize Kingdom, its population was unexceptional — a hundred and twenty souls, distributed among twenty five families.

The village made its living from the resources of the forest and agriculture. Apart from doctors and herbalists who came to collect herbs, the only visitors to the village were the yearly tax collectors. Time seemed to stand still for the few residents of this village.

Village life was very busy even in the early hours of the morning. Villages did not possess the magical illumination of 「Continual Light」 which could be found in cities, so the villagers would rise with the sun and work hard all day until the sun went down.

The first thing Enri Emmot did after getting up extra early in the morning was to carry water from the nearby well. Hauling water was a woman's job, and once she finished filling the big water tank in the house, that chore was complete. By this time, her mother would have prepared breakfast for their family of four.

Breakfast was barley or wheat porridge, as well as cooked vegetables. Sometimes, they would have dried fruit as well.

After breakfast, she would tend the fields with her parents. Her ten year old sister would go into the forest to gather firewood or help with the field work. When the bell in the middle of the village — the village square — rang to signal noon, everyone would break for lunch.

Lunch would be black bread baked several days before, as well as soup with some shredded meat jerky sprinkled in.

Field work would resume after lunch, and when the sun set they would return home for dinner.

For dinner, they would have the same black bread that they had for lunch, as well as bean soup. If the village's hunters managed to bag any prey, they might be able to get some meat to go with their dinner. After dinner, the family would gather around the light of the hearth-fire to take care of household chores, such as mending worn or damaged clothes.

They would go to sleep around eight.

The girl Enri Emmot was born sixteen years ago and had become a part of the village since then.  She had lived these days all her life. In her heart, she wondered, How much longer will these unchanging days continue?