“That is the very haughty nickname for this leader. They apparently lead a gang made up of students from the northlands. I suppose that the nickname is meant to represent the wilderness of the north.”

  Wolf crests, which had been in common use during the time of the ancient empire, had long since gone out of style. But unlike the well-developed south, things were different in the north—people still felt an affinity with wolves, where they still inhabited the deep forests that remained.

  The wolf was the perfect symbol of savage defiance.

  “All I know is that nickname, and that their gang is made up of poor students from the north. Their gang is fighting against student gangs comprised of wealthier students.”

  That gave Col the general picture.

  “So they’ve organized what is essentially a hometown association.”

  This was not the sort of unorganized gang Col saw when he was a child, one meant solely for violence and scams—these people had come together with intent and purpose.

  “Precisely. According to what I heard at the papermakers, they are like long-distance traders, protecting themselves in a foreign land where they have no one else to rely on, supporting one another, sharing expensive textbooks, tutoring one another—they are helping their people in this distant land.”

  “They’re like a band of knights!”

  Myuri’s eyes shone with delight. This was a traveler’s world, one that a girl who grew up in a remote mountain village had no way of knowing about. Col sighed, and Le Roi laughed.

  “Yes, now that you mention it, the Knights of Saint Kruza are also organized in companies based on place of origin, aren’t they?”

  “And that leader person knows a lot about the desert, right?”

  It was indeed the ideal situation for them, but as always, Col felt something was odd about it.

  “We heard about the same from another bookseller. He said this leader was the very last pupil of an old professor who used to give lessons on the desert.”

  “Yes, yes, I heard the same. I thought that was a rather odd coincidence.”

  It seemed Col was not the only one who thought there was a strangeness to this stroke of luck of theirs.

  It was silly to think someone had orchestrated this in order to trap them, but there was a strange sort of inevitability to all this—why was that?

  “That said, odd coincidences can be rather commonplace in one’s travels.”

  Col knew that comment did not simply come from Le Roi’s easygoing attitude, because he, too, had encountered great strokes of luck on his own journey.

  “And if I may be candid for a moment…,” Le Roi said, drawing a piece of rabbit meat toward himself before Myuri could take it. “Even if it did not align with our own goals, I believe we should help this Wise Wolf.”

  That was a surprising suggestion coming from the man who seemed to always keep a safe distance from the concept of selflessness.

  “What…do you mean?”

  The corpulent veteran bookseller sat up straight and said, “This Wise Wolf has collected all the poor students and is supposedly trying to protect them from being fodder for the rich students. Most importantly, the betting around books chosen to be textbooks has bled many fledging students dry. How many have opted not to buy the textbooks and instead given up on their studies, despite what innate talent they might have? Too many students have been taken in by empty words, saddled with tremendous debt due to the betting, forced to copy books until their bodies fall apart, and then ultimately end up perishing with little ceremony. It seems this Wise Wolf is trying to take down the evil, old-fashioned practice where the few always end up with all the money.”

  The reams of betting around the textbook market had also sent Col into the depths of debt.

  And Le Roi loved books and knowledge.

  As the bookseller spoke with a surprisingly earnest expression, the rambunctious girl licked her fish fat–slicked lips with a gleam in her eye.

  “Then we know what to do.”

  An intrepid smile crossed her face.

  “Knights are always allies of justice!” Myuri exclaimed.

  Something leaped to life in her expression, something that had not been drawn out in the jousting tournament.

  As their room in the inn grew dark and the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the streets below grew brighter and livelier.

  “There’s so many of them. Where were they hiding?” Myuri murmured.

  She sat on the chair she had brought to the window, gazing down on the street below. It was packed with so many boys and young men that she could not help but comment aloud. This was an impossible sight in most towns.

  “Alleyway wells, company storehouses, and taverns closed for the day typically act as lecture halls, so once it gets dark, they all come out to the streets.”

  “Like worms after the rain.”

  “Bookworms, you might say.”

  Myuri turned to look at him, expression soured by the turn of phrase.

  “But more importantly, Brother, why do we have to keep watch here while Mister Le Roi goes and takes a look around town? Shouldn’t it be the other way round if we’re looking for a fake wolf?”

  There was an individual out there with the insolent nickname of Wise Wolf, who was gathering students who hailed from the north. Regardless of their objectives and motives, that nickname did not sit very well with the real wolf girl.

  She deliberately called this person a fake as she rocked back in her chair. Col sighed.

  “Because I’m very anxious. Children your age are easy prey for these older boys. It doesn’t matter if you are dressed as a boy or not.”

  Myuri, who had been scolded for every little thing because she was a girl who would soon be a young woman, looked as though she had been ready to protest that she was dressed as a boy. But then she closed her open mouth.

  “And I am not doubting your capabilities as a knight. If anything, should you find yourself surrounded, then our problems will only get bigger precisely because you are so powerful. I know you would beat all of them with ease.”

  And that was why Le Roi was walking around the city looking for the rumored individual.

  After a moment of thought, debating internally whether she was being treated as a child or not, Myuri ultimately decided his logic was sound. Though she had her arms crossed in dissatisfaction and she swallowed her words, she eventually spat out her discontent.

  “Hmph. I can’t believe you actually survived in a place like this.”

  All she could do was stare down at the lively city as she snapped at him. And he replied to her with a sigh.

  “Because I earned quite a bit of money with donations and swindling, perhaps because I looked so weak and pitiful.”

  “………”

  Myuri looked at Col, then seemed oddly satisfied with that answer.

  “I bet everyone wanted to be nice to you when they saw you as a kid, not just Mother.”

  That did not sound like a compliment. He politely pushed Myuri’s hand away as she reached to pat him on the head with amusement before turning his own gaze outside.

  “And look, Myuri. At this time of day, the student gangs are putting on a demonstration.”

  They were alone in the room, and Myuri, of course, had her wolf ears and tail out. Myuri, sitting cross-legged on her chair, reached for the pointed wood pen and waxed board, then looked at Col.

  “You want to know what demonstration means in this context? It’s a…sort of march meant to assert a sphere of influence, I suppose.”

  Having learned a new word, she quickly wrote it down.

  “But this isn’t the territory of the people they’re attacking, right? All the boys at the table have really well-combed hair.”

  There were all sorts outside—some bickering over cards, some drank and walked around with their arms around one another, and some sat on the roadside, already drunk, but all of them were dressed better than average.

  “A good offense is the best defense.”

  “Huh?”

  Myuri knew her brother to be well-mannered, the sort to turn up his nose at any sort of conflict. And so she blinked when she heard an unexpected word come from his mouth.

  “It is an old trick to attack the enemy’s territory in order to preserve your own.”

  Candlelight spilled from shops and streetside torches burned brightly, illuminating the youths as they made merry outside, as though intoxicated by nightmares. When Col continued to speak, he pictured finding his younger self among them, finally getting to eat his first meal of the day.

  “On blocks where they’re still in control, young students will go around from house to house with near empty bowls, only a piece of dried herring or something of the sort inside. They then say, Excuse me, today is my birthday, please could you at least give me enough change to buy bread so this herring tastes better. But of course, every coin would be taken by those controlling them.”

  At last, he spoke of a time he had never mentioned to Myuri back when they were in Nyohhira, not even when she asked.

  When he was a student, he had been so desperate to survive that it did not quite register as an evil act to him. But thinking back on it now, everyone in town knew what was going on, which made it two, three times worse. Now, he better understood the expressions of all those people who were sympathetic and gave him coins and food.

  Had he simply stopped by for a bit, he certainly would never have imagined this darker side of the world.

  As he blankly stared down at the hustle and bustle below, he suddenly felt a warmth on his back.

  “…Tell me more stories like that, Brother.”

  Though he could not see her face as she plastered herself against his back, he could tell from the way her tail was moving out of the corner of his eye that she was angry.

  She pressed her forehead firmly to his back and continued. “Even though I can’t be nice to the kid version of you anymore.”

  Though she was always critical of him, calling him a fool and an idiot, Col wondered for a brief moment if she regretted doing so, now that she knew how much he had been through.

  But he corrected himself, as that was not quite it. He could tell by the faint anger in her tone.

  Myuri wanted to be equal to him—someone who was not always being protected, but someone who did the protecting sometimes, too.

  When he considered how he would not have told her about this when they were in Nyohhira, even though he did occasionally share his stories of hardship from his travels with her, he realized he had come to recognize Myuri as a partner on his journey, more than he realized.

  “I know. Now, I can tell you these stories, and you can perhaps accept what happened with me.”

  “Exactly. Because I’m a knight.”

  She lifted her head from his back, so he could finally turn to look at her. And there, he saw a version of her that was much more gallant than how he remembered her in Nyohhira.

  A knight’s spirit was also the spirit of companionship, to be considerate of one’s comrades.

  “But you need to be a bit more of an adult if you’d like for me to think of you as reliable.”

  The reason he reached out and placed his hand on her head was partially to admonish her for trying to act too grown up, but also partly because of a faint feeling of ruefulness after seeing firsthand the dazzling process of her growing up.

  Myuri smacked his hand away and thwacked his back.

  “You’re so mean, Brother.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

  As he soothed the pouting girl, she looked away from him in a huff, but her fluffy tail wrapped around his leg. It was much more difficult not to laugh at this, but once the little knight had cheered up a bit, it was her wolf ears that reacted first.

  “Someone’s making a commotion.”

  She lurched toward the window, searching for the right direction.

  “There.”

  She pointed. As he reached to pull up her hood to hide her ears, the noise soon reached his own ears.

  A wave of excitement rippled through the crowd of students.

  “Perhaps the students they’re looking for are here.”

  The city was apparently divided in half—on one side, the poor students from the north, and on the other, the rich students from the south.

  Patrons of this particular inn were booksellers, and they typically sold their books to rich clients.

  Which meant the district this inn sat in was right in the center of the southern students’ territory; all the students gathered here stood on their chairs and looked toward the source of the commotion like wild dogs.

  Was this an attack on their base by an enemy?

  They were uncharacteristically quiet, holding their breath as they watched the people in the street below.

  And then, like a signal fire, someone shouted.

  “He’s getting away! The kid’s running!”

  Myuri’s ears pricked up—she had just learned what sort of connotations came with the word kid in this city. Col watched as she immediately grabbed her sword and stuck it in her belt. He hesitated but did not stop her because he eventually grabbed his own cloak. And it was not due to a wise analysis or a considered thought that he should look deeper into the darkness of this city if he wanted to know more about it.

  He was simply spurred on by the memories brought back from hearing “The kid’s getting away,” and the anger that bubbled up with it.

  “Myuri.”

  “I know!” said the silver knight as they dashed from the room.

  The kids were younger students, their boyishness still apparent in their faces. They were the property of older boys before they were anything else, including being students. They typically had no relations, so when they came to these academic cities in search of help, they often ended up in the clutches of the devil.

  While some of the older boys had been hapless kids themselves, most of them were princelings whose parents were members of the nobility or rich merchants. As such, they used people without a shred of guilt, likely stemming from having grown up watching their parents do the same.

  They had either used up all of their allowance sent to them, or had been abandoned by parents who could no longer stand their excessive debauchery; and so, by keeping children under their control, they wielded power and wealth like petty kings.

  And that was likely the reason why the Wise Wolf had taken a stand and formed a group for students from the north, who were often fodder for these schemes.

  “He’s biting the hand that feeds him! He’s gonna bilk his debt! Find the kid, now!”

  The boys grabbed whatever sticklike objects they found around them, and with undaunted smiles and excitement, as though heading out for a hunt, they began crawling through the streets. Those who remained seated, quietly drinking their booze, were either boys who were much better dressed than the rest, or young men who were all too used to the commotion.

  The stray dogs were howling in the excitement, and the roaming pigs and chickens that had been snoozing on the side of the road began to run about in confusion. Taverns quickly began to put away things they did not want broken, and the company houses put menacing-looking bouncers outside of their buildings, perhaps wary of looting. Local residents were the ones who tightly shut the windows they had opened for some fresh air—they were sick of the noise.

  “Brother? Does this happen all the time?”

  Col was shocked to see how well-behaved Myuri was in contrast to the scale of the commotion.

  “They say that even kings give up trying to govern academic cities.”

  It was often accepted as truth that one of the reasons why many of these academic cities were independent was precisely because of the students’ reckless behavior.

  “Nothing good ever happens when there are too many boys.”

  Myuri was like the brackish waters where the river met the sea. Despite being such a tomboy, she occasionally spoke just like any other girl.

  “You said you knew where the territory lines were. If this kid were to run, it would probably be toward an opposing gang’s territory. If we want to help, then maybe we should wait there.”

  “Like how an enemy of the enemy is a friend?”

  “Like how a chicken escapes to the house it belongs to.”

  Myuri frowned, craning her neck as her ears flicked under her hood. “This way,” she said, and ran. The local students likely knew where the kid might hide, and they would likely be gathering there. Myuri latched onto the sound of the boys running, then matched it against the map she had made in her mind when they had taken a look around earlier in the day.

  “But more importantly,” she said, running down an oddly quiet alleyway that had no light to guide them. “Should I say that I’m a knight when we save the kid?”

  “………”

  The rambunctious girl was, at heart, not much different than the boys causing the commotion.

  “Absolutely not.”

  He could see her irritated expression in the darkness, and just as he felt the frustration at her typical attitude bubble, there came a yell from someone young nearby.

  “Myuri?”

  “This is bad. I think they found the kid that ran.”

  With mounting nausea, Col could imagine exactly why the kid ran just from hearing the words escaped and debt alone. He could already picture what sort of fate awaited him if he were caught.

  “Brother, if you can’t keep up, just keep running with the moon on your right-hand side!”

  The wolf girl, who could run through the mountains without getting lost on nights of the new moon, sped up and vanished into the dark of the alleyway. Luckily, Col knew the direction from which the commotion was coming, and at the very worst, he could wait until dawn, but of course, he had a thought or two on the ungainly way he plodded after Myuri.

  “I should have…joined her…in sword training…”

  And when he thought about it, he had recently felt how lacking he was in physical fitness. Daydreams alone were not enough to allow him to fight against reality. He breathed raggedly as he ran, and the indistinct yelling of the tumult soon became discernable words.

 

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