I realized the importance of compulsory education on this land.
Perhaps because there’s no compulsory education in this world, most of the adventurers who come to the castle are either idiots or lunatics.
Especially when they claim to be heroes, there’s a 99.9% chance they have a mental illness.
“There’s only one enemy! Let’s defeat him quickly and chop off the Demon King’s head, who’s hiding inside the castle!”
These are the types who, upon seeing just one enemy, don’t even stop to wonder why there’s only one and just charge forward.
“If I defeat the Demon King, I’ll confess to the girl back home.”
“Wait for me, my daughter. Dad will bring back the Demon King’s head in triumph.”
Then there are the ones who pull out photos of their beloved family or partner, basically waving a flag that says, ‘Please, I have a death wish.’
“Shut up, you damned priestess of the accursed god! After I take down the Demon King, you’re next! How dare you covet my hero….”
“As a servant of the gods, I must serve the hero with both my heart and body, you beast. I’ll take care of you after the Demon King, just you wait.”
“Hey, guys… aren’t we right in front of the Demon King’s castle? And, for some reason, the gatekeeper looks really strong and incredibly angry???”
Then there are those who start quarreling amongst themselves right in front of the Demon King’s castle.
Sometimes, they even self-destruct while fighting each other.
Anyway, I feel like proper compulsory education is essential to keep the world running smoothly.
Since this world doesn’t have it, idiots like these lunatics keep showing up.
***
“Thanks for helping, Flua.”
“…Seems like you’re going through a lot.”
“My body doesn’t feel that tired, but just watching those kinds of people wears me down mentally.”
I placed the unconscious adventurers we’d merely knocked out into coffins and tossed them into the river with Flua’s help.
This way, the coffins would float downriver and eventually reach a human village or a military port where the army is stationed.
Arsep keeps telling me that if it’s too hard on me, I might as well kill them since they’ve come prepared to die anyway.
But, as expected, I still feel a bit resistant to killing.
Unlike those lunatics who attack right off the bat, I grew up with proper compulsory education…
“Flua, how about we just load the coffins with a bunch of bricks and sink them in the river?”
“…Bricks? Why?”
“If you put bricks in them, the coffins will sink to the bottom.”
But, I’m starting to reach my limit.
“Ugh, what am I saying in front of a kid…
Since adventurers have started coming more frequently lately, I’ve been using three to four coffins daily, and now I’m even spouting nonsense in front of Flua, who’s only ten years old.
And to make matters worse, I specifically made the coffins out of lightweight wood to ensure they’d float, so doing that wouldn’t make any sense.
“In that case… wouldn’t it be better to just bury them alive?”
“What?”
“Those men… dug a three-meter hole and buried them with their heads down. That way, they can’t get out… since there’s magic that lets them breathe underwater…”
I decided that from now on, I shouldn’t talk about this kind of stuff in front of Flua.
“Flua.”
“…Yes?”
“Don’t ever say things like that in front of our Great Demon King. He’s got a soft heart, so he might faint.”
“Okay…”
I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that.
Honestly, that gave me chills.
***
“Open the gate and face my blade, Demon King!”
And just after tossing all the coffins into the river, another adventurer showed up at the castle gates.
No matter how many I chase off, they just keep coming back.
Don’t the adventurers who make it back alive tell everyone this isn’t the Demon King’s castle?
I don’t spare them just because I don’t want to kill them—it’s also to let them know that this castle isn’t actually the Demon King’s.
“Flua, have you ever heard of skipping stones?”
“…Skipping stones?”
“Yeah, you find a flat stone and throw it over the water so it bounces…
I picked up a flat stone, put a spin on it, and threw it.
The spinning stone stirred up a powerful gust, pushing the river’s water back and splitting it.
As the river parted, a storm blew toward the castle gate, and the adventurer standing there was swept away somewhere far, far away.
“Is this… skipping stones?”
“Yup, that’s skipping stones.”
“Skipping stones… are amazing.”
“When you grow up, you’ll be able to do it too.”
With that, I took Flua’s hand and headed back to the castle.
Instead of dealing with them constantly, maybe it would be better to dig traps that would discourage anyone from even thinking about approaching.
If I dug a 100-meter-deep pit, it’d make approaching the castle an impossible thought.
“Well, at least thanks to the adventurers who keep coming here, my stone-throwing skills have improved.”
After chasing off yet another batch of adventurers, I sat down with a map I’d bought from the city of Berard to study the terrain of the Demon Realm.
Until now, it’s felt like playing an open-world game without a minimap, so I’ve just been guessing where things are; at the very least, I need to memorize the geography.
This world is vast.
It might even be bigger than Earth.
The only similarity to Earth is that there are regions in the far north and south with extremely low temperatures, but even the shapes of the continents are fundamentally different.
Long before Arsep went to sleep, and even before that, all the continents were originally connected as one but were split into three by an ancient hero.
“Among them, the Demon Realm is larger than the other continents.”
“If you combine the Fairy Realm and the Human Realm, they’d be about the same size as the Demon Realm.”
“Why is the Demon Realm so big on its own?”
“Despite its size, the usable land area is actually smaller than that of the Human and Fairy Realms. You’ve seen it yourself.”
As Arsep said, aside from the regions inhabited by people, most of the Demon Realm is close to wasteland.
It’s supposedly related to the reddish sky, and just as there are plants adapted to the Demon Realm, the unique environment of the Demon Realm seems to be the reason much of the land is barren.
”I guess that means plants don’t grow well in these lands.”
“First, this is where we are located. My castle is here.”
“It’s really on the outskirts. And it’s close to the Human Realm, too.”
“…Thanks to that, human lunatic adventurers keep visiting. The land itself here is relatively good, though.”
A tear rolled down Arsep’s cheek.
No, it would be more accurate to say it was a tear of regret for her poor real estate choice.
“And here is where the human village is located. If you travel about three more hours from here, you’ll reach the dock where humans enter and leave the Demon Realm. Adventurers use it to reach the Demon Realm, too.”
The dock was the closest point between the Demon Realm and the Human Realm.
There was also a region with various islands in the sea, not just open waters, and it took a minimum of two to three weeks to travel between continents by ship.
Even though it took quite a long time, it made sense considering the scale of the journey…
“Should I go destroy it? If I pull up a mountain and toss it there, no ships will be able to sail anymore.”
“They can travel by magic anyway, so it’s pointless. It would only increase human interest.”
As Arsep said, with the convenient yet absurd method of magic, ships weren’t a necessary route.
“Then perhaps destroying the Human Realm is the only option.”
“…Are you sure you’re not the Demon King?”
“Why would I do such a tedious and time-consuming task? It doesn’t even sound fun.”
Even looking at Arsep, it’s clear enough.
She’s not even the Demon King, yet humans keep coming tirelessly, like today.
I wonder what it would be like for the real Demon King.
In the past, I couldn’t understand why the Demon King would wait until weak heroes grew stronger and then lose.
But now, I get it.
I’ve lost count of how many self-proclaimed heroes I’ve met since becoming the gatekeeper.
There are simply too many of them to handle one by one.
“…Wait, could it be that the reason the Demon King started a war was to destroy the Human Realm?”
If that’s the case, maybe I should help the Demon King instead.
Perhaps the real Demon King grew tired of these idiotic adventurers constantly showing up, saying they’d slay him, so he started the war to wipe them out once and for all.
That’s pretty much how I feel right now.
“Should I just join the Demon King’s army and end the war quickly? Then adventurers wouldn’t keep coming to the castle.”
***
“You are my gatekeeper. Why would you want to help such a counterfeit…?”
Arsep sighed, speaking wearily.
“It was a joke, a joke.”
But honestly, as more adventurers keep showing up, my disdain for humans keeps increasing.
A few years from now, who knows if the joke will turn into reality.
“Truly, it’s a relief you’re human. If you were a demon or some other race, I can’t imagine what you’d be up to.”
“Maybe I’d be quietly baking bread in some peaceful, secluded place.”
“Well, the bread you make is delicious, that’s for sure…”
Sometimes, it’s hard to resist a snack after a meal.
Since I’d had lunch not too long ago, I went to the kitchen and got an ice cream sandwich I’d chilled in the icebox.
I’d baked homemade bread, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and filled it generously with homemade ice cream.
Arsep, who had been speaking wearily, was now smiling brightly, enjoying her snack with ice cream smudged around her mouth.
“Anyway! This is the area where humans are active in the Demon Realm. Since my castle is on the boundary, humans occasionally find their way here.”
“It does seem that way. I thought this place was marked as the Demon King’s castle or something.”
“It’s probably not. The ignorant ones just see a big, impressive castle in the Demon Realm and assume it’s the Demon King’s.”
There was a human village nearby, and no demonic creatures roamed around Arsep’s castle, making it quite accessible.
Additionally, to ensure the safety of her and Flua, I had eliminated all the monsters in the vicinity, which made it even easier for adventurers to reach the castle.
“Isn’t there a monster habitat nearby?”
“Why are you looking for a monster habitat?”
“I was thinking of catching some and releasing them around here. Releasing about fifty wyverns like the ones we saw last time would be fine.”
“…Stop it.”
“Too bad.”
Well, it would be strange if I went to all the trouble of dealing with monsters just to release them again.
“And this is the Demon King’s castle. This symbol represents the Demon King’s castle, so even if you can’t read it, it’s good to memorize it.”
“I see. How long would it take to get to the Demon King’s castle from here?”
“If you walked, it would take over a month just based on distance alone, but considering rest breaks and terrain, it could take even longer.”
The distance was several times farther than the city of Berard.
If I tried to walk, it would take quite a while.
“It does look far. I wonder how long it would take if I rode a dragon.”
“With a dragon, you’d probably reach it within a day.”
“I’ll have to ride a dragon if I ever need to visit the Demon King’s castle.”
“…If dragons were to disappear from the Demon Realm, it would probably be your fault.”
If dragons were to disappear from the Demon Realm, it would be a loss.
And if necessary, I could just go and catch one elsewhere.
After all, they’re large creatures; finding them in the open sky where there’s no place to hide wouldn’t be difficult.