Spice and Wolf - Volume 15 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Luward had rented a room for them that was very fine even by this inn’s high standards.

That meant evicting the strategist from that room, but while his eyes widened at the captain’s unusually strict command, his body seemed to react on its own regardless of what he thought.

Even though Lawrence had sought help carrying the luggage, he had not made Luward say, “It’s a matter of life and death.”

It seemed that Luward was a fine captain, undoubtedly worthy of bearing the name of Myuri.

All Lawrence could do was to say that to Holo to try and comfort her.

“Leave me be for a while.”

Holo spoke curtly as she sniffed a tear away. In their travels thus far, such words had always triggered further strife that unnerved Lawrence even more. However, this time he was not unnerved whatsoever.

After all, she had been clinging to him and sobbing just moments earlier. She had relied on him in her moment of pain, and so long as the wave had passed, she need not stay at his side more than necessary. Holo could think and act on her own, after all; if she was putting her memories in order, all the better.

Lawrence wiped away moisture from the corner of Holo’s eye with his thumb, and rather than giving her words of consolation, he told her where the water pitcher was.

“Don’t go drinking wine now.”

After all, if she split off and drank wine tonight, the results would be anything but joyful.

Holo’s face, red from tears, formed into an awkward smile as she said, “Fool.”

“I’ll let you know if I’m leaving the inn.”

Remembering things in Lenos, he hesitated a fair bit before giving Holo’s body a light hug and standing up. Until Lawrence left the room, Holo stayed sitting right at the corner of the bed, watching him.

When Lawrence closed the door, he sighed, but not because he was concerned about Holo.

While the sad, smug message Myuri had left behind had come to its final conclusion, the tale of those living in the here and now still very much continued.

“Have a minute?”

Luward, at a stair landing a short distance from the room, pulled his back off the wall as he spoke.

When Lawrence nodded, he added, “Let’s use my room,” and went downstairs.

“As you like.”

Though leader of a mercenary company where people killed and were killed, buying and selling prisoners in turn, he held the door open for Lawrence. Such odd jobs were properly the job of the youngster who was waiting at the side of the room. That is why the youngster was surprised twice over, once for his job being stolen and once that the captain was doing the job himself.

“It’s all right, there’s no need to be nervous.”

Luward whispered something to the youngster before heading into the room.

And when he was passing by Lawrence, he showed Lawrence the palm of his hand.

“I’m still shaking, too.”

Those at the vanguard of battle surely could do absolutely nothing to avoid others seeing their hands shake. To go out of his way to show this to Lawrence meant he was showing as much respect as he possibly could.

To put it properly, respect toward Holo and to Lawrence, who had brought Holo.

“I haven’t gotten your name yet.”

Luward encouraged Lawrence to sit in a chair, seating himself as he spoke.

“Lawrence. Kraft Lawrence.”

“Kraft Lawrence. A fine name. From the Polan region?”

From his shrewd speaking style, one would think he was much older than he looked. Lowering one’s guard around such a man seemed very dangerous indeed.

“No, Rowen.”

Luward nodded at that. Unsurprisingly, as a mercenary who had been to many battlefields, he knew the names of regions better than most traveling merchants.

“A Rowan merchant you say…so, you’re in violation of orders by being in this city, are you not?”

So he knew the name of the Rowen Trade Guild. Moreover, he knew what kind of place the town of Lesko was in relation to the guild. The display of an unusual level of knowledge about the Rowen Trade Guild was both pleasing and frightening.

“That’s right, so I’m no one at all here.”

Lawrence noticed that Luward made a small sigh of relief when he spoke those words. As he tried to grasp its meaning, there was a knock on the door; the youngster from earlier entered. His hands carried a tray with wine jugs and rustic earthenware cups on it.

“Well, let’s have a toast. If you’re afraid of poison, I can drink both cups myself.”

It was not a funny joke, but Lawrence laughed appropriately all the same, for when he approached to pick up his cup, he could tell that Luward was nervous.

Luward laughed as well, as if to hide a bit of embarrassment.

“To chance meetings and checkered fates.”

As he spoke, Luward raised his cup to his lips.

Lawrence similarly brought his cup to his own lips and realized the wine was exceptional.

When he gazed down at his cup, at a loss for words, Luward looked like a satisfied host.

“I wish my father and grandfather could have been here, though.”

After looking at the table for a while, seemingly searching for the words, Luward raised his face and these were the words he spoke.

“Even now I can’t believe it. Far likelier you’re some swindler playing an elaborate trick on me.”

There was a smile on his face, but he was genuinely bewildered.

Lawrence thought to move the conversation forward somewhat more gently.

“I expected you might think as much.”

Luward nodded at his frank reply. And after making an even larger nod, he cleared his throat.

“When one battles from morning till night, sometimes one treads on the boundary between this world and the next.”

Lawrence did not think this some idle tale. Even Lawrence, an unbeliever, had seen the faces of long-dead fellow traders beside his wagon when rain fell on moonless nights.

“Whether by God or Death, many times something tells us when Doom lies just ahead. I’m aware such stories are especially numerous in our group. But many think that rather than God extending his hand to us, it is something…else. In other words…”

He sighed, wavering as to whether to say it or not as he gazed at the table.

Taking a deep breath, he seemed to decide that he should say it after all.

“In other words, that it has something to do with our banner.”

Sewn onto the crimson banner on the wall was a wolf, howling toward the sky.

Many mercenary companies used animals as emblems. The wolf was popular, representing both power and knowledge.

Having been saved from a number of desperate situations by what he could only think was some force beyond human agency was surely why he did not recoil at the sight of Holo’s wolf ears.

“I think it must be so. Or could it possibly be her doing…?”

“Holo, you mean?”

Luward stiffened a bit at Lawrence’s reply.

“…Is it really all right to just call her that?”

From the way Luward glanced up at the ceiling, he did not seem to be joking.

“Being called a god and worshipped as such doesn’t really agree with her.”

As Lawrence spoke, Luward raised an eyebrow, looking somewhat conflicted, and made a slow sigh. He chuckled a tooth-baring chuckle; then, he put his hand to his forehead and shook his head. “Maybe I have some of that blood running through me. I still hate being called captain.”

Though certain it was meant as a mild joke, Lawrence’s face stiffened a little at the talk of blood.

“Yeah, some of the men believe our ancestors were wolves, but my father and grandfather firmly denied it, to the point of anger even.”

“Anger?”

“Yeah. Apparently our ancestor who founded the group met a certain wolf, and as they aided each other, they created a group. The wolf’s name—was Myuri.”

So that was indeed it.

Lawrence nodded as Luward continued to speak.

“But one side was aided much more than the other, it seems. Thus we came to pay a great deal of reverence toward wolves. That’s why…yes. Our blankets must always be of the pelts of the fox or the deer, even though it adds to our expenses.”

Luward made a seemingly deliberate shrug of his shoulders, only grudgingly accepting what was beyond his power to control in managing the company.

So the story was true. Lawrence had thought it might be something like that the first time he had heard of it.

“But it was easy to believe it was a made-up story to build a company around, like plenty of other legends.”

Luward spoke while flicking the edge of his cup, slowly tilting it around.

“I’ve heard that as a matter of fact, people living a life of battle never knowing when it’ll end rely on those stories to get them through the day more than anything else. I thought it was something like that, too.”

The Rowen Trade Guild, which Lawrence belonged to, had its own founding myths, something providing a firm foundation everyone could stand on no matter from which people they hailed from or where, no matter what town or village they were born in.

“And to think…it’s true.”

Luward took in a deep breath and exhaled.

With an exhausted-looking smile, he raised his downcast gaze and looked at Lawrence.

“There are many tales passed down to me from generation to generation. Prominent even among them is that of Wisewolf Holo. That should we ever encounter her, we must convey the message engraved upon the claw.”

Lawrence looked up at the ceiling a bit, lost in thought.

There had not been any special meaning to it, but it was necessary to lay the groundwork.

“She’d been in a village far from here for centuries. But she forgot the way home and was unable to return. So I am seeing her there.”

“Seeing her there?” Luward’s manner of asking seemed to hold some deeper meaning.

He wondered what this was all about, but he noticed the strained smile mixed with Luward’s words.

He had, after all, seen when Holo clung to him as she cried her eyes out.

“I am guiding her there.”

Luward cheerfully bared his teeth as Lawrence rephrased. “This is what makes the world interesting. You don’t know what’s going to happen or who you’re going to meet. But that’s why there’s always something to worry about.”

He turned his sharp eyes upon Lawrence. His gaze was animated with greater amity than before, while brimming with resolute will that would not yield come what may.

Turning rapidly, the focus of Luward’s thinking shifted from fantastic tales to blunt realities and what could be done about them. The words made Lawrence’s body grow tense.

“Let me ask you frankly. Did you come here to destroy the Debau Company?”

Lawrence had thought about the possibility when he had first heard of the existence of the Myuri Mercenary Company and again when he and Holo had arrived at the town of Lesko.

As Lawrence had thought such questions would not be long in coming, he had come prepared with several answers. Depending upon his opponent’s attitude, he had intended to say, with a strong spirit, that if not destroy, they meant to give it a hard time.

However, here before Luward’s eyes, thoughts of such mischief were driven deep into his chest.

For it was plain on Luward’s face that there was something that he feared.

“No. Nor do I think it is possible.”

Luward, veteran of many fields of battle, nodded without a sound.

Thinking his words insufficient, Lawrence sipped from his cup and added to them.

“But we are certainly concerned about Yoitsu.”

Silence continued for several moments longer. The leader of the mercenary company finally nodded.

“I see.”

As he replied curtly, he took a breath deep enough that his shoulders rose.

That he stayed like that for a time might have been to clear away the tension that had built up in his throat.

“…Mm, I see…” He sighed as he spoke, awkwardly running a hand through his short-cropped, spiky hair, seemingly without realizing it.

It was like the worn-out feeling one had when a job was wrapped up.

Luward had truly been concerned about what Lawrence and Holo would say.

“If all it took was saying something like ‘Lend us your strength to destroy the Debau Company,’ our journey might have gone a little more smoothly,” said Lawrence.

They hid Holo’s true nature out of fear for the Church, sometimes dealing with ancient beings that had already melted into life in the towns, sometimes clashing with the realities of those earnestly seeking to survive in the present age.

To bare one’s fangs, advancing on whatever path one wished, showing no mercy to whoever interferes—such a belligerent advance was a journey with no future.

“If I can say one thing for the honor of my men…” Luward brushed his short-cropped hair back a bit as he spoke. “For the sake of our company banner, we face even the most desperate battles with all our might. No one runs away, not until the last drop of blood of the battle is shed.”

He gave those words the resounding crescendo treatment because that was what people needed to hear. People such as the strategist and youngster who might well be eavesdropping on them from the next room over.

“But that is why orders are such a frightening thing.”

Luward fixed his eyes upon Lawrence as he spoke.

In that time and place, there was of course only one possible meaning.

“So if Holo and I asked for it, the Myuri Mercenary Company would risk their lives fighting for us…”

“That is correct.”

Truth and facade, pride and vanity.

This was the first time that Lawrence thought of the man called Luward as a trading partner.

“I’m sure Holo has thought along the same lines as well. However, we’ve learned on the course of our journey that there are many things in this world we cannot do—meeting friends from the distant past, for instance.”

He dared not change it into the form of a question.

Even so, Luward seemed to understand what Lawrence’s words were getting at and took in a fairly deep breath.

That breath did not turn into words. He shook his head side to side, saying nothing.

Luward did not know where Myuri was. Nor, from his face, did he know whether Myuri was even alive.

“…However, there is something else that I would like to ask here, in Holo’s place.”

“If Yoitsu is safe?”

When he had first met Holo, no matter which travelers’ inn he asked in, the name of the place produced but vague memories, making him wonder if it truly existed in this world. Even now, with someone completely unrelated giving an instant answer with a serious face, he wondered.

It felt strange for dream to turn into reality like this.

Lawrence did not get here simply by having his wagon pulled by a horse. He had overcome many obstacles so that he could reach this point, holding hands together with Holo.

Life made such things possible.

“As a matter of fact, it is safe.” Luward raised his face as he spoke. “As a matter of fact, it is safe.”

Perhaps he thought Holo’s ears would hear.

“It is said even murmurs at a great distance do not escape Holo the Wisewolf.”

“Barring the worst of circumstances, I think that’s largely correct.”

Luward’s laugh made him look younger than his proper age. The way he raised his voice without smiling gave him the aura of a beast.

“But that means you haven’t gone to Yoitsu yet?”

“That’s right. We obtained a map, but…we decided that before going there, we should meet the Myuri Mercenary Company first.”

“Mm, I see. People come first. On that point, I’m sorry I only bear the name of Myuri.”

As Lawrence said in a fluster, “That’s all right,” Luward made a wry smile. “I jest.

“Yoitsu’s safe. Right now it’s one part of a region called Tolkien. Even within that area, people don’t really go in or out; it’s a closed forest.”

He wondered if Holo really was listening in the room overhead.

If she was, she was surely curled up in a ball like a cat, scratching the bedding with her claws.

“But in the time before we arrived here, we heard plenty of ill rumors about the Debau Company, enough to make us think of hiring someone of your lofty caliber to deploy.”

The mercenary company captain first interjected that “Just Leward is fine,” in a quiet voice, before continuing. “The Debau Company is trying to conquer the whole of the northlands. The Debau Company is trying to tear up all the northlands for precious metals. The Debau Company is…like that, you mean.”

“Indeed.”

Luward nodded, making a small sigh.

“But when you actually arrived in town, there wasn’t a single trace of war. The town’s full of activity, the merchants are diligently making money, and so forth.”

As he gazed out of the shutters as he spoke, Lawrence once again replied, “Indeed.”

“There’s probably few who’ve come to this town who thought otherwise.”

Lawrence was the exception, but did not interrupt.

“There’s talk of war. There’s talk of dangerous dealings. That place is finally gonna get it, and so forth.

“Anyway, dangerous talk like this has been spreading among dangerous people—like us—since, oh, autumn of last year. A while after that, people who believed and people who didn’t started gathering here in twos and threes. Once the Great Northern Campaign was canceled, people who didn’t find other work and had nowhere else to go came here…and got caught up in a strange situation.”

The mercenary, who surely had to be doggedly realistic, used the word strange.

That fact truly was strange.

“The Debau Company offered us lodging. Food, too.”

“Wha—?”

Lawrence looked all around. When he finally returned his gaze to Luward, the man nodded firmly.

“It’s the same for pretty much all the other mercenary companies. It got us excited. If they’re being this generous, the war’s for real, we all said.”

Merchants absolutely did not do futile things. If they paid money, there was some scheme afoot. To say nothing of giving peacetime-hating mercenaries a warm welcome; even a child could predict a fierce conflict.

“Anyway, this situation’s continued for us for two weeks now; for the group that’s been here the longest, two months. Can you believe it? They say the Debau Company’s currently paying out twenty lumione gold pieces per day to maintain us here. And yet—” Luward cut off his words and walked to the shelf. Then, he pulled out one of the bundles of parchment and tossed it atop the table.

Lawrence did not grasp the contents, but based on the structure, these looked like contract forms.

“These are documents for swearing oaths to the Debau Company. ‘Under your patronage, we shall be thy sword and thy shield…,’ and so forth. Normally, we exchange these documents for gold, hire some men with it, fill our bellies with meat and wine, get drunk, and sally forth to the battlefield. But the Debau Company wouldn’t accept these.”

“Wouldn’t accept?”

Lawrence could not understand it, either. Expediency was prized in war. If one dillydallied in making preparations, their opponent was preparing, while their expenses were climbing and their men’s morale was dropping. All the more so if one was providing food and lodging to every lout who showed up; surely as the numbers climbed, it was imperative to take command and begin proper military operations.

Luward sighed and gazed out the window once more. He seemed sad that there was not a battlefield right outside.

“The talk is, they don’t know how powerful nobles are going to move. That the Debau Company is closely watching which way they’ll go and won’t move until it’s sure. Well, that I can understand. In this land, if you don’t know who’s working with whom and where, you’ll make a critical mistake, and that means dying on some lonely, narrow snow-covered path.

“There’s talk among the nobles that they’re dragging the decision out while feeding the soldiers to garrison the town with more troops than they can possibly support. That’s possible, too, and in fact, we are eating for free. The Debau Company isn’t deciding where to invade, isn’t positioning military forces, and all we have to worry about day to day is deciding what to pick from the menu.”

It was a long speech, surely because Luward himself was annoyed at the situation. Lawrence had the feeling he was much more at home stretched and exhausted fighting around the world than spending his days in idleness.

“So, Yoitsu is safe. Though ‘for now’ is all I can really say.”

“I see your point…”

“However…” Luward narrowed his eyes as he paused mid-sentence.

It felt like he was pondering whether it was better to say this or not, finally deciding it was best to say it.

Clearing his throat, restraining his voice, he continued.

“The Debau Company is unusually clever. Right now, to a greater or lesser extent, the people assembled in Lesko have connections to the northlands. Among them are those, like you, who think of the northlands as most precious. We are no exception to that.”

As he spoke, Luward walked toward a map stretched across a wall.

That map of the northlands looked like an enlarged version of the one they had received from Fran. That probably meant the map they asked Fran for was accurate and, moreover, that the larger map was more detailed.

Luward put his finger on one spot on the map. There was Tolkien. Its old name, Yoitsu.

“We’re thinking of taking position here. However, we’re not foolish enough to subjugate our own homeland, especially now that we know Holo the Wisewolf truly exists.”

He said it in jest, but it was difficult to claim he was completely joking.

Just from what little Luward knew of Holo from legend, Holo was absolutely not one who should be angered. He had to eliminate even the possibility of a misunderstanding.

“…To defend it, then?”

Luward nodded. So he had been minded to do battle with the Debau Company. Lawrence had thought of it as well, but a mercenary company’s leader had to live even more realistically than a merchant.

“In a sense. That’s to say, there are a number of paths in Tolkien used by hunters and hermits that stretch into the Sverner region to the northeast. If there is war, the Sverner outskirts are geographically and politically significant, so it’ll definitely get mixed up in the fighting. If the people there run, part of them will follow those paths straight to Tolkien. We intend to put a stop to that.”

“…And therefore, the slave-trading Delink Company.”

As Lawrence muttered to himself, Luward nodded.

“Yes. Every village there is barely scraping by. There’ll be wounded soldiers, of course, but most following those paths will be fleeing civilians. The moment they arrive, those villages are finished. We were to capture them as slaves, protect the villages, and make money off it, too. The Delink Company’s legendary for good clientele, so add prisoners for ransom and we’d be fat on a bit of treasure and refinements by the time we got home.”

Lawrence did not know if it would go exactly as described, but he felt that Luward’s way of thinking was indeed much like a merchant’s.

“The Debau Company’s been extremely proactive in heading us off from that kind of plan.”

“Meaning?”

“It seems they’re assigning jobs, taking into account people not wanting to tear up their homelands.”

“But it’s not possible for them to put everyone in defensive roles like that?”

As Lawrence asked his question, Luward pursed his lips and looked at Lawrence for a while. He resembled a master watching a prized apprentice make a simple mistake.

“For better or worse, the Debau Company is a mine operator. And not everyone thinks mine development is a calamity.”

“Ah.”

“Exactly. Shaving off mountains, cutting down the forests, making money digging up copper and silver—in the towns, there are a lot of people who think it’s great and are all for it. Of course everyone has someplace precious to them, but the rest of the world may burn. The Debau Company slips through those cracks. Take any group of people, and a bunch of them are from cold villages with good ore deposits in their homeland and want development. The Debau Company cooperates with those afraid of it. Of course, it cooperates with those who welcome it with open arms. This way it minimizes the hatred of people in the land, making taking control of the northlands go well. It’s possible that detaining so many mercenaries and knights here with food and lodging is to make that feat work all the better.”

In the first place, the motive for employing mercenaries, supplementing one’s military forces aside, was primarily so that they would bear all the hatred of the people in the lands being invaded.

That being the case, one should act in line with aspirations of the land from the beginning. By assembling a wide enough variety of impoverished mercenaries from a variety of lands, bearing the burdens of their lances day by day, one could position himself to respond to the hopes of any land in sight.

That is what Lawrence thought, but Luward’s face showed considerable skepticism once again.

“In the end it’s all rumor. People think of all kinds of things when they have time on their hands.”

He brought his hands together in a light clap, as if to rub them against each other, showing his palms as if to say, “All right, that’s enough.”

When Lawrence thought calmly about it, what Luward had presented while explaining this and that were largely his personal opinions.

However, no doubt this was less trying to impose his views on Lawrence and closer to talking about everything he could think out. That was probably out of fear of Holo. Lawrence felt like a fox leaning on the might of the wolf, but Luward being cooperative was by no means a bad thing.

Lawrence rose from his seat and extended a handshake as he spoke his thanks.

“I’m sure Holo is thankful as well.”

Luward gripped Lawrence’s hand in return while replying, “Too bad I can’t solve all your problems, though.” Surely that could only have been the case if God had placed everyone in the world purely for Lawrence and Holo’s benefit.

But Lawrence knew too much of the world to think that way.

“Life is too long for every problem to have a simple solution.”

“Ha-ha. How true.”

As Luward spoke, he poured more wine into Lawrence’s cup.

“Well, that’s how it is. I’m still happy I fulfilled the promise in my father and grandfather’s places. Not for that reason, but by all means, I wish to ease the strains of your travels. By the way, the Debau Company’s paying for this, too.”

Lawrence drank the fine wine poured into his cup without restraint.

The next day, Holo’s mind seemed to be elsewhere from the moment she awoke.

Perhaps because she had slept from crying and exhaustion the day before without waiting for the sun to set, she had woken during the night and could not have slept much since.

Luward, who did not live the carefree life of a guest as much as he claimed, said that there was an occasion that night he could not miss, so instead of inviting Lawrence and Holo to dinner, he had an extravagant meal brought up to their room. Wheat bread. Chicken roasted with spice. Thick soup with quail. Grilled venison with beef stew. Carp served with vegetables. And after the main course, pudding and raisins, with dried raspberries. The drinks ran the gamut from beer to wine to distilled liquor. He did not think the Debau Company was paying for all this; Luward must have paid for it himself to show his respect toward Holo.

However, Holo only ate half as much as she usually did.

He thought that she might wake from a nap, drawn to delicious, high-end cuisine even if it was cold, and she would be back to her old self, but it was not to be. She did wait for Lawrence to rise, greeting him briefly, but nothing went beyond eating some bread and lightly moistening her lips with wine.

Aghast at the thought of returning a plate with such an abundance of food on it, Lawrence filled his belly with as much as it could take. He took what food could be preserved and stuffed it with the rest of the luggage. Even so, when a youngster came to take the plate down, there was enough left to quietly hand the youngster some as well.

But the good thing was, even if she was forcing it, Holo smiled at Lawrence several times.

And even though Holo still looked fragile enough she might crack and crumble to pieces, if she would only gently draw near and close, Lawrence would have been perfectly happy with nothing more.

The blunt truth was, Lawrence did not know what words to use to console her. Whatever he might say to her, he could not permit his own irresponsible words to cause Holo further pain.

Lawrence realized he had not yet lost someone truly precious to him. If someone were to offer appropriate words to him after losing someone precious, in Lawrence’s case, that would no doubt be after losing Holo.

But if he did lose Holo, he wondered if he would even want anyone by his side to console him. Try as he might, he could not imagine it. Right now Holo was the most precious person to him and surely would always be; he could say that with pride now.

As Holo leaned her face against Lawrence’s shoulder, gazing out through the open shutter at the blue sky, he took her hand, giving her curved nails a gentle stroke. The nails were smooth as silk, with her slender fingers colder than usual, probably because of the winter air coming in through the open shutter.

Even so, he did not feel the cold, partly thanks to both of them snuggling under a wool blanket together; mostly because while he was stroking her nails, Holo was tickling his cheek with the pointy tips of her ears.

If one must travel together, it was best to have a partner who could rely on him as much as he relied on her.

But after a while Holo pulled her hand back and rested her face against his arm.

A moment after Lawrence realized this was to hold back tears suddenly welling up again, Lawrence strongly grasped Holo’s hand, largely by reflex.

“Let’s go outside.”

Holo’s nose crinkled, tears still pouring from her eyes.

It would have been nice to stay in the room like this, taking advantage of Luward’s goodwill until Holo’s wounds were healed. However, Lawrence was a money-making merchant and had to act like one. Lawrence knew he had to go outside, even if Holo was against it.

More than anything, no matter how sad or trying things were, to quietly stay here waiting for wounds to heal would be nothing short of going back to the wheat fields of Pasloe.

He was beside her now.

He thought that if he did not bring her outside with him, having held her hand until now would have been meaningless.

“But it might be cold out there, so bundle up.”

Though having said that, there was no need for rough medicine.

They would go out bundled up, and if it was too hot, they would just take the extra layers off.

Even now, as Holo vaguely glanced up at Lawrence, her face still looked ready to cry, but in the end she quietly nodded.

Lawrence deliberately smiled with a “Good!” and made preparations. Though he had done so on occasions when Holo was quite drunk, he made a special effort to treat her like a princess this time. He wrapped her waistcloth, put on her shoes, got her cape on, put her robe up all the way over her head so that it hid her hair and her ears, and wrapped a fox shawl around her neck.

She seemed gloomy when he started, but midway she was simply letting him proceed.

Of course, when she rose from the bed, he was guiding her by the hand.

Holo seemed a bit exasperated, but if it served as a trigger to lighten her mood even a little, all the better.

Even if it was an irritated smile, a smiling face was a smiling face.

And he had confidence in his ability to get under her skin.

As she scratched and slapped herself into wakefulness several times over, Lawrence took Holo’s slender hand and led her out of the room.

Perhaps because her eyes were tired from crying, or perhaps because she indeed had not slept much the night before, Holo squinted and turned her face away from the light when they went outside the inn. Though on cold days, travelers setting out found clear skies welcoming while they lasted, Holo seemed to resent it.

Lawrence immediately moved to ask, “Do you want something to eat?” but as he had seen for himself, food and wine had not improved Holo’s mood, and the words stuck in his throat.

And if she wanted to eat something while walking around town, she would no doubt say so.

At any rate, Lawrence pulled Holo’s hand and threw himself into the lively flow of people.

Thinking the mercenaries were surely occupying the tavern on the first floor, Lawrence asked the youngster to lead them to the back door. Even the back door had a street purely for moving around cargo. Though less congested than the main streets, there were still wagons and people constantly passing back and forth. Many traveled in carriages; there was no pause in the flow of pedestrians.

He wondered if ingredients for the meals that mercenary bosses like Luward were procuring were among the cargo: chicken, pig, domesticated duck, and vegetables so vibrant in color for the season. When he peeked into the baggage of one stopped wagon, there was apparently a honeycomb packed with honey in a large square box. It went without saying that the northlands, with such an abundance of trees, had appropriately large beehives, but he cracked the lid open to peek anyway.

In the forest, it was bears and wild dogs that ravaged beehives. It seemed something Holo might go for, but she made no show of interest whatsoever.

He thought not meeting her pack mate from her homeland, Myuri, was indeed something that could not be wiped away by simply bringing her outside. It would have been better if that message had been more positive, but it was not.

The wolf had lost his claw, split it in half, and wrote a sardonic message on it. However you thought about it, Myuri was in this world no longer. Lawrence felt that if he yet lived, there would surely be different words written upon the claw.

“That hurts.”

As Holo spoke, Lawrence realized for the first time how hard Lawrence’s hand was squeezing.

“…Sorry.”

As he apologized, he pulled his hand away, and though he hesitated, he put his hand back once more.

He wondered if he was overdoing it. He probably was. But if overdoing it scraped that away, that was fine. Better too much than not enough. With Holo, he absolutely did not want to say to himself later, “If only I’d done such and such.”

“Oh, there’s a square over there. Busy here in the morning.”

Lawrence spoke while looking at the right side of an intersection where their path and another, lined with stores, crossed.

Toward buildings that were stores on the first floor and inns or workshops on the second floor, he saw a conspicuously tall building that ran along the side of the square in the shape of an arch. And Lawrence’s ears could hear enjoyable sounds from musical instruments above the sounds of the crowd.

Lawrence pulled Holo’s hand, going as far as the square. He got Holo a table slightly moistened from morning dew in front of an open-air stall where preparations to open were busily under way. The shopkeeper’s face looked amazed and more than a little jealous at Lawrence having a woman with him here in the morning, but in the end he smiled as he sold his goods. He tried to pay with the Praz copper coins he had obtained from the money changer in Lenos, but a frown came over the shopkeeper’s face at the sight of them. The coin total on his lips felt higher compared to money exchange tallies.

But he had no time for haggling. The shopkeeper returned with hot milk with a good deal of honey put in and beer, placing them on Holo’s table. The sound of instruments from the square alternated stopping and starting as if the traveling musicians were practicing.

It seemed like they would need some time before they got the music quite right, but it was the same for him. Lawrence watched as Holo seemed disinterested in the steaming cup and the bubbling mug, finally choosing the milk.

Lawrence brought the cup to her mug largely one-sidedly and brought the beer to his lips. After eating that quite extravagant breakfast, slightly watered-down beer seemed like just the thing.

Lesko really did seem full of life, with many people working tirelessly. At the buildings standing around the square, there were flowers in the windows, sitting in places with a lot of sunlight as if completely forgetting it was winter.

To think the actual state of the town was so different from the stories he had heard.

If that was so, no matter what thoughts filled his head, even if they felt completely at odds with what his eyes were actually seeing, it was certainly not strange. Holo was not a girl with flights of fancy. She had surely expected she was not going to meet Myuri and had braced for the shock as well as she could.

That is why when Holo murmured to him, absentminded and barely touching the milk to her lips, Lawrence was not even slightly surprised.

“I shall not smile this moment.”

She was not looking at Lawrence.

For his part, Lawrence only glanced at Holo slightly before immediately shifting his gaze to some practicing clowns.

“I don’t mind.”

“However, I am grateful.”

Holo lightly scratched her face and neck like a little fox as she spoke.

“It’s…good to hear you say that.”

As he drank his beer, Lawrence thought that it might indeed be a little too watered down.

“I always seem to be hitting wide of the mark, after all.”

There was the incident in the alley in Lenos after all.

For a moment he felt like Holo made a very slight smile, but as she made a heavy sigh, seemingly holding back tears, her fleeting smile simply vanished.

“However…”

“Better to avoid odd subjects?”

Lawrence jumped out ahead of her.

Holo looked at Lawrence, seemingly surprised a bit, but as she slowly shifted her gaze back to the milk in her cup, she nodded a little.

“I don’t know any more than what Luward and I spoke about yesterday anyway. You heard us, didn’t you?”

Holo nodded.

“If you ask, I’m sure he’d tell you the old stories handed down through the company, down to all the little details. If you’re afraid to ask alone, I can ask with you.”

The self-proclaimed wisewolf gave Lawrence a sharp look for a moment, but she immediately cast her eyes down and, as if that was insufficient, closed them.

“I would ask this of you.”

“A rare and commendable thing, coming from you.”

As Lawrence spoke, Holo opened her eyes and glared at him. She did not smile, but Lawrence was relieved simply to see emotion clearly coming out of her eyes, enough that one could almost touch them with their finger.

“Well, I don’t mind if you have stories to share, either.”

He referred not to Myuri’s “later,” but rather about Holo when she had actually been in Yoitsu.

But Holo sipped on her milk rather than replying.

If she did not want to talk about it, that was fine, of course.

As Lawrence thought about it, Holo spoke after a while.

“Your jealousy is inconvenient.”

Holo must have been trying her hardest to joke at the moment.

Lawrence shrugged his shoulders and replied, “There’s an important saying about trade. If both traders want to think they made a good bargain, better to not know how much money the other made.”

It was a saying oft repeated by merchants over wine.

“Rubbish,” Holo scoffed, looking at the musicians. But even if it was just a little at the edge of her face, she seemed amused.

“How about we go see the artisan district? Or…better to listen to the singing here?”

He said it to try and draw Holo’s emotions out as with a rod and hook.

Holo herself surely understood Lawrence was desperately trying to cheer her up.

Though she seemed rather irritated, her tongue emerged from her lips just a little.

“I suppose I’d like to take a look around, to be honest.”

She seemed to be bad at being doted on like this. Normally she behaved so arrogantly; she actually seemed quite uncomfortable being cared for.

She was a difficult-to-please wolf, but when she did smile, he was all the happier.

“That works, too.”

“Hmph.”

Holo snorted and made a glug, glug sound as she drank her milk.

The shopkeeper, looking at Holo’s smallness, had not poured a great amount into her cup, but she made quite a display of drinking it.

And when she put the cup down on the table with a sharp sound, licking the back of her hand, Lawrence’s jaw wavered.

“Me, too?”

He was sure that had he made the excuse that his drink was beer instead, she had plotted to call him a boring male.

He sighed at how he, too, was now foolish enough to glug beer in the morning. But for Holo’s sake, he would be a fool. In the first place, she had been treating him like one since the moment they had met.

“…How about that?”

He drank it all up and put his mug down. Holo leaned her body forward a little and sniffed the mug’s odor.

“This is mostly water, ’tis it not?” she retorted.

Though not sweetly whatsoever, she rose from the table and dangled her right hand, waiting for Lawrence’s hand to hold it.

Bit by bit, Holo’s focus seemed to be shifting from memories of the past back to the present.

Lawrence gripped her hand firmly, as if keeping her from being swept away by the raging current of her memories.

This time she did not say that it hurt.

Unlike the depraved souls assembled in the square, the artisan district had long since awoken.

The sounds of metal being hammered, wood being hammered, leather being pounded, and craftsmen’s songs filled the air.

Unlike the perfectly straight streets they had been on until now, here the streets merrily curved back and forth, though these, too, were stone paved. Lawrence was led to believe this atmosphere reached every corner of the south of the town.

While the craftsmen worked inside the wide frontage buildings that lined the streets, children ran freely between them. A building with a mountain of firewood piled in front of it and a furnace inside the shop was apparently a production site for making nails.

A girl who looked younger than Holo, dressed in a flowing skirt and wooden shoes, planted her feet and cast her entire body weight downward to elongate a nail.

What made Holo stop in her tracks was a workshop where young craftsmen were earnestly pounding red metal.

The way they pounded thin metal plates, working them into round pieces, was certainly fascinating. But what made Lawrence spontaneously laugh was that this factory was manufacturing stills for making hard liquor.

“They boil the alcohol in that big cauldron on the sheet copper; then when the steam runs through the pipe they attach, they cool it, and concentrated alcohol comes out of the end of the pipe. The finished product is inside, I’m sure.”

As Lawrence pointed inside, Holo peered inside in with what appeared to be deep interest.

Though many craftsmen at work were blunt and short-tempered, they were unlikely to be sour at a pretty girl gazing into their workplace.

Pretending he did not have his eye on Holo himself, a young man who looked like the boss’s right-hand man scolded his subordinate workers.

“I suppose we’re in the Debau Company’s backyard—no surprise there’s all this metalworking.”

Besides the nail and distiller workshops, he could see shops for making chains, knives, bindings for barrels, and so forth. Furthermore, they were all fine products. Whether because of the high quality they boasted or because there were so many products lined up in front of the stores, it did not feel like some remote backwater of the north at all. Everything had polish to it.

“It might be a migrant town.”

With the Debau Company making profits from its mining business in every direction, lack of a place to put them to use would put its treasure to waste. If one is not living a good life, the only way to change that is to buy good things. If one is stocking things from long distance one by one, that takes time and that puts a person behind the latest fashions. In that case, enticing good craftsmen to gather together through the power of plentiful money was very much one way to go about it.

As things progressed step-by-step, silverware- and silverwork-making workshops appeared. Lawrence was relieved that Holo held no interest in jewelry of any kind whatsoever. If Holo had been as infatuated with jewelry as she was with food, Lawrence would have gone bankrupt long ago.

“…This place really is something, though…”

Lawrence murmured without thinking. The silverwork of Fran, from who they had asked for a map from Kerube to Yoitsu, was quite something, yet the silverware here was quite impressive as well.

Perhaps it was because of the bountiful minerals brought here from the mines. Even so, besides the silverwork masters being strict with their apprentices, there had to be a considerable amount of skill at work.

But even if they were drawn in by the power of money, would not that put them at odds with the craftsmen guilds in other towns? Or perhaps the Debau Company was not simply and stupidly relying on the power of money, but was capable of bargaining in more subtle ways.

Lawrence thought about that and other things before regaining his senses. He could not just lose himself in thoughts of trade alone like that.

Fortunately, Holo was looking over a ceremonial sword with a bird and fox engraved into its hilt, taking no notice of Lawrence. As Holo lost interest, she shook her head side to side and rose back up.

As the two of them walked around aimlessly, Lawrence’s thoughts drifted to things besides Holo once more; how even this artisan’s district was full of life, how it was such a rare thing, and so forth.

These days, all towns suffered from excess growth in the number of craftsmen. Protection of a town’s existing craftsmen usually took the form of tariffs and import quotas. However, if everyone did that, the result was an excess of production with nowhere to sell one’s goods. It was one of the issues that had given guild masters headaches across many years.

In the end, unless one limited the number of workshops, those finishing their hard periods of apprenticeship would inevitably come into conflict with their former masters. Many were dubbed journeymen craftsmen and sent away to “continue their training,” but this was really to reduce competition. There was no guarantee of any kind a journeyman could return and become a master. Besides, since the surest way to become a master was to marry a dead master’s widow, a living master had to watch his back—and his food.

Though there were places that seemed lively on the surface but were quite strained on the inside, this place seemed genuinely full of life.

He wondered if the economic conditions were good. As he walked around, reasoning that even if that was the case it had its limits, they came within sight of what looked like a building for a craftsmen’s guild.

Lawrence and Holo stopped in their tracks together. He glanced at Holo, then shifted his gaze back once more. He was somewhat unsure if he could believe his own eyes.

There was a town edict carved into slate. Literally written in stone.

It read:

“This town does not regulate craftsmen in any way whatsoever. Those of skill should open a workshop and employ whoever they wish. Lesko welcomes all craftsmen of excellence. Freedom to all people.”

Lawrence was in a daze as his eyes met those of a seamstress passing by. The woman giggled and smiled, asking, “A traveler?”

She did not look anywhere near as young as Holo was thought to be, wearing a kerchief made specially to hold sewing needles; below it, both face and body were plump, like bread that had risen.

“I did not believe it at first, either, but it’s true.”

As she spoke, she made a smile that seemed both truly happy and proud.

What she held to her chest was no doubt fabric meant to be made into clothing, but it could also have been delight and hope.

In truth, she probably held those, as well.

As Lawrence internalized the meaning of that, the woman made a light wave and walked along.

He had heard of unregulated towns, but they were few and far between. Freshly built towns that lacked the guilds to issue such regulations were among such cases.

But this was the first time he had seen it with his own eyes.

The situation in this town was quite literally one he could not have foreseen. A town with no regulations and no taxes was a paradise without peer. A few brief moments of thought listed a number of acquaintances he would love to tell about this. Of course, the young shepherdess Norah was among them. She had wanted to become a seamstress; surely that wish would be granted in a town like this. She should have been traveling on behalf of the Rowen Trade Guild, so if he sent a letter, it should arrive.

Lawrence was thinking about that when Holo suddenly sighed.

Talk concerning craftsmen was not something Holo found especially interesting; talk about Norah the shepherdess, even less so.

As bringing her with him had no meaning if she was not having fun, Lawrence hurriedly restored his smile. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling Holo’s hand.

The area ahead had seamstresses like the one before wandering all around, with a number of workshops for producing shoes and clothing.

They sang songs in quiet places where strips of leather had been cut and sewn together to counteract the loud clanging and banging of physical labor in the workshops. This was not to entertain others, as clowns and musicians did. Quite the opposite; this was to demonstrate the joy they took in their own work.

As they stepped around a corner, he saw Holo’s shoulders slowly sag.

Emotions were contagious. When everyone around you was happy, that by itself invigorated you.

But even as Holo’s face held a faint smile, she made a small sigh.

Here everyone was doing the same work, singing the same song, living in the same town. No doubt that this was exactly what Norah yearned for.

On the other hand, Holo’s “everyone” had vanished into the flow of time. Having finally found one slender thread, there was literally nothing left but a fragment.

Lawrence thought of things to say but held all of them back. For her part, Holo was checking out hoods and capes and other townswomen clothes. She even tried on new scarves and gloves. Though several of them did not seem to displease Holo, she did not say, “I want this,” even once. As normally all she did was groom her tail, perhaps she had not had much interest to begin with.

And just like that, he had exhausted all his options.

Even though he knew all manner of techniques for attracting the attention of a merchant, he knew of no method to captivate a girl except with food. In that moment he hated himself.

Furthermore, even if he could think of other places in the artisans’ district, Holo seemed to be tiring from all the walking. Of course, Holo had not complained, perhaps because she understood Lawrence had brought her along out of kindness. But that only pained Lawrence all the more.

So pushing her to come with him out of her room had indeed failed. Perhaps Holo would have been happier simply relaxing around the square. Such thoughts bounced all around inside his head. It was too late for regrets. A merchant with time for regrets was better off using that time to deal with the present situation. Out of consideration for Holo, Lawrence shifted his gaze around for anywhere they could sit.

But even though there seemed to be small taverns and restaurants nestled within the artisans’ district, he had little time to search. He had to find something before Holo’s mood worsened any further.

Just as Lawrence was beginning to get desperate, they came to the end of the artisans’ district and began down a street lined with a mix of stores and houses.

There, in the midst of typically heavy pedestrian traffic, was a wide, gaping hole in the liveliness.

Lawrence and Holo stopped where they stood, as if squeezing into a gap in the crowd of people.

There stood an unoccupied building, with no feeling of human presence whatsoever.

All the same, it was not falling apart; someone was keeping it clean and tidy. The side had a place for packing and unloading cargo, with a gap in the frontage that went inside. One of the two front doors was open; inside, he saw tables and shelving provided.

The building was four stories tall and had a fair number of rooms. It was a building built for trading; if someone brought merchandise in, the store could be opened on the spot. It was an unoccupied building, with no human presence within it; were it a residence, it would have lacked the feel of a home having been lived in by someone else.

In other words, it looked like a throne waiting for its king.

And this was not his imagination.

What, in this bewildering town, finally made Lawrence completely forget about Holo as he stood there gaping was a paper attached to the other door, the one not open.

“Available for twelve hundred trenni silver pieces. —The Vhans Company.”

In that moment, with the town seemingly glittering from the sun’s rays pouring down from the clear blue sky, the only things Lawrence saw were the words on that piece of paper. The store was for sale. Here, in an unregulated, free town full of activity.

It would have not been overstating things that not only had his feet stopped, but also his heart.

The flow of blood through his veins came to a halt.

That was why, when he came back to his senses, he had no idea how much time had passed.

The tumult flew into his ears as if the crowd had suddenly engulfed him.

And the instant he realized his left hand held nothing, his liver froze just as surely as if he had drunk ice.

“Ho…”

…lo, his lips formed to pronounce. Holo was at a stall right beside them buying grease-toasted bread with honey on top. Lawrence’s hand immediately went to his hip; his wallet was gone. He knew he had attached a cord to it as a measure against pickpockets; he had never noticed it being untied.

Holo, expressionless to the point he could not tell if she was angry or not, bit into the bread as she came back to Lawrence. She handed his wallet back to him without a word.

“Er…?”

Desperately trying to rebalance his dizzied head, he opened his mouth to say something, anything, to apologize.

As he did so, Holo thrust the grease-toasted bread in her hand into it.

“Mm! Mm?”

Holo stared straight at Lawrence, still keeping the bread thrust into his mouth.

Even the townspeople passing by on the busy street took some interest in the odd scene.

She stayed like this for a while before her hand released the bread.

Holo letting go of food was surprising in and of itself; when she turned over the hand that had held it, showing him the palm, he had no idea why.

“I shall go purchase another.”

Telling her, “Waste not, want not,” and so forth, never entered his mind at all. He handed the coins over largely by reflex; Holo turned toward the stall, his eyes following her back the entire way. The stall owner glanced at Lawrence a little and, in response to Holo’s words, made a large smile and put an extra-large helping of honey on her toast.

Holo returned as expressionless as before. She stood beside him. “In the end, ’tis for the best.”

“Huh?”

Lawrence replied, but Holo continued to face the unoccupied store for sale.

She probably meant the toast.

Out of concern for Holo, Lawrence had brought her outside and went all around the square and artisans’ district with her, but the best thing for improving Holo’s mood was surely sweet food.

As his still-befuddled head thought as much, Holo stepped on his foot.

She ground her foot into his.

In the end, while bringing her all over the place, the state of this and that in the town had distracted him, and he had neglected her. Furthermore, even though Lawrence had originally dragged Holo along to cheer her up, when he set eyes on that store, he forgot himself to the point of not even noticing his precious wallet, as dear as his life, being taken; of course, he had forgotten Holo as well.

Of course, Holo was angry. He had no way to apologize.

“You probably forgot about me where they were pounding metal as well.”

It seemed she had noticed.

Lawrence subconsciously shrank back.

“You go out into town and become such a pup. What’s this, what’s that, how about here? What’s over there?”

About as hot as the toast she held in her hand itself, the honey was melting and soaking into it. Normally Holo would not have let one, let alone two, go to waste, but she had barely touched this one.

That was how angry she was.

He offered no rebuttal.

To apologize would complete the picture of a shameless fool.

If Lawrence was a puppy being scolded, all he could do was wait for Holo’s anger to subside.

But seemingly leaving it at that, Holo stopped grinding her foot into Lawrence’s.

And after pausing for a while, she took Lawrence’s hand.

Seemingly putting up with embarrassment for once, she bounced back after some slight hesitation.

“So, in the end ’tis for the best.”

“…?” Lawrence looked down at Holo.

Holo was just biting into her toasted bread. She seemed annoyed and foul tempered. “Do you intend to make me say more?”

As she stepped on his foot once again, Lawrence turned forward.

But Holo’s hand did not let go. Her cheeks were fairly red. That was surely not because it was cold out.

Holo ate her toast down to halfway in one go before sniffling, perhaps because it was so hot.

“You really are happy as a foolish hound.” Making an exaggerated, white-misted sigh, Holo sniffled once more. She did not look at him, but Lawrence could tell that it was taking serious effort not to.

And looking upon the side of Holo’s face in silence, Lawrence saw something sweeter than honey on toast.

Chasing after the name of her pack mate from her homeland, instead of meeting him, she received a conceited message left by him instead.

That was a very sad thing; surely there were various things passing in and out of her heart that only she could understand.

Compared to that, what Lawrence could do amounted to very little.

For Lawrence to triumph over the memory of Myuri within her, all Lawrence, who lived here and now, needed to do was to hold her interest somehow and push forward.

Of course, no matter how inexpensive, he could not purchase the store immediately. He knew too little about the town; more than that, this was the Debau Company’s backyard. In truth, he thought it was a pity to see the town so lively.

But what he needed to say right now was nothing so realistic. Even a fantasy would do; he needed words full of hope.

So Lawrence came up with something to say, which was this: “Sorry, could we go back to the inn?”

Holo raised her gaze up and looked at him.

“It’s been a long time, so I want to sketch this store.”

The corner of her lips turned upward. But he was not wrong.

As Lawrence thought that, the corners of Holo’s eyes crinkled in a smile that came to her face like the rise of oil-glazed bread dough.

“You don’t want to buy it instead?”

Her having asked this, he would indeed have to speak to her of banal realities. He had never imagined Holo would actually approve of Lawrence acquiring a store in this town.

Lawrence girded himself, choosing his words carefully as he spoke.

“Buying something cheap can mean wasting your coin, after all. I need to calm myself down first.”

It was not a complete fabrication, but Holo’s ears twitched under her hood as she made a vague face.

“I must warn you, the regret of letting a purchase go is bitter wine, indeed.”

“That’s all right. You know better than anyone how I get worked up about things, yes?”

Holo’s eyes widened a bit in surprise; then her face twisted into a malicious-looking smile.

When Lawrence saw that smile on her face, he wondered if he had repeated his mistake from that back alley in Lenos.

Even so, men grew by piling one experience upon another as they lived.

Lawrence realized he still had the toast that Holo had bought him and took a bite.

It surely held the same taste as those lips.

As if somehow perceiving he was thinking of that, Holo made a sigh as she walked off, urging Lawrence along.

“You truly are a fool.”

Of course, she had not forgotten to say that.

He did not know how many times he had sketched a store. This wasn’t even the first time he had sketched in front of Holo.

However, it was the first time that they had sketched together.

That made him happy in itself, but what truly made him happy was that Holo had largely regained her own spirit.

“I do not think much sunlight shall reach here.”

Holo had been commenting on the layout of the furniture and even the size of the window.

At first, he thought she was forcing herself to be cheerful, but having seen her saying, “Oh, this one’s so much bolder,” “Oh, your sense is that of a fool”—on and on, saying whatever she pleased, Lawrence decided she might have simply liked this sort of thing from the beginning.

He suddenly wondered if wolves were animals that built their own nests.

“This is the sunniest place…aye. This is a suitable place for me to sleep.”

The second-story room that was the sunniest place was normally occupied by the company chief. Lawrence snapped back from the thought and wrinkled his nose.

Of course, this was all fantasy talk.

Even so, the arrangement and construction of the building they were sketching was from the store they had seen earlier, a building that actually existed. He had unintentionally gotten rather serious about it.

“Properly speaking, this is where the owner…”

As Lawrence complained seemingly to himself, Holo made no sign of listening as she drew more things here and there.

Indulging in one’s fantasies could be inconvenient when push came to shove.

As Lawrence thought about that, completely forgetting about cheering Holo up, Holo slipped in the knife.

“Is there no place for me in your store, I wonder?”

“Er—”

“Surely ’tis not so?” she said, an innocent smile on her face.

There was nothing Lawrence could say to that.

Suddenly he wanted to say something, even if it meant her snapping back at him.

As he tried to, Holo happily pressed down on Lawrence’s tongue with her slender finger.

“If you say anything strange, all my hard work shall go to waste.”

He wondered how much was a joke and how much was serious.

When it came to the length of time of occupying Holo’s heart, the difference between the Myuri of the past and the Lawrence of the present was great, indeed.

Holo was pushing herself.

He kept telling himself that any smiling face would turn into a truly smiling face soon enough.

Lawrence gazed back into Holo’s eyes and nodded.

And as he nodded, he ran his pen to part of the bedroom on the second floor.

“Aah—”

Holo was taken by surprise; then Lawrence spoke.

“If the company’s future is in doubt with one set of hands, isn’t two better?”

He thought it a rather corny line, but Lawrence drew a small table in the corner of the room.

Holo gave a loud, smug laugh.

They decided where to place all the furniture and what merchandise their fantasy store would carry. It seemed both real enough to touch and, at the same time, impossibly idyllic.

Holo exchanged words with Lawrence, sometimes laughing, sometimes angry.

Even so, there were many moments when after something was decided, she simply closed her mouth, silently gazing with joy.

She made a calm face as if she was truly in this ideal shop, spending her days there as the spring sun rose and fell.

Finally, her face became sleepy and she began to nod off.

Of course, he did nothing so rude as to wake her, but neither did he move Holo to the bed.

So as he worked, smiling at Holo, she woke up from time to time, wiping her mouth.

But Lawrence suddenly realized something.

After nodding off and falling asleep, when she woke up, Holo always had an uneasy look on her face. At first he thought it was due to discomfort from the shallow sleep, but he felt it was something somewhat different. Holo was staring at Lawrence for a while as if making sure whether he was a dream or not, finally relaxing her shoulders and beginning to nod off again.

The moment he realized that she was making sure he was still there, Lawrence could draw the picture of the store no longer.

To Holo, who would live however many centuries, the time she spent with Lawrence was but a small fraction of that. No doubt she felt it was time so short if she nodded off, it would be gone. All the more so just after what was probably an eternal farewell to the pack mate from her homeland she had been so certain she would meet again.

So Holo wanted to keep her eyes open even a little longer.

“There’s no time,” Lawrence had told Holo many times. “I have to travel my trade route—I can’t keep on traveling with you forever,” he had told her many times.

But it was Holo whose time was truly limited.

After all, Holo lived for a very long time. The time she could spend with Lawrence and what she could do with him amounted to a very small piece compared to the mountain of things she could do with the surely great amount of time remaining to her. No matter how precious, no matter how much the contents of that warehouse piled up higher and higher, the time might be coming when she might lose sight of that.

That was why he wanted to stay with her just a little more. Just a little longer. In the face of such thoughts, the time she could be with Lawrence was all too brief.

Lawrence put his pen down and spontaneously stroked Holo’s forelocks as she took a little nap beside him. Holo’s eyebrows frowned slightly in annoyance and her ears twitched a little, but she showed no sign of waking.

Lawrence watched her sleeping face with great anguish. It was like his chest was being crushed.

They had come to this town to confirm things with the Myuri Mercenary Company and look into the Debau Company’s schemes. But they had not come to look into them thinking that they could correct, halt, or control those schemes whatsoever.

He thought he would like to be able to, like some hero in a legend, but real problems made that impossible. Lawrence was a merchant; no matter how mighty Holo was, the opponent was a mining company with an army at its beck and call.

Furthermore, the combat specialist who led the Myuri Mercenary Company had feared Lawrence and Holo would stand in opposition to the Debau Company. Meaning it was so obvious that even a fool could see defying Debau was absurd.

Lawrence had promised Holo he would cooperate however was within his power. And even if Yoitsu was under threat of invasion, surely it was not Holo’s wish that Lawrence put his life on the line. He knew not for certain, but he thought that Holo might not fight for Yoitsu herself. He sensed she might put some effort into sabotage, however.

It sometimes seemed pathetic that even though her true form was a giant wolf, she was always traveling as such a tiny girl in the nooks and crannies of such a broad world with a salt-of-the-earth merchant such as him. She seemed to be desperately trying to keep pace with the world around her.

Furthermore, Holo had come in search of her homeland and any trace of her old pack mate. That certainly was not moving forward; rather, it was facing the consequences of things about which nothing could be done.

One might call it trying to make up for having spent a few centuries in a wheat field in a rural backwater, but it was not Holo’s fault that the world had changed so much in that time.

Lawrence stroked Holo’s forelocks once more as he thought to himself.

What was it that they could do in this town? Sniff out the Debau Company’s scheme left and right, then raise both hands in surrender before the enormity of their scheme? Or once they knew the full absurdity of their mad scheme for short-term profits, tremble with anger?

Either way, there was nothing to be done.

Those were the words Holo had spoken when toying with the glittering snow piling up on that snowy morning at the monastery in Winfiel Kingdom.

This time they could concern themselves with it, at least to know what was occurring.

What they could do was truly limited to that.

Lawrence truly regretted that he was not a hero in a heroic tale. Holo was precious to him beyond words, and yet being unable to do anything for her made him want to question whether his life had any meaning.

Holo’s sleeping face looked exhausted from crying.

Even an annoyed smile was good. Even a pained smile was good.

If he could, he wanted to make her think of something else tomorrow.

Rather than sitting before the fireplace, remembering painful wounds and hiding them behind a smiling face, he wanted her eyes dazzled by the bright morning sun with a smiling face full of wonder as to what this day might bring.

When he thought about it, he had few choices remaining to him.

Moreover, all he had done today was to make Holo laugh.

So all he could do was pour in every last effort for the sake of that smiling face.

Lawrence pulled the just now fully asleep Holo away from in front of the easel, lifting her up and laying her upon the bed. He retraced his steps in reverse order from when he had dressed her to leave the inn as she slept at ease. She truly had her guard down, her body as warm and soft as that of a cat. Though he felt pangs of guilt, he somehow suppressed them.

Or perhaps it was because something tugged at Lawrence’s heart even more.

After softly stroking Holo’s sleeping face, he put his coat on and headed out of the room. After taking a couple of steps, he stopped and took the drawing atop the easel. Confirming the ink was dry, he placed it at Holo’s bedside. It was amusing how the smell of ink made Holo’s nose crinkle as she mumbled incoherently.

He left the room and walked down the corridor.

And he went not down the stairs, but up.

Since passing him upon their return to their room, Lawrence had not heard any proper footsteps so he was probably still there.

Unable to hide a fair bit of tension, Lawrence cleared his throat and knocked on the door.

The one who opened the door was a large man with his silver hair and beard clipped short.

It was the strategist of the Myuri Mercenary Company.