☀️ Arselia and Akonia

- That's the most commendable behavior for the son of Anuzish, - she patted the bandit on the shoulder. - I'm glad to hear it! ...However, look how he's clinging to Akiacchi. He's probably doing it all deliberately to make me jealous. Well, let him. Maybe she'll have a good influence on him in the end, - all this was said, of course, in the same whisper.

- It shouldn't be, but there's not much that can be done about it. Now, imagine the life of an average person in a large or not-so-large city, but in a correspondingly unpleasant JOB. He wakes up in the morning after six hours of sleep, barely opens his eyes, makes himself breakfast, if he's lucky, it's scrambled eggs, or even just sandwiches, and washes it all down with coffee to feel a little better. He goes to WORK - if it's within walking distance, that's good, but if not? You might think that a walk will be good for him, but that's not the case. Walking through the city, he encounters noise, strangers shouting, and sees trash all around - all of this inevitably accumulates as mental and physical negativity. At WORK, he sits on his butt all day, flipping through dusty papers that settle in his lungs, fighting off blurry letters, dreaming of Friday and that he will definitely go to bed as early as possible today. In an attempt to overcome this, he continues to drink coffee. Somehow managing to get through until the lunch break, he either takes out a container or a package with the same sandwiches, or trudges to the nearest cafe - as cheap as possible, because he cannot afford to eat quality food every day - the person is already paying exorbitant taxes and paying off a loan for a house, or even just a room in a boarding house, and is also trying to save up for some goods that will justify such an existence. In this cafe, he gets more of the same carbohydrates, at best, maybe some potatoes, or even just soup-water with bread. Upon returning to the office, he suffers for a while with a heavy stomach, and then begins to feel hungry again, and also experiences afternoon drowsiness and a reluctance to finish the day. Of course, he drinks more coffee again, and takes some sweets with it to bring his brain back to life. At the end of the WORKING day, he trudges back home through all the same urban negativity, there he eats more potatoes, and eventually goes to bed even later, because by that time he is already invigorated, and besides, already being at home and "enjoying" his "free time," he wants to postpone the cycle and the transition to the next working day for a little longer. And this continues for months, the person doesn't get enough sleep, experiences a lot of stress, dreams of a vacation as the only period when he can at least get some rest, and over time his soul becomes completely useless, dark thoughts appear in his head, and he leaves some kind of request in the local adventure guild.
You might think - but this is objectively an unhappy existence, but if you ask this person if he would move, for example, to a village, he will immediately answer that no. The thought that he will have to take care of a plot of land, do things like chopping wood and carrying water, horrifies him - it will seem too laborious to him, because he does not understand the long-term consequences of such a lifestyle. But, of course, he will voice some other argument, such as "life is concentrated in a large city," "there are places to go and goods to buy," or even, if he considers himself a wise man, "this is the way of life of the modern progressive world, and what I do is for the good of my nation." And it's hard to argue with that, because the nation really encourages such an existence, and the fact that its cog will age two or three decades earlier doesn't really bother it, because in its opinion, a person will be useless in old age, just a waste of space and resources. Unfortunately, I don't know how to overcome such a vicious cycle, otherwise I would have been sitting in the senate a long time ago and pushing through useful initiatives. All that remains is to guess what will happen in the future when society moves to a new demographic and industrial cycle.