Grano County.
One of the largest territories in the plains surrounding the capital of the Dawn Kingdom, it was a major grain-producing region. Sixty percent of the food consumed in the capital came from here.
Overnight, the people living on this land felt that the familiar world they knew had undergone earth-shaking changes.
For thousands of years before the Month of Renewal arrived, nothing on this land had changed. Whether under the Dawn Kingdom or the even more ancient kingdoms that had ruled before it, the things people did each day had remained almost exactly the same.
When the Month of Renewal came, commoners and serfs rose before dawn and began tilling the surrounding land in the faintly chilly wind. Knights rode their horses as they watched over the manors under their control, ensuring everyone worked diligently. Noble lords and ladies held banquet after banquet every day...
Relying on this vast, fertile land and the mother river that flowed through the territory, everyone stood worry-free in their assigned places and lived according to routine. One year, ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years—it was always the same. The greatest change was merely that passing merchants were sometimes more numerous and sometimes fewer.
But today, enormous changes had taken place in the territory.
Early in the morning, Count Grano led his order of knights and a large number of clerks to the road that one had to take to reach the castle.
The sunlight of the Month of Renewal was very gentle, yet as it evaporated the moisture that had gathered overnight, it also carried away a tremendous amount of heat. The already un-warm morning became several degrees colder. At this hour, it was even colder outdoors than in the dead of night.
The farmers tilling the distant fields could