Spice and Wolf - Volume 23 - Chapter 3

AN OLD HOUND’S SIGH AND WOLF

One day, a saint sent by God built a hermitage on a stretch of land that was once home to a scattered farming village. Starved of God’s love, many came to visit the hermitage, which became a place for locals to trade, which in turn attracted merchants. Before any realized it, a village had sprung up around the hermitage, and in time, it grew into a town.

This was the basic premise of Salonia’s creation myth, but a traveling merchant acquaintance told her that the likeliest story was that a charismatic individual who was not quite who they claimed to be came to live in the area, jumped on the bandwagon to develop the area, and made it look like a town, at least superficially. When priestess Elsa first heard that, she thought, How typical, as she scanned Salonia’s busy streets with honey-colored eyes.

Elsa originally lived in a village very far from Salonia, but she left her family behind to visit various churches around the world. These churches were no longer keeping up with the ways of the world and were struggling to adapt to the times, which made people with sharp executive abilities like her a necessity. She had eventually found herself here, happily moving from place to place as the Church demanded; she was, of course, a very pious woman.

But hearing the truth behind Salonia’s creation myth was chilling because it served as a reminder that there were very few things in this world that were genuine.

And so, she was not surprised when she saw that Salonia’s church had been left in the care of a bishop who was vaguely untrustworthy. And when money trouble once again reared its ugly head, all she could do was give a little sigh.

“Someone seems irritated, no?”

Salonia was currently gripped by excitement for the festival that would be the high point of their grand market, yet Elsa sat under the eaves of an out-of-the-way tavern nestled in a quiet side street; she looked up when she heard the familiar voice speak to her.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

The young girl with flaxen hair did not bother to reply to Elsa’s statement, nor did she bother to ask permission to sit with Elsa before taking a seat opposite her and calling over the tavernkeeper in a practiced manner.

The mismatch of her sage-like demeanor and her youthful appearance stemmed from the fact that she was currently inhabiting a temporary form. She was, in fact, a centuries-old wolf spirit, and whenever Elsa looked at her, it always struck her how much the way she thought about wolves had changed ever since they met.

She didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing, but she was certain that this wolf avatar would be furious with her if she shared these thoughts with her.

“’Tis quite a shock to find you in such a desolate, sad place,” Holo said, accepting the wine and the meat-and-vegetable stew the tavernkeeper brought her.

“Because this stew is delicious. And it is quiet here.”

“Ah, yes. You are no pompous official of the Church. You are a village girl.”

Elsa felt rather embarrassed still being called a “girl” after having three children of her own, but perhaps their meeting decades ago felt like a recent development to a spirit who had lived for centuries.

She brought her ale up to her lips as the thought crossed her mind.

“And you are well off enough to be drinking at lunch.”

“Even God set aside one day for rest. I am simply doing what I am meant to be doing.” Holo frowned—Elsa typically scolded her for her heavy drinking and slovenly lifestyle—then bit into the overcooked chicken, cartilage and all, baring her canines. “I am just as surprised as you are. Where is Mister Lawrence?”

This wolf spirit, who once ruled over a village’s wheat harvest, through some sort of divine grace came to marry an airy merchant. Having had a small hand in bringing them together, Elsa was happy to see that they always got along so well, but they were unfortunately so close that it was almost unpleasant sometimes.

Or perhaps they were so close that they ended up fighting again—and just as that possibility occurred to Elsa, Holo let her shoulders fall the way a much older woman might have, and responded as she sipped her wine.

“He’s quite popular here. He’s always gone somewhere once the sun rises.”

Her wolf ears, hidden beneath her headkerchief, twitched in displeasure.

This wolf was surprisingly shy and a loner to boot; she must have decided she would much rather sit with someone she found annoying because of all the lectures instead of wandering the town alone.

“He has indeed solved a few big problems thus far, hasn’t he?”

First there was the enormous, complicated matter of debt that had weighed upon the people of Salonia. Merchants who had come to the market for trade had been unable to repay their borrowed money, yet he had been able to erase almost all of that debt without spending a single coin—it was hardly distinguishable from magic at that point.

That was more than enough to go down in the town’s history, yet he had even resolved a problem involving the man who had established a fish pond that had once saved Salonia from starvation. It was under Lawrence’s direction that they dug a hole in the town plaza to make a little pond reminiscent of the sea that served as the stage for a little play.

They poured hot water into the freshly dug pond and filled it with a hot spring mix brought from Nyohhira, turning it into a place where the adults could soak their feet and the children could play to their hearts’ content; it added a touch of color to the market’s excitement.

Of course, Holo had always stood by Lawrence’s side as he solved these problems. The people knew her as the great merchant Kraft Lawrence’s young wife, who kept her husband on a short leash, projected a powerful presence, and could hold her liquor like no other; Elsa was certain that Holo was plenty popular in her own right.

“I would think you have had plenty of invitations to go drinking yourself, no?”

It was not long ago that Holo had been tasked with choosing the drinks that would be served at the festival that marked the end of the seasonal festival, which ended with her dead-drunk in the middle of the day.

She would certainly have no trouble finding others to drink with now. And considering how her love of alcohol was second to none, Elsa thought she would have little reason to decline an invitation, yet the woman sitting across from her turned away, an unmistakable weariness in her expression.

“’Twas only fun in the beginning.”

“Too much attention, I take it?”

As self-important as she seemed, Holo preferred to be alone. Yet she hated being put on a pedestal. The pagan gods were all similarly difficult to understand, but perhaps that was what made them who they were.

Elsa brought her cup of lukewarm ale to her lips to find it was mostly empty.

She had finished her lunch; perhaps it was time to return to the church.

As that thought crossed her mind, she noticed how Holo was glumly sipping at her wine, having only bitten into her chicken and made no progress on her stew at all.

When she saw how anxiously the wolf sat hunched over on her spot, Elsa knew she could not leave her be.

She sighed. She was astonished at how little had changed with this wisewolf since they first met, yet that also brought her considerable relief.

“More wine, please!” Elsa ordered, raising up her empty mug toward the inside of the building, and Holo’s eyes widened when she did so.

“I know if you simply had nothing to do, you would be back at your room at the inn sleeping. You want to speak with me, don’t you?”

Holo was centuries old and was even known as the wisewolf, yet here she was—shoulders drawn up and tensed, lips pursed. Elsa thought about how much this wolf looked like her own children.

Holo peered up at Elsa, as though she had been waiting for her to say something like that.

“…Will you not laugh at me?”

Though the role was temporary, Elsa was still a priestess.

“I cannot call myself a servant of God if I laugh at the plight of others.”

Holo still looked away briefly, downed the rest of her wine in a single gulp, and ordered herself another, not wanting to fall behind.

Many villagers would have knelt before her in ages past, honored with words of prophecy or whatever else they would like to hear; but now, as she sat hunched over her cup of wine, Holo looked like a village elder who had grown so old she seemed like a child again.

“That fool does not understand a single thing about me.”

Elsa absently thought about how this was essentially her catchphrase, yet she urged Holo to continue out of slight interest.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know that he has been summoned to take part in some complicated discussions?”

“Oh?”

Lawrence was presently the most famous individual in Salonia, and many likely thought that any problem in his care would be solved immediately. She had heard that he was being made to intervene in anything and everything from business dealings to marital disputes; she wondered which one it could be this time.

“I have heard it is related to your job.”

“Ah-ha.” Elsa understood immediately. “Is this about the town tariffs?”

“I am not quite sure. But I hear tell of merchants just like him butting heads with one another.”

“I’ve heard the same.”

Holo’s brow furrowed, perhaps dissatisfied with Elsa’s casual response.

But Elsa, too, gave a sigh, and Holo stared blankly at her.

“That very same problem is why I am not looking forward to returning to the church. It’s quite a stupid situation.”

That was why she had gone out of her way to have lunch here; without warning, Elsa heard the rhythmic rustling of fur against fabric.

“Oh ho?”

Holo had seemed so lifeless not moments earlier, but her energy came back the moment she saw how troubled Elsa looked. Her fluffy tail was wagging with delight beneath her clothes. Elsa could hardly believe the woman, but she did not hate how open and frank she was.

“Discussions about the tariffs for all the goods that flow into town are going on at the assembly hall right now. I suppose it would be easier for you to understand if I told you this meeting would determine whether that wine of yours would be a cheap or expensive drink.”

Holo looked down at the mug in her hands, then gulped down the wine along with the information.

“There are wine merchants who wish to import the wine for cheap, and there are the ale merchants who wish to subject wine to higher tariffs since that is their competition.”

“Mm.”

“Though who exactly manages these clashes of interest changes from town to town. Here, it is the church’s responsibility.”

Elsa supposed that part of the reason for this was because a saint had a hand in the town’s founding myth, but in truth, the church was heavily involved in the process because they earned great profits from those tariffs.

“Ah, yes, the one in charge of the church here is a fishy sort. He is quite fun to drink with, but I suppose you’re not too fond of him.”

“He’s not a bad person, but unfortunately, he’s always been a bit of a smooth talker…”

The entity that originally called on Elsa to help was the church in the Vallan Bishopric. There she had reunited with Lawrence and Holo, gotten their help, and managed to sell off a lot of the church’s assets for a high price. The bishop in Salonia had caught wind of this and managed to shove all of Salonia’s problems onto Elsa. The work itself was not a problem for her, but she was not exactly happy with the situation. This feeling was exacerbated by the enormous profits the Salonia church claimed for itself despite ostensibly being an establishment meant to preach and practice asceticism and temperance.

Elsa realized she had unwittingly spoken ill of him when she did not mean to; she cleared her throat and found Holo grinning at her, canines and all.

“Ahem. Anyway, all interests regarding money will be laid bare at this meeting, and everyone will be desperate to speak their piece. And I believe that Mister Lawrence has been saddled with that responsibility, and his opinion carries great weight…”

Perhaps the reason Holo looked so upset was because she was sad that he was not around to entertain her. Elsa thought that if that were truly the case, then she would simply say so, but she knew well that the pair tended not to be very honest with their feelings with each other and needlessly suffered because of it at times.

They were two peas in a pod, yes, but she thought it would do them good if they could at least put themselves in each other’s shoes.

“I understand he has an important role to play in this town, yes. And he has done more than enough to atone for the sin of leaving me by my lonesome,” Holo said proudly, and Elsa decided to give nothing more than a vague hum in response. The wisewolf continued, saying, “But the problem is that he dives headfirst into these problems in the first place.”

“Is that so? It is true that this is causing the townsfolk great distress, and it must be resolved at some point. As an outsider, Mister Lawrence is perfectly suited to settle the town’s disagreements. I believe he is fulfilling his role rather well, and you must be proud of his accomplishments, are you not?”

“Yes, ’tis true…,” Holo muttered.

Elsa sighed and said, “I believe Mister Lawrence is doing all this to show you just how capable he actually is.”

Ever since reuniting at the church in the Vallan Bishopric, just from looking Elsa could tell that Holo was practically all that Lawrence ever thought about, and she could easily see from everything he did that he was in high spirits about his first journey in ten years.

And though she thought that this selfish maiden quite liked that part about him, the wolf herself gave a heavy sigh.

“…This is the third time in a row now. I feel a burp coming on.”

Holo reminded Elsa of an old neighborhood stray who grew languid after receiving too much attention from the children.

Elsa could tell that Holo was disappointed, but she felt as though the answer to this problem was plain as day.

“Why not tell him this? You are not a newlywed wife,” she told her outright, and Holo simply hunched over and sipped her wine.

“’Twould be easy if I could do such a thing. In a way…I am the one who encouraged the fool in the first place…”

Though in her true form she was a wolf big enough to decimate entire armies, she would tuck her tail between her legs in fear of a single ex-merchant, and Elsa found that very curious. As that thought crossed Elsa’s mind, interest bubbled up inside her—what sort of trap had this wolf gotten herself ensnared in this time?

“How so?”

Though she sat up straighter, Holo tensed her shoulders and neck, gazing into empty space, and spoke again with the umpteenth sigh, “You had a hand in bringing him and I together.”

Elsa’s eyes widened despite herself; she was not so much confused about why Holo suddenly brought this up, but more in shock from Holo suddenly thanking her.

“Do not make that face… ’Twas by your encouragement that we joined hands. You know this.”

When Elsa rode in the same carriage as Holo, the main reason Holo had seemed so uncomfortable was because she was aware of just how much of a debt she owed the church woman.

“Either way, we are together now. In truth, I am happy. Painfully so.”

“I…suppose you are, yes. And to be honest, Mister Lawrence spoils you too much.”

The centuries-old wolf replied, with good grace, “He does so because he wants to.”

“Even so…”

Though it had only been a bit more than a decade since they started a family together, they were naturally much closer now than they were when they first met.

Elsa took a sip of her own wine, washing down the sweet sentimentality.

“But one could say that me taking his hand was the same as pulling him away from the path he wished to pursue, no?”

“Hmm… Perhaps.”

If anything, Elsa thought it would be more apt to say that it was not a wise idea to leave Lawrence to his own devices, considering how shaky the man could be sometimes, but it sounded as though Holo had her own thoughts on the matter.

“Are you saying that you made a mistake?”

“…He had the chance to follow a path that would have led him to becoming the world’s greatest merchant, one who could rule the world. But I said to him that I’d had enough of such nonsense and steered him away from it.”

That was not a sphere of livelihood that overlapped much with Elsa’s own, so she was only vaguely aware of such things, but she knew that Lawrence had saved one of the biggest, most influential companies in the northlands and had been invited to join them.

Had he accepted, it was very likely his wit and Holo’s wisdom together could have made him an unimaginably wealthy man in some city or another.

That said, Elsa had a hard time picturing Lawrence as a big name, lording over dozens and dozens of people. She thought that the size of the bathhouse in Nyohhira was perfect for him, but perhaps that was not the case for Holo.

As Elsa dropped her shoulders—Love is truly blind, she thought—Holo spoke up.

“And…I found myself expressing this to him.”

“…”

Elsa’s own thoughts about how foolish that was must have been plain on her face. With a pained expression, Holo growled, baring her fangs.

Elsa sighed and cleared her throat at the same time, then looked straight at Holo and said, “Mister Lawrence prefers his life with you over everything else, and so he has internalized your wishes. I doubt he regrets his choice.”

“I know!”

Nearby birds flew away, shocked by Holo’s sharp yell.

She repeated, annoyed, “I know,” and dropped her head into her hands. “I had been too relaxed once we left for our first journey in years… And I had so much time to think in the cart, at nights in the inns… And most importantly…” She stared down at the table. “When I see him lit by the glow of unfamiliar hearths, I see just how much he has aged in the time we have spent together. I never notice that in the familiar confines of the bathhouse.”

Holo still looked like a young girl, much the same as she did when Elsa first met her, and she would likely remain the same when Elsa was old enough to need a cane. In her eyes, ten, twenty years was nothing more than a short temporal detour.

But that was not the case for Lawrence.

As they traveled around in the same fashion as they had when they first met, Holo couldn’t help but notice the undeniable signs of age in his impulses, in the fires that illuminated his profile.

Elsa knew that Holo walked around with pen and paper, writing down things that happened in her daily life.

It was an act meant to commit certain moments to memory that would be otherwise washed away by the unrelenting torrent of time.

Elsa could no longer laugh or find exasperation when it came to Holo; she reached out across the table and placed her hand over the wolf’s own small hand.

“I realize that he has given me something so great.” Holo stared at the hand on hers before pulling it away with a self-deprecating smile. “We visited your company, the Debau Company? When we sold your mountain. How dizzyingly large it was. It was a bustling, dazzling place, so full of life. When I think about how I stole him away from such a life…I am overcome with fear.”

Elsa, too, was from a small village called Tereo, so she could easily imagine the sort of shock that Holo experienced. She had been shocked by her own drive to make a name for herself in the world, one she had never felt before she first laid eyes on a massive cathedral in a large city.

Of course, that was now but a vestige of a dream that perhaps could have come true once; she knew that much of the appeal would be lost if she were to actually achieve it, and there was no guarantee that she would have the same wonderful things in life if she had decided to walk a different path.

The journey of life was a cruel one with no do-overs. Everyone was forced to keep walking forward while forever wondering if the choices they made were the right ones.

Holo would live for a very, very long time, so perhaps at some point she would have accepted these facts with little more than a sense of defeat, but when it came to her most beloved companion, she simply could not keep a level head.

That said, Elsa doubted Lawrence ever regretted for a moment the choices that led him to his current life, and she knew that saying anything she was not wholly confident in would be a disservice to him. He was so loved, and so she felt it was his responsibility to believe wholly and with conviction that his partner was happy, too.

As a member of the clergy, Elsa would often serve as mediator for when married couples had disputes. She had seen similar situations play out thousands of times before. A lecture almost bubbled out from her throat—You will live tens of times longer than any human, so why do you find yourself caught up by the most basic of entrapments?—but Holo seemed perfectly aware of her own foolishness.

Not only that, but there were particulars that only applied to her.

Elsa, who acted as intermediary for this odd couple, forcefully dragged Holo’s hand back to hers and gave it an encouraging squeeze before letting it go.

“I see what’s going on.”

The town believed Holo dragged Lawrence around on a short leash, and at a glance it did seem as though Lawrence was completely at the mercy of Holo’s whims, but it was actually Holo who could scarcely bear to be away from Lawrence.

Then again, Lawrence was not the fairy-tale prince he seemed to be at all.

“I suppose it’s like thoughtlessly adding sugar to mead, which is already perfectly sweet enough.”

When Elsa said that, Holo looked genuinely disappointed.

“Precisely. And now, he is approaching me with a large jar of sugar and a big grin on his face. And I thought my slip of the tongue had died with the complicated issue of debts. I so foolishly told him that he could have easily become a great merchant with his magic, considering how easily he had made all that debt disappear.”

Childish though she was, it was more than enough to dispel Holo’s fears, and her joy certainly would have been great.

There was a caveat to this, though, Elsa thought. She did not immediately associate Lawrence with being a sheep because of his softheartedness, but because he did not know his limits; because he was at times inconsiderate and thickheaded.

“After seeing how well it went, he now wants to settle this tariff matter cleanly and show you how capable he is, is that correct?” Elsa asked.

Holo gave a long, deep sigh.

“…Yes.”

Elsa could see how a man might want to continually show off for his beloved wife.

As a servant of God, she thought it was a good thing that they were so close, that it was a good wife’s job to be impressed by and compliment her husband, but that was simply a matter of logic.

She, too, had built a family after finding herself with a man who had a bottomless well of kindness, but was also a bit thick-headed as well.

She thought back on her days in Tereo, and easily pictured her husband, Evan, doing the same thing to her over and over again. She might certainly be delighted the first time, and perhaps she might force a smile the second time, but her patience would likely run out by the third.

“’Twould be nice if that were all, however.”

“There’s something else?”

“That church of yours came up. He has apparently been lured into some scheme by them.”

When Holo put it that way, Elsa knew right away who was doing the smooth talking.

“The bishop, you mean?”

“Aye. That bishop has promised him a dubious reward in exchange for his help. And…” Holo brought her wine to her lips, gave an indulgent sip, and looked at Elsa with a dubious expression. “That fool has told me it would not be a bad idea to be nobility.”

Men would always be children. Elsa pictured Lawrence innocently dreaming and smiling, and it reminded her of Evan when she scolded him for making a ruckus with the children.

“That fool has started to dream big again now that Myuri has left. I almost feel as though he is using my circumstances as a tool for his own advantage.”

“Ah…”

Elsa sometimes heard similar complaints back in the village. The village women would often sigh, thinking they were done raising their kids, only for the largest person in the house to begin to act like a child himself.

No matter how old they got, men still acted with wide-eyed optimism, just like children. Even if that was what brought the couple together in the first place, she understood why the women would be frustrated and want them to act their age.

“And is it not strange for a sheep to walk straight for a cliff edge with a smug look on its face?”

It was not as though Holo could have opened up about any of this to her town drinking buddies, and she clearly did not have any ill will toward Lawrence himself, so she had been bottling up everything.

After a great deal of thought, she must have decided to find this alleyway tavern and pay Elsa a visit under the guise of coincidentally running into each other.

Though their personalities and lifestyles were completely different, this was why Elsa could not bring herself to hate Holo, and since they both had similar husbands and households, she could not abandon the wisewolf.

It seemed that frivolous bishop had been getting involved, too, so she could not overlook this matter as a fellow member of the clergy either. It would be unacceptable to allow the Church’s reputation to fall any more than it already had.

“More drinks, please!” Elsa called as she ordered two more cups of wine.

What Holo told Elsa was not quite to the point, but she got the general gist when she applied her own knowledge to the situation.

First, many merchants were in town for the grand market at the moment, which made for a perfect opportunity to talk about plenty of longstanding issues, when the question of tariffs came up.

Wine merchants and ale merchants have always been at odds with one another, and in turn, ale merchants have always been competitors with the bakeries since they vie for the same resource. And the bakeries have traditionally never gotten along with the butchers—listening to one party’s objection meant earning another party’s ire.

In general, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” was logic that was easily upheld here, so parties whose interests did not conflict often teamed up to make sure their grievances were heard, but the local lord, dressed in red, would often unilaterally make decisions when it came to these matters, so they would either leave things up to divine providence and draw straws, or allow influential members of each party to cast anonymous votes.

The Salonia church bishop often took charge here, but the church itself had its own interests in many affairs concerning the town, so the participants would not so readily listen to what they had to say, especially if they were the ones getting the short end of the stick in the resulting deal. And then, out of the blue, Lawrence appears in town, a person who has great influence but little to do with any parties involved, so everyone began to promise him rewards in an attempt to flatter and gain his favor.

The woodworkers, especially, who had been suffocated by high tariffs, had been particularly aggressive in persuading Lawrence to secure them some tax relief, but the Church profited mightily from those same tariffs, which meant that the bishop was trying to get Lawrence on his side by making absurd promises.

What he suggested was purchasing privileges for some of the land surrounding Salonia—essentially making Lawrence nobility.

“He worked quite fast.”

Once Holo had informed Elsa of the general course the meeting had taken, Elsa set out to gather information on the details. Once the sun started to set, they regrouped at a tavern that bordered the town square. The town was growing even livelier as the sun threatened to vanish beneath the horizon, and so the establishment had set out several long tables and benches outside to deal with all the customers who could not fit inside. Those dressed in traveling clothes, farmers from the nearby area, and all those who had traveled in from outside joined with the townsfolk to enjoy one of the few periods of revelry throughout the year.

When these revelers spotted Elsa, they quickly fixed their posture and lowered their voices. After giving them a vague, nonchalant smile, she listened to what Holo had to report.

“Were you drinking the entire time afterward?”

By the time Elsa found Holo again, there sat on the table a cup of wine she very much doubted was Holo’s first and a plate of ribs that had been licked clean.

“You fool. This is a promise to become some landowning lord, you know. I had my suspicions that the fool might be tricked again, but there is a chance he is not.”

“There is a chance, yes.”

“Rabbits do sleep in the middle of the road from time to time.”

Perhaps it was because Holo had already lived for such a long time, or she was originally like this, but she tended to have a pessimistic, depressing outlook on things. Lawrence was her sun and it was his existence that brightened her days.

“And so, he has decided to look into it himself, because he cannot ignore the chance that it might be a good deal.”

But Elsa wondered if the seemingly lackadaisical but surprisingly shrewd bishop would bring something like that up in such an offhand manner. It was much more likely that Lawrence was being tricked, like Holo first suspected.

Or perhaps Holo did not want to dampen Lawrence’s mood when he was delighted at the prospect of being a noble, and was trying to convince herself that it was, indeed, a very good deal.

All Elsa could do was guess when it came to discord in that department, but regardless, the point of compromise she had come up with sat beside her.

“She knows a lot about this area. I went for a quick run to fetch her after we parted ways.”

“Umm… I can’t say I know a lot about how the human world works, though…”

The girl sitting next to Holo, shrinking into herself, was still bigger than Holo despite how much she hunched over—and her name was Tanya.

She was a squirrel avatar who had lived in the cursed mountain, the one of legend in the Vallan Bishopric that Elsa had originally needed help with. Tanya certainly seemed like she would know the area’s history in the magnitude of centuries, so perhaps this was indeed the correct choice.

But in any case, Elsa thought they could have picked a better place to meet than this.

It was starting to dawn on her that the men around them were not looking at their table because a woman in holy robes—Elsa—was spending time at a place of drink and revelry. They were looking at Tanya, who had fluffy, curly hair and voluminous curves that neither Elsa nor Holo possessed.

Any man who approached with the intention of speaking to her would quickly spot Holo, who was a minor celebrity in town, and Elsa, who wore the cloth of the Church, then quickly retreat with a vague smile.

Holo did not seem to mind at all, and Tanya had not even noticed she was being looked at to begin with, so Elsa decided not to let it bother her.

“Miss Tanya, do you know of House Voragine?”

Elsa had asked some of the Vallan Bishopric priests who were staying in town about what the bishop was planning in detail, then returned to the church to peruse the town annals. What the bishop had promised Lawrence was land and ownership privileges that once belonged to the Voragine family.

It would be a sale of the title, not a cession of it, of course, but it was still extremely difficult to buy something like privileges even with all the money in the world, so the prospect alone of being able to purchase one was almost absurd.

“Oh, yes, I do. They were quite well-known, once. It wasn’t long ago, I think.”

Tanya was sipping cider and nibbling on wheat bread. A dissatisfied look crossed her face; she put it down and produced a small sack filled with acorn bread she had made herself, and continued speaking, her face lighting up in delight.

“Not long ago? When exactly?”

Acorn bread was made to simply stave off hunger, so when Holo watched Tanya eat it with such delight, a sour look crossed her face as she remembered how tart and bitter it tasted.

“Umm… I think it was…before the master came. When the mountain was ruined.”

“If this was before the alchemists came, then it must have been over fifty years ago, but not quite an entire century, yes?”

Non-humans like her and Holo considered such timespans to be short; Elsa mused at how Holo easily considered herself a young girl.

“I think it was a hero who took down a great serpent that slithered through the earth.”

Holo’s wolf ears twitched under her headkerchief.

That was when Elsa realized, of course, why they were looking at her like that. She was not particularly perturbed, however, and asked Tanya, “There is record of that legend in the Church annals. Did it really happen?”

“Umm… I’m not sure? I don’t really like open spaces, so I rarely ever came this way. I heard about it from the people who came to dig up metal in the mountain.”

“I see.” Elsa nodded.

Now it was Holo’s turn to speak, and she seemed somewhat jealous.

“That was not the one who protected your village?”

Tanya blinked, looking back and forth between Holo and Elsa.

Unable to respond to Holo right away, Elsa first took a sip of her wine, sour and lacking alcohol from being overheated.

“I don’t know.”

There was a world of meaning behind her answer.

For one thing, she was unsure if this great serpent was the same one that was worshipped as guardian spirit in her hometown of Tereo.

For another, she was unsure if the snake had indeed protected her village.

“Ah, you are a person of the Church through and through.”

There were thorns in Holo’s statement, and Tanya shrunk herself down, having sensed the discord in the atmosphere, but Elsa let it roll off her.

“There is no telling where it went, if it actually existed, and what it was doing in the village if it did. Personally, seeing you has partially convinced me.”

“What? What did I do?”

The way grease from the grilled meat stained the corners of Holo’s mouth reminded Elsa of the rest of her family and how they acted at mealtimes.

“That perhaps it decided to take a little winter’s nap that turned out to be on the long side.”

Before meeting Holo, Elsa had attributed a dignified quality to all the supernatural entities that made up the pagan myths across the world. But once she came across Holo and was afforded a peek into their world, she came to understand that despite a difference in senses, they were essentially the same as regular humans.

She produced a small handkerchief from her pocket, leaned across the table, wiped the corner of an annoyed Holo’s mouth for her before continuing to share her thoughts. “I’m sure it would be much too lonely to sleep in a place that was too quiet.”

Holo was growing more and more angry with what those words indicated, but Elsa only chuckled and turned to look at Tanya. “I suppose you wouldn’t know, either, Miss Tanya. There is a myth of a great serpent in the village where I was born.”

“Um… Oh!”

“But don’t worry about it. I have never seen it. All that is left is a great cave where it was said to live.”

Tanya still lowered her head apologetically, so Elsa continued in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Getting back on topic, due to the Voragine family’s success in slaying the great serpent that once terrorized this plain, they were gifted a portion of the land and were appointed as nobility. The church here said that God loaned his power to the hero in the battle with the serpent.”

Holo scoffed.

“Not once have I ever seen this God for myself.”

“Indeed. I believe the myth was created so that both parties could mutually reinforce their authority. I believe the pagan threat was rather strong in the area around that time, and the Church needed a way to assert its presence here. They wanted any claim to fame, no matter how miniscule. And conversely, the one labeled a hero was likely a young fighter who wanted some sort of legitimacy to rule as a lord, so it was likely he wanted the Church’s backing in the matter.” It was not an unusual situation, but there was one thing that stood out. “What I find strange is that the Voragine family held considerable interest in this town’s tariffs. That, too, was because they took down the great serpent. Or so says the annals.”

“Mm?” Holo furrowed her shapely brows and glanced at Tanya beside her.

It was likely that she only looked at her to see if she knew anything, but when Tanya pulled out her second piece of acorn bread, she pulled up her shoulders as though she had done something wrong.

“And it seems the Voragine family died out after one or two generations. The land, privileges, and proceeds from the tariffs were then donated to the Church. Mister Lawrence…” Elsa paused before continuing to say, “…has been promised the family’s privileges, interests, the complete set of titles, and the right to live in their fortress as a reward.”

“Hmm…” A hard look crossed Holo’s face as she hummed in thought. “The reward is much too generous.”

The look on her face told Elsa that she was convinced her kindhearted husband was about to fall for another scheme.

“This does not seem to be a simple transfer, so I cannot say much in that regard. It would cost quite a large sum. Being able to outright buy something like this would be nothing short of a miracle—not even the greatest merchant with the biggest coffers would be able to pull this off normally. So in that sense? Yes, it is very generous. If he manages to mediate this quarrel over tariffs, after all, then what the bishop is saying is that he’d be able to become a landowning noble.”

“And he is quite elated.” Holo gave a deep sigh, pursing her lips.

But Elsa realized that what she was seeing was not anger. Holo was not annoyed that he was being taken in by promises too good to be true. It was almost as though she was upset that she would have to dampen her companion’s excitement as he found joy in a bright future.

Lawrence doted on Holo, yes, but his wife was no slouch either.

Elsa had a vague picture of what Holo was like when she ruled over the wheat harvest in her little village. It must have been an idyllic time, much like the warm scene of a child begging their mother for something before bed.

As Holo hummed in thought, Tanya, who had been munching on her acorn bread, suddenly looked up in some sort of realization. “Oh, about the serpent…”

“Did you remember something?”

“Yes, yes I did. I remember seeing people complaining that they wanted to sell all the metal they dug up, but they couldn’t do very good trade with faraway lands because of the serpent. I remember that because I thought, Serves you right.”

There was a hint of anger in Tanya’s voice, as though recalling the time when humans laid waste to the mountain. She aggressively bit into her acorn bread.

“Aye, ’twould be a problem with a big snake taking up camp in the area. I would be frightened if it were venomous.”

“I have dreams about getting swallowed whole by snakes even when I see a little one.”

Elsa was not entirely convinced by their conversation.

“…Do you all attack people?”

When she had been collecting stories on the pagan gods, the only time she had heard of them attacking humans was when they ravaged their sanctuaries, though there were some exceptions.

Regardless, the image of a great serpent roaming the plains randomly attacking people did not line up with the impression she had of Holo and the other non-humans she had met.

“I do no such thing.” Holo gave a huffy response.

Tanya placed a finger to her chin and said, “Maybe it was stretched out over the field, sunbathing?”

When she mentioned it, both Elsa and Holo pictured the same thing.

When a snake big enough to swallow a cow whole stretched out to occupy an entire plain, its existence alone would be enough to disrupt trade in one manner or another, even if it was not doing anything particularly bad.

“When we ventured from your mountain to this city, we had quite a good view of the land, but how big would it have to be to occupy this plain?” Holo asked.

“In the stories of the pagan gods that I collected, I found a tale of snake long enough where the weather at its head was different from the weather at its tail,” Elsa said.

“If such a snake did exist, then it could have constricted and killed the Moon-hunting Bear.”

Holo was right, but Elsa noticed how upset Tanya seemed—she was the one who brought up the snake because she thought it might prove useful—so she quickly changed the topic.

“E-either way, an abnormally large serpent slithering about would make it just as difficult to carry out simple trade. It makes perfect sense that the Hero Voragine vanquishing the serpent made it possible for trade to resume. It also makes sense that the right to collect tariffs was also collateral in the situation.”

After throwing Elsa a cautious glance, Tanya gave her a relieved smile.

“Well, I don’t quite understand, but it sounds as though some benefits gained from old efforts are being dangled before that fool’s eyes. Yet…lordship, was it? Could the fool even afford something so outrageous? ‘Tis not as though we are selling the bathhouse in Nyohhira…”

“What?! Are you going to live here, Lady Holo?” Tanya’s eyes widened in surprise, joy coloring her eyes. “I would be so happy if you lived nearby!”

“You fool, that would nev—Actually, I do not know. I do not know. Do not make that face at me.”

The mountain Tanya had so peacefully lived on had been ravaged when it was developed for mining, and when the veins ran dry, she started replanting trees, little by little. It was then that she became friends with alchemists who happened to drop by, but they, too, left without any word as to where they ended up, and she had been waiting happily for their return all the while.

Naturally, she had attached herself to Holo, and Holo, too, worried about her.

Though Tanya looked older than Holo, Holo soothed her as though she were a much larger, younger sister. The sight was silly enough to earn them a smile from Elsa; as she did so, she spotted a small group of people beyond the non-human pair. They were well-dressed merchants, having just emerged from the assembly hall, which played host to a very important meeting here in Salonia. They exchanged handshakes, stretched and pounded their backs after escaping such a long meeting.

Elsa spotted a familiar figure among the crowd, and Holo sniffed before turning around.

“As much as I am loathe to admit it, I suppose we have no choice but to hear the fool’s side of the story.”

The sun was beginning to set, and lanterns were being lit throughout the plaza. Though the crowd made it hard to see anything well, three women sitting outside a tavern stood out like a sore thumb. Lawrence noticed them before Holo could call out to him; a look of surprise crossed his face before he approached them with a smile and a wave.

“Now this is an interesting party.”

Lawrence was clearly bewildered to see Tanya, but he quickly donned his mask of calm, like any seasoned merchant would.

“You haven’t had too much to drink, have you, Holo?”

“What a fool you are.”

Holo seemed displeased to see her husband, but she also looked like she was blushing. Lawrence, of course, only reacted with a slight grimace before removing his wallet from his hip and placing it straight on the table in front of them.

“I can leave this with you, because Miss Elsa’s here.”

Though this was his offer to pay for their drinks, Elsa was astonished by how smooth-tongued he was.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your delightful evening chat,” he said, attempting to leave. It was his sheep’s instinct that was telling him to go.

It was Holo the wolf who stopped him.

“We are drinking because we are talking about you.”

“…”

Lawrence tried to flash a smile with his merchant’s mask, but he could not quite pull it off because he sensed something was off with Holo.

“Well, um…”

“Sit,” Holo commanded, and Tanya, who had been sitting beside her, hurriedly got up from her seat and rounded the table, cautiously settling back down beside Elsa. What wafted by her was a sweet, deep forest scent, unlike perfume, and Elsa finally understood why she had attracted so much male attention.

“Should I pray?”

Lawrence was clearly not expecting something fun out of this conversation, especially considering how Holo glumly brought her drink to her lips.

But Elsa could tell that Holo’s sullen look was because she was considering how to broach the topic with Lawrence.

Not wanting to wait any longer, Elsa gave a short sigh and said, “Holo came to me with concerns that Salonia’s bishop was up to no good.”

Lawrence immediately understood that the first victim in this plot would be himself.

“Is this about the title?” Lawrence asked, and Holo looked away in a dramatic huff. “Is she thinking that…restless footing is more easily stolen away?”

This was doubtlessly an interaction that had repeated itself between the two since the day they met.

An obvious troubled smile crossed Lawrence’s face, like the merchant he was, and he sighed.

“I have double—triple calculated the projected losses and gains, and I know that the bishop has his own motives.”

“Fool,” Holo spoke at last, turning wholly to face him. “Land? A noble name? That cannot come cheap. Do you plan on selling the bathhouse?”

She was a wolf avatar, once called the wisewolf—she had no interest in any renown the human world had to offer. While it might seem the case at first, this wolf whose love for meat and drinks over a banquet did not actually desire such things.

The reason Elsa scolded Holo like a child for her slovenly lifestyle was because there was nothing overly pompous about Holo that was worth mentioning, and there was a comfortable air between them as they both shared opinions on a great many things.

“Mister Lawrence, I do not think the bishop would propose an idea that would mainly benefit another. As frivolous and opportunistic as he seems, he is ruthless.”

Though she typically hesitated in speaking ill of those with higher ranks in the Church, it was how she genuinely felt. Lawrence seemed to shrink away from the way Holo and Elsa looked at him, like a merchant being questioned at a checkpoint.

“Well, um… Do you mind if I give you an excuse?”

Elsa looked at Holo, and Holo sunk her canines into her grilled meat with displeasure.

“I am curious to hear what sort of flattery the bishop has been subjecting you to.”

Lawrence gave a strained smile in response to what Elsa said and replied, “I will not pay a single silver myself.”

“What?” Holo sputtered in disbelief.

“He proposed that, in exchange for receiving the title, the tariff levying powers that come with it, and the rights to land in the Salonia region, I pay a fixed sum to the Church every year.”

“…”

Holo narrowed her eyes, looking at Lawrence in confusion, before turning to look at Elsa.

“I see,” Elsa said. “That means he is not particularly attached to the privileges the Church has, so long as the amount of money going into his pocket is the same every year.”

“Those titles are collecting dust somewhere in the church storehouse right now. It’s not a loss for the bishop at all.”

That meant no one’s wallet would hurt in the exchange, and the bishop would earn a powerful ally in Lawrence. It was an easy-to-understand deal, one that the bishop would very likely propose.

But to Elsa, who had struggled with church ledgers throughout the land with all the turmoil that surrounded the church now, felt a discomfort, one she was not fully satisfied with.

“If he were to propose this to me, I would then be motivated to keep tariffs high. I would have to pay him every year, you see. And even if the church decides to lower tariffs in the future, they will be still expect the same amount of money from me.”

The whole debt crisis in town had started when the bishop hastily threw an merchant into jail over a debt, but he was shrewd when it came to these things. He was a true scoundrel. Elsa sighed.

“And so do you plan to take the bishop’s side?”

When Elsa asked, Holo, who was not interested in the details but desperately wanted to know the short answer, turned to look at Lawrence as she bit into her new plate of meat. It was almost as though she was threatening to do the same to him if she did not like his answer.

“I’m a bit conflicted.”

What surprised Elsa was that she had not been expecting such an evasive answer.

“Miss Tanya being here must mean…you three were looking into the origins of the tariffs, weren’t you?”

Tanya, who had been sitting by her lonesome, not quite a part of the conversation, immediately perked up.

“A portion of the goods in this city have oddly high tariffs,” Lawrence explained. “They say that stems from the Hero Voragine’s work.”

“He’s the one who defeated the great serpent.” Tanya gave her friendly smile, since she understood this conversation.

Lawrence smiled in response and continued, “That was a long time ago. And you know what they say—don’t pour new wine into an old wineskin.”

“…Do you mean that people doubt these origins?”

“No one likes taxes. Any strong allegation needs an equally strong excuse. Persuading people with a figure of myth who may or may not have actually existed can only go so far.”

The shrewd bishop may have sensed that a shadow was being cast over the authority of an old tale.

He then set his mind into motion, trying to figure out a way to keep earning the same amount of money despite anticipating the lowered tariffs in the future.

And just as he had forced church work upon Elsa, he was dressing up a dying candle and trying to pass it off to Lawrence, assuring the merchant that the candle was all his, so long as it kept illuminating the church.

“With solid grounds for the tariffs, then I believe accepting the offer would not be a bad idea. But if it is indeed an entirely made-up story, then there is a very good chance that you would be losing out here, especially since the tariffs will indeed come down one day.”

If tariff income went down despite having made the promise to pay a fixed fee each year, then whoever owned those interests would suffer huge losses. The deal offered to Lawrence was not without its disadvantages.

“’Tis as though we are meant to find this great serpent,” Holo said to Lawrence with a disappointed look, her elbows planted firmly on the table either because she was drunk or vexed.

Lawrence then smiled at Holo before turning to Elsa.

“And God must have had a hand in this today, because there so happens to be a native from a village with a serpent myth right here.”

Lawrence had mostly seen through the bishop’s scheme.

And on top of that, he knew he had a lot of resources within his reach.

Hidden beneath their courteous smiles was a battle of wits between Lawrence and the bishop.

The winner would profit greatly, of course, but for Lawrence, it came with the extra prize of showing off to Holo.

Elsa turned to meet Holo’s gaze, and she shrugged.

Holo threw back her wine cup to drown out her utterance, “You lot are unbelievable.”

* * *

If the myth about the great serpent turned out to be true and they could provide solid proof of such, then it would be a powerful reason for them to keep tariffs as they were. But conversely, if the myth turned out to be nothing but a tall tale, then it would be very difficult for the town to maintain the historically high tariffs. That was the gist of the situation, but Elsa still had something she wanted to ask Lawrence.

The day after their conversation at the square, Salonia’s grand market and the future festival were both entering their final stages. Their festival did not have venerable origins, unlike most other places, and instead was simply meant to celebrate the year’s harvest, to have one last big party before the bleak winter, and to venerate a saint that had been retroactively created to fit the celebration, so it was essentially a big, ordinary feast.

Since Holo was the one who helped select the alcohol that would be served at the final ceremony, the townsfolk had roped her into helping prepare for the festival bright and early in the morning. She went to practice a quick ceremonial exchange and have adjustments made to the costume she would wear on the day.

The bishop, too, was in charge of running the festival, so he was absent from tariff meetings that day.

And so Elsa, who found Lawrence staring idly as the townsfolk prepared the stage for their revelry in the square from a nearby tavern, invited him into the church.

“What do you think of the tariffs?” she asked.

“What do I think, hmm?”

Lawrence gave her a very mercantile-like expression of feigned ignorance, then dropped his hammer on a walnut. They sat together in a corner of the church on the flagstone floor, splitting the walnuts Tanya had brought from her mountain as a souvenir.

“As a matter of justice,” she elaborated.

“What do you mean?”

The walnut shells, after being roasted to the point where they just barely cracked open, were easily split with the hammers.

Lawrence picked out the inside of his walnut with delight, as though justice or truth itself had been hidden inside it.

“Tariffs pay for road repairs, waterwheels, city governance, and the guards who keep order. But not every coin collected by those tariffs goes toward those things,” she said.

“Sometimes they also fill another’s coffers. Like a botfly gorging itself on blood, right?”

Elsa brought down her hammer, cracking a walnut.

“This church does not need any more money. And cheaper lumber prices means that people can live in houses for less.”

“And winter is coming up soon. People will need to light their hearths.”

“And thus, justice.”

Lawrence was not a completely heartless merchant, but that did not mean he was completely altruistic, either.

“I understand what you mean, Miss Elsa, but in the coming months without any farmwork, the villagers who dig up peat may want lumber prices to remain high.”

Just as it was the farmers’ job to carry the lumber to the peat-diggers’ villages, the lumber trade belonged to the affluent merchants.

Once he brought up the line of thought that tariffs were on the people’s side, then it was difficult to say which was which.

“But did you not say that the tariffs here are too high?”

Lawrence watched Tanya, who sat apart from them splitting walnuts with some of the other town girls, even as he did the same. The girls, seemingly bored of the task, were instead combing Tanya’s fluffy hair, braiding it, and pulling it up as they pleased with giggles.

“It is, yes. Unnaturally so.”

Elsa, who had lived in a small village and had worried a lot about the tax problem, considered taxes as something that made people suffer. Watching Lawrence work to preserve such high tariffs left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

“Don’t you think we should lower them, then?”

Unlike Holo, Lawrence was not the type to break from Elsa’s gaze if the situation did not suit him. He stared back at her, then gave a slight smile.

“This town has its own history. This isn’t something an outsider can so easily fiddle with.”

He must have sensed the anger wafting from her—How dare you look me in the eye and spout sophistry—because he finally looked away.

“…Which is why I think we should learn their history.”

He glanced over at Tanya and the girls before gazing up at the church’s high ceiling. The women who then entered from outside brought them freshly baked bread. A delicious aroma filled the air; the women left the bread there, took some of the walnuts, then left. They had been baking bread since before sunup all to prepare for the festival the following day. While acorn bread was not something Elsa would willingly eat, she suspected bread with walnuts was rather nice.

“Do you believe that the great serpent actually exists?”

Lawrence’s wife was a wolf.

When Elsa asked him that, instead of his merchant’s smile, he offered her a real one.

“I actually want to rely on you because I think you’d be eager to help me out.”

Tereo’s guardian spirit had, in fact, been a snake.

“I serve the Church’s god.”

“Right.”

Elsa was, of course, disappointed when he brushed her off with an emotionless response.

Though he seemed like nothing more than a boneheaded sheep when he was with Holo, he was much more like a slippery merchant when she dealt with him one-on-one like this.

“Miss Holo seems anxious that you’re in such high spirits.”

She could not, of course, tell him that Holo was feeling suffocated by his desire to show off, but perhaps they discussed it the night before.

Elsa could not tell either way through his merchant’s demeanor, but at the very least, he could not deny what she said.

“I…can’t deny that I’m in high spirits, no. This is a reward beyond my wildest dreams, you see.”

He did not sound as though he was lying, and that frankly shocked Elsa.

“I did not know you wanted such things, too.”

She could hardly picture him taking up the mantle of landlord, but Lawrence himself gave a bashful smile.

“I think you will find this silly, too, Miss Elsa.”

“…How so?”

Lawrence cracked the walnut and picked out the insides.

“The Voragine family privileges come with considerable influence over land. That is what I’m after, if anything.”

“…I don’t understand.”

Elsa could tell that he was not deliberately trying to obfuscate what he was saying, and that it was simply difficult to explain, but she still could not imagine what he meant. As she sat thinking, Lawrence continued, as though trying to divert the topic.

“Well, it’s an overly optimistic calculation at this point, but you know what they say—the goddess of luck only has bangs.”

“You must take the opportunity that presents itself?”

“Yes.”

Lawrence tossed the walnut shell into the waste sack and wiped his hands.

As Elsa watched him, she could not help but ask, “But you said you are relying on me. Do you think I have special eyes that can see great serpents?”

Lawrence flashed a self-deprecating smile in response.

“Holo is very cranky. That’s why I need your help to get things moving, Miss Elsa.”

“Hmm?”

For a moment, Elsa did not know what Lawrence meant. Yet she noticed Lawrence’s mischievous attitude, and finally understood what he was trying to tell her.

“If I am to help you, then does that mean Miss Holo must come along as well?”

“Wolves are very picky about territory, you see.”

She could not believe this man.

He was desperate to show off to Holo, yet he was anxious that if he were to pursue the topic any further, she would get genuinely angry with him. Yet the only reason he could not bear to give up on his chase was not because he wanted to make a name for himself, but because he wanted to please his beloved wife.

As a member of the clergy, part of whose job was to preach love, she found it difficult to admonish him.

“You two have not changed one bit.”

They were never direct; always thinking of each other in a roundabout way.

“I will take that as a compliment.”

The way Lawrence said that brought a smile to Elsa’s face as she brought down her hammer on the walnut with even more force.

Preparations for the festival must have ended in the morning as Holo came to the church a little after noon. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, likely because she had been treated to alcohol, but the reason her eyes seemed glassy was more likely that there had been trouble between her and Lawrence the night before.

Lawrence, who had tempered his merchant’s audacity, easily pretended not to notice something was wrong with his wife and asked Elsa if she would be willing to accompany them to look into the legend of the serpent.

He made an exaggerated glance at Elsa and gave her a slight wink; Elsa emitted a sigh and agreed. Holo insisted she would go along as well, as though not wanting her own prey to be snatched away from her. Holo knew she was being roped into something.

In Elsa’s eyes, their interaction was a clash of wily expectations, a childish stubbornness that used absolute faith in each other as a shield, and there was nothing noble about it.

And so, Elsa had been roped into their playful back-and-forth, yet she agreed to go along with it all because she felt responsible for being witness to their love.

Tanya came along, too, and they all hopped on a cart to the old Voragine territory in the Salonia area.

“It would make things much easier if they had the skull of the great serpent on display,” Lawrence said, reins in hand.

Holo, who sat next to Lawrence, shawl draped over her shoulders and sobering up in the chilly autumn wind, said, “If such a thing existed, then it would have been installed in the church ages ago.”

“I read over the annals again,” Elsa interjected from her spot in the cart bed with Tanya, saying, “and the way it was written could be interpreted that it was chased away, not so much killed.”

It would be much more effective for the Church if they simply announced outright that they had killed it. Even if it had just been chased away.

But one could also look at it with a cynical eye and say that the true reason was because if such a claim spread far and wide, then people would begin to clamor for proof.

“Did it not escape to the mountain you live on?”

Holo glanced back at Tanya. The squirrel avatar, who had been playing with the braids the village girls had woven into her hair, sat up straight in surprise.

“N-no. I would have known if a large snake lived nearby.”

The mountain in the Vallan Bishopric at the time had been rendered completely bare due to the mining operations, so everyone doubtlessly had a very good view of the area.

“Can such a beast be vanquished with human spears and swords anyway?” Holo mused.

If it was indeed a giant snake, then its scales must have been as hard as steel. It was hard to imagine that anything could have cut or pierced them.

Elsa pictured the script written in the annals, translated it into vernacular in her head, and said, “‘The Hero Voragine brandished his blade and plunged it into the snake’s neck. The snake raised its great head and gave a final cry. The plains of Salonia have known peace ever since…’”

Once she was finished with her little story, Holo scoffed.

“Perhaps it awoke from a nap because there was a tickle on its neck, and it simply yawned.”

Elsa could easily imagine the same.

“If the snake had any ill will to begin with, Salonia would have been in grave danger. Nothing in the annals mentioned any damage to the city.”

“There were likely horses and sheep tastier than humans here, and it was unlikely it missed a town in an area with such good visibility.”

“There are many stories of pagan snake gods who adore alcohol in particular.”

The priest who raised Elsa had been in the habit of collecting stories on the pagan gods. Elsa had collected similar stories of her own when she left home to travel and mentioned it as she flipped through her memory.

“Then does that mean ’tis not a made-up story?”

Holo knew that the bishop had carefully calculated this entire situation, so she was hesitant to allow her husband to get too deeply involved with it, which of course meant she was likely hoping that the story of the serpent was but a tall tale.

She turned a pointed gaze on Lawrence, but he only shrugged.

“A regular old warrior became a landowning noble overnight, and even gained the right to levy tariffs in a town that was still developing. It shouldn’t be all that shallow. I think taking down a serpent of that caliber would certainly earn a reward that great, and conversely, I can’t think of anything else that would explain what happened here.”

Elsa nodded to herself in agreement. Lawrence was not simply elated by a prospect too good to be true; he was carefully evaluating what he had seen and heard, so that perhaps he could find the treasure if he chipped away at it.

But that was precisely why Elsa thought it strange.

Did Lawrence genuinely believe that the great serpent existed?

Considering his partner was a legendary wolf spirit, it was not odd to think that he would be more likely to believe in the possibility than most. On the flip side, however, that meant he was trying to obtain privileges that came about all because this great serpent, one of the old pagan gods, had been killed. Elsa thought him a bit insensitive as someone who made a wolf spirit his wife, given that she was not all that different from the serpent.

One could claim that wolves and snakes were not very similar, but there was something that did not sit right with her.

She had so many questions—it seemed so out of character for Lawrence to want to maintain high tariffs, to align himself with forces that opposed justice. She looked doubtfully at him, wondering what on earth this merchant in sheep’s clothing was plotting, as the cart slowed and reached a rather lively spot on the road.

“What is this?” Holo asked, surprised. Perhaps she had never seen something like this before.

“A pontoon bridge,” Lawrence explained. “Have you never been on one before?”

There were no proper bridges over the river to the east of Salonia. Instead there were several boats that spanned the water, wooden planks laid on top to connect one side to the other.

“Are we to cross here? There are boats beneath it! Why do they not build a bridge?!”

“I believe it’s because the water levels change drastically across the seasons, such as when the snow melts,” Elsa explained. “This is a far better idea than building a bridge.”

Building a bridge that can withstand any water level took a considerable amount of time and money. With the constant threat of it being swept away due to seasonal changes, it made much more sense to build a pontoon bridge, which could be easily set up and dismantled. Elsa’s own village had an unbelievable number of arguments over rebuilding the smallest bridges, too.

Those thoughts crossed Elsa’s mind as she directed her gaze upstream, where she spotted a waterwheel attached to a boat in very much the same manner. Even if the water levels changed, the waterwheel on the ship could maintain the same distance from the water’s surface, which made it more reliable. To a region that relied on threshed and milled wheat, a reliable waterwheel was a matter of life and death.

“Humans come up with the strangest things…”

Though despite this being a pontoon bridge, it had a lot of traffic, so it was much wider and preferrable to a wooden bridge over a small stream that seemed on the verge of collapse. Merchants and villagers were presently crossing the very same pontoon bridge with full carts and no fear whatsoever.

But it was still over boats. The faint wobble of the water was likely a shock to the wolf within Holo.

Tanya the squirrel, who could easily clamber across trees, was more excited about crossing the river, and after Lawrence paid the crossing fare and glanced back at them, she took the initiative to walk ahead.

“We should go as well,” Elsa said to Holo before adding, “I hope your steps are not unsteady from drinking.”

“Fool!”

The wisewolf gingerly took a step forward, slowly walking down the middle of the pontoon bridge.

The river was rather wide, and plenty of other ships were coming and going.

But with the pontoon bridge blocking the way, that meant a canal had to be built beyond the sandbank where the bridge ended so that the ships could freely come and go.

“This is a nice river port.”

“I’ve heard that this is where tariffs are collected for goods going downstream.”

Lawrence, who had crossed the bridge slightly later than the rest, finally caught up and told them what he’d learned.

“And when there’s a lot of snowmelt right before spring, they completely dismantle the bridge and send a lot of lumber downstream. It’s apparently a safe place, so you don’t get swept away by the lumber or the turbulent water.”

“And so, no bridges.”

It was not realistic for humans to carry heavy items like logs. The reason most large cities were by the river was because it was easier to bring in construction materials that way. And when bundles of massive logs, big enough for multiple people to ride on at once, came constantly rushing down the river in snowmelt, even the sturdiest of bridges would have a difficult time surviving.

They discussed this as they crossed the sandbanks, passed through a little hut where an official was stationed, then approached a small wooden bridge built over the canal. The river wall was fitted with a wooden frame, and small boats packed with grains were moored there. The opposite bank was lined with buildings—storehouses, taverns, and what looked like inns for sailors.

There were also several stalls plotted alongside the road that stretched out onto the plain, and delicious-smelling smoke wafted their way.

“Do you want something?” Lawrence asked Holo, who looked away in a huff out of pride, then quickly hopped back onto the driver’s perch on the cart.

Lawrence gave a defeated smile, and his gaze met Elsa’s, who offered a small smile in return. She helped Tanya up onto the cart bed as she struggled, and quickly followed suit.

“There are no trees here. It’s so sad,” Tanya suddenly remarked as they left the lively river bank.

“The fields are like sheared sheep at the end of the harvest.”

The area around Salonia served as the city’s breadbasket, with fields extending in every direction as far as the eye could see. The shrubs that divided the fields and lessened the severity of the wind that blew over them were scattered throughout, but that only made the scenery seem all the emptier.

Sacks of wheat that filled the ships on the river and the town’s markets all came from these massive fields.

“I do not dislike the sight,” Holo said as she sat on the driver’s perch, a sleepy look crossing her face. It was in the middle of the harvest for these fields; there were girls with long, braided hair who were hacking away at the wheat with large scythes. Holo gazed upon the villages, delighting in their harvest with a kind eye.

As they proceeded forth along the gentle, unchanging road, Tanya started nodding off, and Elsa started to stifle her yawns.

Lawrence reached out to Holo, who had fallen asleep against him, and said, “Look, we can see it now.”

His statement drew Elsa’s gaze toward the front of the cart. And she could faintly make out a building sitting atop a small hill far ahead of them.

“That’s the old Voragine castle. I heard they use it to store grain and as an assembly hall now, though.”

“Yaaawn… Hff.”

Holo huffed—either because her nap had been interrupted, or because the topic itself displeased her—but Lawrence did not flinch.

“It seems to be a lovely stone building.”

It even had a tower, which suggested that it may have even served as a fort in its heyday.

“I highly doubt that entire hill will serve as the snake’s grave.”

Things would go much quicker if the serpent was still sleeping there, and Elsa even considered asking it where Tereo’s guardian might have gone if it were.

“…You could take it down, couldn’t you, Lady Holo?”

Tanya sat huddled in her spot with great anxiety, but Holo gave a dauntless smile.

“Even if we cannot win, we simply need to run whilst it feasts on this foolish sheep.”

Said foolish sheep guiding the horses drew his lips tight in a dry smile as he pressed them forward.

The wheat in this area had yet to be reaped; great, mature ears of the crop danced in the wind.

With a quiet, fond look, Holo gazed out over the waves of gold from atop her perch, and Elsa saw the kindness in Lawrence’s eyes as he stole a look at her.

She needed nothing else to understand.

When she had asked him in the church as they split walnuts why he was so intent on pursuing this opportunity, Lawrence had faltered in his explanation.

He had looked so bashful when he did.

After a long series of twists and turns, the couple sitting on the driver’s perch had made a home for themselves far to the north and opened a bathhouse. To Elsa, who had been born and raised in the plains, the place was so absurdly remote that she did not even think that “deep in the mountains” was an appropriate descriptor for the location.

While Holo had originally lived in a similar mountainous region, she had one day headed south on a journey south and found herself in a village where she governed the wheat harvest for centuries—a place that had wheat fields for as far as the eye could see, completely unlike the looming mountains of Nyohhira.

However, Elsa was convinced that Lawrence did not have the slightest intention of selling the bathhouse in Nyohhira, which Holo had been afraid of.

That was because this man was not unlike a gentleman in waiting who made every effort to make sure his princess was in the best of moods at a booze-filled get-together. And now he was trying to feed her sweet, sweet dessert after serving her fill of salty food.

“We’re here,” he said.

How much of Lawrence’s innocence had Holo taken notice of?

There was no way for Elsa to know. But Holo leaped lightly from the driver’s perch, took in a lungful of the wheat’s sweet scent, and her thick-haired tail rustled beneath her clothes.

They could not see Salonia from atop the small hill.

Perhaps it would be visible from atop the tower, but one would pay no mind to it in daily life.

Living here, in a vantage point that gave clear view across one’s entire realm, could certainly offer a taste of what it was like to rule.

“Oh? Miss Elsa?”

After knocking on the old Voragine gates, out came a familiar face—one of the assistant priests from Salonia’s church. Though Elsa was technically a priest with no qualifiers in any manner, her position was still temporary, which meant that even the assistant priests in a church as big as Salonia’s technically ranked above her in status. He had a mustache growing on his upper lip to give himself a more dignified, older appearance because he was hoping to climb the Church’s ladder. This assistant priest, who would most certainly look very young without the notable facial hair, was surprised by their visit, yet welcomed them with open arms.

“Ah-ha, so you’re mediating the tariff dispute.”

The old Voragine castle looked like a giant stone box from far away, but after passing through the gates, they found a wide garden and the building itself set rather far back. There was an open wooden gazebo on the garden grounds, likely serving as a place for threshing wheat or storing it at the end of a harvest.

There was a quiet air about it, and no signs that anyone used this estate as their regular home.

As they cut across the garden, giving their reasons for visiting, the assistant priest gave an astonished laugh. “Well, that certainly sounds like something the bishop would come up with. Managing the fields and the hamlets is hard work. He must think he can push all of those responsibilities onto someone else.”

Though the facade was made of stone, the inside of the first floor of the main house was made of packed dirt and was filled with the familiar scent of dust.

The main hall, where the lord would have situated himself, was now filled with a jumbled mix of bales of hay and farming tools; a thin dog, either belonging to the estate or simply a stray that had found its way inside, wandered about, gazed up at Holo with servile eyes.

The assistant priest guided them to a long table by the hearth and poured them all wine, which had been warmed too much after being left by the fire and had lost all its alcoholic content.

“Does wheat not turn much of a profit?”

The bishop seemed to mainly want to preserve the income that came from levying tariffs, and whatever other profits the fief generated would go straight into Lawrence’s pocket. That meant the bishop had placed all the troubles that came with managing the land as well as the danger that tariff income would fall in the coming years on the scales, and ultimately decided that simply keeping the tariff income alone was the most beneficial move for him.

“I would say so. It’s not a problem during years like this, when the harvest is good, but unfortunately, it comes in waves.”

“Still, it isn’t as though you can adjust wasted everyday expenses.”

One of the responsibilities Elsa had been saddled with was to manage the Salonia church’s ledgers. She had fought with numbers that could only be described as irresponsible, sloppy, incoherent—so when she interjected sharply, a grimace crossed the assistant priest’s face.

“Precisely. Our expenses are the same as every year, yet it is relatively often that our income drops drastically, and it causes much confusion. Like three years ago—there was a fungal outbreak.”

Elsa noticed that as Holo sipped her wine—which was decidedly not very good—her ears twitched under her kerchief, and she turned her gaze toward the assistant priest.

That was because this was the same disease that had proven a problem in the whole commotion surrounding Elsa’s own town, Tereo. It was said that eating the wheat after it had gone black and sticky from the disease would cause people to hallucinate, and for those pregnant to miscarry.

Once even a small portion of the field started showing signs of disease, the entire field had to be put to the torch, and even the slightest rumor meant the land’s entire harvest would sell poorly.

“That must have been horrible.”

“Indeed, it was a trying time. Just remembering how the people swarmed us, asking for God’s help brings pain to my heart.”

It was the clergy’s job to help alleviate the people’s suffering, yet there was little doubt that the bishop had saddled his assistants with all of that responsibility, and he was hoping to avoid similar problems that might arise in the future by doing the same.

“And if not, then we were overwhelmed every day by other complications, such as maintaining the waterwheels for the mills, or land division. I suppose giving up the wheat income is a cheap price to pay if it means off-loading all of that onto someone else.” The assistant priest laughed dryly; it was very likely he had been sent here by the bishop for the exact same reasons.

Even the most pastoral-looking farming villages were not so perfect on the inside.

“But in that case, there is still one question among all the nice things the tariff rights have to offer,” Lawrence spoke, and everyone turned to look at him. “How did House Voragine end up with these tariff rights?”

The assistant priest sighed, his whiskers shuddering under his breath, and he shrugged. “The bishop summoned you because the lumber merchants were pressing him for answers on the same matter, didn’t he?”

The Hero Voragine was said to have fought with a great serpent right in this area many years ago, after it had brought chaos to the region.

“Is the story of the great serpent being vanquished true?” Lawrence asked, feigning ignorance.

The assistant priest frowned, then said stiffly, “You must know of God.”

Though he might not personally believe it to be real, if he mentioned that aloud, then the tariffs the church collected under the Voragine name would turn out to be a scam. He was not in a position to say precisely what he believed, so just as a clergyman from a big city would often do, he deftly avoided answering the question.

“Is there anything here that could still serve as proof?” Elsa asked.

The assistant priest immediately gave a shake of the head. It did not seem any great serpent skulls were left conveniently lying about.

“Would you mind if we took a look around the castle and the surrounding area?” Lawrence asked.

The assistant priest blinked, but could not think of any reason to say no. “Not at all. All documents regarding the territory rights and privileges have been moved to the Salonia church for safekeeping, but more complex records from the past should still be in the cellar. Ah, yes. Village mayors, other important individuals, and traveling merchants will be gathering here later. We will be talking about reaping and transporting the wheat, so it might be a nice opportunity to listen to what the locals have to say.”

If Lawrence were to own this land, then this assistant priest would have no need to come all this way and mind the wheat, and he would undoubtedly start a longstanding relationship with the Salonia church. The assistant priest had made a sound judgment—if he were to assist Lawrence now and have Lawrence in his debt, then it would surely be an asset for when he climbed up the Church ladder in the future.

That was the first natural thought that came to Elsa’s mind; when she realized that, she gave a quick shake of her head. Ever since leaving Tereo, she had taken on a much shrewder perspective of the clergy.

It was not uncommon for someone who was once honest and docile while living within their remote village to become much more distrustful and suspicious after returning from the city.

To make matters worse, that scared her; she rubbed her face with both hands and let out a tired sigh.

As the conversation entered a natural lull, the assistant priest stood up.

“Well, I need to go fetch people to help prepare for the meeting and for dinner, so you will have to excuse me for the time being. Feel free to look around the building. No one lives here and it’s mostly used as storage, so nothing should be locked.”

“Thank you.”

The assistant priest bowed and vanished into another room.

“Well,” Lawrence began, “I guess I’ll go fight with the mold and the dust in the cellar.”

“Hmph,” Holo snorted and looked away. She was not upset by the situation; she simply did not like dust.

“She and I will look around to make sure the snake is not buried beneath us,” Holo said while pointing meaningfully at Tanya. The squirrel stared blankly for a moment before nodding happily.

“Then Miss Elsa, could you look around the building and keep an eye out for anything that might speak to its history?”

It seemed obvious to Elsa that she would end up going into the cellar with Lawrence, but it was Lawrence himself who suggested this to her. Perhaps he did not want to subject her to the stench of mold and the layers of dust. Elsa was impressed by how considerate the merchant was when it came to these things.

At the same time, that only brought her an endless list of questions—why such a considerate man looked a fool whenever he stood next to Holo, for example.

“I hope to find something.”

She looked between the easygoing duo, and all she could do was let her shoulders fall.

Holo took Tanya outside, and Lawrence rolled up his sleeves and ventured down the stairs. Elsa, not particularly enthused, began to take a look around the old fortress.

History was typically recorded on parchment, but it was at times painted onto the walls of buildings. That was how it been done at the chapel in the Vallan Bishopric, and as indecipherable as it seemed, the truth had lay hidden in there somewhere. Or perhaps there was a hidden shrine somewhere that worshipped the great serpent—that would speed things along quite nicely.

With those thoughts in mind, Elsa began to roam the building. All she found herself doing was confirming the existence of the vestiges of a familiar farming village life.

There was no furniture since no one lived here; heaps of straw sat idly in the corners of unused rooms. Carved candelabras, placed sporadically across the walls, had sat unused for a very long time; they were blanketed thick with dust.

The sights did not change very much as she moved up to the second and third floors. The only thing of note was the occasional large pot, much too big for family use; it had likely been used for festivals or other gatherings.

When she pried open the wooden shutters on a window, all she found was the view of the stone wall that encircled the garden. It did not offer a very good view.

Perhaps this place had once been subject to the fires of war if it served as a battlefield in the fight against the pagans.

Elsa pictured the massive serpent slithering about, acting as though the battle between humans was none of its concern, and she chuckled.

“Hero Voragine, did you truly vanquish the serpent?”

Trade had stagnated because of the serpent.

The building was firmly enclosed on all sides by stones and sharp angles, but if the serpent matched Holo’s true size, then it could easily have destroyed the building by rubbing itself against the structure when it molted.

According to Church records, the hero had brandished his sword and plunged it into the serpent’s neck.

Even if Hero Voragine was powerful enough to vanquish one of the pagan gods, Elsa knew, as someone who was familiar with a wolf known as the wisewolf, with a squirrel who tirelessly planted trees on a naked mountain, that there was more he could have done before stabbing it.

After all, it wasn’t as though they were beings who couldn’t be reasoned with.

She drew the window shut, and as she made her way down the stairs, an idea suddenly came to her.

“Perhaps…they were the same as this wolf couple.”

When the possibility dawned on her, she found herself rather surprised. If the snake spirit and Hero Voragine reached an intimate understanding, then creating miracles was an easy ask.

“I believe Mister Lawrence anticipated this.”

As one who had seen the wisewolf Holo’s true form, Elsa was convinced that no human could face those sorts of beings and win by means of raw power alone. Lawrence, who had been with her for many more years, knew this even better than she did.

Coming up with the sort of situation that would lead to the highest probability of such a thing happening was not difficult.

The great serpent and the Hero Voragine were either lovers or friends, and thus the myth of this land was born.

“…I believe it’s entirely possible we’ve heard a similar story in town before.”

The man only seemed a fool when he was with his beloved wife—in any other setting, he was quite sharp.

And if the story of the Hero Voragine vanquishing the serpent was indeed a made-up one, then it made perfect sense why Lawrence would look into obtaining land privileges with a straight face.

In fact, if he could show Holo that there were others like them, then it would be good news for the gloomy wolf.

“But…” As Elsa exited into the garden she crossed her arms, walking beneath the sky as it took on the bright colors of sunset. “Mister Lawrence and the others confirming this fact and talking down the lumber merchants are two separate matters entirely. I wonder how he plans on approaching the regular townsfolk.”

The problem was that their realization of the truth would not be enough. They would have to tell the lumber merchants of the serpent myth, and then convince them that the tariffs were just. And if something easy to comprehend, like a skull, was a simple matter to obtain, then the bishop would have already placated the merchants on his own.

That meant Lawrence would have to find some other decisive piece of evidence, but it was almost impossible to imagine what that could be, and the man himself showed no sign of knowing what it was, either.

What could Lawrence be chasing?

Or perhaps he had only convinced himself that he already had it?

“He does not have Miss Holo helping him, so it’s unlikely he’s using any special methods.”

Elsa was the type of person who loved it when the logic involved was straightforward, when the lines of reasoning were perfectly straight, so she always found herself bothered when things were not perfectly and easily explainable.

As she walked around, she kept her eyes fixed on her feet while her head swam in thought; and eventually, she found herself outside the fortress.

Back in Tereo, whenever she looked up after doing that, she always found her husband with their children in tow, looking at her with a tired smile.

But in the Salonia plains, far from her village, all she found was a lone girl, sitting by herself in the autumn grasses.

Elsa approached Holo, recalling what it was like to hold a child’s warm hand in her own.

“How are the wheat fields here?”

Holo did not even glance in Elsa’s direction, though she stood right next to her, but her wolf ears, now out in the open due to the lack of people, flicked in response.

“I believe Mister Lawrence wanted you to see this view.”

Stretching out endlessly before them was a sea of gold.

Elsa, who had been born on the plains, loved places like this far more than the cramped mountains of Nyohhira.

“Why not show him your appreciation?” she asked, and only refrained from adding, in an innocent manner, because she knew it might only sound contrary.

“Fool,” Holo said curtly, but there was no force in her words.

Even the way her tail thumped against the grass was limp.

As Elsa stood beside her in silence, Holo eventually gave a big sigh.

“I am delighted he is trying to leave me things to remember him by,” she said, resting her chin on her propped knee. She looked like a sulking child as she gazed out across the wheat fields. “But there are too many.”

For a moment, Elsa thought about how privileged she was to have such a problem, but she recalled what the assistant priest said.

“Because it would be too much to handle them all, is that right?”

“Indeed. What a fool he is.” She dropped her knees and folded her legs under her. “Perhaps he thinks I can create a good crop of wheat with a single flick of my tail.”

“Can you not?” Elsa asked.

Holo finally turned to look up at her with a glare. “Of course I can.”

“Then—” Elsa began, but stopped. That was not the only problem here.

In the decades to come, this young girl would see to the harvest, and then return home to her fortress to find herself alone. A good harvest would not bring her companion back.

While that was what Elsa was thinking, the words that actually came out of Holo’s mouth were much more realistic than that.

“The care for wheat does not stop at its harvest. Like how humans grow tired from running, the ground, too, grows tired from growing. The fertile earth runs from the soil after a heavy rain, and canals often break. Those things are out of my control. Droughts, especially. And I am absolutely powerless once the wheat has been harvested. I cannot handle everything—I cannot ensure that the wheat will be sold at a proper price. I cannot promise that I will not be taken advantage of by blackhearted merchants. Human society is complicated, and quite a bother altogether.”

The wisewolf understood that growing the wheat and managing a field were two entirely separate matters.

“We cannot leave our bathhouse empty. I am loathe to admit that I am much like my unworthy daughter—complicated matters, such as running a bathhouse, are beyond me.”

People were calling their only daughter, Myuri, a saint, but it seemed that she was different from what the rumors said of her. What sort of girl was the daughter of Lawrence and Holo like?

When Elsa tried to picture her, she caught herself smiling. Surely, she was a dazzling, carefree girl.

And so, Elsa decided to speak her mind.

“It’s a wonderful thing to be worried about…” She could feel Holo’s dubious gaze on her, but she looked out to the fields with a smile before finally turning to face her. “…Am I wrong?”

Holo’s hair, so close in color to the wheat that Elsa would surely lose sight of her if she waded through the fields, swayed in the wind as she pouted.

“No,” she sighed deeply. “’Tis like alcohol and a hangover.”

“All things in moderation.”

“Precisely!” she cried, throwing herself onto the ground. “’Tis painful to be loved too much.”

She showed no bashfulness nor any affectation—Elsa believed that she truly was loved too much.

And that was what made her smile just by being close to them.

“Would things not proceed more favorably if you left them in Miss Tanya’s hands? No…” Elsa suggested, but quickly corrected herself. “She is much too kind. I doubt it would go over well.”

“Aye. She is most suited to deal with trees in the mountains. Look how nervous she is when she is in an open space.”

Holo sat up and jerked her chin in a direction; there was Tanya, taking small, uncertain steps, not unlike a lost child.

When she realized Holo and Elsa were watching her, her face lit up and she waved to them with both hands.

“I suppose that means the serpent is not here,” Elsa said as she waved in return.

“No. I doubt it is no different from the distant past.”

Tanya the squirrel rushed over to them and started shaking her head before either of the other two could ask. Holo praised her as she lent a hand to help the wolf stand.

“What on earth could that fool be plotting?”

They all knew that it would be very difficult for Lawrence to find any superhuman clues without Holo’s eager help. And even if she did lend him a hand, it was unlikely the merchants could be convinced without hard evidence.

And since Holo herself knew that well, she had come to the same question as Elsa—though the chances of the snake existing were slim, if it had indeed lived, then how were they going to prove such a thing?

“We may learn something if we ask the locals.”

“Mm…” Holo placed her kerchief back over her head and hid her tail under her clothes. “The fool’s fervor aside, ’tis a disgrace for the wisewolf not to see through his intentions.”

To Elsa, this sounded less like a competition and more like a grievance that she was unable to see the same sights as he did, even though she was right next to him.

This wolf wanted to stay close to her companion, and gaze upon the same things, breathe the same air, and spend their time together forever.

It was hard to imagine that the sharp Lawrence had not noticed such a thing, but in truth, they had fallen out of step with each other.

Holo turned to Tanya to pick out the hay from her fluffy hair like a disgruntled sister. The amiable Tanya was simply happy to let her do so.

As Elsa watched, she felt like she had been brought back to a time when she was a younger girl, when she first met Holo and Lawrence.

Though it struck her as odd to think about it after all these years, she mused about how Holo had this odd aura about her that could create such an innocent atmosphere.

Elsa gave a small sigh with a self-deprecating smile, and she, too, reached for Tanya’s hair. She undid the messy braids the girls from the church had put in her hair and re-braided them in a much neater fashion.

Holo was impressed by her skill, and Tanya stood there, delighted.

As Elsa indulged in feeling like a young girl again, Holo suddenly lifted her head and stared into space.

“Hmm?”

Holo’s eyes darted across the scenery, eventually settling on the fortress entrance.

A frown immediately crossed her face.

“Why that face…?”

The spite in her tone was perhaps brought on by the sudden appearance of a boorish man among the three girls. Lawrence was waving at them, a piece of paper in his hand, and a terribly gleeful smile on his face.

From the perspective of the one who decided to make him her life partner, all she saw was a boyish innocence that would force her to be the adult in the situation, and sigh with unease.

Holo stood at the front with Elsa and Tanya behind her and they all made their way to Lawrence. The former merchant, who had often been called a foolish sheep, held a sheet of paper aloft with pride.

“I found our evidence.”

“…”

Holo gave no response and instead snatched the paper from his hand.

Both Tanya and Elsa peered over opposite shoulders to see that it was a rather old map.

“What is this? Do you mean to say you found a map revealing where the snake went?”

It was just an old map, and even if there was any writing to suggest the serpent had passed through any particular area, the only ones who would believe it were small children who enjoyed fantasy.

Despite the doubtful looks of three women, he gave a bold nod without so much as a flinch.

“I’m going to show you proof.”

“Hmm? D-dear, you—”

Holo grew flustered because she stumbled as Lawrence grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

She remained bewildered as he led her, glancing back at Elsa and Tanya. Holo looked just like a flustered girl who had been gossiping about someone she liked, only for the person in question to come along and suddenly drag her away.

“…What should we do?” Tanya asked, lacing her fingers together in thought. The look on her face showed that she was not so much worried about Holo but was desperately curious to see what was going to happen.

Elsa did not have any close female friends her age back in Tereo, so all she had was her imagination—and she believed that regular girls, in this situation, would follow after them.

“Let’s go.”

Tanya nodded with delight, and Elsa led the way.

She, of course, was genuinely curious as to what it was that Lawrence discovered. In all honesty, however, she was more curious to know what sort of sentimental sight he was going to show Holo, considering the elation on his face as he dragged behind him the bewildered wisewolf.

That, too, made her a lot like a young girl wanting to see her friend’s romance play out.

“O-oh, my. What should we do?” Tanya, who had been running like she was chasing acorns as they rolled down the mountainside, suddenly came to a stop, pressing her hand over her mouth as she spoke. “Is this their new den?”

For a moment, Elsa did not understand what she meant, but she eventually recalled that Tanya was a squirrel.

Lawrence had dragged Holo into the stone tower.

Perhaps the tower looked like a nest to the avatar of a tree squirrel.

After a moment’s thought, Elsa said teasingly, “We must look and see whether or not this is a suitable abode for Miss Holo.”

Tanya blinked her big, round eyes, then finally gave a carefree smile. “Of course!”

Elsa mused at how Tanya was a surprisingly naughty person as she opened the door Lawrence and Holo passed through not moments earlier and stepped inside the tower.

A spiral staircase led upward, and it was rather obvious that it had been built for greater reasons than for nobility to show off. Though when Elsa thought about how it would have been used in times of war, something about it struck her as strange. How useful would a single tower like this be in war if it sat alone in the middle of such extensive plains?

She found herself thinking about the pontoon bridge near Salonia. Things took on their forms for one reason or another, and the view at the top of a hill was enough to make anyone feel like they were a sovereign gazing out over their land.

Or perhaps there was something for which they had been keeping watch that required an even higher vantage point?

Or perhaps that was the snake?

Various thoughts crossed Elsa’s mind as she climbed the stairs after Tanya.

With all those possibilities in her mind, she saw how the scenery out of the little windows in the wall grew more and more distant. She glanced around, hoping to find a painting that might detail the history somewhere; as they passed the third-floor window that looked down over the garden, they at last began to see the rooves of the buildings.

That was when she spotted the assistant priest walking through the courtyard with others. They seemed so small, like they belonged in a distant world.

The tower stairs continued upward.

Tanya’s steps grew heavy as she ran out of breath, so Elsa encouraged her as they went up.

And just as she started to get dizzy, they exited out onto a place higher than the stone wall.

Another full round up the spiral staircase would take them to the top of the tower.

Elsa stopped not because Tanya was exhausted, or because they would run into Lawrence and Holo at the top of the tower.

It was because her eyes were fixed on the sight that greeted her beyond the window in the wall.

“No… Could this be…?”

She could not help but voice her thoughts; she gulped between ragged breaths and stared hard at what she saw.

As a servant of God, she told people of the divine miracles detailed in the scripture to cultivate their faith. On the other hand, she had taken in her father’s footsteps to collect her own stories about the pagan gods. And then, the miraculous pair of the traveling merchant and the girl came to her town.

In her eyes, they lived in a fantastic world, and they showed her a side of the world she had not thought of before. And once again, they were doing the same thing.

Here they were showing her inviolable proof of a myth out of time.

“What? What?! Are those snake tracks?!”

Tanya came up right beside Elsa to peek through the hole in the wall and raised her own voice in shock.

There was no mistaking the sight—anyone would look at it and think the same thing.

Before them, in the golden fields of wheat as the grains bowed in the wind, illuminated in the autumn afternoon sun, was a distinct trail that could have only been left by a giant serpent.

“B-but, this…”

Elsa felt terribly confused by what she saw before her.

The easiest thing to confirm was with Tanya.

“Miss Tanya. Didn’t you say there was no snake?”

Tanya gasped at the question. “O-oh, yes, you’re right. But…huh? Then why…?”

Elsa doubted that Holo with her wolf’s nose would have missed the presence of a snake. Or perhaps the serpent that left the tracks on the field was a being even greater than the likes of Holo or Tanya.

Something that could not be seen or sensed, but left trails like this on the wheat fields only.

Impossible, Elsa thought. And just as she did, a similar sentiment came from above.

“H-how could I have missed this?! ’Tis impossible!”

It sounded as though Holo did not quite understand what she was seeing, either. Her bewildered cry, which was almost a yell, caused Elsa and Tanya to exchange glances; Elsa brought a finger to her lips, then gestured for the both of them to venture up the stairs quietly.

“This snake…left a trail in the wheat…”

Elsa and Tanya came to a stop just as they were about to reach the top.

“Weird, isn’t it? It’s so hard to see when you’re on the ground, but it’s so obvious when you’re up high.”

They could hear the hint of pride in Lawrence’s voice. Elsa could easily imagine Holo squaring her shoulders and puffing out her tail.

“Hrrgh… I do not understand, then. I sensed no snake at all. And most importantly—!” Holo’s voice was pained, as though she were shaking off a nightmare. “The wheat would be bent, flattened entirely if there were a big snake slithering about atop it. Do you mean to tell me this snake was fluffy like mist, one that would be nice to pet?!”

Though Holo and her kind were unbelievable supernatural beings to regular humans, she was still confused and agitated. But her response came from a former merchant whose voice was calm, almost suppressing a laugh.

“It’s the other way around.”

“What?!”

“It wasn’t slithering on top of the wheat. It was going under. And it’s probably the same, in a way, even now.”

“—!”

All Elsa could hear were Holo’s fevered breaths. Words were failing her.

Holo likely stood perfectly still, her eyes wide, fangs bared, ready to leap forward at any moment.

But Elsa was in the same state of mind. She had completely forgotten about feeling like a young girl trying to eavesdrop on a love confession, and instead strained her ears to hear Lawrence’s explanation.

“That isn’t the great serpent, though.”

“What?!”

“Wh-whoa, hey! Don’t push me! I’ll fall!”

Elsa could hear Lawrence panic as Holo rushed Lawrence, finally out of patience.

“It is not the serpent…? Dear… Dear, are you bli—oh. Hmm?”

It finally dawned on Holo as she held Lawrence in her grip.

Elsa could picture it so easily, as though she were there with them. Lawrence had been holding that old map in his hands.

She was astonished.

“Exactly. It’s what’s left of a river.” His voice was gentle, as though he was carefully guiding her through his thought process. “There was an old topographical map of the area along with some other old maps. And this is an exact match with what we see here.”

Tanya fidgeted, wanting to look out the window again, so Elsa moved over to give her room; she watched as Tanya scooted past her down the stairs, and she concentrated on the voices above her at the same time.

“This old river flows across the Salonia plain from the eastern mountain range to the southwest. And see, if you follow the snake tracks the entire way, you’d get to the mountains in the east, right? Then, you’ll start getting very close to the river that we crossed if you go farther upstream.”

Elsa could picture Holo turning to look where Lawrence was pointing, then turning back to look at him in disappointment.

There came a loud rustling of clothes and irritable footsteps.

“According to this map, there used to be two rivers cutting across the plain. The remains in the field are of the ones that dried up.”

“B-but…”

Holo fell silent, and Elsa empathized with her bewilderment.

Holo had stood before that wheat field not long ago, after all.

Would she not have noticed if the flow of the old river left a physical mark on the land, an indent in the very ground? And most importantly, anyone who knew anything about minding wheat fields would question if it would remain unchanged, even after months and years of tilling.

And yet it was strange that an old river had left such a clear mark on the ground, like a carpet for the wheat. It was as though only the wheat itself knew how the land changed… When that thought crossed Elsa’s mind, she almost exclaimed, but stopped herself.

Then wisewolf Holo arrived at the same answer.

“Drainage!”

“Very perceptive. I asked the villagers, and they said that the dirt was deepest only where the river used to be, which meant the plants there grew in a slightly different manner.”

The ground where the river once was would have been filled with stones and pebbles. It was not realistic to manually remove all of that, so they made their fields by filling the depressions with soil. That would not affect the area in general, but it could never have the same sort of earth as its surroundings.

“It isn’t enough to change the wheat harvest for better or worse, but the heights and stalks were slightly, but surely different. And so the only time you can see this is when the wheat is ripe and from high spots. We were lucky,” Lawrence, very likely looking out over the fields, said, his tone relaxed.

“In which case…what of the snake?”

Elsa understood Holo’s confusion, too. Because if the great serpent of myth was indeed the remains of this old river, then she would have to readjust her thought process in order to comprehend what this all meant.

What of the tale of the Hero Voragine, then? It was unlikely that his only achievement had been to notice the slight color difference in the wheat fields, hurriedly construct a tower, then claim a serpent once roamed there. Would such a thing even earn him tariff-levying privileges, or any titles at all?

Lawrence, of course, could explain it all, which was why he had brought Holo here with that big smile of his.

“The serpent that hampered trade did actually exist.”

“…”

Lawrence had just told her that the mark on the field was not from the snake. Elsa could clearly sense Holo’s bewilderment through her silence. Lawrence enjoyed leading her by the nose, especially since she typically had the upper hand between them, but he knew clear well what would happen if he got carried away.

He spoke to soothe her, but his voice still had a chuckle in it.

“It’s pretty complicated.”

“…Hmph.”

Elsa could practically see Lawrence grimacing as Holo pouted.

“First, the Hero Voragine didn’t actually kill a serpent. But he did take down something a lot like it.”

It was wholly a riddle, and Holo the Wisewolf was cross enough to have absolutely no intention of waiting for an answer. Elsa could hear a gentle smile in Lawrence’s voice, like he thought it was funny, as he continued talking.

“He killed the serpent not with a sword, but with a spade. He dried up the river.”

Elsa took a step down the stairs, listening to Lawrence as she joined Tanya in looking out the window over the fields.

“But it’d be strange if anyone could become a noble by drying up a river, wouldn’t it?”

Holo’s tone in response was reluctant; perhaps she felt guilty for ignoring him any further. “Those who grew the wheat would only come to loathe him.”

“Exactly. And you can’t just make the snake a metaphor for the river. You remember how we crossed the pontoon bridge, right?”

“Aye, I do. What of it?”

“You asked why they didn’t just build a big bridge over the river, remember?”

Elsa was a few moments away from answering the riddle herself, but the wisewolf let her wisdom be known.

“Because of all the lumber that comes down from the mounta—Oh!”

“Exactly. They float all the logs down the river. Imagine what it’d look like if you stood next to the river and watched them go by.”

It would look like a massive snake.

“B-but, ah…”

“That’s only half the story, though.”

Even Elsa could picture Lawrence’s exaggerated movements as he became more absorbed in the story.

“The river used to have two branches, remember? One of them never went to Salonia; it came this way. There are no towns out on these plains, and it’s far out of sight.”

Though Holo was a spirit from a bygone era, she had been traveling with this former merchant for a while now, and she had learned how to view the world the way he did.

“Smuggling.”

As kind as Lawrence seemed, he was still a merchant at heart. Their journey together had not been entirely wholesome, and Holo had been exposed to much of the darkness of the mercantile world.

“There were plenty of people who decided to use this river for their lumber in order to avoid tariffs. Now, they couldn’t do this out in the open, so they floated the lumber down the river at night. But just setting lumber free down the river meant the wood could get caught on tight corners. And so, they tied the thin pieces of lumber together to form what looked like rafts, and then people would stand at the front to guide it. And what do you need if you’re doing this at nighttime?”

The moonlight could only provide so much light.

Using torches at the front of this dark procession could only make it look like one thing.

“It would look like…snake eyes in the dark.”

“And it was the Hero Voragine who vanquished the serpent.”

All by drying up the river.

“I had a rough idea of what happened when I saw the map in the village. I also thought it was very odd that the lumber merchants and the Church couldn’t settle this ongoing dispute of theirs. I think everyone knows about this.”

A keen-eyed passerby noticing a flaw in a long-held belief, especially one that had avoided scrutiny by locals for generations, was something that happened often in adventure tales, but not so much so in real life. The truth was so obvious that they could not put it into simple words.

The Church, at the time, had been busy fighting the pagans, so it had been much more convenient to dress it up as the story of a great serpent being killed; the lumber merchants were beholden to the immoral acts with which their predecessors sullied their hands.

Neither of them could say anything decisive, however, and remained in silent deadlocked stares when a traveler with a lot of sway but ignorance in local affairs came to town.

And so, they had called on Lawrence, hoping he would give them the advantage without him ever noticing the truth.

“But I’m not going to let them pull my strings like that.”

Elsa could picture the smug look on Lawrence’s face, and she could just as easily see the mixture of exasperation, vexation, and even joy on Holo’s.

She could just scarcely hear Holo’s tail, fluffed in displeasure, swishing back and forth.

“And I think this out-of-place tower was meant to serve as a lookout for smugglers who used the old river. Remember how Miss Tanya said that she heard merchants complaining about the snake that made it impossible to sell any metal from the mines? All the smuggling had likely caused control to become so strict that it affected legal trade.”

Elsa understood—and it was because the Hero Voragine resolved this problem that he was awarded with tariff rights and a title of nobility out of it.

“That’s more or less the myth of the great serpent of the Salonia plain.”

When Elsa would stay the night at an inn while she was on the road, she had often encountered travelers sitting around the hearth in the great hall, ale in hand, sharing interesting stories of things they had encountered on their travels.

Lawrence had surely done the same almost every night when he was traveling with Holo.

When his familiar storytelling cadence came to an end, Holo had calmed significantly after being led so ruthlessly by the nose.

“You are honestly—”

“—Amazing, I know.”

He had told the story in an amusing yet confident manner.

And, of course, it was not as though Holo genuinely thought Lawrence to be a foolish sheep.

It was because she could occasionally corner him in an argument, as he did to her, that Holo the wolf could not tear herself away from Lawrence.

“I suppose so, yes. Then what are you going to do?”

Elsa thought about how indifferent Holo sounded for only a brief moment.

She could tell from the footsteps above that Holo had drawn closer to Lawrence, perhaps holding his hand.

“Do you intend to obtain this field for yourself and then present it to me? The truth of this situation must be quite delicate for the Church.”

She sounded like a wolf playfully nuzzling and nipping at her prey.

“If all know the truth, but none choose to divulge, it becomes impossible to pick a side.”

She was right. If Lawrence were to side with the Church and obtain tariff and lordship rights and maintain high tariffs on the lumber merchants, then they would have to acknowledge that they were being punished for the wrongdoings of the past and may even be forced to admit the truth of the great serpent, that the legend fabricated by the church was exactly that—fabricated.

Lawrence replied in an almost casual tone, “Aww. I just have to be just friendly enough with both sides, don’t I?”

“…Hrm?”

“I’ll tell the lumber merchants that because of the wrongdoing their predecessors caused, they have no hope of ever having tariffs significantly lowered. But I’ll tell the church that this myth they’ve been spreading is an outright lie, and that the people who were engaging in all the smuggling went to their graves years ago, and then propose they find a compromise with the merchants.”

“…Mm.”

“All I need from the lumber merchants is a little thank-you. And we can drink all we want with that money.”

Holo’s tail was probably already swishing when she heard of such an obvious reward.

“But…what of the field? Will you be giving up on it?”

Despite how hesitant she had been when Lawrence first brought it up, she seemed sad now that it was about to vanish from her grasp. Lawrence did not reply to her question right away.

Though he seemed foolish at a glance, the man was prudent; it was as though he was gently gifting her a treasure.

“Instead of thanks from the Church, I’m going to ask they send a set amount of wheat to Nyohhira each year.”

“…You what?”

“Then, every year, when we bake our bread using that wheat, we’ll remember what happened today.”

Ale had no value once consumed, and coins were little more than useless baubles.

But receiving wheat every year, harvested from land rich with memories, was a different story.

Holo spent her days writing every detail of her activities down. She had been frightened when she saw her partner’s face illuminated by the light of an inn that was not her bathhouse, her home. Each new line served as a reminder that time flowed differently for the two of them. Even the mightiest of rivers would eventually run dry.

One day, her words might also dry up.

But wheat, with its myriad flavors and aromas, could create fresh memories.

“If the wheat’s not good, then just have Myuri come check up on things. Or you can come yourself. Might not be a bad way to spend your time, you know, coming down here a—”

Elsa decided not to think about why Lawrence did not finish his sentence.

Tanya strained her ears curiously and she even began to crane her neck in an attempt to see them, but even the straitlaced Elsa knew that lingering here any longer would be tactless of them. She placed her hand on Tanya’s shoulder and pointed down the stairs with a smile.

Elsa’s heart was full as they made their way down the stairs.

From Tereo, she had walked to church after church, hoping to be of some use to the clergy as it floundered in the torrent of the ages. What she had seen over and over again were the devout acting in ways unbefitting servants of God, though there may have not been any malice behind their actions.

Anything truly genuine was a rare find in this world. People often painted things in brighter hues; they often dressed them up to seem greater than they were.

But at times, she did come across things like this.

Once they exited the narrow tower staircase and came to the open garden, Tanya heaved a deep sigh.

Elsa turned her gaze up to the top of the tower and could not help the smile tugging at her lips.

The smile was not just because of the deep affection the couple had for each other, but because of the way she herself felt.

“It’s been quite a while since I’ve felt homesick.”

Her home was full of noise, with things constantly happening, and her memories consisted almost entirely of her yelling.

But that was where she truly belonged.

Perhaps it was nowhere near as saccharine as Lawrence and Holo’s relationship, but her family was still precious to her—blankets had to be readjusted after being kicked off in the night.

“…”

But that was when she noticed how still Tanya stood next to her. Though she would not point it out herself, Elsa saw envy, and a pronounced sadness, in Tanya’s expression.

This squirrel spirit had spent many years alone in the mountains. Once, she had grown close to a traveler who had been passing through the area and ended up spending some time with them. She was still awaiting their return.

When she finally realized Elsa was staring at her, a guilty look crossed her face. So, without a word, Elsa pulled Tanya in for a hug, and they remained there for a long while before Elsa finally spoke up.

“My home is a bit far from here, but would you like to come with me?”

Tanya blinked, her lips mouthing words that never came.

The corner of Elsa’s mouth turned upward in a teasing smile, and she pointed to the top of the tower.

“I believe you have the right to follow that happy-go-lucky couple, too, if you wanted to.”

Tanya followed suit and also looked up, and by the time she looked back at Elsa, a warm look had crossed her face.

“Yes! I would love to go with you!”

There was no reason for Tanya to be left by herself on her mountain.

Elsa nodded, smiling, and added after a moment of hesitation, “Perhaps you may meet someone nice along the way.”

Tanya’s eyes widened and her face went red; she brought both her hands up to her cheeks. “But, the master…”

She was talking about the alchemist, the one who was likely dead by now. She might have had an inkling of what had become of him, but it was best not to dwell on it.

“But the master is too good for me, so I could never… So then, umm…”

She was clearly enjoying this.

Elsa smiled, gave a short laugh and said, “I, too, am still a child for enjoying talk of romance.”

It was what it was.

Tanya beamed.

“There’s so much I want to talk about!”

“Of course.”

Elsa wondered if it was worth extending the conversation invite to the wolf.

She was likely the happiest girl in this world, and would have many unbelievable stories to share.

“We’re going back to town!” Elsa called up to the top of the tower, planting her hands on her hips.

She would go home, too.

And when she pictured herself turning down any further work from that greedy bishop, she felt quite refreshed.