The majordomo shook his head and continued before Alden could reply, "A long time ago—probably centuries ago—when the monster threat from the north wasn't that serious, there was a lot of persecution of non-human races. The church of light considers them as inferior beings forsaken by the god, so no church-following village or town wants to see non-humans living amongst them—"

  Roderic glowered at him. "Not as a free person anyway! There are a lot of non-human working as slaves even today, for those who can afford to buy them. Did you forget telling about that?"

  Vusato scowled at the captain. "Will you even let me finish talking first?"

  The captain snorted. "Go on then."

  The majordomo turned back to Alden. "Well, yes. Non-humans are often bought as slaves by the nobles and rich merchants as cheap labour. That's the only way the church allows people from the other races to live within human kingdoms. Some free non-humans still serve in the Rangers but they are outside the church's purview anyway. In fact, in your grandfathers' time, Sarnok also had a lot of dwarfs working as slave labourers in the iron mines, but they were sold off by your father when the village was in a difficult time after your grandfather's death and we needed gold in a hurry."

  Alden frowned. Could it also be because his father didn't like having slaves? The manor certainly had a very sociable environment today and there were no slaves living in it, although there were no non-humans there either. Seeing that the majordomo had gotten quiet, he prodded, "You were telling me about non-human kingdoms. How did they come to be?"

  Vusato explained, "Around a century ago, the continued treatment of non-humans as... beings lower than humans led to a rebellion by other races, and a long civil war erupted in the continent. With no side emerging as a clear winner for years and the monster threat from the north getting more and more serious, it was decided to grant separate sections of the continent to the other races, where all of them had to move immediately. The wastelands of the lizardmen were always theirs, since it's difficult for humans to live there anyway, while the elves and orcs were given their own lands to govern. That situation never changed over the years, and now humans and the other races only have a bitter relationship with each other. Even at the country level, we just have a basic give-and-take relationship with the other races. In return for independence, the orcish duchy has to defend their section of the Pinotian mountains from the monsters with no outside help, while the human kingdoms buy a lot of grain from the elven queendom, and seafood from the fishmen. The dwarfs still live within the human kingdoms in the hilly caves, but they are left alone as long as they don't come down from the hills. The humans buy ore and precious gems from them in return for food, but that's all."

  Alden was disgusted by the situation. "That's... that's abhorrent! You mean the children of dwarfs can never come outside the caves and tunnels even to play? That people will throw stones at elven toddlers if they come outside of their forests, or maybe something even worse?"

  Vusato gave another sigh. "As much as I believe in the church, I don't like this situation either, but all this happened long before even I was born. Even so, the general outlook of humans is the same as what you said. Humans leave the other races alone as long as they live in... what's basically their enclaves. Or they can live as slaves of humans."

  Alden looked at the captain in confusion. "But you just said that you fought with an orc in your time with the rangers. That there are elves guarding the northeastern outpost... How is that possible if other races aren't allowed to come in human kingdoms? Were they slaves too? I thought slaves weren't even allowed in the rangers?"

  Roderic spat on the ground, glancing at the common villagers around them. "Sometimes I think these idiots deserve to be eaten by monsters! As for your question, those elves, orcs and other non-humans who wear the uniform of rangers are left alone by the common people, because the rangers would never tolerate anyone insulting their men, so there is nearly no discrimination of the races within the rangers. Sure, there might be some friendly ribbing against any non-humans in a squad—" he pointed towards the north "—but all rangers know exactly who our real enemy is. If these common people or the clerics from the church had ever been to the front lines, they would know just how dangerous a threat we are fighting against and would forget about whether their protector has long ears, or tusks on their jaw when a hungry monster comes to eat their children."

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Alden grimaced. He had been really lucky to be reborn as a human in this world, as weird a thought as that was. Humans had monopolized nearly all the land in the continent, and had left the elves, orcs and other races to live in their enclaves, even if those were large enough to be called queendoms or duchies. This discrimination sounded idiotic to his ears, just like Roderic said, since the real enemy lay up north. But people were people, and more numerous races would nearly always try to stamp out the less numerous ones. That the other races hadn't been wiped out in that civil war was already a miracle.

  "The thing is that the church and the rangers are like two sides of the same coin," Vusato said. "The church of light trains the kids who've shown talent in using mana and sends them to defend the fortress cities after they graduate, while the rangers secure the northern borders and try to minimise the number of monsters coming southwards. Both organisations work to protect us from the monsters. It's just that their methods differ. Still, I can't deny that the church has a lot of followers, so they get huge donations from both the kings and the common people, while the rangers are always resource-starved."

  Roderic scoffed. "Like the church would ever let them get more funds and supplies! They barely tolerate the kings having the same level of authority as them. They wouldn't want the Rangers to become a comparable force too!"

  So despite the number of magic users being very low in this world, the church still held a lot of power. Alden wondered just how safe and prosperous Sarnok would have been if there was no such discrimination. If there were dwarven miners digging the iron ore, if there were elven archers on the watchtowers, if there were orcish spearmen guarding the gates...

  He sighed. There was no point in wishful thinking here. From what he understood about the monster threat from the north, they needed all the help they could get, whether that came in the form of elves or orcs. It wasn't in his power right now, but once he became the baron in the future, he would have to do his best to make his village safer—which consequently meant keeping himself safe too—even if he needed to go against the common beliefs of people. There was no other option if Sarnok wanted to survive the monster threat which was getting more and more serious every year, nor did he want to die again anytime soon.

  Alden thought about the problem as their group began moving through the market street again, seeing that they were attracting a crowd.

  As they neared the western gate, he looked at the majordomo. "Let's visit outside the village too. In fact, I think we should ride to the river. I don't even remember the last time I visited it."

  Vusato reined his horse and frowned at him. “Hmm... Before today, you've never been interested in going outside unless we had to leave for Garitus. You sure about it? Winter isn't far away now. It's not that safe outside the walls this time of the year.”

  Alden pulled his cloak a little tighter and shaded his eyes with one hand, looking around them. It was true that this was an extremely dangerous world, but he would never learn how to survive here if he didn't know what was out there.

  “No, I still want to see. If miners can go out to the northern hills every day to work, I can risk one ride. Anyway, it's still early autumn. There’s more than two months before it snows, right?" He tried for lightness and thought he heard it in his own voice—like someone trying to convince himself more than anyone else. "We'll be fine...”

  Vusato seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, before he nodded at the guard captain.

  "Gates!" Roderic bellowed at the guards on gate duty.

  As the men hurried over to open it, their group started moving again, and soon they had reached outside.

  Alden reined his horse a few feet ahead of the gate and looked around. There was less than a hundred meters of open ground around the palisade—mostly grass trodden short with a few shrubs, but nothing tall enough to hide a person or a monster. Beyond that, the dense forest rose: thick trees with high straight trunks reaching for the sky, the underbrush a darker green, with tints of yellow and red with the arrival of autumn. Peering deeper into the forest, it felt like a wall of living wood had swallowed all daylight in there. He had no idea if there were any monsters watching them right this moment or not, but the forest certainly looked ominous enough, and he wouldn't dare to step foot in it if he had any choice.

  Further ahead at the horizon, the Pinotian mountain range was visible in the far north—its lofty peaks already dusted with snow. Beyond those mountains was where the monsters lived... How many would come south this winter? How many people would they kill... and eat? Would he even survive his first winter in this world...?