Wolf & Parchment, Volume 3

by Isuna Hasekura

  Myuri wondered if she should go with Ilenia, but after a while of deliberation, she decided to go with Col.

  It was a complicated feeling—he was happy, but he also felt as though he should not be glad.

  “What sort of things did you chat about?”

  He asked about their conversation as they walked along the pier, and Myuri replied, baring her sharp canines as she grinned, “It’s a secret.”

  He wanted to ask when they might be leaving port, but Yosef was out shopping so he was not around. According to one crew member, it sounded as if they needed a number of repairs since they had been tossed around by the waves, so it would take a bit more time.

  If that were the case, then his business with Autumn also changed. Thinking about how he needed to do something to show his thanks, he opened the door to the captain’s quarters, and there was Autumn, sitting still in the middle of the room.

  “I’m sorry, were you meditating?”

  “No? I don’t have my jet tools. I was just sitting.”

  The man was a giant whale who would live for an eternity, so perhaps his perception of time was different.

  “Mm. It looks like it went well.”

  “Thanks to your support, Lord Autumn.”

  As he expressed his thanks, his next words were ones of request.

  “And I hesitate to cause you any more trouble, but there is a letter I would like for you to deliver.”

  Autumn stayed silent, and only his eyes moved toward Col. He wordlessly gripped his beard, and that somehow felt like agreement.

  “I need you to deliver a letter to a noble named Hyland in Rausbourne.”

  “If repairs on the ship will take a while, why not take another one?”

  That was entirely possible, but there was a reason he wanted Autumn to do this.

  “My apologies, but once you deliver the letter, would you be able to bring the response back?”

  Autumn stared at him, then sighed.

  “How should I meet this noble?”

  “There should be a Debau Company trading house. She must be staying there.”

  “You work me hard.”

  Autumn’s mild complaint was accompanied by a sigh, and Col shrunk. But he would have hated it more if he regretted not doing what he could.

  “Thank you.”

  Autumn only shrugged.

  Col then caught the attention of a crew member to borrow writing tools, and he wrote down the questions he had about Heir Klevend. It was not often one could present holy relics to a prince. He had refused Ilenia’s offer for now, but if it were better they created a good relationship with him, then it was entirely possible they would stick with Ilenia. It sounded selfish, but they should make good use of the opportunities they had been given.

  As he wrote the letter, Myuri poked her head in so close that her cheek was almost stuck to his.

  “Hey, Brother, you’re not thinking about anything weird, are you?”

  She was so close, he could almost tell how many eyelashes she had.

  “Weird?”

  “Like, are you trying to find excuses to stay with Ilenia?”

  It was not so much that she was sharp but rather he had been much too overt about it.

  “…Is she not the first friend you’ve made?”

  “Brother, you dummy!”

  Myuri gave him a swift head-butt.

  “It might not be any of my business, but…”

  “It is none of your business!”

  She huffed.

  “And sure, Ilenia is nice to me, but we’re not…friends. I can ask her things I can’t ask you, but…that doesn’t mean we’re close.”

  His heart ached when she said she could ask her things she could not ask him, but he did not quite understand what she meant. Was that not the epitome of closeness?

  “It’s different. It’s like if you asked someone what they thought of a food that you’ve never had before. It doesn’t mean that you’re close, right?”

  Now he understood.

  “And I think she’s only nice to me because she wants to include me on her ship.”

  She grinned when she said that, either because she was trying to hide her disappointment or it was excitement for her adventure.

  But he had to tell her one thing.

  “No matter what conditions you fulfill, I do not want you to get on that ship.”

  Myuri studied him carefully, then gave a troubled smile.

  “But would I have any right to go to a country everyone faced danger to create?”

  It was possible that Myuri would live longer, interminably longer than himself. Those words would have driven him into a corner had she asked that back at Nyohhira or Atiph.

  But now he could answer.

  “That is why we’re asking Heir Hyland if we should be working with Miss Ilenia.”

  “…”

  “If you work your hardest while we’re on land, I don’t think anyone will complain.”

  Myuri’s large eyes grew even larger, and she flung herself at him.

  “I love you, Brother!”

  “I know, I know.”

  He had dodged the question in his own way, and once the letter was dry, he borrowed the fur on Myuri’s tail a bit and sealed it.

  Autumn wore an exasperated expression, perhaps because he had heard their conversation, but he did not say anything.

  He had overheard more shameful conversations of Col’s in the north.

  “Depending on the other, I will come back tomorrow either at noon or at night. If she does not give a response, then I will come to let you know.”

  “Thank you.”

  He took the letter and quickly exited the ship. He, of course, could not just jump from the deck.

  “I want to ride on his back, just once.”

  Myuri let slip her desires as they watched him off.

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Yeah, you’ll just slip and fall into the water anyway.”

  He could imagine that happening, and it did not make him laugh.

  “Well then, why don’t we find some food to bring to our dinner tonight?”

  “Meat!!”

  Ilenia was supposed to pick out the lamb for them, but that was that.

  He warded off Myuri’s pleas for things that were not relevant at the market, and they managed to finish their shopping, then headed back toward the trading house.

  The maids stared wide-eyed when they saw how much food they carried, and Sligh, too, who was talking to his subordinate merchants over an account book, rounded his eyes.

  “Meat and cheeses to get the taxes from the Church?”

  That, of course, seemed like the obvious answer.

  “No, that has been safely taken care of, and by some turn of fate, we now have dinner plans with Miss Ilenia.”

  Sligh seemed even more surprised and nodded in understanding.

  “But even with your help, Sir Col, I’m surprised that greedy priest paid up his fifty gold coins. I’d heard that he hid all their wealth the moment the kingdom confronted the Church.”

  From the way he spoke, it sounded as though the townspeople had sort of noticed that Habbot sometimes stood in for the father.

  But to explain things in detail would be bad for both Ilenia and Habbot.

  “The cathedral certainly felt empty. But we managed to find things of the same value.”

  It was possible to make it work at such a big cathedral, just by gathering tapestries, drapes, and candelabra.

  In order to trick Sligh, he made it sound like that was exactly what they did.

  “By the way, Sir Col, I suppose it will be our turn next?”

  There was no harm in asking.

  Col only responded with a wry smile.

  Just as he was going to return to his room, he asked suddenly.

  “Oh, by the way, may I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Have you ever heard of cloth made from something that is not animal,
plant, or insect?”

  Saint Nex’s cloth certainly existed, but neither Ilenia nor Myuri could tell what it was made of. He wondered if a merchant whose reach extended all over the world would know.

  “Oh, that’s easy. It’s metal.”

  He suddenly felt embarrassed by his ignorance.

  “Thread made from actual silver and gold, and not just plated, you see. The ones woven by incredibly skilled craftsmen are entirely fabric but actually metal. It’s a strange thing. I’m not sure if it can be called fabric, but chain mail and the sort must be similar to it.”

  “I see. That’s very informative.”

  “Of course.”

  Sligh responded with a smile, then returned to the conversation with his subordinates.

  As they walked down the corridor and went up the stairs, Col relayed his discovery to Myuri.

  “He said it’s made of metal.”

  But she tilted her head.

  “But it didn’t seem like that. It didn’t seem like gold or silver.”

  “It must be a metal we don’t know, then.”

  Myuri was not entirely satisfied, though, so she shrugged as she spoke.

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think we’ll run out of things we don’t know if we keep traveling the world.”

  As he opened the door and turned around, she grinned at him.

  He smiled in defeat.

  “Why don’t we ask Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Holo the next time we send them a letter?”

  “Mother and Father live in the middle of nowhere, so they probably have no idea.”

  Though it had only been a short time since she left Nyohhira, she spoke as though she had seen everything in the world.

  When Myuri entered the room, she promptly yawned, then crawled into bed and curled up. She looked ready to sleep for the night, but instead spent her nap clinging to the wool pillow.

  Col kept the carefree wolf girl in the corner of his eye as he handled the wave of merchants who rushed him when they heard of his return.

  Strangely enough, there seemed to be more people this time, and it turned out that people from neighboring companies had come, too.

  They were just on their way to deliver goods, when they had happened to hear about Col, and since they coincidentally had something to talk about, they told him their story—he had heard this pretense so many times, so an acquaintance must have told another acquaintance, then they told another acquaintance.

  Though he flinched whenever they called him “Your Eminence,” it truly felt as if they were being sincere, so counseled each and every person as honestly as he could.

  There were so many people, and while he had dealt with them in the hall outside his room first, he realized at some point that he had taken up camp in the loading area, at the front desk with the accounting books put away. There was a long line before him, and one by one they came up to tell him their troubles; he gave his advice, then prayed for them. At some point, someone proudly placed a large wooden crate beside him, and there were those who left him copper, silver, gold coins, and samples of their own product; there were even well-dressed managing staff members from other companies who stripped off their coats to give him.

  It was bothersome to reject it all one by one, so he decided to add some to their traveling expenses and donate the rest to the cathedral.

  As that was all going on, there came the sound of the bottom of a pot being banged from outside the open door of the loading area. It was the sound of the market closing, essentially the replacement for the church bell. According to town regulations, only specific types of workers were allowed to be working after this hour.

  Those in line looked disappointed and instead settled for a handshake before going home.

  He was exhausted, but he was sure that only a small number of people who had close ties to the Debau Company had come today.

  If this spread throughout the entire town of Desarev, he could not imagine how many people would be seeking reconciliation with God. When he thought about Desarev’s surrounding area, then farther out, then the entire country, he shivered at the scale of suffering that plagued this country.

  He could only manage some ten people in a day, even if he sat in a chair by himself to talk with them. It could take all day with just one old lady who spoke long and without point. There was no doubt that more troubles would spring forth after only a few had been solved.

  People knew how much they could handle by themselves.

  They had to reopen the Church or, at the very least, allow the clergy to perform their religious duties.

  When he considered that the only ones who could let that happen were those in power in the kingdom, he felt more and more as if they should not have turned down Ilenia’s proposition. Perhaps they should be accompanying her as she used Saint Nex’s cloth as leverage to gain Heir Klevend’s favor.

  He thought about all this as he opened the door to their room, and Myuri was just waking up.

  She must have grown hot as she slept since she was wearing a thin slip, and her mouth was wide open in a yawn that showed her back teeth.

  “Hah.”

  She closed her mouth with a satisfied sound, and as the half-naked girl’s wolf ears and tail danced about, she opened her eyes.

  “I’m hungry!”

  “You have quite the appetite for someone who’s just woken up.”

  He was rather impressed.

  Not minding his sighs, of course, she slipped off the bed and began to gather the clothes she had scattered about the room and put them on.

  “Are you ready, Brother?”

  She asked as though it was Col who was not ready, but she was still brushing her hair.

  “You don’t need to rush. Look, your clothes are inside out. Fasten your straps properly, too.”

  She removed the shirt she had put on, turned it right side out, then put it back on. She properly tightened the straps on her sides and smoothed out the wrinkles. Perhaps because she had just woken up, her body was damp and hot. It was like her life energy was packed in tight.

  “What’ve you been doing, Brother? Reading and napping?”

  She asked as she ran the comb through her hair, and he just responded with a smile.

  “Well then, get the food we bought.”

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s from Mr. Sligh. He said it’s special quality wine.”

  Myuri’s eyes sparkled at the small wooden carafe.

  “You may not have any.”

  “It’s okay, I can just water it down with grape juice.”

  “Then you may as well just have straight grape juice.”

  “No, I won’t!”

  She picked up their bags of food again, and her ears and tail disappeared in a poof.

  “By the way, can you even cook? You’re really clumsy, so I don’t think you can.”

  They left their room, responding as amiably as possible to the people respectfully greeting them as they passed, and when they finally left the trading house, that was the first thing Myuri said.

  He wanted her to respect him a bit more as her elder brother, but there were a great number of townspeople who held him up so high, so perhaps she had a good role as his weight, to make sure he did not float away.

  “I can. I sometimes helped Miss Hanna, and I practiced when I decided I would travel.”

  Myuri asked because they were going to be making their own dinner at the Silver Bow, where they were headed now.

  People typically had food made for them in inns, but it was possible to pay for firewood and make food by oneself.

  It was cheaper that way, and one could make anything how they liked, as much as they liked.

  “So I can just sit, right?”

  It seemed she had not considered the option of helping or standing beside him to learn how to cook.

  But that being said, he could not imagine her making her own food with any sort of energy, so perhaps that was for the best.

  “I j
ust felt like I’m being more and more corrupted.”

  He said this in self-ridicule, and Myuri just tilted her head and gave him a questioning look.

  The town streets were full of people hurrying home, frantically trying to finish the rest of their work, or off to eat dinner at the food stalls.

  He imagined the tavern at the Silver Bow would be full, too, but when they arrived, they instead found only a few people there. Apparently, a number of ships departed during the day, and those kept ashore because of the storm were all gone.

  It was not that he knew any of them, but the feel of traveling left him a bit sentimental, since the people who were there yesterday were gone today, and tomorrow yet again new people would come.

  They told the innkeeper that they were friends of Ilenia’s, ordered drinks, then set up at a table in the corner. It would have been easier to meet if the church bells were working, but they decided to meet at the vague time that was after the market closed and the sun was setting.

  “Can I just have some cheese?”

  Myuri glanced inside the cloth bag they set on the table.

  The streets outside finally grew dark, and once the torches outside were lit, the traveling merchants who had stayed out as late as possible returned, and the quiet tavern grew lively.

  People were raising their voices in cheers, and food was rushing out from the kitchen.

  Myuri was glaring at him reproachfully, tapping her knees impatiently.

  “She must be doing her regular work, and that’s making her late.”

  Col pulled out the dried meat and cheese and added just a bit of wine to her grape juice. But they kept waiting, and Ilenia did not appear. Nearby patrons were glancing at them suspiciously.

  “Shall we go check on her?”

  Perhaps she was sleeping as Myuri often did.

  It was possible that once she obtained the saint’s cloth she had always wanted, all her tension vanished.

  “I’ll do it!”

  Myuri could not stand sitting still, so she stood before she finished speaking and ran off toward the stairs. As he gazed in the direction she disappeared in, one of the muscular sailors carousing at the table beside theirs studied him.

  Then, when their eyes met, the man looked meaningfully in the direction Myuri went.

  “Inn guests, huh? I don’t think I’ve seen you around, though.”