To the west lay the old Demon Lord's domain, a great forest spreading wide.
Even now, human numbers there are few.
To the east, a good many years had passed since an empire was born.
The empire governs a vast expanse of land through repeated annexations.
Zealous about developing overland routes, it laced highways throughout the country to spur economic growth.
At the center lay the kingdom that had summoned the Hero, still writing its history even now—but long since in decline.
These days the empire, not the kingdom, functions as the world's center.
To the south, too, is a great forest where the World Tree grows, and at its foot many elves live within the woods.
Further south still, a sea spreads out.
The continent is shaped like a squared 'C,' with what you'd call an inland sea, and the kingdom sat upon it.
At the far eastern edge is a desert, and beyond the desert lies a different human civilization.
"The Empire is the greatest in the world!"
"Yep, yep!"
"Long live the Empire!"
"Long live the Empire!"
"Glad to be an imperial citizen!"
Once a year, the empire holds its Founding Day.
In the towns, meat dishes are handed out free to the citizens—so its wealth is no small thing.
The empire takes the kingdom's decline as a cautionary tale and cuts no corners, military or civilian, even now.
What it invests in most is agriculture and livestock; a nation strong in food production is, after all, a strong nation.
A thousand years since the Hero's legend.
The 'declined kingdom' is a tale of the past now; these days it prospers well enough, if modestly.
But prospering above and beyond it is the empire—everyone's pride and boast.
Humanity does squabble over land in border skirmishes.
But the empire tends to win one-sidedly, so there's little in the way of pitched, head-on fighting.
"That reminds me, Lord Lunga."
"What is it, Aithel."
"Because I delivered oracles as the goddess, the religion's ended up as the Church of Aithel."
"So it has. Well, no matter. Being worshipped with 'Lord Lunga, Lord Lunga' wouldn't make me especially happy anyway."
"Is that so, is that so."
"Nothing much in the way of events happened these past thousand years, so I've just been watching idly—but religion's influence has waned, too."
"It has, aye. I hadn't been delivering any oracles."
"Springing an oracle on them out of nowhere would only give everyone a fright."
"Aye."
The Church of Aithel is still revered as ever, but people had come to say that the notion of a god having actually delivered oracles was dubious.
At first no one doubted it in the slightest—yet time, it seems, does bring about change.
The weakening of religion had apparently been one cause of the kingdom's decline as well.
The kingdom's royal capital is still famous as the birthplace of the Church of Aithel and remains a tourist spot, but the tourist-spot view of it is the dominant one.
In a world where modern science has developed, an unobservable, external god tends to be treated with a certain disdain.
Mind you, calling it 'science' is generous—it's barely more than alchemy with hair on it—but as a trend, it's true that worldviews are gradually growing less religious.
"Well, no matter, I suppose."
"Quite."
So long as the humans amuse themselves as they please, it's no concern of ours.
They hardly ever reach out and meddle with us, either.
Humans are, in the end, only humans, and you could say they don't hold that much power.
Compared to the power a god holds, they were very small beings indeed.
In that sense, the empire comes to develop a distinctive frontier science—a kind of alchemy and mathematics they call magical science.
The development of magic guns and potions, plus surgical advances through human dissection, and various other fields, had all begun to progress.
It's still inferior to twentieth-century Earth, but they seem to live better than medieval Europe did.
Magic-tool development has grown active once more, and large-scale mills and the like are being installed.
Fine flour came to be produced, and the quality of bread improved.
In the old days it wasn't rare for sand and such to get mixed in, so it crunched when you ate it.
As for slavery, criminal slaves were once frequently traded—but in recent years the invention of a sense of human rights has been steering things toward its abolition.
"Slavery abolished at last, is it."
"Hmm. Sooner than I'd expected."
Slavery was formally abolished, and by law everyone became equal.
Criminals, of course, were now to be held in prisons instead.
Prison labor is fairly modern stuff—garment manufacturing and the like.
The improvement of looms and the invention of a device called the sewing machine were factors too.
Mechanical development is advancing bit by bit, but large-scale machinery isn't yet in operation.
That involves things like the mass production of iron goods, so it'll be a little further off.
Something like the forerunner of a newspaper—a news-paper—had appeared.
A few sheets of paper pairing advertisements with fresh topics, printed in ink.
Woodblock printing made it difficult, so movable-type printing came into use.
At the same time, letterforms were standardized and type came into use.
Where many had once written in a flowing cursive hand, block letters gradually became the mainstream.
As readable block letters became standard, people came to be taught to read and write them, and literacy shot up.
And so educational standards rise as well.