All's Well at the Southern Border (2)
Having waved the dwarf through, I rose for a short break and made my way over to Elaine.
"Is the observation tour going well?"
At the sound of my voice, she lifted her head slightly and looked my way.
[Central Officer.]
Her eyes—bright with the look of someone who had just understood something—caught the sunlight and gleamed.
At that sight, I cheered inwardly. 'Perfect. Having her watch the inspections was exactly the right call.'
The world was home to any number of races and cultures, all of which had collided and learned to coexist across the ages. Elaine was surely coming to see that now—and that as long as words could pass between two peoples, misunderstandings dissolved just as easily.
'That friction with the dwarf had turned out to be the best possible outcome.'
That expression told me everything. A change was taking hold in Elaine.
Convinced of it, I asked, "And isn't the border itself quite nice as well?"
But Elaine answered, her voice a touch flustered.
[It feels like there are... far too many strange people here.]
"...I beg your pardon?"
My smiling face froze solid. That was not the answer I had been hoping for.
"Wh-what do you mean by that, exactly?"
[Um... look over there, please.]
Elaine pointed hesitantly with one finger at the space behind me. I let my eyes sweep across the office grounds.
"Come on, just let me innnn already!"
"Papers? Huh. My mama never told me nothin' about any papers?"
"This thing isn't even dangerous! I keep telling you, it won't blow up as long as nobody touches it!"
There it was—the utterly ordinary tableau of our Immigration Office, exactly as it looked on any other day. A grand revue of hardball arguments and teary begging, of "I don't know what you're talking about" and "come on, just this once," performed by our most troublesome entrants.
"No, you may not. I must refuse."
"Without documents, entry is not possible."
"Esteemed visitor, do you want to explode? Ah—my sincerest apologies. My true feelings slipped out just then."
And the Five Senses Officers were fielding every bit of it, deadpan, their faces utterly unbothered.
[That dwarf from earlier, too... so all of this is... all right?]
She turned back to me as though she simply could not comprehend it.
"Uh..."
Truthfully? This was our daily life. And yes, it was fine—because no accident had actually occurred.
'By our standards, things were even flowing along fairly peacefully.'
Immigration inspection is a ferocious business. At its heart, it is a battle of wits between those desperate to get in and those determined to read their intentions—which is precisely why words fly back and forth in endless volleys. That much was normal.
The problem was that a spectacle like this could drag a young princess's image of the world straight into the abyss. Only now did it dawn on me: for a girl who still needed to see the world's bright side, the Immigration Office was far, far too stimulating.
In other words, she hadn't glimpsed hope through her talk with the dwarf at all. What she had concluded instead was that everything beyond the castle walls was strange.
'This is bad.' Everything was sliding in precisely the opposite direction of what I had hoped she would take away.
"Th-that isn't it at all. Look over there, if you would."
I strained to point toward the far right corner of the office grounds. There stood the Olfactory Officer, deep in the inspection of another werewolf entrant.
"Welcome. This officer is Blaszek Winterfang, Olfactory Officer attached to the Southern Border Immigration Office."
"Hello! Oh—huh? You're one of my kind?"
"Indeed. That story can wait until later."
Without a flicker of delight at meeting a fellow werewolf, he pressed on in his great, booming voice. "State your name, your origin, and your reason for entry. I will grant you five minutes."
That was our Olfactory Officer for you—the second-ranking decision-maker of the Southern Border Immigration Office, and the acting chief who held down the fort whenever I was away.
"Entry procedures normally run this courteously and this smoothly, you see."
The werewolf running his eyes down the documents with such gravity was, quite literally, a model for every immigration officer on the continent. I nodded along in satisfaction.
"What you just witnessed was nothing more than a little incident, the kind that crops up now and again."
She couldn't be allowed to form a bad impression of the outside world from the opening act. The border was hardly a warm and cuddly place, to be sure, but a first impression still had to count for something. Here, at least, the Olfactory Officer was someone I could trust. Just look at that grave bearing, those dependable lines. Wasn't he proving with his entire body that there existed standards no situation could shake?
And then it happened.
"Hoo-wee, Mr. Officer, that fur of yours has got such a shine to it—just gorgeous, ends and all. D'you get it treated somewhere special?"
"Idle chatter is not permitted during inspection. I would be grateful if you would answer the questions. Where are you from?"
"Northern Great Forest, Taiga region, born and raised, I was."
"The Great Forest's Taiga region? That's the village right next to this officer's hometown, isn't it?"
"Eh? You're from the Great Forest too, Officer? If the Taiga region is your next-door village... don't tell me—the perpetual snow region?"
Somewhere along the way, the Olfactory Officer's inspection had begun drifting in a very strange direction.
[...?]
"...?"
A flash of pure foreboding. Oh no. Please. Olfactory Officer. Not this time, I beg you.
"..."
"..."
For a long moment, the two beasts simply stared at one another in silence. And then—
"Well I'll be! A man from back home! No wonder I thought you looked handsome!"
"Well I'll be! No wonder your face looked familiar! Man of the perpetual snow region, then we're countrymen!"
Not even a full minute into the interview, and the two of them were already shaking hands and trading compliments in a full-blown commotion. Where his dignified inspector's face should have been stood a damn mutt broadcasting 'we're all family here' at full volume—and Elaine tilted her head at the sight.
[Isn't he being... a little too friendly?]
...
I squeezed my eyes shut. That bastard was already short on gravitas as an officer as it was—what in the world did he think he was playing at?
"Awoooooo!"
"Awoooooo!"
Two wolf bastards, beside themselves at meeting kin for the first time in ages, had struck up a howling duet in the middle of broad daylight.
[Is that normal?]
Elaine murmured it in a tone of complete bewilderment.
[So the world really is... a strange place, isn't it.]
We were screwed. Tragically enough, I had nothing to say in my own defense.
'I'd forgotten, just for a moment.' Exactly what sorts of bastards our proud Five Senses Officers really were. They gathered themselves in a genuine emergency, sure—but I had blacked out completely on how spectacularly they could rot my stomach the rest of the time.
'This is not how her very first day of observation was supposed to go.' I had wanted to show her the good side, and yet somehow only the gutter kept making an appearance.
I scrambled to change the subject. "Th-then, how would you like to go watch the cargo inspection together?"
[Cargo...?]
"It isn't only people who arrive at the border, Elaine. Every manner of goods comes streaming in alongside them."
Take the dwarf from just before—he hadn't come empty-handed, had he? A whole cartload of rare gemstones, each one carrying the weight of his labor. Stories and history do not live in people alone; they settle into the things people bring, into their cargo, just the same. Just as Elaine had told her own story through her letters, every item an entrant carried held a story of its own.
'If she saw that much, her impression was bound to change.' Cargo, at least, had no concept of a 'troublesome customer.' And when it came to cargo inspection, the Five Senses Officers never pulled anything strange. Which meant there was precious little here that could leave a bad impression on Elaine. This was my one and only chance to set her tarnished image right again.
After a long silence, Elaine narrowed her eyes and studied me.
[...It'll be fine, won't it?]
Somehow, her look said she didn't believe a word of it.
"You won't regret it."
I said it as much to brace myself as to reassure her.
"Large wagons to the left, please! Ah... and food-related cargo, please hold for just a moment!"
The moment we stepped out into the wide open yard before the office, the Taste Officer's brisk, energetic voice rang out. In the middle of the spacious grounds, a nomad girl was directing the procession of wagons, attendants at her side. Elaine and I, along with my personal attendant, came up beside her.
"Taste Officer. You look rather busy."
"Huh? Ah—Central Officer! And Prin—"
The Taste Officer caught herself halfway through 'Princess,' clapped both hands over her mouth in a panic, and swept her eyes around the yard. With people and wagons and cargo all jumbled together out here, there were far too many ears listening to risk it.
"S-so Miss Elaine has come as well. Ehehe..."
A little embarrassed, the Taste Officer smiled sheepishly.
"How is the tour going? The office is quite something, isn't it?"
"...Mm."
Elaine deftly dodged the answer along with her gaze.
I looked over the wagons parked along the right side of the yard. "Food-related cargo was originally the Touch Officer's responsibility, wasn't it?"
"That's right!"
The Touch Officer had gone on his break thirty minutes ago, which left the Taste Officer to run the wagon checks alone for another thirty. For someone barely a month and a half past her commission, shouldering all of this solo was a heavy load—and the sweat was already beading on her forehead. Anyone could see she was throwing everything she had into the work.
A faint swell of pride moved me to speak. "This officer will take over the food wagon inspections for a while."
"Oh—really?"
"Yes. Gladly. So please devote yourself to the large wagons."
Perfect timing. It would ease her burden, and it handed me a chance to show Elaine a cargo inspection firsthand. I wasn't about to let this slip by. 'At the very least, it has to go better than the person-to-person sort.' I certainly hoped so.
Taking the entry documents from the Taste Officer, I called out to the wagon at the very head of the food line. "You there, the wagon at a halt! Come this way, and we will begin your entry procedure!"
A single large wagon rolled up before me and gradually slowed to a stop—a freight wagon, moderately worn as though it had weathered years of the road, and sturdy all the same.
But something was off.
"Whoa."
The stench of fish.
A horrible, nose-stinging odor flooded the area in an instant. "Hck—!" My attendant behind me sucked in a sharp breath, and from that moment on he breathed exclusively through his mouth.
Elaine's reaction was worse still. "Uuuugh..." She hauled her already deeply drawn hood all the way down past her chin and clamped it over her mouth like a mask.
A sigh escaped me before I could stop it. Why did nothing around here ever go smoothly? '...Well, it certainly is a novel experience.' The stench of fish, in the dead center of the continent. Even I found it absurd. Of all the wagons, the one at the very front—the one meant for Elaine's eyes, the one I had picked—had to be brimming over with the perfume of the open sea. Even rotten luck ought to know some moderation.
I spoke in a mournful voice. "Elaine, would you mind stepping back for a moment?"
Her, of all people, I had wanted to spare from this smell.
She did not refuse. The instant the words left my mouth, she retreated—far, far, far back.
— Creeeeaak.
The moment the driver brought the wagon to a halt, five or six burly men came clambering down from the back. Then the largest-framed man among them strode straight toward me—a hard-muscled fellow with a face that looked built for brawling.
"So this is finally the Crossline Kingdom border? Damn it all, we'll be late at this rate."
So that man was the wagon's owner, apparently. I cleared my throat pointedly to claim his attention, then offered my greeting. "Welcome. This officer is Nathan Kell, Immigration Inspector of the Immigration Office under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—"
"Skip the greetings, let's just get it done. Inspection or whatever it is—we haven't got time to spare."
Cutting me off mid-sentence, he scratched at his head as though I were a nuisance and snapped the words out. At the sight, my attendant's eyebrow gave a twitch.
"You will show the officer proper courtesy. This is the border."
"Courtesy my ass. We're never seeing each other again after today anyway."
The swaggering stride, the deliberately boomed voice, the profanity stitched into every sentence, the manners of a man raised in a trough. I slid my gaze sideways and took his measure. Ink was etched beneath those thick arms. His knuckles were studded with calluses, and his coat was sun-faded leather sewn with any number of hidden pockets. And at his hip hung a sword that had clearly seen long use.
His crew behind him didn't look like honest travelers, either. Every one of them carried a frame built for serious violence and a well-honed blade to match. With clues that obvious, there was no need to guess.
'Mercenaries.'
The lot most given to stirring up trouble at the border—and the least trustworthy of them all. I addressed them.
"State your names and your affiliation, the contents of your cargo, and your destination."
Why on earth were as many as six mercenaries riding on a shabby little food transport wagon? Let's hear them explain that one, shall we?