Canaan was so excited, his eyes glistened with tears; Col grasped his hand firmly in turn.

  And the reason he felt something familiar about his excitement was because the hand in his was clearly much too hot.

  “—Oops.”

  And so he had a feeling, and his body reacted honestly. He wrapped his arms around Canaan to hold him in place before he fully collapsed, and it was then clear that the fervor was coming from an elevated body temperature.

  “Pardon him.”

  His guard, who had been snacking with Myuri, stood up in exasperation. He was a lot like a hunter, unable to get close to the boar caught in his trap due to the way it thrashed, and was waiting for it to calm down. The guard took Canaan from Col and hoisted him over his shoulder. It was most certainly resulting from that no matter how much he had reminded him to watch his health, Canaan had rushed and pushed himself all the way to Aquent.

  “It’s not so bad to see him being so lively,” the taciturn guard said and flashed an awkward smile. Perhaps he was comparing that to how gloomy Canaan was back in the Holy See. He then became expressionless again and gave a silent bow.

  Once Myuri opened the door, the guard shuffled away, carrying Canaan as his fever led him to believe he was still continuing the conversation. Myuri exited into the hallway to see them off, but when she returned and closed the door behind her, she did so with a sigh and a shake of her head. She looked to Col.

  “Are we sure he’s not a girl?”

  Though she had stopped insisting he marry her, it seemed as though she had not given up completely.

  She leaned into Col’s chest—he had caught Canaan in his arms to keep him from falling, after all—and sniffed, then clung to him and buried her face into him, as though she was keen on replacing the boy’s scent with her own.

  Once Myuri was finished reestablishing her territory, she started to worry for Canaan and visited his room to check on him. She asked if he needed anything, and she seemed rather displeased when the guard told her he would likely get better with some rest.

  While she saw Canaan as a threat to her territory to the point that she doubted if he was a girl or not, he was still a friend who looked at the map with her and spoke merrily of adventures at Eve’s manor before they departed for Aquent. It seemed Myuri understood how valuable it was to find a friend who she could share her passions with.

  Myuri kept giving Col pointed looks, and so he went to the innkeeper to ask for honey and fruit and other things that helped fevers resulting from hard travel.

  Myuri, who wanted to eat greasy meat even when she was sick, complained that such bird food would never bring anyone back to good health, but when the innkeeper handed her not a bill but a letter, she fell silent.

  “This just came in for you.”

  She took it in hand and they saw that the emblem on the wax seal was that of Eve’s company, but the paper was of fine parchment, which meant it was from Hyland. Myuri was excited to open it right away, so together they returned to the room and opened it to find the paper crammed with Hyland’s writing.

  “Let’s see… This is about the printing of the scripture.”

  Despite the expensive paper and the amount of money it had doubtlessly taken to send, the first half of the letter was filled with worry—is their journey comfortable, are they healthy, do they have enough money for the road, is Myuri eating enough delicious food. In the latter half, the point of the letter was tacked on almost as an obligation.

  “It says the test prints are going well and we should send paper as soon as we can.”

  Myuri peeked over Col’s shoulder and roughly tied it all together.

  “See? This is why we should just kick down the southern eagles as soon as possible.”

  Col thought Myuri had learned from Lutia’s perseverance how a nonhuman would live in the human world, but he could still see glimpses of her tail.

  That said, though Myuri hated tedious procedures, she was not the only one; Le Roi, too, had candidly warned Col that they could not help this city with its problems forever.

  “You heard Archivist Canaan’s suggestions, yes? This could be a big step for us, and the Debau Company’s response should be coming soon. Then Lutia will make her decision shortly after, I believe.”

  “Rrrgh…”

  Myuri’s mind was full of quick solutions to their problems—taking on her wolf form to chomp on everyone in their way, to tie letters to birds’ legs or a whale’s back to send them far beyond the mountains in an instant. In truth, she was very likely constantly suppressing her desire to run free and fast and wild—her nightly writings had gained a rough penmanship as a result of her displeasure, and she had grown just as restless in her sleep.

  “And, more importantly, I think we should inform Lutia of Archivist Canaan’s proposal once he has recovered… But we should look into whatever we reasonably can beforehand.”

  First, they would investigate the structure of the professors’ guild and their movements. It might also be a good idea to see just how corrupt Aquent’s church was as well. If it turned out the church was a den of evil that sought to make itself rich, then they may be overly suspicious and think they were the inquisition when they found out that Canaan and the other archivists began teaching in the city.

  As ideas on how to deal with these things, such as asking Le Roi for help, came to mind, Myuri remained staring at Hyland’s letter.

  “Are you upset it did not come with a tasty snack?” Col asked with a sigh.

  Myuri’s ears piqued and her tail rustled. “No! It just smells…”

  “It smells?”

  He recalled how she had tried to overwrite Canaan’s scent on him.

  He wondered if she would begin to pout again if she smelled Hyland’s excitement on the letter, but that did not seem to be the case.

  Myuri briefly rubbed her nose, brought it up to her face again, and inhaled deeply.

  “It smells like the sea…and wood that’s about to rot.”

  “Hmm?”

  “And like horses, and dry wind,” she murmured as her eyes closed, savoring the scents as though tasting fine wine.

  “It smells like…adventure.”

  The letter had been penned in Rausbourne, Winfiel, then sent on a boat, from which it was then packed onto a horse’s back, and subsequently traveled all the way to Aquent. Each step of the journey imbued it with a different smell, and Myuri could tell those complicated scents apart.

  “I wish Canaan had sent us a letter instead.”

  It was as though to say that her displeasure came from not having a letter that had made the journey from the Holy See to Aquent, carrying scents she could have gotten a whiff of.

  “Can you not tell from his scent?”

  “He smells like he’s been hunting deer for three days.”

  Excitement and exhaustion.

  “This is what letters smell like when they come from far away, huh?” she said, deeply moved. But then her ears suddenly flicked separately.

  “Hmm? But then… Wait a second…”

  She tilted her head, as though trying to recall something, but struggled.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing…”

  Col wondered if she had noticed the scent of a food she had never tried before on the letter, but Myuri quickly shook her head and assumed her usual attitude.

  “More importantly, we need to get going! I have to know what the desert smells like, Brother!”

  Though shocked by the sudden smile and declaration, Col’s calm judgment prevailed.

  “We are not going to the desert.”

  “………”

  Myuri froze, smile still on her face. He knew she was a dreamer, yet he collected his thoughts and nodded, knowing this was the only correct conclusion.

  As he kept his eyes on Hyland’s letter, he pulled out his quill, knife, and ink pot.

  “You were there when Archivist Canaan spoke, yes? The core of the Church is more unstable than we imagined, and I got the impression they are holding the ecumenical council as a last resort. Which means…” Col thought of what he might say to Hyland in his response as he carved off the tip of the quill with the knife. “It’s very likely we may be able to put an end to the conflict with the Church at the ecumenical council.”

  Since the Pope, too, had to obey the decisions made at the council, this was the perfect chance to put all the fighting to bed. That was why they had to spread the vernacular translation of the scripture far and wide, in order to put pressure on the Church, then head to the council fully prepared. If everything went well, they could end this conflict and force the Church to accept reform.

  They had no time to grasp at the nebulous idea that was the new continent, nor was there any need for them to go to the desert—not even Eve herself had been there in person.

  They had more immediate concerns.

  “Once we see a resolution to the problems in this city, we must secure the paper right away and return to the kingdom. There are signs that this drawn-out conflict with the Church is finally coming to an end. Many people will be expecting Church reforms. And that would mean our journey, too, would finally come to an end—”

  But he could say no more.

  “Our journey’s ending?!”

  The volume of her voice was surprisingly loud for how small her throat was, and Col could almost see sparks.

  He turned around to see Myuri staring at him with rounded eyes, shocked.

  “Our journey…ending…”

  The rambunctious girl was reacting as though the world itself was ending; Col was astonished at first, but he eventually gave her a grimace of a smile.

  “Not anytime soon. You’ll be all right.” He dipped his quill into the ink. “The ecumenical council is a large-scale thing, and it cannot be held today or tomorrow. And we’ll have to print many copies of the scripture, after which we’ll have to distribute to towns across the mainland. On top of that, we will need to recruit as many powerful allies as we can find to aid us at the council itself. You need not worry about our journey ending for a very long time. Our goal is in sight now, that’s all.”

  Despite laying it all out for Myuri, her reaction was still dulled.

  Perhaps this was the first time the young wolf had considered the truth not of when their journey would end, but that it would end one day, full stop.

  Despite how much more quick-witted she was compared with Col, she occasionally showed that she had a very simple view of the world. Everything was new to her when she first left her village of birth, and she had believed her fun adventure would last forever.

  Though her innocence was heartwarming in a way, Col felt a faint bitterness in his mouth, knowing he had thought similarly when he was a child, too.

  “Come now, we don’t have time to stand around gawking like that. First, we need to work with Lutia and the other wolves to save the children while we wait for the response from the Debau Company. We have a lot of important things left to do on this journey.”

  At that point, Myuri finally returned to the reality before her and away from the prospect that this journey might one day end.

  “But…what about the desert?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You said we’re not going to the desert.”

  Her resentment took the form of tears in her eyes and glinted faintly in the light.

  Just when Col thought her senses had come back from the distant end to their journey, now she was not happy with the direction their journey was going.

  “The desert was somewhere we would go if we were to earnestly pursue the new continent, but if the ecumenical council really is the—”

  “You said we’d go to the desert!” Myuri yelled, her voice loud enough to hurt Col’s ears, and erasing his voice in an instant. “Brother! You! Said! We would go to the desert!!”

  She grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him, the start of a very rare tantrum, the kind he had not seen in years.

  “The desert! The desert!”

  “Please, calm—calm down…! I cannot promise—if we’ll go, but as insurance for the ecumenical council, we’ll continue investigating the new continent… So please—stop—shaking—stop shaking me!”

  “Brother! The desert! You said we’d go! We are going! Okay?! Brother, please!”

  Myuri’s ears were visibly tense and the fur on her tail stood on end to the point that she looked as if she had been struck by lightning—and for the first time in a long time, it reminded Col of what she was like in the Nyohhira bathhouse.

  Once she was like this, his only choice was to let her burn herself out. And so he withstood the wolf pup shaking him and digging her nails into him and pulling him with the power of his faith alone, and he wished that she would grow up sooner than later.

  Just in the way Myuri was acting, as though nothing had happened after throwing such a tantrum the day before, Canaan, too, was reportedly full of boyish energy again, despite how feeble he had seemed.

  In the morning, his face was just as smooth as a freshly peeled egg once again.

  “I apologize for my disgraceful behavior yesterday,” Canaan said sheepishly, recalling the way he had been acting in the elation that came from his exhaustion, and his ears were red.

  That said, when compared with the way Myuri was whining, Canaan was the perfect picture of an upstanding gentleman.

  “Oh, no, please don’t worry about that… How are you feeling?”

  “Perfectly fine.”

  Canaan held himself proudly, as though to say he was ready to work at any time. Col glanced at his guard standing behind him, just for good measure, and the man gave him a defeated nod. He almost felt like the glum look on his face was looking for agreement, like a fellow puppy owner seeking sympathy for often facing a similar predicament.

  “Okay, then Canaan, you come with us to Lutia’s place, and we’ll kick the evil out of this city!”

  Col’s own puppy barked in excitement at the other puppy.

  “Yes! That is a wonderful idea. This is a place where one is meant to learn about all of God’s creations. It is unforgivable to think such evil that even He would look away from is taking place here!”

  This fanned the embers left over from yesterday, and Myuri’s coals burned hotter again.

  Despite how meek this boy looked, he had embraced a plan that others thought was impossible and left the dim archives to rush headlong into the outside world with nothing but courage in his heart. Not only that, but he never let the helplessness of his journey drag him down, and he kept walking. That was how he won his bet.

  Canaan’s enthusiasm came from an absolute confidence in what the future held, the kind only knights who won their battles had.

  “Archivist Canaan, I have something to tell you,” Col interjected before the two excited puppies. “A letter came from Heir Hyland. She told us the test printings of the scripture are going well.”

  Canaan was not surprised to hear the good news.

  He smiled broadly, as though the plan going smoothly was a predetermined outcome.

  “That is proof that God is on our side. Now, let us get going!”

  Col exchanged glances with the guard, and they both sighed, tired. That said, they had no reason to stop the elated Canaan, and the four of them made their way to the Green Gourd, where Lutia was staying.

  The reason Le Roi was not with them was because when they went to check on him in his room earlier, they found him conked out with a terrible hangover. After Hyland’s letter arrived the day prior, Col had penned the response right away while ignoring Myuri’s whining. He had gone to Le Roi’s room to ask him to send the reply using Eve’s commercial network, only to find the place stinking of alcohol. Myuri, with her keen nose, ran away in shock, and when Le Roi had realized he had visitors, he greeted them from his bed with a groan.

  He had apparently been done in at the caravan feast; he had attended the traders’ get-together, who had been traveling together for a very long time, to get information on their travels across the mainland. They traveled greater distances than any regular peddler might, which meant they were sturdier than bears, and ate and drank more than horses. And Le Roi found himself in such a state after taking part in their incessant drinking.

  Col left the letter with him, left the honey and fruit he had been planning to give to Canaan in his room, gave him a bucket of cold water, prayed for God to watch over him, and then closed the door to his room again. That had not been not long ago.

  The four of them headed out into Aquent. As always, it was a chaotic mess even first thing in the morning. There seemed to be young men rambling drunkenly, probably after drinking through the night. But in the commercial loading dock beside them, there was a white-bearded professor and his students, who had doubtlessly rented out the space, studying high-level theology questions and strict logic.

  Canaan had only ever known academic cities as things in books; his expression was constantly changing, from the shine in his eyes to the way his brows furrowed, and Col could not help but look on warmly. But he soon felt eyes on his cheeks, and he turned to see the rambunctious girl, sword at her hip, staring at him coolly, as though to say he was once like that.

  When they reached the Green Gourd, they found Lutia seeing off the boys heading to work to earn their keep, or those cheerfully rushing off, their study tools bound with twine and hanging from their shoulders.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she greeted them. “Who’s this?”

  Just as Col was about to introduce them, Canaan stepped forward and extended a hand.

  “My name is Canaan Jochaiem.”

  Lutia stared at him blankly, but then deftly grasped his hand in turn.

  “Lutia. Are you…a colleague of Col’s?”

  Anyone could tell at a glance from the way Canaan carried himself, that he was either an academic or ecclesiastic.

  “I work for God as a part of the Curia’s archival department.”

  Lutia’s eyes went even wider at the rest of Canaan’s self-introduction.

  She then turned to look at Col, as though warning him not to do anything malicious.

  “I was terribly shocked when I met Archivist Canaan for the first time as well.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24