“It would be nice if she’d just dressed like a magic caster to begin with.”
“Carrying a weird staff, wearing a weird robe?”
“Yup. At least you’d know she was a magic caster. Then we’d forcibly enlist her into the Magician’s Association and make her carry the obligatory Adventurer’s Guild identification seal.”
The two soldiers got up as one, laughing to each other. This was to welcome the girl who might be a magic caster.
Under the watchful eyes of the soldiers, the wagon rolled up to the door and stopped.
The girl disembarked. Her forehead was slick with sweat, but she seemed used to travelling under the sun. Her sleeves were long, probably to ward off sunburn. Her clothes didn’t seem expensive or well-tailored. No matter how you looked at her, she was a simple village girl.
But you couldn’t judge a book by its cover. She could be hiding something. Their job was to find out what that was.
The soldiers warily approached the girl.
They spoke to her with kind and gentle tones. Something along the lines of, “We don’t want to spook you, so please calm down and relax.”
“Yes. No problem.”
The soldiers escorted the girl to the checkpoint.
In order to protect against the use of ‘Charm’ spells, two more soldiers followed at a distance of several meters. The others watched her carefully, wary of any suspicious movements.
The girl tilted her head several times, as though sensing the tension in the air.
“…What’s wrong?”
“Eh? Ah, no, nothing’s wrong.”
Someone who could notice the minute changes in the air couldn’t possibly be normal. The guards brought her into the checkpoint with that in mind.
“Then, could you sit down there?”
“Yes.”
The girl sat in one of the chairs provided in the small blockhouse.
“Let’s start with your name and origin.”
“Yes. My name is Enri Emmot. I come from Carne Village, near the Great Forest of Tob.”
The soldiers exchanged looks, and one of them stepped out of the blockhouse. He was going to check the register for any matching records.
In order to manage its residents, the Kingdom kept records of them in the form of registers. That being said, the registers were crude affairs, and the relevant details of birth and death were update very slowly, if at all. At a very conservative estimate, there were tens of thousands of mistakes in them. As a result, relying too heavily on the registers would be a bad idea, but even so, they had their uses.
This register was muddled, but it had a lot of entries, so searching it would take a long time. The soldiers understood this, and decided to try and take care of something else in the meantime.
“Then, in place of the toll, could I see your permit?”
Normally speaking, everyone who used the Kingdom’s roads had to pay a toll ― something like a passage tax. However, charging residents this money would cause trade to grind to a halt, and as a result every village was issued travel permits with which they could enter the city free of charge. Of course, as there were different nobles in each region, there were different rules for each region too.
“Hmmm, let me see… here it is.”
The soldier stopped Enri from opening her bag to search it.
“Ah, we’ll do that. Could you give us your bag?”
Enri handed it over without protest. The soldiers carefully searched the insides, and found a parchment.
They unrolled it on the table so everyone could see. Although the literacy rate amongst Kingdom citizens was very low, it was a given that every soldier stationed at a checkpoint could read and write. Or rather, they were here precisely because they were literate.
“I see. Well, it looks all right. This is definitely the permit issued to Carne Village. I have confirmed this.”
The soldier rolled the parchment back up and returned it to the bag.
“Next, state the reason why you’re coming to E-Rantel.”
“Yes. Firstly, I’m here to sell the medicinal herbs that we’ve picked.”
The soldiers looked outside at the wagon, whose urns were currently being searched.
“And what are the herbs you’re selling?”
“Four urns of Nyukuri, four urns of Ajina and six urns of Enkaishi.”
“Six urns of Enkaishi, you say?”
“That’s right.”
Enri was proud of this, and it showed on her face. The soldier understood why.
After all, when manning a checkpoint, one eventually picked up a working knowledge of medicinal herbs.
Enkaishi only flowered for a very short time and could only be gathered during that time, but it was a major ingredient in healing potions. The demand was very high, and thus the price was always good. If she had six urns like she said, that meant that she would have a lot of money when she sold them off.
“Then, where do you plan to sell them?”
“I was planning to sell them at the former residence of Madam Bareare.”
“Bareare? You mean the pharmacist Lizzie Bareare?”
Although she didn’t live there any more, she had been the most important person in E-Rantel’s pharmaceutical business until recently. If she was selling the herbs at Lizzie’s place, that meant Lizzie trusted her very much.
Then, there’s no need to pry deeper, the soldiers thought.
The truth was that although their job was to stop dangerous things from entering the city, investigating these things once they entered the city was no longer their problem.
The soldier nodded with a grunt, and watched Enri’s expression.
Up till now, their conversation hadn’t been suspicious, and he didn’t feel that she was lying.
Which meant that after the cargo inspection was complete, his job would be over.
At this moment, the soldier who had just returned nodded his head.
That was to say, a girl called Enri was recorded in the register.
However, that record simply said that there was a girl called Enri born in Carne Village. Without any guarantee that the person in front of them was the real Enri, there was also no proof of the kind of life Enri had led. Perhaps during her travels, she had acquired some powerful magic, or she had died in her journey and some criminal was using her name.
Because of that, one final check was needed.
“Understood. Then, call that man here.”
The soldier nodded, and left the blockhouse.
“After this, we will be examining your body. Is that alright?”
“Eh?”
A surprised expression dawned on Enri’s face. The soldier hurried to qualify his words.
“And, there won’t be any other questions. I’m sorry, these are the rules. And we won’t do anything weird to you, so don’t worry.”