[He takes a deep breath. This is going to take some explaining.]

Well... I was part of a group called the Highlanders who work to protect the people, right? But then it turns out that every thousand years, the goddess takes a sacrifice, and it just so happened to be that year, so... everyone panicked. Just before I came here, a guy even took a woman hostage because he thought the starseers - er, people who can read the future - could decide who got sacrificed. We were pretty busy because of it, so...