Spice and Wolf - Volume 22 - Chapter 3

A WEDDING FOR WOLVES

When I was young, I left the village that was my birthplace with the hopes of mastering theology. I made my way toward a university town with no money or connections and lived as a homeless wandering student. I was laughably unprepared, and sure enough, I found myself in a dire situation of my own making, but it was by God’s graces that I met the people I could call my life mentors, and it is all thanks to them I was able to get this far.

Ever since then, I have worked extremely hard, and I never planned to neglect my teachings.

And even if not everything was perfect, there were genuine signs of progress.

So while I had not exactly bided my time waiting for the moment, I did leave the hot spring village of Nyohhira to venture on a journey when the opportunity presented itself. That was two months ago.

Problems surrounding the Church have brought chaos to the world, and my journey was met with difficulties and tribulations almost right away. Even so, I managed to safely get through it all with God’s protection, and I was even bestowed with an unexpected reputation. While I have found myself rather bewildered and pressured by such unwarranted regard, I have finally started to be able to carry the responsibility on these meager shoulders.

All I must do now is simply follow the path of faith while restraining and cultivating myself.

My name is Tote Col.

I am but another lamb following in God’s path as best I can, but…

“Gh…”

I felt a weight on my chest and opened my eyes.

I wondered if a demon had finally appeared to test my faith, so I opened my eyes slightly, ready to greet it with all the piety I had accumulated over the years. The intruder’s outline was illuminated by the faint light of dawn that filtered in through the window.

A moment later, my shoulders relaxed.

There before my eyes was, in a sense, a demon meant to lead astray a lamb of God. What lay on my chest, snoring soundly, was a young girl.

When she frolicked and tramped about in a good mood, due to her slender physique and high waist, she was like an adorable ball of cotton or wafting dandelion fluff, but when she lay on my chest, I was painfully aware of how much she had grown. It had been indescribably sweet when she had done this as a babbling baby, but there was a difficult-to-describe weight when she did this now.

She never listened, and no matter how many times I cautioned her, she incorrigibly crawled under my covers during the night. When I looked at Myuri’s sleeping face, I sighed through my nose.

This was the only daughter of ex-merchant Lawrence and Holo the Wisewolf, the couple to whom I owed a great debt of gratitude, and she was essentially the little sister I had cared for since birth. The tomboyish Myuri had constantly whined about wanting to leave her hometown to see the outside world and had followed along on my journey without my permission.

Her ash-silver bangs, a remarkable color she had inherited from her father, swayed, and her long eyelashes twitched. She mumbled something or other in her sleep, and like a cat changing its sleeping position, she curled up and tried to bury her face in the blanket.

I found myself moved by the innocence of that endearing gesture and smiled, but then something suddenly struck me.

Since her face was now in the blanket, the top of her head was right at the top of my nose. Her vaunted hair, which she cared for every single day, smelled of a strange sweetness that was different from perfumed oil.

It was because of the large triangular wolf ears at the top of her head.

Myuri was a girl who had inherited the blood of a wolf, and she had magnificent wolf ears and tail. There were times the tips of her ears would tickle my nose and wake me up, but as I watched her ears comfortably twitch in time with her breathing, I gulped.

This sweet girl had adorable wolf ears, and she slept soundly without a single worry. I swallowed hard at the sight…I actually did not, but I did desperately hold back a yell as a terrifying realization dawned upon me.

“Oh no.”

I threw the blanket back, and on my chest, Myuri curled up even tighter. In response, her wolf’s tail swished about unhappily, looking even more fluffy than usual as it glittered under the light cascading through the window.

To be precise, it was the countless hairs that had fallen from her tail, dancing in the air, that caught the morning’s light.

“…Oh, God…”

I returned my raised head back to my pillow and stared up weakly at the ceiling. Combined with how Myuri’s hairs were the color of silver flecked with ash, they looked just like snow as they danced in the sunlight. One could call it a beautiful sight, but the world was not filled with beauty alone.

“Myuri, Myuri.”

The girl in question was seeking the blanket, leisurely stirring. I grabbed her shoulders and shook, and this sleepyhead flattened her ears in annoyance, swatting my hands with her tail, and silver hairs flew with each and every move.

“Myuri.”

“Rrrgh…It’s still early, Brother…”

As Myuri tried to pull the blanket she had finally gotten a hold of back over her head as she said that, I demanded, “Clean up your hairs right this instant!”

Myuri was a girl with wolf’s blood running in her veins. Shedding season had come again this year, but this was not her parents’ bathhouse in Nyohhira. We were in the middle of traveling, and what’s more, we were currently staying in a rented room in a noble’s manor.

We could not let anyone know that Myuri was a wolf.

“Bwuh?”

With sleepy eyes, she raised her head, and a hair must have gotten in her nose, because she sneezed.

It was easy enough to wipe down the floor and table, but when it came to the blankets and other sundries, our only options were to either beat them out or tediously pick the hairs off. It would be clearly strange if a guest took their blanket to the well to wash it out, and we would need some sort of reason. When I proposed the idea that she put on a little act to manufacture a reason for washing the blanket, she glared at me with a reddened face and a fierce look in her eyes.

“I’m grown up already, so I wouldn’t do something like that!”

It was not very convincing to hear her call herself grown up when she still acted like a spoiled child on a regular basis, but she was so angry about my initial plan, it was clear that claiming she had had an accident would not be an option.

And so together, we sat beside the window and worked.

“Sigh…I had not thought about this time of year at all…I am certain Mr. Lawrence must have his hands full back at the bathhouse right about now…”

Myuri’s mother, Holo the Wisewolf, could not easily hide her ears and tail like Myuri.

She would be cooped up in a room at this time of year in order to keep wolf hairs from floating everywhere.

But the bathhouse was familiar territory, so they could soak in the springs at night, out of sight. That was why, since Myuri could deftly put her ears and tail away at will, I had scarcely paid any mind to her shedding season.

On the road, the shedding season took on an entirely different character.

“Uuurgh…My fingers are tired…”

Myuri whined, but those who had the blood of beasts were considered to have been possessed by demons and ran the risk of being immediately burned at the stake if discovered, especially by someone from the Church. That thought alone made me willing to face any hardship.

“Hey, Brother?”

Myuri had languidly given up on the blanket over her lap, and I was about to ask her to cut the chatter and continue working.

“What if we got a stray dog the same color of fur as me? Wouldn’t that solve this?”

“What? What are you—?” I started, then stopped.

“No matter how much I wash my tail, I just can’t hide it this time of year. And I’m not confident that I can totally hide my ears and tail while I’m sleeping.”

Myuri could freely tuck away her ears and tail, but it apparently felt more natural for her to have them out. That was why they would pop out on their own when she was surprised or angry.

It was much the same when she slept, which meant that if we were going to otherwise repeat this process every day, then her idea was at least worth looking into.

“If I play up the innocent little girl angle, I could probably manage bringing just one stray puppy into the manor. I’m sure they won’t get mad at me.”

She spoke with such a calm expression, but I could easily imagine her cradling a puppy and putting on a sly act. While I was not too happy about it as her adoptive older brother, she was strangely skilled at things like this. Her mother, Holo the Wisewolf, also used her dignity, charm, and wiles to freely direct, control, and drive her husband Lawrence, so Myuri must have inherited that part of her.

Also, the job of picking hairs off the blanket was never-ending.

“…But what are the chances of finding such a convenient puppy?” I asked, and Myuri threw off the blanket and stood.

“We just have to go looking around town! It’s so nice out today anyway!”

Could that have been her goal to begin with…? I thought, but in an unusual turn of events, we had nothing planned for the day.

We had been busy for quite a while until just recently, and the stormy workdays would come again in a few days’ time.

I had not been able to spend much time with Myuri recently, which was part of the reason I relented when she crawled into the blanket like an infant, begging for attention. She must have been lonely.

“I suppose we can.”

Myuri’s eyes immediately glittered, and she grabbed her coat.

“Yay! I’ll get grilled meat, fried food, and sugared candies from the stalls!”

I sighed as she listed off treats like the unnerving chant for a spell, then stood and threw my own coat over my shoulders. It was already spring, and I figured I might not need this for much longer. Myuri’s good mood was certainly thanks to the warm weather. The long, harsh winter was coming to an end, and the seasons of plenty fast approaching.

I squinted and looked out the window to see an endless pure-blue sky.

“Come on, Brother! Let’s go!”

Myuri grabbed me and pulled me by the arm, and I stumbled forward.

A graceful young woman looking up at the sky, smiling at the changing of seasons.

A part of me wanted her to grow up like that, but perhaps the way she was now, so full of life and energy, was just right. And the most formidable part of her was that if she wanted to act like a proper young lady, she could absolutely do it when she had a mind to.

“Hmm? What is it?”

Myuri, clinging to my right arm, looked up blankly at me.

“It is nothing.”

I patted her head with my left hand. After a brief moment passed, she shrugged and gave me a happy look.

“But the limit is one stick of grilled meat, understood?”

“Awww!”

“No ‘awww’s about it.”

“Fine, then I’ll go to a shop that has skewers thiiiiiiiis big!”

She threw out her arms like she was going to dislocate her shoulder, then clamped back down on my arm like a shark shutting its jaws.

“You promised, right?”

“No such thing exists. Oh, and metal spits don’t count. We are talking about wooden skewers.”

“You’re so mean, Brother!”

Though she whined, Myuri rubbed her face against my arm as she smiled, enjoying herself.

A fun yet aggravating or perhaps just a regular day was about to begin.

We were staying in a noble’s manor in a city called Rausbourne located in the south of the Winfiel Kingdom. The royal Hyland, who was helping us on our travels, was borrowing it from a certain noble, and so we were renting a room while carrying out jobs at Hyland’s request. Today, Hyland was out on official business, which made it our first day of rest in a long while.

Once she returned, our taxing work would surely begin anew.

Even the manor, which had seen a flurry of people coming and going for the past two days, was incredibly quiet for our well-earned rest.

We told the servants remaining in the manor that we were heading out and promptly set off. Just in case, I asked that no one go into our room since there were some important documents that I was in the middle of writing left in there. It was not a lie that there were such documents, so God might overlook my deceptions.

Once we left the manor, the late-morning Rausbourne streets were the same as always. It was not long ago that things were chaotic, like a great fire had swept through the city in the middle of a storm, yet normalcy had fully returned to the town.

We made our way through the nobles’ quarter, passing elegant horse-drawn covered carriages, and came to the bustling downtown area. Just as a cage stuffed full of chickens and ducks passed us, a cart filled to the brim with pigs and a herd of cattle fastened together by a yoke trundled by. I felt dizzy thinking about how many people’s plates that could possibly fill, but in order to fill the stomachs of those who had endured salt-cured meat and herring and old, flavorless bread throughout the winter, I figured that might not be enough.

Once I was finished praying for God to watch over the people and their livelihoods, Myuri, who had been crouching beside me, stood up.

“Okay, thanks. My brother will buy you a treat, okay?”

Responding to what Myuri said was a rather miserable-looking old dog with fur the color of burnt umber.

“Ruff,” he barked weakly, then sluggishly walked on the edge of the road. There were three other stray dogs of different colors sitting at Myuri’s feet; as one who had inherited the blood of wolves, the creatures recognized by all as the kings of the forests, the moment Myuri stepped onto the streets, stray dogs began to follow her.

Additionally, the reason all their fur looked so wild was because just like Myuri, they were likely in the middle of their shedding season, too. I had a feeling that if we managed to find a dog with the same color coat as her, then we would have little trouble fooling everyone else.

“Will we be able to find one?”

“Hmm, there aren’t any that have the same nice fur as me, but there’s a place where some that have a similar color gather, so he’s going to check it out.”

I did not quite understand the norms of stray dogs; perhaps it was a habit of theirs to band together with those who looked alike.

“See, there’s a lot of boats that come here, right? The people who come to live here from all different places on those boats tend to live with others who hail from the same homeland.”

She was referring to the cantons and ethnic enclaves that could always be found in large cities, and that was when it clicked.

“Then the dogs who have been brought from their homelands must congregate in the same places.”

“Yeah. Like all these little ones here came from the eastern part of the mainland.”

Though they were of different colors, their body shape did look somewhat similar.

They each wagged their tail happily whenever Myuri patted them on the head.

“And so that dog earlier is on his way to an area where silver dogs gather?”

“Probably. But their fur isn’t gonna be as good as mine.”

Myuri devoted herself to caring for her hair, but that dedication didn’t quite extend to her fur.

She did seem to still have quite a bit of pride in it, however, as she placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest.

“Okay, Brother, while that old dog is collecting the puppies we need, let’s go buy him a treat!”

“Yes, yes. And we’ll naturally be buying one for the wolf who commands all the stray dogs as well, right?”

“Eh-heh-heh.”

Myuri grinned mischievously and I smiled wryly in turn as we joined the flow of the crowded streets.

Rausbourne had always been a large and lively harbor city, but in the areas closest to the port, the crowds became so great that it almost made me think of a giant tub scooping people out of the sea and splashing them with wild abandon onto the streets.

The region’s northwesterly cold and damp winter wind hampered sea voyages, so ships were swarming the place since spring was finally about to arrive in full.

“Myuri, stay close to me!”

“I was about to say that to you!”

The short and light Myuri hopped out of the way of a stout dockworker, who carried a massive load and would certainly not let it go lightly if she were to run into him; then she dodged a group of portly men who talked trade in loud voices, and she looked on in amusement at a herdsman who carried a sheep on his shoulders, all while she kept forging ahead, picking out the stalls that crowded each side of the road.

The thought that if she fell in this crowd, she would immediately be trampled and would suffer grave injuries made me feel uneasy, but I was the one being yelled at for being in the way by the dockworker, arrogantly pushed out of the way by the merchants, and thwacked in the face by the tail of the sheep resting on the herdsman’s back.

I dizzily followed after Myuri, only to find her in the middle of shopping at a stall.

“Brother, your hair’s a mess.”

“…”

With a cool face, she pulled a wooden spoon out from her waist sash and chewed on it as she waited for her food from the stall.

“That biting habit of yours is terrible manners.”

I did my best to admonish her, but as she bit on the spoon like a puppy with irritated teeth, she stuck out her tongue, then went to retrieve her food when the stall owner called out to her.

“…What is that?”

I had been a wandering student when I was little and spent a long time in many lands helping Myuri’s father, the traveling merchant Lawrence. Later on, I toured even more places through Elsa’s connections in order to advance my theology studies.

I was proud that I had seen a considerable share of the world. And yet, the food that Myuri had received with a gleeful look was an odd item I had never seen before.

“Eh-heh-heh. The stonemason who came to the mansion told me about this! It’s really popular in Rausbourne right now—it’s called a pirate bowl!”

Myuri held a mess of a stir-fry in a bowl made out of hard, cheap bread.

“This is pig’s and sheep’s intestines. And these are soft joint bones. It’s amazing! You fry them all together; then you add fish bones that’ve been deep-fried in oil, shake a bunch of salt over it, then put a ton of garlic and mustard and spices on top; then you put it in oil again to fry it—”

As Myuri explained, the intense smell of garlic wafted from her hands, and it actually made my eyes sting. It was certainly a gem that someone who did a lot of hard labor, like a stonemason, would enjoy; Myuri stuck in her spoon and took a bite, then squeezed her eyes shut so hard I thought her ears and tail might pop out at any moment to whip back and forth. She began to concentrate on mixing it all together.

There was no trace of good etiquette in her behavior, but I had to admit I enjoyed watching her stick her face into the bread bowl, enraptured by her meal. My scolding transformed into a sigh, and I dragged her by the sleeve to an empty alleyway and made her sit on a crate so that she would at least sit while eating.

Myuri mixed this well-seasoned pirate bowl with her constant traveling companion, the wooden spoon, and sometimes bit into the crunchy bread bowl.

“Haum, num…Gulp. Phew. You want some, Brother?”

After she had devoured almost half of it, Myuri finally offered some, as though the thought had only just occurred to her. I smiled at that part of her and took a piece of the bread bowl and had her put a spoonful of the mix on top. I was cautious of eating meat, but I felt a bit of hesitation for an entirely different reason as well.

Still, it was filled with tantalizing flavors and dangerous appeal. I took it all in with a single bite, and the inside of my mouth exploded, an intense shock that almost numbed the area from my temples to the top of my head.

“Gives you energy, doesn’t it?”

Contrary to Myuri, who bared her canines as she grinned, I chewed my food, just barely keeping down a cough from the spice, and somehow managed to swallow it. There was still a commotion in my mouth, but it was not a terrible thing. Instead, I swallowed, craving more, but I had a feeling this was something not meant to be eaten on its own.

“I almost want ale with it…”

“Me too!”

Myuri had interjected in response to my absentminded murmurings.

I glared at her in annoyance, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

She then started moving her hands about busily, so I could not keep myself from scolding her, “Eat a little more slowly.”

Myuri, munching on the intestines, said, “It’s ’cause the spoon is so small.”

Out of spite, she opened up her mouth and held the wooden spoon beside it.

It was a utensil that anyone brought with them when they went on the road, and the most ostentatious merchants would stick their silver spoons in their hats.

“This one’s all scruffy and worn out now. I want a new one.”

“That is because you cannot wean yourself off that biting habit. Or do you want a metal spoon?”

“Hiss!”

Since she was a wolf, she had a strong distaste for metal. As we conversed, a nearby stray dog spotted her and brought over a number of its companions from seemingly out of nowhere. It appeared to be that they both admired the wolf she was and that they had been lured in by the good smell of the food that she had in her hands.

“None for you,” Myuri said, cradling the pirate bowl in her arms, so I poked her in the head.

The scripture asked us to share freely, and the stray dogs in the city had helped us through the commotion we had gotten wrapped up in just a few days ago, so we should have been giving them our thanks.

But that made Myuri even more discontent.

“Boo…I mean, they can snatch up their own food by themselves. Hunters don’t need handouts…,” Myuri muttered as she scooped up another spoonful, stared at it regretfully, then placed it by her feet. The stray dogs’ tails wagged so hard I was almost worried they might come off as they bit into the morsel and started fighting over it.

“Well, a long time ago, when I was traveling, I had my food stolen plenty of times by stray dogs.”

When I brought it up, Myuri, who was gnawing at her spoon again, stared in surprise at me before smiling impishly.

“That’s ’cause you’re always staring into thin air, looking at nothing and lost in thought.”

“I cannot deny that.”

Myuri grinned with glee, and just as she was about to start on the offal again, her eyes went round. I followed her gaze, wondering what it might be, and in the middle of a meandering throng of people who were clearly wearing travelers’ garb, I spotted some strange articles on their back.

“Brother, what is that?! It’s some big utensil!”

The hand that gripped the wooden spoon tugged on my sleeve. I panicked that my borrowed outfit might get dirty, but Myuri paid no mind.

“That’s…”

There were all sorts of travelers’ garb, and the group going past was wearing a kind that was not commonly seen in this area.

The way they seemed indescribably stylish and the confidence in their stride made me think that they hailed from a city in the south. One of their number carried a bundle of massive eating utensils.

“I wonder…if they might use it in a dining hall somewhere in town.”

There was a spoon the length of an adult’s arm and a forked wooden spear perhaps meant to skewer chunks of beef. There were also several others in shapes I was not familiar with.

“Whoa, but why do travelers have them? I guess they’re gonna open a store here,” Myuri said, chewing on her wooden spoon.

“They must have come from the south to visit a manor around here. Look—they are also carrying furniture.”

“Oh yeah, you’re right.”

Myuri watched the group with interest, and the moment she stuffed what remained of the pirate bowl in her mouth, she suddenly said, “I want that spoon! I could eat tons of food with it, and I could use it as a weapon if push came to shove. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

It was certainly large enough that if Myuri was to hold it, the oversize utensil would make her look vaguely like a young man carrying a longsword. It would most certainly suit her, but I was not sure what would happen to our food budget if she ate with that.

“No. You would say just a spoonful and take out that massive thing whenever we buy food, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah. A skewer the size of a clothespole would be a grilled meat free-for-all!”

It seemed she still held a grudge about the limit of one skewer.

“That is all you ever think about, isn’t it…?”

“Oh, c’mon—Wouldn’t it be great to have one? I’d be able to eat so much delicious food with it.”

When I thought about how she could sometimes be just as calm and composed as an adult, there were also times when she showed a childishness that I had trouble understanding. I sighed in defeat, thinking about how such a big utensil would be so inconvenient during mealtimes.

That was when three pairs of eyes looked up at Myuri, who was still gazing greedily at the passing group. They were several stray dogs that made their base in the Rausbourne port, loyal servants to the wolf. The intelligent, submissive creatures followed her gaze, and they all started to lower themselves.

The hunters were about to lend a hand to their master!

“Myuri, Myuri.”

“Wha—?”

I tapped Myuri on the shoulder and pointed at the dogs, and she also seemed to understand the situation.

She thought for a moment before saying with delight, “Okay, you three, I guess you’ll be working for that portion of pirate bowl I gave you, huh?”

The dogs turned back toward Myuri, their tails wagging.

“Hey, Myuri!”

Myuri gave a dramatic “Eep!” and shrunk, then smiled with glee.

“Honestly, I swear…”

“But isn’t it cool? A female bandit leader who commands stray dogs? A vigilante who only steals from evildoers? I think it’d be popular if we performed that as a play at the bathhouse.”

It suited her so much that I could easily imagine her doing exactly that.

Other girls her age would be at the time in their lives when they would begin learning needlework and cooking in preparation for marriage, studying how to act ladylike and becoming able to read at least one poem, but Myuri was as tomboyish as she had ever been.

“Listen up, all of you, don’t go stealing around town. The only things you can take are things from bad people.”

She smacked the hard bread with her wooden spoon, talking like she was some vigilante leader.

The dogs obediently sat down and lay on their stomachs in disappointment.

“Sigh…”

I wondered when it was that she would grow up.

As I heaved another tired sigh, the old dog from earlier came plodding happily toward us.

“Oh, you’re back already. How’d it go?”

“Wuff.”

The old dog gave a bark that sounded like a sigh, and Myuri’s eyes darted around, her mouth twisting.

“What does that mean?”

“Borf…Rrr…”

After something that sounded like a timid growl, its tail swayed. Myuri bit into her wooden spoon again before taking one, then another bite of the pirate bowl, tearing off another piece of the bread bowl, then placing the rest before the dog’s nose.

“Let’s go, Brother.”

“Huh? To where?”

Myuri stepped over the old dog, happily eating the rest of the pirate bowl, and the other dogs, who were only left with the scraps, and headed deeper into the alley.

She turned around and said, “Somebody’s hunting dogs.”

What?

I stared at her blankly, but what she said next startled me.

“And they’re only after dogs with silver or white coats. There might be someone else in this city with the same goals as me.”

“Impossible,” I unconsciously let slip, but I quickly realized that was not necessarily true.

There were so many people milling about, and ships from all over were packed inside the harbor. Few nonhumans lived in towns and villages among humans, but they certainly existed. Myuri was a perfect example of that, so it was not entirely impossible.

“But then why the rush? If they have the same goal as you, then why not share and cooperate?”

Myuri then widened her eyes and flashed her canines.

“This is my territory! Mother taught me! She said, ‘If you cannot maintain your territory, then what good are you as a wolf?!’”

“…”

“And it’s possible that they could be the opposite of what you think, and they could be bad people! Come on! Or I’m leaving you behind!”

Myuri did not wait for my response and set off with long strides—her wolf ears had appeared on top of her head, and her tail was already peeking out from under her coat. Befitting for the big city that it was, Rausbourne had plenty of stray animals, which included dogs. Myuri, and the blood of the ruler of the forests that flowed through her veins, had immediately won them over, so her claim that the city was her territory was not much of an exaggeration.

“Brother!” Myuri yelled as she practically vanished down the alleyway, so without much other choice, I began to walk when I noticed the old dog, lapping up the pirate’s bowl, looking at me.

Its apologetic eyes seemed to impart, “It is not my fault.” I let my shoulders fall and sighed.

“That girl has been unruly since birth.”

“Wuff.”

Perhaps a flame had ben lit in her wolf’s blood since she had conquered the stray dogs of a big city. As this was rather different from her usual tomboyishness, I decided it would be a poor idea to admonish her without at least hearing her out first.

“Honestly,” I murmured and chased after Myuri.

Floating in her wake as she ran were glittering silver wolf hairs.

Rausbourne was an old city and had many twisting alleyways. I would have gotten lost a long time ago, but they posed little challenge for Myuri, who was a wolf who would not get lost even in the thickest of forests.

She proceeded to the right, then to the left with confident strides, and I eventually realized we had come to a part of town with a familiar atmosphere.

“Huff, puff…Hey, Myuri, could we be near the manor?” I asked, my shoulders heaving with every breath, and Myuri shrugged, her ears flicking about.

“We’re in a totally different place. It does feel the same, though.”

There were apparently several districts where nobles had their manors.

“And…the air smells different here. I think people from some faraway country gather in this area, and the rich ones built their houses on this corner.”

I, of course, could not taste the air so keenly, so I trusted Myuri’s nose.

“There are no strays here. Dog hunting, was it?”

“The old dog said that starting a few days ago, some of the other dogs have been captured.”

“That’s…”

Dog hunting in a large metropolis narrowed the possibilities. They could have been pulled off the streets in an attempt to clean up in preparation for an impending visit by a king or some other important person. They also could have been captured for their furs. In wartime, they could have been hunted either to reduce the mouths that needed feeding or for food.

“I had a bad feeling about it, too, but…now that we’re here, something feels off.”

“What do you mean?”

Myuri poked her head from out of the alley and observed the street, then closed her eyes and sniffed.

“There’s no hint of violence at all. No poisoned treats or bloodstains like they’d been beaten with sticks.”

It certainly was a peaceful street.

“Then what could it be?”

“Hrmmm…Hmm?” Myuri’s nose twitched, and she strained to listen. “…Brother, this way.”

As she was about to step out from the alley and into the main street, I grabbed her arm.

“Ears and tail.”

With a surprised look on her face, she shivered, and her ears and tail vanished.

“Be careful that you don’t end up hunted, too.”

“But you’d come and save me if that happened, right?” she shot back with an unabashed smile, and I could not bring myself to be angry with her for it.

I gave her nothing but a pat on the head in response, and after she contentedly drew up her shoulders, she started walking.

“Well, what is it? It seems like you’ve learned something.”

“Mm…I guess I have learned something, but I just have more questions now.” Leading the way, Myuri turned to look back at me over her shoulder. “Everyone’s been gathered in one place. But it wasn’t by force. If it was, then it’d smell like, you know…sweat or anger, but it doesn’t.”

“They’re all in one place…? And in a place like this?”

It was a quiet district with rows of elegant houses. If someone did something so eccentric as collecting stray dogs, then it would not be long before they got a bad reputation, and that would make it difficult to live there. That was to say nothing of collecting dogs to take their fur—there were plenty of places more suited for that.

“I thought about going back to a wolf if they were all in trouble, but I’m glad there’s no need to worry about that for now, at least.”

Myuri suddenly brought that up, and I felt a slight pang in my chest.

She was selfish and rambunctious, but she had generally grown into a kind girl.

I inadvertently patted her head from behind her, and with a start, she asked, “Huh? Wh-what’s that for?”

After that, I followed Myuri as she led the way, and what we came to was a building with a magnificent iron gate in front of it. It was four stories high and made of red brick, and judging by the metallic fittings on the walls meant for banners and torches, I could tell that someone of considerable standing lived there.

There were no doors facing the street, but instead there was a metal gate beneath a suspended walkway. It was made in a way that passing through it would lead one to the inner courtyard.

And once we had come this far, even I could tell where the dogs were. They were on the other side of the building, inside the courtyard.

“They sound like they’re having fun.”

When I strained my ears, I could make out the faint sounds of dogs barking and, for some reason, someone playing an instrument. Though nobles often had odd hobbies, collecting dogs to play music for them was certainly not a common one.

It was then that Myuri tried to get a closer look through the gaps in the metal gate.

A voice suddenly cried out above us.

“Ohhh! I’m so sick of waiting!”

I panicked—we had no excuse if we were thought to be beggars at best or burglars at worst as we clung to the gates of the house of someone with high standing, but…there was something that caught my attention.

Did they say they were sick of waiting?

Either way, I looked up to see a young man leaning out an open window, peering down at us. I could even call him a boy—he was younger than me and perhaps only a few years older than Myuri. His dirty-blond hair rustled in the air, the very image of upper-class refinement.

Not only that, but his clothes were rather gaudy and seemed somewhat ceremonial, like the sort of thing Hyland might wear on official business.

“I’m so glad you made it! I’ll get someone to come right away, so just wait there! We are saved. Thanks be to God!”

The way he smiled in relief made him seem like just another innocent boy. The slight flush to his pale skin was a little too picture-perfect.

But it was clear that the boy was having some misconceptions, so I opened my mouth to correct him, but by then he had already pulled back behind the window.

“…I feel like he has the wrong idea about us…”

Luckily, it did not seem as though he had mistaken us for burglars, but I wondered what he did think we were.

Myuri wore her usual outfit that she had brought from Nyohhira, and I wore clothes borrowed from Hyland that made me seem like a young master of a big commercial company. My usual clothes were much too clergy-like, which stood out terribly in this city. Against my own inclination, I had, at some point, become famous here.

That is why, while I figured I could obscure myself if we ran right now, I was held back by the fear that I might see this person again somewhere because of their high standing. Carefully explaining our situation now might help us avoid trouble in the future.

However, how should we explain that we were chasing after white-haired dogs?

As I groaned, I realized Myuri was looking at me.

“What is it?”

Myuri, her mother’s red eyes staring straight at me, blinked so hard they almost made sound, then beamed.

“I was just thinking how much more handsome you are, Brother.”

“U-uhhh…?”

She then gleefully clung to my arm. There were times I simply did not understand her, and I thought about how there was nothing more unknowable in this world than a girl’s heart.

As this happened, I sensed someone on the other side of the gate.

I had barely even started thinking of an excuse before the gate opened.

The noble from earlier appeared before us, his cheeks flushed, but someone of such high standing breathlessly opening the door for a guest was too great a breach of protocol, so his servants, flustered, rushed in behind him.

Not even a moment after he opened the door, he grasped my hand and began to shake it up and down, practically jumping himself.

“Oh, I’m so relieved. Truly relieved! You have my thanks!”

“Ah, um—”

“How marvelous this is! You are both perfect, exactly what I asked for! I can’t believe I scored such wonderful people like you!”

Exactly what he asked for? I wondered what he might be talking about when he then took Myuri’s hand, kneeling reverently in greeting.

“I cannot think of this as anything but a divine miracle, having someone with such beautiful hair like this coming here. I am very much looking forward to this.”

In the noble style, he raised the back of her hand and mimed giving it a kiss. Myuri absolutely loved that sort of thing, and she was innocently overjoyed to have her vaunted hair complimented so.

“Come inside, come inside. We must get ready quickly. Everyone was just about ready to give up. I am so, so relieved!”

I felt somewhat guilty for this—he was practically on the verge of tears, but I had no idea what he was mistaking us for. I had to say something before we went inside.

“I am sorry…May I ask who you might be mistaking us for?”

“Huh?”

His features were refined even as surprise marred his face. As that thought crossed my mind, I explained our situation.

“We were actually looking for a dog here in the city…We heard that they had been gathered in the courtyard here…”

Even I thought that explaining we came searching for stray dogs was much too wild, and that feeling only strengthened when taking in consideration who we were talking to. On top of that, though, he seemed to think we were the people he was waiting for, and I felt guilt at the sight of his shocked expression.

As I wondered how I might turn the conversation toward the topic of how the dogs were being treated and their general welfare, the noble, snapping back to reality, spoke up.

And this time, it was my turn to be bewildered.

“Oh, uh, are you also holding a wedding?”

“What?”

“I had intended to look it up ahead of time, but I had no idea our days would overlap…Wait, if you’re collecting them now, then you still have a few days, right?”

In my confusion, the noble before me stepped right into my personal space as though he were going to hug me.

“Please wait if you can. If possible, it might end today…no, in a few days, at the latest. But I really can’t have you taking away the dogs we collected right now!”

The young noble before me was on the verge of tears, and when I turned my gaze toward the courtyard at the sound of a woof, I spotted many dogs with sparkling-clean white and silver fur peering over at us.

Their carefully groomed coats were all glimmering in the light, and the red ribbons tied around their necks made them seem entirely appropriate for a celebration. When I saw that, I realized he had mentioned the word wedding.

The noble before me wore an expression that coaxed out pity from me and said, “Gasp! O-oh, I see…If you’re here to collect the dogs, then you’re not…the stand-in priest and the chaperone…are you…?”

The stand-in priest. The bride’s chaperone.

I glanced at Myuri beside me, and it seemed that she had already fully grasped the situation.

Dogs with white and silver fur and a girl with silver hair. This district was where people who hailed from far-off lands lived, and there were many regional customs when it came to weddings. The tradition here must have been that white or silver hair was a sign of good luck.

Not only that, the city of Rausbourne was part of the Kingdom of Winfiel, and since the kingdom was currently at odds with the Church, all the ecclesiastical offices had been abandoned. No priest to conduct the vows ceremony in a wedding was like not seasoning grilled mutton with any salt. I could understand why they were trying their best to hire a similar stand-in.

We had appeared right in the middle of their frantic search, so we must have seemed like exactly the kind of people they were hoping for.

Unfortunately, however, we were not the highly anticipated priest and chaperone.

On top of that, attending to a wedding was a very important job for a priest, and it was not something that someone with no qualifications could simply try their hand at. It was clearly a violation of canon law, and things would be very troublesome if someone found out.

As I was about to say as much, Myuri took a light step forward.

“It’s a total coincidence that we came here, but if there’s something we can help with, we’ll help.”

Myuri’s eyes were glittering not at the prospect of helping others but for an entirely different reason.

Of course her curiosity had piqued at the sight and sound of preparations for a foreign wedding.

“R-really?!”

“Myuri!”

I tried to scold her for making the decision without so much as consulting with me, but she pushed me back by the chest.

“Yeah. My brother always looks awkward no matter what he wears, but he does look pretty good in Church clothes.”

She clapped me on the chest for added effect.

“Yes, yes, I would think so, too!”

“And the wedding chaperone? That’s the one who gets to wear the pretty clothes and a flower crown in her hair, and who walks with the bride, right?”

“Yes, yes it is!”

The young noble was leaning forward, and Myuri was in buoyant spirits—it was almost like they were going to clasp hands.

Both of them turned to look at me.

“Brother, God would definitely want us to help!”

Though she brought up God, faith of course was of secondary importance to her. When I looked into her glittering eyes, I could tell she just wanted to wear the fairylike white wedding outfit with a flower crown and seize the chance to join in a celebration.

I was about to bring up canon law and other logical reasons why we shouldn’t, but it was also reality that there was a troubled noble before me.

Not only that, but this was a wedding—a critical juncture. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event that was a turning point as much as it was a social occasion.

What would God want?

To observe and uphold ecclesiastical law, as established by the Church, or aid someone else’s quest for happiness…?

Though I was in distress, it seemed that the answer had practically been settled already.

“I…am not a priest, though…”

“I don’t care! That hardly matters! You just need to stand there and play the part!”

Under normal circumstances, wedding sacraments were the job of the clergy, and one could be charged as a criminal if they pretended to be a priest to swindle someone.

Strictly according to the rules, I should have refused.

However, if I just went through the priest’s motions at a wedding, I was certain that God would overlook it.

So long as I took no money, even if the event came to public light, I had a feeling I could insist that I was simply a part of the wedding party.

And above all, if I used logic as a shield here, I could not imagine how much Myuri would rebuke me.

“…Very well, we’ll help.”

“Oh! Thank you so much!”

Myuri beamed, standing beside the overjoyed noble who looked as though he had just been rescued. While I thought about how things had taken a rather strange turn, on second thought, it would not be so bad being involved in a celebration.

“Oh, right, right—you two don’t know who I am.” The young noble, so relieved that he looked about to cry, did actually wipe the corners of his eyes before standing up straight and continuing, “My name is Mercurio Cedano.”

“I—,” I began, then faltered. The name of Tote Col no longer was that of a humble errand boy who worked in a rural bathhouse. As we traveled and overcame the troubles that confronted us, I became known as the Twilight Cardinal and word of my deeds started spreading. Now people even associated special meaning with the name.

As Mercurio looked at me curiously, Myuri spoke up.

“We’re actually in the middle of traveling. My brother isn’t really my brother; he’s actually my chaperone who’s worked for my family for ages.”

It was not unusual for a noble to take a tour of several different countries, and it was also common for noble families to have surrogate family members.

Mercurio seemed to understand the relationship right away.

“I was looking for a dog here because I wanted to take it back to the manor we’re staying at. It’s massive, and my brother’s busy every day…” Myuri acted like an adorably touching girl who wanted a companion to distract herself from the loneliness before she continued. “And to make things worse, I left the house despite my father’s objections, so if word gets to him that my brother and I played pretend at a wedding, then my hardheaded dad might faint. Is it okay, then, if we keep our names a secret, so that word of us doesn’t start spreading in weird ways?”

Nothing Myuri said was a lie, but I also sensed an indescribably deeper meaning behind it. Though she referred to me as her older brother, she still did not hesitate to say that she liked me as a member of the opposite sex.

What she said essentially amounted to If my brother and I played pretend at a wedding, my dumb dad might pass out on the spot, which had something more than a wolf’s play-biting worked into it.

“All right, I see. Oh, I understand. When I told my father I wanted to travel to learn poetry, he gave me a good scolding. That didn’t discourage me, though, so I made a promise that I would work under my old servant’s supervision and act with superb conduct, and he did eventually let me take a short journey.”

“Ah-ha-ha, we’re a lot alike.”

Mercurio and Myuri had found kindred spirits in each other.

“You never know who will catch wind of your name and where it’ll start spreading from. I will refrain from asking who you are.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Myuri and Mercurio then exchanged handshakes again, and then Mercurio extended his hand to me.

Now that we had come this far, I had no choice but to do my very best.

“Though it is not much, I will assist you in making this ceremony a most wonderful one, Sir Mercurio.”

“Oh, no, I am truly thankful for you. Now please come inside.”

When Myuri stepped onto the manor grounds on Mercurio’s invitation, the dogs all rushed toward her. Mercurio and his wide-eyed expression aside, Myuri went around patting all of them on the head. Preparations for the ceremony in the courtyard were at their height, with maids and servants busily running back and forth while the musical ensemble was tuning their instruments. The halcyon atmosphere, the liveliness, and the weather together started to excite me as well, but from one of the doors we passed by, I felt someone looking at me, like I was about to be smacked in the face.

With a start, I turned, and I thought I had gotten a glimpse of a burning red silhouette, but no one was there.

“Brother?”

Myuri, ahead with the dogs, had realized what I was doing and turned to look back at me.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

I followed after her, wondering what was beyond the door.

What was that?

If it was not merely my imagination playing tricks on me, then I could have sworn a terribly stern gaze had been focused on me.

“Oh, I’m sure the ceremony will be wonderful today!”

Mercurio’s emotional statement echoed throughout the courtyard as sunlight poured into it.

Myuri now had her hair plaited and was wearing a white outfit with an eye-catching crown of yellow and red flowers on her head. A white puppy that had particularly taken to her was sleeping at her feet.

Bathing in the spring sun, she petted the puppy with a smile, and she looked like a literal angel.

“Oh, Brother.” Myuri looked up, noticed me, and put on a bashful look. “Eh-heh-heh, what do you think? Does it look good?”

Back in Nyohhira, she would run around the wild mountains with a piece of cured meat in her mouth and always rounded up the village children to pull pranks that would make anyone faint.

Though those barbaric ways of hers had gradually receded as she matured, it was when I saw her like this that I really felt she was growing up to be a young lady. The jewels jingling by her shapely ears, now revealed since her hair was tied back, were like a magic spell that transformed a little girl into a young lady.

As the one who had taken care of her as her older brother, she was so beautiful that it almost brought me to tears.

“Yes, it looks very good on you. I almost want Mr. Lawrence to see, too.”

“Aw, what? Forget about Father. He says I look cute no matter what I wear.” As per usual, Myuri took an icy attitude toward Lawrence, who always adored his daughter. “What about you, though? How does it look to you?”

While I sympathized with Lawrence, I had no choice but to give my honest opinion.

“Of course, you look very pretty to me.”

Myuri was full of confidence, and she seemed to be both relieved and embarrassed to be told that as she brought her shoulders up and smiled.

“By the way, did you understand the ceremony proceedings?”

While Myuri was being dressed by all the women in Mercurio’s mansion, she should have received an account of this and that. The one exchanging wedding vows with the Cedano family was a girl from the Pristol family. Both houses were originally from the distant south, and the Cedano family notably acted as the mediator for all the immigrants who lived in this district. Along with being informed of the general history of each family’s lineage, I had also been told that they would be carrying out their vow prayers in a separate room, but that was the procedure of the Church, which was the same in many countries, so there was nothing particularly troubling for me.

It was the passage that went, In sickness and in health…, but I was confident with excerpts from the scripture.

“Yeah. There’s nothing really difficult for me. First, I go fetch the bride from her room; then we go to the church in the manor. Then I sit quietly and listen to your sermon.”

“After that?”

“As the angel, I prepare the cake that will ward off demons. I think it’s funny that it’s a cake that’s warding them off.”

This was unfamiliar to Myuri, and so she cackled.

That wicked demons hated sweet things was a popular folk belief. Though the Church tended to find fault with some traditions and customs, they, surprisingly, had tacitly approved this practice. I certainly had the impression that demons that happily devoured sweet cake were not demons at all, so perhaps even the hardheaded clergy thought it impossible as well.

And so that was why weddings were topped with cream made of sweet sugar and freshly squeezed milk.

“And those people we saw at the port were actually supposed to be here at this manor for the wedding, huh?”

She was talking about the men she had spotted as she ate her pirate bowl who were carrying large eating utensils. They had come from the bride’s hometown bringing furniture for the wedding and tools that would be used during the ceremony. Their ship caravan had scattered along the way due to bad weather, and the boat in which the priests were, of whom they had asked the unreasonable favor of coming along for the trip, was still very far away.

“They are going to cut slices with the big wooden knife and then take out large scoops with the spoon, but it is not for you to eat. Do you understand?”

“I do! I, the angel, cuts the cake for the blessing, and then I give it to the bride. Then the bride feeds it to that noble guy, right?”

It was a holdover from a bygone era when famine and starvation were common—a ritual to ensure they always had enough to eat.

The massive utensils we had spotted earlier in town were both for cooking food for the large number of wedding attendees and for that ritual.

“The order is correct, but they eat the cake after they leave the church and the banquet in the courtyard starts. There is something else before that—do you remember?”

The gluttonous wolf pup could only ever think of food once the topic went in that direction.

“What? Aw, what was it? Your blah-blah sermon blah-blah, then, um…oh!”

Myuri’s expression transformed from that of a graceful angel to a rambunctious girl.

What was waiting for her was a social event, something she loved second only to delicious food.

“The Cedano house that Sir Mercurio belongs to has a long and storied history. I had heard that there were rather strange customs in their weddings, and when I traveled to the south, I was surprised to see that some of those practices were still around.”

“A noble’s valor is honor. That means that you can’t be a nobleman if you can’t keep your bride safe, right?”

That was one of the highlights of the ceremony.

Once they had vowed to love each other, not only did the groom have to demonstrate that his feelings were real, but he also had to show all the attendees he was an honorable man who deserved to take a wife. It was common practice for the people from the bride’s hometown to all attack the groom at once after the marriage vows were exchanged, since their princess had been married off. The groom must then proceed to leave the church as he fends off their assault and protects his bride.

Only after that was their union considered permissible.

“But can someone like him pull it off…? I don’t think that guy’s ever held a sword in his life.”

“It is a ritual. A performance. I doubt they would use real swords.”

“Really?”

“In times long past when the winds of war ravaged the land, something like that might have actually happened, however.”

That being said, when Mercurio had talked about this, he was clearly nervous.

The Cedano family had old roots in the kingdom. After crossing the sea long ago, they conducted trade on a large scale and prospered. However, the Pristol family was even older and had a tradition of valuing honor over money.

As I watched the servants roaming about the manor, I could tell there was a big difference between the groom’s family and the bride’s family—the rich Cedano family that administered trade within the kingdom and the old and frugal Pristol family that clung to tradition.

It would not surprise me if more than a few held a grudge against the Cedano house for buying their princess with gold and silver. I could not say I was not apprehensive that there might be some who would openly voice their displeasure if the ceremony turned out to be slipshod.

Yet, the manor was filled with the celebratory air of a wedding, and on second thought, I figured that Mercurio must have been nervous because this was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Then Myuri, flapping the hem on her loose dress, said, “Aw, but it’s so cool. Re-creating a battle to protect the bride at a wedding…” She loved adventure tales and romance stories, and she looked sideways at me. “I wished the person I loved would protect meee.”

She deliberately said this to herself loud enough for me to hear it, but the moment we had decided to help with the wedding, I had been ready for her to say something like that to me. She had said she liked me not as her brother but as a man, and she often tempestuously expressed how she felt very directly. Though I did not doubt the depth of her feelings, I was striving to be a member of the clergy, and most importantly, though we were not connected by blood, I could not see her as anything more than my little sister.

And so I tried to act as though I had not heard it again, but I felt like that was the wrong move.

I could not reciprocate her feelings, true, but treating them with disdain was something entirely different.

As if I were I gently removing her claws that she had dug into me, I moved to stand beside her and said, “I want to protect you, and you have been and always will be precious to me.”

Had her wolf ears popped out, no doubt they would have moved with great vigor, like they were flicking water everywhere.

It wasn’t what she truly wanted to hear, but I made sure to give her a heartfelt response nonetheless.

However, Myuri slowly and deliberately inhaled, as though showing any delight would mean she had lost, then heaved an exaggerated sigh.

“Hmph. I basically only ever protect you, though.”

“Indeed you do. It is thanks to you that our travels have come this far. I am thankful for that.”

Myuri inherited the blood of the wisewolf, and without her wisdom, courage, and quick wit, this little lamb would have found a watery grave underneath the great crashing waves of the wider world a long time ago.

Though she still frowned, it seemed that she was somewhat pleased.

“Okay, then hug me.”

She smiled impishly as she stuck out both her arms.

“No. You are all dressed up right now. I will when we return to the manor.”

“Awww! Fine, but you have to! It’s a promise!”

Her typical rambunctiousness peeked out.

That said, I could not say I was not relieved to see that she was her usual self.

Myuri, with her hair plaited and beautiful jewels dangling from her ears, looked like a fairy who might vanish if I looked away, which made me a little sad.

I suppose I could call this the feelings of a father about to send off his daughter to be wed—which might be considered a little rude to Lawrence, so I mentally amended it as the feelings of an older brother about to send his little sister off to be wed.

“By the way, I wonder what time the ceremony will start. Why don’t we ask?”

With incoming ships arriving late and their difficulty finding a stand-in priest and chaperone for the bride, it seemed as though they were on the verge of postponing the entire wedding, so there were some guests who had started making preparations to leave. Not only had relatives gathered from far away, but this was the busy spring season. Noble families, especially, sometimes had duties to fulfill for various events back in their homelands where they played a key part. Judging by the busy port, I could imagine how difficult it could be just to secure passage here, so postponing the ceremony was not something that could be done lightly.

On top of that, Mercurio was in such a flurried rush preparing for the ceremony because his family’s honor rested on hosting a smooth ceremony, which was almost as important as him taking a wife.

Those in high society lived with all sorts of obligations.

“I can’t wait to eat. I heard that in the south, they boil the dough after they knead it. I’m so excited!”

“Didn’t you just have that pirate bowl earlier…?” I asked in exasperation, and Myuri cackled mischievously.

“Oooh, I wonder what the bride’s like. The noble groom guy looked like you, so maybe she’s a cute girl with silver hair and wolf ears and tail, hmm?”

I shot her a grouchy look, and she gave me an innocent smile in turn.

That said, there could not be any delay in the ceremony, so just as I thought we should go and confirm the order of events one more time—

“My lady, where are you going?!”

“That is a guest’s—”

We heard an exchange coming from the other side of the door, and not a moment later, it was flung open.

“Hey, you’re the priest and the chaperone, right?”

“My lady!”

It was a girl with magnificent red hair, like a burning flame, who waved off the bewildered maids. She was tall with long limbs, and peeking out from the luxurious, strapless dress were powerful, rippling muscles. She looked like she had been plucked out of the adventure skits of a lady knight slaying a dragon that were popular back at the bathhouse in Nyohhira.

After chasing the maids away, she took a long stride into the room and closed the door behind her.

Her deep, burnt-earth colored gaze flicked back and forth between me and Myuri.

“I heard you’re outsiders who just happened to show up here. Am I right?”

She had what most would have called a piercing gaze. Though she was not much taller than I, her posture afforded her an entirely different presence. I shrank at the assertive air she exuded, one that let me know that I would doubtlessly have no chance against her if it came to violence. On the other hand, Myuri, sitting in her chair, was the same as always.

“Yeah, and?”

The girl then furrowed her brow and took a deep breath that almost made her a size bigger. Judging by Myuri’s demeanor, this girl had no intentions of harming us, but it was clear she was worked up about something.

Either she was thinking that outsiders should not be taking part in this wedding or she thought a fake priest was outright scandalous. Now that that thought crossed my mind, she did look somewhat like a female knight who donned armor to protect the weak prayer girls at nunneries.

However, Myuri said, “That dress…makes you the bride, right? Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready?”

It was only a brief moment that she was surprised, and the girl brushed away what Myuri said with a snort and brought her face right up to hers.

“Can I trust you?”

Though this girl could have easily weighed two or three times more than Myuri and was only a hairbreadth away her face, Myuri was not at all frightened. She had excellent intuition, so she seemed to sense that the bride bore us no ill will.

But then in that case, it made no sense as to why the bride was acting as she was. The ceremony would be starting so soon, but here she was, suddenly barging into our room, demanding to know if she could trust us.

“Um,” I spoke up, and the bride’s gaze snapped to me.

I almost flinched, but I held my ground.

“We are indeed the last-minute replacements, but I believe this, too, is God’s will. We will do all we can to help you…”

But of course, since I was a false priest, I would have no choice but to leave if she requested it. I was a bit sad about that, but I was not a real priest, so there was not much I could do.

“And the house here has a legend of a silver wolf, right? I think I’d be perfect for that, then.”

The groom, Mercurio of the Cedano family, and the bride’s Pristol family both had a wolf design on their family crests. As the eras changed, eagles and lions became more popular, but old families that were once part of the ancient empire still sometimes retained the wolf motif in their heraldry. Because of that, both of these households had a tradition of collecting dogs easily mistaken for wolves with silver and white coats and hiring a silver-haired girl to act as the bride’s chaperone.

Myuri, of course—there was no other girl in the world with as beautiful silver hair as hers—had worded her assertion to make it sound like that was the reason, but she was a real wolf. In reality, there was no one more suited for this role than her.

However, the red-haired bride was still acting like an alert wolf and glared back and forth between me and Myuri.

I still did not understand what the bride’s true intentions were, but I recalled that she had asked if she could trust us. In that case, the thought that came to me was that this red-haired girl had come to ask a favor that was not so easily asked.

Weddings were huge turning points in people’s lives and would normally be filled with smiles and blessings, but for the bride—the one who arguably held the principal role in a wedding—to wear such a brooding expression, several possibilities sprang to mind.

The first thing that occurred to me was that this wedding was not what she wanted.

Then again, I could not detect even the slightest hint of reservation coming from the girl in front of me, almost as though she would wrest whatever it is she wanted with her own hand; she did not seem the type to submissively go along with a wedding that her parents had decided on that was against her will. But there seemed to be a difference in affluence between the Cedano and Pristol families, and it was not unusual for a noble to marry their daughter off for political reasons.

It was more than possible that this red-haired bride was searching for someone she could trust, wanting to shut down this unwanted wedding. The problem was whether this was something an outsider could get a word in edgewise about.

It was my principle, however, not to abandon the troubled people who were before me.

Looking at the girl who seemed like a wounded animal, I announced, “My name is Tote Col.”

“Wait, Brother?!”

I ignored Myuri, her eyes widened in surprise, and continued.

“I am the one known as the Twilight Cardinal throughout the world.”

It was not that long ago when great turmoil had rocked this city. The redheaded girl seemed to have at least heard rumors and looked at me, startled.

“I hid my identity from Mercurio because I believed that there would be trouble if word got out that I acted as a priest. But if you are in distress and seek aid, then my name may be of some help. My acquaintances may lend a hand, too.”

By using the connections we had cultivated thus far, we could at least help this girl, who seemed like she was being forced into an unwanted marriage, escape. All that was left was the question of whether she would trust us or not…It was then she answered my offer with spite.

“…If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable.”

Unsure of how to respond, I only shrugged, and the bride gave a slight groan.

“But you do look just like the rumors say. I guess you are who you say you are, huh?”

“The name of Twilight Cardinal is quite exaggerated, so it’s somewhat embarrassing, I must admit,” I said, and she snorted.

“Then…can I…trust you?”

The girl’s expression was not filled with anger but with agony.

“It’s actually unbelievable how stupidly straightforward my brother is,” Myuri interjected, and the girl looked to her. “’Cause see, a cute girl like me keeps asking him to marry me over and over, but he says stuff like, ‘I’m gonna be a priest, so I see you as nothing more than a little sister,’ and refuses! And we’re not even related by blood! Even though I crawl under the blankets with him during the night all the time, he still won’t listen to me!”

Myuri spoke with a sullen look, and after a moment of surprise, the girl looked at me.

“…That’s ridiculous. She’s so cute—why not marry her?”

“Right?!”

Worn out by their exchange, I said, “More importantly, what is it you require?”

The girl straightened herself, as though snapping back to reality. It was not a graceful act that she had learned while training to be a wife but a brisk movement done by those who had gone through fierce drills.

“You people…no, I’m sorry, the both of you must have come here on God’s will. Please, I need your help. There’s no one else here I can depend on.”

The bride, the star of the wedding, was asking for help.

I exchanged glances with Myuri, and I found that her eyes were glittering—she loved stories like this.

“I need to make sure just one more time. You’re not working for my father, are you?”

A freewheeling daughter and a father who wished to rein her in.

That relationship was not unusual. Myuri, who was allowed to do as she pleased, was decidedly an outlier.

Weddings were supposed to be happy affairs, however, and not something to force upon someone.

“No. That is why I think we may be able to help you.”

The girl’s face twisted, as though she had been hit in the chest, and after a brief moment in which she looked like she was about to cry, she said, “I am so thankful. I truly appreciate it. Please help me do something about this mess of a wedding.”

So it was an unwanted wedding. Myuri, who adored nothing more than elopements in tales of romance, seemed entirely convinced that was the case as well.

Then the girl said, “My father is going to assassinate Mercurio. Please. Save my beloved Mercurio!”

“…What?”

The world was filled with the unexpected.

What the redheaded bride, Arte Pristol, revealed was a situation exactly the opposite of what I had imagined.

“My father is going to assassinate Mercurio,” Arte said again. “My hardheaded father opposes our marriage. My family is one that thrived on military exploits. But the Cedano family prospered immensely when their forefather was appointed as a civil official. My father always says that a man who has never been to war is a weak man, so he must see this wedding as a terrible match.”

I was taken aback, but the mismatch of family status was a real problem. Why else were marriages between nobles and commoners always taken up as the main topic of operas? And it was a problem that existed between noble families as well.

Arte shook her head and curled her bottom lip.

“I remember the time I first met Mercurio, at the festival in my hometown. Ever since they first met, my father never looked at him kindly.”

“Is that so?” Myuri asked, gently placing her hand on Arte’s knee in order to calm her down.

“Yeah. The moment Mercurio saw the sword I wore, he started telling me about the poem engraved on the scabbard. I was surprised—he didn’t ask about how keen its edge was or how many had fallen to its blade. It was the first time I’d met a man who came face-to-face with a sword and started talking about poetry; I hadn’t even noticed that there was an engraving of a poem. Mercurio told me all about the deeper meaning of the poem and the stories surrounding it. On top of that…” Her eyelids suddenly drooped, as though she was staring off into space, and her lips loosened. “He read a poem for me on the spot. Of course, the artists who frequent our family banquets and stuff had presented me with poems before. But all of them praise martial feats, and they’re all clearly flattery. A man’s obviously blind if he looks at all this and compares me to a flower spirit, huh?”

I was flustered, unsure how to react to Arte as she flexed her biceps, but Myuri genuinely cackled and asked gently, “Then? What kind of happy poem did he give you?”

As though she had been waiting for that exact question, she shyly yet proudly said, “It basically said, Why not place your sword down sometimes and have a nap at the spring’s edge? I honestly don’t know what makes a poem good or bad. But I was shocked. I had to memorize stiff and old poems when I was learning how to read and write, and all I hear during our banquets are poems of flattery trying to kiss up to me. I was amazed that such placid, gentle poems existed.”

As the very one who used stiff and old poems as reference material for Myuri’s reading and writing lessons, her gaze stung when she wordlessly stared at me.

“I became obsessed with him then. I begged him for poems like a child. But he never once made a sour face and instead read me so many poems that had me rolling on the floor with laughter.”

Mercurio might have been talented when it came to poetry, but the reason they were received so well was likely because of his personality to begin with.

Myuri eagerly lapped up everything Arte had to say about Mercurio, perhaps even more delighted than the bride herself.

However, Arte’s face suddenly clouded over.

“But from my father’s point of view, Mercurio is just a weak man with a glib tongue. He would always interrupt our conversations and say spiteful things like, ‘Why don’t you stop talking and cross swords in a sparring match?’ My father eventually came to me and asked, ‘Since when were you interested in poetry?’ That pigheaded man doesn’t know how talented and kind Mercurio is!”

Someone who had lived through and made his living through war had a viewpoint that was entirely too different. From Arte’s father’s perspective, Mercurio was alien.

That being said, there was something that bothered me.

“But…did your father eventually approve the wedding, then?”

Surely things would not have progressed this far had he not.

“Nothing resembling a blessing, obviously. There are lots of people with good business sense in the Cedano family, so they’re a major force that has spread its roots to countries all over. My father must have been apprehensive of what might happen if he outright rejected a request for marriage from the Cedano family. There are plenty of people who can wield a sword in my family but not many who can wield a pen. We have little money to speak of, and the power of the sword doesn’t mean very much in this day and age.”

In short, it was her father who had been the one forced to accept an undesirable marriage.

“There’s lots of tragedies with forced marriages, but this is the opposite, isn’t it?”

When Myuri asked, Arte drew up her eyebrows again.

“I swear, the men in my family have calcified in outdated thinking, like rocks! I knew my father would object, and I told Mercurio as much. Then…even though someone with his pedigree could have any other he wished, he took my hand and vowed that he would do whatever it took to put together a wedding…”

Arte’s cheeks went red, and she rubbed her hands together, perhaps recalling the moment.

Myuri, who thought of romance stories as the most precious and noble in this world, smiled warmly as she watched over Arte.

Arte then made a face as though she was suddenly waking from a dream, and her expression contorted.

“And I’m certain it wasn’t just my family that was against this. There must have been opposition from Mercurio’s own family, too.”

“Really? Why?”

“My family’s status isn’t very high, and we’re not good at making money. And on top of that…” Arte shrugged her sturdy shoulders. “Look at me…I look nothing like you’d expect a bride would look.”

I almost absentmindedly nodded, but Myuri preempted me and drove her heel into my foot, ending that without incident.

“That’s not true. You’re a really pretty bride, Miss Arte.”

“…Hearing that from a pretty girl like you makes me happy, even if it is just flattery. Thanks.”

“It’s not flattery!”

After that brief exchange, Arte continued.

“Either way, Mercurio was really successful in getting things done. But my father is stubborn, and all my relatives are scarcely better than barbarians. They won’t hesitate to let their physical strength speak for them when it comes to something they don’t agree with.”

I ended up picturing a pirate or bandit leader, but perhaps it could be argued that old noble families were like that, too, in a way.

For warrior families, behaving like true and proper warriors was the very core of their existence, after all.

“But…assassination? Wouldn’t that make things things even worse than just refusing the wedding if it came to that?”

Myuri was correct.

I looked at Arte curiously, who sighed.

“Despite how he always messes up his prayers at the morning services, my father’s so cunning. You heard the order of events, right? There’s the perfect opportunity for a murder in there.”

“The order of events? Hmm, I go with you to the church…then, um…wait—don’t tell me it’s poison?”

What Myuri had thought of was likely the part where the bride, Arte, feeds the cake that wards off demons to Mercurio.

“Nope, he’s not that clever. Not only that, but all the guests are being served the same food.”

“Oh, right. Then…”

As I stood beside Myuri, her thoughts churning in her head, it struck me.

Of course there was a scenario where assassination would be most suited.

“Could it be during the ritual where the bride’s relatives attack the groom?”

Myuri’s mouth froze in an O.

Arte nodded slowly.

“He’s going to claim it was an accident. In reality, guests do sometimes get drunk and get carried away, which invariably ends with someone becoming seriously injured. But that is exactly why they’re going to let things get out of hand. The venue for this ceremony is cozy, in this private courtyard, but back at home, it isn’t unusual to have everyone in town come, and weddings usually spiral out of control with the townsfolk all jumbled in together. There’s a story about a marriage between the children of two opposing territories that was supposed to help them make amends, but the alcohol reignited their blood feud and a great many died. Isn’t that just the epitome of barbaric?”

With limited guests, one could quickly narrow down who an assassin was. That was why it certainly made sense to create a situation where it was clear who killed whom, but to treat it as an unavoidable accident.

“If it’s true, then I want to beat up every single one of them, one at a time…”

“Wait, but,” I interjected. “What convinced you he is truly planning an assassination?”

She must have happened upon him holding conspiratorial talks or something of the sort. There must have been proof if she was this certain of her suspicions.

Arte brushed her bright-red hair upward, and she turned to me with glazed eyes.

“Despite how busy everyone should be with spring festivals right now, all my strongest relatives have shown up. They’re the kind who’d drink from the skull of a bear they defeated one-on-one. You know what I mean, right?”

Myuri seemed a bit excited by that, but I understood perfectly well what sort of people Arte’s relatives were.

“Not only that, but they all carry around their swords. Each of them carry top-class weapons that come with reputations and war stories. Why do they need weapons at a wedding?”

“But don’t nobles always bring swords with them to celebrations?”

Myuri was somewhat informed on these affairs, since nobles and royalty often visited Nyohhira.

“They do, yes, but…they are generally ceremonial swords. Most of them do not have blades that can cut.”

“Exactly. More importantly, my father’s been acting strange, too. Ever since I got close with Mercurio, he stopped trying to make conversation with me. The only explanation for everything I can think of is that he wants to stop the wedding by force, or…he’s just planning to assassinate Mercurio.” Arte sighed, as though baring her grievances, then continued. “He probably wants me to marry a man he picked out. The kind of guy who only sees value in lifting big rocks. And he expects me to pop out hardy boys, believing that will revive our decrepit household.”

It was an old perspective passed down from times of constant war.

Arte was a girl with the spirit of a new age born into a traditional family.

“If I was the only one to suffer, then I would be willing to go through anything for the sake of the Pristol family. But hurting Mercurio is too much.”

Her red hair trembled, as though it had burst into flames.

Myuri looked at Arte like she was a shining star and gently took her hand.

“You really love him,” she said and smiled, and Arte’s face immediately went redder than her hair.

Though she had derided herself for not looking the part of a bride, she clearly needed to take another look at herself.

More importantly, a maiden in love should be happy.

“But what should we do?”

What Myuri said reminded me to focus. Indeed—how should we actually go about dealing with this?

“These skilled and hairy guys have their favorite weapons with them, right? No matter how much you’ve trained, Miss Arte, you’d still be outnumbered. And to protect someone else at the same time…”

“Yeah…you’re right. I couldn’t attend this ceremony with sword in hand. The best thing I could get my hands on is that massive wooden spoon for when I feed him the cake.”

Myuri had even joked at the port about using it as a weapon.

This was not a comedy, however, and a wooden spoon would be no match for steel blades.

“And we can safely assume all the other guests are on my father’s side. Everyone is so aloof with me. Mercurio just keeps saying it’s okay and doesn’t listen to me…But I’m sure there must be people in Mercurio’s family whose interests line up with my father’s. Now that they’re letting people with weapons into the wedding, we should suspect everyone.”

And that was why she had been hesitant to trust anyone, but then when complete outsiders managed to get mixed up in the wedding, she saw her chance. She had come to this room knowing that this was the only place she could reliably ask for help.

Judging by how both Arte and Mercurio were acting, they just wanted to have their wedding without mishap or mayhem.

In that case, we had to do something so that the wedding would end peacefully.

The three of us would make our stand against a band of stalwart veterans.

“Or…,” Arte said suddenly. “Maybe my only option is for me to back out of this, after all?”

If Arte gave up on the marriage, then it would be pointless for the people from both the Pristol and Cedano houses to cause chaos at the wedding as a pretext for attacking Mercurio.

“But you don’t want to do that, and that’s why you came here, right?” Myuri asked.

Arte gave a pained hum and nodded.

“…If you want to run away with Mr. Mercurio, then I may be able to help.”

Since leaving Nyohhira and traveling, I have come to meet a lot of people.

Among those were people who were not human, and if they lent us a hand, we could sneak the couple out of the kingdom.

“The truth is, that is what I want to do. But Mercurio is next in line to lead the Cedano family. He has a lot of responsibilities, and in his absence, there would probably be a struggle for power and a succession crisis would break out. I can’t just…ignore all that and ask him to run away with me…”

Arte was not simply a girl who wielded a sword. She was sharp and had commendable foresight.

“I wondered if a priest could somehow persuade my superstitious father, but what do you think?”

She turned to me with an unsure look precisely because she already knew it was likely impossible.

For a moment, I thought, if only I were a dignified-looking elder priest with a beard…But if everyone could be swayed by a priest’s coaxing, then war would have vanished from this world a long time ago.

“If the assassination has already been decided and set in motion, then he may simply pretend not to know anything about it.”

“…Yeah, that’s true…” Arte sighed, and her gaze drifted downward.

“Is there some sort of secret passage in the church? I went there earlier to hear about the order of events, and I saw windows there. Why not escape outside through there? You just need to avoid a situation where Mr. Mercurio is mobbed and injured in the guise of an accident.”

“This is the manor of the rich Cedano family. Those windows are fitted with plated bars and glass. Even I can’t break that.”

Churches commonly served as shelter during wartime, and they often housed treasures, so they were sturdily built. It seemed that tradition was observed even in the chapels of metropolitan manors.

“Then…”

The three of us desperately combed through our collective wisdom, yet we could not come up with a good idea.

Myuri finally looked to me as though she had struck on something, lightly shaking a plain-looking cloth pouch that she never took off, even when she was dressed up.

Her subtle gesture was asking if she should turn into a wolf and save them that way.

I donned a glum look because that seemed to be our only option. Myuri in her wolf form could even break through reinforced windows with her raw strength.

Arte’s story, however, was still stuck in my mind.

Everyone present was a veteran who had vanquished a bear one-on-one. I doubted they would be frightened of a wolf, even a massive one, and that may put Myuri in danger. Drawing one’s sword in a holy church was a damnable offense, though…and that is when it struck me. The incident was to take place in the holy church. That meant—

“I see.”

“What is it, Brother?”

Both Myuri and Arte looked at me.

I turned to Arte.

“Miss Arte, if your opponents are unarmed, would you be able to protect Mr. Mercurio?”

Arte blinked, balled her hand into a fist, and fixed her eyes on me.

She clenched her fist, opened it, then finally squeezed it tight.

“If it’s a fistfight, I have no intentions of losing, even against my uncles. Even if I don’t win, I can use my large body as a shield that will keep Mercurio safe, so long as they don’t have any swords.”

I could picture her fighting bravely in the face of open violence.

“But can you do that? They’re not going to comply with weapon confiscation.”

“They are warriors, of course—they might be put on alert if we call it a confiscation. However, the ceremony will be taking place in a church. They are planning an assassination, so they may be unprepared, thinking this a one-sided fight. I can have them set aside their swords for a moment.”

“That…may be true.”

“How are you going to take away their swords?”

Right as I was about to respond to Myuri’s question, there was a hurried knock at the door. It flew open without waiting for a response from us.

“Oh, Lady Arte! I finally found you! Why are you here?! The ceremony is starting! Chaperone, are you ready as well?! Please get ready, too, Father! Come, come!”

The woman who entered looked to be the head maid of the Pristol family. Her hair was tousled and beads of sweat dotted her forehead because she had been running around, looking for the missing bride, and behind her stood several similarly heavy-breathing girls holding a white dress, the last piece of the bride’s outfit.

We were out of time.

“Okay, I’m coming,” Arte replied and looked at me. “If you can take their weapons away, I’ll manage. Good luck,” she whispered to me before leaving the room.

She was filled with tragic resolve as she walked away, like a noble princess from a vanquished nation being led to the guillotine. Myuri looked after her with worry as the maids dragged her away.

“You come now, too!” the head maid said to Myuri.

I had to head to the church as well.

“Brother.” Myuri did not say much to ask me her question. Her expression was a mix of unease and anger.

“The church is my territory. There will be plenty of opportunities for me to say, Please lay down your weapons and stand. I will use everything I have learned thus far to make it happen.”

“But…”

Even if they were to put down their weapons, they would likely keep them within arm’s reach.

Myuri was both anxious and fretting, so I placed my palm on her cheek.

“Don’t make that face. You’ll ruin all the pretty makeup you have on.”

Myuri’s expression tensed, and her face went red. It was likely equal parts bashfulness and aggravation.

“Now that I think about it, we have plenty of people on our side here, do we not?”

“We do…?”

“They at times walk without making a sound and can roam the church freely, and more importantly, they are your loyal allies.”

Myuri’s mouth gaped when I said that, and she simply uttered, “Oh.”

At Myuri’s feet was the owner of a small pelt, who had started snoring at some point.

“Indeed. I will ask the guests to place down their weapons when the time comes. The more a family values old tradition and formalities, the more likely they will be to obey.”

“And that’s when I use the dogs to bring the swords to us, right?”

It was when we had been eating the pirate’s bowl that I noticed. When Myuri looked at something with want, the loyal stray dogs would immediately leap at the indicated loot. Moreover, how many times had I had my meals stolen by sticky-pawed strays while I was traveling? It was with that very boldness that they survived the tough life on the streets.

Not only that, but ever since Myuri had stepped through the door, all the stray dogs that had been gathered here had welcomed her warmly.

We just needed to rely on them to collect the weapons.

“Even if we can’t collect them, we can use them to cause confusion, and dogs running around people’s feet should be enough to keep the guests busy. We could use the opportunity to escape.”

Myuri, impressed, nodded, then grinned.

“I think your brains are finally working, Brother.”

“It is because I have your help.”

I pinched her cheek lightly, and she flashed a ticklish smile.

“Okay, I’m going to Miss Arte.”

“All right, then. Good luck.”

“I got this!”

Myuri stood, patted the sleeping puppy on the head to wake it, and left the room.

I was sure the wedding would end peacefully.

Since it seemed that my appearance, at least, was that of a first-rate man of the cloth, it should be easy for me to convince the guests put their weapons down. I told myself that to calm my unease.

“All right. Let’s go,” I murmured and sprang up. If people like Arte and Mercurio could not be bonded together, then how could I continue to speak of God’s righteousness?

I strode toward the door and reached out to it.

My hand made contact with air because someone had pulled the door outward to the hallway.

“Myuri?”

I looked up, wondering if she forgot something, and in that moment, I froze. Before me was a massive man, staring down at me. His beard was an eye-catching red, and I knew immediately that it was Arte’s father.

This man—whose values had been forged on the battlefield and who was plotting to assassinate Mercurio—had arms that were thicker than my legs. His neck was like that of an ox, and I reckoned this was what a frog felt like being stared down by a snake. No matter how strongly I believed in God, I knew the reality that his words rarely ever stopped violence.

“…C-can I help you?”

Though I managed to squeeze out some words, my voice squeaked, and the massive, red-bearded man standing in the hallway remained silent, staring at me.

It would be nonsensical for me to ask why he was here. For those who had lived through war, it was an inviolable rule to always investigate the target. He must have been watching Arte to make sure she would not get in the way of the assassination.

In that case, Myuri was in danger, too.

I adjusted my footing and recalled the layout of the manor. This was the second floor, and beneath the window outside was a simple bower for the music ensemble. If I whirled around at full speed, jumped out the window, and landed on the roof of the bower, I would be able to escape into the garden.

And since the building encircled the courtyard, no matter where I yelled from, it would certainly reach Myuri’s ears. She would immediately understand that something had happened.

I finished working out my plan in my head, and I adjusted my breathing.

One…two…It was that moment as I was counting that it happened.

“I know you. What kind of secret business does the Twilight Cardinal have with my daughter?”

His massive hand closed around my shoulder.

And by the count of three, whirling around and running away was but a fancy.

Arte’s father had suddenly appeared and immediately recognized my true identity. I could not speak for clever wolves like Myuri, but a leaden-footed sheep like me had no means of escape.

Not only that, but he had surely overheard all of Arte’s speculation, so there was no need for me to say anything. From his perspective, as someone who had survived battlefield after battlefield where lives always hung in the balance, what we were trying to do was literal child’s play.

However, Arte’s father did not remove me from the wedding and instead thought my participation most convenient. I had no choice but to obey what he told me.

Arte’s father rushed me along to the church, and I was overwhelmed by the heated atmosphere.

Along both sides of the aisle that stretched from the church entrance sat the relatives from each family. The Cedano family sat on the right, and the Pristol family sat on the left. That was obvious simply by looking at the guests—I needed no explanation for that.

Though the same number of people were seated on the left, that side boasted many times more muscle mass.

Like the lord of an old family that he was, Arte’s father led me to the altar in a dignified manner, as though he was the one meant to bring the priest here all along.

As I walked the short distance to the altar, I looked at the members of the Pristol family and saw that they were completely ready for battle, just as Arte had said. One even wore mail, and while that may have been formal dress for someone of a warrior’s lineage, it was still unusual attire inside a chapel.

Arte’s father then bid his greeting to the people who sat at the very front of the Cedano family side. One of them looked just like Mercurio but rounder.

Mercurio, who had one of the leading roles in this ceremony, was likely in an annexed prayer room right about now, desperately praying to God that the ceremony would go well. Arte, who would be grasping Myuri’s hands, would be doing the same.

The reason I breathed out a heavy a sigh before the scripture was because the ceremony participants’ wishes were all over the place. Despite how the parties involved should be as one celebrating the wedding, it was almost tragic how everyone’s thoughts were misaligned.

I wore a listless expression, and not because I was acting as a famous priest.

When Arte’s father squeezed his massive frame into the pew, he stared hard at me.

It was as though he was reminding me, You know what to do, right?

I had no choice but to nod.

“…God created men and women in this world.”

And with that, the wedding began.

I did not think my sermon was all that good, but the guests were listening intently. Or perhaps they were lending an ear to God’s words while waiting to see what would happen next.

Beyond the splendid windows fitted with plated bars and glass, preparations for the banquet were still ongoing.

The peace felt hollow.

“And now we welcome the groom, who on this day, before God, will be taking a wife.”

I closed the scripture, the record of God’s word, and the guests all twisted to peer at the entrance of the chapel. Since this was a wedding between nobles, two guards dressed in light armor opened the door. The tips of the spears they held were made of silver fur.

Appearing beneath the crossed spears was Mercurio, a nervous look on his face. Perhaps the reason he strained to put on a happy smile was because of all the stern looks from the Pristol family.

His bow to God and the subsequent bows he gave to both families were stiff and awkward.

He raised his head and looked at me, then walked forward with his mouth pulled as taut as possible.

When he reached the altar, he placed a hand to his chest, bowed to the crest of the Church hanging on the wall, and stood diagonally in front of the altar. Arte would stand diagonally to the right.

“Now, honored guests, please rise.”

On the other side of the closed doors, Myuri and Arte would be waiting, listening to this exchange.

I closed my eyes, slowly inhaled, then exhaled.

I directed my gaze toward Arte’s father, but he deliberately looked away.

“May all those who have brought weapons today please place them down. The spotlight of the ceremony may go to somebody else if a sword gets caught on a chair and knocks it over.”

There was a ripple of laughter because the large members of the Pristol family did indeed seem to be short on breathing space. They removed their swords from their waists, as though understandably agreeing with me, and leaned them against the seats in front of them.

Arte’s father, who knew all the plans, obeyed with a sour look, placing his sword down.

“Choir.”

I gave the signal to the group of boys waiting patiently off to the side, and they began to use their unbroken singing voices.

“Now, we welcome the bride, who on this day, before God, will be taking a husband.”

Just after the door opened, there were gasps of astonishment.

That could have been because there was Myuri, who looked like nothing less than an angel, or because of Arte’s beauty, with a pure-white dress that drew everyone’s attention because of her stature, or perhaps it was the astonishing sea of fur, created by the white and silver dogs that sat dignified and proud around them.

Even I could tell that Myuri, who always wore a brave face that showed no fear no matter what she laid eyes on in this world, was nervous for once. I signaled to her with a glance, and she nodded faintly, then took Arte’s hand and proceeded forward. The dogs at their feet moved in concert with them, and it seemed like they were walking above white clouds.

I could scarcely believe they had collected all these dogs, but it was certainly a show that caught the eye.

The expressions of the fierce-looking members of the Pristol family all stiffened at the sight of their house’s princess. They narrowed their eyes, and even through their thick beards, I could see their clenched jaws. The most extreme of them all was Arte’s father; his red hair practically stood on end.

In accordance with the order of events, Arte stopped before her father, took his hand, and gave her thanks to him for raising and taking care of her.

This was not merely a ritualistic formal greeting. There was an unusual and palpable tension in the interaction between father and daughter.

Behind her, I could tell that Myuri had signaled to the dogs with a glance. The pups, who had been gathered together like a white carpet, quietly scattered among the seats.

Once Arte finished offering her thanks to her father, Myuri once again took her hand, and they came to stand before Mercurio. Arte did not look at me, but Myuri did and she nodded slightly, then gracefully stepped away from the couple.

“Groom, Mercurio Cedano,” I called his name, bringing Mercurio’s attention to me. “Bride, Arte Pristol.” Arte turned toward me as well. These were the blessed wedding rites, which had been performed hundreds and thousands of times.

I began to recite the “in sickness and in health” vows that even Myuri knew of even though she had no interest whatsoever in what was in the scripture.

Mercurio took a deep breath, as though swallowing his nerves, and declared, “I do,” and Arte, who was a full head taller than him, replied with downcast eyes, “I do.”

“We will now have the exchanging of the rings.”

Two people appeared from either side, holding a fine red cloth that was befitting a noble ceremony.

On each respectfully presented cloth were gold rings.

Mercurio took one in hand and slid it on Arte’s finger. Arte then did the same thing.

Mercurio gave her an awkward smile, and Arte smiled in turn.

I sensed a definite bond between them.

I did wish, slightly, that that would be it; that this would be enough.

God was watching.

But people could not see everything.

What was in another’s heart, for example.

“Our newly wedded couple have exchanged their vows,” I proclaimed loudly, and the guests raised a loud applause. It was almost ear-piercing.

Mercurio took Arte’s hand, his mouth tensing as he turned to face the guests to give an elegant bow. Arte also bent, showered by applause.

With the couple in front of me, I read out the passage I received when I was told the order of events.

“Now, in conformity with tradition passed down through the ages in both families…”

It felt like the sound of the continuing applause changed ever so slightly.

One perhaps could say it was a strange moment, as though they adjusted themselves so they could stop clapping at any time. Arte, bowing before me, also seemed to have sensed the subtle change in atmosphere. Through the gaps in her dress, I could see her magnificent back muscles were tense.

“To test the strength of their bond, recognized by God…”

Just as I read that, two dogs trotted up to the altar. They were both white furred with round black eyes, and their rounded tails were wagging proudly.

That was when everyone noticed.

The dogs were carrying swords in their mouths.

“Hey, that’s—”

The moment someone spoke up in a panic, the white carpet among the guests’ seats all moved at once. The dogs moved too fast for the eye to see and headed for the exit with a carriage they had refined as strays with swords in their mouths.

The panicked guests tried to capture the dogs, but not only were the spaces between chairs far too small, but none of them could move all that well since they all had large frames. Chaos broke out in an instant, but those who did not know the true nature of the situation thought it was simply a sideshow and cheered.

The choirboys seemed to think that the wild ritual had begun, so instead of the solemn tune they had sung earlier, they sang a gallant melody encouraging troops in wartime, and the musical ensemble, who had been waiting for that very cue, joined in and aggressively banged out a beat on their drums. Several of the ensemble members were whacked in the shins by the dogs carrying the swords out of the church, and they tumbled over, but that only helped heighten the atmosphere by inviting laughs and excitement.

The only calm people left in the chapel were Arte’s father and a select few others.

“Brother.” Myuri had appeared beside me at some point, her eyes glittering. She cheekily held someone else’s sword, and Arte, still bowing, moved again. The way she slowly reached out to the sword in the dog’s mouth was charged with all her built-up anger, and it symbolized her resolve.

Though Arte seemed like she was signaling that this was the very reason she had trained all these years, there was a hand that stopped her.

“Arte.”

With a cool voice, Mercurio took both swords that each dog held in their mouths.

“There’s no need for you to take one.”

When Arte looked up, Mercurio stood.

“Hark! My name is Mercurio Cedano! I have taken the beautiful Arte as my wife!”

Mercurio held the sword in his right hand and announced himself with some terribly, terribly old war etiquette.

Though dumbstruck she was, Arte reached out to the second sword that Mercurio held in his left hand.

As though he had expected that, Mercurio tossed it away.

“Mercurio!”

He made a shocked look at the grievous cry, but he immediately put on a smile.

“It’s okay, Arte. Trust me.”

“No, Mercurio, you don’t know anything!”

As she screamed, several men crept up behind her.

“Rgh, wh-what…? Let—let me go!”

Arte’s scream was drowned out by the people who had rushed her, and with her arms pinned behind her back, she, along with Mercurio, sword in hand, vanished into the crowd.

The reason Myuri was struggling to unclasp the catch on the sword she held was likely because she felt the need to help Arte, and quickly. I grasped her shoulder and pulled her to my side.

“B-brother, get a weapon to Miss Arte quickly!” she said as she reached for the pouch stuffed with wheat.

Now was the time to turn into a wolf and save the tragic bride.

It was just after she looked up to me, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Now let her go! From now into the future, your princess is forevermore my wife!” Mercurio shouted, his sword unsheathed, and the crushing crowd stepped back a bit to create some space. Between the gaps of people, I saw Arte, her arms being held down by three others like a real captured princess, and I could tell that the three hulking men necessary to keep the thrashing girl back looked uneasy about their odds.

When I saw that, I heaved a massive sigh.

“Very well, then I shall ask your sword if you are a suitable husband for my daughter.”

It was Arte’s father who responded to Mercurio—he took the sword that Mercurio had tossed aside, unsheathed it, and threw the scabbard away. There was a clear difference in stature between them, and even an amateur could tell from comparing their stances that there was also a difference in their skill.

Arte desperately thrashed and screamed, “Mercurio!”

Arte’s father raised the sword over his head.

It was more the light than the sound that caught my eyes and ears.

My body shrunk at the thunderous sound of clashing metal, and I felt a chill at the ferocity of the battle. As though she had forgotten to even blink and breathe, Myuri was desperately trying to throw off my hands to join Mercurio. When I tried to keep her from doing so, she turned to me with such fury in her eyes that I had never seen before.

“Brother, why?!”

If you hold me back anymore, not even for you will—

“Myuri.”

I said her name, and the kind girl who would get genuinely angry for someone else’s sake glared at me with the chilling eyes of the wolf.

I, however, met her gaze calmly. It was not that I was scorning Myuri or abandoning Arte and Mercurio. It was because of what Arte’s father had said directly to me after Myuri and Arte left.

“It’s all right. Everyone is simply trying to be considerate of one another.”

“…What?”

I was not sure if the perplexed murmur belonged to Myuri or Arte.

That was because on the other side of the crowd, something unbelievable was happening.

Mercurio, the very picture of a delicate man, was stopping Arte’s father’s strikes in an impressive manner.

“Hrm!”

He warded off the next attack with a side sweep. Mercurio was deftly defending against the repeated horizontal strikes that came hard and fast. Sparks flew, and Mercurio’s slender frame was almost sent flying, but he determinedly held his ground.

Though he staggered, he still made sure to fix his footing and readjust his grip on the sword, and not a moment later, the Cedano camp stamped their feet and a loud cheer bubbled up from them.

“Yes, that’s it! Don’t let the Pristol wolves scare you!”

There came the cheer, and this time it was the bearded men’s turn to yell.

“The Cedanos’ white fur is lamb’s wool! Shear him! Shear him bare!”

In the center of the loud hollering, Mercurio blocked Arte’s father’s attacks one after the other. Arte, eyes wide in surprise and disbelief, and Myuri, who was similarly dumbstruck, looked to me.

Whenever Mercurio blocked, there came cheers that practically blew the roof off, and the choirboys sang louder as if doing their best to put up a good fight, and the ensemble played away on their drums and instruments.

“They sang praises of you as the Pristol Wolf—is that all you got?!”

Though Mercurio’s shoulders heaved as he breathed, he shouted boldly. And before Arte’s father could respond, Mercurio brandished his sword with one hand and gallantly…Well, he did lurch a bit, but he did manage to set it on his shoulder and extend his free hand.

It was obvious who he made the gesture to.

“Arte!”

Arte, who had three people holding her arms behind her back, crumpled to the floor.

Unable to stand, she had sunk to the floor and was looking up at Mercurio.

Mercurio, his gorgeous hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, pulled Arte up forcefully.

“I will be the one to protect you! Mercurio Cedano will protect his wife, Arte!”

Arte’s father then took another swing at Mercurio, but he deflected it single-handedly.

Now that it had come to this, the situation was clear to everyone. That was because even though it was obvious that Mercurio’s skinny arms were already tired and wholly concentrating on simply holding the sword, Arte’s father let drop the sword that Mercurio had so weakly fended off.

“Arte, our way is open! Let’s go!”

Mercurio tugged on Arte’s hand as she stared blankly up at him, and he caught her as she staggered, practically cradling her in his arms. It was then that Arte seemed to finally understand her role.

And why her father and uncles had brought weapons, and why Mercurio was so confident that everything would be okay.

Arte turned to look at her father, and he raised his hands in defeat.

For a brief moment, she looked about to cry, but once she lowered her eyes, she spent the rest of the time looking at Mercurio. He was a good young man, who was one whole size smaller than her and had a slender face that made him look like the picture-perfect noble from a good household. Mercurio had said that he once asked his father to travel to learn poetry, and his father had gotten mad at him. He could probably count the number of times he had held a sword in his life.

But Mercurio believed that since he was going to become a husband, he had to be stronger. Just as Arte had gestured to her massive, tempered body and derided herself as being the furthest thing from the ideal bride, Mercurio had believed the same about himself.

But then what about Arte’s father?

“That should be good…right?”

Mercurio, taking Arte’s hand, left the church, like the last scene of a knight’s tale where he saves the princess. The bearded men watching them off murmured with uneasy looks. Among them was one with a bloodied nose, who had been kicked in the face by Arte when they had tried to hold her down.

“Our princess almost went on a rampage and ruined the whole ceremony…”

“I was even thinking about taking Sir Mercurio hostage and running!”

“I wore my mail on the off chance it would come to blows, but I’m glad that wasn’t necessary.”

That was what Arte’s father had told me when he appeared in the dressing room.

Arte had never shown the slightest interest in marriage, had no idea how to sew or cook, and had only ever held a sword.

Though as a father, he was happy his daughter always begged for sword-fighting lessons, he was often tormented by unease, wondering how long a girl her age could keep doing that. And so he decided to give something a shot—he apparently introduced her to Mercurio, who had just so happened to show up at an event in their hometown.

And since Arte quickly took to Mercurio, her father, the very one who had brought the two together, was shocked. Seeing them talk for astonishingly long stretches of time, he would at times interject, discreetly suggesting Arte pick up her sword as she always liked to do. And then that surprise turned into doubt.

Arte was a smart and kind girl. Though her father never showed how anxious he was about his daughter’s prospects for marriage, she must have seen through this. And since she had been suddenly brought together with Mercurio, no matter how slow she could have been, she would have taken notice of her father’s plans. And so he thought that perhaps Arte had grown close with the heir of the prosperous Cedano family in order to save her father’s face—no, for the sake of her own family, whose only claim to import was their old name and who were terrible at making any money.

If that was not the case, then why was Arte, who had never read a line of poetry in her life until then, so cheerfully talking about poetry with Mercurio? Since when were you interested in poetry?

That was what Arte’s father had thought after bringing Mercurio to Arte.

Without a chance to check on what his daughter truly thought, Mercurio took a liking to Arte, too, and the father had reportedly watched as things progressed and progressed, without a clue as to what to do.

No, was that true? Wait, but…

Arte’s father had spent so many countless nights not so much pained that his daughter was getting married but thinking about Arte’s personality—her inborn rambunctiousness, a girl who loved swordplay more than her three square meals a day.

In short, he was genuinely thinking about the possibility of everything going to waste at the very last second. She had often caused unbelievable commotion in the past, so he simply could not shake off his doubts.

On the contrary, he had believed that this marriage was something Arte was doing to spite him.

He thought that Arte was trying to express her disappointment because she thought he ultimately treated her just like every other girl.

He had suddenly appeared once Myuri and Arte left the room, but despite his large frame and frightening visage that would make any war veteran flinch, he had come to me on the verge of tears and vented all the worries he had been carrying inside of him.

I wanted to say how utterly exasperated I was at Arte’s father’s misunderstanding, who had failed to realize how his daughter truly felt, but I realized right away that things had turned out like this because he had cared so for his daughter.

He never said that swordplay was unfitting for a girl her age, since she loved the blade so. He had let his daughter do as she pleased, not forcing her to conform to what social norms dictated.

And it was because of that he had misread Arte’s intentions; but what made it even more complicated was that Arte had done the very same thing.

From her point of view, all she ever talked about with her father was the sword and war, so how could she suddenly talk about love and romance with him? How could she say that she had been deeply touched by the poems Mercurio had spun for her? Would he not be disappointed that she had turned out to be such an effeminate girl?

That was where it all started.

And that was why Arte’s father had come to me with a single request.

“I’m not sure what kind of ideas Arte put into your head, but please do not let this ceremony go to waste.”

One could say he was practically leaving it all up to me.

That was because he had prepared something for Arte to fall in love with Mercurio all over again. She loved the sword so much, he was sure she would most certainly be taken with what he had planned. And he approached me to tell me that Mercurio, too, would go to any lengths to make Arte fall deeper in love him.

When he said that, I realized that Mercurio had been caught in the same trap, too.

I had no idea what would be set loose besides a massive, heavy sigh.

God might have known everything, but people did not. People could only judge others from a narrow, limited perspective.

That was true for how much more timid Arte’s fierce-looking father was than I had first thought, and it was the same for Mercurio, who could not believe that Arte had no interest whatsoever in her husband’s sword skill. And Arte, too, had convinced herself that Mercurio was looking for slim shoulders, a thin waist, and polite grace in a wife.

The father had not the scarcest idea that his rambunctious daughter had genuinely fallen in love, and the daughter assumed that her father thought only a fierce-looking man could be appropriate for the Pristol family.

One must recall why weddings were topped with cream and sugar.

Because demons hated sweet food.

“…What were we, then?”

Myuri, after returning the sword to its proper owner, sat cross-legged, sulking. Several dogs surrounded her, their tails wagging while hoping that the wolf girl might pet them on the head.

“A bit of spice, perhaps. Well, we were judged and summoned for our looks to begin with anyway.”

Myuri sighed, patted each dog on the head in turn, then spoke.

“…But Miss Arte was so pretty.”

She looked up, spotting members of the Cedano and Pristol families patting one another on the shoulders as they left the chapel. They had ironed out a plan and made preparations so that this curious wedding ceremony would progress smoothly. They seemed genuinely relieved to see the new couple leave the church hand in hand.

I extended my hand to the sitting Myuri, and she stared hard at it before saying, “Brother, do you dream of stories about knights and princesses like that, too?”

I was not sure for what reason she had asked me that, but I answered honestly.

“I am not suited to be a knight.”

“…”

Myuri silently took my hand and stood.

“Then what role are you playing when you take my hand and walk like this?”

“You said it yourself. Your older brother.”

Myuri puffed her cheeks, stuck out her tongue, then squeezed my hand hard.

She then said with a glare, “Didn’t watching this whole fight make you think that you might be the only one who thinks that?”

People judged others by appearances, and it was difficult to overturn an impression once made; people oftentimes did not even know themselves.

That was generally correct; however, it was of course not everything.

“Even if I were mistaken, it is much more believable than you thinking yourself an adult.”

“Hey, what does that mean?!”

“Exactly what I said. I swear, you even had a sword ready for yourself; were you really planning on fighting with it?”

Mixing up adventure stories and reality was not something an adult would do.

“As long as you are a child, you will remain my little sister.”

“Brother, you dummy!” Myuri shouted, and all the dogs’ ears perked up in surprise.

“Yes, yes, I know. Let us concentrate on settling the matters before us for now, then. You still have to cut the cake and hand it to the bride in the courtyard.”

Myuri, who had clung to my arm and pushed her face up against me as though to bite me, groaned for a moment before finally lifting her head.

“Aaaagh! I wanna get married, too!”

She then grabbed my hand and ran off.

“Let’s go, Brother! The food’ll be gone!”

“Huh? H-hey, Myuri!”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

That led us out into the courtyard, and now with needless worry lifted from our shoulders, everyone was ready to continue with the joyous celebration.

The drink started flowing, and things became rather lively.

Arte and Mercurio thanked us, and all their relatives thanked us as well.

I had done nothing, however. In the end, they had all simply acted out of consideration for the feelings of others.

And so a wedding that had taken place in one small corner of Rausbourne ended peacefully, and we secured the puppy with fur just like Myuri’s that we had been looking for and returned to the manor that Hyland was borrowing without incident.

We did run into Hyland, who had returned from her official business, and though her eyes widened at our exhausted state, we agreed to tell her about the details at a later date, then promptly withdrew to our room. Myuri, tired from dancing, collapsed on the bed with the puppy still hugged to her chest.

The sight exasperated me, but Myuri, after patting the clinging puppy on its head and placing it under the bed, looked at me with eyes filled with both fatigue and lingering excitement.

“Brother, do you remember your promise?”

“My promise?”

Still lying on the bed, Myuri stuck out her arms.

“That you’d give me a hug when we got back to the manor.”

Her lovely plaited hair for the ceremony and face flushed from fervor made it seem like she had suddenly grown up. She was an evil wolf, here to confound the lambs that did their best to live on the path of faith.

Perhaps that was what she wanted me to think, but I had been dealing with Myuri for a little over a decade.

“Oh yes—actually, I did manage to sneak you a little gift.”

“…Hmm?”

“Didn’t you want one of those large utensils?”

“Wait, what?!”

I was talking about the massive prop used to bless the future life of the couple, so that they may not ever have trouble finding food.

Myuri shot up and crawled across the bed just like a dog that had been shown a piece of meat.

“B-brother, did you…get that for—?”

Myuri’s maiden face was bursting with anticipation, and I showed her what I got.

“You had some, did you not? I heard that those wheat noodles are a specialty in Arte’s hometown. This tool is used for boiling those noodles.”

What I produced was a long board with several protrusions sticking out of it.

Apparently, this was placed in the pot, used to stir the noodles, then pulled out.

“Oh…Whaaa…?”

All the life left Myuri’s body at the sight of something completely different from what she had expected.

It was almost comical how quickly her ears and tail deflated; I sat down next to her and said, “See, when I saw this, it struck me. It is the perfect shape for caring for your fur.”

Myuri lifted her head to stare at me.

It was like gold had come pouring out from a place she had least expected.

“Its size is perfectly suitable for caring for your fur, even when you return to your wolf form. I believe you should be taking good care of yourself in wolf form—your coat is so beautiful, after all—and not just your hair.”

Myuri’s mouth was drawn taut, and the puppy was clambering up her leg.

The moment it finally managed to crawl onto the bed, a waist sash, an overshirt, then trousers and whatnot all landed on its head one after the other, and by the time it managed to crawl its way out from under the clothes, it was looking up at a silver wolf.

“…Myuri, come on—how can I care for…? Myuri…!”

The large wolf pushed me down onto the bed, her nose pressing on me, rubbing her neck too vigorously on my face. Her tail whipped back and forth—where was her pride as a wolf?

I happened to turn my face to the side by chance, and there was the puppy, peering up at us curiously.

“Could you please tell her to stop?”

This wolf, no matter how big she got, would always beg for pets.

“Woof.”

The puppy gave a tired bark, sat down, then scratched its neck with one of its short legs.

Silver hairs danced in the air.

This was one scene from a season where the long winter had ended, and the lively spring was just around the corner.

A letter came from the young ones who had left the bathhouse to travel. Though the snow had finally melted in Nyohhira, the mornings and evenings were still chilly, so I was warming myself up at the hearth beside the entrance when one of our regulars, a merchant, delivered it to us.

’Tis almost shedding season, I thought, my ears and tail hidden under my clothes as I accepted the letter. A rather strong scent wafted from it.

“Mm.”

I undid the cord that bound the rolled letter, peeled off the wax seal, and looked inside to see little Col’s precise writing and Myuri’s growing letters on the page. I read it, and I found my mouth drawn up crookedly.

“Heeey, Holo, want me to warm the wine?”

My companion, a tin tankard in hand, peeked his head out from the other room.

“Aye, yes, please.”

“Got it…Wait, is that a letter? Is it from Myuri?!”

It had been quite a while since the last message from little Col and our daughter, Myuri, so my companion’s eyes widened like he was going to snatch at it.

As an act of kindness, I told him what it said.

“It says that little Col and that fool Myuri held a wedding.”

I omitted quite a lot, but it was not a lie.

My fool of a companion, his weakness being his daughter, would certainly be surprised…but then there came the shrill sound of metal and liquid spilling.

“Ahhh! How could you! The wine!”

My companion, who had dropped his tin tankard in his dumbstruck state, stood frozen in place with a vacant expression.

“Myuri…Myuri…!”

“You fool! Little Col simply pretended to be a priest at someone else’s wedding, and Myuri acted as the bride’s chaperone!”

“Huh? I-is that all? Really?”

Despite how he occasionally showed quick wit and bravery that made even the wisewolf gaze at him in wonderment, he was generally less impressive than a doltish cow.

“What a waste…This is exactly why this fool…”

“Hey, show me the letter. Myuri didn’t actually get married, did she?”

“Calm down! Here! Read as you please!”

I shoved the letter at him and went to retrieve the tin tankard that the fool had dropped.

The opening was not all that wide, luckily, so there was still some left on the inside.

I shall have the fool take care of the rest.

“Oh, Lord, you’re right—that’s what it says…I can’t believe you…My heart almost stopped…”

Judging by his state, I wondered what would happen to him if Myuri truly did go off and get married. I was fed up with it, but since I, the wisewolf, was a kind wife, there were some things I did not say aloud to the idiot.

“Huh, it says they got a cooking tool from the southlands that’s perfect for grooming, and they’ll send it over once they can arrange for its delivery.”

I was uncertain what sort of contraption it might be, but I could easily picture how little Col and Myuri were spending the shedding season in the outside world, where it sounded as though spring had come a step ahead of here. I could tell from the cord that bound the letter, and I could even smell the strong scent from the letter in my companion’s hands.

It was an intimate scent, one that made it almost foolish to ask anything about any wedding.

As a human, my foolish companion had no way of noticing the scent, and I wished he would thank me for the kindness I showed by not telling him of the approaching storm clouds.

“Hmm, what is it?”

“What is what?” I smiled in turn and came to stand by his side. “A grooming tool. ’Tis almost time for shedding season now. I will need you to maintain my coat.”

“Yeah, I know. I ordered plenty of brushes for you already.”

Though he said that with a sigh, it was aggravating how he was actually looking forward to it.

“You will be gentle, yes?”

My companion shrugged, then smiled and began to clean up the spilled wine. With no choice, I helped him. A fun playmate like this would be wasted on the young Myuri. The yet-inexperienced little Col was just right for that little fool.

“What is it?”

My companion noticed my gaze, a curious look on his face.

With a tickled smile, I said, “’Tis nothing.”

The long winter was about to end.

I told myself that the fuzzy feeling I held in my heart was surely because of the season.

On the other hand, however, I could not truthfully say I was not the least bit envious of the young duo’s journey.

Journey.

A journey, hmm?

“Hmm,” I murmured to myself, smiling wryly. “Though I doubt we will be journeying anymore.”

I ran my hand through my tail’s winter coat, and for just a brief moment, it swelled in a sort of anticipation.

But there was no end to the seeds of ups and downs in the world.

It would only be a short time from now I would learn that even the wisewolf’s predictions can be unreliable.