CHAPTER ONE

As the sun rose, the church bell rang loudly.

It was the sound that signaled the opening of the market and an announcement that another day had begun.

Of course, working artisans and merchants had been going about their business long beforehand, but they seemed a bit hesitant prior to the bell chime. Afterward, there was no need to keep voices low or mind footsteps. Though it was the middle of winter, all the windows in every house were open, and even the children of noble families who drank too much the night before would be chased from their beds.

Once the echoing of the bell faded away, Col closed the scripture and inhaled deeply.

“Myuri!”

He called her name, and for just a brief moment, the mound of blanket atop the bed wavered in protest. He thought for a second that she would awaken, but she immediately fell silent again.

He sighed and stood up from the chair, then pulled back the blanket that covered the sleepyhead staying with him.

“Ugh…”

With the bright morning light pouring over her, the silver ball of fur curled up even tighter. It was a young girl, her hair a curious hue, like flecks of silver mixed with ash, and she hugged a warm-looking ball of fur that ran with the same color.

Myuri had stowed away in Col’s luggage when he left the bathhouse that had cared for him for ten years in the hot spring village of Nyohhira. Now she was shivering while covering her head with her arms to block out the bright morning sun. It was a sight he often saw back at the bathhouse.

“…It’s cold…”

He could hear a reproachful voice from the face pressed against the bed. He could also see animal ears poking out from between her arm and her head, which someone else could have easily mistaken for a sort of fur hat.

“You will quickly warm up once you get up and eat breakfast.”

“…”

Myuri fell silent in protest, but he suddenly heard a quiet rumble. It seemed her body reacted on its own upon hearing the word “breakfast.” Col had known Myuri since she was a baby, and he knew how to handle her. He cleared his throat once and spoke as he folded the blanket.

“I’ll start by putting some rye bread on the stove.”

“…”

The animal ears poking out from behind Myuri’s arm twitched.

“At the same time, I’ll sprinkle rock salt onto some fatty bacon and fry it with onions. Perhaps I should add a clove or two of the leftover garlic from last night?”

Her tail shivered in her own grip, and she squirmed in her curled position.

“Once the smell of garlic fills the air and enough fat drips from the bacon, I’ll add a fresh egg. Fshhh…”

He could hear her gulp.

“After scrambling the egg a bit, once it sticks to the juicy bacon, I’ll remove it from the heat and place it on the warm bread before the yolk hardens completely. And once the soft-scrambled egg and the salty fat from the bacon soak into the bitter yet slightly sour rye bread…Yum.”

“Aaaghh!”

Myuri gave up and released herself from her ball, sitting up.

“Brother, you bully! You don’t even have any food like that!”

“Breakfast itself is a luxury. We still have pork sausage from last night.”

He placed the folded blanket onto the bed, and he could tell that she was tempted to fall back asleep, but she was now completely focused on breakfast. She glumly slipped off the bed and sneezed loudly.

“Here, fix your hair and your clothes.”

“…Hachoo! …Sniffle. It’s too much work. I want to eat breakfast here…”

“This is not the bathhouse, and we are not patrons. Go to the kitchen yourself.”

He spoke calmly, and Myuri pouted, reluctantly changing out of her clothes. Though Col treated her like his actual sister, having cared for her since she was a baby, Myuri was getting to be that age. He turned his back to her as she changed.

“Okay, Brother, I’m ready!” she called out to him grumpily, and he looked back over his shoulder.

She had a rabbit fur cape wrapped around her shoulders, bear fur wrapped around the waist where her trousers cut off at the hips, and linens on her legs that emphasized the lines of her body.

It was a look that stood out even in a busy port town.

Col could still see something in particular that would draw the gazes of others, so he quietly pointed it out.

“Your ears and tail.”

Then Myuri patted the animal ears and tails before they disappeared. They were not fake, but actually a part of her. It was a characteristic of what would be called demonic possession in human society, and it was because her mother was the embodiment of a wolf who resided within wheat.

Though Myuri was an incorrigible tomboyish prankster that he could do nothing about, he could say with conviction that God had not cursed her. Moreover, since she could voluntarily hide her ears and tail, it wasn’t too much trouble for her to live alongside humans. However, if she became angry, surprised, or experienced other large swings in emotion, it wasn’t uncommon for her ears and tail to pop out on their own.

“Is this okay?”

He shrugged, and Myuri copied him.

“Aw, I’m hungry. I’ll do my hair later…”

She placed her small hands onto her stomach, and the ends of her eyebrows drooped. If her tail was out, it would have definitely been sagging lifelessly. She passed in front of him, and just as he considered seeing her off, she suddenly grabbed his sleeve and pulled him forward.

“What? Wh-what are you doing?”

Just as he was about to fall over, Myuri turned back to him in exasperation.

“What do you mean, what? It’s my turn.”

“…Your ‘turn’?”

Col was perplexed as Myuri gracefully hugged his arm. She beamed a cloudless smile at him from below his shoulders.

“This is a contest, and it has to be fair. No hogging allowed.”

Myuri smiled at him innocently, but he did not know what she was talking about.

Contest? Hogging?

His efforts to try and piece those words together went unnoticed as she intertwined her fingers with his.

The reddish-amber eyes she inherited from her mother glinted, ready.

“Did you forget? The contest between me and God. Who are you going to fall in love with first—me or God?”

“…”

Myuri was around twelve years old, and her smile was still filled with innocence.

Just like a real sister, he had cared for her since she was a baby, but he had just learned a few days ago that she had, at some point, begun to see him as a member of the opposite sex.

For ages, she professed her love for him, and he knew that she admired him, of course. He never doubted his relationship with Myuri. However, it was a different story when it came to her liking him in that way.

Above all, he was someone who aspired to be a priest, and he had sworn vows of abstinence. Therefore, it was not possible to answer Myuri’s feelings. He had explained this to her clearly.

She was smart, understanding the logic completely. It was pointless to indulge her feelings and throw temper tantrums. The problem was that Myuri was also too clever, and she would continue on the path of what she considered right without any hesitation.

“It’s not like we’re related by blood. There’s no problem if we like each other, so I just have to get you to like me more than God, right?”

She explained her rationale calmly. When he voiced his rejection, Myuri had not been sad or upset, nor did she begin to doubt their relationship and act awkwardly. As always, she would slip into his covers during the night, cling to him at every opportunity, and her ears and tail, wagging happily, would be out whenever she could manage. Rather, it was as though she stopped holding back once she made her feelings known. Her displays of affection were even more intense than they had been back in Nyohhira as she practically threw herself at him.

In the face of this, a priest’s vows of abstinence seemed like nothing more than sheltering in the shade of a tree to escape the intense midsummer sun bearing down on him. To top it all off, Myuri was even planning to cut down that tree. With the intelligence she inherited from her parents, she had come to one conclusion after reading the scripture from top to bottom.

Though priests were not supposed to give in to bodily desires, laypersons were not forbidden from loving priests. In short, as long as the priest himself did not try anything, there was no problem. What’s more, Col had indeed sworn vows of abstinence, but he was still not a full-fledged priest!

Col did not have anything in his arsenal to fight back against such an argument.

The logic was sound after all.

“Come on, let’s go have breakfast! It’ll be way more fun than talking to a God who won’t ever listen to a single prayer of yours!”

Though she spoke confidently in such a faithless manner, she was generally correct, and it made his head hurt. He looked down at her smiling face out of the corner of his eye and spoke wearily.

“If we want to discuss who listens to me less, then you may be winning in that regard.”

“But as long as you can touch me, I haven’t lost.”

Her tail, which should have been put away, was swishing happily, and her head was pressed against his chest, not minding if her animal ears bent.

There was not a single hint of sexual attraction in her actions; a child’s crush was exactly what it was.

However, he remembered how hard she worked to take care of him after he collapsed from exhaustion these past few days. In his hazy bouts of consciousness, he occasionally saw her praying expression, and he could not imagine that was insincere. He could also take her onslaught of affection as an indicator of how much she had worried about him. When he thought about that, it was even more difficult to act indifferent.

“Right, Brother?”

“…Very well.”

She pressured him, and he responded with a sigh.

“However…”

He changed the tone of his voice, and Myuri quickly loosened her grip on his arm. She knew that he would get angry with her, and she did not want to do anything that upset him.

There was no doubt that she was a good girl.

“Your ears and tail are still out.”

“Oh.”

She hurriedly patted her head while retracting her ears, then tapped her tail, making it disappear.

As she did so, Col walked to the door, reaching for the knob.

“And one more thing,” he said as he opened the door, Myuri jogging up to him. “Don’t eat too much.”

She widened her eyes blankly at him, then grinned, baring her fangs.

“Okay.”

That was most certainly a hollow promise.

He did not feel like being cross with her; she really did have him in the palm of her hand.

They exited into the hallway, and as the door closed behind them, Myuri’s small hand naturally slipped into his.

He sighed, and she beamed a cheerful smile.

It was another lively day for the Debau Company trading house they were staying at.

There were many jobs that had to be done in such a large company, and it was rather flexible when it came to taking breaks. Anyone who sat at one of the tall, worn-out tables by the wall in the kitchen could watch the errand boys and experienced merchants stream in when they managed to find a free moment and eat while standing before heading to their next job.

Among all the hustle and bustle, whenever the errand boys came in, their eyes would widen as they saw Myuri leisurely dipping bread into her soup.

Rather than being captivated by her elegance or extravagance, they were surprised because Myuri had worked as an errand boy for the trading house for a short while. It seemed they were surprised that one of the friends they worked together with was actually a girl.

“I did the best work, and I was the bravest.”

Myuri puffed out her chest in pride, but when Col thought about how she would soon be of marriageable age, he wished she would be a bit more ladylike.

“Hurry and finish eating.”

“What? But you always get mad when I eat fast.”

She pouted.

“…That is because you would always have meat in one hand and bread in the other like a bandit, stuffing it into your face all at once, then going to play in the mountains.”

It was written all over her face how much of a pain she thought his remarks were as she scraped the bottom of the bowl with her bread and tossed it in her mouth.

“But you have nothing better to do, right? All the commotion in town’s died down.”

That commotion was exactly what had caused him to collapse from exhaustion and the reason why they had come to the port town of Atiph in the first place. The issue was the standoff between the Church that headed the world’s grandest religion and the Kingdom of Winfiel that stood against it.

The Church, holding the same seat of authority for a thousand years, had forgotten the meaning of faith and instead wielded its power to satisfy personal desires. Needless to say, the clergy indulged in debauchery and other transgressions. They extracted taxes at every opportunity and exploited their privileges. Lately, they had been drawing the ire of the entire world due to their tithes, originally levied to pay for a holy war against the pagans, which were still being pried out of the people’s hands even though that war ended.

Thus, the Kingdom of Winfiel finally stood up to the Church’s tyranny, spurring Col to leave the rural mountain hot spring village of Nyohhira to become a collaborator in the kingdom’s efforts.

Then he and Myuri got caught up in a big incident right as they were attempting to persuade the church of the port town Atiph, but somehow, it all managed to end up being okay.

“I do have better things to do. After this, I must go to the church and help Heir Hyland.”

Hyland, an illegitimate child of the king of Winfiel, was a respectable noble of royal blood who had directly asked Col for help. She had a virtuous will and, despite the overwhelming odds in the aforementioned incident, had calmly put her own life at risk for the sake of her faith.

If everything Col had learned deep in the mountains could be of some help, he wished to use it in service of a person like her—someone who embodied his ideals.

“Aw, what?”

However, when Myuri heard Hyland’s name, she made a clear frown.

“You don’t have to go…That blondie said so herself. You should concentrate on getting better. So after this, we should take a walk in town or even rest in the room.”

She called Hyland “that blondie.”

He wondered why she disliked her so much. Perhaps it was because Hyland was a beautiful woman who dressed as a man.

It vexed him, but it seemed that his respect and vassal-like attitude toward Hyland looked quite similar to love for Myuri.

“I have spent an entire week in bed. And there is a mountain of things that need to be done in order to correct the wrongdoings of the Church.”

“Hmph.” Myuri snorted, uninterested, as she splayed her upper body on the table.

“Of course, if you decide to quit this troublesome journey and return to Nyohhira, I will allow you to do so.”

Still bent over, she lifted her head and glared at Col for his comment.

During the whole commotion, Myuri had supported him both physically and mentally. It was clear that without all her help, things would have gone very differently for him, so it was necessary to recognize her outstanding strength and wit. That was why, if he sent her home without hearing what she had to say, he felt as though he would be the one at a disadvantage.

Even though it was typically unthinkable that such a young girl would go on a journey, she made her way in the world much better than he did, so he could do nothing to convince her.

Myuri, currently staring at him, was more than clever enough to grasp all this.

“Fine, fine.” She said as though she had given up, and she looked up at him from the corner of her eye, anticipating what he would say next.

“Then go and put your dishes away. Or would you rather stay behind in the room by yourself?”

“No.”

“Then please clean up.”

“Fine.”

As though with great effort, Myuri did as she was told and went to the kitchen to return her tableware.

Before long, she returned with a piece of dried meat in her mouth.

Col could not summon the will to remind her that girls should not stand and eat.

“The church, then?”

“Yes. Oh, before that, we should go say hello to Mr. Stefan. I haven’t been able to see him since becoming bedridden.”

Stefan was a part of the Debau Company, which had branches all over the northlands. He was responsible for business conducted at the Debau Company’s trading house in the port town of Atiph, where Col and Myuri were borrowing a room.

But when he said that, Myuri was astonished, and it was not as a joke.

“You probably shouldn’t, Brother.”

“What?”

“Did you forget you mercilessly threatened him during all the uproar? Beardy was really afraid of us…of you, really.”

“…”

It was true that during the crisis, Col had needed to persuade Stefan to cooperate with them in order to save Hyland. Their plan involved convincing him of a massive misunderstanding. To put it simply, they made it appear as though they were truly instruments of God.

Though they had been captured, the fact they escaped so easily must have seemed like the work of God anyway. On top of that, when Stefan saw Col free from his prison, a silver wolf stood at his side, potentially a proxy for carrying out God’s punishments on earth. From an outsider’s perspective, it should have been easy to see there was something supernatural at play.

Of course, if anyone were likely to anger God, it would actually be that wolf herself—Myuri.

“You probably shouldn’t deal too much with him, so he can relax a bit.” She smiled dryly before adding, “I feel kind of bad for him.” There was a particular look on her face that she only showed when she knew one of her pranks had gone too far.

“W-was it that terrible?”

In response, she shrugged like a little girl who couldn’t help but want to seem like an adult.

“…Very well, then.”

“It’s fine, I think.”

Col had no wish to hurt others.

“Then, let’s head to the church for now.”

Myuri nodded, munching on her dried meat.

In larger towns, it was a typical sight to see the retired elderly remain in the church once morning prayer ended. With this in mind, Col was bewildered when he found an entire crowd after opening the door.

“Line up, line up please! We ask that you take any requests not related to the church to the council!”

A young man, perhaps a deacon, literally stood out from the rest of the crowd, perhaps because he had climbed atop a crate or something, and was yelling as loudly as he could in the hallway. Much like the hallway, beyond the crowd Col could also see that the nave was overflowing with people. From the clothes of the people packed inside, he discerned a diverse group of merchants, artisans, farmers, shepherds, and even some who, for whatever reason, held up flagstaffs bearing association crests.

“Haven’t we seen a scene just like this one, Brother?” Myuri asked as she tilted her head a bit, but he did not know.

As he was in complete shock at the sight of what seemed like the church holding a festival, someone bumped into him from behind.

He turned around, and there was a stout man who looked like a merchant.

“Oh, pardon me! …Mm? Oh, a man of the Church! Perfect. I wanted to ask where we might be able to discuss the wine tax.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve heard there’ve been reforms enacted by the archbishop, so we from the Brotherhood of Taverns and Inns from Schulaze Parish Alley wish to request he reconsider the contributions for ceremonial wine, you see.”

The man seemed sad, and he lowered his head, placing a hand on his large stomach.

“Ah…”

“As you know, on top of the tax we already have to pay when we import wine, oftentimes we can’t get any because the ships don’t come in. So to bring a contribution of wine whenever we come to pray is too much…Oh, here are pastries baked by the girls from our parish and candles. Please accept these.”

As though the man thought he had spoken too one-sidedly, he joyfully produced a package and pushed it onto Col.

Because Col was dressed like a priest, it seemed this petitioner had completely mistaken him for a member of the Church.

It seemed that the entire building was overflowing with people like this.

“O-oh, I’m sorry, I am not a member of the Church. I’m a traveler…”

“Oh? Ah, is that right? Then how about it? Why don’t you come stay at an inn in the Schulaze Parish Alley while you’re in town? We have great food and comfortable beds ready for you. And of course, if you happen to see the archbishop, please tell him of our integrity and piety and to reconsider the tax on wine—Wh-what? Hey!”

At this rate, they would be talked into staying at some inn by this pushy merchant. Col took Myuri’s hand, who had stood beside him grinning for some reason, then apologized while pushing his way through the crowd to head farther into the church. It seemed that the aftermath of the recent tumult that consumed the town just a few days before had morphed into something bigger, throwing the people into even more disarray.

To put it simply, though the townspeople had stood up and denounced the evil practices of the Church, it seemed too rash to assume that everything would be all squared away once they won over the archbishop. Along with the city council, which managed the government of the town, the church was a place with a large influence on the town’s administration. All the inhabitants followed the Church’s decisions, which meant collecting taxes on a great many things. Any time the archbishop changed his mind and wished to enact a new policy, he could not avoid dealing with many people. And if the townspeople thought a change could be for their benefit, they would rush over to his side, asking to be included.

As one of the people partly responsible for this trouble, Col cringed in regret and horror.

However, what he was working toward was not a small adjustment in a northern port town.

It was to right all the wrongs that the Church had accumulated over a thousand years. If that came to pass, it would surely cause chaos ten or a thousand times bigger.

This was no time to be horror-struck by such trivial matters.

“…Oh God, please give me strength.” Col murmured under his breath, encouraging himself.

Hyland was likely at the center of the commotion, and he concluded that she was probably in the meeting room. The flow of people seemed to be vaguely heading in that direction. He and Myuri shuffled through the crowd until they could finally see the entrance of the meeting room.

The large doors to the room had been left open. A maidservant emerged from the crowd inside, carrying an armful of parchment. Though her head and face were wrapped in cloth, perhaps out of respect for the Church, the long hair that spilled out from beneath the veil gave her an image of exhaustion. Her eyes were cast downward as she made her way meekly through the frenzied throng.

She was a sight to behold; her height pairing well with her brilliant, albeit frazzled, blonde hair.

But Col could not stare for too long lest he be rude, so he immediately looked away. Then, he suddenly remembered that Myuri was beside him, which made him grow nervous for some reason.

“What is it, Brother?”

Myuri posed the question while trying her best to avoid being crushed by the crowd. There was a puzzled expression on her face, denoting that the short Myuri had yet to catch a glimpse of the maidservant.

“Oh…It’s nothing.”

A few moments after he responded, he looked back to the maidservant, like being drawn in by a fishhook.

He opened his mouth but unwittingly closed it, because the maidservant had noticed him as well, and she softly placed a finger to her lips. Then, with a surprisingly clean-looking finger for a working girl, she pointed farther inside the church before walking off briskly without waiting for his response.

Dumbstruck, he had no other choice but to follow her. He grabbed Myuri’s hand, and they pried their way through the press of people.

They followed the woman for some time before finally arriving at the stairway that led up to the bell tower, where there was no sign of any others.

“Well.”

The woman threw the parchment she was holding onto some crates that were stacked in the hallway, removed the wrapping on her head, then ran her fingers through her hair to fix it. It was strange, since as she did so, she looked like upstanding nobility from the shoulders up.

And for some reason, she also looked like a beautiful widow.

“What a surprise, Heir Hyland.”

He called her name, and Hyland, who was a true noble, the blood of the king of Winfiel in her veins, displayed a hint of fatigue behind her smile.

“I wouldn’t have been able to leave that room if I didn’t do this. The townspeople swarm me when I try to get back to the trading house, even late at night, so I’m staying here. That being said, I’m glad I can’t be recognized in this disguise, but it also feels a bit strange.”

At the end of the day, people often judged others simply by their appearance. Col recalled how he had mistakenly assumed Hyland, who had dressed as man for her travels, was male, even though they had quizzed each other on the scripture in the hot springs, so he could not exactly bring himself to laugh.

“Hello there, little miss. How are you doing?”

It seemed Myuri had immediately recognized who it was when she saw her dressed as a maidservant, and her mood instantly grew sour. On the other hand, Hyland was rather happy to elicit that response from her.

“Myuri.”

Of course, Col had to rein in her rude behavior. When he admonished her, she looked away in a huff.

Hyland’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“I guess it’s because I don’t have any candies today. Oh well.”

“I am so sorry…”

“I’m just having fun; it’s like I’ve made a sister much younger than me. Well then, how are you doing?”

“I am much better, thank you.”

He thanked her like a vassal would his lord, and from his side, Myuri shot him a dispassionate glare.

“You should be thanking the little miss here. I’m not the one who took care of you.”

Myuri slapped Col’s back in agreement with Hyland.

“And I should be the one showing you gratitude. You saved my life, as well as the flame of righteous faith.”

He looked up and Hyland was smiling.

Nobility did not easily bow their heads, but her feelings reached him well enough through her smile.

“I didn’t…”

“You’d act like that even if you saved the world.” She chuckled. “Well, no matter. As your superior, I shall simply show my thanks through action. It’s not quite a celebration for your recovery, but why don’t we eat together? I’ve been working since before the sun rose, you know.”

Like Myuri, she pressed a hand on her stomach.

“Can we have meat?” Myuri butted in.

Col wanted to scold her for the audacity of such constantly rude behavior, but Hyland seemed to be truly enjoying it. Besides, he did not have the heart for it. Of course, Myuri was doing it precisely because she knew that Hyland would not get angry with her.

“I don’t mind. I’d like some meat with plenty of salt, too.”

“Yay!”

It would have been pointless to remind her that she had just eaten breakfast.

“Then let’s leave through the back door. Bear with me—I don’t have a covered carriage to take us. And while we’re on the way, I want to tell you about what’s coming next. A lot happened while you were asleep.”

They did not come to this town to enjoy a relaxing vacation.

Col straightened up and nodded, while Hyland dipped her head slightly in turn.

They exited through the back of the church into the street, which was as quiet as the front was loud. Though people seldom passed through here, it did not feel empty or desolate. It would be more appropriate to call it tranquil.

Perhaps the sky was so clear because the air in seaside towns was known for being remarkably dry. And maybe it was because the sounds of housework and a crying baby could be heard from a small window of one of the buildings that lined the street.

The town was undoubtedly filled with the energy of people going about their daily lives.

“For now, everything’s going perfectly.” Hyland spoke as she gracefully lifted the hem of her skirt and stepped across an old, thin dog that lay on the ground, blocking the street.

Col carefully moved to the side of the street and went over its tail instead. When Myuri followed, the old dog respectfully curled its tail out of her way. To the dog, it was not nobility nor a lamb of God who stood at the pinnacle, but a girl with the blood of wolves.

“The town’s archbishop has promised to rethink the rights he had taken for granted as well as the indulgences, opting to live a simple life from now on. Of course, when he says that he means a lifestyle that is not too meager for an archbishop, but it is still an enormous step. Tithes are nothing compared to using the offerings he gains every week, every month, every season from prayer and festivals for his own private use.”

“The moment I entered the church, a person from the brotherhood of one of the town’s parishes came to talk to me about contributions of wine.”

The priests in town had a great deal of perks.

“Yes. Those crowding into the church are people of that sort. There are fourteen parishes that call themselves alleys in this town. The artisans and merchants of each parish have their own associations, and there are even several brotherhoods for their peace of mind. You could easily find fifty of them in this town alone. There are also individuals who come with their own interests in mind, so it’s been quite the handful dealing with them.”

Even in a place like Nyohhira, where everyone knew one another, community management was still challenging.

Col could not imagine how much trouble it was for Atiph, a large town that needed a greater amount of resources to operate properly.

“On top of that, the churches of the surrounding independent cities and monasteries have learned about the terrible degree of the people’s anger toward the Church, and there have been throngs of their emissaries. They’re asking, ‘Should we change our policies as well?’ and ‘How much of a shift is necessary?’”

Though there must have been criticisms of the Church in the past, rarely has it led to open defiance.

No matter how questionable its actions, no one could challenge the Church. The people had given up, grown accustomed to the idea that no matter how rotten the institution became, it was still better than any alternative.

“In addition, there are many questions about the common-language translation of the scripture that you worked on. There were many people who were upset that priests held a monopoly on reading the holy works. Acts meant to discourage the Church from more audacious behavior are spreading like wildfire. It’s all thanks to you two.”

Col could think of a hundred reasons why that was untrue, but he considered it polite to accept Hyland’s compliment without fuss, so he smiled shyly and filed her words away in his mind.

Still, their job was not yet over.

“But fire must always be kept under control.”

Leaving the embers of reform to spread and burn—that line of thinking would only bring about civil strife. And they were up against the Church, which had more bastions across the world than even the biggest trading companies. They could not haphazardly throw themselves into fights with them.

“Exactly. We need to add the right amount of fuel to the fire, then watch the way the wind blows.”

“So what can we do next?”

After continuing along the back street, they eventually entered an area referred to as the Old Town, from when Atiph was still small. Col knew this because the stones on the ground were worn down, having clearly been around for some time. There was also a bronze plaque on a building that actually read OLD TOWN. He could feel the pride of the longtime residents in how brightly the plaque shone.

Though it was a bit small to be called a proper square, food stalls had been set up around a small well, while cobblers repaired shoes and the neighborhood elderly played cards in the gaps between. What grabbed Col’s attention most of all was the number of large nets that covered the entire walls of buildings. They surrounded the entire square and even hung from the roof of a five-story building.

It looked as though the whole square was caught in it.

“Brother, what’s that? Is it for a festival?”

Myuri tugged Col’s sleeve as she spoke.

“It would seem so…There’s something on it. Is that dried grass cut to resemble fish?”

“This is apparently a festival hoping for a good catch in anticipation for spring. This neighborhood is where Atiph’s fishermen live.”

As she spoke, Hyland bought four skewers of fried herring from a stall.

She gave one to Col and two to Myuri.

“Fish fills the belly more than wheat does in this land. And no one can fight on an empty stomach. By the way…”

Hyland paused briefly before continuing.

“How well can you two swim?”

She smiled meaningfully, flashing her sharp teeth, then took a bite out of the back of the fried fish.

Violent winds roared like a war cry. Mountainous waves reached high into the sky. Water pouring in from the deck; food already chewed through by rats. Unable to sleep as the ship rocked so intensely that there was no discernible difference between floor and ceiling, he found himself exhaling water more than drinking it. With no place to run, there is nothing to do but pray. Even if he could continue to bear such fear and pain, it would all be over once the ship capsized with the next gust of wind. On the seas, unbeknownst to anyone, he would simply disappear.

On the other side of that, the names of ships and their value were posted on large sheets of paper in the port town taverns, the crests of various vessels on display. Rather well-dressed merchants would stand all day in front of these papers, hands folded, praying. At the very top of the sheets, written with rough strokes, were the words:

By the will of God.

In that tavern, a bet was being wagered as to whether or not the ship would sink. This test of chance was sometimes called by its other name: insurance. The owner would give 15 to 20 percent of the worth of the ship’s load to his betting partner, and if it sank, then he would take the money back. If it did not sink, then the betting partner would be able to keep the money. In essence, it was estimated that there was a sinking in one out of every five sea journeys. This included pirate attacks.

Anyone who looked out beyond the town on a gray and windy day would find villagers who lived along the coastline standing on rooftops, staring at the sea. They would be on the lookout for foolish merchant ships greedily trying to make their way on the white waves. They could make a profit on the cargo that drifted ashore if those boats were wrecked by the winds, thrown onto the rocks, or simply sank. However, through arrangements between large mercantile entities and landlords, any freight that drifted ashore lawfully belonged to the landowners. That was why it was unthinkable for the villagers to provide assistance to the shipwrecked vessels. It would mean trouble with the higher-ups. If they wanted to be saved, the castaways should have wrapped themselves in gold—but then again, it would be worse to sink under the weight of the coins.

This world was hell. Truly, the epitome of an adventure.

God bless those who navigate the seas.

“Well, that’s the gist of it.”

The noble of the Kingdom of Winfiel, a country surrounded on all sides by water, mischievously licked the chicken fat that coated her fingers. Before Col lay a massive feast. They were in a tavern where local fishermen gathered, whose work began on the sea before dawn and ended before noon.

He had not touched his food, though—not because he was shying away from meat as a person who aspired to join the priesthood but because of Hyland’s story.

On the large model ship hanging from the ceiling, there were wings made of chicken feathers—perhaps someone’s idea of a prank. After hearing her story, it almost seemed as though there was a deeper meaning to those wings.

“…Are you requesting us to go on such a sea voyage?”

Col raised the question in a thin voice, prompting Hyland to look up at him as she bit into her chicken thigh. Her refinement shined through even more as she ate, oddly emphasizing her femininity.

“Oh, my apologies. I didn’t mean to threaten you.”

It was like she had seen right through to the heart of his troubles. After she placed the chicken onto a bed of oats—a replacement for a plate—she wiped her mouth.

“My country is surrounded by water, you know. We talk about ships and the ocean more than any other place. We love tales of adventures on the seas. When I was little, the old sailors would often scare me with their stories.”

When Col imagined a young Hyland, wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire, enthralled by grand stories, he could not help but smile.

There was no mistake, however, that the sea was a terrifying place, even more so in the dead of winter.

“Of course, what I just told you was an exaggeration, but there are times when such things can…Hmm?”

Col followed Hyland’s gaze, and beside him, Myuri had gripped her bread and it crumbled out from between her fingers.

She was leaning forward, her mouth slack-jawed and her eyes wide open.

When Myuri spoke, her voice was practically a groan.

“Ad…ven…ture…!”

Had he poked her cheek, which was nearly bursting with excitement, her ears and tail might have popped out.

“Don’t expect too much. I might end up disappointing you this time.”

Hyland smiled wryly, and Myuri quickly collected the scattered crumbs and sprinkled them over her soup as a topping so as to not waste it. A part of Myuri still seemed like a seven-year-old boy on the inside.

“But—but a ship? On the sea? Brother?”

“Calm down. Come on, let go of the bread.”

Myuri had thrown a fit of excitement over hearing about pirates when they came to the town of Atiph. To a girl who was born and raised in Nyohhira, a hot spring village surrounded by mountain views, exciting stories about the sea were much too thrilling.

It also took quite some work to loosen her fingers from the bread she gripped.

“We’ll be taking a ship, but it won’t be a long journey. It’s short enough that you’ll always be within eyesight of land, and no ship will risk the trip if the weather is even slightly agitated. You’ll be at sea for half a day at the longest. It’s just a bit of a trip from port to port. And it won’t be a problem if you get seasick, since you’ll be at the port by the time you wake up.”

Hyland laid out her explanation, which helped ease Col’s nerves but left Myuri visibly dissatisfied.

“But it doesn’t mean there won’t be any problems. The seas are difficult around the islands even farther north of here, beyond the diocese of Atiph. No authority of any country reaches that far. They have their own rules and are harsh with outsiders. The weather often changes suddenly, and the shadow of the island can disappear when it needs to—it’s a perfect trap. We call those who control those islands…”

She paused and looked straight into Myuri’s eyes.

“…pirates.”

“Pirates! …Guh—!” Myuri yelled, standing from her chair, and Col, flustered, pushed his hand over her mouth and sat her down.

Luckily, the tavern was filled with leathery-skinned, red-faced sailors, who were unfazed by such terrifying words.

Hyland smiled, delighted, and it seemed she was intentionally egging Myuri on.

Though perhaps it was the kind of joke a noble would tell, but there was likely truth in what she said.

“And are you saying…to convert those pirates?”

Though he had knowledge of the scripture, he could not stop violence with aphorisms. He was grounded in reality enough to realize at least that much. Anecdotes of missions where ruffians instantly transformed into obedient puppies after a round of preaching were obviously fantasies.

“If you have a holiness that puts saints to shame, perhaps, or…”

Hyland narrowed her eyes in mischief and smiled. In her hand, she held the low-quality ale that the sailors drank.

But she was clearly not drunk. Even when she stayed in Nyohhira, he did not once see her drunk, and high alcohol tolerance was a sign of nobility.

“Of course, I won’t ask you to do something so reckless. I’d like you to make the most of your scholarship.”

“…And that means?”

“Mhmm.”

Hyland nodded, gazed into space, and the innkeeper, who had been standing in front of the counter, hurried over to attend to her. It seemed as though it was not a coincidence they came here.

Then, after she said a few words to him, he disappeared into the back and then returned carrying a small wooden box. It was bound with an odd cord, and upon closer inspection, Col could tell it was fish leather twisted together like yarn.

She released the string and opened the lid, and laying on a blanket of straw was a black figure.

“Ooh, a doll?”

Myuri’s voice was surprisingly girlie and pleasant.

That being said, when she happily stood from her chair to get a peek inside the box, the color suddenly drained from her face.

“…Whoa, that’s…weird…”

He could not bring himself to laugh at how straightforward she was, since it mirrored how he felt.

“Isn’t this…the Holy Mother? But why is it this color?”

He thought it was a wooden figure that had been seared. There was, however, a beautiful glint to it, and the craftsmanship in the details was superb. He could tell it was a completed piece and that it was meant to look like this.

“It’s made of jet,” Hyland said and picked up the black figure of the Holy Mother. “You can sometimes find it in regions where peat and amber are gathered. It’s an odd stone.”

Hyland handed it to Col, and for a moment, he thought he had dropped it.

It was that light—completely different from what he imagined by looking at it.

“They say that it is amber that has turned into coal. Like amber, polishing it attracts sand and wool; but unlike amber, it burns without melting once placed in a fire. It smells like something between peat and coal. That smell reminds me of home.”

Peat and coal were abundant in the Kingdom of Winfiel. Nyohhira was rich in timber while peat was impossible to find there, so it was never used. During his travels, he had used it occasionally as fuel during his travels.

He handed the jet to Myuri, and she was also shocked by how light it was, admiring the fantastic decorations.

“They sometimes whittle it down into small balls and call them black pearls as a scam. It’s merely rare, not precious. It doesn’t have much value.”

A figure of the Holy Mother made of jet.

Hyland took it from Myuri and gently returned it to its box.

“And there is a land that makes these jet figures of the Holy Mother and fervently worships them.”

“You mean the islands in the north, correct?”

A region of harsh environment controlled by pirates.

“As you can see, it’s a very well-wrought figure of the Holy Mother. However, since they have traditionally regarded the mainland as enemies, they’ve kept their distance from the power of the Church that is the foundation of the mainland. In the past, the Church once made various attempts to bring this region into their sphere of influence, but in the end, it was too costly to force them into submission, so they gave up.”

No matter how he looked at it, the black figure of the Holy Mother, sealed with a string of fish skin, seemed heretical.

It would not be strange to consider this religious witchcraft.

“And so…,” Hyland said, “I want you to go see if we should bring the believers of this land into our fold.”

He returned her gaze. What he saw were not the kind eyes of a distant friend but the sharp glint of his superior.

“The Church sometimes suspects them of heresy, but their faith may be the real thing. Or perhaps, though they are creating such wonderful figures of the Holy Mother, it might also be a cover against actual subjugation if they were to be called pagans. I know you can connect with them and determine if their faith is true or not.”

“That’s—”

“Let me rephrase that. Whatever your judgment is, it will play a large part in my considerations.”

What she showed him after was a smile for fooling people.

In their present situation, the number of allies they gathered was not a problem. On the other hand, if one of their allies was a strange religious group, it would create an opportunity that the Church could take advantage of, potentially leading to doubt in the righteousness of the Kingdom of Winfiel. That being said, he could tell that lip service would not be enough. That was because she had qualified her statement with “play a large part in my considerations.”

Of course, it was the way of the world for people to bow down and follow the orders of a noble. He and Hyland were never equals to begin with; their relationship would typically not allow them to share the same table.

However, jesters aside, the only ones allowed to butt heads with rulers were priests.

Hyland continued to smile, and temptation spurred Col on.

“Very well. By the light of my scholarship and faith, I shall see if their conviction is true.”

Still smiling, she stared at him and nodded, satisfied.

Her gaze suddenly turned to Myuri, who sat beside him.

“And is there anything you’d like to say, little miss?”

When she said that, her smile was clearly personable and gentle.

“My brother’s a coward.” Myuri chewed on the cartilage of some chicken thigh as she continued. “I don’t want to watch him be used like a tool.”

He looked to her only to see her staring back at him.

She was carefree, mischievous, always seemed like she thought of nothing but food, and her intelligence was beyond expectation. Her mother was known as the wisewolf who was worshipped as a god once upon a time, and her father was a sharp merchant, highly regarded by a select few in the northlands.

With such a pedigree, one could not disregard Myuri’s keen insight simply because she was a child. She clearly noticed that he had swallowed every doubt that occurred to him about this job.

But though he admired her quick-wittedness, she was still a child.

“It is not because I am afraid of her authority that I do not ask Heir Hyland questions.”

“Then what is it?”

“Because I trust her.”

Myuri widened her eyes in surprise, then frowned.

“Little miss, your brother isn’t the obedient lamb you think he is.”

“…What?”

Really? Myuri looked at Hyland doubtfully.

“He trusts that with the requisite information, I will pass a proper judgment. Those expectations need to be met. Your brother understands that I am serious about my obligations.”

Hyland added that therefore, there was no need to put everything into words. For some reason, she seemed to be having fun.

Myuri often put adults to shame, but she made a face as though Hyland was speaking to her in a foreign language.

That being said, she had stayed quiet for so long because that was not what she was thinking about.

“When I think about that, I believe that one day he’ll get into a lot of trouble because he really didn’t know anything.”

“Myuri.”

He admonished her, and she glared back at him.

She pointed at him and said, “You can only see half of half of the world!”

Her logic was that the world was filled with men and women, so his lack of understanding of women was half of the world. Then, because people had both good and bad sides, when he did not notice the bad, he lost another half there. Myuri sincerely believed that without her, Col would immediately stray from the path and fall head over heels into the pits of oblivion.

“You two make a great pair.”

Hyland smiled with her eyes and spoke with a slightly envious expression on her face.

“That’s why I feel comfortable leaving it to you.”

Then she took the cheap ale in her hands. Maybe it was because from the perspective of others, she would be worried unless she drank.

What she said next made that seem about right.

“When the Church deemed the Kingdom of Winfiel enemies that should be subdued, the strait between Winfiel and the mainland became a militarily critical area.”

The talk suddenly shifted from faith toward bloodier talk.

That was what she had not spelled out when she said she would take his judgment into consideration.

“We do have a substantial force. The pope lacks a true fleet of ships to call his own. He would likely go to war using ships commandeered from coastal towns. That is why I came to the port town of Atiph, to create as many allies on the mainland side of the strait.”

She sipped her ale and gently placed it onto the table.

“And if war did break out, it would interfere with imports into our island nation. Our wheat would never arrive, requesting wine would never amount to anything more than wishes. So what would be left?”

What sort of people gathered in this tavern?

Col’s gaze drifted down to the soup on the table, chunks of fish floating in it.

“Fish?”

“Right. The pirates in the northern islands have a firm grip on the areas with good sources of northern fish, including herring. If they become our ally, it would a secure a food source for us, and if they become our enemy, the opposite would happen.”

The world was made of a complicated map of power.

It could not be freed so easily, like untying a knot.

“On top of that, they are incredibly skilled with all sorts of seafaring vessels. They will be the deciding factor in whether we gain mastery of the open water. However…”

Hyland pressed on.

“Our just cause is based on righteous faith. No matter how important they are strategically, we will not accept those with twisted beliefs as our companions. A rotten fish will spoil the other fish in the same barrel.”

He trusted Hyland—had anyone else said the same thing, he would not have believed them.

However, her expression suddenly relaxed, and her smile dripped self-mockery.

“That being said, I sincerely hope they aren’t rotten…But you can still eat rotten fish after cooking it through thoroughly, if you’re even a bit worried. All of my companions, though, are starving.”

No matter how careful Hyland was, she did not command this fight alone. The other nobles under the king of Winfiel might elect to take an easier route.

While that was happening, what Hyland could achieve in her position depended on how much correct information she could obtain. For that purpose, Col was to be her eyes and ears.

Before him was a great responsibility, but it was worth the effort.

Above all, he was simply interested in seeing what an unfamiliar faith looked like.

And so, there was only one thing left to ask.

“When shall we go?”

Hyland drained her ale, then spoke.

“How about tomorrow?”

Hyland had placed her trust in Col and assigned him a mission. Now he had to live up to those expectations.

And his judgment of the Black-Mother faith would have an effect on the greater flow of things. If they were too hasty to make the pirates their allies, it could become the source of trouble later, even if things seemed fine at first. It was also possible that these people were exactly what their cause needed, even if they seemed heretical at a glance.

At any rate, he was both scared and happy that she was relying on his insight.

It seemed that Hyland had not been kidding when she talked about setting out the next day, so they immediately began preparations to secure a ship. Though it was urgent, he could tell that if he stayed behind, there would be nothing for him but paperwork. The draft of his common-language translation of the scripture, which he had undertaken here in this town, had been sent off to the scholars in Winfiel, and Hyland said all there was to do was wait for their thoughts. It would take some time for a reply to come.

And so, if there was someplace else he could demonstrate his knowledge, he wanted to head there as soon as possible. The northern seas were, quite honestly, an unknown, frightening place to him, but it would be the perfect opportunity to broaden his worldview. It was a chance to push himself to do everything he could.

“Hey, Brother?”

Myuri’s carefree voice cut through his ruminations as she pulled on the hem of his clothes.

“Which is cuter, this fur wrap or this leather one?”

After finishing their food and parting with Hyland, the two headed out to Atiph’s marketplace. They most certainly did not have enough warm outfits for a journey to the northern seas. Luckily, though, the town offered many clothes, since the frequency of long sea journeys meant a large volume of people coming and going.

The abundance of options was a good thing, but since there were so many shops, Myuri spent the past while taking him from one storefront to the next. Then, when they arrived at a new spot, she would gather clothes from every corner and ask him what he thought about this or that.

But he simply was not interested and only answered mutedly.

“Choose something cheap and warm.”

Every time, Myuri would consistently wear a flat expression, but she suddenly asked, “Fine, then let me ask you a different question. Which one do you like better?”

Instead of a cute smile, she directed a glare at him.

It seemed so innocent and cute that she hoped to draw the attention of her crush with clothes that he liked, but her mimicry always fell flat. She was overflowing with youth and energy but also a short temper.

“…Cheap and warm…Fine. Fine, then.”

To appease Myuri, who had bared her fangs at him, he compared the two wraps and pointed to the fur one.

It seemed to have been made of deer fur, and he felt that a rough lay of fur suited her much better than something soft and fluffy.

Myuri looked hard at the one he pointed to and sighed.

“You have no eye for clothes.”

He held back from scolding her that she should not say that after making him choose.

“But you chose it, so I’ll take it!”

She suddenly smiled and happily hugged the fur.

For a moment, there was a pang in his chest as he thought about how he would have chosen more carefully if he had known she would be so happy. Ultimately, it did not matter since he could not reciprocate her feelings, so this was all right.

“Sigh…Well next, we need gloves, hats, and sachets for pocket warmers…”

There were many things they had to buy. It was at least a relief to know that Hyland would be footing the bill, but whenever he paid with the silver coin of the sun that was in circulation in this region, he felt something akin to guilt.

He had grown rather distant from moderation and frugality recently.

As he thought about how he needed to concentrate, Myuri suddenly spoke with a serious expression.

“We’re going to need a sword and a shield, too, right?”

It seemed that the image in her head had completely turned into an adventure story once she caught word of pirates.

“No.”

“Aww…”

Her disappointment was obvious. She took the fur coat they had just finished paying for and quickly rolled it up to carry on her back. Even though she proved that she could successfully work as an errand boy for a company with such skill, all that came out of her mouth was fantasies and daydreams. After thinking about how far her good name would echo throughout the world if she pulled herself together, he sighed.

“What we’ll do is crash into our bounty from the side, then, with our swords in our mouths, we’ll raise a battle cry and leap onto the other boat, right?”

She placed her hand by her mouth and gnashed her teeth, as though she really was gripping a sword with her mouth. Col was exasperated, and not just because her gnashing made it look like she was biting into skewered meat.

“How would you be able to raise a war cry with a sword in your mouth?”

“…Uh. Wait, what?”

Her expression was blank.

“See, you cannot simply accept stories about pirates when you don’t know if they are true or not. Think more seriously about the cold that you need to face soon.”

Myuri wore thin clothes for the sake of fashion and her body was slim without much in the way of fat. Though she did have her tail, that was not something she took out in front of regular people.

There was no such thing as too many pieces of thick, warm clothing in a place where freezing rain and the frozen sea were constant companions.

“I’m fine. Nyohhira’s full of snow, too.”

“There’s no wind in Nyohhira. The wind on the sea will chill you to your bones.”

On top of that, if the cold of Nyohhira’s nights ever became too much, people simply jumped into the hot springs.

When he said that, Myuri suddenly fell silent and stared at him.

“What is it?”

“Have you ever been to the cold sea, Brother?”

Though she sounded a bit skeptical, she also sounded surprised. Or perhaps, she meant to express how unfair he was being.

“I have. I went to the Kingdom of Winfiel by ship in the dead of winter. It was bitterly cold.”

“Really? When?!”

“It was when I had just met your mother and father, so…quite a long time ago.”

In the face of the cold, Myuri’s mother, Holo, had gone onto the deck to enjoy the scenery, but Col was still a child and afraid of ships at the time, so he clung to her father, Lawrence—that part he kept to himself.

“I have much more experience than you when it comes to traveling. So you need to listen to me.”

Experience, rather than logic, resonated most with someone of Myuri’s personality.

She still seemed dissatisfied, but she nodded half-heartedly.

After buying plenty of gear for their trip, they returned to the trading house to begin packing all the warm clothes and preserved foods they bought. Since they could be leaving the very next day, it would be bad form to dillydally if the order to depart suddenly came.

The sun was already setting when they finished up.

“I’m…tired…”

Once she finally wrapped the luggage in a blanket, Myuri collapsed onto the bed.

“This is a lot.”

If Myuri carried the set of luggage sitting in the corner on her back, it would probably be bigger than her.

When Col imagined that, he smiled slightly.

“It’s almost like—”

“A big adventure!”

Myuri leaped up, sitting cross-legged on the bed and smiling happily. He found himself troubled, because it suited her so well it almost felt tactless to scold her for being unladylike.

“A big adventure…Well, you’re not wrong.”

Though the tomboy was tired from travel preparations, it seemed she grinned in anticipation whenever the luggage caught her eye. Col, on the other hand, could only sigh.

“Brother, what’s wrong? Are you hungry?”

“…”

He couldn’t tell if she was joking, but it seemed to be a serious question.

“Sigh… No. It’s not that.” He answered and placed his hand on the leather cover of the scripture that sat on the desk in the room. “I don’t know what will happen in the northern seas during this season. When I think about what could happen…”

He would likely not be able to help her. Though dangers were part and parcel of traveling, the place they were headed for was particularly unforgiving. Warmth wafted up into his palm that touched the cover of the scripture, where he believed a power rested. He had poured his whole body and soul into translating the inaccessible script of the Church into the vernacular, and he felt that in doing so, his faith had deepened.

His faith was true. God was lighting his way.

But despite that, his worries were not easily lifted.

“Brother.” A voice came from behind him. “It’s going to be all right.”

He turned around, and there was Myuri, smiling triumphantly as always.

“You are always so optimistic.”

“And you’re so pessimistic. You’ll age faster that way, you know.”

It was nothing good for men who looked so young at his age. If anything, he wished what Myuri said would happen.

His expression asked, “Who on earth do you think I’m worried about?” and she grinned, baring her teeth.

“It’ll be fine.”

She spun around him and jumped to sit on the desk behind him.

“If you fall into the sea, I’ll definitely go save you.”

She only said that because she knew what he was worried about. Even if he continued to warn her, she would plug her ears and pretend not to hear.

He really was worried. If something happened to Myuri, he would never be able to explain it to Lawrence and Holo waiting for them back in Nyohhira.

He thought it might be best to leave her behind, even considering how furious Myuri would be, but she suddenly smiled calmly. That expression looked exactly like her mother’s, the wisewolf, Holo.

“Well, you probably wouldn’t be able to save me, but I can say one thing.”

She then reached out to gently touch his chest and continued.

“If you fell into the cold, dark sea, I would absolutely jump in after you. I won’t leave you alone, and as long as I’m with you, I wouldn’t mind the depths of the sea.”

Myuri adored tales of heroes and love stories. Her distinction between fiction and reality was hazy. She always believed that she would be the main character.

That she seemed slightly embarrassed after saying such things was proof she had grown up a little.

Then, as though hiding her embarrassment, she began to twist her finger on the leather cover of the scripture.

“M-Myuri, stop it, you’ll mark the leather.”

He voiced his protest, flustered, but she had already turned back to her normal, cheeky self.

“Hmph. What’s so great about this book? I bet the God they talk about in it would just keep on sleeping if you fell into the sea, Brother. But I’m different.”

She smacked the cover of the book, and she drew her face closer to him, a satisfied smile on it.

“So, you’ll pick me, right?”

Her logic was like a hatchet that chopped through everything.

Myuri always kept her eyes on her goal, chasing it at top speed and biting into it with all her strength. Though she was a bit shy, she did not hesitate. She was straightforward, like a ray of light piercing the thick cover and lighting the ground on a cloudy day. That was her charm, and it often brought about good endings.

However, she was becoming old enough. She needed to know that not properly considering the consequences was not courage, but immaturity. She liked him as someone of the opposite sex because she had felt safe around him since she was a baby. This feeling was likely born as an extension of how lenient he was with her in one thing or another.

“I can say one thing.”

He reached out to touch her cheek as she sat on the desk, and she closed one eye and tilted her head.

“I have an obligation to get you home safely to Nyohhira. You must prioritize your own safety. If something happened to you, I would never be able to face Lawrence and Holo again.”

With his hand on her soft cheek, Myuri closed both eyes and tapped her feet.

But she did not answer.

“And what do you say?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was perplexed because in her eyes, he could see a bit of maturity. She must have felt this was the place to say something serious, but as she began to speak, she stopped.

The tomboy closed her eyes again and said, “Okay.”

He was disappointed in her half-hearted response.

Or perhaps he was just imagining it. As he looked at her, he could hear her stomach growl.

“I’m hungry.”

When she declared that with a smile, every trace of the atmosphere from moments earlier had already vanished.

“Hey, Brother, we won’t be able to eat meat at all when we go to the islands, right? So I want meat today.”

She hopped down from the desk and returned to her usual self. She was like a puppy, begging for food.

“…You had meat with Heir Hyland during lunch, and this morning you had dried meat, and you had some sort of grilled meat yesterday, didn’t you?”

“You’re so nitpicky…,” Myuri complained.

She grabbed her coat, wrapped it around her shoulders, then ran toward the door.

“Come on!”

She opened the door with one hand while offering her left to him. Her smile showed no doubt that he would reach out and take her hand, and he could not help but smile in return. He accepted her hand, and she gripped his firmly.

At the end of the day, their relationship was steady and would not change so easily.

There was no need to force it into something different.

As he watched her run innocently around the stalls, he prayed that they could continue to live in peace like this for a long time.