Holo, of course, made no sign of minding.
With that, Moizi surely could guess to some degree what kind of journey Lawrence and Holo had undertaken together.
“In this world one never knows what might happen. Good night, then.”
Having said this, Moizi brought his subordinates along with him as he left the room.
“Shall we go as well?”
As Lawrence saw Moizi and the others off, he turned back to the middle of the room where Holo was greedily pouring wine from the jug that had been left behind.
“There’s wine in the room, too.”
“Fool. How can I leave good wine like this behind?”
The wine in the room was good, but certainly the wine that Luward had treated them to was of the highest quality.
Perhaps having seen Moizi and Luward leave, a young man entered by a different door to clean up afterward. However, he noticed that Holo and Lawrence were still in the room and remained at the entrance, hesitating about whether to go in.
“See? We’re in the cleaner’s way. Let’s go.”
Lawrence gave the young man a tip and led Holo out of the room by her hand.
Holo reluctantly followed, her filled-to-the-brim mug in hand, but she was definitely dragging her feet.
“What, you don’t want to go back to our room?”
There was a raucous celebration outside.
He wondered if the great wisewolf, so prone to moping, just wanted to flap her ears down and go to sleep somewhere.
“… ’Tis not that,” Holo said.
As if you’ve never thought such a thing, Lawrence thought, but his lips simply said, “Ah,” spontaneously.
“Are you worried about the money?”
As Lawrence spoke, Holo averted her gaze as her ears perked up under her hood.
No matter how good the wine was, she did not need to drink it down that greedily with all the celebrating outside.
No doubt she knew that this was easier on Lawrence’s wallet than teasingly yanking a cork out. That she had not done just that meant she was taking seriously what he had said, half in jest, about his head hurting from the money he would have to raise.
“I have enough money for good-tasting wine for you.”
Lawrence lifted the mug out of Holo’s hand.
When a little spilled, she muttered, “What a waste.”
However, Holo made no move to take the mug back.
“Truly?”
As she asked from beside him, she wagged her tail under her robe.
He wondered what kind of request he would have to honor if he said yes here. Even so, Lawrence took a long sip from the high-quality wine Holo had filled her mug to the brim with, coughing as he spoke.
“Let’s knock ours–”
Holo put her hand over his mouth to stop him from saying the rest.
“If you let your guard down now, you shall regret it later.” Such were words that Lawrence had often directed toward Holo. “Lately you have not been of such frugal mind. Are you not slipping, perhaps?”
As he thought, She got me, Holo happily retrieved the mug from Lawrence’s hand, walking with a skip in her step as she drank.
“However.” Holo suddenly halted, looking back at him over her shoulder.
She made a face so saucy, it made him want to grab her with both hands and shake it out of her.
“If you insist so much, there is no need to drink outside.”
Holo teasingly fluttered her eyes as she danced a step ahead of Lawrence.
Thus having immediately put distance between them, he endured her laughter even amid her scolding, notorious tease that she was.
“Had too much to drink?”
Continuing to smile, as if not listening to Lawrence’s words whatsoever, she replied, “Aye.”
That night the entire town seemed to become one extended square, with wine and food sold in every corner. Lawrence and Holo tried to reach to the square, turning back due to too many people. In the end, they settled down at a folding table in front of a roadside spice store. As there were no annoying regulations to worry about, even the spice store, spotting a business opportunity, had turned into a small tavern.
Naturally, Lawrence was the only one to settle down; Holo, having received silver coins from Lawrence, gripped them tightly and ran toward the booth like a child.
And thinking that she would return with her arms full of food, which she did – only to put it down and immediately run off again.
The scene repeated itself four times over. The spice shop’s owner watched the ruckus outside while drinking wine; it made his eyes spin.
“Mmm-hee-hee-hee.”
It seemed foolish to warn her not to overeat.
Lawrence watched Holo eat and drink with a look of awe.
Certainly, he had been less concerned about thrift of late; he understood that this was because his priorities had begun to shift inside him.
Money above everything. Money more than anything.
He remembered that greed from the year before last as a radiant, searing heat, but could not remember how hot it burned whatsoever. And compared to the happy mood he felt now, it was but a pale shadow, soon to be buried away in his memories.
If he could set up his store here and make it work out, he might be gazing at the same scenery with Holo across the table, years or even decades down the road.
He had little confidence he would be able to remember how he felt now.
However, he did not doubt whatsoever that he would be happy.
Lawrence had begun to realize that he had spent too long convinced he was just about to catch the big one and that the sun of his life would be reaching its zenith. That was why Lawrence, spending his days as a traveling merchant, wanted a place he could return to, where his sun could set in peace.
To have actually obtained it here was an unexpected bonus.
If he could meet himself on his worst day as an apprentice, he’d have told himself this: Your hard work will be rewarded.
Thinking of that, Lawrence smiled to himself.
“And what are you grinning about?” said Holo as she washed down the drumstick meat that she had been chewing on, gristle and all.
“I’m happy. That’s something to smile at.”
He gazed straight at Holo, making an easygoing smile as he spoke. He said it simply, no blush, no embarrassment. Holo seemed about to say something snide, but Lawrence’s calm seemed to draw the poison out of her.
“’Tis because you say such things with such audacity that I say you are a fool.”
That was the best that he was going to get.
“When you said, ‘I want to go back to Yoitsu,’ and I brought you with me, I never imagined something like this happening, though.”
Holo, who was eating a bit of everything on her plate, grabbed a crispy chicken wing with the skin still on, deftly bringing it to her mouth, letting the sweetness of the oil swirl throughout the inside of her mouth.
“If you ask where it is even now, I cannot recall. And were I to recall, it is possible I would misremember.”
Holo’s ears could tell when someone lied.
It was understandable that she arched back as if to make a heavy sigh.
“And yet, we’ve arrived.”
“We have not arrived yet,” Holo corrected him immediately, without admonition.
It was plain as day she wanted him to say something, anything back.
“Well, that’s certainly the case, but more importantly.”
Lawrence licked his finger and used a piece of bread to grasp a bean that had rolled onto the table. He did not know who had grown it, but someone had planted it, someone had harvested it, someone had brought it to the town, someone had husked it, someone had broiled it and served it on a plate. Thanks to no small number of merchants, none of which they knew personally, Lawrence and Holo were able to eat here and now.
Common to every stage of the bean’s journey was coinage and the sound, pr
ofitable actions of various people, with the blessings of the Lord only a small part of the large picture.
Lawrence had spent the time since meeting Holo making sound compromises between his own greed and reality. At first, he did not make these compromises, resulting in failure and in arguments with Holo. However, in time he managed somehow.
It did not seem so strange if one looked at the process one step at a time. In business, any contrivance was merely one very obvious thing piled atop another, no matter how extravagant.
This being said, Holo before his own eyes, a suspicious, oddly pained expression on her face, he could not help but think it a mysterious thing.
As if this was an illusion that would vanish the moment he stretched out his hand.
The time when he would think such thoughts and timidly reach out had passed. Where but a little before he would have forced things forward only to have his hand brutally slapped back, Lawrence sat deeply in his chair like any other town merchant, resting his right arm on the table as he spoke gently.
“Let’s talk after we reach Yoitsu.”
He finally spoke openly and honestly about the unfinished issue he had evaded many times over. Holo did not express laughter or shock or happiness, instead looking the other way, a miffed look on her face. Even so, Lawrence smiled gently at her. When she stole a glance in his direction, she snorted.
“You are the only one moving ahead, bit by bit.” She was speaking like a child, he thought; actually, her words were that of a child. “I am just like those who carried Myuri’s claw – the side left behind.”
Within the town, amid the clamor the Debau Company had stirred, where some were happy, others were not.
In the world of man, there were those who fierce changes left behind.
Holo knew that even after reaching Yoitsu, this would be a dismaying, inescapable fact.
“And yet until a short time ago, you were the one chasing me.”
In truth, back in Lenos he had been frantically running around the town in his desperation to find a way to go with Holo.
Thinking about it, he realized that over the course of a mere few days, he had become liberal in a very bold way. He did not think he had ever been more proud of being a merchant than he was now.
As fellow merchants, the Debau Company had accomplished a great enterprise that surely any merchant had wished for in vain.
Merchants were certainly not minor players in the world.
Merchants would sweep across the world to come.
This town had an atmosphere that permitted such grandiose aspirations.
Lawrence looked at Holo.
Holo stared at him like a spiteful cat, her hands pressed on top of her tankard as if using it as a heater.
Such small, delicate hands.
But it was those hands that had pulled Lawrence through many hardships.
“It’s because I worked so desperately to catch up. Won’t you praise that?”
Holo lowered her eyes and, seemingly unable to hold out any longer, laughed.
She was surely thinking something like, A little success and this male gets carried away.
Even so, after laughing for a while, she made a soft sigh and lifted her face, a smile left behind as she stopped. “That’s right. You have worked hard.” She took her hands off her tankard. “You have fulfilled your promise to me. So, as for what comes after…”
Holo spoke that far before she closed her glistening lips, glazed with chicken fat.
She did not need to say what came after that, after all, and she could not speak it from her own lips.
Having undertaken the fairy-tale-like journey to Yoitsu with Holo, Lawrence would return to the trade route called reality. He had a job he had to do, things he had to see through.
But what came after that was settled. It was not an unreasonable stretch, nor some wild delusion. Even with a beast’s ears and tail, the very incarnation of the wild wolf, Holo being right by his side was enough for him to forget all about such things.
Therefore, Lawrence should take Holo’s hand in his. It was perfectly obvious.
Is it not? Holo expressed wordlessly, a shy, slender smile forming on her lips as she gazed at him. It is. Lawrence pointedly moved the fingers of the hand he had laid atop the table. If he ever looked back later on in life, he was certain this was the moment he would remember.
Even though he expected Holo’s hands to be far hotter than his own and prepared for it, her narrow shoulders shrank further.
A carnival atmosphere had taken hold of the town of Lesko.
That’s why he thought for a moment, Well, these things happen.
A bag fell onto the table with a thud.
It was cheap and seemed to have very little in it. Even without raising his face, he could imagine what the owner looked like well enough.
No money, living on the road, taking with him only what he could carry securely. He knew not if the person was in the middle of trying to do something or had spent his entire life like that. Either way, he imagined the fellow had probably gotten carried away amid the tumult, drinking himself into a stupor and carelessly dropping his bag along the way.
Lawrence stopped moving to take Holo’s hand in his and picked the sack up from the table. Oh, foolish drunk, tonight at least such behavior can be forgiven. Thinking this, he lifted his face. Though all was already settled in his mind, something seemed to tug at him and he looked down at the sack again. That moment–
“Kraft Lawrence.”
A name was uttered. Lawrence’s name.
Across the table, Holo opened her eyes in shock.
What had been placed on the table had not been carelessly dropped, for it was the possession of someone they knew well, someone who should have been far away from the town.
“Holo the Wisewolf.” The person who had tossed Col’s sack onto the table, hooded robe pulled over the eyes, spoke a second name.
In this world, many characters walk onto the stage.
And all of them plunge forward toward their many objectives, be they comedies or tragedies.
To Be Continued
Afterword
Hi, Isuna Hasekura here. It’s been a while. It’s taken quite some time, but this is volume fifteen. Finally within shooting distance of Yoitsu, I think we can safely call this the final chapter.
And another two-part set of volumes. I wanted to write this and write that, and after cramming in so much plot, I ended up with quite an amount of text. I think you will enjoy the ride. I rather like the subtitle this time around. It’s like the subtitle for a treasure hunt action movie. Well, it’s not a precise fit, but…
By the way, I’ve done a lot of diving lately. I’ve already done it about twenty-five times this year. Every time I go to the sea I dive three times a day, so it adds up pretty quickly.
I like seeing many kinds of fish, but if I was to pick a favorite, I like the little, delicate fish, so I grab my camera and go looking all around the rocky and sandy areas. When I do, Instructor-san a short ways away blows his whistle and draws everyone’s attention and points in the direction of a manta… well, it happens a lot. Honestly, mantas feel pretty flat to me… On the other hand, I just can’t get enough of how itty-bitty gobies and clown fish are.
In particular, even though gobies are so tiny, there’s over two thousand species of them and probably a mountain of new, unclassified species besides. I like clown fish because you can take really pretty pictures even if you’re bad at photography. After that, lionfish, perhaps?
One odd and interesting species is the electric ray. If you touch the electric organs on its body, you’ll get a jolt, even with gloves on. Also, with all electric rays, you can lean on them, rub them, prod them, and they’ll never run away; I wonder why. Since a lot of them burrow into sand, maybe they still think they’re hidden, even when you’re rubbing them. Maybe it’s like an author making excuses about everything going well. It’s all right! The manuscript’s getting there! I’m not talk
ing about me, of course.
Last, an interesting story about an octopus. When I saw Instructor-san catch one, it got away and rushed right toward me, incredibly lively. When it was about to slip between my feet, I closed my thighs and caught it right between them. It was wriggling right between my thighs. Perverse. finally it spewed out a huge amount of ink and got away.
I’m working hard writing Part II so that it doesn’t spew out ink and get away.
See you next volume.
– Isuna Hasekura
Chapter 6
The sack tossed on top of the table stole their attention, for it belonged to Col, who should have been headed far away from there to the town of Kieschen.
The words highwayman, thief, and bandit immediately raced through Lawrence’s head. No matter how mighty Col’s spirit, it would have been useless before ruthless physical force.
But it was still odd. He could not piece things together in his head.
As Lawrence lifted his face, there was a slender man beside the table wearing a hood low over his eyes. Lawrence instantly searched his own memory, but the man’s silhouette did not fit any person Lawrence could recall. Moreover, Lawrence was confused at the lack of a malicious aura. If anything, the man somehow had a refined air about him.
Then, the mysterious person wandered on his way, as silent as a ghost. It did not even occur to Lawrence to give chase as the man slipped away from the table.
He regained his senses when Holo grabbed the sack on top of the table and rose from her seat.
He somehow managed to get one word in.
“… Wait.”
Holo’s eyes, eerily unblinking under her hood, turned toward him.
Stopping me now makes you as much of an enemy as he is, her anger told him.
“He shouldn’t have been alone. Where are the others?” said Holo.
She stared straight at Lawrence.
Her eyes seemed so full of anger there was no room for sympathy in them.
As Lawrence continued to squarely meet her gaze, Holo’s breaths grew progressively heavier. Her blood had rushed to her head; even she could not control herself very well. Her slender shoulders made great movements, as if she was feverish – but somehow she kept herself from exploding altogether.
Spice & Wolf Omnibus Page 278