Alka nodded, satisfied. “Anyway, I reckon we’re gonna work you hard until those stiff face muscles and the inside of your head are nice and soft… Might be pretty rough for someone with as much common sense as you.” “—Very.” Merthophan bowed his head low. Alka waggled her fingers and turned toward her home. “Oh,” she said. “Clean up that house there. I’m gonna go teleport back to Azami real quick.” “……gerk.” With tears freely streaming down his face, the word teleport made his eyes roll back again, as a trail of snot dripped from his face. Alka vanished, leaving him laughing emptily as the snot dried in place. “Ha-ha…teleporting…ha-ha-ha.” If this village banded together and started an invasion, the rest of the continent wouldn’t last a month. That much was clear to him. Merthophan squinted, staring into the distance as he smiled. “—Thank god for peace,” he said. “Ha-ha-ha.” The spring breeze brought the smell of ripe wheat as it brushed across his cheeks and caused the field to ripple under the wind. His tears were already dry. Back in the general store, Marie was in her usual chair, sipping coffee, a relaxed smile on her face as morning sunlight streamed through the windows. She glanced at a clock, as if she was expecting someone—which was when Alka teleported into her closet. Pushing through the clothing hanging inside with practiced ease, Alka straightened out her pigtails and made sure her outfit was in order. “Oh, good morning, Master.” “Morning, Marie. How’s the king doing?” Alka checked herself in the mirror, then spun toward Marie with a smile as her pigtails flounced on her head. “Much better. Thanks to you… His biggest injury is in the arm Lloyd batted aside, but it’s on the mend.” Marie took an elegant sip of coffee. Alka pattered over and plopped down on a chair next to her as Marie slid a cup of coffee loaded with milk and sugar in her direction. “I reckon you’re not going back to the princess thing?” Page 186 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
“…Well, I sort of got used to living here,” Marie admitted sheepishly. “Better than getting forced into some political marriage.” “I see…and…” Alka was starting to fidget. Marie grinned and pointed to the back. “Hee-hee-hee… Lloyd should be changing into his uniform at the moment. The start of your adorable boy’s adventure. Give him a moment to get ready.” But no sooner had the words left her mouth than Alka leaped to her feet, crystal in hand, making a beeline toward the room in back. “Whoo-hoo! I can’t wait any longer!” “Wha—? Hey! He’s still changing, loli Grandma!” Alka pushed Marie away and flung open the door. “………Eek! Wh-what are you doing here, Chief? I’m changing!” Lloyd let out a very girlish shriek. His uniform was only half on. “I reckon it’s perfect timing!” Alka bellowed, spurting blood from her nose as she began using the crystal to record all sorts of compromising and illicit images without his consent. “Master!” Marie yelled. “You can’t record this! Lloyd, hurry up and get yourself decent!” “Bweh-heh-heh… You’re sure easy on the eyes! Nothing like a uniform half on! You know how long I’ve waited for this?! It was worth all the work I put into it!” Alka’s display of depravity made Marie’s head light up with an idea. Oh lord. If only she was wrong. With that dim hope in mind, she asked, “Master…is the reason you wanted Lloyd to enlist…?” “Darn tootin’! The delectable contrast between his feminine features and that manly uniform! That’s why I made him read all those military novels! … It’s perfect! It’s destroying me!” she spouted, covered in her own blood. Marie shot the grandma a look of contempt. “You’re the absolute worst,” she spat. But Alka’s dumb military fetish had inadvertently saved the kingdom, so she couldn’t be too mad. Lloyd yanked his uniform on at last. “Marie! Thank you so much! I’m finally a soldier…an officer cadet, at least!” He looked so happy that all of Marie’s gloom vanished into thin air, and Page 187 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
she smiled back. “That’s great,” she agreed. “But who got you enlisted?” The matter with Merthophan had been kept top secret. Before Marie had a chance to use her authority to argue on his behalf, he’d already received orders to join the academy. Thanks (?) to this strange event, she was able to avoid the thorny issues of keeping her promise to make Selen his roommate or the Sir-Lloyd-will-do-anything ticket, but Marie was left wondering. As these thoughts ran through her mind, the shop door slammed open, and Selen and Riho came tumbling in. “Oh, Sir Lloyd! I’ve been longing for the day when the two of us could walk to school together!” “Yo, Lloyd! Lookin’ good!” Their arrival was met with a suspicious look from Alka, whose nose was still bleeding. “Who are you…?” she asked. Selen’s look was equally wary. “Who are you…?” Riho looked dubiously at the chief but also broke out in a cold sweat. “… Uh, yo, this kid’s even more dangerous than Lloyd…” Lloyd happily introduced everyone, missing the tension in the room. “Um, this is the chief of my village, Alka. And these are my friends, Selen and Riho.” Riho looked slightly bashful to be introduced as a friend, but Selen’s frown stayed put. As did Alka’s. “Friends?” Alka growled. “For the moment,” Selen purred. Each had instantly identified the other as a rival, and their glares were equal to two boxers facing each other in the ring. “Knock it off, Selen… This little girl’s even worse than Lloyd. Seriously.” If Riho had been Selen’s cornerman, she’d have thrown all the towels on hand. Selen’s eyes went hollow. “We’ll love each other against all odds,” she intoned. Meanwhile, Alka was sneaking up behind her, plotting something nefarious. “…I reckon it’s best to deal with vermin before they cause any harm…if I use these runes, you’ll get the runs for days and your anus will sting like the Page 188 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
day after you’ve gorged yourself on spicy food. Being trapped in a toilet stall for three days and three nights will make even the love of the century fade…” Marie caught just enough of this brutal threat to snap into action. “Master! You can’t—” But even as she tried to stop the loli grandma from ruining Lloyd’s celebration… Slap! “What?!” The cursed belt around Selen’s waist reached out and smacked the back of the hand that Alka was using to write the runes. Slapped like a child trying to sneak a taste of dinner, the chief blew on her stinging hand. “Oh? Chief? Were you trying to do something? I’m afraid your evil deeds are useless in the face of the red string of fate binding Sir Lloyd to me—the bloodstained belt!” Selen looked proud. Alka gave the thing a once-over. “Th-that’s the skin of the Divine Beast, Vritra!” “Uh, Master? What’s that?” “A legendary artifact from Kunlun that protects the one who wears it from all forms of malice!” “How does she have—?” Alka rubbed her forehead, explaining. “You see, I decided to make some homemade pasta for Lloyd ages ago and used the skin as an apron. And before I knew it, I’d gotten it mixed into the dough. I was all like, ‘Since when is flour so hard?’ and used Excalibur to slice it, then I boiled it and slapped some tomato sauce on it and sautéed the whole thing, and it wound up cursed, but I didn’t wanna just throw it out, so I put some metal bits on it, called it a cursed belt, and sold it to some merchant for pennies…but how is it here?!” “It’s called karma, loli Grandma.” A new visitor stepped into the shop, another figure who was oblivious to tensions rising within. “Pardon me!” Standing there was Allan. The moment Lloyd saw him, he ran over, bowing low. Everyone else blinked at this deferential treatment. “Allan! I can’t thank you enough for this!” This unusually polite greeting left everyone looking at one another in Page 189 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
confusion. Riho darted over to Allan, demanding to know why he was getting special treatment. Let’s pretend her jealousy wasn’t at all transparent. “Yo, Allan…why are you here? Since when are you and Lloyd close?” Page 190 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
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“What else, Mercenary? I’m the one who got Lloyd enlisted.” “““Hunh?!””” Everyone gawked at him. “You see,” Allan explained, “Lloyd saved my ass during that monster attack. I ended up running around trying to help, and the higher-ups wanted to reward those efforts. And I suggested they could repay me by allowing Lloyd to join us.” “…Where’d all your talk about promotion go?” Selen asked. Allan looked sheepish. “W-well, I’m not in as big a rush anymore. And making Lloyd’s hopes and dreams come true is the least I can do. As his student.” “Student?” “Well, he hasn’t actually accepted me yet. ‘I’ve got nothing to teach anybody,’ he says.” Selen stepped forward, surrounded by a pitch-black aura. “I see…so you’re the root of evil? The one who ruined my plans to get Lloyd enlisted and force him to be my roommate as a reward? The one who swiped the rights to the Sir-Lloyd-will-do-anything ticket?” “…What the hell are you talking about?” Alka had been watching all this silently, but suddenly, her entire body started convulsing. “……Lloyd is cute enough,” she muttered. “I reckon I should’ve been on guard against this threat from the get-go…” “Um, Master?” “All righty, time to level the country! I reckon all rotten oranges must be exterminated!” “Loli Grandma! You can’t treat entire countries like rotten oranges! Stop! …Hey, people! Hold this pip-squeak down! She’s gonna destroy the country!” Allan refused to help the efforts to restrain the little girl with an exasperated expression. But his following words just made everything worse. “Now, now, witch lady. I’m not laying my hands on any little girls! Mm? Wait, I’ve seen her…” “You tellin’ me that you’re resisting the temptation of a girl…as cute as me?! This guy is the real deal!” Marie blew her fuse, all the while wondering if Allan was deliberately winding her up. Her bellow echoed through the shop. “Arghhhh! Go home, Page 192 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
loli Grandma! The rest of you, go to school!” Hearing the shouts down the street, her neighbors on the East Side all thought: “Another busy day!” “Proof that all is peaceful.” “Oh, good morning! I’m off to school!” No one realized the boy—Lloyd—spouting greetings as he passed, had protected all of them. After all, that was the stuff of fiction: Suppose an ordinary boy from the neighborhood shop was secretly the hero who’d saved the country. Page 193 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
Afterword I don’t think it’s ever too late to start something. I was in my thirties. When I was trying to decide what to start, I remembered getting praise for my writing and recalled everyone laughing at a sketch that I’d written in the past. That’s when I made up my mind to pick up my pen again. I felt like I could bring some things to the table because I started at that age. …And with that as my driving force, I wrote like a madman. Everything I’d had stored up inside me. Everything I’d thought was fun. Everything that had got to me. All the while believing that if I could get all that down, it would reach others. And the first novel was called Butt-Naked Berserker Shimamura. Let me say again: I don’t think it’s ever too late to start something. But there are, well…there are times when I realize that it’s too late to fix my mistakes. You know, as a human being. My entire existence. These results are proof. Hello and good evening. My name is Toshio Satou. I’d like to thank you for picking up Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town. First, the formalities. To my illustrator, Nao Watanuki: Thank you for all the lovely illustrations. I’ll never forget how it felt to see Lloyd for the first time. To Maizou, who agreed to be my editor: Thank you for offering guidance when I was just trying to do something but didn’t know right from left. My head will be forever bowed to everyone in the GA Bunko editorial Page 194 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
department, the team in sales and marketing, and the proofreaders. Thank you to my fellow 8th Award recipients for the encouragement that you’ve offered via messages on Line. And to my parents: You were the first I told the good news about the award, and I’ll never forget how you said, “Yeah, yeah, could you buy us some Buff-rin?” That really cooled my head off, for sure. Finally, I’d like to thank my readers once again. I hope we meet again in Volume 2. TOSHIO SATOU Page 195 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On. To get news about the latest manga, graphic novels, and light novels from Yen Press, along with special offers and exclusive content, sign up for the Yen Press newsletter. Sign Up Or visit us at www.yenpress.com/booklink Page 196 Goldenagato | https://mp4directs.com