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Chapter 13 - The village

It was at that moment I realized I was had.

Who said that living on another world automatically made you a main character?

I don't know.

And neither do you.

Oh, damn you me stupid old self!

My new quote on quote life began really coldly.

I realized that I was freezing.

It was cold, really cold.

And it didn't change much for the next 17 years of my life.

Now, I guess I should make a quick recap of my life during the next 17 years.

And I should start with the village I born in.

That village was, peculiar o say the least. Peculiar in such a way because the village was in a place where summer never exists.

Nature was unforgiving, the local wildlife constantly hunted humans down, and so on.

This naturally meant that the inhabitants of the village were anything but kind to the weak.

If you were weak it meant that you wouldn't survive for even the next few years.

Everyone had a specific role from the moment they were born.

Every man who survived the first years of childhood was trained to be a warrior or a hunter.

They had the sole purpose, of well, fighting monsters, hunting down anymals and bringing food to the village.

That was a really REALLY f*cking important because if they failed, the village was forced to go through hunger for a long time until the next hunt can begin.

So every young child was, if he survived long enough, trained in the art of war and how to hunt.

They were beaten to a pulp by the elders until they could wield a weapon properly, they were forced to learn the footprints and behaviors of every local wildlife. Like I said before. One mistake means their death. And their deaths mean starvation of the village for a long time, what in turn, brings more death.

Women had their part in the society to.

They had the purpoe of making sure their child is educated enough to survive. They are the ones who have to teach their children as long as it's not physical. Mostly that's the job of the father.

Women also take care of the house. In fact, almost all of the houses are built by them.

The make food. They take care of the wounded. They raise the children. Heck, they even take care for the weapons their fathers, husbands, brothers or sons use in battle.

And most men don't know how to do that. They would literally all die if there were no women, just like all off the women would die if there were no men.

There are, of course exceptions.

But before I start listing them up, I should continue with definitely the most important part of the village.

And that's the shaman.

He, or she, are the ones who is the closest ones to the god of this village (at least the village makes you believe that).

They are capable of controlling and bending the winds of mana. (That means they can use magic.)

They can tell you your destiny.

Shamans also sometimes go into trances were they would meet their god, speak to them, and then tell the rest of the village the will of that god.

Who that god is?

Well, as it turns out, it's that golden goddess I met after my second arrival in the golden throne room.

If she clearly was, as the shamans would tell, all powerful, then why wold she let her followers live in this hell hole?

I don't get them.

But that's not the most important job of shamans.

Their most important job is taking care of a rather peculiar book.

And ripping pages out of it.

Why?

Before I answer you that question, I need to explain to you what this book actually is.

If legends are true, this legendary Item was given to the village by the golden goddess in order for them to survive this harsh place.

The shamans make sure that the cover of the book is safe, and when a villager, or warrior comes for guidance, the shamans would rip out a page of such book, and give it to the arriver.

A new page would supposedly replace the now lacking page

Again, how where these pages important?

The answer: That page literally tells you your current status as if you were in a RPG.

And there is everything in that page written.

Starting with your name, gender, age, profession, level, health level, strength level, magic mastery level, resistances to special effects like poison or cold and so on.

Those pages are the most important part of this village.

Because, for each wielder, the page will give them "missions" for them to perform for their level to increase.

For example, there was once a moment where a woman has been doing nothing but taking of children of the village for ten years straight. This resulted in her job "Motherly Guider" rising from level 5 to level 55. After that, both her and not her children had the biggest in potential for growth. Every boy grown to a man grew powerful enough to single handedly slaw Mammoths. Every Hunter brought bake food ten times the normal amount. They also never failed a single hunt. None of them ever became sick. And no girl that was raised by her ever died during childbirth. And their children also never died before their full adulthood. Even through it had almost been tree decades she still lives and continue to take care off children.

No, I wasn't one of them.

She refused.

Another guy had to behead 20 pigs every single day for 3 months. That resulted in him getting the "Butcher" class, and now, after every hunt, the meat had to go through him for him to prepare it.

No, this guy is not my dad.

So, I think you get the gist of it.

By the way, that book is called "The Book of Change."

I didn't name it.

I don't know why the goddess decided to name it like that.

That book is also never shown to public. The most we get from the shamans are the pages.

They are making sure that the book is highly secured.

If something were to happen to that book, it would literally mean that the village was doomed to die horribly.

And now, I was running out of that village, with the book in my hands.