“If that was the case, then we would instead simply attack the Church, but you’re wrong. I’m the only nonhuman. We have all come together purely because we hate the Church equally. Human or no, the best reason to bring drifters like us together is a shared hatred.”
Sharon’s explanation only made the problem even bigger. Col could barely comprehend the hatred Sharon and the other tax collectors shared.
But he could tell right away how deep it was. He felt a stinging, burning rage from her words, yet her eyes remained calm.
Myuri changed the position of her feet to brace herself, perhaps prompted by Sharon’s overwhelming determination.
Sharon was not acting on impulse.
That was why it was not anger but hate.
“Of course I know about the war you fear. It seems like we might be the spark that would cause it, after all. But we have absolutely no intention whatsoever of loosening our grip on collecting taxes. We are doing this to take revenge on the Church—not for money and hardly for some heir who’s backing us for some plot or another. It just so happens that we’ve chosen the rights for tax collection as our tool. We bid for these rights simply because we had no other options.”
Ilenia the sheep had also been using the tax collection permits as her tool.
“Do you know what the punishment is for failing to comply with the collection of taxes under royal authority?”
“…Death, isn’t it?”
Of course, it would be almost impossible to sentence the entire organization of the Church to death.
But there were people on the Kingdom’s side, so right now, all the good reasons to attack the Church were in order.
They had authority enough to wage war with the Church.
“But…whatever major reasons you may have, do you still plan on bringing misfortune to the Kingdom for your own personal revenge?”
One could not place others’ feelings on the scale to measure their importance. But whether he be a priest hopeful or not, he could not acknowledge revenge, not to mention the countless livelihoods that would be jeopardized by war.
And Sharon seemed well aware of that.
“I don’t want to argue with you. I just want you to know.”
“…Want me to know?”
“Yes.”
Sharon spread her wings; elegantly flew up into the air, over their heads; then landed on a pew near the chapel entrance. Her eyeline was just below theirs.
“At any rate, the Church is not worth defending. It sounds like you want to correct their evil practices, in which case, we have a suggestion for you: In order to right their wrongs, the only option is to drag them out onto the street corner, draw them up by their necks, and eviscerate them.”
Col would not be surprised if this was Sharon on her own, since she was nonhuman, but she had said all those who gathered in the tax collection association shared a hatred for the Church. He was not sure why, but he believed they still had time if he listened to what she had to say. Sharon, at least, had said she wanted him to know.
If they could talk, then that would be the perfect option.
“Then, let me hear what you have to say. There is still the possibility I might stop you even after that, though.”
“If you’re gonna use my brother, then I’m gonna bite you to death.”
Sharon cast a brief glance at Myuri, then replied.
“I’m not going to force you. We have no intention of stopping either way.”
She sounded arrogant, but depending on how one perceived it, it could also be taken as her honesty.
Col decided he would not waste any more words, and he nodded.
Myuri growled, having been ignored, so Col casually stroked her head in order to calm her down.
“But what should we do?”
Anyone was free to enter the chapel. The morning service ended a while ago, and there was still plenty of time before evening services started, but anyone could appear at any time.
“There’s a place I want to show you. It will be easier to explain if we go there.”
“Well then—” he began, then paused. “I would rather you didn’t guide us while flying through the sky…”
The streets were crowded, and they would not be able to keep up if she led them in the sky. While Myuri was another story, Col was sure he would get lost.
“It’s fine. Luckily, you’re dressed as a guard of honor.”
“Huh?”
The moment Col wondered what she meant, Sharon again levitated lightly into the air, then landed on a place he least expected.
“Wh—! Hey! Get off from there, chicken!”
“M-Miss Sharon?!”
Sharon had landed on his shoulder.
“You are a guard of honor with an eagle on your shoulder. People will think of you as someone from a very good family. People will part the way for you.”
That might be true, but Sharon was looking at Myuri, who was growling and gnashing her teeth as she spoke. She was doubtlessly enjoying Myuri’s reaction.
It was too much mischief, and he was about to try to take her off his shoulder.
“Generally speaking, if I was to walk around in my human form, it would just be the cause of unnecessary trouble. Would you mind getting tangled up with those imbeciles from the traders’ association again? Think about why I didn’t go directly to Lord Hyland’s manor myself.”
“Oh.”
Sharon was the vice president of the tax collector association. When taking all these various factors into consideration, assuming her eagle form and riding on someone’s shoulder was surely the most optimal way to move about the city freely.
“If you understand me, then let’s be off. I’ll point you in the right direction,” Sharon said and readjusted her feet once, twice in order to have a stable grip on him.
Her fine talons did not hurt, either because his clothes were made of good material or she was adjusting the strength of her grip, and he barely felt any weight from her. If he mentioned how smooth her feathers felt as they brushed against his ears, Myuri’s eyes would surely bulge in so much anger that they would almost fall out, so he stayed silent.
Even still, Myuri stared hard and aggressively at Sharon as she rode on his right shoulder, and she was deliberately holding his right hand. It was likely so that she could immediately rip the bird to shreds if anything happened.
“Please lead the way.”
Even if Col’s voice did sound rather tired when he spoke, he was sure that God would forgive him.
How people presented themselves was important.
Col was aware of that, but he still felt it was a little strange how obvious it was now.
Nobles engaging in falconry clearly had vast territories, so there was no one who would dare step in the way of someone wearing formal clothes and with an elegant eagle on their shoulder.
Even the wandering peddlers who clung like leeches parted the way for them, fearing the consequences.
Sharon gazed to the sky, paying no mind to the people of the city, occasionally whispering to him where to turn.
Myuri was upset as she always was, but it was not like Sharon was going to try any new tricks on her, so she soon stopped glaring and simply walked along with a pout.
The place Sharon brought them to was deep in the back of an alley. From the main avenue, they entered a densely packed residential district, passed by two wells where women doing laundry and fetching water were busy chatting, stepped over free-roaming pigs lying in a sunny little vegetable garden, went down a tight alley that could barely fit two adults side by side, and finally came to a run-down building.
“Is this it?” Col asked, but Sharon flew up without a word and went inside the building through an open window on the second floor.
“…This is really close to the church we were just at. Why’d she make us walk all this way? Does she think she can trick us? I’m a wolf.”
While her bad mood had been somewhat mollified, the valleys between Myuri’s brows were s
till rather deep as she spoke.
“This seems like an old city, so it’s probably full of blind alleys and dead ends.”
The locals likely had shortcuts that cut through other people’s gardens and kitchens. This space was for the locals to live in, not for visitors to enter.
As they stood there, Col felt like the silence around them was draining all the sound from his body, so the occasional cry of a baby he heard in the distance was comforting. As he thought about how it reminded him of being in the forests of Nyohhira, there came the sound of a lock being undone on the other side of the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened, revealing Sharon wearing simple clothing in her human form.
For some reason, other people’s houses had a peculiar scent to them.
The moment they passed through the door, Col was overwhelmed by the smells of daily life that stirred old memories.
“Is this an orphanage?”
Still expressionless like a bird, Sharon raised an eyebrow.
“I’m surprised you could tell.”
“I was a wandering student when I was a child. I often found myself in the care of places like this.”
He had practically run away from his village, which was almost as remote as Nyohhira was, for a journey to master his studies. It was hard to believe now how naive he had been back then; wandering students without a family of money or status to support them were practically the same as orphans.
He had been in the care of houses that helped the poor and others without anywhere to go many times, and the smell of this place was just like that of those sorts of orphanages.
“I was convinced you were a young master from a good house.”
It felt like she had reevaluated how she looked at him, but it was pure good luck that he had managed to survive this long.
“Well, never mind that. As you’ve guessed, this is an orphanage, but they don’t accept just anyone.”
“Is this like…a Saint Lumeria charity clinic?”
Those were institutes run by a well-known religious order that took in only those beset by particular illnesses who could not lead regular lives among other people. There were several places like that throughout the world.
Then, as Sharon closed the door, locked it, and was about to walk off, she paused and smiled for the first time.
It was an ironic, sad smile.
“We’re not altruists. The one I’m helping is a younger me.”
“Younger you…?”
Sharon did not answer and continued down the hall.
The building was old and rather run-down, but he could tell that it was still being carefully cleaned. After they passed several nearly empty, quiet rooms, Sharon stopped. None of the rooms had the luxury of a wooden door; they could see everything inside.
This room looked like a remodeled shed, and the children inside sat around a single adult, fervently writing on wooden boards.
“Sorry. Didn’t know you were in class.”
Col looked over Sharon’s shoulder as she called out into the room, and his gaze met the young man’s there, who was about the same age as himself. He could tell at a glance this person was a priest from his unique appearance. Judging by his clothes, he was likely a low-ranking pastor who dealt directly with the lives of the city people.
“Oh no, we were just about finished…But I don’t see you at this hour very often, Miss Sharon. And…who is this?”
Col realized it was not only the young man but all the other children in the room who were looking at him.
And those gazes were accompanied by a bad nervousness.
Col was bewildered by the reaction, but he then realized it was because of the clothes he was wearing.
“Don’t worry. He’s not a government official. Or part of a Church raid. He’s not an enemy,” Sharon said. “At least for now,” she added. “Come with us.”
She jerked up her chin, and while the young man seemed puzzled, he nodded and announced the beginning of the noon break to the children sitting around him. They seemed happy that their studies had ended early.
The children of varying ages left the room, not bothering to hide their curiosity as they stared at Col. They all moved to a different room, perhaps to the dining hall. There was still a small child sucking on his finger inside the room until a girl acting as his older sister pulled him along.
As Col watched the group depart, it felt like his surroundings suddenly fell silent.
“I don’t like kids much,” Sharon said, yet her expression seemed a bit softer. “And our guest here—this is the Twilight Cardinal.”
“Huh?”
It was not the young man who voiced his surprise but Col.
While he did not think the title was something to hide, he felt like revealing it to people was something that warranted a bit more structure.
And the young man before him was clearly a pastor. Right now, virtually all the places of worship in every town in the Winfiel Kingdom had their doors closed, and their chapels were open but unmanned. The crest of the Church had been removed even from the chapels in the parishes here.
That meant they were unable to hold religious services, and without religious services the benefices stopped coming and the clergy was unable to receive their salaries. He could believe that this young man was teaching here in order to earn his keep.
And here was Col, the person who was partly to blame for this young man’s suffering. In a sense, he was both a friend and an enemy, one who could bring about any kind of trouble to him.
It was just after he held his breath in fear.
A smile immediately spread across the young man’s face and he pushed Sharon aside, quickly approaching Col and tightly grasping both his hands.
“That means you translated the scripture into the common language, didn’t you?”
“Huh?”
“I have heard the rumors, yes! But more important than that was the feeling I got when I received a draft of the common-language translation—I felt like my eyes had been opened! I knew right away that this was the future of preaching!”
His hands being vigorously shaken up and down, Col found himself at a loss, but it at least did not seem as though the man bore him any ill will.
With excitement and a great big smile, the young man let go of Col and then bowed deeply and respectfully to Myuri, then shook her hand. Myuri was rather surprised, but she was smiling brightly.
Then, when Sharon cleared her throat, the young man seemed to realize how excited he had gotten and straightened himself out in shock.
“I—I got carried away. I’m sorry. My name is Clark, Clark Komenda. I am a curate of the twentieth parish in the Rausbourne archdiocese.”
He slowly held out his hand toward Col.
Col noticed a callus from writing on the man’s middle finger, and he recalled the book from the chapel.
“My name is Tote Col. I am not much more than a wandering student. I am still a bit embarrassed being called the Twilight Cardinal…But more importantly, were you the one who put the book in the chapel?”
Another bright smile immediately crossed Clark’s face.
“Yes!”
His smile was proud and kind yet, at the same time, had a weakness to it that made Col want to help him. He thought that maybe all of those who decided to walk the holy path shared a certain kind of idiocy, like Myuri had said before, but it was Sharon who explained the reason for that.
“After the benefices stopped coming in, Clark used up all his money on paper and ink, despite not even having enough bread to eat for himself, and has been handing out books to chapels here and there throughout the city. He is just like you, standing against those people from the cathedral.”
Clark gave a troubled smile, bashful in response to Sharon’s rough introduction of him.
Now that she had mentioned it, Col realized the weakness he sensed from Clark was a weakness as a living creature.
His skin was dull, which made h
is cheekbones stand out. The reason he wore such loose-fitting clothes was perhaps to hide how skinny he was.
“Please stop, Miss Sharon. The people from the parish have been bringing me things lately, so I’m not pressed for food.”
“You don’t look it. You’ve been giving your leftovers to the needy outside the orphanage, haven’t you?”
“Well, uh…But I’m also an enemy of the cathedral…”
Clark’s voice was frail, and he turned away.
Sharon sighed and looked to Col.
“People like him are the very few allies we have on the side of the Church. He even teaches reading and writing to the kids here.”
After glancing back and forth between Sharon and Clark, Col glanced to Myuri.
Myuri, who had been observing Clark’s lesson with great interest, noticed his gaze, but she did not look like she was on guard. It did not seem like Sharon and Clark were plotting anything nefarious against them for the time being.
“What sort of orphanage is this? Is this an institution under a religious order?”
There were almshouses, charity clinics, elderly care homes, and orphanages.
These sorts of institutions built in and outside of the cities were typically run by churches and religious orders.
If that was the case for this one, then it was rather odd that Sharon, a tax collector taking away the Church’s riches who was also an eagle avatar who wanted to drag the people of the Church out onto the street corner to string them up, could come and go freely.
“No, this is a private institution. My fellow tax collectors and I cover the expenses, and the rest is met by donations that Clark’s popularity brings in.”
That was a surprise.
Sharon loathed the Church, yet she placed a curate from the parish here to give the children an education. Not only that, but she had also said she was helping her younger self. That meant the children here had something in common with Sharon and the other tax collectors, but Col could scarcely come up with a reason that would explain it all.
That was why his guard was down.
Just like Myuri had said, he never saw the dark parts of the world.
“All the orphans here are illegitimate children of the Church.”
Wolf & Parchment: New Theory Spice & Wolf, Vol. 4 Page 9