If you read the afterwards (from both mangaka) you'd have realised it's a medieval setting and that's just one of the things that's a typical setting/theme/etc.
i mean the protagonist was the only young person who didnt die in war, a horrific accident, or migrate away that they knew of. Further the protagonist was someone everyone knew as some unaging constant who lived in the outskirts of town. push a rural community to the precipice and even vague problems will begin to be attributed to the minorities.