Wolf & Parchment: New Theory Spice & Wolf, Vol. 8, page 1
Copyright
WOLF & PARCHMENT, Volume 8
ISUNA HASEKURA
Translation by Jasmine Bernhardt
Cover art by Jyuu Ayakura
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
SHINSETSU OKAMI TO KOSHINRYO OKAMI TO YOHISHI Vol. 8
©Isuna Hasekura 2022
Edited by Dengeki Bunko
First published in Japan in 2022 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2024 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hasekura, Isuna, 1982– author. | Bernhardt, Jasmine, translator. | Ayakura, Jyuu, 1981– artist.
Title: Wolf & Parchment : new theory Spice & Wolf / Isuna Hasekura ; translation by Jasmine Bernhardt ; cover art by Jyuu Ayakura.
Other titles: Shinsetsu ookami to koshinryo: ookami to youhishi. English
Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2017–
Identifiers: LCCN 2017035577 | ISBN 9780316473453 (v. 1 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975326203 (v. 2 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975326555 (v. 3 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975359560 (v. 4 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975321727 (v. 5 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975340438 (v. 6 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975352264 (v. 7 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975369583 (v. 8 : paperback)
Subjects: CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Fantasy. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Historical.
Classification: LCC PZ7.H2687 Wo 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035577
ISBNs: 978-1-9753-6958-3 (paperback)
978-1-9753-6959-0 (ebook)
E3-20240424-JV-NF-ORI
PROLOGUE
The translated scripture lying open before Col scarcely registered in his mind.
Perhaps that was partly due to the lingering echoes of the grand jousting tournament. Another possible reason was the preparations for the printing of the scripture, which had started in earnest after the tournament concluded.
Either way, there was one clear cause.
And that would be the girl beside him. Her swishing tail, her shining eyes, and the way her quill flew across the page.
“Myuri, you are sitting too close.”
Despite how many times he pressed a finger to her forehead to bring her face back up, she sank back down a few moments later without fail. The recent jousting tournament turned out to be the perfect inspiration for the rambunctious girl who loved nothing more than spending all her time writing fantastical tales of knights. No matter how much she wrote, it was never enough. She was hunched over the page as though all those joyous memories would fade if she did not write them down fast enough.
When the excitement of the tournament had reached its peak, she completely forgot she was supposed to be acting as a saint and leaped over the barrier that surrounded the seats of the most distinguished guests, waving her arms around and generally making a big fuss. Col remembered staring up to the sky in bewilderment—she had finally started acting like a proper young lady before this latest uproar. He also distinctly recalled the color of the sky being dulled from all the dust.
But perhaps it would not be so terribly awful if Myuri concentrated on her tales of knighthood.
As she sat folded over the page, looking like she was ready to leap into the paper itself, her silver hair threatened to spill onto the still-wet ink. Col reached to brush it away, but sighed—the cord around his wrist caught his eye. The cord drooped from his wrist, and if he were to follow its trail, he would find the other end tied to Myuri’s sash.
Myuri had at first attempted to tie the cord around his neck, but he eventually managed to get her to fasten it around his wrist instead.
She refused to remove it—not during meals, not during sleep, not even for baths.
If anything, she insisted on clinging to his clothes whenever her hands were not otherwise occupied by quills or food.
Col stared at her as she thought of nothing but writing down her wild knights’ tales, and thought of the moment she tied the cord to him.
“The second I take my eyes off you, you’re going to get kidnapped by more shady people.”
This was a line an elder brother would typically say to their younger sister, but he had absolutely no room to argue. Though it was the result of a simple misunderstanding or perhaps just bad timing, Col had been kidnapped from their inn, which caused Myuri plenty of undue worry.
No one would tell him how frightened she had been at the time, and everyone managed to dodge the question with vague replies. And so he allowed Myuri to do as she pleased, thinking of it as his recompense. At the same time, he still was not used to this arrangement.
It brought to mind the phrase “bonded pair” and Col could not help but recall how Myuri had constantly demanded he take her as his wife at the very beginning of their journey. To think they would one day be literally bound together…
Myuri, whose sash was also tightly bound to the cord, seemed rather pleased by this arrangement.
“Good grief.”
Col did not know if what he said was meant for Myuri, or for himself in a roundabout way. Then he noticed the way Myuri’s forehead was practically touching the paper, so he used his finger to bring her back up again.
CHAPTER ONE
Upon hearing that it would be a cast in metal, Col had initially pictured a stone oven that towered over him, in which great amounts of lumber and coal were burned while large, muscular men operated the bellows. But that was mainly for manufacturing metal or glass; lead, on the other hand, was not nearly as troublesome. Improvised hearths in temporary workshops were not like the bread ovens he had been imagining. It was more like a sarcophagus with a lid, similar to ones used to roast pigs.
Myuri was curious and intrigued by everything, so it was not surprising when she went over to get a closer look at the crucible over the furnace and the bellows made from a cow bladder that were connected to the furnace’s vent. The smiths explained how everything worked.
It was only now that she undid their cord. Even so, she had given him strict orders to not leave her sight for even a moment as they walked around the temporary workshop.
Yet when she watched how the lead melted within the crucible, or when she whipped around in delight whenever the bellows sent embers into the air, Col began to have doubts that she wanted him nearby just to keep an eye on him.
Regardless, Jean, the former artisan who had been pursued by the Church, and the other workers under his command were working smoothly. It was not long before they began experimental casts for the letter stamps that would be used in the printing. Normally, after pouring molten lead into molds carved by metalsmiths, the next step would be to carefully refine the product. They had something different in mind for the first stamp they made, which was for the very first letter of the scripture. Once Jean inspected the quality of the cast, he proceeded to dip it right into some waiting ink.
All eyes in the workshop were fixed on the stamp as it was pressed onto the paper. The result was a rather ugly-looking letter. There was nothing about it that betrayed signs of witchcraft, but Col could clearly sense it was the product of a new age.
“Hey, Brother. Isn’t my writing nicer than that?”
Only the fearless Myuri shared her thoughts out loud when she quietly whispered into his ear.
Once the print preparations began in earnest, Col felt compelled to check his translation of the scripture with more care than ever. If he made a mistake, it would be copied over and over again with incredible precision.
And though Myuri complained about the legibility, she had been greatly inspired by the birth of a technology that had never been seen before in this world. The sights she had seen at the recent jousting tournament, coupled with the stories she heard during rowdy nights and a technology that defied God’s wrath, helped her weave a truly grand adventure.
That was how brother and sister came to sit together at their desk, lost in their wor k. While both were very dedicated, they had been careless and not realized there was no one left to admonish them for neglecting everything else. In fact, when their prominent associates returned to Rausbourne on business after the jousting tournament, Col and Myuri had completely forgotten they had been tasked with looking after the monastery in their absence.
Hyland had gone to Rausbourne to hold an official banquet, one that would announce to the world that the heirs fighting for the Winfiel throne had finally reconciled. Clark accompanied her as the future head abbot of the monastery.
Young Canaan, who came from the Holy See with the plan to mass-produce the scripture, had watched Jean passionately revive once-forbidden printing technology. This inspired him to return to his home at the papal archives to inform the other archivists that the plan they thought impossible was coming to fruition. He was very likely on a ship at that very moment.
Le Roi, the bookseller, was conducting business with the nobles who had attended the jousting tournament while they were still in Rausbourne, all while gathering information on the new continent.
Sharon, the eagle spirit, quickly made sure things were squared away after the tournament and then made a quick stop in Rausbourne like the others. She needed to procure supplies and people for the temporary workshop that would be established on the monastery grounds. She also needed to secure materials needed for building repairs, as well as a mountain of other daily necessities for the workers who would be staying on the grounds. That then brought her to Eve, who was taking orders for precisely these things.
This was how the theologian who was very little help in practical business, and the girl who was perfectly happy to swing a sword when she was not penning every story that popped into her head, had both been left to their own devices at the monastery-slash-workshop.
And when Sharon returned, Col understood by the look on her face that they were more unsuited for the job than he had originally imagined.
“…Before anything else, you two need a bath.”
This was the first thing she said when Col came out to greet her as she returned at the head of a caravan overflowing with supplies. There was so much that she carried a mountain of it on her back like a traveling peddler.
One glance at Myuri confirmed her face was smeared with ink. The rambunctious girl cocked her head questioningly, pressed her nose to his side, took a good sniff, then rudely pinched her nose shut. If he smelled, then Myuri was partially responsible, considering how she clung to him every night.
“Have you had a proper meal?”
Col, shaking his head, had been about to follow Myuri to the well, but Sharon’s flat tone stopped him.
“I…I think I did?”
After thinking on it for a few moments, he realized he had no memory of eating. Sharon sighed and jerked her chin toward the well.
“I peeked into the workshop and those fools were totally absorbed in their work, too. You’re all the same. Go fetch the others. I’ll make some food.”
When Sharon scolded him, Col simply bowed his head and did exactly as he was told.
Many found Sharon rather brusque. But the way she cared for the children at the orphanage revealed a softer side, and she was very good at looking after others. She must have anticipated the absolute state of the monastery, for she had had the foresight to enlist the aid of some children from the orphanage in Rausbourne to help prepare the massive meal. The ease with which she organized the efforts made her seem like a nun who served as the backbone of a monastery.
By the time Col and Myuri were done cleaning themselves with water from the new well dug by the workers, the central square had transformed into a food line.
“Ha-ha, everyone has a beard now.”
Myuri laughed at seeing so many people who could’ve been mistaken for common bandits concentrating on nothing but filling their bellies and knowing these were the same people who were devoted to printing the scripture. This was definitely their first proper meal in a long time.
“You don’t really have a beard, Brother.”
He was capable of growing a bit of facial hair if he neglected to shave, but Myuri had always seemed to expect him to grow a big, fluffy one. When he had shaved a little earlier, she made a big fuss about the wasted potential.
“I do admit, I like the thought of stroking my beard while lost in thought,” Col said.
“Then when it’s long, I’ll braid it for you,” Myuri offered with delight. Col decided that he would perhaps continue to refrain from growing out his beard.
In another display of wise sensibility, Sharon had purchased a great deal of bread in Rausbourne. She sauteed mutton and garlic in a big pot hanging over the furnace they had used to melt the lead, then heaped it onto bread rolls. It was rich and filling, and after washing it down with a bit of wine, Col felt all the tension drain from his body. It was only then that he finally realized how tired he was. He also spotted Myuri lying down in a corner of the square, napping alongside the other workers.
“You people really would work yourselves to death if no one’s there to pull you back, huh? Clark’s exactly the same.”
Sharon reprimanded Col for his self-neglect due to work, and he could only draw up his shoulders in response.
“Yes, it is rather shameful… Your return could not have been timelier, Miss Sharon,” Col said.
Sharon snorted, watching the children clean up the serving line as she said, “The Twilight Cardinal, a household name, is just a handful of a child.” It took three children to carry the big pot holding all the mutton and garlic. Once Sharon saw they had a safe handle on it, she turned back to Col. “Rumors calling you a savior are starting to pop up around Rausbourne.”
Col was not entirely sure if that was true, considering the mischievous grin Sharon wore on her face, but he could still picture it.
“They say it was the Twilight Cardinal, acting on God’s behalf, who reconciled the bickering princes, and that the jousting tournament was just a pretense.”
Sharon beamed as Col sighed.
“You know it was nothing nearly as elegant as that… The whole idea was simply the result of me panicking, trying to think of a way to keep Myuri from ripping out Heir Klevend’s throat for kidnapping me.”
What’s more, the kidnapping was the result of a mistake—Heir Klevend was not a bad person. The reason Col had gone to such pains was not to protect himself, but to keep his kidnapper from the maw of the wolf.
But the average person had no knowledge of this. All the world knew was that the second prince, previously rumored to be fomenting rebellion to seize the throne, had finally reconciled with the first prince. No one was willing to believe such a miracle could happen so easily.
Of course, Col did not publicly take credit for this, nor did Heir Klevend and his men mention anything of the sort. But when people heard that Hyland, mediator of the princes, had sat among the tournament’s guests of honor, many were convinced the Twilight Cardinal must have been acting behind the scenes.
“Hyland told you not to attend the reconciliation banquet at Rausbourne, right? She’s sharp. If word got out you were in the city, the people would be mobbing you by now.”
Col felt a faint pang of disappointment when he saw how brightly Sharon smiled. He had indeed left Nyohhira saying this and that about righting the Church’s wrongs, about bringing God’s teachings back to a chaotic world. Now, with his renown growing by the day, he felt more and more like the mounting pressure was threatening to overwhelm him.
Canaan had also brought up the absurd suggestion of becoming a bona fide saint, but considering how his name was treated now, Col was almost certain he would never live in peace again if he actually attained sainthood.
Ignoring his dejection, Sharon suddenly said, “Right. I have something for you.”
She left the hall to retrieve a large leather sack from all the cargo piled out front—it was big enough for Myuri to fit in. Despite its size, Sharon carried it easily, and though he understood how when he looked inside, it also raised new questions.
“Letters? Why so many?”
There were too many for Hyland to have written all of them, even given what a worrywart she was. Moreover, many of them were noticeably extravagant.
“If you think you’ve earned popularity beyond your station, then I hate to say that pup has you beat.” Sharon gestured with her chin toward where Myuri had curled up for an after-meal nap.
