The Gatekeeper of a Town Starting to Bustle

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

Sidelock, a Yoshanka guard, kept rattling off the town's slogan, fast and sloppy, as he ushered the merchants and adventurers arriving one after another into town.

“Those with ID, please come to this line! Those without, over there! ......Eh!? You lost your adventurer card!? Not my problem! No, no cutting! Get in line first, get in line!”

Sidelock's junior, Yoza (the young guard who had found Emi sleeping in the park and tossed her out of town), was also run off his feet, handling the travelers flooding in.

A mysterious Yoshanka Boom had suddenly arrived.

While this movement was a welcome sight for the town as a whole, it was a bolt from the blue for the guards, who had seen their numbers continuously slashed along with the town's declining population.

They were desperately trying to cope, somehow managing the shifts with a skeleton crew.

There was no time even to pick his nose.

Sidelock had never had to work this hard before.

“Senpai! Switch with me already, on slogan duty! I wanna take a break too-ssu!!”

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

Yoza was whining about something, but Sidelock ignored him.

Reciting this slogan to the travelers who came to town.

It was part of a PR campaign to revitalize the town, a rule laid down by ordinance several years ago.

To a guard, this slogan was like a holy verse.

It could not be taken lightly.

(Yoza...... you still lack the experience to fulfill this important role......!)

“Senpai! Senpai! ......Aah~~, quit ignoring me already~~! Ah, yes, sorry, so sorry! Those with ID, over here, over here! ......Hey, you there! No cutting!!”

(This is a trial, Yoza! Overcome this trial with flying colors and show me how much you've grown as a guard......!)

While making excuses like that in his head, Sidelock had absolutely no intention of handing over slogan duty.

Honestly, he wasn't young anymore.

He couldn't scurry around light on his feet like Yoza.

His back hurt.

It couldn't be helped.

Yoza, hang in there.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Haah~~...... I'm beat~~......”

Once noon came, the flow of people settled down for the time being.

Sidelock and Yoza were taking a break at the guard post.

Yoza was slumped sloppily over the desk, ready for a nap.

As for Sidelock, he was skimming through reports while picking his nose.

He quickly checked whether anyone dangerous had entered the town, or anyone he ought to keep an eye on.

Don don!

And just then, a forceful knock rang out.

In Yoshanka, where the sea wind blew hard, people knocked on doors as if punching them, so as not to lose out to its roar.

This was called the “Yoshanka knock,” and it was said to be the first cultural difference young people who left town ran into in other towns and villages.

Setting that aside.

“......Come in.”

A visitor.

Sidelock wanted to rest, and he was fed up, but he held the feeling down and put on a blank face.

Coming in with a creak of the door was a stout woman: Harinna, the landlady of the “Sea Breeze Inn.”

“Sorry to bother you, Sa-chan.”

“If you're going to bother me, I'd rather you didn't come at all, Ha-chan.”

Sidelock and Harinna greeted each other familiarly.

The two were childhood friends.

“What's this, what's this? Snacks for us? Did you make some Togodo egg sandwiches and bring them over?”

“Sorry about that, I've got nothing with me today. Not very thoughtful of me, is it?”

“Then what on earth are you here for?”

“An errand for the Trade Association.”

Harinna's “Sea Breeze Inn” was a member of the Yoshanka Trade Association.

Hup. Harinna lowered herself into one of the guard post's chairs and started brewing her own tea without asking.

“A complaint, or a request, call it what you like; the Trade Association has a favor to ask.”

“Huh? A complaint?”

At the unexpected word, Sidelock reflexively knit his brows.

Harinna also had a bitter look on her face.

“Recently, a black-haired, black-eyed cursed child came to this town. You know about it, right?”

“......Well, yeah.”

(After all, I'm the one who let that thing into town.)

Sensing that he was about to be told something troublesome, Sidelock let out a sigh.

He had to be careful not to say anything unnecessary.

“That thing wanders around town every now and then, and it's a nuisance! Just looking at it is unpleasant, and when that thing comes near, the customers run off! Hey, can't you do something, and kick that thing out of this town?”

Here it came, trouble.

Sidelock put his hand to his forehead.

Cursed children were bad luck.

Nobody wanted them in town.

But a guard couldn't throw that thing out of town just because it was a cursed child.

After all, there was no such law.

Harinna and the rest of the townsfolk dumped anything troublesome on the guards.

But guards had rules of their own.

Give me a break.

“Eh? That's weird-ssu, Oba-chan. That cursed child is still in town? No way.”

At this point, Yoza, who had been slumped over the desk until now, sat up abruptly and joined the conversation.

Sidelock had thought he was napping, but it seemed he had been eavesdropping.

“I mean, I found that thing sleeping in the park, and me, I threw that thing out of town.”

“What!? You......!”

You! On what grounds are you pulling stuff like that!

What's a guard who's supposed to uphold the law doing!?

......Sidelock almost blurted out the retort, but the one who had committed that lawlessness was Yoza.

So if anyone was going to take the blame, it would be Yoza.

It had nothing to do with him.

In that case, it didn't really matter, Sidelock thought.

“No, that thing is still wandering the town! You guys have been glued to the gate lately, so you might not have noticed.”

“Eeh? That's weird......?”

Ignoring the bickering between Harinna and Yoza, Sidelock flipped through the entry log.

Sure enough, according to this record, the cursed child had not entered the town on paper since Yoza threw her out.

The town had only one gate for coming and going.

If it wasn't recorded here, that thing shouldn't have gotten into town.

Not here, supposedly, and yet?

......What on earth is going on?

“......For now, I'll look into it.”

Leaving it at that for the moment, Sidelock sent Harinna home.

A good chunk of the tea snacks was gone.