Raging flames climbed the wooden eaves, illuminating faces frozen in bewilderment and shock.
The rising black smoke was like homeless ghosts, and its crackling wails stood out all the more amid the crowd's silence.
This was the southwestern corner of Mammoth Province, a small village called Stone Village... or rather, it had once been called that.
Most of the people living here were free citizens of the Empire.
However, the Empire was the reverse of other regions in the wasteland. Being a free citizen here was nothing to be proud of.
Since the fertile lands along the river were mostly controlled by nobles, even free citizens who had land to farm lived in considerable hardship.
If an ordinary serf had to eat red dirt six times a week, a free citizen might have to eat it seven or eight times, barely clinging to life.
Of course, that excluded those who managed to survive within settlements or on their outskirts.
Stone Village was no exception. Far from the Tasan River, with no small rivers or lakes nearby, its land was difficult to cultivate, and most villagers could barely scrape together enough to eat.
There was simply no profit to squeeze from people living like weeds. Aside from collecting taxes, the Empire usually could not be bothered with them and left them to fend for themselves.
Naturally, the merciful tolerance of that favor only applied during peacetime.
Five or six li south of Stone Village stood the boundary marker for Horse State. Yet those five or six li were enough for the flames of the "scorched earth" policy to reach this place...
At the entrance to Stone Village, an elderly man well past fifty sat collapsed on the ground, looking up at the tall, burly centurion as tears and snot ran down