The Western Turmoil (1)

Five more years have passed since I caused a commotion in the Holy City of Ladrenia.

During that time, I had been working as a blacksmith in one of the newly established villages in southern Zieden, in what had once been the Karkoym Duchy.

Zieden invaded the Karkoym Duchy, and afterward this land became a theater of war with the Vilestrika Republic; apparently, many villages were burned in the fighting and disappeared.

A village can disappear in an instant when conflict breaks out.

An orderly occupation was one thing, but if an army stripped a village bare for military provisions, its people had no choice but to abandon it and scatter if they wanted to survive.

There may also have been cases where an army drove the villagers out to use the village as a base. Mercenaries and deserters may have looted them, and in the worst cases, massacres may even have occurred.

Conversely, for a newly established village to take root in the land, several years—or even longer, long enough for a human generation to change—were necessary.

Still, if a village had a blacksmith, its recovery would progress just a little faster.

That was because building houses required nails, cutting the wood for building materials required axes, clearing fields required farming tools, and cooking required pots and stoves.

If everything had to be bought from a town, the burden was enormous...