CHAPTER ONE

The winter air had vanished, and in its place the air of the gentle spring morning smelled of fresh water.

It was undeniably comfortable, but the chapel was no longer chilly in the morning, which left Col feeling slightly dissatisfied. As he left the building, he mused over his belief that worship should echo the resolute austerity of chipping away at ice by hand. Stepping outside, he was spotted by one of the merchants who often visited the manor where he and Myuri were staying and was promptly presented with a letter.

It was tied shut with a bright red string that signified the high standing of the sender, and the wax seal of the Church imparted a sense of importance.

The message was from a member of the pope’s vaunted Knights of Saint Kruza.

Col sat on a bench in the manor’s courtyard, unsealed the letter, and found a lengthy greeting written in a sharp, pointed script that looked like slashes of the sword. The squire Rhodes, perhaps, wrote this for practice. What followed was a status report by Captain Wintshire written in an elegant hand.

Almost two weeks had passed since a company of the proud Knights of Saint Kruza had suddenly appeared in Rausbourne.

The most shocking revelation was that these servants of the holy order were in terrible distress, returning to their homeland not in triumph, but because they had nowhere else to go.

Detailed within the letter in a joking, exaggerated manner was a recounting of their joint denouncement of churches within the Kingdom that had poor reputations. The knights—who had lost their original place in the world due to the awkward circumstance of hailing from the Kingdom of Winfiel while also being a holy order that served the pope—had at last found a new role within the Kingdom, serving the common people.

As one who had helped them find their place, Col was genuinely happy to read the optimistic tone of the knights.

“Of course, that’s not all…”

When he read the letter again from the beginning, there was something that caused his expression to cloud over.

The conflict between the Winfiel Kingdom and the Church was rippling out, affecting the world in ways he had never imagined. It was like a comedic farce where someone tried to pull in one bulging part only for a completely different spot to pop out. As the dispute continued to go unsolved, the unintended consequences were starting to be felt in all sorts of places. And often it was the innocent who suffered for it.

Wintshire and his company of knights were a perfect example. They had not been compelled to return to the Kingdom of Winfiel because they had done anything wrong themselves. Nothing had changed their integrity as knights, nor had they indulged in excess or failed to uphold the tenets of their faith. It was the conflict between the Kingdom and the Church that had changed the world around them, leaving them in dire straits.

The Winfiel Kingdom and the Church were massive entities, and anytime either of them raised their hands in an act of aggression, many would fall by the wayside, like lichen shaken loose from a long-dormant giant’s body.

Up until this point, Col had often flung himself headfirst into the swirling conflict, blissfully unaware of the greater consequences.

This was despite all the people near him who would be inadvertently swept aside by the huge waves that would accompany the shifting of the times. He knew he needed to reflect on this more.

“I still have a lot to learn.”

When he reached the end of the letter, he neatly stacked the papers and let out a sigh.

Many had taken to calling him the Twilight Cardinal, and the name gave him a slight twinge of pride now.

Up until very recently, he and Myuri had been doing all they could to settle the conflict between the Kingdom and the Church as soon as possible, but he was beginning to think that it would be better if they thought more carefully about their methods. The leaders of the Kingdom had also noticed that at this rate, they would be rushing unprepared into a battle with the Church, and had begun to act more cautiously.

As such, Col wondered if it might be possible to find a peaceful resolution during this lull, one where all sides were treated fairly and could bring a good end to this conflict.

When he began to consider how, exactly, that might come about, he found himself at a loss in the face of what seemed like insurmountable odds.

He sighed, not only because of his obvious inexperience, but also because he was fully aware of his powerlessness—and that was when he heard a sudden, shrill cry.

“Brother! Watch out!”

“Huh?”

When he lifted his head from the letter, he discovered the tip of a sword pointed at his throat.

It was not a real one, of course. The one wielding the wooden instrument was Myuri, the very one who had shouted the warning.

The girl was sweaty from practicing in the courtyard, and she smiled at him through ragged breaths.

“You should be a bit more aware of your surroundings, Brother.”

Behind her, he could see one of Hyland’s personal guards who was training Myuri, standing in the center of the courtyard; the knight nodded briefly at Col as he wiped his sweat away.

Col hurriedly bowed in return, then pushed away the wooden sword Myuri still held to his throat.

“Are your morning drills over?”

“Yep. I learned this move today!”

She stepped back, gripped both hands around the hilt, then swept the blade to the side. Her movements were smooth, possibly owing to her habit of pretending to be a hero back in Nyohhira, where she had gleefully wielded tree branches whenever she played.

Myuri pulled the blade back to the neutral position, then returned it to her belt and stood up straight. There was a grace and boldness to her movements that made it apt to call her a miniature knight.

“What do you think? I’m already a respectable knight, aren’t I?”

The moment that she turned toward him and boasted proudly, she was once again the rambunctious young girl he knew so well.

“In looks, at least.”

He thought that was a rather charitable evaluation, but Myuri pouted in dissatisfaction and bared her teeth at him.

Only a few days had passed since they had created an order of knights just for the two of them.

After spending much of their journey unable to define their relationship, they had at last found something fitting—knighthood.

Myuri, who adored adventure stories, was thrilled to learn she would have the chance to become a knight and was even more overjoyed that there was a crest only she and Col were allowed to use.

A crest imbued a sense of kinship among companions, no matter where they were in the world, and they did not have to be related, married, or in a romantic relationship of any kind to justify it. When Myuri gazed at a world map, as a nonhuman with the blood of wolves flowing through her veins, she saw no place for herself. Something akin to a crest was important for her to have.

It was undeniable proof that she was not alone in this world.

The crest embroidered on her waist, depicting a seated wolf turning away in a huff, symbolized nothing less.

“Did Rhodes and the others send that?”

Myuri peeked at the letter as she wiped away her sweat and retied her long hair.

“It is. They write that they are all doing well.”

“Heh-heh. They are the strongest knights in the world, after all.”

Her gaze dropped to the page, her face beaming like a fair maiden speaking of her prince charming, but halfway through the letter, her stomach let out a sudden, surprisingly loud growl.

“Oh… Hee-hee.”

Even Myuri felt slightly embarrassed.

She grabbed at her stomach and flashed an awkward smile.

“You have been swinging that sword nonstop since dawn. Little wonder that you’re hungry. Let us head to breakfast.”

Col took the letter, folded it, then stood up.

“And where is your scabbard?”

“Oh, I left it leaning on the tree!”

Myuri turned to look at the apple tree growing in the center of the courtyard. She rushed over, her ponytail swishing back and forth like an energetic tail. Her scabbard had been given to her during the knighting ceremony that Hyland had conducted for them. It was a finely wrought thing, with the wolf crest framed in gold filigree. It was meant for an adult knight of a rather sizable build, however, so it was quite large for Myuri as she was now. It made her look like a child who had snuck off with it as a silly prank.

As the knight who had accompanied Myuri in her training finished freshening up and was about to head home, she placed a hand on her chest in salute of farewell. The gesture, which she no doubt practiced a great deal, had a weight to it that made the large scabbard seem less out of place.

“Hmm? What is it?”

When she returned to Col’s side, Myuri tilted her head as she regarded him with a curious look.

“…I’m impressed. You’re more like a knight than I imagined.”

She blinked her large, red eyes, then smiled proudly.

“That’s because I am a knight.”

She then lifted the hand with the scabbard and proudly stroked the wolf crest on it.

“I need to be worthy of this crest.”

Her bashful smile was that of a girl who still had much growing up to do. And yet, when she returned the scabbard to her waist and stood tall, she began to project a presence that differed from her mother, who was once called the wisewolf.

If Myuri was always this put together, she would have no trouble putting the average noble’s daughter to shame.

Learning to act like a proper knight would most certainly help her grow to be a lady Col would be proud to send out into the world.

“That is a magnificent goal. You have my full support.”

“Hee-hee.”

The moment she grinned, he caught a glimpse of her usual self, but he was delighted to see how his little sister was growing, and he was happy to help her however he could.

“Now, will you join me tomorrow in the chapel so that you may become a good knight?”

Studying God’s teachings was unavoidable in the life of a knight. This was because formally, knights were members of monastic military orders. Myuri had only ever seen the thick scripture as a pillow for her naps, but now it was finally time for her to learn of his teachings in earnest.

Col and Myuri’s order was a private one with privileges granted to them by the noble Hyland, and though they were not a true monastic order affiliated with the Church, the essence of it was still the same. And above all else, simply imagining her properly reading the scripture and solemnly praying made Col’s eyes go misty. He could think of no greater happiness than the sight of a calm and pious Myuri smiling gently at him in the spring sunshine.

If that ever came to pass, then he could safely say that he had led his younger sister down the correct path despite being a woefully unreliable older brother. As he indulged in his deep emotion, recalling how far they’d come since the days when Myuri would incessantly pull pranks, the girl herself stood before him, her eyes averted in obvious displeasure.

“………”

The greater the happiness, the harder the fall.

But this would be a good opportunity for him. He counseled himself to not give up so easily.

“Myuri, listen. Simply waving a sword around is not the only thing you need to be a knight. That would make you nothing more than a simple swordfighter. It is observing God’s teachings in your daily life that—”

She received his lecture in the exact same way she would take a scolding for breaking a fence in the bathhouse after swinging a stick while engrossed in her play-fighting. Though her wolf ears were hidden at the moment, he could practically see them flattened against her head.

Instead, as his ineffective lecture grew increasingly feeble, she drew close to him in a sudden movement, until their faces were almost touching, as though she had been waiting for the opportunity.

“You say all that, but, Brother, you still haven’t gotten me a proper sword even though I’m a knight.”

“Huh? Ah!”

She removed the scabbard from her waist, raised it up until it was level with Col’s chest, then pointedly drew the wooden blade.

“No real knight is walking around with a wooden sword like this, right?”

“………”

This had been the topic of many long discussions ever since it had been decided that Myuri would become a knight.

Hyland had given the scabbard to her as a symbol of her knighthood, but like many swords of legend, the all-important blade was nowhere to be found. Myuri had been quite unhappy with this and made a huge fuss about wanting a proper sword. Col’s response was that proper ladies were not meant to wield such dangerous things and dismissed the request.

For Col, all he had done was to simply define his relationship with Myuri as a knighthood. It was a gesture of good faith, considering all they had been through during their journey. She was not much more than a girl, not yet old enough to be wed, who Lawrence and Holo, still running the bathhouse in Nyohhira, had left in his care for the time being. He would never be able to explain himself if he encouraged her already rowdy attitude by putting a sword in her hands.

“You may not have a sword.”

“Why?!”

Though Myuri had seemed like a promising future knight just moments before, she had instantly reverted to her usual self.

“I want a sword! Listen, Brother! I heard stories about legendary swords from the artisans in town and they were amazing!”

Is that where this is coming from? Col wondered, already growing tired of this back-and-forth. For a short while, she had seemed to settle down after he repeatedly told her that she could not have a sword. But it seems hearing some silly stories had reignited her desire for one.

“Legendary swords are only legends. They do not exist.”

“Yes! They! Do!”

Where had her knightly bearing gone?

With a sigh, Col said, “You may not have a sword. And it is about time you join me in the chapel.”

Myuri pursed her lips and turned away in a huff.

“Brother, you dummy!”

When the wolf girl sulked, she looked exactly like their crest.

Myuri was not a picky eater and usually ate large helpings with gusto, so she was surprisingly popular with the servants. As usual, many serving girls fawned over her and plied her with food until she had her fill. Once she and Col returned to their room, she promptly let her wolf ears and tail come out and lay flat on the bed.

“A knight isn’t supposed to be so debauched.”

“Rrrgh… Every knight knows to rest whenever you get a chance…”

She replied to his admonishment with a weak protest and a hiccup—a clear sign she had eaten far too much. She placed the scabbard housing her wooden sword atop her stomach and swished her fluffy wolf tail back and forth in a silly manner.

“Good grief… It still seems you have a long way to go on your path to becoming a knight.”

Myuri pretended to not hear him and reopened the letter from Rhodes and the other knights, indefatigably reading it over.

Col sighed in exasperation, then moved to put away the storybook of knights and adventure Myuri had left lying about as he gathered the pages of the vernacular translation of the scripture he had spent many hours on the night before.

“Hmm… I think I need to work on my writing,” Myuri muttered.

As he swept up the skins of the raw onions he gnawed on to keep himself awake, he heard this surprisingly commendable comment. Myuri must have realized there was a stark difference in standing as knights between the still-green Rhodes and the battle-hardened Captain Wintshire by looking at their penmanship.

“Well, yes. Your writing is…quite unique.”

If he had to judge her writing, he would call it poor—all it said about her was that she had an abundance of energy.

“Becoming a knight isn’t easy, huh?”

She had been holding the letter up toward the ceiling, but let it drop before closing her eyes and speaking with a hint of weariness in her voice. She normally approached things starting with appearances, but perhaps she was more committed to behaving like a knight than Col had originally assumed. He considered this because, belatedly, he had noticed she was lying down on her own bed.

Throughout their journey, she had insisted time and time again that she was no longer a child, yet she always snuck into his bed and often wanted to be spoiled. Now that he thought about it, he realized that she had been sleeping in her own bed ever since the knighting ceremony.

At first, he thought it might be because she disliked the smell of raw onion, which he had been habitually chewing on during his long nights of work on the manuscript. But that didn’t explain what had happened during the walk back from the dining hall earlier. The moment she had realized they were walking hand in hand out of habit, she immediately shook herself free.

The most likely reason would be that she knew knights did not walk while holding hands.

Col also considered the possibility that it might have been done out of spite over their quarrel about getting a sword, but he was fairly certain that wasn’t the cause.

Perhaps an acknowledgment of approaching adulthood had finally taken root inside her in the form of a knighthood.

When this thought crossed his mind and he glanced at her once again, he saw that the rambunctious girl had, at some point, fallen asleep with her mouth partly open.

“Of course…”

The moment he got his hopes up, this is what greeted him.

That said, considering how she had been swinging that wooden sword from before sunrise and had followed that up with a hearty meal, this was no surprise.

A weary smile would be all he could muster if some stranger told him that this innocent girl was actually a knight. He decided to pray that at least her enthusiasm would keep for a long time. And just as he reached out to collect the letter still in Myuri’s grasp, the scabbard slipped from atop her belly and woke her up.

“Mm…Huh…?”

“If you are going to sleep, then please do so under the covers.”

“Yaawn… I’m not…sleeping… Yaaawn…”

He wasn’t sure what sort of pride allowed her to say that with such confidence while yawning so loudly.

“Look, you’re crinkling the letter.”

She obediently surrendered the papers, her eyes still closed. As he thought about taking the scabbard from her while folding the letter, she spoke up. “Oh yeah, why did you scowl when you read the letter earlier? Was there something that worrying in it?”

“Hmm? Oh, not quite…”

Col gave a vague response, knowing that there was little point telling her, but he noticed her staring at him.

Mere moments ago, her face was placid and relaxed, looking like she didn’t have a worry in the world. Now, there was smoldering anger in her eyes.

“What would you do if I looked upset while reading a letter?” she said, after struggling to sit up, and placing her scabbard on her lap.

Col naturally knew exactly why she was scolding him.

“…Of course, I would want to know why.”

“Exactly. And here I thought I was a knight who bears the same crest as you.”

If he told her that she was exaggerating and making this to be more than it really was, he knew beyond a doubt that she would snap at him without hesitation. If he wanted her to behave like a proper knight, then he needed to act the part as well.

“What you say rings true.”

Myuri crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

“But, well…I find this rather embarrassing to say out loud. Mostly because I found myself worrying about things that are beyond my station.”

She stared blankly at him, curled her tail, then held it near the corner of her mouth.

“Was it about wanting to make me your wife?”

Col felt as though it had been quite a while since he last heard her say that.

“That would certainly be something beyond me.”

Myuri cackled, and he smiled in turn.

Despite appearances, she was undeniably her parents’ child, and she had the sharp mind to prove it. She must have known this was the perfect chance to learn something new about whatever it was that had been troubling him.

“When I read the letter, I started thinking about the conflict brewing between the Kingdom and the Church. So long as this continues, there will be more people who will find themselves displaced as a result of this great clash, much like Sir Wintshire and Rhodes.”

Myuri lightly nibbled on the tip of her tail, then tilted her head.

“As of now, we are taking one step forward, then one step back, in resolving this conflict. The masses seem to be increasing their demands for a reformation of the faith and the clergy, but the Church itself does not seem very keen on compromising. If our ultimate choice turns out to be war, is that truly in service of God’s will, I wonder.” Col pulled out the chair at his desk and sat down, glancing at the thick tome of the scripture. “In the end, the ones who will suffer the most will be the townspeople, the innocents. I want to be of help to them, of course, but…there is only so much I can do. And so I pray that this conflict will end peaceably, and I want to do all I can to help make that a reality, but…I haven’t the slightest clue what to do.”

All he had at his disposal were the dubious title of Twilight Cardinal and his meager theological knowledge.

“What’d Blondie say?”

Myuri was referring to Hyland, the member of the Winfiel royal family who was approaching this conflict on the religious front.

“Even after the commotion with Sir Wintshire and the Knights of Saint Kruza, the king still remains cautious. I have not heard any news of a sound proposal since then.”

The reason the Kingdom was not looking for war at this time was because victory was far from guaranteed.

The Kingdom was an island nation, and since the Church held sway on the mainland, it would naturally set the stage for their prospective war in the strait that lay between the two, which would strain both sides.

Conversely, neither had to worry about coming under imminent attack.

As a result, the conflict had continued to escalate, only to come to a pause just before things boiled over, for better or for worse.

Both sides seemed to be at a loss, unable to find a decisive way forward.

“Hmm… From all the war stories I’ve read, a lot of them seem to end with everyone coming under a powerful king’s authority.”

It did not seem like they could count on that happening here.

“Why is the king here fighting with the Church in the first place?”

Myuri loved adventure stories, but she was not all that interested in the politics surrounding the Kingdom and Church. Placing her scabbard to the side, she fully extended her legs, then began to stretch forward as she posed her question, perhaps because her body felt stiff after her training.

“There is a tax that the Church levies all over the world called tithes. These were originally established to fund the holy war against the pagans, but now that the fighting is over, the Kingdom claims the tax to be unreasonable.”

“And the people in the Church are getting fat on that money?”

“I doubt those finances are directly contributing to their excess, but… Well, it is certainly one thing that is supporting their lavish lifestyles.”

The end result was massive cathedrals, finely spun clothes, silver crosiers, and sumptuous banquets served on gold platters. Even if they dutifully carried out their holy offices each and every day, the lambs of God had no reason to be living in such excessive luxury.

When one put the Church’s bountiful wealth and the levying of taxes that no longer served their original purposes side by side, it was easy to spot the injustice.

“In that case, it’s super simple.”

“You are absolutely correct.”

The Church was clearly in the wrong. If one took a moment to consider how things had gotten so twisted, the obvious conclusion was that the Church was rotten to its core.

Col felt less anger and more sadness in the face of that fact.

The scripture was filled with so many wonderful lessons, and yet this was what the bastion of his faith had become.

“You sure have a lot to worry about.”

Col looked up when she spoke and found that she had, at some point, come to sit on the corner of her bed, resting her scabbard on her shoulder.

“But you managed to save Rhodes and all his friends because you worry about all kinds of people.”

“………”

As he sat there reeling from the unexpected praise, Myuri, too, seemed surprised by his reaction.

“Why are you making that face?”

“Oh, nothing…”

Myuri puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction, took her scabbard in hand, then stood, stretching out her back to stand like a knight.

“I always get annoyed when you walk around thinking like a stupid sheep, but I always protect you anyway. Then I realized that you do the same for people like Rhodes and so many others.” She swung the sword, still in its scabbard, and crisply sliced through the air. “I think it’s time I should start doing all I can as your knight, Brother.”

Rhodes and the rest of his troop had been treated coldly by the other Knights of Saint Kruza, to whom they had pledged their loyalty, simply by virtue of their birth country, and the very existence of the order had been close to losing purpose entirely due to the world being at peace. Their story had resonated deeply with Myuri, who was not fully human and could relate to those who could not find their place in this world. And it would seem that their plight had left a deep impression on her.

But she had not shied away from it. She had paid close attention, grown from the experience, and was now ready to face the world. Col realized that he also needed to work diligently so that he could live up to her expectations as well.

Myuri cradled her scabbard in her arms and flashed a shy smile at him, and he returned it in full.

“Anyway, Brother…,” she began, the smile still on her face. He looked deep into her red eyes. “That’s why I think knights need swords that suit their position.”

Col’s smile didn’t change at all, even as he flatly replied, “No.”

He was ever vigilant.

Myuri immediately started sulking and she turned on her heel, leaping back into her bed.

She did not casually lie down like she did last time, but instead pulled the covers up as though she was ready for bed.

“You just don’t get it, Brother!” she exclaimed, squeezing her pillow in a death grip and curling up into a ball.

“…Good grief.”

Though she was constantly looking for a chance to convince him to buy her a sword, he knew that didn’t mean her compliments were insincere.

In this conflict, there would be many unforeseen events and assuredly, a great deal of his good intentions would backfire on him. Col had no doubt these trials and tribulations could discourage or even hurt him. But if the mere thought of such hardship frightened him, then he would never be able to face the true challenges that awaited him. And when those things did come to pass, he knew he would not be alone.

That was why he had to continue steadily and earnestly doing what needed to be done. He knew that in the process, God would show him the way, and he would be able to live up to Myuri’s expectations.

As he mulled over all of this, he sensed someone approaching their door; moments later, a knock came.

He glanced at Myuri to confirm that she had the blankets pulled up over her head, hiding her ears. Her toes were sticking out the other end of the blanket, and he caught a glimpse of her tail, but he figured that would be all right.

When he opened the door, he found one of the manor’s staff standing outside.

“Apologies for interrupting your rest. Heir Hyland has returned.”

After the knighting ceremony, Hyland had left the city to answer a summons to the royal court. A servant coming to inform Col of her return meant that she had business with him. It was likely that she had seen some pertinent activity at court.

“I will be with her imminently.”

“She will meet you in the office.”

The servant bowed and rushed off with unsteady steps. When Col turned to look at Myuri after the door was closed, he saw that she had completely bundled herself up in the covers and was now an impenetrable fortress.

“We’re going, Myuri.”

He tried to peel back the blanket, but she resisted. He shook her and the tip of her tail started to thump against the bed—she was playing.

With that in mind, he took the scabbard lying on the desk.

“It seems my knight has abandoned her duties, so I shall return this scabbard to Heir Hyland.”

In the next moment, she flung back the blanket and poked her head out.

“You’re terrible, Brother!”

“No, I am not. Come now, fix your hair.”

Myuri, now extricated from her blanket, sighed with great fanfare, rose from the bed, and began to comb.

“Brother, you have to tell Blondie that we want to look for a legendary sword on our next journey!”

She made frivolous remarks as she furiously tamed her hair and all he could do was reply weakly.

Once they reached the office, they found a mountain of parchment sitting in front of Hyland.

When a royal stayed in such a large city, the townsfolk queued up with requests for judgments on their disputes, resolutions for whatever was plaguing them, and all sorts of other petitions. In addition to that, Hyland was running all over the place due to the conflict between the Kingdom and the Church. Col could only admire her tireless efforts.

“I can hardly stand it when I have nothing to do, so I welcome it.”

Even when he expressed his appreciation for her hard work, she replied with indifference.

“So has something happened at court?”

He could hardly keep himself from asking the question, considering Wintshire’s letter and what he had just been talking about with Myuri.

Hyland blinked a few times before smiling.

“I am terribly delighted to see just how eager you are to fight alongside my country. I wish all those self-interested nobles could hear you now,” she said before emitting a tired sigh, though maintaining her smile. “No noteworthy developments, sadly. The king is biding his time, waiting for the masses to assemble and demand the Church right its wrongdoings.”

From what he had heard, the popular movement to reform the indulgent Church had been gaining momentum on the mainland.

But there was no guarantee that it would continue to grow, and there was no way of knowing if, and when, it might fizzle out instead.

The prospect of doing nothing but wait made Col feel indescribably restless.

“I am of the same mind. But there is nothing to do about it beside focusing on whatever is within our reach.”

“Yes…you are right, of course.”

Col was certain that Hyland was also pained by the current impasse, and he was sure that she was even more anxious than he was, especially considering how she had seen for herself how noncommittal the king and nobles were being.

“I was overeager.”

“Not at all. It is because I can count you as one of my allies that I am able to maintain my composure at court.”

Col was grateful to hear that, and he bowed his head. Then Hyland pushed onto the next topic.

“Ah, right. It would seem your knight training is going well.” Her words were directed to Myuri, who stood beside Col. “I hear you have a knack for swordplay.”

Standing guard just outside the room was the knight who had trained with Myuri.

Perhaps he had been summoned more to fill in Hyland about Myuri’s escapades than to keep watch.

For some reason, Hyland had taken a liking to the girl, who treated royalty like they were no different from anyone else.

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up about your chances in jousting, where physical prowess means everything, but the same can’t be said for a fencing match. I’m looking forward to seeing your crest flying high.”

“See, Brother!” Delighted, Myuri glanced at Col before swinging back to Hyland. “But Heir Hyland,” she said, keeping her voice low while looking up at the woman with wide eyes. “My brother won’t buy a sword for me. I’m a knight now, so wouldn’t it be weird if all I had was a wooden sword? I keep telling him that I need a proper weapon to protect him from all kinds of danger, but he just won’t listen to me.”

“………”

Col shot her a bitter look, but Myuri paid him no mind.

Hyland, who knew of their dispute, flashed both of them a wry smile that showed she was enjoying this.

“Well, there is another way to think about it,” she said to Myuri. “Say there’s a brash young noble who wears spotless, shining armor and commits outrages on the back of his family’s power.”

“Hmm?”

Myuri stared blankly at Hyland.

“A meager-looking traveler comes across the foolish boy harassing the poor townsfolk. The traveler says to him, ‘Stop this at once.’ The idiot noble sees the traveler is unarmed and turns to attack him, yelling that he’ll simply strike him down instead. The traveler draws no sword, but instead picks up a stick from the side of the road to fight, and completely overwhelms the boy.”

It was a story that would have fit right into any roadside troupe’s repertoire.

“The humble traveler only ever draws his sword when the time calls for it. If no one can defeat him when he wields a stick, then everyone knows that not even a dragon could win against him once his sword is drawn.”

Whenever the hero in a play finally unleashed his hidden power, the children in the audience would invariably throw up their hands and cheer.

Myuri was no exception, of course, and when she looked down at the wooden sword at her side anew, her expression made it seem as though it was encrusted with jewels.

“True heroes don’t choose their weapons. What’s important is that you train hard so you can protect all that you hold dear when it matters most.”

“I see… Yeah, you’re right!”

When Myuri lifted her head, it was clear she had been totally convinced.

Hyland nodded, satisfied with the girl’s smile. “Now then,” she said before pausing to clear her throat. “I have a bit of a job I’d like you—the freshly minted knight—and your brother the Twilight Cardinal to take care of.”

“Certainly!”

Hyland smiled as Myuri stood up straight, standing at attention just the way a real knight had taught her.

“As of late, terrible rumors about a certain noble have been circulating. I would like you to prove his innocence.”

“Mm… Bwah?”

In surprise, Myuri let out a strange sound, as if she had just been ordered to hunt down a dragon.

“You recently helped the Knights of Saint Kruza, who are now traveling the Kingdom and inquiring into various churches’ wrongdoings, no? As a result, several landlords have come forward insisting that their faith is true. The Kingdom has a long history, and there are families whose forebears were once pagans, as well as families who ousted heretics from their houses in the past. Those are the kinds of families who fear that the lances of holy knights might soon be pointed in their direction. I want you to pay a visit to one of these houses and confirm their faith with your own eyes.”

Myuri’s mouth hung open, and when she finally managed to collect herself, she turned to look at Col.

Her eyes were begging him to turn down such a boring-sounding job, and she made a point of tapping him on the leg before pointing to her scabbard.

Naturally, Col ignored her plea about legendary blades and asked, “Are you asking us to act as inquisitors?”

“No, no, nothing so over-the-top. If anything, what I seek is to spread the truth that you inspected this noble’s domain and confirmed there is no problem there. When nobles jostle for position, they often seize upon any opportunity to spread terrible rumors and dispose of one another. What we want to do is make sure unnecessary trouble doesn’t erupt within the Kingdom.”

It sounded like this was less about uncovering the truth and more about politics. Myuri could barely stand the thought of something so utterly tedious.

“Of course, I can’t address every single petition. There are actually two reasons I want to send you to this particular place.”

When Hyland said this, Col thought he caught her glancing at Myuri.

“The first reason is that the landlord presides over lands that produce a great deal of the Kingdom’s wheat. If some religious disturbance were to erupt there, the value of wheat within the Kingdom would fluctuate violently.”

The Kingdom of Winfiel was an island country, so if there was any disruption in the food supply, they would be forced to cross the sea to obtain provisions from other countries. Such conditions would not prove advantageous while the Kingdom challenged the likes of the Church.

The stability of domestic wheat production absolutely had to be preserved.

“And the second…” Hyland’s tone grew more serious.

Col was nervous—what could it possibly be? What could be more important than wheat, the Kingdom’s lifeline?

Hyland turned, not to the anxious Col, but instead to Myuri and said, “Not long ago, young Lord Nordstone, who recently became patriarch of his house, visited the royal court hoping to prove his innocence.” She paused. And when she spoke again, she gave a theatrical smile. “He claims that ghost ships from beyond the land of the living stalk his lands.”

Myuri, who had been so terribly bored by all the grown-up talk, immediately sprung to life.

House Nordstone was an esteemed family, and had apparently loyally served the royal house of Winfiel since the war that led to the founding of the Kingdom. Due to their devoted service, the family received special permission to use a sheep in the design of their crest.

However, capable warriors did not necessarily make for capable stewards, so as the Kingdom’s territory grew and the war petered out, so too did the Nordstone family’s influence. At some point, Col had heard, the once mighty house had owned little more than a barren patch of land. This all changed when the previous lord of House Nordstone took the reins at a young age.

Unlike his predecessors, who had prioritized martial might and neglected land management, the new lord of Nordstone feverishly reformed his territory. With great effort, he transformed the barren land—once good for nothing but shepherds and their grazing flocks—into a sea of golden wheat. This rapid development had even been regarded as a miracle, and indeed, the Nordstone fiefdom came to be well-known for its festivals dedicated to the patron saints of agriculture.

When Col and Myuri had heard that much, they exchanged quick glances. Barren land suddenly transforming into lush wheat fields? And, if those lands were bringing up problems of faith, then there was only thing they could think of.

That was because the pouch of wheat that hung from Myuri’s neck had been given to her by a wisewolf who had once governed harvests of wheat.

But judging by what Hyland told them, it sounded as though there was something else afoot, unrelated to the spirits of old.

“House Nordstone prospered greatly from the production of wheat. But as time has passed, new, chilling rumors started to circulate, and that is where the ghost ships come in.”

Myuri gulped, and Hyland smiled briefly.

“Rumors of ghost ships, though, are not all that unusual in and of themselves. Any port will have at least one. I’m certain someone will swear there was one here in Rausbourne if you ask around the harbor.”

Disappointed, Myuri let her shoulders fall.

“But some say that ghost ships have washed ashore in House Nordstone lands twice now.”

Myuri immediately stood on her toes, causing Col frustration even as a smile crossed his face.

“So you want us to ask about this?”

“Essentially, yes. But to be honest, that’s not the only unsavory rumor surrounding this family as of late. There’s something exacerbating all this talk about ghost ships, or rather, encouraging this eerie gossip. I suppose one could call it…the previous lord’s eccentricity. He was well-known to be a man with more than a few quirks.”

Recalling how Hyland had mentioned that the noble who came to the royal court pleading his innocence was a young lord who had just become the head of his family, Col was beginning to grasp the general gist of the situation.

“So the new lord wishes to dispel the bad rumors surrounding his house that are due to the actions of the previous lord?”

“That is correct, but I am disinclined to believe any simple leap in logic, like they are indeed pagans or anything of that sort. My father mentioned that the man transformed a barren wasteland into rich fields of wheat in the span of a single generation, which means his capabilities were beyond normal. The exaggerations and misunderstandings of those around him are likely nothing more than just that. However…”

Hyland paused, hesitating as though she did not wholly believe what she was about to say.

And the reason her gaze dropped to a corner of the desk was because she was carefully choosing her words.

“I’ve only heard stories of this, but apparently, the previous lord was deeply involved with an alchemist.”

“An alchemist?” Col repeated the words, stringing together a strange analogy. “Meaning he might have used the power of an alchemist to turn a place where hardly anything grows into bountiful wheat fields, much like turning lead into gold?”

“Everyone thinks that, and there are indeed accounts of the previous Lord Nordstone employing an alchemist. That is not enough to deem them pagans, but the reports are not promising. I have heard that in the past, the neighboring nobles made him a scapegoat and came to the royal court to plead their cases.”

The house’s continued existence in the present day meant that they had been acquitted, but that checkered history certainly made it difficult to immediately dismiss the suspicions of others.

“And to top it all off, he suffered from bizarre delusions.”

Ghost ships, alchemists, and now with bizarre delusions added to the list, Myuri’s curiosity seemed to be overflowing. Col, however, could not imagine what would come next.

Hyland cleared her throat briefly and said, “He says that there is a land no one has ever seen at the far reaches of the western sea.”

Col felt like he was a starving man stumbling along, when suddenly, a rabbit appeared before him.

Except it was Myuri who cried out, “Oh, we—mmf!”

Just as she was about to literally fly forward, Col hurriedly stopped her short.

“Ah, we have heard something similar.”

Hyland was wide-eyed as the wolf pup was forcibly kept from blurting out something in her surge of excitement. Col held her mouth closed with his hand and took over the conversation.

“Yes, it was in…right, Desarev was where we heard tell of it. That there is a great new land at the edge of the western sea.”

It was the sheep Ilenia, broker of wool, who had mentioned the place. She was hoping to build a country for nonhumans there, in a land no one had ever seen or touched before.

And Ilenia had said one other thing as well.

“Hrrmf… Let go already! Is it true that the Kingdom is secretly digging into stories about the new continent?! That only a ship from the Kingdom landed there once?!”

When Myuri yelled, Col felt himself go cold. How could she talk about such conspiracies with royalty?

But once the shocked Hyland regained her bearings, she offered them not an expression of reproach or insult, but a tense smile.

“Is that a rumor you heard on the streets?”

It was Myuri’s turn to be surprised by Hyland’s response.

“Those rumors are…most likely, the truth exaggerated to their fullest potential, and then embellished a good deal further. I would say it actually originates with House Nordstone.” She placed her hand to her chin and began to reveal her thoughts. “I can guess why those stories spread as they did. The previous Lord Nordstone once brought a moneymaking scheme to the royal court.”

“A moneymaking scheme?” Myuri murmured, and she and Col exchanged glances as Hyland continued her explanation.

“Such schemes are often brought to the royal court. Things like the supposed discovery of a huge vein of gold, or how rumors that there will soon be a massive spike in trade because an entirely new caravan route was found—things of that sort, where there seems to be a big prospective payout. And of course, they come asking for funding. For a brief period of time, the previous Lord Nordstone tenaciously insisted that he needed financial support to reach this new land. I’ve heard that at the time, he mentioned that one of his boats had already reached the destination as a selling point. That most certainly passed along through the mouths of merchants who frequented the royal court, spreading because of the sheer absurdity of the story.”

Myuri looked glum, perhaps because the Kingdom had no secret plot brewing, or possibly because she was uncertain of what to make of Hyland’s story.

“The scandalmongers supposedly ridiculed the story as a total scam from start to finish, but the royal family at the time determined that the man himself truly believed it. Lord Nordstone had poured almost all his earnings from growing wheat into this project and was outfitting ships and sending them off with his own coin, after all. Meanwhile, in the court, a place filled with people who could easily contend for the most greedy and foolish, no one could get past simply how fishy it all seemed. And he was unable to secure funding from anyone, and the story naturally died out. However—” Hyland stopped to look at both Col and Myuri. “Nordstone’s cries became an echo in the people’s ears that eventually turned into a persistent rumor. He had plenty of things working against him, so anyone could make up anything. Even from what little I heard whilst in the court, I found plenty of people who claimed with a straight face that Nordstone is using his alchemist as a pilot for his ghost ship to reach the land of the dead and purchase eternal life for himself.”

Unproductive soil suddenly transformed into grand wheat fields, occasional ghost ship sightings, a deep connection with an alchemist, and a feverish pursuit of the land to the west of the sea—it wouldn’t take much kneading of all this to produce any sort of horrendous tale, and Col could clearly tell by simply looking at Myuri that the girl was already working out some sort of outlandish story herself.

“Still, even a lord with the most dogged criticisms eventually grows old and retires. And now the young Lord Nordstone is looking to do something about the horrible rumors that haunt his fiefdom. Since it just so happens that the Kingdom and Church are currently in conflict, he says that he would be doing a disservice to the king if troubles plaguing his land became something the Church could exploit. Well, I’m certain that his claim is only partially true, as the ulterior motive must be a show of loyalty to the king, but from our perspective, he reigns over the Kingdom’s most precious breadbasket, so we can’t exactly ignore him.”

According to Hyland’s explanation, the previous lord was hardly a pagan. He was merely an eccentric—the sort who could be found in every part of the world. He just so happened to own some of the greatest wheat-producing lands, which likely affected society around him in no small way.

“I apologize for forcing you to act as simple errand-runners, but House Nordstone is a valuable connection. Listen to what the new lord has to say and give him an endorsement.”

The Kingdom’s food security was key, especially now that greater conflict with the Church loomed on the horizon, which was a major reason why they had traveled north not too long ago to the islands that provided the fish that graced the Kingdom’s dining tables.

Col felt partially responsible, since the reason the new Lord Nordstone was panicking was because the Knights of Saint Kruza were visiting all the Kingdom’s churches and poking their noses into their business.

“We will gladly take care of this.”

He bowed, Hyland nodded slightly in return, and she then turned her gaze to the new knight beside him.

“House Nordstone resides in the town of Raponell, a port that has thrived thanks to the many wheat exports. Can I ask you to go there?”

It was none other than Hyland who had given Myuri the title of knight and used her privileges to grant them a crest that only the two of them could use. It was common sense for them to drop everything and go when she had need of them. Unexpectedly, Myuri was not troubled by the prospect at all.

And Hyland, who wished to be closer to Myuri despite the girl in question’s less-than-friendly attitude toward her, had likely given all these things careful consideration before agreeing to take on the issue with House Nordstone.

After all…

“Of course you can leave it to us!”

The house they were supposed to investigate was a suspicious one surrounded by talks of ghost ships and alchemists.

Myuri, who loved stories filled with such fantasy and mystery, practically shouted as she accepted the mission.

Though it was essentially a courtesy call, it was not a visit they could conduct casually, especially considering just how important House Nordstone was to the Kingdom.

And though Hyland’s tone suggested that the chances were practically zero, that did not mean that there was absolutely no possibility that the previous Lord Nordstone was a pagan, and it was entirely plausible that he had close ties with a nonhuman.

In any case, Col knew they had to do some preliminary research before they made their way to Raponell, and he knew someone else who stubbornly insisted they do so.

That was Myuri, of course.

“Ghost ships to the new land, Brother!”

He was unsure how many times he had heard her say that now, so he did not even bother to respond. And yet Myuri paid no mind and continued to ride the excitement over odd stories he could never have imagined himself.

She was so excited, in fact, that as they secured travel arrangements to get themselves to Nordstone territory, he had to make sure she wore a long cloak with a hood that would keep her ears and tail hidden even if they accidentally popped out in excitement.

“I bet the mystery alchemist got the power of immortality from the philosopher’s stone. And then I bet he brought the dead back to life to make them his soldiers, and that’s how they crewed a ghost ship. All for his adventure across the terrifying, dangerous, and endless western sea!”

Myuri had taken all the rumors surrounding Nordstone and had concocted her own wild stories.

Her head was so full of dreams and fantastic scenarios that if you thwacked her with an odd tale or two, it would not have been surprising if a cascade of sparkling stars came tumbling out like she was a dusty straw bed that had not been changed for many years.

What was playing a big role in her excitement, however, was the idea of a new land beyond the sea.

“Ooh, should we tell Miss Ilenia about this?”

It was Ilenia who had first told them about the potential of a new continent. She had spoken with conviction about the existence of a land to the west at the edge of the sea that no one had seen before, and she wanted to create a country for nonhumans out there.

What excited Myuri about stories of the new continent was not her love for adventure alone, but because this new, empty land had special meaning to her as a nonhuman with no home in the known world.

“But from what we have heard from Heir Hyland, I believe we would only end up disappointing her.”

According to Ilenia, a single ship from the Kingdom of Winfiel had once managed to reach the new land. It was from this that she inferred the Kingdom was secretly working toward claiming the new continent for their own. But Col considered that to be wishful thinking on her part. In short, Ilenia was pinning her hopes on the Kingdom’s supposed plans since she and those working with her were nowhere near capable of chartering a ship for a long sea voyage.

But now that Hyland had told them the source of those rumors about the new continent, it was Col’s honest belief that it was unlikely the Kingdom was working in secret toward any such expedition.

“That blondie is too nice for her own good. The king is tricking her.”

Myuri was welcome to come up with all the wild fantasies she wanted, but Col drew the line at her speaking ill of Hyland.

“You know Heir Hyland is the one who went through all that trouble for our very own order of knights, right?”

Myuri was reflexively about to talk back, but she seemed to reconsider, agreeing with his statement.

But that was not enough to temper her excitement; she spoke up again, fidgeting with the scabbard she took everywhere with her on her hip.

“But now that we’ve gotten this far, I think it’s about time we should get that legendary sword.”

Rumors of ghost ships and talk of reaching the ends of the western sea had fueled the fiery craving for adventure that roared in her heart.

“We’ll have to expose the secrets of the ghost ship. We might find skeleton soldiers or demons aboard!”

Passersby smiled at the girl as she swung an imaginary sword in the side-sweeping motion she had just recently learned, as if to tell him that a legendary sword could take those foul fiends out in a single stroke.

“…You don’t need one.”

“Why?!”

Col gave her a big sigh. As he wondered which point he should admonish her for, Myuri’s imaginings only grew.

“What is a legendary sword, even?”

“A legendary sword is a legendary sword!”

That explained nothing.

“Then where would we be able to obtain such a thing?” Col asked.

He decided it would be much more productive to converse with her like this as they walked instead of letting her cause a ruckus, so he pressed her for information.

“Obviously, it’s something you get after completing a journey. Don’t you know anything?” She looked at him with disbelief that he did not already know something so glaringly obvious before continuing, as though to enlighten him. “Sometimes you’ll have to go into a cave to find the legendary sword, but most of the time you get it after a journey to collect materials.”

“Materials?”

Col’s interest had been tickled, and Myuri did not fail to notice the opening he presented.

She smiled, now in a better mood, and came to stand next to him, grasping his hand.

“First, to get metal, we need to chip off a scale of a dragon with a steel body.”

Their very first obstacle was apparently a feat that seemed quite impossible, but he knew better than to ask why the dragon’s scales were made of steel in the first place.

“And then, to start the smelting fire, we need to gather firewood from a tree that’s over a thousand years old from the forest of tree spirits.”

“Tree spirits? Do those exist?”

He was familiar with wolves who lived in wheat, of course, and spirits who took the forms of rabbits, eagles, sheep, and whales were among his acquaintances.

He had asked without thinking, but she kicked his foot and ignored his question.

“The hammer we need to forge the blade has to be one that used to carry the power of lightning.”

Col thought he had once heard of something like that in the stories of the pagan gods. It was a strange hammer, one that could summon lightning with a single swing and would magically return to the wielder even after it was thrown.

“And then the cold water used to temper the red-hot steel has to be from the big waterfall at the end of the world.”

Of the innumerable innocent questions children often asked that troubled adults, “What does the edge of the sea look like?” was undoubtedly one of them.

The answer was typically, “The edge of the sea is a big waterfall, and that is the end of the world.” Myuri believed that there was a land at the far side of the western sea, so it was easy enough for her to believe that the waterfall that marked the edges of the world was even farther beyond that.

In fact, Col was a bit relieved that she didn’t have any complicated questions about the makeup of the world. For the Church, whose foundation rested on the idea that God had created the world, the subject was seen as the spawning grounds for pagan activity.

House Nordstone, who had gone to Hyland for help, had apparently been seeking the new continent, but considering the trouble that came with it, they were undoubtedly nervous about all this.

Myuri was not in the least troubled by societal circumstances, so she carried on and on about this legendary sword in a carefree manner.

“So even if we can’t find a dragon, we could probably ask Autumn the whale to find us a scale from a fish that looks something like a dragon, and I could ask Mother, and I bet she could easily find us wood from a tree that’s over a thousand years old, though I’m not sure about the hammer. Of course, the water from the waterfall at the end of the world is something we could easily get once we reach the new continent!”

The worst part about Myuri’s imaginative stories was that the fairy-tale-like bits of reality would sometimes creep in and help her out.

“And then, how you refine the steel is really important for the blade. You’d normally put eggshells and stuff into the fire in order to draw out impurities.”

Ever since they began talking about knighting her, she had started to frequent the blacksmiths in the artisan village out of her want for a sword. She spoke of knowledge which she had only heard bits and pieces of while she was there as though she had known these things for years.

“But what you need to add to the fire for the steel for the legendary sword is a lock of hair from a beautiful maiden with pure faith.”

All stories like these needed a devoted maiden.

She would always end up with the hero in the end, of course, but Myuri was for some reason stroking her own hair.

“That part would be easy, right?”

She flashed him an innocent smile without the slightest hint of doubt, but his expression, in turn, turned skeptical.

A beautiful maiden of the purest faith.

If one were to shine the narrowest beam of light of her from a very specific angle, he could see how she might count, but he was not entirely sure he could say the same when she stood bathing in the bright sunlight.

As he struggled to make his decision and remained silent, Myuri kicked at his foot again with a look of feigned ignorance.

“And finally, the hilt that connects the legendary sword and wielder together. What we need here…” She patted the handle of the wooden sword that rested in the beautiful scabbard that hung from her hips before continuing, “…is the bone of a saint.”

There were many swords from earlier times that used bone for the handle. Many people with power came to Nyohhira from all over the world, so Col had occasionally seen them bragging about their secret weaponry. Treasured swords inlaid with relics said to have the power of miracles were typical, and the older specimens of that sort often used bone for the handle. Some of those bones may have even been human.

But using an entire bone of a saint for the hilt was much too bold.

That was not because it was unthinkable to use the bones of the dead in that manner, but because these types of relics were far too valuable. A blade made entirely out of gold would not sit right on the scales, either.

“A saint’s bone that could be used as a sword’s handle would be valuable enough to build an entire cathedral.”

Surely, Myuri would have no choice but to give up on this particular fantasy.

Or so Col thought, until he noticed that she was staring at him intently.

Her eyes were that of a wolf—emotionless, seeking prey.

When he realized what her gaze meant, a slight chill ran down his back and he said, “…I am not a saint.”

Myuri remained silent and turned her eyes to his arm before pouting her lips.

“Just one, please?”

He was not sure how serious she was being, but he could not see a smile in her eyes at all.

“I’m going to make a legendary sword! One bone is a small price to pay for that.”

“And that one bone is utterly irreplaceable!”

“Whaaat? It’ll grow back. Do you still have your baby bones?”

“They are not teeth, you know…”

The remains of saints changed hands for enormous sums, so it was only natural that there were plenty of scams as well. The most brazen claimed to have a full set: the skull from when the saint was a child, from when the saint was an adult, and from when the saint was an elder.

Whenever Col considered how frighteningly clever Myuri was, she still proved herself a child in the most ridiculous of ways.

Tired, he dropped his shoulders and said to her, “If you want a legendary sword, then you will have to find a complete one in a cave.”

Myuri shrugged, finally relenting. Then, as her gaze dropped from his arm downward, she suddenly raised her voice and almost made him jump.

“Aw, we’re holding hands again!”

Col had considered the way she spoke on and on about the legendary sword to be quite childish, but Myuri had her own standards for what adulthood looked like. He wearily watched as she shook off his hand.

As they chatted, they arrived at a refurbished old building that had once served exclusively as a loading dock for grain sitting in a corner of what was called the “old town” in historic Rausbourne.

Considering how it had been built to house a precious food resource, the building itself was mundane and showed no external sign of hospitality or sympathy.

Eve, the great merchant who was using the building as her base of operations, asked them, “Nordstone?”

“Yes. We were wondering if you knew anything about them.”

As a place that once swallowed and spilled out huge amounts of grain, the old storage area faced the mouth of the river. But now, after many years of service, the ships were no longer able to reach these buildings, and the newer side of town on the opposite bank had become the main harbor of the city.

That meant the area was now a quiet place. The residents could gaze upon the hustle and bustle of the opposite bank and sip their wine while the seabirds crooned overhead.

“Of course I do. They’re one of the few families in this country whose lands yield a sizable harvest of grain. My company’s been trading with them for a long time.”

“We’ve actually been tasked by Heir Hyland with an odd job concerning them.”

Eve, who had been lounging in a chair with a deep back and sipping on wine as she went through documents, looked up at Col with an expression of annoyance.

“It’s hard to find any family odder than that, sure.”

“Do you know the rumors?”

Eve hmmed and handed the parchment she was holding over to her attendant, a girl who hailed from the desert country.

“Are you paying them a visit as an inquisitor?”

If one thought of the Twilight Cardinal and a Nordstone coming face to face, this would have been the obvious assumption.

“We’re gonna catch ghost ships heading to the ends of the western sea!” Myuri enthusiastically interjected, and for once, Eve was openly shocked.

When she saw the exasperated look on Col’s face, an amused smile crossed her lips.

“I see you have a lot on your plate.”

“Miss Eve, could you please tell her that ghost ships are nothing but a superstition?”

Hyland had said that at least one ghost ship tale could be found in every port. A seasoned merchant such as Eve had no doubt heard about them more than she cared for.

And Ilenia, the girl looking into talk of the new continent, was working as a wool broker in Eve’s company. Considering how Eve was, she may have already looked into what Ilenia once told her and had known for some time that Nordstone was the origin of those rumors, just as Hyland had related to them.

But as she rose from her chair and made to return inside from the balcony, Eve patted Myuri’s head on her way in and said, “I can’t say I know much about the stories of the mainland that Ilenia so loves, but I have actually come across an empty ship, floating across the water aimlessly on a day that saw thick, heavy fog.”

Myuri’s wolf ears popped out.

“I’ll tell you more inside.”

Myuri followed her like a puppy. As Col stood on the threshold between the balcony and the interior, the girl from the desert who served Eve gave him a pleasant smile.

Was Eve actually saying that ghost ships were real?

Eve took her place at the long table inside, smoothed out her bangs, unruly because of the sea air, and gestured to the seat opposite her.

The bejeweled desert girl brought over a plate heaped with a dark, dried fruit.

“These delectable things are called dates. They taste great with boiled cow’s milk.”

A wooden pitcher filled with steaming milk was placed before them; Eve truly thought of everything.

“Now, ghost ships, was it?”

Myuri’s tail whipped to and fro in delighted surprise at how sweet the dates were, and when she heard the words ghost ship, both she and her ears shot straight up.

“You saw one, right, Miss Eve? Does that mean they’re real?”

Eve grinned, and she took one date for herself and popped it into her mouth.

“All I said was that I saw an empty ship out at sea on a day of particularly thick fog.”

Myuri scrunched her brows together and stared at the merchant woman; Eve took a glass of wine, not milk, and helped herself to a sip.

“But there was nothing normal about it.” The sea-dark wine glinted on her lips playfully. “It was right around this time of year. Fog often visits the coast of House Nordstone’s home port of Raponell—sea currents and what not—and that day brought a near impenetrable fog.”

Myuri stared closely at Eve, the date she had in her hand completely forgotten.

“It felt like we were swimming through milk that day. I couldn’t even see the faces of the sailors standing on the opposite side of the ship. But for some reason, every sound was strangely amplified. All of a sudden, I heard a loud creak of wood coming from the oddest direction.”

Col tried to imagine standing on a ship in milk-white fog and then suddenly hearing the ponderous creak, creak of wood. The sailors on board that day must have all stopped whatever they were doing to strain their ears to listen.

“The fog was too thick to see out over the water, and the sea itself was a dead calm. No waves whatsoever. And then, creeping out of the mist, it appeared.”

Col pictured one of the darkened dates floating up from the bottom of the milk pitcher.

“And what a great heaving ship she was. But she flew no banners telling us where she hailed from, and there was no one on deck. And strangest of all, the oars were dead still.”

It was logical to think that someone would be working the oars, considering it was moving across a windless sea, and they had heard the sounds of creaking wood just before spotting the vessel.

“We hailed them, but there was no answer. The bow of this aimlessly drifting hulk collided with our starboard and came to a halt. That brought us all to our senses, and we began shouting—we were going to give them an earful for crashing into us, but we didn’t get so much as a peep in return. That didn’t clear anything up for us, so we cast out the grappling iron to steady the ship, then readied our ladder to cross over.”

The sound of Myuri’s gulp marked what would have been the intermission if this were a roadside play.

“How strange it was. There were some brushes scattered across deck, like the crew had been in the middle of cleaning, and the rope was out, as though they were in the middle of repairing it. Yet it was dead silent on board, and no matter how much we called out, we got no response.”

Myuri fisted her hands tightly, leaning forward and waiting for the rest of the story.

“When we ventured below deck, we saw coals burning hot in the hearth, a big pot of what looked to be breakfast boiling above it, half-eaten portions in wooden bowls scattered about, and there was still a lingering warmth in the beds where the sailors would have slept. But…,” Eve’s voice lowered to a hush. “No one was there. The whole place was empty. Despite all the signs of life we’d been seeing.”

Myuri, at some point, had reached out to grab Col’s shirtsleeve; the expression on her face made it look like food had caught in her throat.

Though she loved stories of adventure where the heroes fought with skeleton soldiers, it was entirely likely that she didn’t actually handle stories like these very well.

But Col had to ask.

“Did you truly see such a boat, Miss Eve?”

It was hard to imagine her going out of her way to lie about something like this, but the feeling of disbelief pushed the words out of his throat regardless.

Eve suddenly smiled and took a sip of her wine, as though she had been expecting a reaction like that from him.

“I did. But there is an explanation for how this all came to pass.”

“Huh?”

“I felt chills at first, of course—even the most seasoned sailors did. That goes to show how much of a coincidence this all was.”

Unsure of what that was supposed to mean, Col instinctively glanced toward Myuri.

This silver wolf was quite adept at solving puzzles.

But Myuri, too, looked up at him quizzically.

“Almost every story of ghost ships, not just the ones stemming from House Nordstone, involve a still sea on a day of thick fog. But there is a reason for that.”

“…I cannot imagine what that might be.”

And Myuri, who often berated him for being a fool, nodded deeply in agreement.

“Pirates.”

That was unexpected.

“The ship was empty because of pirate attacks. Merchant ships often skimp on hiring rowers to save money, but this makes them an easy target in windless, still waters. And a thick fog makes it easy for predators to hide themselves.”

“Th-then what about the people who vanished from the ship?”

Eve gave an elegant answer to Myuri’s question.

“They were either taken away to be held for ransom or sold as slaves. Or sometimes they’re dumped on nearby islands. And considering how heavy merchant ships can be with all that cargo, that makes it difficult for the smaller pirate ships to tow. So after the ship is stripped of her lightest and most valuable cargo, everything else is left to float aimlessly across the sea. People who happen across these poor ships are paralyzed by fear after seeing the inexplicable, and so another ghost ship story is born.”

This explanation made everything make sense.

“Then are the stories of ghost ships from House Nordstone the same?”

“I’d say most of them are, yes.”

“Most?” Col asked in turn with some trepidation. A cross expression of a different sort clouded Eve’s face.

“Well, then there’s tall tales that can’t be explained away.”

Eve was a pragmatic merchant. She was plenty fine with appointing Ilenia, the embodiment of a sheep, as a wool broker simply because she seemed suited for it, so this response from her was unexpected.

“And do any of those tales live on in the Kingdom’s records?”

“I can’t say I know that much… Hey, Az!”

Eve called a name out toward the other end of the room, toward the corridor. The door opened silently, and a reticent-looking young man with a sharp gaze peeked in. This was a person they had frequently seen working within the manor as a guard. He was familiar with Myuri’s wolf form, too, so he showed no shock at seeing the girl with her wolf ears and tail out, munching on dates.

“You were conducting trade around Nordstone, right? Do you know any of the outlandish stories from the area?”

“…Only one, I’m afraid.”

“That’s the one about the ghost ship in the Kingdom’s records, the one that drifts ashore on the coast on stormy days and whatnot?”

“Yes. That is what I have heard.”

Myuri interjected herself into the conversation between master and servant. “Does that mean there was proof that said it was a ghost ship? Like…there were skeleton soldiers on board?”

Neither Eve nor the man named Az laughed. The two exchanged glances, and it was Az who replied.

“If you are to be investigating this yourself, you mustn’t cloud your view with inaccurate information.” Az seemed to be the sort of person who made a clear distinction of what he could and could not do. He abruptly added, “My lady, I believe one of the sailors from a ship docked at the harbor here hails from that area. He may know of it in greater detail, and he may even know the proper story.”

Eve looked to Az, and then to Col.

“You came to me to ask for a ship to take you to Raponell, didn’t you?”

Both Rausbourne and Raponell were port cities, so it would be much faster to travel by boat.

Hyland could certainly arrange for them to travel by land, but only a merchant could help them travel by sea.

“If that is at all possible.”

“Perfect, then. We’ll hire the ship that sailor works on. I think it’s about time we send the goods we’ve purchased to the south, anyway,” Eve said, then suddenly brought her hand to her chin. “But, hmm. Raponell…”

“What is it?”

When Col asked, Eve flashed him a wolfish smile.

“If we can corner the landlord, do you think he’ll sell it to us? I’d buy it at a high price.”

The land House Nordstone owned was a crucial breadbasket for the Kingdom.

There was no doubt that Eve would stand to make a lot of money if she could exploit the lord’s weaknesses and threaten him.

“We are making our way there because the lord himself is wishing to prove his innocence.”

“Hm. A guard captain who grows frantic when thieves are about to be caught is typically the one controlling the thieves.”

Myuri smiled with glee, and so Col said with a sigh, “When a jar of honey went missing back in the bathhouse in Nyohhira, one of the most fervent searchers turned out to be the culprit.”

That was a time when Myuri was much younger than she was now, and the cunning she often exercised was shallower.

But now, since she had grown enough to look toward becoming a knight, she pursed her lips and smacked Col on the shoulder.

“Well, I’m fairly certain all the horrible rumors surrounding Nordstone stem from a jealousy toward the profit made from the wheat.” What she said was quite blunt. “Still, imagine something outrageous stemming from nothing more than some idle gossip. Isn’t it amusing?”

“Not at all.”

Hyland had been worried about the prices of wheat in the Kingdom fluctuating if all these odd stories about House Nordstone surfaced. Eve, with her feckless grin, was a wicked merchant attempting to beat the dust out of a land saddled with problems and willing to set the place ablaze just to turn a profit.

And children loved big bonfires.

“There’s going to be ghost ships, right? Ones with skeleton soldiers?” Myuri asked, her eyes glittering.

“When all’s said and done.” Eve motioned to Az that he could go, leaned back deeply in her chair, and folded her hands over her stomach. “Hyland really has given you one boring job. What about the conflict with the Church?”

Eve’s company spread its roots far and wide, giving her stake and influence in both the Kingdom and the mainland, which meant she could trade with either camp if war were to break out, so this was of the utmost interest to her.

It was not that long ago that Col and Myuri had exposed her plot to deliberately spark the war.

“The lord of a key territory within the country is troubled over unsavory rumors surrounding his household. It is an important job.”

Eve snorted. “Aren’t you almost done with your scripture translation? Your name is just starting to get out there. You should let her send you on an expedition across the mainland. I bet it’d be a great show to see those in power panic.”

“The mainland, hm… We could search for the legendary sword along the way, right?”

Col’s shoulders dropped at Myuri’s unnecessary comment before saying to Eve, “I want to end the conflict between the Kingdom and the Church peaceably. My goals are the opposite of yours.”

Eve gave an aggravated huff. “I don’t care if this ends peaceably or not. But when it does, be sure to write my company down as your supplier for the ceremony marking the conclusion of all the commotion.”

Every situation provided a new opportunity to earn money.

Col was not sure if he should be astonished or impressed by her fortitude, and he suddenly felt the urge to ask the shrewd woman a question.

“From your perspective, what do you think about this conflict?”

“Hmm?”

Eve, who had reached out to take a date, looked up at Col.

Col had thought long and hard about what the conflict meant to him, so he already knew where he stood on the matter, and it did not seem as though Myuri’s opinion was going to change much. But this callous, yet extraordinary, merchant might perhaps have solutions that neither of them had ever considered.

“From my perspective, I believed that this conflict would quickly be over if the Church only acknowledged their wrongdoings. But they show no sign of doing such a thing, and so things have come to a standstill.”

“Hm.”

It was hard to tell if Eve’s slight smile was in response to his question, or from the satisfaction of smacking away Myuri’s hand, who had reached for Eve’s portion of dates after quickly finishing her own.

“If only the Church acknowledged their wrongdoings, hmm?”

When she spoke, he realized it was the former.

It was a simple question.

“Am I wrong?”

“It’s a matter of perspective. Not to the extent of ghost ships, though.”

Eve sipped on her wine, placed a hand on the table, and began to tap with a finger.

“The start of this conflict was to do with tithes, no?”

“That…is correct.”

Tithes were something the Church had been collecting to fund the war against the pagans, but that war had ended a decade ago.

“And the Kingdom says there are no more grounds to levy these taxes, because that war is over.”

“Yes.”

It was very simple logic.

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

Col had no idea what she was talking about. He wondered if he was alone in this and turned to Myuri beside him; she only had eyes for the dates sitting near Eve, perhaps because she had no interest in this sort of talk.

“This isn’t about black and white logic. This is a cruder, more emotional matter.”

“Emotional?”

If this were a topic of faith, that would make sense, but Col had not imagined that emotions would come into play in the conflict between Kingdom and Church.

“The Church collected tithes for their war against the pagans. And in response, the nations of the world presented the Church with capital for the war. And that cemented who at the core of the war? The Church.”

Those who followed God’s teachings gathered under the banner of the Church.

“It grew essentially groundless near the end there, but it finally came to an end after a long campaign, about a decade ago. It was a resounding victory for the Church.”

Of course, there were plenty of customs that had their roots in pagan traditions across the world, but there were no longer great throngs of heathens who gathered in any organized fashion across the land.

“And so, you could say that it was the Church who contributed the most to the war effort.”

That became the obvious conclusion when one connected the dots.

Then Myuri spoke up, with her eyes still trained on Eve’s dates.

“So you’re saying that they think of the tithes as their just reward?”

“You could stand to learn a bit from her, big brother.” Eve laughed.

But Col still did not understand at all.

“He’s fine the way he is. I’ll protect him.”

“Oh yes, you did recently get knighted, didn’t you? Congratulations are in order,” Eve said, then plucked a date from her own plate and set it down on Myuri’s.

“…What do you mean by reward?” Col asked.

It was Myuri who responded, popping the single date she had been given into her mouth with dissatisfaction. “Exactly what you think it means. They stood at the front to fight and then they won. The world’s at peace, and who’s to thank for that? It’s the people who fought, right? Meaning…the tithes are their reward!”

Her hand snaked out for more dates as she spoke, but Eve pulled each one out of the way before she could snatch any. As Col watched, he found that what he wanted to say would not form into words, so he simply sat with his mouth half open. It was because this was an idea he had not once considered.

“At its core, this is about their share.” Eve, having guarded her dates against Myuri’s encroachment, smiled with satisfaction. “The Church thinks that taxes are a privilege that belong to the true victors. And in reality, they did send people off to places that even the most adventurous merchants never dared venture, built churches there, maintained them at great sacrifice, and expanded the reach of their faith. Banquets of wine and cured meats consist of but a tiny portion of the Church’s activities.”

Col knew that. When they had gone to the northern islands and found themselves in a land surrounded by people who may or may not have been heathens, seeing the Church’s banner was reassuring.

Considering that he felt that way in this day and age, it must have been even more moving in the past.

“And then the Kingdom of Winfiel, just one of the many forces under their command, tells them that the war is over, so there’s no need for them to pay those taxes anymore. The Church naturally doesn’t find that very amusing. They’re thinking, Are you going to forget all the hard work we’ve done so far?”

There was, quite literally, a countless number of martyrs in the Church’s list of priests. Col could understand what Eve was saying when they talked about the Church’s perspective on the conflict.

“And then there was the problem you encountered not too long ago.”

“What problem?”

“The Knights of Saint Kruza. This little lady here was obsessed with them, wasn’t she?”

When Eve said knights, Myuri suddenly seemed to remember how she was supposed to be acting. She hurriedly adjusted her posture.

“The war with the pagans lasted for a long time. And because of that, there was great movement of people and goods to fuel the fighting. Missionaries built huts in places where it never stopped snowing, grit their teeth and bore through the harsh conditions, and there were even traveling merchants who were tasked with ferrying goods to those places on a regular basis—all in the name of defeating the pagans. Or they may have been more like the Knights of Saint Kruza, who worked themselves to the bone training every day until the time came to don their armor and march into battle. And of course, there were many others who supported them.”

The outcome of the war had already been settled, and expeditions to the north had become a pastime for nobility by the time Col was old enough to be cognizant of the situation, but he still somewhat recalled the mood of the time. Since his birthplace was in a land that had been destroyed by the Church, he remembered just how overwhelming the Church’s power was.

But overwhelming power could not exist on its own; it was a result of the efforts of many, many people.

“And then the war was over. That’s where our happy ending would be if this were a storybook, but reality isn’t like that. Think of the flow of people and goods deployed for the war. An incredible number of people had based their livelihoods on a system that was built around an ever-present war.”

“………”

Col was starting to understand what Eve was trying to say.

“But that’s not all. Think of it from the pope’s perspective. Could you sit down in front of a young priest, whose church you’ve protected on the front lines from the time of his master’s master’s master, and tell him that there was no need for his establishment anymore, now that the war is over? How would you tell him that there would be no more support starting next month? You think he’d want to tell a bunch of knights that’ve trained with all their body and soul, who’ve lost so many comrades on the battlefield, that they’re being disbanded because the war’s finished? No, you’d do the opposite. You’d say, well done, here’s a bone.”

Now that the war with the pagans was over and they were in an era of peace, many of the Knights of Saint Kruza were considered obsolete and were living hand-to-mouth because their donations and funding had been cut off—they were not receiving rewards of any kind.

When Col had seen the knights with his own eyes, he had seethed with anger. How could their beneficiaries stop supporting them like that? But perhaps he should have put more thought behind that observation.

The Church had not stopped supporting the knights simply because they wanted to.

“Without tithes, the Church will have to discard all those who fought for them during the war. And the Kingdom of Winfiel…” Eve paused before continuing “…is trying to put a stop to them because they say it’s unfair.”

What Eve spoke of was truly a matter of perspective.

“Of course, I understand the Kingdom’s position. Their gross revenue as of now is not enough to grant all nobles adequate stipends.”

Eve had been focusing her efforts on the Kingdom’s nobles, who were unhappy with this fact and were trying to unbalance the country in order to make a profit.

“If they have to send all that money overseas for a war that ended a long time ago, then they’d rather give it to the vassals who’ve loyally stood by them for an even longer period of time. The world is small. There isn’t enough room for everyone to sleep with their arms open wide.”

If one person was going to stretch out, then another would have to pull their arms and legs in.

Wintshire and Rhodes and the others from the Knights of Saint Kruza had lost their place for those exact reasons.

And within the Kingdom, there were many groups of nobles who were unhappy because they were unable to preserve the successorship of their families.

Both Kingdom and Church were troubled by similar problems.

“But the most irksome part of things like this is that it leaves them stuck.” Eve took her wine glass and sipped from it. “Kindhearted people like you think that if they just compromise, if they just cut back on one dish at dinner, it’ll all turn out fine, right? Oh, you wanted the Church to acknowledge their wrongdoing, didn’t you?”

The narrowness of his own insight pricked at Col.

But he understood well that what she was telling him was incredibly important.

“Put your imagination to work. Compromising in a conflict like this would be like asking one’s comrades to accept a smaller lot. Would you be able to ask that as someone in power? Those people are likely ones who have fought by your side for generations, and they’re the ones who will be watching your back in the event of a future war, which could happen at any time. You would need quite the justification to say something like that. Even if you understand that conflict with your enemy would be fruitless, it’s not actually the enemy that you need to convince first and foremost to accept a truce. It’s the people in your own camp.”

Eve had said that this was not a matter of logic, but emotion.

If Col were to approach this from a merchant’s point of view, it would be stupid to risk costs that totaled more than what was being paid for tithes in the fight to abolish tithes. And thus, the Church continued to put up foolish resistance by going so far as refusing to fulfill their divine duties, closing the doors to many churches, and losing out on the great amount of donations they would have received from the people.

As an organization, they had taken emotional action knowing well the logic and cost-effectiveness behind it.

“And so…the conflict between Kingdom and Church will not be easily solved.”

That was Col’s answer.

Those in power often engaged in war to snatch up land from neighboring countries, all in order to give their subjects wealth. In essence, this told him that the present conflict could not be solved without war.

He was at a loss for words in the face of such a cold, calculating answer. He had prayed that this would be solved peaceably and quickly, so that there would be fewer people who found themselves at the mercy of this conflict, but he was now fully aware of how naive and foolish he had been.

“Well, all that being said…I guess that would be good news for you, then.”

This remark was like finding a pebble in a bread roll.

Col looked back at her with instinctual anger—How could any of this be good news?—when Myuri spoke up.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You mean the new continent, right?”

“Huh?”

Col was shocked. He was not sure why the new continent had suddenly reappeared in the conversation, but surprisingly, Eve’s response was affirmative.

“That’s right. The thing that Ilenia won’t stop thinking about. Let’s say on the slim chance it does exist, what do you think would happen?”

“Er… I’m not sure if I have an answer for that…”

Col had no idea. Myuri insisted that the Moon-Hunting Bear was there, and Ilenia and her crew were hoping to build a country for nonhumans… And that was when he put two and two together.

A country just for nonhumans.

The reason they could create such a thing was because that land was a blank slate—it belonged to no one.

“The conflict between Kingdom and Church is like this plate.”

Eve was moving her plate filled with dates from left to right, dodging Myuri as she tried to reach for them. The girl from the desert then placed a new plate of dates down in front of Myuri.

“When you’re at a stalemate over how to divide up the catch, then you just need new prey for both parties to chase. It’s a good excuse for both leaders to put down their spears.”

If two people felt the need to fight over a small room, then they simply needed to go to a bigger land to build a bigger house—it was the same line of thought.

“I said it would be amusing if something outrageous started as nothing more than idle gossip, right?”

Col was dumbstruck.

This meant that the job Hyland had asked them to take care of was not trivial at all.

The previous lord, what with the rumors of ghost ships and alchemists surrounding him, had even gone to the royal court to ask for funds to reach the new continent. If he had been acting on the basis of solid proof, if the new continent truly did exist, then that might be the breakthrough needed to resolve the current conflict between the Kingdom and the Church.

“Hyland might have brought this up with you, because she had seen this far ahead. If she can pull off the feat of resolving this conflict, then she’d be the Kingdom’s flower overnight. She’s quite the tactician herself.”

Just as Col thought that it was unlikely for her to have placed such grand expectations on them, it was Myuri who spoke up.

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Myuri’s tone was skeptical, and she shrugged her shoulders. “It feels like that blondie found all this stuff for me personally.”

That can’t be, Col thought, but did not say, since even he had noticed Hyland casting frequent glances in Myuri’s direction as she spoke of House Nordstone in an ostentatious manner.

“You were delighted, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s just like an adventure story!”

If Hyland’s plan was to make Myuri happy, then she had succeeded in practically every aspect; Col, conversely, started to feel the hope from what Eve had just told him begin to wither.

Because in this case, that meant Hyland herself did not believe a single one of the rumors surrounding House Nordstone or the new continent that the previous lord had been pursuing.

“Well, I think all this about a new continent is questionable, but I know for certain that if it is true, then it will serve us well.”

Perhaps the slight kindness Col sensed in Eve’s tone was not his imagination. How he reacted the moment the thought of resolving the conflict between Kingdom and Church came to mind certainly prompted it.

Still, talks of a fantastical continent being the key to solving a real-life problem felt a lot like having a painting he had only ever seen in his dreams suddenly appear in real life. After all, it was the same place that Myuri so fervently wanted to find and was even the place where the Moon-Hunting Bear supposedly traveled to. It was all quite strange.

He then looked to Myuri and realized how smug she looked.

“Looks like you finally understand how important the new land is, Brother.”

He could not deny what she said nor refute her air of superiority.

That was because the seed of a powerful hope that prayed for the existence of the new continent had begun to take root within him.

“Oh, but, maybe that’s…not a good thing?” Myuri said as she munched on her new plate of dates. “Miss Ilenia and I are going to build a new country there. And we wouldn’t be able to do that if you brought all those old-world problems along, right?”

Indeed—if both Kingdom and Church sent ships that way, it may very well conflict with Myuri and Ilenia’s goal, but Ilenia was actually looking to use such an opportunity.

“Ilenia believes that the Kingdom’s searching for the new land, remember? And once she’s gotten the Kingdom to discover this land for her, isn’t she going to do as she pleases?” Eve remarked. “She is a surprisingly wicked girl,” she added.

With her signature black, fluffy hair, Ilenia gave the impression of a kind and mild girl, but they had sensed from Huskins that she was surprisingly fierce and stubborn.

“Sure, I guess. Considering how far away it is, I’d say we’re at the advantage.”

And the wolf was every bit as pragmatic as Eve was.

An army of considerable size would be needed to take down a wolf that could track a towering sheep or a deer across three mountain peaks. But that would mean sending reinforcements across a vast ocean. And among Myuri’s acquaintances was a whale who could easily be mistaken for a bird, so for humans to send a great enough force to truly threaten them was a nearly impossible task.

That made the prospect of Ilenia and her crew taking initiative in this new land entirely possible. If there was any problem they would have trouble contending with, it would be with the Moon-Hunting Bear.

When Col realized exactly what he had been thinking on, a vertigo-like sensation overcame him.

It felt like he had been mixing dreams and reality.

“Heh. If you wanted to restore the age of spirits, you’d have to be a big enough dreamer to think up a continent at the edge of the western sea. The conflict between the Kingdom and the Church is miniscule beside talk like this.”

“It’s not a dream!” Myuri exclaimed, and Eve summarily drew up her shoulders in a shrug.

“In any case, it sounds like this poor merchant is about to have another reason to start supporting you.”

If the existence of the new land was confirmed, then it would not only solve problems for those like Myuri, but also the conflict embroiling the world of the Kingdom and Church.

But Eve spoke lightly, because it was the obvious conclusion that such a thing could not exist, of course, and logically, Col agreed with her assertion.

Trying to decide how he should treat this topic internally felt like trying to balance the scales on a heaving ship.

It occurred to him that perhaps Myuri was more impressive than he gave her credit for, considering how she could lose herself in a fantasy, but also precisely maneuver herself in the real world.

That said, they would not learn more about what sorts of clues served as the basis for Nordstone’s pursuit of the new continent unless they went and paid him a visit themselves. A worry settled over Col, making him feel as though he was being played with, and he bit into one of the dates.

The cloying sweetness filled his mouth, and his tension melted away.

“Hey, Brother?”

Just as he had found relief, Myuri spoke to him.

“Do you think they’ll have these dates on the western continent?”

She turned her simple obsession with food onto the subject of the new land, one Col scarcely had the will to face.

For better or for worse, Col found her brazen attitude relaxing, and he finally managed a smile.

Hyland’s request had taken on an unexpected significance after talking to Eve, but Col did not consider asking Hyland herself if she was ultimately placing her hopes on this new continent. If she was as Eve proposed and was anticipating something in the future, then there was likely a good reason why she did not bother to disclose that to them; a simpler reason was that, as of present, talk of the new continent was in a realm of impossibilities, and Col could not yet bring himself to speak of it in earnest.

He was going to do the job he was given and do it well—they would simply search for clues in the meantime.

And if it truly became apparent that the new continent existed, then he could simply bring up the topic again.

That was where he found a comfortable spot to rest on the topic.

Myuri insisted that the Moon-Hunting Bear was there, and Ilenia’s goals and methods were like a map drawn on shifting sands. The most important thing for them to have first was confirmation on whether or not their intended destination was real.

On the other hand, Myuri seemed to be taking great delight in knowing that Col had at last taken an interest in the subject and constantly pestered him by telling him to read this and that book at the city council library. But as he thought about it, he realized it was very much like how he fervently tried to impart God’s teachings to her, and he felt a bit guilty for getting annoyed with her.

And so, two days since accepting Hyland’s job request had passed.

Col and Myuri were on their way to the harbor. They were to board one of Eve’s company ships, which was headed south to transport goods procured in Rausbourne, so that they could reach the biggest port town in House Nordstone’s domain: Raponell.

On the day of their departure, they woke up with the sound of the cathedral bell to ready themselves, and as they came to the pier in the crisp morning air, Eve was already ordering the dock loaders around to ferry the cargo onto her ship.

As soon as she saw the two, the woman said, “Oh? Are you sure you really want to go? There’s no telling what will happen to you once you disembark onto Nordstone’s cursed land.”

Her deliberately theatrical line made Myuri’s eyes shine brighter than the morning sun.

“That’s what I’m here for!”

“Miss Eve…”

Because of Myuri’s never-ending war cries as she struck down evil with her blade in her dreams, Col’s sleep had suffered the past couple of days. When he called Eve’s name out in aggravation, she simply smiled with glee.

“But it’s a knight’s job to beat back the dead. Isn’t that right?”

“Of course!”

The reason she kept spurring on the rambunctious girl was likely because she knew the wolf girl’s nose could sniff out not just the new land, but also House Nordstone’s scandals, which she could then use as leverage to bolster her trade deals.

As Col was finding himself both impressed and fed up with Eve, there came another, calmer voice.

“Rumors are but rumors. I trust that you will draw out the truth for us.”

Hyland had come all the way to the harbor to see them off; she looked like an angel of reason in contrast to the fiend that habitually egged on young girls.

“You might wake the dragon if you carelessly poke around in its den.”

There was something deeper to what Eve said, but Col pretended not to notice.

“We are simply going to hear what he has to say. And you were the one who said that all the terrible rumors surrounding his house most likely came from jealousy that he profited greatly from wheat.”

Eve shrugged, brushing off Col’s remark, and pointed out some remaining cargo for the loaders to take care of.

“Good grief…”

While he lamented over Eve’s mischievousness, Myuri quietly whispered, “I kind of wish a dragon would come out from its den, though.”

Col glared at her, and she looked away in an imitation of Eve’s mannerisms. He sighed—Eve was turning out to be a terrible influence on her—and then Hyland spoke.

“Are you sure you don’t need any protection?”

If Eve was the mischievous older sister, then Hyland was the worried one.

“We’ll be fine! I’ll be taking care of my brother.”

Myuri puffed out her chest and grabbed his arm; what she said was partly genuine, but partly a front.

After hearing of House Nordstone from Hyland, the first thing they thought of were nonhumans. This suspicious alchemist character was, after careful consideration, possibly the disguise for someone of that nature.

This meant that topics that were best kept from the attention of others might come up, so they respectfully declined an escort to keep their options open.

Even so, their mission this time was to hop on a boat to the south and then hear what the person of interest had to say once they arrived at Nordstone’s harbor. It was not good for them to continually take advantage of Hyland’s kindness, and Az, who had spoken to them back at the manor, was on board as a guide, so that was more than enough.

A man who appeared to be the captain, oblivious to Hyland’s continued worry, began to shout orders at the sailors.

The scattered crew on the pier all began to clamber onto the deck.

“Now then, we shall collect what stories we can to determine the veracity of rumors surrounding House Nordstone.”

“I’m hoping for hot tips that are worth at least as much as your fare. I wouldn’t mind hearing about goods that would net me lots of money.”

“Can I go shopping on your tab, then? We should share the profits!”

As Myuri joked around with Eve, Hyland looked as though she was holding back, feigning indifference. Col felt nervous, wondering if he should say something; and of course, Myuri did not notice Hyland’s state at all.

Myuri whirled around, coming to stand before Hyland, and said, “Thank you for the sword. If I find any monsters, I’ll protect my brother from them!”

She patted the thin blade that hung at her side. It was different from the one she had been gifted at the chapel—it was slender to match her physique, and the new scabbard did indeed have an inscription of their wolf crest.

Hyland had meant it as a gift for Myuri to be used regularly, unlike the precious ceremonial scabbard she had bestowed upon her. However, Col still did not approve of her having a sword, so he had been afraid to let her have one.

Though there was not much risk to them, they would still be traveling, and Hyland had told him that she wanted to give her one under that pretense. It was less because someone of such high standing desired it and more that he could not bring himself to disregard how Hyland felt about Myuri.

And of course, Myuri had hugged Hyland in glee.

“I’m happy, so long as it proves useful in your adventures.”

Hyland, who was always soft on the girl, seemed genuinely happy; and when Myuri was done giving the woman her brightest smile, she deliberately turned to smile at Col, and as the one who had argued that giving a girl of age her own sword was unthinkable, he could not help his face twitching.

“Okay, we’re off on an adventure!”

Now standing on deck, Myuri proclaimed the start of yet another journey with a loud voice and waved her hand, eliciting a wave from both Hyland and Eve in return. Once the excitement of leaving port had died down, Myuri finally came back to the hold after exploring different parts of the ship.

“Az helped me and told me about Nor…Now… What’s his name? He told me about that guy.”

It was not so much that she was eager to work, but simply that she wanted to know and could not help her curiosity. And there was a strange commonality between herself and her mother—her mother often had a hard time remembering names, and so did she.

The girl sat on a heap of sacks stuffed with wool and reported her findings.

“It’s generally the same as what Miss Eve told us, but there was nothing on the new continent. It’s kind of disappointing, but I guess it is just a rumor in some parts, like Blondie said. Whenever I ask about the new continent, they just tell me stuff I know is a lie and even pat me on the head like a kid.”

Though she was slowly awakening to her role as a knight, the way she puffed out her cheeks in anger would make anyone want to pat her head.

“Well, it’s probably best to ask the Nor guy about the new land directly. He worked really hard looking into something neither Blondie or Miss Eve believed in, after all.”

That essentially meant they could expect him to have some sort of clue, but ultimately—

“Do you believe Lord Nordstone knew something no one else did?”

Col had been embarrassed to consider the new continent seriously back during their talks in the manor. But the ship gently rocked them between the boundary of dream and reality. He leaned into the transitory atmosphere and asked what he had refused to entertain before.

“Hmm… Even Autumn the whale was skeptical, and he was the one who found the bear prints at the bottom of the sea. And since Miss Ilenia said that the migratory birds didn’t know anything, it’s probably not super likely that this Nor guy has some special clue all to himself.”

Col had always thought of Myuri as a dreamer, but she was ever levelheaded as always. Even if Nordstone had secured the help of a nonhuman to increase the yield of his wheat fields, and was using special connections to look into the land at the edge of the western sea, it was still rather unlikely that he had a unique clue.

As he considered all of that, Myuri looked to him with a tense smile.

“What is it?”

“Hmm?” Myuri flinched, drawing up her shoulders. “It’s kind of weird that you’re taking this seriously.”

Indeed—in the past, he had been the one to scold her about getting her head in the clouds.

“The reason I did not look too pleased is because…I did not want you to speak too much about the Moon-Hunting Bear.”

Autumn, the whale avatar, had found the footprints of a massive creature heading west on the seafloor.

There was no other creature that big besides the Moon-Hunting Bear, and it was that very bear who had put an end to the wisewolf’s era with bloodshed. Myuri saw the bear as an object of vengeance for old kin and her mother’s friends.

“…I’m sorry about that now.” She pouted her lips and her tail flicked nervously back and forth. “I still get angry thinking about how many of us it killed, but that’s why I need to think about what Miss Eve said.”

“What Miss Eve said?”

Col was surprised to hear her name come up. Myuri looked toward the sliver of sky through the small window carved into the hold.

“That maybe the Moon-Hunting Bear had its own reasons. I mean, there are way fewer bears like that than there are us now.”

Huskins, the legendary golden sheep who had a hand in establishing the Kingdom of Winfiel, had said he had never met a bear avatar. That meant that the bears, who would have been the overwhelming victors of the battles during the age of spirits, had paid no mind to the spoils of victory and seemed to have simply vanished.

Eve had given them an entirely new perspective on the conflict between Kingdom and Church.

With that to consider, the perspective that the old war was yet another tragedy brought about by unavoidable factors was one certainly worth contemplating.

At the same time, Col sensed that Myuri had genuinely grown—she was not gazing into the flames of hatred through a narrow lens, but now had taken a step back to consider the Moon-Hunting Bear itself.

“It is almost as though you have grown. That makes me happy.”

“‘As though’? I have grown!”

Myuri crossed her legs atop the woolen cargo and puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.

She sighed in exasperation. “Also,” she said, changing the subject. “Talking about the new land is fine and all, but everyone got really serious when I asked about the ghost ships.”

Sightings of those vessels still circulated regularly in the present day, so it was the more popular topic by far.

“When I said that they were probably just ships that got attacked by pirates, I heard extra stories.”

“Extra stories?”

“Yeah. When they try to tow away those drifting ships, they say that the rope always comes undone, no matter how many times they try and tie it. You saw how they tie knots up on deck, right? You definitely can’t just rip those off. And no one’s supposed to be on those ships, yet when they try to get close, they suddenly change direction or they vanish into the mist again. It happens a lot, apparently. That’s why people see so many, but not a single one has ever been brought back to port. They say that the ghost ships roam eternally in the mist.”

“A standard element of made-up stories. There is no mystery when everything is exposed under the midday sun.”

As Col’s realistic thoughts left his mouth, he noticed Myuri glaring at him for spoiling her fun.

“…Now I’m wondering if you’re actually interested in the new continent.”

He knew what she was trying to say, but that was simply the kind of person Col was; he was not going to change that.

And the same went for the ghost ships—he was not pursuing this topic simply out of fun.

“But the Kingdom does have official records of the ghost ships, do they not? What about that?”

If memory served, there was a sailor aboard this ship who hailed from Nordstone lands.

Myuri’s mood finally perked up when he brought up the subject.

“I found the sailor. He said he was there when it happened!” Her red eyes shimmered, her fangs bared in a grin. “He said he’d tell us the story later tonight. I bet it’ll convince you and your hard head, too.”

Col knew that was a separate matter entirely, but he decided not to object.

The actuality of ghost ships was just as hard to believe as a continent at the edge of the western sea.

“I do wonder what sort of story it will be, however.”

Strange rumors surrounded House Nordstone.

It seemed that at least one part of these mysteries would soon become clear.

“That was back when my hair was all black.”

The sailor, his close-cut hair like pillars of salt, rubbed sturdy, stonelike hands over his white head. He looked somewhat sleepy, owing to the large scar over his right eye—something he had reportedly gained in a battle against pirates. The veteran sailor, who named himself Simmons, sat cross-legged on the deck, like a boulder smoothed by the salt sea wind.

He was silent, powerful, and unlikely to flinch in the face of any storm; he seemed plenty capable of accomplishing any duties assigned to him. The impression he gave was so strong that Col doubted this man would casually lie to them.

On the first night after leaving Rausbourne, the ship docked in an inlet with a small port. The sailors and other passengers left behind lookouts and went ashore to make merry in the taverns that faced the sea. Az was there to guard Col and Myuri, yes, but he was also a merchant for the Bolan Company, and so he went ashore with the other merchants for trade.

And so, the two got to hear Simmons’s story upon the quiet deck, under the moonlight, with the sounds of festivities in the distance.

“I’m from a small village in the Nordstone domain. I’d come home after many years away. It was, well, around this time of year. We had to stay alert all the time—winter’s last tempests sometimes came to batter us late in the season. That evening, I started to smell a storm on the air.”

His fluent speech and the swigs of distilled liquor he occasionally quaffed made him seem like a difficult man, but how he looked at Myuri, who listened enraptured, revealed a deep well of kindness. He had told them that he had four daughters at home.

“I don’t know if you know, but…the residents of coastal villages usually stand watch on stormy nights. The people are responsible for looking after any wreckage that drifts ashore on their land, you know. Well, there are misguided sorts who try to snatch up anything that comes our way for themselves, but our main job is to save anyone that washes ashore.”

“It was not long ago that we were met with a similar fate in the northern seas.”

Col and Myuri had been tossed into the frigid seas at night, where ice was still on the water.

He gave a vague smile, not wanting to recall those moments again, and Simmons blinked.

“That’s rough. It’s still winter up there at this time of year. You’d need a miracle to save you from the ice-cold waters.”

“Do you know about the Black-Mother? Her miracle was what saved me.”

The Black-Mother was a tradition of the northern seas, and it seemed ever so slightly heretical. Col thought that there was absolutely no reason for Myuri to bring it up, but then he suddenly realized what she was doing. Myuri had gone out of her way to talk about superstitions to make it easier for Simmons to tell his own story. If Col did not fall in line and do his part, the silver wolf would surely scold him later.

“After I’d been thrown into the waters up in the northern islands, I found I’d drifted ashore by a monk’s hermitage, built on a small reef. I am certain God and the Black-Mother brought me there. That must be what they call a narrow escape from death,” Col said with as much solemnity as he could muster, and Simmons nodded deeply.

“I understand. Anything can happen at sea, be it good or bad.”

He scratched at his head and looked up to the sky.

“The dark clouds sped by at an alarming rate that night. Any sailor in his right mind would turn tail to port immediately in weather like that, but sometimes, you just can’t get close enough to land when a bad current catches you. The coastline along Nordstone land is especially difficult; you try to rush to shore, you’ll just find yourself run aground.”

“I see… Are we going to be okay on this ship? We are, right?”

“There are many sailors more skilled than me on board here. And almost all the cargo on board is from the Bolan Company. Companies that pay well rarely have ships that sink.”

Simmons willingly went along with their conversation not simply because Myuri was good with people, but also because of Az’s mediation, and that they had boarded in the guise of people connected to Eve’s company. Had Col thoughtlessly announced himself as the Twilight Cardinal, they would all certainly have gone mum when the topic of ghost ships came up.

“Once night fell, so started the rain, and the wind grew strong. The billows shook the land like a giant’s rumbling footsteps, and that was when we found a ship that had drifted from the offing, completely at the whims of the tempest.”

“Did you know it was a ghost ship then?”

Simmons closed his eyes, recalling the sight.

“When we got the news, the other villagers and I rushed to the shore, and when we looked at it out on the waters…that was the impression I got. That’s a fine craft—who let a moron steer that? I thought.”

He told them about how the violent gales pushed it around, how high waves lapped up onto its deck, and how much of a mess the ship had been. He told them how a truly skilled sailor was not the one who knew how to keep a ship safe and sound even if they encountered a storm, but rather the one who knew how to avoid the storm entirely; Myuri enthusiastically ate the whole story up.

“After we found the wreck, we immediately sent word to our governor. At the same time, someone rushed into the church and fetched the bleary-eyed old priest, and the women of the village started to boil water.”

“Boil water?”

Myuri tilted her head, and Simmons smiled for the first time.

There was a depth, a sadness to his smile, like the salt of the sea was stinging his eyes.

“Its sails were ripped and the stern was askew, so we knew the flooding had to be bad. It was only God’s protection, or maybe his whim, that kept it from sinking completely. In times like these, the women put the water on, and the men bring lighted firewood from their hearths, block the rain with large, oiled skins and make light. It’s all for the sailors who abandoned ship, leaping into the sea before desperately swimming toward the shore.”

Light visible beyond the pitch-black sea must provide an indescribable relief to victims of a shipwreck. In a certain way, that was how Col thought of the silver Myuri.

Though she was rambunctious and selfish, she was a reliable knight when it came down to it.

“We waited and waited, but not a single person appeared.”

Simmons inhaled, expanding his round, bulky back, and slowly exhaled.

“With a ship on the verge of sinking in a storm like that, first you’d have an unlucky boy or two who’d be drifting ashore after getting tossed into the sea. That’s why some started to wonder if it’d drifted away from where it had been docked, and not a voyaging ship, which meant it was empty. First off, they’d be dragged to the bottom of the sea with the whole ship if they let its sinking overtake them. If that happened to a normal ship, then the sailors would cling to a sliver of hope, abandon ship, and head for shore, no matter what state the water was in. But that night…”

The sea was silent in its throes.

Simmons’s distant gaze recalled the sight as though it was yesterday, as though he was standing there at that very moment.

“It was eerie. There was just that one ship in the middle of a thrashing sea. My ears were so filled with the sounds of wind and waves, yet it felt like a terribly quiet night.”

If anyone had been spotted making their way toward the shore, then the beach would have been alive with frantic activity, whether from guiding survivors with their voices, or cheering the poor souls on, or even pulling the waterlogged up onto dry land.

But there had been none of that; the villagers stood still, watching the water in silence. On land, the makeshift lamps burned without purpose, and the water boiled away in the houses with no one to use it.

They had gone through all this preparation for naught; of course something felt strange.

“The local governor came to us reluctantly in the rain. When he heard that an empty ship had drifted our way, he got angry and attempted to leave. But then, one of the villagers found something strange on the shore.”

Col imagined a villager approaching the crashing waves.

“It was oddly white in the dark of night, so I thought it might be a tuft of wool. No one could be blamed for mistaking it for such if that was how it was described.”

“But it wasn’t?” Myuri asked.

Instead of nodding, Simmons instead drew up his shoulders.

It was as though he himself doubted what he had seen at the time as the truth.

“We had found human bones. Loads of them washed up on shore, one after another.”

The sea at night was dark, like a pot of ink. And from this inky blackness, the water spat out human remains. The villagers must have thought they were trapped in a nightmare, collecting these things as the wind and rain battered them.

“Many villagers screamed and ran home. The only ones left were fishermen and sailors like me. You always come across the strangest things at sea, whether you like it or not, so we were all used to this, to a degree, but…I won’t laugh at the villagers who ran. All the signs were right there, after all.”

A ship appearing during a midnight storm, and not a single fleeing sailor.

What washed ashore instead were human bones. Even the most fervent of righteous believers would come to the same conclusion:

“It might have been a ghost ship, doomed to drift forever within stormy seas with the dead at the helm. That was the moment that thought came to me. Had the Father not yelled, I might have stood there forever.”

As Simmons informed them, the determined old priest who had experienced a world at war had dived into the ocean and began to collect the bones; the proud sailors pounded at their own shivering legs and forced themselves to follow him in.

No matter how much they collected, it never seemed to end, but they managed to collect every last one by dawn. They were laid out in the church, and the villagers estimated that the bones easily amounted to over two hundred people’s worth.

“Some of them were dull and looked very old, and I said that must have been the captain.”

Simmons hunched down further as he spoke, as though realizing just how ridiculous he sounded.

“So this is the incident officially recorded by the Kingdom?”

“Yes. Had this all happened aboard a ship, then people would have brushed it off as a mirage on the water, but we were on land. When the sun rose, before us were rows and rows of bones. They had drifted ashore from a wrecked ship, and the collection of flotsam needs to obey the rules established by whoever owns that shore.”

This ghost ship tale did not tantalizingly end with the ship vanishing into the mist.

“The rule of the seas is that any articles, any people who wash ashore, are to be sent back to their original owners, their homes. But that gets complicated when you have a ship that’s run ashore that might’ve been piloted by a skeleton. Who on earth is the landlord supposed to negotiate returns with in that case?”

An element of reality slipped into this bad dream.

Perhaps Col’s slight sensation of seasickness came from the gentle rocking of the ship.

“The governor’s face went white—so white, we could see it in the midnight storm. I sympathized with him when I saw him send off a horse to the lord’s manor, because I knew they would think him crazy.”

Not every noble in the world was as generous and sensible as Hyland.

“But when you sent the report, the lord came?” Myuri asked, and Simmons nodded slowly.

“It was the previous lord, the retired one. He was a gentleman with a nose like a sharp hook and an even sharper gaze.”

This entire incident had been officially recorded and eventually served as the basis for the rumors that House Nordstone used ghost ships for their trade.

But after hearing this much, Col had the sense that there was not much reason for such awful rumors to be directed at House Nordstone. To him, it appeared that he was simply the lord of a land who so happened to have an eerie ship run aground on his shores. If anything, it was likely similar to a false accusation.

It was not just Myuri, but Col who eagerly awaited what Simmons had to say next.

“Lord Nordstone arrived on horseback, and everyone surrounded him. Some even insisted that this was an omen from God that the end of the world was upon us. But Lord Nordstone’s expression remained unchanged as the priest guided him into the church. When he stood before the rows of bones, he said: ‘Don’t worry, a similar thing has happened in the past. This is all a dream brought to us by the foul air of the storm, and with God’s graciousness, we will wake from this in a few days.’”

That’s impossible, Col thought. Simmons took a deep breath and then exhaled.

When he looked up, his face was earnest.

“The next morning, we found that all the bones had suddenly vanished from the church.”

“………”

Myuri was at a loss for words; it seemed as though she did not even know if there was anything she could say, even if she wanted to.

“It was a small village. If someone had made off with them, we would have known right away. But the bones of over two hundred people had vanished like smoke. It really was as though we had awoken from a nightmare through God’s good graces. Or…”

Myuri gulped. “Did the skeletons walk off by themselves?”

In the church in the dark of night, the bones would begin to clatter and move. Then their arms and legs would join together, and at last, they would place their own heads on their shoulders and march out of the church.

This was the scene Myuri was imagining in her head, and Simmons rejected her guess with a serious look.

The vanished bones were indeed utter fantasy.

But there was one thing that Col was still wondering about.

“What happened to the ship? Was that, too, just a dream?”

When he asked, Simmons exhaled, as though letting out a breath he had been holding.

“The devil didn’t take home his stranded ship. It stayed there. We pulled it ashore several days later.”

The mystery of the ghost ship would finally come to light under the midday sun. How wide Myuri’s eyes were opened made it seem her wolf ears and tail were about to pop out at any moment.

“But there were no corpses of the crew on board, of course, and neither was there any cargo, or any clues as to signify who this ship might have belonged to. All we had was just a simple boat made out of wood. The whole of the storm felt like a dream.”

The three fell silent. The only sound washing across the moonlit deck was the quiet roar of the waves.

Simmons’s gaze dropped after recalling the past, and Myuri sat bewildered, as though she had bitten into a hunk of meat much too big for her.

The one who spoke after a slight stir was Col, whose reasoning finally kicked in.

“Ah, the lord mentioned that a similar incident had occurred in Nordstone territory, yes? I suppose that tale is not very well known?”

If such an eerie tale had lingered among his people, then everyone’s mind would have gone to that precedent when they found the bones.

But from what he could tell, it did not seem that Simmons knew about that when they discovered the wreck.

“Yes. No one knew the story at the time, so we were all shocked. We don’t always know the stories of inland villages, but this had apparently happened to another coastal village, just like us.”

“Was it made up?” Myuri asked, and Simmons shook his head.

“I did investigate, and I found it happened when I was a child. The age of constant war had ended, yet conflict with the heretics at this point grew fierce. At the time, heretics were either chased out by the Church, or killed by true believers to serve as a warning, so it was not unusual to find ships drifting across the water filled with corpses.”

That was why no one paid particular attention to the story at the time and why it did not stick out in popular memory, despite it being on royal record.

“Did the bones from that one vanish, too?” Myuri asked, and for some reason, Simmons looked at Col.

“I don’t think this is a very good story for children…”

“I’m not a child!” she said, just as a child would say.

A slight smile crossed Simmons’s face, as though remembering his own daughters.

“We would like to hear this one to the end.”

When Col spoke, Simmons shrugged and continued.

“If a fight breaks out on board, the line you always say is, I’ll feed you to the fishes. It was a bad time to go through the trouble of finding a place to dock on land, and then get strangers to go through all the work of burying your dead. It’s still not easy to procure a coffin.”

In essence, those at sea had little choice in how to deal with their dead and would simply toss them into the water.

And so various stories were concocted that claimed the bodies had suddenly vanished, in order to cover up what had actually happened.

“They wouldn’t write on official record that all casualties from the war that drifted to shore were thrown back in for the fishes, honestly. And so they were turned into ghost stories. Or maybe there were some still alive on board, even if only one or two. Saying that the bones that’d washed ashore simply vanished was a way to gloss over the painful parts of a more chaotic era.”

There were no survivors, so everyone simply said that the bodies returned to heaven through an act of God.

It all stemmed from a terrifying age where people washed away blood with even more blood.

“And it is true that in years with wreckage, fishermen pull in great big catches.”

Fish grew fat on the corpses, so even if that saved many people from starvation, hoping that the souls of the lost would be soothed by their unintended aid was a selfish wish of the living.

“But that leaves us with a problem.”

Simmons’s voice snapped Col back to reality.

“It’s supposed to be all made up, right? But you saw it happen with your own eyes, mister.”

When Myuri spoke, a look of relief passed over Simmons’s face.

There was someone here who genuinely believed him without any doubt.

Even a girl with her head in the clouds could prove to be a staunch ally.

“If the lord himself tells us it happened once so it’ll happen again, all we can really do is say, Yes, milord. And the bones did indeed vanish, and we still don’t know who that ship belonged to. All we can really do is accept what happened as fact. And of course, that was when the rumors started to spread.”

Those rumors being that the ship was contracted by the lord of the land with the devil to hold cargo meant for trade with the land of the dead, a place the lord had found in his explorations.

“And our lord was a little different than others.”

“Because he believed there was a continent at the edge of the western sea?”

Myuri made a guess, and Simmons flashed her a suggestive smile.

“I can’t imagine what he saw to convince himself of that. Usually, when the watch boy calls out land on the western horizon, it’s almost always a mound of seaweed or, if not, the back of a whale. Some of these can be mirages, the whims of God, but those vanish with time.”

It sounded as though Simmons was skeptical of the existence of land to the west.

He perhaps thought it was an unbelievable story precisely because he had spent most of his life at sea.

Setting the disappointed Myuri aside for the moment, Simmons looked to Col.

“Even ignoring all the talk about a new continent, that man always bought and collected the strangest things.”

“He did?”

“We brought them over on this very ship many times.”

As Simmons spoke, he fished out a surprising object from his pocket.

“Whoa, golden dice?!”

Under the moonlight, Myuri was shocked.

Simmons’s shoulders shook in a fit of laughter.

“Is that fool’s gold?” Col asked, and the man nodded slowly.

It was an ore that looked just like gold, but was actually a type of metal called pyrite. Its popular nickname did not do it any favors, though.

“I use these in place of dice, but Lord Nordstone bought and collected a great deal of things like these. The merchants would always find out if he’d placed an order, and our ship could always ship them if they wanted. But no one had any idea why he wanted the sheer amount of these trinkets that he did. That’s why we gossiped.” The usually quiet man dropped the volume of his voice even further, as though he had grown tired of talking. “We thought that Lord Nordstone might be purchasing something from the devil in exchange for this fool’s gold.”

“From the devil?” Myuri tilted her head, the gold-like metal dice in her hands.

“That’s because everything is the wrong way ’round in the devil’s country. Holy items are kicked aside, and lies and deception run rampant. And they use not gold, but fool’s gold, to pay for things.”

Myuri seemed interested in tales about the demon world, but Col did not understand why she wanted to think about such awful things.

“No one buys such a large amount of these things for regular reasons. There are lots of unpleasant rumors about Lord Nordstone, but they are not entirely unfounded.”

Simmons looked carefully at both Myuri and Col, his eyes urging them caution.

Col had once been told that it was unwise to stay out too long on the deck of a ship at night, because the sea could suddenly swallow one up for gazing out across the water too long. In a similar way, Simmons’s eyes told them that approaching someone who had caught the interest of demons would only invite those demons into their very own lives.

The story he had told them made it impossible for them to laugh off his warning, and Simmons himself did not seem to be the kind of person to talk so blithely.

“That is the kind of place the domain of House Nordstone is,” the veteran sailor said, gazing up at the moon. Col wondered if he would make the same face if he asked the man to row to the moon.

The new Lord Nordstone had come to the royal court because he wanted to clear away the unpleasant rumors that persisted in his territory and prove that his house was indeed innocent.

Would his proposed innocence be the truth? Or the opposite?

The ship rocked gently on the rippling water.

Perhaps it was a hint of what was to come.