The Gatekeeper of a Declining Town

“Welcome to Yoshanka. This is a town where ‘the wind is cold, but people's hearts are warm.’ Enjoy your stay.”

After carelessly rattling off the town's slogan and letting the traveling merchant in through the gate, the guard Sidelock picked his nose.

It was boring.

The job of a gatekeeper in a country town.

Yoshanka bordered Aseto Bay to the north and Kaise Forest to the south.

The edge of Aseto Bay was one long stretch of sheer cliffs known as the “Dragon's Claw Marks,” and Kaise Forest was, needless to say, a demon realm.

Once, anyone traveling between the Demes Kingdom and the Teenidys Kingdom had to pass through Yoshanka, and in those days, it had been a reasonably bustling town.

......or so Sidelock had heard from his father, who had also served as a town guard.

These days, though, with other trade routes opened up, the number of people visiting Yoshanka had dropped off sharply.

The only ones who bothered to come to this town were traveling merchants like the one he'd just let in, who came to sell daily necessities, or people from the Drogg Trading Company, who came to the Adventurers' Guild branch office to buy materials.

Adventurers after the eggs of the Togodos, giant birds that nested on the cliffs, or after monster materials from Kaise Forest still trickled in, but the town grew more desolate year by year.

(Well...... can't be helped. The wind is strong here, and it's always cloudy. It's not exactly a fun town to live in.)

When he thought about the future of this declining town, he felt as if a cold wind were blowing right into his chest.

That said, Sidelock was just a lowly guard.

He couldn't think of a single way to save the town.

(Wha~t's scarier than a dragon's tail? Why, it's “the tail end of an era.”)

Thinking such idle nonsense, Sidelock picked his other nostril too.

“Oji-san.”

That was when it happened.

A voice called to Sidelock from behind, that is, from the town side.

It was a cute girl's voice.

“Hm? Ah, the brat from earlier. Well, did you manage to become an adventurer?”

He turned around, and standing there was an expressionless child with her head wrapped round and round in cloth.

“Not yet. Must do ‘task’, to become adventurer.”

“......Hm? ......Hnn? Well, I guess that happens, does it?”

He had never heard of having to complete a ‘task’ to become an adventurer.

Sidelock tilted his head, but upon seeing the black hair spilling from the cloth wrapped around the child's head, he understood the situation.

“So, you wanna head outside for your ‘task’. Aye, aye, got it. I won't come looking for you if you go missing, so if you're gonna die, go die on your own.”

“I'm okay. Won't die.”

The child trotted past Sidelock as he shifted his body to clear the way.

“By the way, where are you headed?”

“Kaise Forest.”

“......I see.”

Once through the gate, the child started running south and vanished from sight in an instant.

“......Can't be helped, I guess. She is a cursed child, after all.”

Still picking his nose, Sidelock muttered to himself.

He had realized that the child was a cursed child.

From the moment she had arrived in Yoshanka.

But that thing had been carrying a baron's letter of recommendation, of all things.

Turn someone like that away for being a cursed child, and if he got blamed for it later, that would be a pain.

But then again, if it got out that he'd let a cursed child into the town, the locals would complain about that too.

So, he pretended not to notice the black hair spilling from the cloth.

He turned a blind eye.

Sidelock being Sidelock, the idea of that child recklessly taking on Kaise Forest, a demon realm, and throwing her life away seemed like a pretty decent way for the story to go.

In fact, it was preferable.

That was why he hadn't tried to stop her.

That thing had probably been handed some impossible demand by a guild that didn't want to make a cursed child an adventurer.

There was no way a child like that could pull off a ‘task’ that meant going into Kaise Forest.

That thing probably didn't even realize how absurd that ‘task’ was.

(But speaking of the Adventurers' Guild, wasn't there a famous adventurer with black hair and black eyes? I thought they'd at least let someone register as an adventurer, even if they were a cursed child.)

But that wasn't how it went.

Instead of refusing to register her, they had handed her an impossible ‘task’ and were out to kill the cursed child.

(......Well, the guild's policy must have changed.)

Time moved on, and things changed.

Yoshanka declined, and the Adventurers' Guild changed its policies too.

It was getting to be a pain, so Sidelock stopped thinking too hard about it.

After all, it was just a cursed child, so it didn't matter.

Whatever happened to her had nothing to do with Sidelock.

“......Hey! Hey, gatekeeper! Has the cursed child come this way yet!?”

As he idly mulled that over and picked his nose, another voice called to him from behind.

This time, it was a boy's voice, sounding arrogant.

He turned around, and standing there was a silver-haired boy carrying a sword.

It was Kamasse, a rank-4 adventurer who had come to Yoshanka recently.

“Aye, aye, young master, just a bit ago. Said she was heading for Kaise Forest.”

“D, don't call me young master!”

Tease Kamasse like that, and he would turn bright red and get completely flustered.

Who knew, maybe he really was a young master from a good family.

“A, a, anyway! Get out of the way! I'm heading for the forest too! Open the gate!”

“Aye, aye. Try not to get hurt.”

“As if I'd get hurt! Don't make a fool of the great Kamasse! Well then, thank you for your service!”

When Sidelock stepped aside, Kamasse stomped off toward Kaise Forest in a huff, his shoulders squared.

(And a brat like that is supposedly stronger than me......)

Watching Kamasse's back grow smaller, Sidelock recalled something his drinking buddy Chief Dakkante had grumbled over drinks.

“Kamasse is strong. He's head and shoulders above the other greenhorns his age. But on the flip side, he's still a child at heart.”

He was pretty sure that's what the man had said.

(Well, whatever.)

But to Sidelock, Kamasse was someone else's problem too, when all was said and done.

He didn't care.

Standing before the gate where few people passed, Sidelock began picking his nose once again.