She would have to thank that god of fortune the humans were always worshipping, she thought to herself, that she had been picked up by such a softhearted fool.
Softhearted, softhearted— When she wasn’t saying it with a scornful sneer, it turned into a different name entirely, which was terrifying.
She wanted him to stay with her.
Just watching him as he gathered the dishes and began to head for the door to return them to the inn, her tail swished restlessly.
“Still, you—”
“Hmm?” he said, with eyes so sincerely naive she could barely stand to look at them.
“The inn’s just…too quiet, so…” Embarrassment kept her from finishing the sentence.
But her companion no doubt thought it was all an act.
And at the same time, he had surely guessed that though it was an act, it was also the truth.
“It’s true, sleeping on the cart is much noisier. Anyway, I’ve nothing to do today. And I’ve got to consult on the evening menu for a certain big eater I know, so…”
So he’d stay with her.
She was being as selfish as a child.
Her companion smiled, and she made a deliberately pouting face, turning away.
It was an unobstructed, unclouded exchange.
If happiness had a form, this might well have been it.
“So, have you any rough preferences? I’ll look up the details in the medicine book later, but once the market closes, I won’t be able to buy ingredients.”
“Mm. Hmm…”
“You seem well. You might not be completely better, though, so heavy things are right out.”
“Meat, too?” She looked up pitifully.
This was an act.
“Certainly not. Porridge or soup made from boiled bread…”
“Hmph. Well, then, more of that—what was it, sheep’s milk?” she said, indicating the dishes that her companion held. He nodded. “I liked its sweet scent and thick flavor. It will do.”
“Sheep’s milk, eh…?”
“Is there some problem?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“It spoils quickly, so good-quality milk can be hard to find in the afternoon. You’ll want it fresh, yes?”
“Naturally.” She grinned, baring her fangs, at which he slumped.
“Well, perhaps I’ll have Norah get it for me again. Being a shepherd, she’s got an eye for that kind of…”
He held back from finishing the sentence.
“Did you say Norah?” she shot back reflexively—so reflexively that she didn’t know what sort of face she was making.
Her companion’s expression made it clear he had realized he’d uttered a taboo word, so she must have made some kind of face.
The pleasant atmosphere was long gone.
At his mention of Norah’s having an eye for sheep, she realized that while she slept, her companion had been walking around the town with that shepherdess.
That hated shepherdess.
Just the two of them.
While she slept!
“No, it…it was for you. I needed to get good milk, so I thought—”
“If you’d just spend the money, you don’t need a damned eye for sheep,” she growled, glaring resentfully at him.
Traitor, traitor, traitor! She cried the word out in her heart.
Though she knew he’d done nothing to earn her ire, he should’ve known better than to mention the shepherdess in such a moment, and so she could not help herself.
Shepherds and wolves were bitter enemies, after all.
“Su-surely there’s no reason not to hire her as a guide. And anyway—” He clearly knew he’d stumbled upon a huge problem and was hastily trying to smooth things over. But in the throes of her irrational anger, such smoothing only served to heighten her suspicion. And to top it all off, he kept going. “And anyway, why do you hate Norah so much?”
Time froze.
In trying to appease her snarling anger, he’d said something so unexpected that she couldn’t respond.
Her mouth dropped open. “Wh-what did you say?” she answered stupidly.
“W-well, I…I mean, I don’t know what happened between you and shepherds in the past, but I understand that you’re a wolf and you just don’t like them. But that doesn’t mean you have to hate her so much. I mean, Norah’s a shepherdess, but well…” Still holding the bowl and dish in both hands, he carefully scratched his head. “…She’s so sweet—surely there’s an exception to every rule.”
“Fool!” she very nearly shouted.
What stopped her was not her fatigue, nor was it the fact that it was unbecoming of a wisewolf.
It was, in fact, her companion’s foolishness itself that drained the desire to shout from her.
It was true that after being lonely for so many centuries, having just escaped the wheat fields made her emotions unstable—she had to admit it. She’d so thoroughly forgotten how to talk to people that she now had to pay very careful attention to her conversations. She realized that she had forgotten how to read the subtle niceties of others.
And it would come as no surprise that her companion, having spent months and years alone on a wagon, had gotten rusty at these same skills.
Yet still—could he really be so thick? She sighed.
She couldn’t understand how he could be so persistent even after having gotten himself into this situation; how despite being such a fool, he had the temerity to try to use reason on her; why for whatever reason despite seeming so considerate, even weak, he had the disposition to now—of all times!—have some pride; and why at this critical moment, he could be so impossibly dense. She couldn’t understand it at all.
Could he really, truly not see? she wondered.
She was even beginning to think he was testing her.
His view of the situation was that the wisewolf of Yoitsu hated shepherds—was that what he thought?
Wolves hunted sheep, and shepherds protected those same pitiful, powerless sheep. So in this composition, who was the wolf and who was the shepherd and who was the sheep? If he would only think about it, he’d immediately understand the reason for her displeasure.
She didn’t hate shepherds. She was nervous that particular shepherd was near the sheep.
As though the sheep was not protected by the shepherd. As though the shepherd would blow her horn and steal the sheep away. As though he might wander away with the naive, kindly shepherdess because he was so helpless, so foolish, never thinking!
As such thoughts occupied her mind, she sighed one last time.
Her companion stood there, his face evidence that, as usual, he had not the faintest notion what she was thinking. He was every inch the blithe, silly sheep.
The sweet kindness he’d shown her in spooning up the porridge and feeding it to her felt the same as it had long ago.
Her dream had essentially become real.
She’d been released from her prison and was free to do as she liked without anyone looking askance at her, free to say what she liked without troubling anyone.
So by hook or by crook, she wanted to just once. What would it be like to frolic like a pup? How would it feel?
In the end, it didn’t compare to being foolish by nature.
When drinking the night away, the sober one always had to take care of the drunken one.
“Listen, you—” she said tiredly, because she was indeed very tired.
It occurred to her to wonder that innocently frolicking like a pup was rather serious business.
It was finally impossible for a wolf to pretend to be a sheep.
Her companion might think she was wearing the skin of some ignorant sheep, but that was not her responsibility.
It was his fault for being so fixated on sheepish charms that she found herself wanting to become one but was unable to.
If they were both idiotic sheep, they’d just plunge over the cliff together.
One of them had to be the sober one and lead th
e other.
A loss.
A natural, inborn loss.
“I was in the wrong,” she said with deliberate sulkiness. Her companion was clearly relieved. “But like and dislike are not things felt with reason. I feel I’ve said this before.”
“Yes, well, that’s true, of course. I don’t think you have to decide everything with reason,” he said to show he understood her feelings—but the truth was he didn’t understand the real meaning of what she was saying.
She might well allow him to stroke her head, but she certainly couldn’t let him groom her tail.
Would that day ever come?
She looked at him with tired eyes and wondered.
“And also, you—” she started, and her companion tensed, as though preparing for something new. He was like a dog lowering its head to be pet. “When you take that down, would you come right back up?” She said this with a meek smile.
He seemed taken aback at her sudden change, but soon caught up with her. Perhaps he was not so very foolish after all.
“…Yes, of course. The inn is rather too quiet and all.”
The fool had a satisfied expression, as though he thought he’d been rather smooth.
The whole thing was too obvious to be called obvious, and yet here he was, such an unbelievable fool.
Unaware that he was being thought of thus, her companion’s face cleared; he seemed to think the problem was solved.
“Well, then, I’ll be right back. Would you like something to drink?”
Feeling like she was all out of sighs to sigh, she had to admit it was a kind thing of him to offer.
Thus she gave him his reward.
“The thinned apple wine you gave me before would be nice. I need to get well as soon as I can, do I not?”
He smiled very, very happily.
When he made that kind of face, she couldn’t help but wonder how best to be cruel to him.
“So you just wait here, all right?” he said with some enthusiasm and left the room.
He really was an utter fool, but as she was rolling around right next to him, the same could be said of her.
It was a peaceful, tranquil time.
She knew well just how precious such a thing was.
So she would have to control it, cherish it, and enjoy it to the best of her abilities.
There was one thing that caused her concern.
She wriggled back underneath the blankets, burying her head in the pillow as she’d seen humans do.
Her poor companion had lived such a starved life that if she showed him just a bit of affection, he might become totally useless—and if she overdid it, he would become accustomed to it and it would lose its efficacy.
For both beast and human, enough repetition of something would always lead to boredom.
Which meant she would have to think of another way.
And as she did so, she immediately hit upon it.
If he got tired of sweetness, she need only add some salt.
If her smile failed to hook him, all she had to do was summon some tears.
It was so simple.
And it would certainly work on a simple sheep.
“…Hmm?”
Something nagged at her as she thought about this. For a moment she wondered what it could be, and she soon found the cause. It was the previous night’s dinner when she collapsed.
They were talking about sheep—about how sheep would lick anything that tasted salty. She remembered that, and a strange thought occurred to her.
She imagined salty tears on her face, her companion persistently licking them up.
She would surely first giggle madly, though it would no doubt become tiresome very quickly. It was easy to imagine her companion not knowing when to stop—so easy to imagine, in fact, that it was depressing.
Yes, she would have to keep a tight hold on his reins to keep him doing what she wanted.
Thinking of how many things there were to worry about, she rolled over in bed.
Her head was still buried in the pillow, and she lay curled up on her side, chuckling.
It had been a very long time since she’d had such fun.
She wasn’t sure exactly what was fun about the situation. There were so many amusements that it was impossible to choose just one.
But if pressed for an answer, it was that her foolish companion could not, for all his foolishness, be handled by ordinary means.
There was something of the delight of the hunt in this, somehow, that set her wolf heart aflame.
Having taken the dishes downstairs, her companion was true to his word, and she heard his footsteps approach.
Her heart thudded quietly.
Her tail twisted and her ears twitched.
Her nose itched, and she rubbed it into the pillow.
Ah, this ineffable delight of the hunt!
The footsteps stopped in front of the door.
She couldn’t help but smile as she looked back toward it.
And then, as it opened, standing there was—
“Holo,” her companion said, smiling.
The shepherdess beside him.
“Miss Norah’s come to visit you.”
No, indeed he could not be dealt with by normal means at all.
The shepherdess smiled a smile as fresh and clear as an early summer field, and it wasn’t the wisewolf’s centuries of experience that allowed her to smile back.
She smiled out of actual pleasure.
Holding the reins of her enormous fool of a companion was so difficult a task, she could only laugh at it.
“How are you feeling?” asked Norah the shepherdess.
“’Tis nothing, just a bit of fatigue.”
If she hadn’t answered the question this way, how else could she have possibly answered it?
Even with a wisewolf’s clever mind, she had no idea.
Her companion watched the pleasant exchange with a proud, self-satisfied smile.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t exhausted exactly.
Far from it—she felt like her fever was about to rise back up.
“I’ve been a bit starved for company, though. You see, there was something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she said.
“Huh? Something to ask…me?” The shepherdess was a clever girl but was ever modest; she could see why her companion would fall for that. “If it’s something I can answer, then…please do.”
She then smiled.
The shepherdess could not be underestimated. But as a hunter she would understand these words, and so the wisewolf wanted to ask them.
“What is the best way to lead sheep?”
The shepherdess’s eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected question, but her usual smile soon returned.
Next to her, her cheeky sheepdog stood watchfully, his guard up as usual.
The pale, slender shepherdess spoke with a gentle smile. “You need a generous heart.”
The moment after she heard the answer, she felt like the wind blew.
This girl was utterly genuine.
She was a real shepherdess.
To raise sheep, one needed a generous heart.
She glanced at her companion and thought to herself that the shepherdess was exactly right.
Norah saw the look and made a brief expression of realization.
A smart person needed only a moment to notice such things.
“’Tis because sheep always think themselves so clever.”
Norah returned her gaze to her and smiled, a bit confused but pleased nonetheless.
She had the feeling she would get along with this girl just fine.
But as her companion watched, not knowing that they were talking about him, she wasn’t confident about her ability to hold his reins.
Only God knew if she’d be able to.
She gave him a resentful look, which startled him.
You sheep, you sheep, you innocent little sheep, she thought to herself.
And yet, that silly way
of his—yes.
“You’re such a fool,” she murmured.
She did so love her sheep.
End.
Hello again. This is Hasekura.
I thought it hadn’t been too long since last time, but as I wrote this afterword and thought about it, it’s been two months. It used to be that even a week seemed like an eternity, but time passes so fast now.
That’s probably because I sleep about sixteen hours a day. Lately I have difficulty telling the difference between dreams and reality. Temporally speaking, I spend more time asleep. Thus two months feels to me like but one, I imagine.
Now then, this volume is a bit different than the previous long-form books.
It includes a novella and a short story that were featured on the Dengeki website, along with a new short story I wrote.
The novella is a tale from Holo’s past, and the short stories are interludes from the main arc of the books.
In the novella we see Holo’s big-sisterly side, and the shorter pieces feature her gluttony. Where did Lawrence go off to? One can’t help but feel bad for him.
But what I’d most like to talk about here is the new piece.
It’s the first one written from Holo’s perspective.
At first I was really very worried about whether or not I would be able to write from her perspective at all, but when I gave it a try, it was actually a lot of fun—so much so that when I go back and reread it, I can tell that I was really enjoying writing it. So I truly hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.
Speaking of which—this is a total subject change—recently I took a ride in a certain author’s 420-horsepower car.
420 horsepower. It’s like, where in Japan are you going to go with that much power? It was more like a roller coaster than a car. When you accelerate, all your blood drains to your lower body, and when you slow down, you can feel it come rushing back.
It looked supercool, too, and since I don’t know cars, it was a really memorable experience.
However, I’m sorry to say that while the car was amazing, the destination of the four shabby-from-all-nighters authors that piled into it was not a night view of some beautiful bay-side road, but rather a hot springs where we could relax our cramped shoulders.
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