Spice and Wolf - Volume 15 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The strategist’s name was Max Moizi.

Shaking his hand had a strange feeling to it.

As he looked over the bundles of paper and parchment piled up in the area in front of his chair, he realized this hand was as accustomed to holding a pen as a sword.

“You want to ask about the state of the town, you say?”

When Lawrence posed his question, Moizi’s large eyes widened and darted about like those of a small animal as he reflected the question back.

While Luward had evidently not explained Lawrence and Holo’s true nature, it also seemed Moizi understood who they were without needing to be told.

Even if that was not the case, Moizi set aside all of his own work and treated him as a privileged guest, as though he had been ordered to do so.

“Yes. This morning I went around town a little, but from the perspective of a merchant, everything I saw was of exceedingly deep interest.”

In particular, the slate upon which was written that craftsmen were not regulated.

What placed humans above animals was that no matter where or what the circumstances, they had law.

He had heard those words in some town or other, left behind by a ruler known as a great strategist.

Whatever town Lawrence visited as a merchant, the regulations on the craftsmen held a precise meaning and certainly not because the craftsmen hated them or similar reasons.

“Aye…certainly, there are a number of things in this town that differ from other towns.”

Having a large, rugged, highly experienced older man speaking to him so formally made Lawrence distinctly uncomfortable. Being an honored guest sounded about right, but he was dealing with Lawrence less like a youngster and more like a king.

Now he understood why Holo hated being treated like a god so much.

“I saw a slate in the artisans’ district that stated this town does not regulate craftsmen.”

As Lawrence spoke, Moizi turned away from the various bundles piled atop the table, glancing at him.

And then, as if a boulder was being forced out of shape, that rigid face broke into a broad smile.

“I see. So that was why the two of you stood frozen in front of the store for sale.”

Someone from the mercenary company must have seen them.

He thought his face must have been rather flushed, but he was not going to let hearing the literal truth knock him off stride. This was the only thing he could still do to show Holo a positive, smiling face.

Simply investigating how the Debau Company would move was, in the end, just something to do to confirm their concerns. However, Lawrence had a very different reason to come to this town: to examine it to see whether or not it was suitable for obtaining a store.

Furthermore, if there truly was no sign of the Debau Company waging war, and he was not traveling together to Yoitsu, Lawrence might have set up a store in this town without a care.

Either way, he needed to see if there was a good possibility.

“It is indeed so. Furthermore, I have heard that it has been so for quite some time.”

“In other words, even though other merchants are setting up shops in this town, there are still no regulations?”

Lawrence bowed his head as if drinking in the tension.

“That is correct.”

He was asking this while Holo was asleep because he did not want her to see him this nervous.

Lawrence was not immune to the desire to look good in front of Holo.

“In particular, there is no guild hall here belonging to the guild, which I am a member of. Or rather, someone from that guild pounded into me not to have anything to do with this place. However, viewed from another perspective…”

“It is the perfect opportunity to leap ahead of them, in other words?”

Indeed, the thinking of someone managing a mercenary company differed little from that of a merchant’s.

Perhaps they were closer to Lawrence than merchants who made unbreakable connections to other people and who, if not careful, would live as prisoners bound by them.

“Based on my experience being in this town a short while, I do not believe the regulations issue is a problem whatsoever.” Moizi spoke plainly and distinctly. “And, Master Lawrence, you noticed the state of the town, did you not?”

At the words Master Lawrence, his face took the form of a pained smile, but mercenaries like Moizi were extremely conscious of one another’s status when speaking. To laugh at Moizi’s seriously treating Lawrence as a superior out of a belief he was more than just a merchant would be extremely rude.

So Lawrence spoke seriously.

“Certainly, I thought it might be so. The artisans’ district resembled the towns in the south, and the youngster who takes care of this inn’s stable was not born in this region, either, was he?”

“You are indeed correct. This is a town of immigrants.”

Surely mercenaries who lived a life of war had a mountain of experience regarding colonies and their support.

“But it has not been for very long, nor have they spread word far and wide. No doubt they do not wish to antagonize towns and rulers in the vicinity. After all, it is some ways removed from the mountains that are the wellspring of the Debau Company’s abundant minerals.”

That had been on Lawrence’s mind as well. He had been certain that a company directly controlling mining interests would have a town at the entrance to the mountain range, conducting trade while keeping an eye on the miners.

“There is a populous town in the southern imperial outskirts, beyond Ploania and well to the south beyond that. It’s connected by sea-lanes to the western coastline. You seem to have come here from Lenos, but you were unable to gather much information about Lesko, I imagine?”

As Moizi spoke, Lawrence nodded. “The merchants of that town knew little about it.”

“It seems this was originally a town built by the Debau Company for only Debau Company people to live in. However, even though the town flaunts how full of activity it is, the Debau Company has become an unobtrusive presence, as if it gently misplaced the entire town.”

Certainly, he could understand this desire as well, coming from a company in direct control of a great mining belt with such a glittering gem of a town in its possession. If a traveling merchant went around well dressed and flaunting jewels on his person, it would surely be not wolves, but men who would attack first.

“The Debau Company did not easily come about its current status and profitability, after all. They have come this far by evading exploitation by numerous powerful parties, allying with one to foil another over and over again. The company grew by such dangerous methods largely because many people in it were refugees from their home nations with nothing left to lose and nowhere else to go.”

Moizi cut off his words and placed his hands firmly together, saying, “In other words,” with a gentle face.

Perhaps having seen worldly mercenaries that were the scum of the earth gathered together, he might feel quite a bit of kinship with the Debau Company.

“Those who have been hurt become gentler toward others. Well, even if that is overstating it, they have broken with past custom and prejudice. The Debau Company might be controlled by strange people, but more than that, they truly seem to believe you can assemble people in the name of freedom and have it work. The talk concerning the northlands…I presume you have heard from the captain?”

Lawrence remembered the conversation from the day before.

Luward had said the Debau Company might be trying to take control of the northlands, where everyone had varying interests, by utilizing and fulfilling those varying interests.

“I think it would be marvelous if it could be done, and it seems to be actually occurring. More than anything, the scale of quality from Lesko’s craftsmen is top-notch.”

As he remained seated at the table, the strategist twisted his body and grasped the hilt of a sword placed upon the wall. With a sliding sound, he drew it from its scabbard; from the faint blue reflection, it seemed to be a fine sword, indeed.

“Today one cannot live by the sword alone, not only in the south but anywhere in this world.

“By sprinkling around ‘freedom’ as bait, one can assemble a mountain of unbelievably skilled individuals. Hence, this town.”

This said, he tossed the sword, skillfully sheathing it in its scabbard.

He may have been employed as a strategist, but clearly he was not a man of intellect alone.

Lawrence thought it was quite embarrassing that he was the younger man.

“This town shall develop in quite unbelievable ways in the days to come.”

Traveling merchants like Lawrence were people who brought themselves to newly founded towns wherever they were, seeing many things as they moved about the world.

However, mercenaries ran about the world in the midst of wars that sane people absolutely would not get anywhere close to. No doubt they had seen what towns were like before being burned to the ground, and what they were like after being rebuilt, and many other such sights.

Furthermore, he certainly did not look like someone you could say had a rash or overly optimistic personality.

Yet such a man as Moizi commented that this town would develop in unbelievable ways: this town, breaching past and custom, aiming to develop in the name of freedom.

Surely if all of this was true, many people, upon learning of the existence of this town, would have a single, unified reaction.

God has not abandoned us.

“So you see, Master Lawrence, I believe you would be absolutely correct to set up a store here.

“You were drawn in by talk of conflict, but having actually come, you have seen how it is. I believe that as a matter of fact, the Debau Company is highly unlikely to wage war.”

If the Debau Company truly was not waging war, this town would become the next thing to heaven for Lawrence’s kind.

The town being comparatively new, without deeply entrenched roots, made it a favorable place for not only Lawrence, who had lived on the road, but for Holo as well.

Lawrence had absolutely not given up on such absurd thoughts.

Just like Hugues, the sheep incarnation managing an art business in Kerube, even someone like Holo could intermingle with and live in the world of man. Diana, the bird incarnation residing with the alchemists, was such a case; so was Huskins, who as a shepherd made the kingdom of Winfiel a second home for fellow sheep.

With all these cases, they could surely become one more.

Certainly it was not wrong to think that if one lived in this world, good fortune would not favor oneself alone. Yet if there were previous examples, expecting to become one more was absolutely not some absurd delusion.

Lawrence swallowed his own saliva as if to calm himself.

Moizi gave a gentle laugh.

This must have been the look he gave to young men volunteering to join the unit.

Lawrence was enveloped by complex emotions, happiness and embarrassment and envy mixed together.

So, engaging in token resistance, he said this: “I’ve heard that the best chance for victory is just after the war is over, though.”

Moizi made a satisfied smile.

“It is good to be young.”

Lawrence laughed while thinking from the bottom of his heart, he was glad he had not brought Holo with him.

He was not by Holo’s side when she woke.

He had managed to at least avoid that mistake.

When Holo had not awoken by noontime, Lawrence had accepted Moizi’s invitation to eat with him and other mercenaries in the dining hall downstairs.

If they had met outside the town, they would have been divided into the hunters and the hunted, like wolves and sheep. Lawrence felt that Moizi had taken the initiative and spoken first precisely because he understood this dynamic.

Even so, they seemed to have much in common as mutual nonresidents of the town.

Stories about the hardships of travel, using whatever tricks one could to make rations just a little tastier, and so forth created much merriment all around.

Luward, the captain, was absent on this occasion. It was said he had not returned to the inn after meeting with the leaders of other mercenary companies and nobility. The other members of the company revered Moizi, who substantially managed the company’s affairs while it lodged at the inn, as a respected father figure.

As Lawrence, who had spent most of his travels alone, beheld such mutual trust before him, he wanted to sulk that Holo was not like this.

However, as he thought that if he did succeed in setting up a company, he would surely have subordinates of his own, a talented right-hand man, people to eat breakfast and supper with, people whose lives were intertwined in his own, it became more enjoyable.

Of course, he wanted Holo closer to him than anyone when that time came.

That was why when Lawrence returned to their room after a while, he felt like Holo had looked for him a little when she had woken up. He even heard what seemed like a sigh of relief.

“Nguuh…”

Holo deftly papered it over with a yawn. She exuded her usual carefree nature as if her wounds were largely healed upon her waking, not the forced performance she had been putting on lately.

As she extended her yawn for a fair while, she finally went “Mm?” and finally noticed the paper in her hand.

It seemed all crumpled from her having not let go of it the entire time she was asleep.

She opened it up with a rustling sound. He heard her make a small “Mm” as she realized what it was.

“What about lunch?” Lawrence asked while stacking coins from his money on hand and arranging papers for calculations.

If people here lived a pious, orthodox life according to the ringing of church bells, they would not have been able to get a meal at this hour, but fortunately the influence of the Church seemed to be fairly restrained here. There were clergymen wandering about, but according to Moizi, they were all financially supported by the Debau Company. Many people wanted gold and silver to become something more than mere coins.

Even when Lawrence and Holo had visited Ruvinheigen, people’s reactions changed completely when the Church blessed gold, imbuing it with some kind of hidden power.

Merchants were surely just like associates of the Church just as their precious merchandise began their pilgrimage to their destination.

“Mm…just a bit.”

“There’s a mountain of berries packed in our luggage.”

These were leftovers from what had not been eaten during the feasts last night and this morning.

No doubt Holo was thinking to herself that she ought to have eaten more properly at the time.

Holo slowly lowered herself from the bed and fished in the luggage just as advised. She took berries from the pouches they had been packed in.

She rose up, walked over, and made a “Hup” sound as she hopped onto the edge of the same table.

Perhaps because the bed had first-class woolen blankets on it, they were extremely good at keeping one warm. As Holo’s body temperature was high to begin with, her damp, freshly woken body carried an even stronger Holo scent than usual.

“Decide how much you’re going to eat. We don’t have an endless supply.”

He frowned as he spoke, as if withstanding being literally distracted by her scent.

However, in practice Holo was less mature than a pup when there was food before her. Even if, several days later, they still had the berries she stubbornly clung to, the possibility of suffering from hunger was not nil.

Even so, Holo made a sigh of complaint as usual. He was happy to see her back to her usual form, but it made Lawrence brood over what he should say.

Holo tapped her foot as she stuffed berries back into the pouch, suddenly shooting Lawrence a look as she spoke. “Well, I shall do as you say for once.”

Holo spread the berries she was holding over the table as she drew the pouch shut. As Lawrence thought about how rare this was, Holo selected one of the berries from those atop the table and gently pressed it against his lips.

“You seem to have endured enough, after all.”

Lawrence made an uh sound as the berry fell from his lips.

It certainly was not Lawrence’s imagination that Holo’s other hand was grabbing the collar of his coat as she spoke.

However, he could not have disputed he made that sound with an ulterior motive.

Thinking back to the alleyway, he glanced to see if Holo was angry.

Holo was not angry, but that smile seemed to hold its own troubles.

The instant after he realized she seemed disappointed, she flicked Lawrence’s forehead with her finger.

“Truly you understand nothing.”

“?”

Lawrence thought that even if he were to deny those words, he would only be making Holo add unnecessarily to them. Perhaps these were the bizarre complexities of a maiden’s heart he had heard tales of.

Lawrence picked up the fallen berry and brought it to his mouth. It was sour but faintly sweet.

Holo slid off the table, apparently simply out of thirst. She grabbed the water pitcher beside the bed, drank then and there, and began returning it to its place.

“So, what did you sneak off for while I was asleep?”

Thunk went the back of the pitcher’s neck as it came in contact with something.

He thought she was just thrusting her spear tip in the dark, but as he thought, I’m getting better at this, she said this: “Writing a letter to that shepherd girl, perhaps?”

For her to jump straight to that point, she must have taken note back in the artisans’ district.

Furthermore, the underside of her tone was snuggling into Lawrence’s back. It was like when she had said in an adorable voice, “Do not go thinking about other females,” or when she had said, “Do you understand who is the master of whom, I wonder?”

The moment she returns to form he gets this.

Lawrence made an annoyed face as he smiled, scratching his cheek.

“I’m sure you’d be in tears again if I snuck off and did that. I thought I’d write one after asking permission.”

“Aye. Good attitude.”

“So you’re fine if I write one?”

“Hmm. Well, it’s fine.”

As she spoke, she rubbed her temple against him as she passed, just like a cat. Holo slipped past him and sat on the table once more, picking up a berry and bringing it to her mouth.

Lawrence sighed a bit and began to put gold and silver coins in order atop the sheet of paper.

“So, what are you doing there?”

“Counting how much gold I have. Things haven’t been calm enough in town for it until now.”

“Mmph.”

Holo was no doubt making that noise because she thought it concerned travel expenses.

She looked at the berries in her hand and then looked at Lawrence.

“Perhaps I…eat too much?”

As he thought, It’s bad if I laugh, he ended up laughing anyway.

Sure enough, Holo kicked Lawrence without restraint.

“Don’t be angry. It’s not that—these are revenue and expenditures for everything until now. It’s hard to calm down and make financial calculations with you making my eyes spin all the time.”

He had a grasp on the rough outline, but he did not have a good understanding of the actual state of things. At the moment they were lodging for free, receiving gifts from various people, so they were not spending enough to be worth Holo’s concern.

The loan from the guild was included, so of course his assets had grown significantly.

As he counted by bending his fingers, somehow many of the deals he had made had been profitable. On the other hand, he had also let painstakingly obtained large profits slip through his fingers through his own failures.

To be in the black even so was surely cause enough to give thanks to God.

He had had so many of the pleasures of a traveling merchant’s life condensed into the last nearly half a year. Though that was profit in itself, besides that, he now had Holo by his side.

“…What? You are making me ill…”

Holo noticed Lawrence’s gaze and raised her eyebrow just so, but this was certainly not something for Lawrence to fear.

“Oh, nothing.”

At his words, Holo’s tail swished as she lost interest and ate her berries.

Lawrence looked up at Holo, smiling.

Holo gave Lawrence a fairly disgusted look, but made no move to get off the table.

And so, looking over his revenues and expenditures, seeing that his financial assets were greater now than what he had saved before he met Holo, Lawrence thanked God.

Seventeen hundred trenni silver pieces. In addition, he now had connections in this place and that he could not have even dreamed of before. With the two combined, he could purchase the store, prepare merchandise, hire employees, and still have an adequate surplus as he did business; this plan was a complete fantasy no longer.

“What’s this? You are actually turning a profit.”

Holo spoke as she peered at the sheet with the calculations on it, her tone of voice sounding like she was on the hunt. Lawrence put his hand between him and Holo as if guarding his dinner plate.

“That money is precious.”

The moment the words reached Holo’s ears, they sprung up.

For an instant, there was a gap in Lawrence’s memories, for Holo’s hand had slapped his nose as if swatting a mosquito.

“Of course it is! Who do you suppose I am?!”

As she grumbled that he was truly a fool and knew nothing of courtesy, Lawrence was a bit happy in spite of being slapped.

For Holo said with a serious look: “You went through much trouble to acquire this, did you not?”

As embarrassed as he was happy, Lawrence averted his eyes at her words. “Your jokes are so difficult to comprehend.”

Holo was expressionless as she pinched Lawrence’s nose, pulling it left and right.

Even amid these kinds of exchanges, Holo had been by his side the whole time.

Usually when Lawrence played the fool, she would groom her tail, entirely satisfied, but she did not do so here. As she scolded Lawrence and pushed away from him, she stared from the side as he made preparations to write a letter to Norah just as he had announced.

One might think she simply wanted to be with Lawrence, but he guessed a different perspective was a bit closer to the mark. In other words, she was going to carefully inspect Lawrence’s letter to Norah, as if to guard against his saying anything untoward.

Holo was a flaxen-haired wolf spirit; Norah was a golden-haired shepherdess.

While Holo had taken little notice of the differing ancestry between herself and Eve, she was enveloped by an odd enmity toward Norah.

Certainly the auras they exuded were polar opposites. If Norah was suited to conversation beside a gentle fireplace, Holo was suited to causing a ruckus at a tavern, splashing ale on all and sundry, laughing merrily all the way.

As such unneeded distractions floated into his head, Lawrence began writing his letter to Norah. With Holo ensuring nothing slipped past her strict eyes as he wrote the letter, things moved slowly no matter how much he tried. Holo would make noises of assent, saying if she was writing she would write this and so forth.

At any rate, given how they had bared their fangs at each other once before, he did not think of it as a joke.

However, the fact that she did not interfere with his writing the letter in itself was because she knew all about being helped by someone to achieve her dreams, even if help was being directed toward Norah in this case.

As Holo ate berries, she went out of the room here and there, saying things in a childish manner like “You truly do take a liking to that scrawny girl,” and so forth, but he noticed her mouth twitching impatiently from time to time.

Finally, at length, Holo said what she had truly wanted to.

“So, what do you think?”

She spoke as Lawrence scattered sand onto the paper, absorbing excess ink, seemingly continuing the small talk to dress it up as something nonchalant.

But it was undeniably artificial.

Surely she was not asking him what he really thought about Norah; confirming the quantity of Lawrence’s assets was even less likely.

No doubt Holo was sharp enough to understand at the first glance why Lawrence was counting his money. After all, she had been right there with him when he had completely lost himself when he had seen the shop on sale in town.

Lawrence put the full breadth of his merchant-trained acting ability to use, acting as if he had just been asked about the weather.

“Mm? Ah, it’d be nice to have a store if I could.”

He thought that perhaps he should continue with the financial considerations but stopped, for he could see from the side of Holo’s face that she was thinking of something.

“Hmmm.”

Lawrence had come into conflict with Holo several times because Holo had not said what she was thinking. Often this was because Lawrence had not been considering her enough.

The larger problem was that even when he was considering Holo, the premises of his logic had various flaws.

Until even a short time ago, he would doubt himself, wondering what he should do.

But this time was different.

He could say with pride that Holo cared for him. That was not at all like saying, “The people of that village trust me,” “The people in that store are priceless treasures,” and so forth. This was not talk of profit and loss.

He felt like his skull was tingling.

“If I were to get a shop, where would be good?”

He shook the sand off the paper. He felt like there were too few words and a bit too many blank spaces but imagined that Holo would probably be angry if he wrote of anything not strictly business.

As Lawrence thought about that, Holo turned a seemingly sulking face toward him.

“Did you suppose I would suggest aught else, after you made such a face in front of that store for sale?”

Sure enough, that was what she said.

But Lawrence replied indifferently, “I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’re too kind for that.”

Holo wore a perturbed look, one she might put on when biting her own tongue in the middle of a meal.

Her tail moved about in a tortuous manner.

“…I concede you are good at that, at least.”

“I’m a merchant, after all.”

“Hmph.”

Holo snorted and hopped off the table.

“Well, if the Whatever Company here does do something that displeases me…”

She cracked the bones of her neck, as though loosening up before a battle.

“…I shall retire from the fray like a timid maiden.”

The words timid maiden sounded absurd, but Holo was skilled at slipping subtle points just under a thin coating of ill-tempered personality.

Lawrence nodded as he replied.

“There are many towns. I don’t intend to obsess over this one. But…”

Lawrence slipped the last part in to guard against Holo saying something. Even he could learn how to handle her to some degree.

“…Do you mind my looking into it, at least?”

Even though Holo spoke and behaved with absurd levels of selfishness herself, she was fond of calling other people selfish whenever she could. She liked to be relied upon; if someone offered a hand to be pulled along, she gladly took it.

She was not one of those who thought that resolving to live alone, not accepting any help from anyone else, was right and natural.

By the vagaries of fate, she had come to live alone and lonely in the village of Pasloe.

Since leaving Yoitsu she had lived in isolation from her own kind.

That was why, even as Holo put her hands on her hips, sighing as she gazed at Lawrence with her eyes narrowed, her tail swayed happily.

“…Have you become wiser while I slept?”

It seemed Holo recognized as well that there was little they could do but sniff out which way the Debau Company was heading. Her amber pupils said, “Quite conceited for a fool, are you not?”

“Aye, I do not mind looking into it. I am with you either way.”

Surely Holo was aware of what her tail was doing, but she still played her role to the hilt. She probably wanted to say something like, “Oh, so you like me like this, hmm?” but she did not, nor otherwise complain.

“That’s a big help.”

As Lawrence made a vaguely pained smile as he spoke, Holo spurt out a light “Hmh” as a brief reply.

In reality, Lawrence’s preliminary inquiries when he was thinking of getting a store in this town and sniffing out the Debau Company’s plot were largely the same thing.

The Debau Company was the de facto ruler of the town; one naturally investigated what the ruler was like in any town one might consider setting up a store in.

And the quickest way to get one’s story straight about that was to ask the residents. The first place Lawrence and Holo went to together was the inn’s stable. The youngster was right there feeding leaves to Lawrence’s horse; he wielded courtesy to a disturbing degree the moment he noticed Lawrence.

“This town, you say?”

He was a cooperative lad like Col, but showed no desire to show anything of himself at all.

In that respect, this youngster was the better one at receiving guests.

“If you can answer, it would be grand, but…”

“I think it’s a splendid town for trading, but I’m sure you’ve looked into that part. I don’t mind the atmosphere at all, either.”

“Atmosphere, you say?”

His hand came to a stop as he thought about it a bit.

He diligently put the green feed down, tied it with rope, and swept waste up into a corner.

Lawrence wondered if that was something drilled into him or if he had learned it himself. It was probably the latter.

“Actually, I wasn’t born in this town but…”

The lad paused there.

“I came here on a ship from the south. It took weeks, and a plague broke out that killed my friends. But…”

His jewellike blue eyes went from down to looking straight up at Lawrence.

“If I were to write a letter, I’d write it to the town where I was born. I’d tell them everyone should come here.”

The older a town, the less the young had any place in it.

Amati, who had been after Holo previously, was one who had abandoned his town to come north.

“What do you think makes it so good? The liveliness? Or is there something else?”

As Lawrence asked, the lad was waddling while carrying a tub of green feed that looked heavier than he was. He put it down with a thud and made a smiling face befitting his age as he said, “This place has freedom.”

The word he had seen in the artisans’ district. The word he had heard from Moizi. The word that so many failures had made Lawrence deeply distrust, so seductive that taking it in made him want to stagger.

However, this was a town ruled by the Debau Company, of which tales abounded of it moving to conquer the northlands, clear-cutting forests and mountains in its eagerness to excavate minerals, and so forth.

Of course, he did not think Moizi’s words were completely in error; Lawrence had not greatly resisted accepting his judgment either way.

Even so, he absolutely had to avoid taking the opinions of those around him as gospel. In the first place, when he recalled when he had first heard of the Debau Company, the impression it gave was completely in conflict with that single word. Surely he was not being too cautious.

Lawrence thanked the youngster and left the inn.

Holo did not seem to place much stock in the youngster’s words.

“Let’s try other places.”

From there, Lawrence spoke to numerous people at the stalls on the way to the square. However, everyone had the same two words on their lips: freedom and liveliness. And while they had heard the talk of a war breaking out, everyone brushed it off with a laugh and a shake of the head side to side. The town was full of life, a perfect place for its de facto ruler, the Debau Company, to do business. It would never start a war that would be expensive, ruinous for the town, and earn the hatred of all others. Some even said that quite the contrary, the Debau Company was no doubt calming disputes in the vicinity.

At any rate, everyone agreed this place was free, and Debau was the ally of the people.

Lawrence and Holo finally came to adjust their impression of the Debau Company.

“Maybe we just had a bad first impression.”

Lawrence spoke as he and Holo sat on a stone step, taking a little break.

“Not that I like blithely accepting it, though.”

“However, I heard no lies in what the townspeople said to us.”

Holo made her ears twitch under her hood. Lawrence nodded. There was a limit to what lies people could tell. Someone would eventually slip up, and moreover, they had felt no sign of the Debau Company itself while walking around the town, something they would have known of immediately.

The Debau Company did have a building along a street a short distance from the square, but it seemed less of a warehouse and more a guild hall where people could come together and speak of whatever they wished.

Furthermore, it looked neither cheap nor extravagant, a building calmly erected as a foothold. That was just all too ideal for the people.

Moreover, wherever one looked, there was no sense of that ideal breaking down. The townspeople looked like they were singing songs, bathing in the sunlight of the indiscriminate sun called freedom.

Lawrence was fairly inclined to break out in praise of the hands-off approach of this town right then and there. However, what kept Lawrence deeply suspicious was that it seemed literally too good to be true.

After all, there was an underside to any seductive story. One usually paid dearly when they forgot that fact.

“So, what will you do?”

But Holo asked her question somewhat dispirited.

Whether the townspeople were being deceived or they were simply being unnecessarily suspicious, no good plan existed to eliminate doubt with one blow.

She understood that without a truly pressing reason, it really was not enough to base a decision on.

“What to do, I wonder…?”

As Lawrence scratched his head, Holo made a small sneeze as if a puff of wind was tickling her cheek. When she raised her face, she rubbed her nose as she gazed at the state of the town with narrowed eyes.

“What is it?”

“Mm? Ah.”

He had thought her excellent vision had been caught by something, but Holo crossed her hands behind her and shrugged her shoulders, seeming a little embarrassed as she spoke.

“I thought that ’tis a waste to walk about a nice town like this filled with suspicions.”

He did not respond immediately to the unexpected words, replying with “I suppose so” after a while.

“’Tis indeed a rather enjoyable place.”

“And it has good food?”

“Good wine as well. ’Tis also lively. ’Tis such a shame to walk around trying to expose the evil works of the Whatever Company. You ceased to see all the enjoyable parts of the town the instant you thought you might well get a store here.”

Holo squatted down next to Lawrence, making a small chuckle as she crooked her head with a smile.

“You have put a lot of thinking into laying the groundwork to get a store. But one word can change how you think or the way you look at a town like this, can it not?”

She rested her arms on her squatting knees, putting her palms around both cheeks as she gazed at the town.

Holo’s eyes seemed to be gazing at something farther in the distance. Perhaps at the distant past or perhaps at something related to her journey with Lawrence.

What Lawrence understood was that his thoughts were not in error and that Holo’s burden had diminished, even if just by a little.

As Lawrence thought, even that was a blessing, he suddenly realized it.

“To get a shop, huh. Ah yes. There’s something important I haven’t looked at yet.”

“Mm? Something has come to mind?”

If the Debau Company was keeping the town in this state with something in mind, there had to be distortions occurring somewhere.

The town was largely structured and built around money, and merchants were specialists at reading how money flowed.

If he was going to set up a store here, he first needed a better grasp of that.

“Well, come with me.”

Lawrence took Holo’s hand and stood up, walking forward at a light pace.

Having confirmed its whereabouts when he had toured the artisans’ district, Lawrence went straight for where the money changers were lined up. Perhaps because there were no waterways in this town or perhaps because they did not follow southern customs in the matter, the money changers here did not conduct business on top of a bridge.

Also, since their stores were not set up like those of other towns, they sat atop long-lasting matting spread at the roadside as they plied their trade.

“Changing money once again?”

Holo asked that as she watched them with scales and weights in hand, working to the sound of the rattle of coins. Back at the inn, they still had a mountain of coins he had exchanged for in Lenos.

“At any rate, it’s completely different from what we’d heard, so I have to question the prices in Lenos, too.”

“What, you were fooled again?”

In a place six days’ travel by wagon from any other, changing money, even with little information, was the most basic of basics. He had wanted to thoroughly teach her that, but the word again burned Lawrence enough to put extra force into his words.

“Be quiet and come on.”

Holo seemed happy for her part as Lawrence grumbled and took her hand.

The money changer Lawrence selected out of the lineup looked like he had plenty of time on his hands.

The other money changers were calling youngsters to run errands or hanging signs with words in various languages. However, only this one seemed to be taking his time, not doing anything in particular.

Holo looked at Lawrence, her eyes asking him if this place was all right.

Though it was best to choose someone with time on his hands when asking questions, he had one other reason. He surmised that this money changer did not advertise for customers because he did not need to; rather than new arrivals who did not know left from right in this town, his clients were no doubt those who had set up stores here.

Thinking along those lines, his appearance of dozing off at the money changer’s table, chin in his hands, gave off an attitude saying, “I don’t need your business, you need mine.”

“I’d like to do an exchange.”

“Mm…”

Sure enough, the middle-aged money changer, his chin still resting on his palms, looked up at Lawrence with bleary eyes. He glanced around at other money changers open for business; perhaps he meant to recommend them instead.

“Whuaa…uuu…”

And seemingly finding it tiresome, he stretched, his body making creaky noises here and there.

He gave off an atmosphere better suited to the field of battle than a money changer.

“Curses. Ah, pardon me. Bad speaking habits.”

The line he spoke while steadily scratching his cheek was not what one would expect from most merchants.

“So, changing money?”

“Yes,” Lawrence said with a smiling face.

The money changer looked between Lawrence’s and Holo’s faces unreservedly, raising one eyebrow a little.

“You’re an odd one.”

Surely he said that so bluntly because he did not think of Lawrence as a customer.

“By…which you mean?”

“Ahh, my mouth moved by itself again…I mean, there’s lots of other money changers. To come to someone with no one lined up like me, you sure that’s all right? You’re a merchant, right?”

Lawrence laughed, not just because of the money changer’s manner of speaking, but that he had precisely hit the mark as intended.

“Having a line in front of you doesn’t necessarily make for a good money changer.”

The money changer pursed his lips, the vaguest hint of a smile coming to the surface.

“That much is true.”

“The ones in the lineups are all travelers, aren’t they?”

They were those coming to town to buy or sell. Rather than specialized merchants, these were all peasants or others working away from home.

“Mmm…good eye. Very troublesome, I tell you.”

The money changer made a large yawn and mounted pans onto both stirrups of his scale.

The money changer was obviously fond of his affectations, but Holo seemed to have taken a great liking to him. She made an amused grin beside Lawrence.

“So, what are you changing into what?”

“I want to exchange trenni silver pieces for something used often in this area.”

As Lawrence spoke, the money changer’s hands stopped in the middle of their preparations.

“Mm…mm…”

His hands remaining still, the money changer looked over Lawrence from head to toe before putting the palm of his hand atop the money changer’s table, facing up.

“Five lutes will be fine.”

That was enough money for a small breakfast.

Holo made a questioning sound but Lawrence calmly handed them over.

But the fact he had asked for lute silver pieces told Lawrence much of what he wanted to know.

“Where did you come here from?”

“From Lenos.”

As Lawrence replied, the money changer made a seemingly mischievous smile as he toyed with the lute silver coins in his hand.

“When you exchanged there, they gave you a mountain of small coins didn’t they?”

Holo looked up at him from the side, seeming to say, “You were fooled again.”

“Yes. Fourteen different kinds.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Well, they probably didn’t mean anything bad by it, but that’s a shame. You’d have been better off keeping your trenni silver pieces.”

Lawrence had traded as far as what some called the Quiet Land, said to be the northernmost reach of human habitation. He thought he had a decent grasp of the circulation range of currencies, but trenni silver pieces being accepted here went against Lawrence’s notion of common sense.

“But you’re not lining up in front of money changers with lineups because you wanna make sure of the purity of the coinage being traded, am I right?”

The money changer spoke without the slightest restraint.

Certainly, that was also his aim. Places at a money market with lineups might offer a better deal on the surface, but because there were people in line behind one, a person could not engage in proper scrutiny; indeed, people intentionally hurried a person along so that one could not.

That is how one ended up with nothing but coins with the edges shaved and other inferior goods.

If one thought they were dealing with a timid or inexperienced person, they could similarly hand over a batch of worthless coins without a care.

However, Lawrence had one other reason for choosing this particular one.

“There’s that as well, but your establishment’s clientele is mainly people from this town, yes?”

As Lawrence asked, the money changer turned a broad smile toward him. Few money changers, earning profits by using their scales to measure coinage after coinage of uncertain value, gave off the aura of a gambler.

“What’s the coin most trusted by the town’s merchants?”

Like blood, coins held their value by continuing to circulate. When travelers used a coin to buy goods, the merchant had to use that coin to replace his stock. If the customer’s coin hails from a hostile nation, even if the merchant himself accepts it, there is every possibility the butcher who supplies his meat will not. If that is the case, the merchant must refuse to accept that coin.

That was why, if a person knew what coin was trusted by a town’s merchants, they could largely understand which places a town did business with. And if one thought war was coming, they could even understand which places would be invaded.

If the Debau Company treated this town like a miniature garden, oddities via the money market should be apparent at a glance. Besides, if one was thinking of opening a shop, understanding where a town stood in relation to the world at large was a very important thing. That, too, was something he wanted to confirm.

After all, even at the best of times, if one stood at the edge of the tangled world of coinage, dealing in a coin no one would accept, the world you lived in was small and cramped indeed.

“Trenni silver pieces.”

Then, the money changer carelessly tossed his words out.

Trenni silver pieces were coins of the south more than here. Did this mean they truly intended to lay waste to the northlands?

“Ha-ha. You’re surprised because you don’t know about the lumione gold piece market price, I take it?”

“…Eh? The lumione gold piece?”

No matter the place or the coins in use, the lumione was the mightiest gold coin in the world. Refusing to accept it was virtually unheard of. That was because, even if one was unaware of the glory of the kingdom for which it was named, once these exceptionally pure gold coins were piled upon the scales, glittering for all to see, even a child could understand.

The price of a coin was a measure of its strength.

If there were many ways to use it, everyone wanted it. If everyone wanted it, its price would rise.

Here, where political power was fragmented and over a dozen coins were in use, the lumione gold piece, which would never lose its value, held power not unlike God himself.

Moreover, if the Debau Company was plotting a war, it would be stockpiling provisions, making their prices rise. As the price of commodities rose, the prices of coins would fall.

However, since one could just melt down high gold content lumione coins for the gold itself, they never lost much of their value.

Lawrence tried a somewhat outlandish reply.

“Forty trenni silver pieces.”

“Twenty-seven pieces.”

“Ha-ha.” Lawrence laughed and, after he laughed, asked back, “Huh?”

“Twenty-seven pieces. Of course, you can’t convert them here. You should go to the exchange run by the Debau Company.

“Line up twenty-seven trenni silver pieces, and they’ll cough up one lumione gold piece.”

The money changer smirked as he watched Lawrence’s shock.

“Where d’ya think this town is? Backyard of the Debau Company, running the biggest mining belt under the sun. A shame they can’t get gold straight out of the mountains, but tons of silver and copper come out. The folks from down south pay with shiny lumione gold pieces. That’s why gold coins are cheap here.”

Gold coins are cheap.

It was the first time in his life he had heard such words.

Lawrence finally realized the money changer might be lying to him.

He looked at Holo as she stood beside him. Holo gave him a curious look, crooking her neck slightly.

“Er, but twenty-seven coins, that’s just…”

“Haven’t you seen the market? Go buy a few things, and you’ll notice the difference between this and other towns.”

The only thing he had bought had been the toast at that stall in the square.

At the time, Lawrence had been so out of it that he had handed out the coins just like usual. No, that is exactly what Lawrence should have noticed; that the currencies he knew so well were in circulation as if a matter of course.

“Most every merchant who comes here gets the same look you have. If you don’t believe me, just go to the market and buy something. They probably told you Praz copper coins were the easiest to use, right? But no one wants to accept a piece of garbage copper coin no one can use like that. It’ll cost you.”

Certainly, when he had taken the copper coins out at the stall in the square, the owner had an unpleasant look on his face. When he added things up mentally, the price felt higher than the market value suggested.

“Everyone wants to accept as good a coin as possible, even if it’s a coin from the south. That’s why this town gets called the northlands’ southern enclave. Not many know about it, though.”

Lawrence felt dizzy.

He was dizzy because it was not a snake emerging from the thicket, but a gold bar.

“Miss. If you want him to buy you gold jewelry, I suggest you have him do it here.”

While Lawrence stood in terror as the money changer spoke those words beside him, Holo said, “Oh ho,” and took hold of Lawrence’s arm.

“Well, I’ve given you five lutes’ worth of information. Come again!” He showed a fine smile on his face as he pocketed the change.

With Holo alongside him, Lawrence walked off in a hurry, barely staying on his feet.

“Twenty-seven trenni pieces for a lumione.”

Just as he immersed himself in thought to the point of nearly tripping…

“Hark, you,” he heard Holo’s voice calling out.

As Lawrence glanced over, he saw a rare, gentle smiling face on Holo.

“You do not wish to pick another fight with me, do you?”

He did not know if she was teasing, joking, or serious.

Probably all three, he thought.

On his travels with Holo, he came to know that trading was very simple, but a person’s heart was very complex.

Holo was attacking on that front precisely because he was convinced it was simple.

“…I do not.”

“Then surely you have something you should do before wandering off by yourself?”

Holo was grinning.

Lawrence nodded, but added an “ah” as if he had meant to all along. “I don’t think arguing with you lately has been that bad, though.”

Her ears made a fluttering sound under her hood.

“Now you are getting it.”

As she embraced him, there was no mistaking the small, charmingly voiced giggle she let slip.

Even if one concealed that they were waging war, they could not conceal the effects when a person made purchases to prepare for war.

To say nothing of the chaos that resulted in town when the coin they were using at the time can no longer be used as a result of war.

That was why, given they were using trenni silver pieces and lumione gold pieces, Lawrence could picture them opposing the northlands with such confidence. Currency showed the foundation of one’s rule, which was why currencies bore the faces of kings and rulers on them; at the very least, coins circulated to the same extent as the lands one ruled. In other words, one could not use the currencies of the northlands when picking a fight with them.

In spite of that, there had been no sense of accumulating supplies for a war at the coin market.

“Indeed. ’Tis a strange tale if your explanation holds true. So what has made your eyes so bloodshot? Did you notice something about that company?”

“No, that’s not it.”

Holo stared blankly.

No doubt she could not fathom a different reason for Lawrence to be so unsettled in that time and place.

“You see…”

Lawrence opened his mouth.

“There’s no guarantee coins will hold the same value everywhere and no guarantee someone will accept it. The currencies reissued only a few times maintaining a stable value are few and far between. If word spread that the lumione gold piece, said to be the world’s mightiest coin, was being traded at unheard-of low prices, there’d be a huge uproar.”

“But none seems especially concerned about it,” Holo said with an innocent, maidenly face.

Lawrence had braced himself as he explained, but Holo having a reaction like that threw him off nonetheless. “N-not everyone in this world is a merchant, you know!”

At his curt reply, Holo dandled like a little girl, smiling as she spoke. “Oh my, I have upset you. And? I want to know more about this, too.”

Even though her words were transparent, her saying she wanted to know more about how he made a living did not feel bad at all. Holo made him realize how truly simple he was when standing before her.

“…Well, even if the merchants realize it at the town’s markets, there’s no gain in making a fuss about it. It’s better to not tell a soul and quietly try to work out how to profit from it yourself.”

There were no secrets at the coin market; the facts were there for the whole world to see. The only ones who profited greatly there were those with exceptional powers of observation and the lucky.

“And? How does one profit from this?”

Holo spoke to Lawrence as she glanced from one roadside stall to another. It seemed like Holo might be speaking to Lawrence purely to humor him, but there was no harm in thinking of a good way.

“There are two ways to profit from it.”

“Really.”

“The first is to buy goods in this town.”

“…Goods?”

Around the time Holo asked back, the two of them had meandered their way to the marketplace.

The stores were simple constructions with stakes rammed into the ground securing tents spread over thick matting. The town itself felt like a work in progress; buildings for their stores might simply not have been completed yet. Or perhaps this was local flavor, simple shops that could be wrapped up when the snows fell. A shop that was only a tent was easily deployable and just as easily put away; nor was there concern about fire.

“So it is true…look, they’re unbelievably cheap.”

No doubt the feeling was similar to finding a bandit’s treasure hidden deep in a cave somewhere.

No matter what merchandise Lawrence saw lined on the shelves, they did not go for more than a few specks of gold.

“It looks like the merchandise comes here from the artisans’ workshops in the area. See that well-made knife there? One and a half trenni silver pieces. In the mines’ backyard, iron must be cheap, and at that market, fuel must be cheap, too…Look there, that bucket, it’s huge and not one crack in it. You could probably kick it away and that wouldn’t even scratch it. You can get three of those for a third of a trenni silver piece; guilds in other towns would go pale in the face if they saw that. Hey, come here, look at this. This amount of pigskin matting…can’t believe it…wait, just bringing this to Lenos would…”

When Lawrence put his hand to his chin and his head began to drift, Holo made a perturbed face and jabbed his arm. Lawrence cleared his throat as he returned to his senses, saying, “Well, it’s just that cheap,” to implausibly paper it over.

“You can buy low in this town and sell high in another. It’s very simple, isn’t it?”

“Aye. I understand how this could make you forget about me.”

“…B-but there’s an even simpler method. I think this would bring even more incredible profit.”

Holo shot him a suspicious look.

Lawrence had suffered numerous times when he had bit on money-making schemes.

He understood why Holo would be skeptical, but this was the very essence of easy profit.

“Just buy coins without purchasing goods at all.”

Holo shot him an even more suspicious look.

“Here, if you pay twenty-seven trenni silver pieces, they’ll give you one gold coin, yes? So, exchange silver for gold, take the river down past Lenos all the way to Kerube, and sell the gold pieces there for thirty-five silver coins or so. Having exchanged for silver, you return here, exchange it for gold again.

“Even though you started with twenty-seven silver coins, each return trip nets you one gold coin and eight silver coins. All you need to do is repeat it over and over.”

Holo trained her intelligent amber pupils upon Lawrence, staring.

And after closing her eyes for what seemed to Lawrence to be a bit of a long time, she turned her chin the other way, her suspicious gaze alone turned toward him.

“If that was true, would not everyone be doing it?”

Lawrence nodded. He replied immediately: “They probably are.”

Holo raised one eyebrow. Rolling her eyes like that, she began: “Assuming my thinking is correct…if everyone was doing that, this town would run out of gold coins and silver coins would increase, yes? So would not the price of gold coins rise and the price of silver coins fall? Should the prices here not fall in line with those of other towns sooner or later?”

Having granted her the premise, Holo the Wisewolf could see for herself where it led.

“That’s correct. That’s why I’m nervous.”

“Whether to climb aboard while the situation lasts?”

Lawrence hesitated as to whether to nod or not, finally nodding.

Holo’s exasperated face might well have been a natural reaction to seeing the color of Lawrence’s eyes change when time was short for a chance to make money.

However, there probably existed a nearly three-tenths difference in the price of trenni silver pieces between Lesko and Kerube. If one could make such profit from transporting coins alone, they would be a very wealthy man in no time.

Besides, it was a matter that greatly affected the issue of setting up a store or not. If the difference at the coin market were to vanish, a store one should be able to buy for twelve hundred trenni silver pieces might shoot up in price to over fifteen hundred. For in this world, the bigger something was, the closer its price was based on the price of gold.

That three hundred silver coin surplus was the difference as to whether Lawrence could do business afterward or not.

“Well, such hardiness in you, I mind not.”

“It’s enough to make me want to run south with a bagful of silver coins right this moment.”

Holo made a tepid laugh at Lawrence’s words. However, the sigh that followed made Lawrence realize he had gotten carried away, snapping him back to his senses.

What came first, after all, was discovering the Debau Company’s scheme, not to speak of making money.

As Lawrence cleared his throat to return the discussion to the Debau Company, Holo seemed not to notice Lawrence, staring off into the distance as she murmured.

“So, is there not something strange somewhere here?”

Holo was a complete outsider when it came to trading. Having said that, she was a sharper thinker than Lawrence, and he knew very well that an outside perspective was sometimes the best.

“Aye…it does feel like a strange story.”

“Strange? In what way?”

“Mm…well…it’s strange, but…how to put this…” Holo bit her bottom lip and groaned.

Perhaps because, viewed from nearby, she looked like she was in a bad mood, the people around them averted their gazes.

No one in these parts knew Lawrence’s face, but they would likely remember the face of one with someone who stood out like Holo.

Just as he moved to whisper in Holo’s ear that they should leave the marketplace…

“I have it!”

Holo spoke like a hen that had just laid an egg.

Lawrence hurriedly covered Holo’s mouth and led her away.

“Give me a break.”

The center of the marketplace was more of a square than a street.

There were no stalls. Chairs that were just cut logs were placed so that passersby could take a break, with conversation blooming among many people.

Lawrence led Holo by the hand, seating both of them on log chairs as casually as he could manage.

When Lawrence asked, “And?” Holo used her usual “Heh-heh” with her nose held high.

“For a merchant like you not to notice…”

“…Well, pardon me.”

“Well, of course, something of this level is obvious to me; I am Holo the Wisewolf, after all.”

She was very confident, but in spite of calling it obvious, it had piqued her interest.

So there was some sort of trick at work?

As Lawrence drew his face closer, Holo spoke with a smile all over her face.

“If that story is true, why doesn’t the Whatever Company do it?”

“…Eh?”

“According to that rather spirited old money changer, that company digs up and sells many things, and because it receives gold coins in return, gold coins are cheap here, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Then given that, ’tis a simple problem. Why does it not do so itself? ’Tis not strange?”

Lawrence started to say, “But that’s…,” but the words died on his lips.

“That company receives gold coins. So why does it not bring the entirety of those gold coins to another town? If it did so, it could exchange the whole lot for silver coins, could it not? Why does it not, then? ’Twould be the most profitable method.”

Now that she mentioned it, it was.

But he felt like that reasoning had its own flaws.

What was strange about it? Certainly, the market price of trenni silver pieces was unusual, but there were often unusual things about market prices.

But this strangeness was not of that kind whatsoever.

This was something beyond his comprehension.

“No, there’s something odd about that.”

“Where is it odd?”

“No, it’s really odd. What can this mean?”

As he scratched his head, he went over the facts once more.

This town had lumione gold pieces. This was gold the Debau Company had reaped in profit.

And since it was difficult to make small purchases with gold coins, naturally one exchanged them into other smaller currencies, silver and copper coins and the like. However, in doing so, the price would rise. It would inevitably rise. That was why a market price of one gold coin to twenty-seven silver coins was beyond belief.

That was fine.

Next was the idea of how to profit from the coin prices. That is, if one obtained gold coins here, changed them to silver coins in another town, and brought the silver coins back to change them into gold once more, one would profit.

That, too, was fine. Naturally, all traveling merchants would do so given the opportunity.

That brought the next problem.

That being the case, why did the Debau Company not do so by itself? If it brought all its gold coins and converted them to silver, it would make money hand over fist.

Yes. That meant since all of the gold coins in circulation in this town had been earned by the Debau Company, it was using the coin prices to profit; in other words, from receiving the commission from the silver coins people like Lawrence brought into the town.

So why did the Debau Company not do it itself?

Holo was right to point that out.

One gold coin to twenty-seven silver coins was close to eight silver coins’ difference from other towns’ market prices.

Put another way, they gave you a reward of eight silver coins for going through the time and trouble of going to another city to convert one’s gold coins into silver.

That was strange.

It was very strange.

“They must have kind of a goal.”

But what in the world might that be? He felt that even if they were waging war, it was still no reason to go through all this. Perhaps it was a scheme to take advantage of reminting or something similar, like when Lawrence had met Holo?

But if that was the case, it was too unnatural to happen in this town. If there was talk of reminting trenni silver pieces, lands far to the south would have long been in uproar.

Yet this town was peaceful and full of liveliness.

Furthermore, even with the unusual market price, everyone was calmly conducting business.

If the Debau Company’s own exchange was converting one gold coin to twenty-seven silver coins without fail, there certainly was not any reason to rush over and exchange. Gold coins were too inconvenient for use in day-to-day life. It was more sensible to trade more, gather coins together, and then go exchange it.

Besides, even if one could profit from the coin prices of other towns in theory, the only ones who could do that in practice were nimble traveling merchants and large companies doing business in multiple towns. No doubt craftsmen would not even notice, and city merchants could hardly abandon their shops. In the first place, farmers with no way to know the market prices of different towns surely would not be thinking beyond Goodness, they sure sell a lot of things here.

What Lawrence still could not understand was he did not think the Debau Company could deliberately maintain these market prices except at substantial cost to itself.

As for why it would do such a thing, nothing made sense.

Come to think of it, the Debau Company was paying for the lodging expenses of mercenaries, the Myuri Mercenary Company included. The rumor was it was paying out twenty lumione gold pieces a day; at any rate, a large amount of money. What was behind such a lavish display? Was there a goal? Or were they simply making too much money?

They had discovered many strange things about the Debau Company, but this thing was truly a strange story.

What was the meaning of maintaining the market price at the cost of its own profits?

Lawrence put the question to Holo. “What do you think?” Then having so asked, something occurred to him. “Ah.”

“You may well ask me, but…”

Alone and lost in his own thoughts, he did not have any kind of opinion.

As Lawrence looked up, thinking as much, Holo made an amused laugh, shaking her head and looking truly happy.

“It seems that little by little, I’ve gained a place in your mind.”

For an instant, Lawrence did not understand the meaning of her words, but he realized it a few moments later.

What did he think?

Until now, he had been spending time in his own little world, unable to see anything around him as he thought.

“Aye. And, just to mention, you really should be more aware of how much you speak to yourself.”

“Wha—?”

He hurriedly closed his mouth and looked all around, but of course, words could not be pulled back once spoken.

Holo guffawed at the silliness of it, laughing as she said, “I jest.

“Aye. I understand not the fine details but, at the very least, based on what I have observed, there is some structure at work, and its shape is a warped one. There is reason in this world, reason as unchanged by the centuries as I.”

Holo’s fearless smile was truly a thing of beauty. Bewitching, one might say.

Her fangs peeked just out under her lip, her eyes so fine that they cut into one like a sharp knife.

There were too many surprising things about the town of Lesko, or rather the movements of the Debau Company.

And at the very least, one of them was a bit too warped.

“So that company is indeed suspicious, ’tis it not?”

Lawrence looked about the town as he remained seated on the short-cut log.

A rural town full of liveliness.

A town like paradise itself for merchants and craftsmen.

But according to scripture, it was more difficult for people like Lawrence to go to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

“When a magician has a chicken lay a blue egg, and it’s not a blue chicken, you know there has to be some trick.”

“All the more when ’tis a goose laying a golden egg.”

Even if a traveling merchant like Lawrence could do nothing about war and the like, anything related to trading was a different matter. Also, the more warped a construct was, the more it could be brought down by even a single ant-sized hole bored into it.

The uproar just after he had met Holo was near enough to that, though that had gone somewhat poorly and was a dangerous situation for both of them.

“Hmm, ’tis like that.”

“Mm?”

As Lawrence was thinking of such things, Holo put her hands on her knees and rose up as she spoke.

“’Tis been a while since I remembered how we met.”

Lawrence made a pleasant laugh as he watched Holo, reaching out to her with his hand largely without thinking.

Holo inclined her head as she took his hand.

It was exceedingly difficult to resist pulling her to him and hugging her then and there.

In attempting to unravel the Debau Company’s plot they had found several oddities, but it was possible that these gave rise to yet other oddities. So they went to the marketplace once again.

If one traded long-distance between hostile nations, payment was usually measured based on lumione gold pieces. As coin market prices could vary between towns, one did so to make the calculations as uncomplicated as possible.

Therefore, if lumione gold pieces were cheap in this town, they had to think the calculations in lumione gold pieces were natural and reasonable where the town’s merchandise was purchased, such as Kerube and towns farther south. If that was the case, the amount of money used for the purchases would be relatively cheap.

However, when they gathered stories from around the marketplace, the reality was quite the opposite, even right there.

“The folks that come here? Of course, they come from all over; we’re a mining town, after all. Some folks hate to come, but they even come from the Dran Steppe up north and the Wessel region out east.

“Even if they trade locally, they’ll never get anywhere. Here, they can sell everything they can haul, even if they’ve got to cross dangerous mountain trails to do it.”

A general goods store owner with miscellaneous merchandise lined up on his shelves told them they rarely saw anyone from south of Lenos.

Whether handling dried fruit, sour-pickled vegetables, chicken, rabbit meat, fox and wolf pelts, or scrap iron, whether bringing them to sell or setting up their own stores in the unregulated marketplace, most came from places that could be lumped into the northlands. The general goods merchant himself apparently came from a cold village deep in the mountains.

They held no prejudices toward currencies that came to the town of Lesko via the south; to them, how easily a coin could be used held much more importance than which king had issued it.

Therefore, much of the merchandise that flowed into Lesko dribbled out of the northlands.

“Mmm…”

Having inquired all around, with the day beginning to wane, Lawrence sat on the short-cut log once again, making a sound from inside his throat.

Most foreign trade in Lesko came from the middle of the northlands, with barely any coming via the south except through the Debau Company. What came in from the south were mostly cereals such as wheat, with nearly everything else provided from here and there in the northlands. Most of the daily necessities and even luxuries used in town were largely made by the hands of local craftsmen.

Also, no one believed that war was going to break out.

The structure of trade was largely the same everywhere in the town.

As the coin price favored buyers of merchandise, merchandise flew from the shelves. The coin price favoring buyers should have meant sellers were at a disadvantage, but in the first place, much merchandise was carried in from remote places in the northlands starved of people to sell to. As products of high quality were made by craftsmen high in skill and morale, reaching the continent by ship from the south, everyone bought them, and the craftsmen in turn bought even more materials. Everything was going swimmingly.

As Moizi had said, freedom was the force that made the town run smoothly, to an extent that was almost eerie.

In the town’s many circumstances, Lawrence might not have seen anything resembling a turbulent scheme by the Debau Company, but a number of oddities and the appearance of things going eerily well added up to the existence of something in his mind.

After all, mercenaries were gathering even though no one at all thought war was breaking out. He had never encountered circumstances that made no sense whatsoever like these.

“Perhaps we should return to the inn for now.”

When Lawrence raised his face to Holo’s words, she was rubbing a calf while sitting on a short-cut log.

When he saw that the hem of her robe had become filthy with dust at some point, he realized he had brought her quite a ways around.

“Ah, I suppose so…pacing back and forth while worrying really would be like a dog.”

He had been trained to gather information with his feet and think on his feet, but unfortunately he was not alone at the moment.

“Aye. I am Holo the Wisewolf after all. Careful thinking suits me far better than does walking.”

“With a drink in your hand?”

As Holo gave him a little glare, she stood up at the same time Lawrence did.

“I have gained a fair interest in trading, if not to the same degree as you.”

More of the same consideration from before? Lawrence thought, but Holo paid him no heed and opened her mouth. “For instance…”

“I am unaccustomed to gathering pieces one after another and thinking of how to put them all together as you do. I am more accustomed and better suited to thinking of one thing very carefully.”

“Certainly, you tend to repeat the same things over and over again.”

Holo looked up at Lawrence, grinning and laughing, kicking him around the ankle.

“So, there’s a part tugging at me concerning about this…”

“…Tugging at you?”

As Lawrence asked while extending his leg, Holo wore a serious expression and continued. “All this talk from you about coins reminds me of that bird country.”

“Bird country? Ahh, the kingdom of Winfiel.”

Holo nodded and continued.

“Why does this town not end up like that country?”

“Like that country?”

He parroted the question back, not understanding what she meant.

But Holo did not mock him for it, saying, “Aye.”

“When we went around the marketplace, everyone there smelled of soil and water. People of the forests and mountains. That is to say, they do not come to this town very frequently. So I wondered, why do things not become like in that bird country?”

The sharper the person, the less one attached a conclusion at the end of a long explanation.

Feeling like he was being tested, Lawrence somehow turned his head around to follow Holo’s logic.

“In…in other words…ah, you mean everyone selling their own cargo and returning home with coins in return.”

“Aye. Perhaps ’tis gold coins, perhaps ’tis silver. I wonder if ’tis not silver?”

Lumione gold pieces held their value well but were much scarcer than trenni silver pieces.

Indeed, debasement of trenni silver pieces through reducing the silver content was no trivial matter, something he had experienced firsthand in the uproar when he had met Holo.

However, using gold coins when one made small purchases was simply too inconvenient. If one were going to exchange them sooner or later, they would be better off having silver coins to begin with.

As Lawrence thought about it, he went, “Mm?

“In other words, no matter how much time passes the number of silver coins isn’t increasing; if they’re not careful, they’ll fall into a severe currency shortage just like Winfiel.”

“And in that bird country, you could eat to your heart’s content on a single coin, could you not?”

Holo’s fangs were peeking out as she spoke, probably because all that walking around had stirred her hunger.

“But that isn’t happening…Ah, that’s right. Never mind the market price, there’s no extreme currency shortage that we can see anywhere. Which means…”

“Someone is bringing in a great deal of it?”

“Yes. It’s making me think that, too. Perhaps the huge price spike in silver coins in Lenos was because large quantities were flowing up here.”

Lenos and Lesko were linked via the Roef River.

Perhaps someone astute had bought a large quantity of silver coins, or maybe people gained a great quantity from dealings during the disturbance over pelts. It was not strange at all to think that only a price fluctuation of that scale could drive silver coins out of an entire town.

Lenos and Winfiel had both suffered from a simple lack of coinage.

“Ah, and also.”

“Mm?”

“This place is awash with silver, yes? I wonder why they do not mint it themselves?”

Lawrence momentarily considered it, but he immediately dismissed the thought.

“You need craftsmen to mint a coin, see. You need hammers for stamping. You engrave the design for the coin into metal. You put that below the base form of the coin and pound it from above. The craftsmen who make the hammers aren’t likely to be let go by their king and to counterfeit them would be no different from an act of war against the kingdom of Trenni. Well, after that is the most important thing of all.”

Lawrence dug an appropriate coin out of his wallet, saying this:

“Coins are always marked by the passage of time. They get shaved, they tarnish. If it’s something new, you’ll notice the new minting immediately. It pretty much can’t be faked.”

Holo looked over the coin thoroughly; she then looked at Lawrence.

“Certainly, no matter how skillfully you dress it up, you cannot erase the fresh scent.”

Lawrence’s cheek twitched for a moment, but he replied calmly.

“Well, that’s why pure maidens like it; it’s just like them.”

Lawrence meant it as sarcasm, but it seemed to make Holo shamelessly happy.

But he corrected himself that if a misunderstanding improved her mood that, too, was fine.

“At any rate, someone has to be steady bringing in silver coins.”

What bothered him was, how could you replenish such a large outflow of silver coins? He could not even imagine how many coins were in circulation in an entire town or how many of those coins left the town all together.

But given the town’s gold and silver coin price differential, there had to be quite a few people sneaking out of town and sneaking back with silver coins. A large shipment of silver coins would require an armed escort and would spark a huge uproar, but a large number of travelers moving a little at a time might amount to the same thing.

Lawrence thought it must, but it just did not sit well.

But why?

When he had this feeling, it was usually because the answer was right under his nose.

Lawrence twisted his neck around and shifted to an exceedingly simple fact.

“Hey.”

“Mm?”

Perhaps because it was getting late, the stalls that had been selling only snacks were putting out dishes that were more like dinners. Holo’s face turned from the roadside stalls to Lawrence with a look of regret.

“What was the first impression you had of the Debau Company?”

“That one? That is…”

“Ah no. But how to put this…Er…all right, how about I put it like this. What did you expect this town to be like based on your impression of the Debau Company?”

Holo seemed to fume a bit from Lawrence’s vague wording, but she thought a little and replied.

“Probably the same as you did. Besides, we heard from that dancer girl on the ship on the river; a place with a lot of money, but no place for people to live, she said.”

“Yeah, she did say that. But that’s probably what a town that really is the entrance to a mine is like.”

“Aye. And we did not know that. That is to say, we had no way to imagine what this town’s atmosphere was like. We were not able to gather any information at the prior towns, were we?”

Lawrence nodded.

As he nodded, he said, “So I was right.”

“What about it?”

“Ah…er…I wondered if I’d missed something people had said or if I’d had a misconception about this town because of a failure of imagination.”

“Indeed.”

“But it doesn’t feel like that. If you didn’t hear anything, either, we really didn’t hear anything about it.

“Which means, it truly is strange. Even the talk of a silver coin influx feels inconsistent…It’s not the number of coins, it’s more fundamental than…Er…wait. Transporting silver coins?”

Around the time Lawrence pondered whether to finish speaking or not, the two of them arrived back at the inn.

Part of the stone pillars in front of the building had been hollowed out, with candles within emanating a flickering light.

That youngster was briskly cleaning up the entrance to the stables, looking relieved in the face of the day’s end.

The youngster was surely sighing in relief because he had been able to do many things today, just as the Myuri Mercenary Company from which Holo had received Myuri’s message had done many things in its history.

The many people within the same receptacle known as the world were much like how various textiles were manufactured. There were vertical threads and horizontal threads crossing each other, and there were things that would not cross in a single lifetime.

Lawrence found it a very mysterious thing.

But that was why on occasion a mysterious thread was weaved into a mysterious cloth.

“Hey.”

“Mm?”

Holo looked up at Lawrence as he called out to her.

They had exchanged ideas back and forth several times over; Lawrence thought it would be nice if it continued well after.

Of course, as he was not a fool, he did not expect they could simply repeat the same thing over and over again.

Even so, Lawrence hesitated for a while before finally saying this: “There’s one obviously strange thing we discovered that bothers me more than the rest.”

Holo lightly raised an eyebrow.

A moment later, she curled up the corner of her lip.

“I do not wish for preambles. What is it you wish to say?”

She knew all about his inability to let any stone go unturned.

Trying to hide his guilty conscience, Lawrence looked all around before looking down at Holo.

“It might sit poorly with you.”

“And?”

“But…but through this we might be able to see the Debau Company’s plan; furthermore, whether it’s going to be bad for Yoitsu and the northlands. If it’s not, this town might grant my longtime wish of having my own store.”

It was probably because Lawrence spoke of such convenient possibilities with such a serious face.

Her eyebrow still raised, Holo made a strained laugh.

“Aye. And?”

Lawrence gazed straight into those red-ringed amber pupils. The shift from sunlight to candlelight as dusk fell over Lesko seemed to deepen those colors even further.

As usual, he needed to take a short breath before answering.

“I don’t want you to hate me, but I won’t kill my own curiosity, either.”

Holo took in a breath that seemed to puff up her body and made a wolfish, bare-fanged smile.

“Mm. ’Tis not a problem, then. Though I know not what has come to your mind.”

Holo took Lawrence’s hand and the two walked side by side. As they entered the tavern, the mercenaries were already busy, dancing with girls that were probably office assistants rounded up from nearby stores.

In a corner of the tavern, Luward, Moizi, and two others were seated at a table and, unlike the others, were quietly eating their food. Perhaps sensing Lawrence’s gaze, Luward noticed and raised his mug in a greeting.

As Lawrence could not go raising his voice here, he did as townspeople often did, making his own greeting by lightly raising his cap.

When Luward motioned to the table, Lawrence looked at Holo and nodded.

Lawrence put his hand on Holo’s back, gentlemanly moving her forward through the congested tavern.

And instead of saying, “Don’t drink too much,” he leaned his mouth close to Holo’s ears and said this: “Gold coins don’t well up out of the ground like a spring. That being the case, either the Debau Company’s hiding something or someone else is hiding what they’re doing. Or perhaps both.”

The pat he gave to her back must have looked to Luward and the others like encouragement to ease Holo’s nerves.

However, it was not so. There were only so many actors dancing in the Debau Company’s backyard. If someone was hiding something, the possibility that someone was a person very close by was very high.

Holo replied, “I see,” nodding with a daring look.

Lawrence and Holo bounded to the mercenaries’ dining table.