Spice and Wolf - Volume 15 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

The next day, Lawrence mixed in with the mercenaries washing their faces at the courtyard well as Luward headed out, making a ghastly pale face all the while. It seemed every day he had to show his face at several eateries for business purposes.

The men said with pride that rather than stand at the front line in the field, their captain was the only one on the front line when in a town.

Luward seemed to grow taller in response to the unrestrained shouts and waving of hands all around him as the ground seemed to shake from the rising cheers.

They all stood in their own easy-to-understand place and accomplished their various duties. They may well have been rude and uncouth, but here, there was discipline and trust.

With such thoughts in mind, Lawrence returned to his room.

“What was that coarse howling just now?”

In the room, Holo was sitting cross-legged on the bed, tail in hand.

She spoke as casually as if she had already been traveling with Lawrence for the past century. Even though she had surely already had breakfast, her mouth held jerky within it once more.

She was just like a child, but in the face of such splendid gluttony that knew neither shame nor reserve, Lawrence could not help but let the jerky go.

At any rate, this was no time to argue.

It was an ironclad rule in trade that, having made a decision, one must move immediately.

Lawrence took in a deep breath and firmly readjusted his collar.

“All right, I’m ready.”

Holo, who seemed at least somewhat satisfied with her own final touches, finished with a long, gentle stroke of her tail’s fur and rose up.

“Heh-heh.” She chuckled.

“What is it?”

“Mm?”

Having smiled largely without thinking, Holo stroked her own face as if to check, seemingly surprised at herself as she spoke. “I watched you many times in Pasloe.”

Lawrence was somewhat bewildered by her saying such a thing all of a sudden.

Holo had been in that village for centuries, and Lawrence had spent much time there as well.

In light of that, her having seen him many times was natural, but it still felt rather odd to him.

“Mm, what about it?”

“Well. Back then, you seemed to have less…hmm…confidence about you.”

Holo put her right hand on her hip, looking beside herself as she gazed at Lawrence, the splitting image of an older sister. He thought he was being treated like a foolish younger brother, but certainly it was not so wrong to say he was less confident at that time.

“Now when did you turn into a good male?”

Having fought so hard to get ahead of Holo, being treated like a fool and an idiot burned him. However, now he understood that there were still many inexperienced parts to him without Holo having to point out each and every one of their number.

That was why he could accept her teasing words as teasing and her words of praise as praise.

But as usual he did not know what kind of face to present.

As Lawrence stood conflicted, Holo smiled even more.

“Do not bear doubt that I ridicule you or I am being overbearing. I truly think you have grown,” Holo said with a happy tone.

Half of Lawrence was similarly happy, but a sudden loneliness befell his chest, for such words from Holo seemed like a sort of farewell.

“Heh-heh. Make not such a face. ’Tis simply that I am not of an age to take pleasure in my own growth. ’Tis more amusing to watch the unripe wheat come of age.”

She put the robe around her, hiding her ears with the hood.

Holo stood before Lawrence.

“In the end, I set off from Yoitsu to pursue my own enjoyment. Wherever I went, I drank wine, danced the night away, and finally settled down in Pasloe. ’Twas then I realized it. Enjoyment only for the self could not continue long. In that respect, to do something with someone else is more profound.”

Holo’s eyes drifted toward Lawrence’s handbag.

As even if he went to buy a shop, he certainly was not going to hand all the money over right away, he would first make a deposit to secure the right to purchase the shop.

Perhaps Holo took the sight as a sign that the dreams that welled within Lawrence’s breast were finally becoming reality.

Those who had lived in Holo’s era had become figures of the past, one by one.

Even if she told him what to do now at this late stage, it would always turn into some challenge with no expectation of victory, as if to completely sever herself from the past.

If, through Lawrence, she could be connected to something new in the world, Holo would truly be satisfied.

“’Tis truly well for me to decide the shop’s name?”

That is why, when the suggestion was made to him, he was not shocked at the utter selfishness broadcast by Holo’s face. Huskins, he who was called the Golden Ram, had made the Winfiel Kingdom into a second homeland for himself and others. Hugues had set up shop as an art merchant in Kerube.

As Holo smiled, she looked up at him, unsure. It was not the usual, purposeful upturned gaze she used to flirt.

Lawrence replied immediately, “If you behave yourself.” He patted her on the head.

For a moment, Holo did not seem to understand what had been said and what had been done to her, but the color of her face began to change as the words slowly sank into her head.

When Lawrence suddenly stopped at some point, he was fully prepared to be smacked.

However, Holo smiled so much she was nearly in tears.

“It’s a promise.”

They sealed the promise with a handshake like proper merchants.

And so, still holding each other’s hands, they left the room behind.

He did not want to simply accept Holo’s words, but as they walked around, he saw the stores and houses of the town in a completely different light from the previous day, now that he had settled on buying a shop.

He saw each and every one of those walking the road not as a single member of a foreign crowd bustling about, but as a precious individual who had come to this town bearing their own objectives, someone he might well have dealings with.

His concerns about what the Debau Company was up to still remained, but if Holo said it was fine, it was fine.

That being the case, a shop obtained with his money on hand, in a place with this many conditions met, was not such a bad gamble at all.

Of course, if he wanted to cross that bridge, he could stand and watch how things developed, but if a gamble was necessary at the right time to take a large leap forward, this was a fine place for it.

This time only, as he held Holo’s hand and walked around the lively town, she actually did not look at all the stalls and say how she wanted this and wanted that. Seemingly proud of walking around holding hands with Lawrence, she kept her eyes trained straight ahead, grinning all the way.

After picking Holo up at Pasloe, they had been through many twists and turns to arrive at a place like this. Those who knew the old Lawrence would have surely called him mad. Certainly he might well be mad, but that did not make him wrong.

Lawrence looked at Holo beside him, and Holo, noticing his gaze, looked back at him. He smiled at her, and Holo, making a face like one coddling a child, smiled back. That alone was plenty.

As Lawrence walked around, remembering the layout of the town quite clearly, they arrived at the street the shop up for sale was on, not getting lost once. If he had asked, he would be told no one had yet decided on a name for the street.

It was in the middle of a lively town, still growing to this day.

He thought that whatever the Debau Company might have been planning, it could be as banal as a struggle for prestige. It was something most people wanted, second only to money itself.

Thinking along those lines, drawing nobles to the town might well be for that very purpose.

By inviting people of status, they would reign as governors of a town of high class.

Perhaps it was simply the case that Lawrence and Luward had read too deeply out of an overinflated sense of professionalism. Perhaps they had become suspicious of everything around them because they couldn’t understand how, cash rich notwithstanding, money was sprinkled round the town with no apparent hope of return.

If that was the case, he need simply ride with the speculation and gather up profit wherever he could.

After all, he had settled on having a shop.

Therefore, he should think thoroughly positive thoughts, for one could not be a town merchant without being able to run forward, eyes on the prize.

And, as Holo had said, he would surely become much fonder of the town if he set up a shop here.

The Debau Company could, for example, make the town as large as it could and build an economic sphere to rival the Ruvik Alliance in the process.

As Lawrence let himself daydream in a relaxed manner, they arrived in front of the shop from before.

One thousand two hundred silver coins.

If he invested that here and now, there would be no more waiting.

After, he would push forward, eyes on the prize, praying that the Debau Company would not somehow make it all in vain.

This was surely just like the nobles making large investments in the town.

Nobles were investing to acquire mountains of gold and silver coins in return, not because they wanted burned-out fields. So why would the Debau Company do something like wage a war?

Many of the lords of the north regretted that their own faces were not engraved upon coins, but they probably did not terribly mind the faces of kings from far-off, never-seen lands that were.

Besides, unlike trenni silver pieces, a coin issued largely for vanity would not be accepted by the many villagers that dotted the northlands.

Surely investing in this city was an opportunity for the nobles to easily obtain easy-to-use coin as well.

The Debau Company had them dancing on its palm to an unbelievable degree.

With that kind of influence, it might as well mint its own money.

Lawrence made a pained smile as he thought about it and then muttered, “Huh?”

“Mm?” Holo replied beside him. Lawrence looked back at her, asking her if he had said something. It had been that sudden.

As various thoughts filled his head, Lawrence felt as if he saw something at the edge of his vision, as if he had seen the outline of someone important to him from a far-off town amid the bustling traffic.

Holo looked at him, her eyes asking if he was going to go into the shop or not.

But even with Holo in his sights, he searched his own thoughts. His memories switched from an image reflected on the water’s surface to a jumble of words.

Nobles buying buildings for profit? Debau plotting war, an invasion of the northlands?

Irregularities in the coin market prices, with gold coins becoming unusually expensive compared to silver?

All kinds of words spread out as time rewound in the back of Lawrence’s mind.

He went through his conversation with Luward and what Holo had said to him. It all seemed to be the key to deciphering a huge scheme.

And the instant that he beheld all that he had rewound, Lawrence gasped at what he saw.

“Come, you—” Holo said questioningly.

But Lawrence did not know what to do. What he had thought of was too unbelievable. He had found the key to explaining all of it: the liveliness of the town, the freedom of the people, the coin market prices, and even the mercenaries.

The key was exceedingly simple and all the more powerful for it. What waited on the other side of the door the key opened was truly a world without comparison.

He had all the answers. He had not thought of it because it was so elementary.

“Come, you, that’s quite enough…”

It was right after Holo seemed to get angry.

Lawrence grabbed Holo’s shoulders, facing her squarely, and embraced her with all his might.

Something like this, in the middle of the street, usually came from Holo’s side and always to tease Lawrence. Sometimes Lawrence had extended his hand to her, such as when they were darting through the back alleys of Lenos, but that was not the case here.

Lawrence was too happy to help himself. If Holo had not been there, he might have shouted for joy with all his might.

If his thoughts were not mistaken, the Debau Company truly was a monster.

The irregularities with the coin market prices. Building an unwalled, unregulated town. Spending its own money to attract nobles and mercenaries. Spreading rumors of strife beyond.

Lawrence pulled back from Holo, whose eyes blinked in shock, and entered the shop in high spirits.

A young man likely employed to give explanations and relay messages was inside, tending to the shop while playing with a cat.

The youngster, surely used to seeing excited merchants inside the shop, was clearly taken aback as he looked at Lawrence. As Holo still had a bewildered look on her face, that was probably natural.

As the young man mumbled a greeting, Lawrence made a smooth greeting of his own and walked before him, wordlessly reaching into his handbag and pulling out his linen bag, placing it upon the table.

He smiled the entire way.

The stage was rarely set for a gamble such as this.

One had to climb aboard.

As it finally dawned on the youth that Lawrence had placed a deposit upon the table, he flew out of the shop, asking Lawrence to please wait.

Lawrence’s eyes did not follow the young man out. He stared at the top of the now-empty seat and shuddered with delight.

Lawrence lifted his face, turned toward Holo’s dubious-looking face, and spoke.

“We’re going to watch something incredible.”

“Huh?” Holo replied as if to an idiot.

But Lawrence was of course not being stupid.

Then, what he thought was his boldest smile came over his face.

As he looked at Holo, Lawrence said, as if he was going to do it himself…

“Debau will go to war.”

“Wh…”

“Furthermore, the entire region will be drawn in,” he added just as Holo tried to ask him something.

Holo was opening and closing her mouth as if searching for words, but on the inside, Holo surely had his profits and losses mixed up.

To profit from loss was one of the most vivid lessons merchants learned.

Much profit could be gained if the Debau Company went to war. It was because Debau would launch such a war that Lawrence could likely earn a nigh-unbelievable amount of money by setting up shop here. That was the same as the nobles investing in the city.

He remembered his conversation in Winfiel Kingdom with someone he met from the Ruvik Alliance, of such influence and might it seemed to slightly surpass the nation itself. Eve had probably first heard the term from them herself.

A term used among close business competitors.

Trade war.

Not all wars involved swinging swords or setting things on fire.

Merchants made their living by procuring trade goods from the far reaches of distant lands and delivering them to customers at the other end of the world, all while sitting at a table. So why could they not wage war the same way?

And that was precisely what the Debau Company was doing.

Before long someone from the Vhans Company came to the shop. The Vhans Company seemed to be situated as a branch of the Debau Company.

Did they know?

As Lawrence thought of it, he decided they probably did not. Any merchant worth his salt who did know surely would not be so calm about it.

Even while he was being explained to about the shop and the rights issues related to it, Lawrence’s head was in the clouds. By the time he realized it, he had returned to the inn, with Holo exhibiting undisguised displeasure atop the bed.

“You want to know?”

Lawrence gave her a playful glance, full of confidence.

Even Holo could not get angry at him for that. She sighed.

“’Tis written all over your face that you shall say it anyway.”

Her tail swayed with a heavy swish as if a sigh of its own.

“That’s correct.”

“…We are going round in circles. Speak already.”

If she was going to listen to him speak, he did not mind her flabbergasted look. Lawrence gathered himself and explained to Holo.

However, as he explained to Holo, the folds of her frown only deepened, probably because she could not believe the details from a young one. That the Debau Company was doing something on this scale.

That they were turning the very foundation of their business into a weapon with which to wage war.

That they were going to take on not part of, but the entirety of the northlands, which had never been unified by anyone.

There likely would not be casualties. There would probably be no tragedies.

Everyone would surely be shocked, then rise in acclamation and overflow with joy that such a method of warfare existed in this world.

That is why when someone ran hurriedly through the corridor and knocked on the door of their room while he was in the middle of explaining to Holo, he was not flustered.

Lawrence had reasoned that if his hypothesis was correct, it was just about time.

“Mr. Lawrence, momentous news!” Moizi’s voice resounded.

Lawrence flashed Holo a smile as he went to the door, opening it.

There stood Moizi, the look on his face that of one announcing that one’s enemy had just arrived.

“Oh, Mr. Lawrence. ’Tis a grave matter. Just now, our subordinates reported a billboard has been put up in the square. It concerns—”

Lawrence nodded as he spoke.

“I know what it concerns.”

That made Moizi blink in surprise for a moment before replying.

“You have already seen it?”

He shook his head side to side. Moizi asked back, “What is the meaning of this, then?” but Lawrence, lacking a single shred of doubt things were outside his expectations, spoke with pride.

“The billboard carries an announcement that a new coin is being issued. Am I wrong?”

For a moment, Moizi took his words in and then said, “That is correct.”

“But how did you know?” his eyes asked.

Certainly, Lawrence had not known when they had discussed the matter the day before. Even so, he had brought all the money he had on hand, resolved for the first and probably only time in his life to buy a shop, something that certainly was not cheap, for he had come to see it.

There were things one could not understand by thinking with their head alone.

Holo was among these things.

Lawrence lightly pulled on his collar to readjust it.

“For the Debau Company is a collection of merchants, and I, too, am a merchant.”

Even if it made Holo laugh at him, he put on his best merchant face.

The town was in an uproar.

Of course, the merchants were at the vanguard of the outcry.

Since ancient times, one could call it “invariable” that the powerful issued coinage within their spheres of influence.

This was at once proof that they were masters of their own territories, but most of all, the issuing of coinage brought in profit in and of itself.

As it was normal for a coin to have a higher market value than the value of the precious metals it contained, the issuer made a profit from that difference alone.

But the Debau Company was not aiming for anything as simple as the profit from issuing coinage itself. It had meticulously prepared in advance, scattering bait all about. To attract a mountain of fish, one needed bait for them to eat to their hearts’ content. Trenni silver pieces, the most-used silver coinage south of Ploania, were probably circulating around the northlands to a hitherto unprecedented degree.

However, no matter how great the amount of coins brought in by lords and nobles pursuing the scent of easy profit, it was surely a level that could not be kept up for long.

Normally, a lack of currency would erupt sooner or later, business dried up, and products could no longer be sold.

That is why Holo had said, thinking this an extremely obvious line of thinking, perhaps the Debau Company is minting its own currency.

If one wanted to have enough of something they did not have enough of, they had to get more from somewhere, and if they were a company in possession of lucrative mines, the idea of minting their own currency was not mistaken whatsoever.

However, trenni silver pieces, with the likenesses of the kings of Trenni engraved upon them, were coins with a long lineage. A newly minted fake was exposed immediately. Silver coin or not, experienced hands could tell by sight. With any well-known coin, a new minting would be identified immediately.

So what about an entirely new kind of silver coin?

There was no problem whatsoever. Furthermore, the Debau Company could produce the raw silver and copper by themselves.

The announcement in the town of Lesko of the issuing of a new coin brought a carnival atmosphere with it.

The most pleased of all were those merchants who, like Lawrence, realized what the Debau Company was doing; the next most pleased were the ordinary residents of the town of Lesko.

The sign concerned had this recorded on it.

“The Debau Company has obtained approval from multiple lords for the issuance of coinage in the following weights.”

It listed silver coins, copper coins, and various others…

The purity levels recorded on the sign were unheard of. Normally, there was no way such purity could be maintained, or so many merchants thought, so they would do business while preparing for the purity level to drop, but a public consensus was forming on how much profit the Debau Company, bearing mines from which silver and copper poured out as if from a spring, could attain.

The Debau Company probably could continue to maintain that level of purity.

And even more importantly, the exchange rate with other currencies had also been recorded.

For the next two years, the Debau Company would exchange trenni silver pieces for its new silver coins at a fixed rate, no questions asked.

The Debau Company’s wording was so strong that, regardless of appearance, even if they had been shaved, this town would assemble a huge volume of trenni silver pieces, supplied by people coming to sell merchandise in the town of Lesko from all across the northlands, making its economy extremely active.

With the huge influx of trenni silver pieces, it would become harder and harder to use the lower quality coinage that had been in use in Lesko until now. Rather than accept coins issued by just anyone, everyone would rather accept coinage of a well-known, stable value.

There were plenty of cases where bad coinage drove out the good, but the reverse naturally occurred as well.

What that meant specifically was, rather than the dozens of low-quality coins that circulated throughout the northlands, a currency system was being established simple enough for even a child to understand.

For those who had been accepting coins with their values shrouded in uncertainty, this was nothing short of a blessing from heaven.

In one stroke, the Debau Company had simplified the exchange of coinage, and furthermore, had linked the value of its own coinage with that of trenni silver pieces.

In doing so, spreading the announcement across various towns, they made it possible to easily and painlessly switch to the new currency without any need for the various rulers’ say-so.

Until now, everyone had merely brought their merchandise for sale in town, something any peasant could think of.

But what Lawrence—and perhaps other merchants as well—admired was what lay ahead.

Why had the Debau Company spread rumors of unrest all about?

In fact, the nobles and mercenaries that had gathered had never thought they were simply being used to bring in currency.

Besides, according to Luward, the Debau Company had not shown even the smallest sign of starting a war, seemingly wasting their time and money. This had solicited irritation and impatience from Luward and his ilk.

They tried with all their might to figure out what to expect from the Debau Company, even seeking advice from merchants off the street like Lawrence.

And there was no doubt that was the Debau Company’s very objective.

By dangling rumors of unrest and sprinkling about a large amount of money, the Debau Company had gathered military strength together. Anyone would think that there was no doubt Debau was going to wage war. They would say that because it was a company that owned and operated mines, it would surely wage war to obtain new ore deposits in the northlands.

However, there was no concrete information whatsoever about where Debau would invade. No doubt this kept the residents of the northlands and, in particular, those actually ruling the various territories up at night. Since time immemorial, the powerful had carved out and ruled territories from the lands divided by mountains and valleys. They had two choices open to them.

The first was for the northlands to unite together to oppose the Debau Company; the second was to join Debau’s side.

And so, lords had requested peace talks with the Debau Company one after another. No doubt Debau had prepared astonishingly lenient proposals. Furthermore, the more and more such talk circulated, the Debau Company would make allies out of the powerful left and right, with the rumors of what it was doing only making it all the more convincing.

No one would know what would happen if they did not join when push came to shove. To say nothing of all the mercenary groups gathered in the town; many powerful people would think of the town as beyond their reach.

Also, the masses glorified life in the town of Lesko as the world’s eternal springtime. Buildings were constructed one after another as the population grew steadily.

Those sharp of wit would want to invest in such a place.

Indeed, according to Luward, lords actually were investing in the town.

They could not have been buying anything cheap. After all, they had been buying buildings, just as Lawrence had. Would someone who had invested in the town think, What can I do to lower prices in that town? Surely not.

Because coinage was a symbol of authority, there would be those who would be unamused by Debau’s issuing a new currency, but this was no great concern. If they could have tranquility for their territories and a great deal of profit, it was no concern at all.

After all, the Debau Company’s war was the battle to expand the extent of the circulation of its currency.

The more currency one issued, the more one’s profit from issuing that currency rose. After all, issuing a coin no one was going to use was meaningless. The more people used one’s coinage, the better. From that perspective, the Debau Company’s scheme was perfect.

When Lawrence went to exchange currency in Lenos, the coinage was divided into fourteen different types. Faced with such a place, one certainly yearned for strong, abundant coinage.

That was how coinage spread.

Lawrence expressed what the Debau Company was doing as a war because its expanding currency was engaged in the same role as that of soldiers.

The Debau Company, which accomplished its objective of protecting the town without walling it in, was rushing headlong into a new world.

The merchants had evidently caught wind of it.

The bottom of the Debau Company’s signboard listed the names of lords, influential even in the northlands region, which had granted their approval. No doubt other territories would see the circulation of the new currency as something they, too, should accept.

Once that process began, it would be exceedingly difficult for other lords to resist. When all those around them, making use of good coinage, were living amid a large economic sphere, it was unfathomable to remain outside, alone and poor, unable to buy or sell the merchandise they wished to.

It was not much different than being besieged by soldiers surrounding the walls.

Furthermore, as circulation of the coinage issued by the Debau Company bound more places together, the nominal holders of those territories would cease to be the true masters of the land.

No matter the ruler, it was exceedingly difficult to wield power while penniless. Once the masses understood the pastures were greener on the other side of the mountain, they invariably went. If one used force of arms to stop this, that plight would create strife in all directions. And the opponent would be numerous persons of influence linked by money to the Debau Company and one another.

Hitherto, kings had largely been cut from the same cloth. This was a product of ties by marriage. But people changed their spots easily over differences in coinage. Many strategic marriages were in vain, ending in bloody conflicts in no small number of cases. From this perspective as well, the Debau Company’s plan was perfect for these lands, with their rulers scattered all about.

The topography made mounting one’s horse and grappling with those who bore arms fraught with peril. Even tying them down by marriage was difficult.

However, with coinage as an intermediary, neither steep mountains, nor deep forests, nor the piles of snow that fell each year held much relevance. This land was the ideal place to link together with coinage.

In the past, the Ruvik Alliance had used warships in its possession to smash the militaries of kingdoms that interfered with its trading.

Merchants acclaimed this as the start of a new era, but this was the old era’s way of fighting nonetheless.

The Debau Company was using its own coinage to bind the economic activity of the nobility and, furthermore, to acquire enormous profits from the issuing of that coinage.

This was completely different than sending soldiers into neighboring realms to profit from crude plunder.

Furthermore, people around the world would be grateful that the distribution of currency would not be entrusted to incompetent rulers vigorously pursuing power for themselves; the burden would instead be borne by merchants heavily skilled in administration. Whereas rulers could only cope with famine by plundering provisions from their neighbors, merchants could resolve it with money: low taxes, smooth trading, no overbearing authority.

Kings received advice from merchants attending their royal courts, but whether they acted on that advice was anyone’s guess. A foolish king could survive despite himself, but a foolish merchant could not. This was powerful evidence of trustworthiness to the masses.

For the first time in history, the Debau Company would rise to the same level as kings, without resorting to the sword.

“It’s a new era!”

That is what Luward shouted, raising his wine cup, as Lawrence finished his explanation. There might have been a hint of regret in his shout.

What made Lawrence think that was that Luward Myuri truly looked like someone who had lived in the same era as Holo.

“Money is a powerful force in any world, but it was never able to resolve everything. And yet the Debau Company has accomplished all this with money alone. We haven’t swung our swords even once, and yet all the lords are bowing down before them!”

“Certainly, I have not once heard of a case like this.” Moizi spoke with a languid, uninspired sigh.

“This is what will bring many of our comrades to tears. We will lose much of our purpose for existing. We’ve become paid paper puppets. If we can at least earn something in spite of this…” Luward spoke, irritatingly smashing his bagful of gold onto the table hard enough to nearly smash it. “Who can complain about this?!”

After the huge uproar in town from the raising of the billboard in the square, Luward had barely returned to the inn when a messenger claiming to be from the Debau Company summoned him. When he returned in the evening, he bore such a conflicted visage that not a single member of the mercenary company dared raise his voice.

He had money with him.

However, this was not a reward granted after a battle; rather, it was for the paper puppet role that they had not been informed of.

Mercenaries held their banners, risking their lives for the group. Lawrence needed no effort to recall Fran, the young silversmith and crusading priest, in search of an angel for her own reasons.

To them, the other members were both coworkers and family, comrades alongside which they would willingly march into hell itself. And yet, they were obtaining more money by being used to check the advances of others than they ever had risking their lives.

Was this not something to celebrate?

Moreover, the Debau Company had altered the foundation of old-style sword-and-shield warfare. By hiring knights and mercenaries in numbers sufficient to make victory nearly a foregone conclusion, could they not avoid such troublesome things and settle conflicts through money alone? A simple, childlike ideal, and yet it had become reality.

Certainly, the end of war would please many. However, change always left some people behind. When the village of Pasloe no longer had to struggle for wheat, Holo lost her reason for being. No matter how lonely, painful, how often she cried, it was what it was. Even among the mercenary company there were those who were disappointed. Like a good commander, Luward bathed them in enough wine to make their eyes spin.

However, the decision whether to stay in the town or leave was surely a critical juncture for the future of the company.

“Moizi and I weren’t looking straight at the problem, I suppose.” Luward spoke self-effacingly. “I’m glad you were here, Mr. Lawrence. I did not think the power of money was as tremendous as this.”

Lawrence made but a tiny smile as he gazed into his clear wine.

Until the last half year, he never drank wine without putting in a mountain of ginger or even charcoal to mask the unpleasant taste. Thinking about this, he found his current position to be quite mysterious; now he was able to realize that just as his drinking had changed, so too had his thinking.

“I thought I knew a thing or two about money. However, those who I have met on my travels have taught me that there is still much about it I have yet to learn.”

Norah and Eve had risked their lives for money, but in completely different ways and meanings. Col and Elsa had taught him that there were things money brought that people could not live without.

And Holo had taught Lawrence how to make use of money.

Thinking back on it now, Lawrence was sure that if he had been alone he would have never bought something like a store no matter how much time passed. Having stingily pulled his purse strings taut, someday some illness or accident might befall him, his purse still closed.

He had not noticed the Debau Company’s scheme by his own power alone.

“Naturally, never in my dreams did I think someone like the Debau Company could make it into a reality. That’s in spite of meeting someone like Holo here.”

However much a wisewolf she was, she did not know everything, and even accepting the logic, that did not mean that it made sense. Holo, seemingly rather left behind by the conversation as much as Luward, tactlessly buried her face in her wine.

However, she seemed to understand that the mercenaries were in circumstances not so different from her own. When Luward toasted “the good old days,” she made a pained smile and raised her cup as well.

“This might very well be the new way of the world.”

So spoke Moizi, who no doubt thought charging together with swords raised were the good old days, shrugging his narrow shoulders casually in spite of the cramped confines of Luward’s office.

“When I was young, it was the duty of lords and the noble-born knights around them to go to new lands. At some point, the noblemen ceased to be knights and left the bounds of their kings. Mercenaries were hired with money in increasing numbers and frequency, and their employers were no longer the kings of various lands, but rather the distinguished and wealthy noblemen and great merchants that emerged in large cities. Do you know who in the world are at the front of the line, descending upon the new lands across the sea?”

Moizi looked at Lawrence.

Lawrence, rather uncomfortably, could but answer, “Merchants, yes?”

Actually, Lawrence had read a book written by a merchant who had toured the world.

Building a ship, assembling a skilled crew—expenses for a voyage all required raising money to invest.

It was not the kind of job you could leave to ruffians. No matter where, regardless of circumstances, one had to employ people who loved calculating profit and loss so much, it seemed like they had some kind of disease.

And probably more than all others, merchants full of curiosity and vitality believed that they would discover great profit where none had gone before.

If there was one group in the world that had not lost its adventuring spirit, it was surely merchants.

“My father liked to say, ‘Don’t choose your employers, and don’t have others choose your money.’”

“It’s the reverse now. If we try to name our price now, we’ll never be able to make a living.”

Luward nodded as Moizi spoke.

Not surprisingly, they were holding this conversation while the two young aides were absent.

“Mr. Lawrence, I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but right now, competition for mercenary work is fierce. The world’s filled with ordinary blacksmiths and other stout craftsmen who train themselves, carrying weapons they know how to use better than anyone, who work away from home as mercenaries. They were the first ‘Free Lancers.’ They’re less picky about who they work for than we are. Their goal’s simply to earn money, not to fight for the tradition and dignity of their banner.”

Luward narrowed his eyes as he made a disappointed laugh.

Lawrence was not on the side left behind by change as he was. He could not find the words. So he changed the subject.

“Anyway, now that the possibility of war in this town has abated for now, will you be headed to Yoit…to the Tolkien region?”

Their original plan had been to deploy here, but with that plan having evaporated, Lawrence wanted their guidance as he headed to Yoitsu, taking Holo with him. After all, the purchase of the store in this town was not yet complete, nor did the other party expect full payment immediately.

He would need to go along the trade route once, collecting balances owed and trading favors with people and organizations at a number of markets.

“Ah, there is that…we’d really meant to ride the winning horse, but…the horse turned out to be a different one than we bargained for. If we stayed, we’d probably find work. However, that would mean changing in a definitive way. That is why I think we should go south, searching for remnants of the old era.”

Luward was being sentimental, perhaps because he was deep in his cups.

Moizi, more advanced in years, maintained his composure.

“We can always dissolve after we are certain whether this change becomes a heavy trend throughout the world or a miracle limited only to here.”

This, too, was crucial.

“Though we do intend to visit our homeland. When we make profit, some members have family they want to spend some of that money on.”

“So could we go with you?”

As Lawrence asked, Moizi made a conflicted face.

When Holo noticed he was in a quandary, she promptly poked him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Well, even if we had a reason not to bring you, our ancestors would never forgive us.”

He spoke with a serious look with just a slight amount of pain in his voice.

Spending time with Holo through tears, laughter, disillusionment, anger, and haste, one could forget that Holo was a being some called a god, and others, a spirit. As the Myuri mercenaries were centered around what one might call a creation myth, refusing the great task of bringing Holo to her precious homeland would call into doubt the company’s reason for being.

Lawrence apologized in earnest as Holo made a sigh beside him.

“I suppose we’ll be off in four, maybe five days. How many days depends on what’s going on and whether there are any large developments, which certainly could happen, but…”

As Luward spoke, he opened a shutter and peered outside.

Even as the sun set, the town was not calming down today; on the contrary, the uproar seemed to only grow larger as night fell.

Tonight there were fires burning all over the place, as if the fire ordinances had been relaxed.

It was so cold it seemed snow would fall at any moment, but even now people were pulling chairs and tables outside, drinking wine, and dancing all about.

Surely a great many of those who were excited did not understand the meaning of the Debau Company’s issuing a new currency. However, there was reason for them to be pleased. For a single town to issue its own currency showed that it stood head and shoulders above the other towns of the region. Put another way, the town in which they lived had just grown in stature.

Those who had come to this town from the unremarkable great steppes of the northlands that surrounded them, their boat rocked by uncertainty and hope, they simply could not help but be jubilant.

“I doubt there’ll be anything bigger than this that will happen. The Debau Company’s plan is no doubt running smoothly, like chasing a rabbit down a rabbit hole. As long as the rabbit hole doesn’t lead to a strange place, which shouldn’t happen, because a rabbit hole’s just a rabbit hole.”

Luward spoke as if one might be hiding somewhere as he drank his wine. He might have been envious of those people who did not even notice there was a rabbit hunt.

Lawrence himself was, if anything, on the envied side.

Though he’d originally come to this town intending to oppose the Debau Company, the greatness of what they were accomplishing had made him proud as a fellow merchant—humans were certainly a fickle lot.

However, what Debau was doing was simply of that level.

No doubt they were having a great celebration at company headquarters that very moment.

“Well, let’s say it’s a turning point of the era and leave it at that. We mercenaries have always lived in the gaps of history after all.”

As Luward spoke in a self-effacing tone, Moizi raised his cup a bit.

“And it seems we are not the only ones who think so,” he said, shifting his gaze down the window once more.

“That’s the kid from Rebonet, isn’t it?”

“Ha-ha. Their captain is a devoted lover of wine, too, after all.”

Be it out of a simple love of parties or that the turning point of the age simply demanded the drinking of wine, the young man pounded on the door without restraint, calling for Luward from the other side.

“I can’t say no to that. Well, the rest of you have fun here.”

So Luward said, adding that Moizi should enjoy himself like the others downstairs, energetically handing him the whole lot of the gold coins from the money bag he brought from the Debau Company.

Lawrence had seen that many lumione gold pieces during the uproar in Kerube, but seeing them handled so casually was a first.

He realized that indeed they were mercenaries and he was a merchant.

“Well, I’d best be off.”

Luward seemed to be shaking his head as he wrapped his coat around himself and left, but there was happiness on his face as well. He was much younger than Lawrence, after all. No doubt his blood ran too hot to keep his chagrin at being fooled by the Debau Company off his face.

“Now, to enjoy myself, as requested……And what about the two of you?”

Moizi counted the various gold coins Luward had handed him, returning over half of them to the bag before he stood. From his tone of voice, he conveyed that they need not remain for his sake.

“We’ll return to our rooms. Doubtless everyone will get quite carried away in the middle of this uproar.”

“Heh-heh-heh. A wise decision. The taste of wine should be properly enjoyed at leisure. They’d just as well drink mud water right now. Indeed, quite a lot of it.”

Moizi shrugged his shoulders and laughed as he took a few more gold coins out.

Even from the second floor, they could hear the commotion on the first.

Just how they were drinking was easy to guess.

“Besides, now that I’ve paid the deposit for that store, my head hurts from the money I’ll have to raise. This is no time to spend a couple of days drunk.”

As Lawrence spoke, Moizi’s eyes widened with some surprise.

“Oh, truly, you have?”

“Yes, with both feet.”

“…Ha-ha. How fortuitous. A once-in-a-lifetime purchase for a young man.”

Moizi slapped his forehead just like Luward did. It had probably been Moizi’s habit to begin with. It seemed that if people lived together long enough, they began to resemble a husband and wife.

Lawrence glanced sideways at Holo as he thought about that.

When she cocked her head with a questioning look, Lawrence merely smiled casually, saying nothing.

“Fortuitous, indeed. I didn’t think you’d actually buy it. And at the most opportune time, as well.”

The town was in an uproar. Prices for everything shot up during festivities. No doubt, had Lawrence not paid the deposit at that very moment in time that building would now either be already sold or much higher in price.

“Yes. I’m grateful to God.”

As Lawrence spoke, Moizi looked between Lawrence and Holo, somewhat surprised. He was probably wondering if it was all right to say such a thing in front of Holo.

Holo, of course, made no sign of minding.

With that, Moizi surely could guess to some degree what kind of journey Lawrence and Holo had undertaken together.

“In this world one never knows what might happen. Good night, then.”

Having said this, Moizi brought his subordinates along with him as he left the room.

“Shall we go as well?”

As Lawrence saw Moizi and the others off, he turned back to the middle of the room where Holo was greedily pouring wine from the jug that had been left behind.

“There’s wine in the room, too.”

“Fool. How can I leave good wine like this behind?”

The wine in the room was good, but certainly the wine that Luward had treated them to was of the highest quality.

Perhaps having seen Moizi and Luward leave, a young man entered by a different door to clean up afterward. However, he noticed that Holo and Lawrence were still in the room and remained at the entrance, hesitating about whether to go in.

“See? We’re in the cleaner’s way. Let’s go.”

Lawrence gave the young man a tip and led Holo out of the room by her hand.

Holo reluctantly followed, her filled-to-the-brim mug in hand, but she was definitely dragging her feet.

“What, you don’t want to go back to our room?”

There was a raucous celebration outside.

He wondered if the great wisewolf, so prone to moping, just wanted to flap her ears down and go to sleep somewhere.

“…’Tis not that,” Holo said.

As if you’ve never thought such a thing, Lawrence thought, but his lips simply said, “Ah,” spontaneously.

“Are you worried about the money?”

As Lawrence spoke, Holo averted her gaze as her ears perked up under her hood.

No matter how good the wine was, she did not need to drink it down that greedily with all the celebrating outside.

No doubt she knew that this was easier on Lawrence’s wallet than teasingly yanking a cork out. That she had not done just that meant she was taking seriously what he had said, half in jest, about his head hurting from the money he would have to raise.

“I have enough money for good-tasting wine for you.”

Lawrence lifted the mug out of Holo’s hand.

When a little spilled, she muttered, “What a waste.”

However, Holo made no move to take the mug back.

“Truly?”

As she asked from beside him, she wagged her tail under her robe.

He wondered what kind of request he would have to honor if he said yes here. Even so, Lawrence took a long sip from the high-quality wine Holo had filled her mug to the brim with, coughing as he spoke.

“Let’s knock ours—”

Holo put her hand over his mouth to stop him from saying the rest.

“If you let your guard down now, you shall regret it later.” Such were words that Lawrence had often directed toward Holo. “Lately you have not been of such frugal mind. Are you not slipping, perhaps?”

As he thought, She got me, Holo happily retrieved the mug from Lawrence’s hand, walking with a skip in her step as she drank.

“However.” Holo suddenly halted, looking back at him over her shoulder.

She made a face so saucy, it made him want to grab her with both hands and shake it out of her.

“If you insist so much, there is no need to drink outside.”

Holo teasingly fluttered her eyes as she danced a step ahead of Lawrence.

Thus having immediately put distance between them, he endured her laughter even amid her scolding, notorious tease that she was.

“Had too much to drink?”

Continuing to smile, as if not listening to Lawrence’s words whatsoever, she replied, “Aye.”

That night the entire town seemed to become one extended square, with wine and food sold in every corner. Lawrence and Holo tried to reach to the square, turning back due to too many people. In the end, they settled down at a folding table in front of a roadside spice store. As there were no annoying regulations to worry about, even the spice store, spotting a business opportunity, had turned into a small tavern.

Naturally, Lawrence was the only one to settle down; Holo, having received silver coins from Lawrence, gripped them tightly and ran toward the booth like a child.

And thinking that she would return with her arms full of food, which she did—only to put it down and immediately run off again.

The scene repeated itself four times over. The spice shop’s owner watched the ruckus outside while drinking wine; it made his eyes spin.

“Mmm-hee-hee-hee.”

It seemed foolish to warn her not to overeat.

Lawrence watched Holo eat and drink with a look of awe.

Certainly, he had been less concerned about thrift of late; he understood that this was because his priorities had begun to shift inside him.

Money above everything. Money more than anything.

He remembered that greed from the year before last as a radiant, searing heat, but could not remember how hot it burned whatsoever. And compared to the happy mood he felt now, it was but a pale shadow, soon to be buried away in his memories.

If he could set up his store here and make it work out, he might be gazing at the same scenery with Holo across the table, years or even decades down the road.

He had little confidence he would be able to remember how he felt now.

However, he did not doubt whatsoever that he would be happy.

Lawrence had begun to realize that he had spent too long convinced he was just about to catch the big one and that the sun of his life would be reaching its zenith. That was why Lawrence, spending his days as a traveling merchant, wanted a place he could return to, where his sun could set in peace.

To have actually obtained it here was an unexpected bonus.

If he could meet himself on his worst day as an apprentice, he’d have told himself this: Your hard work will be rewarded.

Thinking of that, Lawrence smiled to himself.

“And what are you grinning about?” said Holo as she washed down the drumstick meat that she had been chewing on, gristle and all.

“I’m happy. That’s something to smile at.”

He gazed straight at Holo, making an easygoing smile as he spoke. He said it simply, no blush, no embarrassment. Holo seemed about to say something snide, but Lawrence’s calm seemed to draw the poison out of her.

“’Tis because you say such things with such audacity that I say you are a fool.”

That was the best that he was going to get.

“When you said, ‘I want to go back to Yoitsu,’ and I brought you with me, I never imagined something like this happening, though.”

Holo, who was eating a bit of everything on her plate, grabbed a crispy chicken wing with the skin still on, deftly bringing it to her mouth, letting the sweetness of the oil swirl throughout the inside of her mouth.

“If you ask where it is even now, I cannot recall. And were I to recall, it is possible I would misremember.”

Holo’s ears could tell when someone lied.

It was understandable that she arched back as if to make a heavy sigh.

“And yet, we’ve arrived.”

“We have not arrived yet,” Holo corrected him immediately, without admonition.

It was plain as day she wanted him to say something, anything back.

“Well, that’s certainly the case, but more importantly.”

Lawrence licked his finger and used a piece of bread to grasp a bean that had rolled onto the table. He did not know who had grown it, but someone had planted it, someone had harvested it, someone had brought it to the town, someone had husked it, someone had broiled it and served it on a plate. Thanks to no small number of merchants, none of which they knew personally, Lawrence and Holo were able to eat here and now.

Common to every stage of the bean’s journey was coinage and the sound, profitable actions of various people, with the blessings of the Lord only a small part of the large picture.

Lawrence had spent the time since meeting Holo making sound compromises between his own greed and reality. At first, he did not make these compromises, resulting in failure and in arguments with Holo. However, in time he managed somehow.

It did not seem so strange if one looked at the process one step at a time. In business, any contrivance was merely one very obvious thing piled atop another, no matter how extravagant.

This being said, Holo before his own eyes, a suspicious, oddly pained expression on her face, he could not help but think it a mysterious thing.

As if this was an illusion that would vanish the moment he stretched out his hand.

The time when he would think such thoughts and timidly reach out had passed. Where but a little before he would have forced things forward only to have his hand brutally slapped back, Lawrence sat deeply in his chair like any other town merchant, resting his right arm on the table as he spoke gently.

“Let’s talk after we reach Yoitsu.”

He finally spoke openly and honestly about the unfinished issue he had evaded many times over. Holo did not express laughter or shock or happiness, instead looking the other way, a miffed look on her face. Even so, Lawrence smiled gently at her. When she stole a glance in his direction, she snorted.

“You are the only one moving ahead, bit by bit.” She was speaking like a child, he thought; actually, her words were that of a child. “I am just like those who carried Myuri’s claw—the side left behind.”

Within the town, amid the clamor the Debau Company had stirred, where some were happy, others were not.

In the world of man, there were those who fierce changes left behind.

Holo knew that even after reaching Yoitsu, this would be a dismaying, inescapable fact.

“And yet until a short time ago, you were the one chasing me.”

In truth, back in Lenos he had been frantically running around the town in his desperation to find a way to go with Holo.

Thinking about it, he realized that over the course of a mere few days, he had become liberal in a very bold way. He did not think he had ever been more proud of being a merchant than he was now.

As fellow merchants, the Debau Company had accomplished a great enterprise that surely any merchant had wished for in vain.

Merchants were certainly not minor players in the world.

Merchants would sweep across the world to come.

This town had an atmosphere that permitted such grandiose aspirations.

Lawrence looked at Holo.

Holo stared at him like a spiteful cat, her hands pressed on top of her tankard as if using it as a heater.

Such small, delicate hands.

But it was those hands that had pulled Lawrence through many hardships.

“It’s because I worked so desperately to catch up. Won’t you praise that?”

Holo lowered her eyes and, seemingly unable to hold out any longer, laughed.

She was surely thinking something like, A little success and this male gets carried away.

Even so, after laughing for a while, she made a soft sigh and lifted her face, a smile left behind as she stopped. “That’s right. You have worked hard.” She took her hands off her tankard. “You have fulfilled your promise to me. So, as for what comes after…”

Holo spoke that far before she closed her glistening lips, glazed with chicken fat.

She did not need to say what came after that, after all, and she could not speak it from her own lips.

Having undertaken the fairy-tale-like journey to Yoitsu with Holo, Lawrence would return to the trade route called reality. He had a job he had to do, things he had to see through.

But what came after that was settled.

It was not an unreasonable stretch, nor some wild delusion. Even with a beast’s ears and tail, the very incarnation of the wild wolf, Holo being right by his side was enough for him to forget all about such things.

Therefore, Lawrence should take Holo’s hand in his. It was perfectly obvious.

Is it not? Holo expressed wordlessly, a shy, slender smile forming on her lips as she gazed at him. It is. Lawrence pointedly moved the fingers of the hand he had laid atop the table. If he ever looked back later on in life, he was certain this was the moment he would remember.

Even though he expected Holo’s hands to be far hotter than his own and prepared for it, her narrow shoulders shrank further.

A carnival atmosphere had taken hold of the town of Lesko.

That’s why he thought for a moment, Well, these things happen.

A bag fell onto the table with a thud.

It was cheap and seemed to have very little in it. Even without raising his face, he could imagine what the owner looked like well enough.

No money, living on the road, taking with him only what he could carry securely. He knew not if the person was in the middle of trying to do something or had spent his entire life like that. Either way, he imagined the fellow had probably gotten carried away amid the tumult, drinking himself into a stupor and carelessly dropping his bag along the way.

Lawrence stopped moving to take Holo’s hand in his and picked the sack up from the table. Oh, foolish drunk, tonight at least such behavior can be forgiven. Thinking this, he lifted his face. Though all was already settled in his mind, something seemed to tug at him and he looked down at the sack again. That moment—

“Kraft Lawrence.”

A name was uttered. Lawrence’s name.

Across the table, Holo opened her eyes in shock.

What had been placed on the table had not been carelessly dropped, for it was the possession of someone they knew well, someone who should have been far away from the town.

“Holo the Wisewolf.” The person who had tossed Col’s sack onto the table, hooded robe pulled over the eyes, spoke a second name.

In this world, many characters walk onto the stage.

And all of them plunge forward toward their many objectives, be they comedies or tragedies.

To Be Continued