Eyes (1)
"Let's see here..."
I skimmed through the documents with a light hand.
Name, place of origin — all matching the previous entry records. The purpose is the same, too.
About half of the sand remained in the hourglass. I gave a short nod and spoke.
"Very good. You are in violation of no regulations."
Thud.
The stamp came down, and the words [ENTRY PERMITTED] were carved boldly across the paperwork. Then I recited the words I always did.
"Welcome to the Crossline Kingdom."
Erzena's departure did not drastically change our daily lives. We received entrants, screened them, and admitted them inside. The suspicious were turned away.
No matter how the world turns, the Immigration Office never changes.
A saintess might come, a princess might come, even a dragon might come — but the border always stood stubbornly in its one place, didn't it? In a way, the past month had been the extraordinary time, and now things had simply returned to normal. Perhaps that was why, barely two days in, it didn't strike me as strange that everyone at the Immigration Office was working without a flicker of disturbance. Even I had carved the resolve to focus on my given duties far deeper into my heart than any lingering attachment or longing.
But there was, precisely one thing that had changed in a way impossible to miss.
"Gaaaah... sleeeeepy..."
"W-we've only been on shift for two hours, though?"
"I really should've bottled up some of that holy power back then..."
"Something's wrong. Where did our recovery room go? Why did it turn into a meeting room? Where did Lady Erzena go?"
The Five Senses Officers were suffering through a vicious case of holy power withdrawal. On the four desks sat hastily purchased coffee, tea, and alcohol — bottles piled high. All of it had been downed nearly once every ten minutes to chase off sleep and fatigue, and the empty bottles had multiplied accordingly. At the sight, I let out a hollow laugh.
"Pathetic, the lot of you."
That said, my own desk was likewise littered with the husks of King of the Night herbal concentrate, a gift from my mother. Not to mention the hand holding the stamp and the bags under my eyes trembling like leaves.
But what could I do? If I didn't drink even this, I felt like I'd collapse on the spot. It was undeniable. No matter how I dragged my exhausted body to bed and slept like I'd fainted, the fatigue simply would not lift. Exactly the situation I'd been in a month ago, when I lived alone.
It's the same overtime and all-nighters as always, and yet.
The me of the past would have pushed through while half dying — but no longer. I had now tasted the hands of a first-rate healer who cured my headaches, my stomach aches, my backaches, my sore muscles, all in a single stroke.
So this is what they call a loss of tolerance, huh.
You never know what you have until it's gone, as they say. All of us were feeling, down to our bones, that a talent beyond price had vanished. I never imagined it would be in these work-related ways, of all things, that I'd find myself missing her.
And one more thing — Erzena's departure hadn't solved every problem, either.
At some point an entrant had appeared before me, and I looked down at the documents and spoke mechanically.
"Greetings. This officer is—"
"Nathan Kell, Central Officer. Well met. I am Kasa i Defuar, descendant of the Ancestors who entered the sea."
The newcomer cut me off mid-sentence and carried on with his own introduction. I didn't even need to lift my eyes to know immediately what race this person belonged to.
"...Your purpose of visit, I take it, concerns the Ancestors once again."
"It does. I feel their aura very strongly in this place. I was drawn here by that aura."
Dragonewts.
Nearly ten days had passed since the Dragon Word Proclamation Incident, yet the procession of dragonewts showed no sign of ending.
Come to think of it, Senior Officer Dhin Askyrin was dispatched here because of this very thing, wasn't she.
Not that she seemed to have been devoured by the Southern work environment and forgotten everything within two days, but regardless — these dragonewts were turning out to be a far greater headache than I'd anticipated.
"Did the Ancestors truly pass through this place?"
"...A dragon, here? Surely not."
There was exactly one reason they had come to the South: they had sensed a dragon's aura in me, the one who had proclaimed the Dragon Word.
Truthfully, it should have been no problem at all. It wasn't strange for crowds to gather, and the office was always so packed with entrants there was barely room to stand. But dragonewts were different. Call it a different texture from ordinary entrants, or call it a different degree of exhaustion in dealing with them.
"And yet something is strange. You carry the scent of our Ancestors."
"..."
He strode right up and, before my attendant could even intervene, began sniffing at my body.
"Sniff, sniff."
Oh good grief, goosebumps all over.
"Excuse me... please do not step past that line. Return to your place."
This marked the twenty-fourth time I'd said it today.
"Hold a moment."
And precisely the twenty-fourth time I'd heard that.
The most defining traits of dragonewts were their arbitrary standards and stubbornness. Descended shallowly from the blood of the mightiest race and blessed with long lives, they were as hidebound as elves — and every bit as tough. If their bodies were weak, that would be one thing, but they possessed physiques stronger than werewolves', making physical restraint difficult. And their ability to sense their own kin and ancestors was frighteningly keen.
"Hmm... that is unmistakably the scent 'Master of the Volcano' would give off."
He was exactly right. But then he tilted his head and waved a hand in dismissal.
"An impossible phenomenon. I must have confused you with another kinsman from the volcano."
Another trait: their rigid natures meant they could not easily accept anything beyond their imagination. That was why the Queen's proxy had refused to believe a single word until she had seen Lady Menassil with her own eyes. Not that once she did see her, she immediately grasped the situation and laid out countermeasures. In that respect it was a flaw if ever there was one — but right now, it was also an enormous stroke of fortune.
"But wondrous beyond measure it remains. A being as great as the Ancestors dwelling among humans is impossible. How could one as frail as you carry such a scent?"
That Ancestor of yours is currently at my house with her own child, you know.
She tries to come into my room every night, so locking my door before bed has become routine.
What exactly is the point of doubting on your own and then concluding on your own?
Still, I couldn't let my guard down. The Queen's proxy recognized Menassil as an Ancestor the moment she laid eyes on her, after all. Thanks to circumstances utterly beyond common sense, her identity had gone undiscovered so far — but there was no guarantee it would stay that way.
— Uuuuuugh, how stifling! Central Officer, take me for a walk! I demand a walk, I say! This is no nest, it's a prison!
And thanks to all this, even though she'd been granted the false identity of a noble lady, Menassil couldn't step outside for a long while because of the dragonewts sprawled across the land — and her tantrums had all landed squarely on my plate.
"Haaaaa..."
A sigh of regret escaped me of its own accord. It was heavy. I could bear it — but bearing it was the very limit of what I could do.
Having cleared the twenty-fourth dragonewt entrant, I announced in a weary voice:
"We will take a thirty-minute break. Entrants, please wait outside the Immigration Office."
With a few grumbles, the people in the queue filed out in a rush. And the moment the last entrant left the building—
"Huuuuhh..."
"My legs hurt..."
"W-where's the booze? The booze!?"
Like marionettes with severed strings, every single employee in the office crumpled where they stood. From the lowliest inspection clerk to the Five Senses Officers and me, everyone flopped into their chairs and didn't so much as twitch.
"I'm dying, seriously."
Not a soul disputed those words, spat out by someone in the room.
Erzena. I miss you.
I murmured it to myself without meaning to. Couldn't you have come by just once to pray before leaving? Or at least left a priest or two behind. Or bottled up your holy power in a glass jar like the Taste Officer said, for crying out loud.
Just then, the Smell Officer looked at me with bleary eyes.
"Come to think of it, Central Officer, didn't you say Her Majesty would summon you over this whole affair?"
I answered without lifting my head from the desk.
"Judging by the silence, internal procedures must still be underway."
They'd clearly said the Royal Castle would summon me the moment Erzena left. The call was coming later than expected. What could it be?
The Taste Officer heaved a deep sigh.
"Thank goodness, really... With Lady Erzena gone and no reinforcements, if you get called to the Royal Castle too, sir, this office might genuinely die..."
As he went tsk tsk, poor us and patted his own lower back, there was something so grandmotherly about it that I decided not to point it out. You're seventeen, you know. What are we supposed to do if you go soft on us?
That was when it happened.
— Bang.
The office door suddenly flew open, and yet another scaled, dragon-headed humanoid appeared.
"I was drawn here by the aura of the Ancestors."
I literally just said break time, didn't I.
I choked down the boiling fury and opened my mouth with the utmost courtesy I could muster.
"My apologies, but we are on break at the moment. If you could return in thirty minutes—"
"Is it to you that I present myself for screening?"
The dragonewt's defining trait: arbitrary standards and stubbornness.
— Snap.
The last thread of my reason finally broke inside my head.
"GYAAAAAAGH!!!"
A scream. This is it. I've hit my limit.
"Get out. NOW!!!"
"...Uh, uh oh."
"The Ancestor isn't here, so come back in thirty minutes if you must!!!"
At my shriek, the entrant fled the office in a flustered hurry. I turned my head and issued orders to my subordinates.
"Smell Officer. Starting tomorrow, dragonewts get screened separately. Anyone who says they came because they sensed their Ancestor's aura — tell them all that no such being exists. If they still insist on entering, just wave them through."
This isn't me getting weak. The world is the one that's gone impossibly mad.
"Touch Officer, put up a sign in front of the office. 'The Anti-Pope Faction and Saintess Erzena Selaphe have returned to the Holy Nation.' So they'll stop dragging themselves here! How many days has it been already?!"
Crowds come in waves, you know — there are times they surge in like a tide, and then there should be a quiet stretch to breathe. But where on earth does a wave come crashing in four times straight — pilgrimage crowds, volcano-collapse refugees, dragonewts who sensed the Dragon Word, Holy Church civil war refugees plus saintess sightseers — for a month without end?
I can't take this anymore either.
But the Five Senses Officers' reactions were lukewarm.
"Would that actually change anything..."
"Besides the ones you mentioned, people are still fleeing here because of the Holy Church's civil war. We can't refuse them too..."
"It'll be like this for at least a week... and then some other absurd thing will blow up..."
At the sight of them, thoroughly drained of all will, I drew a slow breath. I knew. I knew that vacations, piles of new regulations, and gifts of techniques could not solve the fundamental problem. Since the Gerard Incident, this Southern Border had been held up entirely by the Five Senses Officers and me alone.
But what could I do? Unless they were people I could truly trust, a border would always become a hotbed of corruption and crime.
Never again. I will not allow the Sight Officer's tragedy to repeat.
That single thought was what had kept the South — and me — grinding on so desperately. But even that had reached its limit. I looked around slowly at my subordinates.
— It is truly time to reinforce your staff, Central Officer. If not for your subordinates' sake, then for your own health.
The Minister's voice echoed in my head.
— Responsibility is a frightening thing. I want to throw it all away and receive nothing but your love... but I know that if I did, I could never live with my head held high...
The words Erzena had spoken before she left.
Responsibility, hm.
If the Sight Officer could see me right now, what would he say?
— Senpai, you absolute dummy! Efficiency is life for a merchant, remember?!
That's what he'd say. And only now did it finally come back to me.
I opened my mouth slowly.
"...Everyone. There is something I must tell you."
"That we have to work overtime?"
"That was always mandatory, yes."
Come to think of it, we in the South really were the strange ones. Not a single word the Dragon Scale Officer had said had been wrong. Ours was a situation held together by force of my stubbornness and worry alone.
And so, here and now—
"I intend to increase the number of examiners at the Southern Border."
I made the decision.
"..."
"..."
"..."
A sudden silence fell. All five of the Five Senses Officers lifted their heads and stared at me with faces frozen in shock. Even the attendants stood with their mouths hanging open, unable to say a word.
The only one to break the stillness was the Taste Officer, who had grasped what I meant.
"C-C-C-Central Officer. Do you mean...?"
"Yes. I do."
I gave a bitter smile — because I had realized, seeing their faces, just how stubborn I had been all this time.
A measured dose of longing. And, a small measure of hope.
Just as Erzena had changed. Just as Elaine had grown.
It must be my turn to change as well.
"It's time to fill the seat that has stood empty for so long."
I can't live the rest of my days with my eyes closed, after all.