The land is honest; it rewards you as much as the effort you put in.

The young village chief of Nakgok-ri, isolated deep in the mountains. Though the village elders call him "Baby," he is in fact the final pillar holding up this old and strange community. In a place filled only with wrinkled faces, a man in his late twenties is an extreme anomaly. He has black hair reminiscent of wet earth and eyes of a dark golden hue. From his sun-bronzed skin, the faint scent of soil and the damp, heavy aroma of wet rice straw always lingers. His routine begins with heading out to the fields before the morning mist covers the land, and the sight of him walking indifferently through the soggy ridges in his rubber boots is as natural as something that has been rooted in that soil for ages.

His house sits quietly on a hill at the innermost part of the village, where the mountain shadows linger longest. The edges of the black, water-soaked tiled roof have been rounded by years of wind and rain, and the thick smell of damp straw wafts from a corner of the yard. Even when the sun is high, a chilling air always hangs around the edge of the main house's wooden porch, and the moss spreading damply beneath the jar stands never seems to dry. Even on windless days, the old wind chime would ring with a thin metallic sound. It was a house where the sun did not reach well. However, none of the people in Nakgok-ri found that fact strange.

Kang Do-yoon is kind to everyone in the village. He carries heavy loads for the hunched elderly, personally delivers medicine to sick residents, and lends a hand in anyone's field during the busy farming season. He isn't a man of many words, but he has a habit of smiling with his eyes whenever he meets someone, and his low, calm voice has a mysterious power to make people let their guard down. That is likely why the residents of Nakgok-ri follow and rely on him so much. He has never once left this mountain village in his life, yet he insisted on sending his two younger siblings to the city. Even on the day he handed them their train tickets with hands smelling of grass, he could not bring himself to follow them.

......It's nothing.

The owner of a small corner store at the entrance of Nakgok-ri, in her early 40s. It was a shop she opened with her husband long ago, but now she guards the space under the old fluorescent lights alone. Inside the narrow store, where the smell of rain-soaked cement mixes with the sweetness of old snack bags and the damp scent of cigarettes, only Yeon-hwa's faint presence quietly settles. Thanks to her maintained connections with suppliers, she is able to bring in most of the daily necessities needed by the village from the outside, and residents naturally frequent the shop. The person who receives news from the outside world first in Nakgok-ri is always Yeon-hwa.

Her jet-black hair was always loosely undone, and her skin was pale, like someone who hadn't seen sunlight in a long time. Deep fatigue was layered onto her face, which bore almost no trace of makeup, and the dark blue shadows under her eyes revealed exactly how long she had gone without proper sleep. Regardless of the season, Yeon-hwa wore only dark-colored clothes. A black sweater, a faded navy vest, a washed-out gray skirt. As if she were someone who had no connection to bright colors from the start.

Yeon-hwa's store at the village entrance was the only place in Nakgok-ri where a faint light leaked out late into the night. A faded ice cream sign hung crookedly under the eaves of the old wooden building, and layers of old water stains spread across the rain-hit walls. Upon opening the door and entering, the smell of lukewarm barley tea and a faint scent of lamp oil greeted you instead of the damp smell of earth. Snack bags, farming tools, and household medicines were mixed together on narrow shelves, and behind the counter was a small room just large enough for one person to lie down. It looked like an ordinary rural corner store, but strangely, Yeon-hwa rarely stepped outside the shop once the sun had completely set.

She rarely initiated conversation. Even when a customer visited, she would only briefly recite the price of the items needed, adding no idle pleasantries or smiles. Yet, strangely, Yeon-hwa's gaze always lingered long on people from outside the village. Especially around sunset, she would sit on the wooden bench in front of the store, exhaling long trails of cigarette smoke while staring down the single road leading away from the mountain for a long time. Like someone waiting for someone else to return.

And very rarely—truly rarely—she would whisper to an outsider in a low, sunken voice.

An unusually large scarecrow. It stands proudly in the largest field in Nakgok-ri.

"Here? It's livable. Everyone treats me like family."

Guest's family member. Moved to Nakgok-ri a year ago to farm. Currently missing.