I'm
I'm 32 years old, and I'm a gate guard at the South Gate once again today, all to protect my beloved family.
"Otto, tighten up that expression of yours! Can you guard the Gate looking like that!?"
"I am tightened up, for what it's worth."
When I point it out, Otto claps his own cheeks to force his face into shape, but it has absolutely zero effect. His cheeks are slightly red now, but his expression is just as slack as before.
Behind me, as I let out an exasperated sigh, I heard a low chuckle. When I turned around, the Chief was standing there with his shoulders shaking.
"Does a subordinate take after his superior? That absent-minded approach to work is exactly like when something happened with your daughter."
"Wh—!? No, Chief, I..."
"You go listen to him for a bit. It's just the reverse of the usual, is all."
Patting my shoulder, the Chief walked away.
I'd felt a little guilty before — about the time Turi's
Well, there's no helping it. The mood is heavy, but I suppose I'll just hang in there with Otto all the way today. ...Though, once you actually start talking to the guy, his bragging about his wife and kid goes on forever.
As I sigh, it never even occurred to me that those around me were making the exact same assessment of me, or that people wished the two of us — both so annoyingly consumed by family love — would get along.
After the shift change and handover were done, I took Otto with me and headed toward the East Gate.
The East Gate was the gate that connected to the main highway, and it had the heaviest foot traffic of all. The street running alongside it was lined with inns and restaurants. Even the alleys near the main road and the back streets were packed with shops, and most residents of this city had their regular haunts.
Since it was summer, every shop had its entrance doors flung wide open, and voices of people drinking and making a ruckus inside could be heard from all directions. Avoiding collisions with passersby, we made our way to the tavern where the Gate soldiers liked to gather.
Stepping into the tavern, which reeked of alcohol and food, I saw that the two long tables pushed together right in the middle of the shop had been claimed by a large group — a dozen or so people shouting back and forth at the top of their lungs. Along the walls were several round tables suited for smaller parties, and nearly all of them were occupied.
"It's packed."
"Let's move."
We slipped past the boisterous group and called out to the tavern owner, who was pouring drinks at the counter in the back.
"Yo, Ebbo. Two Beereas, please. And bring us some salt-boiled sausages, whatever's fine."
"Coming right up."
I ordered two Beereas from the owner, Ebbo. Ever since the Baptism Ceremony, I'd been working as a gate guard apprentice, and in this city of moderate size — excluding the wealthy and nobles who moved around in carriages without showing their faces — practically everyone was a familiar face.
I set a large copper coin on the counter to cover the two Beereas and the sausages, and Ebbo filled our wooden mugs to the brim. Holding the mugs carefully so as not to spill, I spotted an open table and headed toward a round one near the back.
The previous customers' dishes were still there, but a sharp-eyed serving girl noticed us about to sit down and quickly cleared away the wooden mugs, forks, and other utensils.
All that remained on the table was a hard piece of bread — stiff from absorbing meat juices — that served as a plate. I swiped the table clean with the bread in one quick motion, then dropped both the bread and the crumbs onto the floor. The tavern dog came trotting over with its tail wagging and started gnawing on the bread noisily.
We placed our own mugs on the cleared table and sat down with a clatter of chairs.
"Thanks be to Vantol."
Offering a toast to the god of wine, we raised our wooden mugs lightly toward each other and brought the Beerea to our lips.
I downed nearly the whole mug in one gulp, letting it flow down my throat. That, to me, was the best way to drink Beerea. The refreshing sensation of the liquid passing through my dry, work-worn throat was heavenly. The tingly fizz of carbonation, along with Beerea's distinctive bitterness and aroma, spread through my mouth a heartbeat later.
"Ahh, that's good! ...So? What exactly happened?"
I set the empty mug on the table with a thud and urged Otto on as he wiped the foam from his lips. Otto accepted a plate of salt-boiled sausages from the serving girl while ordering a refill of two more Beereas.
Placing sausages on the hard bread that served as a plate, Otto shrugged lightly, his face slack with that dopey grin.
"Well, see, Corina told me not to say anything yet, so even though it's you, Squad Leader, I really can't talk about it."
"What, did you get a kid on the way?"
"Wh-wh-wh-what?! How did you know!?"
"Well, looking at your state, plus your wife telling you to keep quiet — it's not hard to figure out, is it?"
Otto scratched his cheek in resignation.
The truth was, I'd figured it out because I'd done the exact same thing and gotten the same kind of comments from everyone around me. But there was no need to mention that.
Even so — Otto, a father. Was a guy this giddy really going to be okay? The thought flickered through my mind for an instant, but when I thought about it more carefully, those were exactly the words people had said about me.
Yeah, getting excited about a kid just meant he'd be a loving, devoted father. No problem at all.
After examining myself, I came to that conclusion.
"Here you go! Two Beereas, just as ordered!"
The mugs slammed down on the table with a forceful thud, the contents sloshing and sending a few droplets of Beerea foam flying. But neither the staff nor the other patrons cared about such small details.
I handed a medium copper coin to the serving girl, and Otto and I — drawn in by the noise around us — raised our mugs to our lips. Unlike the first one, we didn't gulp this round down. Instead, we let the complex flavors roll across our tongues — the scent of wheat, the bitterness, the sweetness, and the umami all intertwined — before swallowing slowly.
Come to think of it, Otto's wife was
And his wife's brother was the head of the merchant company that looked after Mine. While Otto was my only personal connection, when you looked at the families as a whole, our ties were surprisingly deep.
"Otto. Take good care of your wife and kid, all right? Your child is going to be the heir to a major shop, right? Mine mentioned something like that before."
"...Actually, there's something about that I need to discuss, Squad Leader."
Otto's demeanor changed completely. The dopey grin vanished, his expression tightened, and his eyes wandered the air as if searching for words. Seeing his shoulders go rigid — just like when Mine had been about to tell her family something she'd been keeping to herself — the alcohol cleared from my head in an instant.
Even though I'd just been drinking, my throat felt bone dry. I took a slow sip of Beerea and swallowed.
"...Go ahead. Talk."
"Well, um, it's not something that's happening right away. ...It'll probably be a few years from now, but I think I'm going to have to quit being a Soldier."
Otto had taken the job of Soldier in order to earn permission to marry the daughter of a major shop's owner.
A mere Traveling Merchant had fallen for the heiress of a major shop. Between a Traveling Merchant and a city merchant, everything was different. There was no way a Traveling Merchant could suddenly become a merchant in the city's major shops.
To make matters worse, the people around the girl accused him of approaching her just to climb socially, and the girl herself came to distrust him. Otto had bought his Citizenship in the city and taken a job that wasn't merchant-related to prove the sincerity of his feelings.
Back then, I'd been truly shocked. It was during the period when I was guarding the West Gate, so it must have been about four years ago.
This Traveling Merchant, who'd told me he'd sell goods here and then open a shop in the town where his parents lived — just a few days later, he came asking if I knew of any non-merchant jobs available, because he'd spent his entire fortune buying Citizenship just to court a woman. I made the other guards repeat the story several times because I simply couldn't believe my own ears.
But I'd known Otto since he was a child, following his father around as a Traveling Merchant, and I could understand that he'd fallen so completely in love at first sight that he'd spent every last coin. Having lived as a Traveling Merchant, Otto was good at calculations, could read documents, and had a decent level of practical skill. In the end, it was me who introduced him to the Soldier position, on the condition that he mainly handle paperwork.
Soldiers, for whatever reason, tended to be diligent about training but lazy about paperwork. Ever since Otto joined, dealing with merchants and nobles carrying letters of introduction had become so much easier.
And now this Otto was going to quit being a Soldier? Had he been acknowledged as a merchant by his wife's family?
I knew he'd been helping out at his wife's shop alongside his duties as a Soldier. I also knew he kept his instincts sharp by dealing with the merchants and merchants who came through the Gate. If Otto's efforts had paid off, that was something to celebrate — but his face was clouded with confusion and bewilderment.
"You finally got recognized by your brother-in-law because you had a kid?"
"No... well, that kind of topic had been coming up occasionally even before that, so I don't think that's it. The real reason is Mine."
"What!?"
My daughter's name came up from an unexpected direction, and I nearly jumped, slamming my mug onto the table. In contrast, Otto's expression softened slightly as he picked up his mug and took a sip.
"Squad Leader, the reason I chose Soldier as my non-merchant job was to build connections with the city's residents. So that the people of the city would remember my face, and so I would remember theirs. And to get to know the merchants and nobles who came through the Gate — for intelligence gathering, I chose to be a Soldier."
"Mm."
"I'd intended to keep at it for a while longer, but the situation at the shop is changing. The Chalcedony and hair ornaments that Mine brought in are incredible products, and the
"Oh? Products that Mine brought in?"
I was happy to hear Mine being praised, and proud as a parent, but something didn't quite sit right.
From my perspective, the one making the Chalcedony was Turi, and the hair ornaments — Effa and Turi made prettier ones. I'd mostly seen Mine trying to make things but lacking the strength, failing, or tilting her head in dissatisfaction when the results weren't great.
"But the Gilberta Company is fundamentally a clothing and accessories business. The Plant Paper that she and
"Wait — did the things Mine brought in become a source of conflict?"
When I couldn't help but grimace, Otto waved his hands in a panic to deny it.
"No, no, it's nothing that serious. From a merchant's perspective, these are incredible products. I can see why Benno would want to get his hands on them. It's just that Corina can't handle them. So Benno seems to want to hand the Gilberta Company over to Corina sooner than planned, attach me as his assistant, and start his own shop... He wants to set up a new shop and spread the products Mine brought in to other cities as well."
If the head of a major shop was going so far as to open a new shop just to sell and expand these products, enormous sums of money had to be involved. Before, Turi had gotten so excited and tried so hard to explain to me that Mine was rich, but I'd dismissed it as an exaggeration. The kind of money we were talking about was far beyond what a child who'd just completed her Baptism Ceremony should have.
"...Was it really true that Mine was earning that kind of money?"
"It's true. But somehow — I don't know who taught her — she manages money with a thoroughness you'd never expect from a child. I doubt the Squad Leader, who's terrible with money, taught her. Where on earth did she learn that?"
I glared lightly at Otto, who raised one eyebrow in a teasing manner, and snorted.
There was only one entity that had taken a liking to my precious daughter, given her unnecessary extra things like Magic Power, and bestowed upon her knowledge far too advanced for her age.
"God must have taught her. Mine is a child beloved by the divine, after all."
"I thought you were just a doting father, but somehow that was strangely convincing and kind of scary."
Otto laughed and shrugged before biting into a sausage. I did the same, gnawing on a sausage as I steered the conversation back.
"So when are you planning to quit? There's nobody who can take over your job, is there?"
"I can't exactly hand things off immediately, so I think it'll be two to three years from now. I'd like to train a successor who can handle calculations, but... Ah, it really was a miscalculation that Mine got taken by the
I remembered how Otto had tried to discourage Mine from becoming a merchant apprentice by feeding her stories about how frail she was and how difficult human relationships could be, pushing her toward working from home instead.
If things had gone as decided back then — Mine working from home while occasionally going to the Gate together for work — how much simpler everything would have been. The idea that Mine would be taken by the Temple had never even crossed my mind at the time.
"It was a miscalculation for me too. Mine had been saying she didn't want to get close to nobles, and then suddenly she comes out with wanting to become a Temple Shrine Maiden. No matter how much she wants to read books, honestly..."
I recalled the moment Mine had declared she wanted to be a Shrine Maiden Apprentice at the Temple, and my grip tightened on my mug.
"Benno apparently gathered information and pulled a lot of strings too, but... are you really okay with this, Squad Leader?"
"Do you think I'm okay with it?"
"Not at all."
When I glared at Otto, he raised his hands in surrender and shook his head. No matter how favorable the terms, there was no way I would willingly send Mine to the Temple.
"Of course I'm not okay with it. They say she'll be treated equally to nobles, but when you consider their sense of privilege, there's no way they'd really give her that kind of treatment."
"...Right?"
It was all talk, in the end. On paper, they might grant her a Blue Robe, but there was no way Mine would truly be treated as an equal to nobles. I knew that much.
"Still, she was spared from being thrown into the orphanage. If she comes home, she's still within my reach. The opponents are nobles. I can only be grateful that she wasn't completely taken away."
"But it's a pretty precarious position, isn't it?"
"...Yeah."
Mine's Magic Power had gone out of control, and she'd stopped the High Priest through sheer intimidation — that was the only reason things had been swept under the rug. The High Priest had been ready to execute Effa and me and throw Mine into the orphanage. The fact that our lives had been spared and that Mine could still commute from home — from the Temple's perspective, that was already an enormous concession. Hoping for anything more was pointless.
If anything, the High Priest, having been intimidated by a Commoner, must despise and resent us. Just thinking about what might happen once Mine started attending the Temple was terrifying.
"Squad Leader. This is something Benno told me, but apparently Mine can expect to spend no more than about five years peacefully at the Temple. Right now, nobles are scarce, so Magic Power holders are valued, but once the number of nobles increases, there's a real danger she'll be treated as a nuisance."
"...Only five years. Still, that's better than dying within half a year without ever entering the Temple."
Sending Mine to the Temple was meant to extend her life. That was the one thing I had no power to change. I'd need a Magical Tool, but I had neither the connections nor the money to obtain one. As a father, I was utterly inadequate.
"If she can't stay at the Temple, she could always form a Contract with a noble. Mine has value — she has Magic Power, and she has the ability to earn money. If she can demonstrate her worth before any danger closes in, the terms of a Contract might differ from being kept as a pet."
"Mine wants to stay with her family, so she doesn't want to form a Contract with a noble, but... as a parent, I just want her to be alive."
She'd suffered through fever for so long, and she'd only just gained the ability to do what she wanted. I wanted her to live as she chose.
But whether she'd Contract with a noble to survive — if she did, with what kind of noble, under what kind of terms? Everything depended on Mine.
Even as her father, the scope of what I could do was painfully small. Rather than me — the Guild Master who'd sold the Magical Tools he'd gathered for his granddaughter, Benno, who'd consulted with her so kindly and gathered all kinds of information — they were the ones who had truly helped Mine. Or so I felt.
"...What can a father like me even do? I have no money, no connections. I'm a Soldier who can't even protect his own child, no matter how much I care! What a laughingstock."
The alcohol loosened my tongue, and I let spill the complaints I could never voice at home. For all my bluster about protecting the city and my family — what could I really do?
Otto, who'd been listening to my complaints, tilted his head slightly.
"No, Squad Leader. The fact that Mine's father is a Soldier guarding this city's Gate — that might be God's design."
"...What do you mean?"
I narrowed my eyes, and Otto glanced around at the noisy surroundings before lowering his voice.
"Thanks to Benno's efforts, she's somewhat protected by Contract Magic within this city. At the very least, there are multiple people who want to protect Mine. The thing Benno fears most, from what he's predicted, is that she might be snatched away by an outside noble."
"Snatched away?"
I swallowed hard at the alarming word. I'd anticipated the nobles at the Temple to some degree, but it had never occurred to me that Mine could be targeted by nobles from outside the city.
"Once she leaves the city, the effects of Contract Magic wear off. If it's a noble from this city, the Guild Master or Benno could intervene and perhaps ask the Lord to investigate. But with an outside noble, even the Lord might not be able to reach."
Being told that even the head of a major shop, even the Master of the commercial guild, even this city's Lord — that their power had limits — felt like being struck in the head with a hammer.
If there was something the Lord couldn't handle, there was no way I could handle it either. How on earth were we supposed to deal with an outside noble?
Otto smiled wryly, his lips curling with a challenging glint.
"To make sure that never happens, we need to identify the Priests at the Temple who hold ill feelings toward Mine, along with the nobles connected to them. And we need to keep a sharp eye on nobles entering from outside the city, judging whether they pose any threat. If that's the case, isn't a gate guard's job — going through every letter of introduction and invitation — the perfect position for protecting Mine?"
I blinked several times and reflected on the work of a gate guard. Indeed, for keeping tabs on noble movements, the gate guard position was ideal.
Outside nobles couldn't enter without a letter of introduction or invitation from the city's own nobles. Nobles arriving by carriage or horse had to pass through the Gate, present their letters to move along the City Wall, and enter the Noble District.
Important nobles didn't wander around the Commoner District. If a gate guard paid attention to nobles who stopped their carriages in the city or headed directly to the Temple, there was a good chance they could prevent any kidnapping attempt.
Even if a noble hired ruffians to carry out an abduction, a gate guard could spot outsiders right away. People who made their living in the shadows — you could tell at a glance.
I'd talk to the city's residents, patrol for suspicious individuals, deepen the bonds between gate guards, and always be prepared to act swiftly if something happened. This was all part of my job as a Soldier.
"You became a Soldier to protect your family along with the city, right? That's what you said, Squad Leader. Just keep protecting Mine along with the city, same as before."
"When you put it that way, I can only call it fortunate that my squad is transferring to the East Gate starting next spring."
Soldiers rotated between Gates every three years on a squad basis. The purpose was to prevent unhealthy bonds of favoritism, deepen solidarity among Soldiers, and equalize the workload — or so they said, but the details didn't matter. All I needed to know was that my squad would be moving from the South Gate to the East Gate this spring.
The East Gate faced the main highway, so it had the most foot traffic of all the Gates, making it the easiest place to gather information. With the most outsiders coming and going, it was also the place that required the most vigilance.
"You'll need to stay fully alert, keep your intelligence gathering thorough. Maybe you should also review how you communicate with the other Soldiers, so that if you sense even the slightest danger, you can mobilize quickly. I'll help too. If Benno is going to stick his neck that deep into this, then my family isn't unconnected either."
Otto made a fist and bent his elbow, flexing into a bicep. With that challenging smile, he made the gesture Soldiers did when wishing each other well in battle.
"Squad Leader. Let's absolutely protect her."
I returned the same smile, washed away the gloomy mood along with the last of the Beerea in my mug, and set it down on the table with a clunk.
I clenched my fist tight and bent my elbow, bumping my fist lightly against Otto's.
"Yeah. I'll protect my family — and this entire city."
Congratulations on your pregnancy, Corina and Otto.
And that was the tale of a father who could only vent his complaints where no one at home could hear.
With that, all the side stories come to an end.
Next time: Part Two — Shrine Maiden Apprentice at the Temple, Prologue.