The traveler from another world, using the alias Alice, didn't choose Tingen, the city of Akhova County, as her first stop after escaping her predicament.
The young mage, in a white robe with gold trim, stopped her spell in a village far from any town. Her exquisitely crafted leather boots nearly splashed mud onto her as she stepped onto the muddy road after the rain.
But it didn't matter; her clothes, imbued with a self-cleaning spell, were impervious to such dirt.
Maintaining her illusion magic, she surveyed the village, which consisted of only about a dozen households, before realizing it was a dying village, almost entirely deserted.
Why "almost"?
Most of the village's farmland was clearly abandoned, but not all of it.
An elderly couple, both very old, were the last residents.
They worked diligently from sunrise to sunset, tending the fields, watering, fertilizing, and feeding the few chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs remaining in the village.
It was a village so quiet it was almost dead.
The young sorceress used illusion magic to disguise herself as an ordinary traveler, and then cast a spell to make the elderly couple overlook her strangely accented "Rune." She received their warm hospitality with almost no effort whatsoever.
All she did was chat with them for a few hours.
The Joneses hadn't seen any visitors to the village for almost two months.
Of course, the people who originally came from this village had moved to the big cities long ago.
According to the Joneses, since the village's grain became increasingly difficult to sell, many farmers, finding it hard to make ends meet and support their families, abandoned their fields to become workers in the big cities.
If they were decades younger, they probably would have made the same choice.
"In previous years, seeing so many empty fields, old Thompson, who always tries to take advantage of others, would have been overjoyed and would have rushed to plant his oats on the empty land," Mrs. Jones said, pointing to a large expanse of overgrown fields outside the window, a look of regret on her face.
"At first, we thought that with grain prices dropping so low, we wouldn't even be able to cover costs, so who would want to sell anymore? We thought that once the time was up, the big shots in town would realize that no one was selling grain anymore, and then we could sell the remaining stock in the granaries to them and make some money. Who knew..."
Old Mr. Jones led her to a granary that was sealed off, his face etched with deep wrinkles, his voice devoid of joy or sorrow.
"The best grain, until it molded and rotted, couldn't be sold. In the end, it was little John who brought a torch and burned all the stinking rotten stuff inside... We old folks probably never dreamed that what we grew with our own hands would end up being burned by our own hands."
"Where are your children?" she heard herself ask.
"We had eleven children in total. Three died young, none of them lived past five…"
"Our eldest son went to Seashire to transport coal for a factory owner there. Our second daughter had a difficult childbirth several years ago with her fourth child and didn't make it…"
The elderly Jones couple counted on their fingers, each wrinkled finger a recounting of their fate.
"…Our sixth son joined the army a few years ago, he's probably on some ship now. As for our seventh son…"
"Old man, you're getting senile! The one who joined the army was our seventh son. Our sixth son went to fight in underground boxing matches a few years ago and got into trouble."
Mrs. Jones raised her voice to correct her husband.
"Oh, oh… I think so. I'm getting old, my memory isn't what it used to be…"
The over-seventy-year-old Mr. Jones touched his graying, nearly bald head and obediently shut his mouth, letting his wife continue.
"...Our youngest daughter left the village last year, saying she was going north to Tingen to find work.
I wonder how she's doing now." The young magician paused for a moment, then asked,
"Have you two considered having one of your children stay, or going to the city with them?"
Have their child stay? The elderly Jones couple shook their heads.
"They have their own lives, their own choices. What would they do with old folks like us?"
Going to the big city with their children to make a living was even more unrealistic.
The Jones couple explained that they knew nothing but farming; going to the big city would only be a burden to their children. It was better to stay in the village; at least they wouldn't starve.
"Actually, it's quite nice this way. We have a lot of work to do every day. After we finish, it gets dark, and we drink some homemade ale together, read the newspaper, and enjoy the life."
The young magician knew that by "reading the newspaper," the elderly couple meant spreading out two or three outdated newspapers, reading them word by word, repeating this countless times.
After resting for a night, she said she was going to Tingen, a city to the north, to visit Mary, the youngest daughter of the Joneses.
When the girl arrived in Tingen and found Mary Jones, now a textile worker, she discovered her black-and-white photograph in the cemetery.
According to her coworkers, Mary had been too tired and exhausted one night, and her headscarf had come undone, accidentally getting caught in the machine and dying.
All her savings were just enough to buy the small plot of land now containing her ashes, and this tombstone without an epitaph.
Mary left no other belongings.
She had lived in a cheap hotel on Lower Iron Cross Street in the slums, where privacy was practically nonexistent, with a dozen people crammed into a room filled with bunk beds, like a group of rats in a cage.
In the end, the girl had to find a way to "copy" the black-and-white photograph on Mary's tombstone and return to the dying village to give it to the Joneses.
"She's doing well, she's in love, and she might get married next year or the year after,"
she said.
There was no need to bring bad news to these two elderly people who didn't see much of the future, was there?
But before leaving, she seemed to hear suppressed sobs coming from the only house in the village with a light on.
…After that, the young sorceress returned to Tingen.
She stood in front of a camera shop, quietly pondering how to return the film she had "borrowed."
Just then, she felt a gaze upon her.
The girl visitor from another world had met a young man named Klein Moretti.
From that day on, part of her life was as Klein knew: occasionally discussing supernatural topics with him, but mostly finding pleasure in teasing him, sleeping at night in the space behind the mirror—a carefree and comfortable life.
What Klein didn't know was that Alice didn't actually do anything particularly special during the day.
Just as she had declared to him, she was a sorceress who also worked as a bard.
However, she never sang, nor did she write lyrics or poems about heroes. Instead, whenever she arrived in a new city and felt like it, she would take her instrument and wander through the streets and alleys, composing impromptu pieces.
Alice hadn't forgotten the terrible experience she had when she first arrived in this world.
She carefully kept herself out of the sight of most people, and even the native superhumans of this world would forget her exact appearance in a short time.
This allowed her to observe the small town like an invisible person from the perspective of a passerby.
She saw elderly people living alone, preferring to sleep under damp blankets and eat moldy black bread rather than go to the asylum, because it was almost like hell. The person sleeping in the next bed might be infected with a malignant disease, and the filthy and smelly courtyard never saw sunlight all year round...
She saw dockworkers carrying heavy loads, their backs bent and their bodies drained of any remaining energy for a trip that might cost less than half a penny. Many male workers, nearing thirty, were already experiencing physical decline, needing to stop and rest after carrying just a few loads, lest an unfortunate accident occur.
She saw greasy, filthy workers in cheap cafes in the slums, sitting on equally greasy and filthy tables and chairs, wolfing down dry bread with tea, each person relishing the food scraps left by the previous customer, completely oblivious to their unseemly state.
…
She played her seven-stringed harp in squares, on streets, and on the makeshift lawns in front of schools.
Despite minimizing her own presence, children would still begin to dance to the rhythm of her improvisations.
They possessed an astonishing energy rarely seen in adults; whether in the slums or the wealthy areas, the dirty, ragged children's dances were arguably no worse than those who had received dance lessons.
But only children under ten years old, and fellow street performers, would respond to her music.
As these children grow older, into teenagers, they awaken from the nightmare of reality, their childhood hopes and smiles robbed of their lives by poverty and harsh conditions. Their stunted, hunched bodies can no longer dance with the light, joyful steps they once possessed; instead, they become burdens, accompanying them as they leave home to beg for a living on the streets.
She often played music near the city square at the intersection of Iron Cross Street and Daffodil Street.
She knew that some people would stop to listen to her music, lingering at a distance before leaving without approaching.
She knew they were worried that if they listened any longer, they would have to give the musician a few pennies… even though she never placed any money-collecting containers where she played.
Of course, besides those living in the shadows, she also silently observed the middle class and even the aristocracy of this world.
They lived respectable lives, elegantly sipping coffee or tea, and traveling entirely by horse-drawn carriage.
The gentlemen wore top hats, waistcoats, and shirts, their collars and cuffs perfectly pressed, while the ladies wore a variety of dresses and trousers, some conservative and dignified, others dashing and spirited.
They discussed fashion, knew how to enjoy holidays, and lived planned lives—things most people took for granted.
But, much like the proportions she observed, the poor far outnumbered the wealthy.
Walking the streets, one instinctively ignores those hidden in the shadows.
They are cooks, coachmen, and laborers who don't return to their cheap lodgings until nearly midnight. They are
clearly human beings just like everyone else, yet they seem to be viewed through a strange filter, often forgotten in a corner.
As for the glamorous ones, they enjoy the admiring gazes of their peers, basking in the daylight.
They are the shining stars in paintings, the few who possess wealth and status, the upper-class elites who hold their heads high, striving to project an image of prestige.
And Alice…
Alice hadn't really figured out what she should do.
She knew she was just a passerby, an outsider, with no right to judge the good or bad of this land and its people.
But she couldn't help but dredge up a comment from a corner of her memory:
—It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.