CHAPTER TWO

Though Nordstone lands were home to great oceans of wheat, the heart of this land was not in the fields, but in its port, Raponell, which handled all of its exports.

A place renowned for its wheat production needed plenty of ships to transport the large amount of grain and many more hands to handle the cargo, as well as other services to fulfill the needs of both the merchants who came to buy the wheat and the merchants who came with the express purpose of trading with those merchants. This natural hub of commerce had grown rapidly.

Even from aboard the ship, Raponell seemed like a sizable harbor town; there were several piers, and though there were not as many as there were in Rausbourne, there were a number of larger ships docked there.

Col had imagined a gloomier, somewhat run-down place, partially thanks to Simmons’s eerie tale, but that turned out not to be the case at all.

It was evening when their ship came to dock at Raponell harbor, the time of day when the harbor area, home to all the spirited sailors, grew liveliest.

Myuri gazed out from the deck at the town, where the light of the candles was beginning to paint the buildings in their colors, and her excitement grew as she gave a rather lengthy farewell to Simmons as they moved to disembark. It was unlikely they would see Simmons again, considering they would probably be taking a different ship back. Traveling was a series of fleeting hellos and good-byes, and it was the most difficult part of journeying for the compassionate Myuri, even more so than sleeping outside or eating miserable food.

Though she had waved good-bye to him and left the deck with a smile, by the time they reached the pier, dusk had cast a dark cloud over her expression.

“A knight smiles even in the most painful of times,” Col whispered to her. She rubbed her eyes, as if her bangs had gotten caught in them, then smiled sheepishly at him.

Afterward, Az led them not to an inn, but to a portside trading house with its own loading dock. Raponell had reportedly been right in the middle of their festival season not too long ago, which meant there were still visitors lingering at the inns, and that made it difficult to get a room. Col did not mind where he slept, so long as he had a roof over his head, and this trading house was a five-story building of magnificent make, which satisfied even the picky Myuri. It would be easy to collect information here, so neither had any complaints.

Through Az’s connections, they were introduced to the building owner, gave their thanks for allowing them to stay for a few days, then were taken to their room.

Regardless of how sudden their visit was, Col was shocked to see they were given a third-floor room. In a five-story building, the servants stayed on the top floor, the fourth floor was home to simpler rooms or large rooms for communal sleeping, and the third and second floors were reserved for important guests and the owners of the building. This arrangement was apparently Eve’s doing, which made Col a tad frightened for what obligations this might tie him to in the future. As these thoughts churned in his head and they arrived in their splendid room, Myuri’s first words were:

“Let’s go outside, Brother! It’s such a big town!”

Luckily, perhaps, it seemed to be a rather busy time of year here, so there were many people coming and going from the trading house. It did not seem appropriate right now to have a leisurely dinner with the owner as a way of saying hello; Myuri tugged on his shirt impatiently as he was unpacking, so they briefly excused themselves to Az and went outside.

“Ahh, solid land really is the best.”

Myuri, pleased, stomped her feet several times. Her mother, Holo the wisewolf, could doze all day on a ship, so long as she had some booze with her, but the hold of a ship was too confining for Myuri. Or perhaps she wanted to confirm Simmons’s story as soon as possible, which made her impatient and restless.

Col followed her closely—it seemed like she was liable to run off at any moment—into the town center.

But the moment they stepped onto the main thoroughfare, the rambunctious girl found herself disappointed by the scenery.

“Huh…? The stores are all closed already…”

There were plenty of people coming and going, yes, but most of the stalls lining the street were already in the process of closing up, and the taverns along the street were similarly starting to shutter their windows. Perhaps they had grown too used to Rausbourne, where the lights stayed on well into the night, but Col found himself relieved.

“This is how life is supposed to be.”

Begin work with the rising sun, go home and sleep once the sun sets. Rausbourne was an anomaly, considering how full of life it constantly was, and Myuri had been born in Nyohhira, where big feasts were an everyday occurrence. They purchased lamb skewers from a stall whose lights had yet to go off, and Myuri chomped down on them in open displeasure.

As they proceeded down the street, they came to a plaza. A magnificent church stood there, surrounded on all sides by businesses and inns, like a king being waited on by his vassals. There was a fine statue in the center of the plaza, demonstrating just how rich their land was.

They had caught glimpses of it from afar beforehand, but both Col and Myuri stared at it with wide-eyed surprise when they came to stand before it.

“Wow, it’s so beautiful!”

Raponell’s church was not as big as Rausbourne’s cathedral. However, it had votive lamps that seemed almost too big for the building, and the townspeople were offering their own candles to it one after another.

Brilliantly illuminated by the countless number of candles was a statue of a woman holding a shepherd’s crook, a crown of straw adorning her head.

“Saint Ursula? That is unusual.”

“Who?”

“One of the patron saints of harvest and husbandry. She is not a particularly well-known saint, but…this is a wheat-producing region, and do you remember how they have festivals here to give thanks for the harvest?”

Saint Ursula looked quietly down at the open church doors, out of which all the people who could not fit inside queued, offering their prayers. Yet there seemed no end to the number of worshippers; all the merchants and artisans who had closed up shop were gathered here in the plaza in a hushed silence.

On the statue of Saint Ursula gazing down at all the people hung necklaces made of flowers, a suggestion of the festivities that had taken place here not too long ago.

“But what is that at her feet? I have not seen such a design before.”

When saints were depicted in paintings and statues, they were typified depending on their roles or their legends. Saint Ursula always had a crown of straw and a shepherd’s crook, and she was often seen riding on a pig or sheep.

However, here in Raponell, she sat on something elliptical in shape.

“That is a water jar,” interjected a passing merchant. “Weren’t you here for Raponell’s festivities?”

The bearded merchant looked Col up and down, mercilessly appraising his clothing.

He acted not like a local merchant, wary of outsiders, but a foreign merchant ready to sell them anything if the opportunity presented itself.

“Oh, no. We arrived not too long ago by ship.”

“That’s too bad. The festival was bigger than it’s been in years.”

“Festival?”

A secret once taught to him by the skilled merchant who used to care for him was to feign ignorance when engaging in conversation with a partner who liked to talk.

“Don’t you know? See, you heard how the Twilight Cardinal opened up the doors to the churches in Desarev and Rausbourne, right? Our church reopened again, so the party was as wild as it’s been in years. You missed peak moneymaking time, kid.”

It was unlikely that this man thought Col was the Twilight Cardinal himself, but Col once again felt truly how their adventures were affecting people all over.

Then it was Myuri who spoke to the merchant, who was flashing his yellow teeth in an easy smile.

“What kind of festival was it?”

“Hmm?”

Both Col and Myuri were wearing clothes that Hyland had lent them, so the merchant likely thought he would be compensated well if he treated them kindly.

He nodded with an air of importance, then told them, “It’s an old legend around these parts, see, they say that the earth itself was devastated during an ancient war, when Saint Ursula descended on the land one day and revived it. The previous lord of this land was given a water jug from the great saint, and they say that when he sprinkled the water from the jug onto the fields, it grew abundant with wheat. So in thanks, the priest leads a procession, sprinkling holy water from the miracle jug, and following behind him are all the important people from town, including the lord himself, handing out food and pastries from handmade baskets and pots. It has always been a lavish feast ever since the young Lord Stephan took charge, but it was downright princely this time around, considering how long it’s been. And considering how sudden it was, even outside merchants like me were invited. Boy, you have no idea how much money I made.”

Myuri looked on the verge of tears, knowing they could have been able to join in with the festivities had they been just a bit quicker.

But what Col was most curious about was not the festivities, but how the bountiful wheat was attributed to Saint Ursula’s guidance. Perhaps it was only outside this area that wicked rumors of alchemists and demonic power circulated.

“Well, it’s a small town. I’ll probably see you both around somewhere. Let me know if you stumble on any good business deals.”

“Thank you very much.”

Col shook hands with the merchant, as did Myuri, who did so with a smile, and he then vanished into the crowd.

“They hand out candy at the festival.”

The calculating Myuri had already taken a liking to the town.

“But is it not wonderful how so many people are here offering their prayers, even though the festival is over?”

Votive lamps were not cheap. And what so impressed Col was not the sheer number of people crammed into the church.

If he were asked to name the best part about this town, it would be that once the people were done praying and went on their way home with cleansed hearts, the food stalls and taverns were already shut. Evening mass at Rausbourne was always busy, but it always seemed more of a place to meet up before going to grab a drink, which Col found less satisfying.

And so, as he watched the people of Raponell solemnly pray and then return home, he understood that this was a town of devout believers, unlike any of the rumors they had heard beforehand. There was no questioning that the head priest of the church here was an upstanding individual who fervently carried out his holy duty. Col only wished he could meet the priest and be taught lessons of faith…but it would cause them a great deal of trouble if he found out that Col was the Twilight Cardinal. It was times like this that he wished the conflict between Kingdom and Church would end sooner rather than later.

As these thoughts churned in his head, Myuri tugged on his clothes.

“Brother, let’s eat back at the trading house.”

A small handful of lamb skewers turned out not to be enough for her after hearing about a festival where people were handed free pastries. The sun had completely set, and light was slowly vanishing from the town. They would indeed run into all sorts of inconveniences if they tried to navigate here the way they did in Rausbourne.

“I wonder if they will be able to prepare something for us on such short notice.”

Col thought about how they should have secured food for themselves earlier if they knew this would happen. As they left the church and started walking down an empty road, Myuri shrugged briefly.

“I think it’ll be fine.”

“Is that so?”

The trading house did indeed seem busy, and there were a few raw onions around the front desk, likely to keep whoever was working there awake, so Myuri had interpreted that as a sign that people would be working there throughout the night.

But they were shown that was not the case at all the moment they opened the building’s closed doors and stepped inside.

“More wine!”

“Need ale over here! They’re asking if we have some freshly brewed!”

What had been a busy loading dock earlier was now crammed with tables, filled with not only merchants dressed in traveling clothes sitting alongside dock loaders, but also people who seemed to be local residents. Amid the heady scents of alcohol and meat fat, waitresses flitted busily among the tables. They carried five, six mugs in one hand; occasionally, a customer would offer them a drink and they would down it in one gulp to approving cheers.

It was almost comical how different this was from the sight of all the villagers gathered in quiet prayer, and how the town fell silent as the sun set.

“Ah-ha-ha, this is wilder than I expected,” Myuri said before grabbing ahold of one of the waitresses to ask if it would be possible to get their food brought to their room. Col could tell she was successful in her negotiations by the way she beamed back at him, a clear signal to return to their room. He followed her as though being chased from the noise of the impromptu tavern; there was still something he was not entirely sure of.

“Did you know this was going to be turned into a tavern?”

There were people standing here and there throughout the first-floor corridor eating and drinking, perhaps because there was no space for them on the loading dock—it felt like the entire place was one large feast hall.

The noise and commotion was absent from the second floor, of course, but they passed girls carrying towers of empty mugs, which told them that were people also making merry in their rooms.

“I didn’t, but I could smell something really good in every building we passed as we were walking, and I could hear people cheering and laughing and all that.”

When they reached their room on the third floor, Myuri lit the candle and opened the window. The streets were quiet, but they would likely hear peals of laughter if they left their room and stood by the stairs.

“I think the villagers are forcing themselves to behave properly.”

Myuri gazed down at Raponell; the people in Rausbourne would say the night was still young at this time of evening, but this town was completely silent.

“Forcing themselves…? You mean, everyone makes merry inside after they’ve closed their doors?”

“Yeah, at least that’s what it seems like for all the bigger places. Even for the people who were praying.”

When she finished speaking, a knock came at the door.

Col found it odd that the noise came from so close to the floor, but the young, redheaded girl was holding two mugs in her right hand and four plates of food in her left, so she had kicked the door as Myuri used to do.

He smiled wryly. Such uncouthness could only be found in a harbor town like this. But Myuri loved this sort of atmosphere; she took one of the fried pieces of fish and tossed it into her mouth, her wolf ears and tail popping out in joy.

“And, what is that?”

“Hmm?”

Myuri jubilantly raised one of the mugs up to her mouth, but Col’s intuition sprang into action and he grabbed her wrist.

He took the mug from her and sniffed it—as he thought, it was wine.

“No alcohol.”

“Why?! But I’m a knight!”

“That does not matter. Miss Holo told you to stay away from fire and alcohol.”

When Col brought up the name of the wisewolf, Myuri’s tail deflated.

She turned away from him in a huff, stuffing her bread roll full of mutton as though cheering herself up.

“Let us continue. You say the town’s good manners are all for show, but what about the people praying?”

Once she stuffed the bread full of all the meat it could possibly hold, she opened her mouth wide and bit into it. After a moment of chewing, she finally spoke.

“The people praying looked serious about it, but that’s it. Everyone was just worried about how they’d look to the other people around them, and they were just mumbling whatever when it came to prayer.”

Sitting still for things like mass was one of Myuri’s big weaknesses, so perhaps it was that much more obvious to her. And of course, once the thin veneer of those good manners was peeled back, what was revealed was all this revelry.

“If your estimation is correct…then is it as though they are being forced to do so?” As Col heaped some of the baked beans that Myuri refused to touch onto his own bread, he arrived at the most obvious conclusion. “Well, it would be by the order of Lord Nordstone, then.”

Even the merchant they had passed had said that the festival had grown even livelier since the title had been passed down.

“I guess he’s really serious about doing something to get rid of the bad reputation hounding his lands.”

Both Eve and Hyland had said that the nasty talk about Nordstone stemmed from jealousy over how lucrative the wheat production was. But at the source of these terrible rumors was, without a doubt, the previous lord. And the new one, after taking over, was hopeful in dispelling all that foul talk.

“And yet, that seems to be a bit on the extreme side…”

“Is it? It’s hard to scrub away people’s impressions of you after they become set in stone, just like how you forever treat me like a kid.”

Myuri sat primly, biting into her bread. Col could bring up plenty of reasons why he still considered her a child, starting with how she always wanted to act older and drink alcohol, but at the same time easily grew obsessed with odd stories of ghost ships.

He had a feeling it was going to be quite a while yet before she was going to act as an upstanding knight.

“But there’s another possibility.” Myuri sat on her bed, swinging her feet as she stuffed her bread into her mouth, then wiped the grease off her lips with her thumb. “Maybe they’re actually dealing with the devil, and they’re so terrified that they’re trying to hide it.”

That line of reasoning also rang true. All Col needed to do was recall the time when a whole jar of honey vanished back at the bathhouse in Nyohhira. He doubted that they were literally doing dealings with the devil, but it was entirely possible that there were heathens here worshipping the devil.

“Or,” Myuri said as she licked her fingers, having finished the bread roll stuffed full of mutton. “Maybe we’ll get an easy answer once we head to the wheat fields.”

The hungry girl had the ears and tail of a wolf, and hanging at her chest was a pouch full of wheat. The only reason why Col’s childhood journey had not ended with him dead in the wilderness was that a strange wolf who could command the wheat harvest had saved him.

But Myuri’s expression remained clouded after bringing up that possibility, and she did not move to take a second piece of bread.

There were very few nonhumans left in this world, and wolf kin, especially, were few in number. Her mother, Holo, had not even met others on her own travels, so perhaps Myuri was just lost in thought after cautioning herself not to get her hopes too high.

This girl would believe that a real legendary sword existed somewhere without a second thought, yet here he saw a facet of her that truly was of her age. Col knew he had to support her emotionally, so he reached out to place his hand on her shoulder.

“But if there was a wolf there, I think there’d be a fight.”

“Um, what?”

Col did not understand the logic at all. When Myuri saw his outstretched hand coming toward her, she gently pushed it back, then stood up.

“Because the ruling family here has a sheep on their crest, right? It should be a wolf instead, no matter how you think about this!”

Trends came and went when it came to the design of family crests, and those with wolves on them were an artifact of an older time. Regardless of whether or not the wolves were considered rulers of the forest, if a family had made use of the wolf’s power to harvest wheat, then it was obvious that they should include a wolf on their crest.

“Everyone has their own reasons.”

Despite his words of comfort, Myuri remained in a pout. She reached out for her second piece of bread and began furiously stuffing it with mutton. Col smiled wryly at her attitude, thinking he preferred her this way rather than seeing her hurt and listless.

Keeping the pouting girl in the corner of his eye, Col opened the door and stuck his head out into the hallway, and ordered some grape juice and pork sausage with plenty of mustard from one of the passing girls.

After eating such delicious foods that night, Myuri’s mood improved.

The next day, the trading house reverted to its original state as a regular place of business, almost as though the ruckus from the night before had been an illusion. But when Col took a closer look at the loading dock, he saw stacks of tables and alcohol barrels he had not noticed the day before, and mice scampering about among these stacks, attempting to partake in the leftovers of the previous night’s feast.

As the merchants and loaders busily rushed to and fro, Az, who had just completed trade negotiations and parted ways with another merchant, noticed Col and Myuri and greeted them. Eve worked her people hard—she had not only sent him along to escort the two, but she was also expecting him to complete several trade deals.

The timing was perfect, so they asked him about all sorts of things, including the state of the town the day before.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here, so I was shocked, too. It sounds like the rules for running a tavern around here have grown stricter ever since the title was passed down to the current lord. But people can’t go a day without drinking, so they simply explain it away by saying they just happened to be treated when they stopped by for a visit. Trading houses are always hospitable to travelers, so it’s unlikely that the church is going to say anything about it,” Az said. “And all the people working here look like they belong in a tavern,” he added.

And so this house of commerce became a place where anyone could receive the same hospitality they would in a tavern, despite it not being a tavern.

It was a relatively straightforward way to skirt around the issue.

“Would you say the strictness stems from the rumors?”

“I think so. Have you seen the church?”

“We did. There were quite a lot of people there.”

Az nodded, and after a brief glance around, he lowered his voice and said, “Lord Nordstone sent notices out to every artisan guild and trade association instructing them all to go to mass.”

Col recalled his conversation with Myuri the night before.

“It’s said that the church here opened their doors less because of the influence of your actions, Sir Col, but because Lord Nordstone paid them quite a hefty sum of money.”

Ever since the Kingdom and the Church had begun to fight, the pope had ordered that all sanctioned religious activity be ceased within the Kingdom. It was a painful situation for the townsfolk, as they could no longer attend daily mass, of course, but also because they were unable to act with God’s blessing in important life events such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Considering how the pope had taken God’s teachings hostage in such a way, one could even say that opening the church doors in such a manner was essentially going against the pope’s orders.

And so, opening the church doors required a substantial excuse, but Col felt as though asking the priest to accept large amounts of money was not the way to go about it.

Az nodded slightly, as though reading his mind.

“And to make matters worse, outsiders tend to doubt the faith of the people here, which means it is not just the king whose reaction the young lord will be gauging.”

With rumors circulating about the people here making deals with the devil, it would not be once or twice that the Church would send an inquisitor to investigate. Perhaps placing large amounts of money into a closed church and showing pious intention that their faith was indeed necessary was their way of purchasing some insurance for the future.

“That’s one more thing you can weigh on the scales then, Brother.”

“Most likely.”

House Nordstone needed to put on a good show for both the Kingdom and the Church. Since they had made a show of piety for the Church, now it was time to demonstrate their loyalty to the Kingdom. And since they had a great many rivals due to the lucrative nature of wheat production, it almost seemed as though this new, young lord was immediately being forced to navigate a path full of pitfalls.

“And isn’t the previous lord still alive?” Myuri asked, glancing with great interest at the sword hanging from Az’s hip.

“I hear he is alive, yes, but he is not on good terms with the current ruler, naturally. According to what I gathered while drinking last night, Some believe that after the title changed hands, he was either confined to the dungeons of the castle or left on a journey.”

Power struggles often had dark endings, with the loser either locked away, exiled, or worse.

But if that were truly the case, there was something that struck Col as curious.

“Which means…it was not a peaceful transfer of power, then?”

“No, I think the succession itself went over fine. I think the insistence that the previous lord is not taking retirement well is a rumor that stems from the townsfolk’s imagination.”

The people did not see him as a regular ruler, either.

“What about the alchemist?”

“There were scarcely any people who knew about that. It seems like this individual passed a long time ago. Anyone besides the older residents of town think of it as some kind of local legend.”

“I see… Which means, if we put all the stories together, it seems as though the young lord that has taken over is rather unaffected by all the horrible rumors from the past, at least.”

“On the surface,” Az said carefully, his smile hiding his true thoughts, as expected of a person working for Eve Bolan. “Is there any other information you’d like me to ask around for?”

“Umm…” Col glanced at Myuri, who simply shrugged. “Not at the moment, thank you.”

“I see. Then shall I announce your arrival to Lord Stephan and request an audience with him?”

According to Hyland, when it came to official business like this, it was normal to announce the day of arrival beforehand so the host would have a chance to officially welcome visitors as guests to their domain. But considering the likelihood that a nonhuman was involved with the subject of the new continent and the production of wheat, and for several other reasons, they wished to preserve their freedom while conducting their investigations, and they arrived without a herald.

And when they put everything together with what Az had told them, it did not seem as though the new Lord Nordstone had summoned them simply to dismiss the rumors that were plaguing his house. Col wanted to stay and look around Raponell a bit longer and collect his thoughts in his own way.

When he related this to Az, the man of course gave no objection and only bowed respectfully.

“Just give me the word if you need anything. The lady has given me orders to be of use to you while we are in this city.”

Though he seemed more like a mercenary or another sort of professional who engaged in physical altercations rather than a merchant, he had proven reliable and trustworthy. Col gave his thanks, and he received a quiet nod in return.

Afterward, a merchant who saw that their conversation had ended called out to Az. Giving a sincere thanks, Az made his way deeper into the trading house. It was a lively town, which meant the merchants were just as busy. Both the loading dock they were on and the harbor that was visible from where they stood were as busy as Rausbourne—there was nothing dark or ominous about the place at all.

Even though it sounded plausible on a moonlit ship, there was nothing realistic about the thought of a ghost ship coming to dock here.

With what Az told them in his mind, and the sight of the lively harbor before him, Col murmured, “All this feels as though we are bouncing between dreams and reality.”

Just as he thought they were engaging in a foolish, made-up scenario, a sharp reality would always present itself. As he sighed, Myuri, who had been looking at the map of Raponell plastered onto the loading dock wall, tugged on his sleeve.

“Let’s just go and check out the wheat fields for now.”

If they found an intoxicated wolf avatar there, then that would certainly answer many questions about the various rumors surrounding the Nordstone family. And on top of that, it was entirely possible that this theoretical nonhuman had a goal similar to Ilenia’s, searching for a land at the edge of the western sea for themselves.

Of course, Myuri would want to confirm this fact as quickly as possible; when Col looked at her, he recalled what she had said that suggested they might stray further into trouble.

“No fighting,” he warned her, just in case, and Myuri dramatically shrugged her shoulders before resting her hand on the pommel of the sword hanging at her hip.

Col and Myuri informed the company that they wished to visit House Nordstone’s wheat fields, and the company told them to follow the road inland. It did not seem all that far away, so they decided to go on foot.

Three roads extended from the harbor town of Raponell—two leading north and south respectively along the coast, while the third stretched northwest inland through pastoral fields. Despite the town’s size, there were no proper city walls; the grassy fields were just beyond the wooden fences, where flocks of sheep dotted the countryside, munching on grass.

There were many people coming and going on the road; there were even bread stalls and small eateries here and there along the roadside, making it feel as though the town continued even beyond the outskirts.

It was not just Col’s imagination either, because the little village they entered shortly after noon was also called Raponell.

“There’s two towns with the same name?”

“This must be the original Raponell. Do you see what’s left of the old stone walls?”

Along the road were disconnected remnants of a stone wall that stood about waist-high, blackened from exposure to the elements. It seemed like a roadside fence, but as Col followed its track with his eyes, he saw that it was broken up by plots of houses here and there. The stone wall had come first, and the buildings were built later.

“It must have been a wall for a sheep enclosure. I believe this area used to be home to many, many sheep originally.”

It seemed as though it had started out as a small settlement, but then the stone walls were broken down bit by bit as the village expanded. And so, even though there were older buildings with thatched roofs, which looked like bears hunched over, there were also beautiful, imposing four-story buildings that were perhaps businesses or trading houses that would not seem out of place in the harbor.

Col spotted some odd-looking stone buildings, which turned out to be breweries equipped with towering vessels and stills. Some were in the shape of warped apples and were larger than humans, and some looked like honey being poured from a high place.

Myuri, who had yet to taste any alcohol, was simply impressed by the make of the stills, but the traveling merchant and wisewolf would have caused quite a scene here if Col had come here with them in his journeys past.

A smile easily formed on his face as he imagined the sight, but when he thought of what Myuri might be like when she was older, his smile froze.

She would surely be many more times imposing, and more crafty in how she asked for things by then than she was now.

“Hmm?” Myuri tilted her head.

“It is nothing,” Col smiled. Quietly, to himself in his heart, he prayed that she would soon be an independent knight.

As they strolled down the winding roads, making their way toward a livelier area, they came across a small church and a town square with a gazebo, a common sight in farming villages.

“Oh, the candy jar!” Myuri pointed to a statue of Saint Ursula who held the water jug under her arm, unlike the statue in the harbor town where a larger jug rest at her feet. “Her flowers here are fresh.”

“It is a festival praying for a good harvest, so I would imagine that this was the center of the festivities.”

A garland of flowers rested on Saint Ursula’s neck, and there was a fresh bundle of flowers at her feet. A large loaf of bread had even been left as an offering, which was quite fitting for the patron saint of fertility for harvest and husbandry.

The statue itself was of mundane design, depicting the saint as a classic beauty.

However, if this Saint Ursula was indeed a nonhuman who had control over the wheat harvest, then there would be some peculiarity about her hidden somewhere on this statue. Her face, for example, might perhaps look like a certain wisewolf’s.

As he looked closely at the statue, that thought in mind, he felt a tug at the waist.

“…Why are you staring so hard at her?”

Her angry, yet somewhat sad look caught him by surprise.

It took him a few moments to realize it was jealousy.

“I was only wondering if she looked like Miss Holo.”

Myuri, understanding what he meant, nervously pulled on his shirt and began to walk.

“She doesn’t, and I don’t like you looking at her so much.”

She immediately let go and walked off with big, open strides, perhaps because she did not want him to see her face at the moment. She was always talking about how much of an adult, how much of a knight she was, yet she had an awkwardness to her like a butterfly not yet accustomed to flying in the sky, which made Col smile gently; he grabbed her hand to stop her.

“They are baking bread over there. It’s a little early, but why don’t we stop for lunch now?”

As might be expected of an area known for producing wheat, almost everything being sold here was some kind of wheat bread. There were loaves that were large and circular, some were long and thin, and some were even braided and then looped into a circle. Myuri came to a halt to see for herself, then looked down at Col’s hand on hers, then finally looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

“You always try to reel me in with food. Also, I thought I told you I’m a proud knight.”

She shook off his hand and placed both of hers on her hips, discontent.

“Pardon me. Then shall we make our way to the wheat fields?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want any bread, though,” she said with a slight smile, then dashed off toward the bread stalls. “Come on, Brother! Hurry!”

He could almost see her tail wagging enthusiastically.

“All right, all right,” he replied, and made his way toward the fragrant bread stalls.

Col selected a kind of bread that was the size of his palm, and Myuri chose a twisted kind that had been drizzled with honey. Both of them looked like merchants from abroad who had come for a stroll and to purchase goods, so the bread stall owner was fervently trying to sell them on the quality of the village’s wheat.

The stall owner named the company from which they could purchase the wheat; perhaps a relative of his ran it.

Col had no idea if the prices were cheap or expensive, but what he did know, if nothing else, was that it tasted good.

“I think the quality of the wheat here is really high,” Myuri said. There was a remnant of the stone wall sitting by itself in an empty lot away from the bread stall, and they sat there to eat.

“Is it not because it is freshly made?”

“Bad flour will make bad bread, even if it is freshly made. It’d be dry and tasteless, and not sweet at all. This is good. I think it’s because the soil is fertile.”

Myuri could sniff out if barley grains were mixed into flour, so the taste and quality must be truly exceptional. Col smiled at her as she bit into her honeyed piece of bread in satisfaction, but when he moved to tear off a piece of his own bread he noticed something.

“Will you have some?”

A few paces from them was a small mouse with chestnut-colored fur. Col ripped off a tiny piece of his bread and placed it down on the ground, but the little mouse shrank away in surprise. It was not only cautiously watching Col, but Myuri as well. But its wariness lost out to the delicious smell; after approaching with great trepidation, the small mouse stuffed the piece into its mouth and immediately leaped away.

Col remembered when he was a child, traveling alone and with no one to rely on, how he would sneak into farming sheds to stave off the night dew and share his stale bread with the mice. As he thought about how nice it was to share a meal with someone else, he noticed Myuri staring at him.

“What is it?”

Myuri snapped him back to reality, and he said with a straight face, “Nothing.” It would have been easier to read her thoughts had her tail been out, but even without it, he had a general idea of what she was thinking.

It was a huge sign of growth for her that she did not yell out loud, Why do you always feed mice?! Let me have some!

As a reward, he ripped off a piece and placed it in her hand.

“Friends are to share food with.”

Myuri blinked, happily stuffed the piece of bread into her mouth, then, surprisingly, ripped a piece from her own bread and gave it to Col.

“Now that I think about it, we did not see many mice in Rausbourne.”

“Hmm? Mice?”

“The manor we are renting is very nice, so I suppose that is a given, but still.”

Even in the trading house Az took them to in Raponell there had been mice loitering around, hoping to snatch up some food scraps from the nighttime tavern in the loading dock.

“I think we didn’t see any there because the chicken’s hanging around.”

The chicken she mentioned was no ordinary garden fowl, of course, but Sharon, who was the embodiment of an eagle.

Eagles were a natural predator for mice, so perhaps they were too scared to venture into the city.

But on a list of all the scary things in the world for mice, wolves would not be far from the top.

“Or is it thanks to you that we have not seen any in our journeys so far?”

Mice and flies were constant companions on any seafaring journey, yet they never had to worry about them on any ship they took. The diminutive creatures would often sneak into a traveler’s belongings if they let their guard slip, only to find out the critters had been chewing on their precious rations or leathers.

“I only pick on people my own size, so maybe they just run away on their own,” she puffed out her chest, proud wolf that she was.

“I am thankful, if that is the case. When I traveled alone a long time ago, the mice would bite at my toes in the middle of the night and cause me to jump awake. This happened so many times.”

Myuri stared blankly at him, then looked down at his legs, as though a thought just occurred to her.

“I haven’t gotten a taste of your legs yet, huh.”

As he smiled wryly—her tone made it sound like she was talking about snacking—he recalled the conversation they had had about the legendary sword. Myuri had mentioned wanting a bone, then stared hard at his arm. When he imagined the silver wolf joyously munching on a bone, tail wagging, he could not help but involuntarily tuck his legs inward.

“But there haven’t been any cats either,” Myuri said after tossing the last bit of bread into her mouth.

“Was it not because the port was so lively?”

“Hmm?”

She did not seem to entirely understand what he was saying, but they were done eating, so they decided to make their way toward the wheat fields. They had asked for directions from the stall owner beforehand, so they managed to pick their way through town without getting lost. The buildings thinned out as they headed west, and instead grew bigger and bigger as space became more widely available.

Stray dogs slept among the roaming chickens and pigs rested beneath the eaves, and when they noticed Myuri coming, they would hurriedly jump to their feet and give a yelp.

By the time they had completely left the city, there was nothing left to hinder their view.

All they could see were the ridgelines of low mountains in the distance and wheat fields that seemed to go on forever.

“Wow!”

Even though they had seen plenty of wide-open spaces like this since coming to the Kingdom, they had yet to encounter any proper wheat fields.

In Nyohhira, she only ever got to see wild grains growing sparsely along the mountainside, so this was likely a bigger shock to her than seeing the ocean.

“Whoa… Whoa!!”

She tried to take in the entire expanse of wheat in one go, but she almost fell backward.

Col hurriedly reached out to support her and chuckled.

“It seems there are a few communities nestled between the fields…but it certainly is big.”

The path at their feet extended forward, then split into four paths along the way, and at the end of each one they could see small hamlets. The land had most likely gone through a cycle of reclamation—fields once only used to let livestock roam were turned into farmland for wheat production, then once it had spread a certain distance, some land gained yet another new purpose as they built humble abodes atop it.

But the best part about the view was not simply that it was a wide-open space. It was the neat, systematic rows of the fields, which could not fail to inspire awe.

“Now that I’m looking at all of this, I can tell that it’s not all just wheat.”

That was the first thing that Myuri noticed after she calmed down somewhat. The fields were not comprised of wheat alone; the crops changed intermittently, as though separated by color. What was truly astonishing was how it was divided into a strict pattern.

The young grain was followed by a vegetable—turnips, perhaps—which were in turn followed by grasses and weeds intended as feed for livestock, then an open plot.

The repetitions were divided into equal parts, and it continued for as far as the eye could see.

The gentle breeze carried the fresh scent of plants.

“And? Anything else? Do you think your kin is here?” Col asked Myuri, who was breathing it in deeply, just like him. She exhaled weakly.

“…I don’t think so.”

This strange land had been suddenly transformed into a great supplier of wheat.

Both of them had thought that a wolf would have been responsible, but apparently, this was not the case.

“Perhaps whoever it was left on a journey after first planting it all.”

Col suggested the possibility to her as she gazed out across the fields quietly, but the wolf girl slowly shook her head.

“I don’t think so. And even if they did, they were probably kicked out instead.”

“Huh?”

“The way all this wheat is planted is similar to the village that kicked Mother out. I’ve only ever heard it from Father, but this is the first time I’ve seen it for myself.”

What she told him next was a methodology to utilize the fields most efficiently.

The fields before them were divided into four types so that a different crop could be raised in each plot each year, all so that the soil would have a chance to recover. And this method meant that if the wheat went through a bad harvest during any particular year, the other crops could make up for the wheat, which helped the farmers withstand the natural booms and busts while extracting the greatest value possible out of the earth.

When Myuri’s mother, Holo the wisewolf, controlled a wheat harvest, the fields that lay around her village were only divided into three. This three-field system was the greatest agricultural innovation human wisdom could muster at the time.

Before that, they had no choice but to offer their prayers to the gods who controlled their harvest.

“This is incredible.” The girl with the blood of the spirits of an ancient era in her veins sighed as she murmured, “It’s so systematic, so perfect… It feels like they’ve reached the most efficient means of farming possible. It doesn’t look like a field. There’s no place here for people like Mother, for people like me. It’s cold. Colder than the snowiest mountains.”

The tale of Holo the wisewolf was about an ancient spirit who once ruled over the harvest and eventually lost her place and purpose as human technology advanced.

As a human himself, Col felt terribly uncomfortable looking at Myuri’s blank expression.

“But, Brother?”

“…What is it?”

He tensed slightly, but that was because he had underestimated her.

“They said that the old lord here was a stubborn person who could get things done, he just believed in the wrong things, right?”

Col was confused for a brief moment, having been so suddenly dragged back to reality.

“Ah, um, yes, I suppose so.”

But Myuri paid no mind to his discomposure, looked out over the fields one more time, then said with conviction, “That can’t be true. He’s a really smart person. How would he have been able to make fields of wheat like this if he wasn’t?”

Areas capable of prodigious wheat production were unusual in the Kingdom. Not only that, but the land here had not always been able to sustain wheat, so it had not been this way since antiquity. And so the gossipmongers around this area insisted that the lord here used devious means to coax the wheat into growing, and even he and Myuri thought it might be another wolf avatar’s supernatural doing.

But there was a good and proper reason why the wheat had grown so well here, and that was pure effort.

“…In that case, what does this all mean?”

All that Myuri had just pointed out overturned their initial impressions. Col somehow managed to put together the scattered thoughts in his brain, which were completely unlike the orderliness of the fields before them, into words.

“What I can imagine from these fields is a ruler of this land who is an exceedingly rational person. That seems entirely incompatible with the horrible rumors about him, does it not?”

It was just like how the bright and lively Raponell seemed incongruent with the talk of ghost ships.

“Which means…it doesn’t quite seem right when it comes to the new continent, then. I would say that only someone who has their head in the clouds, someone who tends to believe everything, would doggedly pursue such a fanciful possibility. I think it strange that someone so methodical and hard-working would look into something like that.”

Or perhaps he was precisely strange, like an intellectual pagan?

“Hmm…” But Myuri sounded skeptical of his conclusion. “I know I’m the one that brought it up, but I figured he was probably both.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, even I know someone who can be serious and methodical, but also pursue someone who no one in this world has ever met, who people aren’t even sure actually exists, for years and years.”

For a moment, Col thought she was talking about the protagonist of a romance tale, but then he quickly said in response, “God exists.”

“Then that means my legendary sword is real, too.”

“W-well…”

Col faltered, outwitted and outmatched. Myuri turned her gaze toward the distance as a small smile crossed her face.

“Oh, I think I figured out the secret to this land.”

“Huh?”

“The alchemist.”

The reason such awful rumors surrounded House Nordstone territory was because of the previous lord’s eccentricity, but also because there was an alchemist whose presence was felt in this land. At first, Col and Myuri thought this alchemist was a cover for a nonhuman, but looking at the state of the fields told them the probability of that was low.

Regardless, Col was still unsure as to what Myuri saw here that suggested the presence of an alchemist.

As the wheels turned in his head, she smiled, as though the something was funny to her.

“What if the alchemist was a pretty girl like me?”

“…What?”

Myuri looked up at Col with a confident smile.

“Serious and methodical people tend to be weak when it comes to girls, aren’t they?”

Col wore a wry look; Myuri was smiling at him as though telling him a perfect example of such a thing was right here, but he understood the essence of what she was saying.

“So you mean to say that all these awful rumors stem from the alchemist, with whom the lord fell in love?”

Myuri nodded, and surprisingly, looked out toward the fields with a serious expression.

“I mean, he made all of this. From all we heard from Blondie and Mr. Simmons, this doesn’t add up. But if this alchemist was the cause, then doesn’t it kind of make sense?”

Love certainly surpassed reason in many cases.

If the previous lord was indeed in love with the alchemist, then even if he was diligent enough to transform a barren land into a great breadbasket, it was still possible that he ended up going along with her delusions of grandeur.

According to Hyland, the previous Lord Nordstone was a man even the king had seen as too motivated. Perhaps in love, he was also earnest, or even followed his heart blindly. And maybe such blindness led him to dare ask the royal court for funds to discover the new world, which the alchemist was already looking into, while also convincing him to purchase great quantities of fool’s gold, but for what purpose it was still a complete mystery.

“It would explain some parts of this ordeal, yes, but does it explain the ghost ships?”

Myuri thought for a moment before answering.

“What if those weren’t ghost ships, but ships that wanted to be ghost ships?”

“…Hmm?”

Ships that wanted to be ghost ships? Col did not understand at all what she was getting at, but Myuri seemed pleased with the idea she had come up with.

“Yeah, that might be it. I think that’s something an alchemist would do.”

While she was nodding along to herself, she noticed Col’s clueless look and began to explain, as though he left her no choice.

“Alchemists try to change lead into gold, or look for ways to get eternal life, right?”

“Yes, I often hear this.”

“So then can’t you just picture someone putting a bunch of bones on an empty ship on a stormy night, casting some kind of spell toward the thunderous darkness?”

“Well…”

Col always faltered before her impossibly rich imagination.

“That could explain why the lord looked so serious when he was talking to Mr. Simmons and the rest of them.”

He recalled a bit of what Simmons had told them.

“And you think this is also what happened in the past…?”

“Yeah. And they didn’t learn their lesson.”

It was convincing to hear it coming from a girl who caused endless mischief despite getting caught and yelled at over and over. And it certainly made the idea that the bones had suddenly vanished a bit more palatable. If this earnest ruler was cleaning up the alchemist’s mess, then it made sense that he would resort to methods that would avoid the attention of others. Perhaps even the village priest had an inkling of what was going on and had pitched in.

All of a sudden, Col felt a closeness to this old lord he had never met and all the hard times he must have gone through.

“And so…with that in mind, that makes criticism of the new lord’s rule rather cruel, doesn’t it?”

That would mean the child pays for the parent’s misfortune, and that did not seem fair at all.

In fact, Stephan mustering the courage to speak up suggested that he was a man of pious faith.

As these thoughts came to Col, Myuri spoke up.

“Or maybe all the alchemist stuff isn’t love at all. Maybe it’s something more like Miss Eve.”

Col turned to Myuri, who was crouching on the ground, poking at the dirt.

“I didn’t really know a lot about alchemists, so I looked into them.”

After receiving the request to investigate Nordstone from Hyland, and after meeting with Eve, Myuri had gone to the Rausbourne city council library. Because of that, she had repeatedly asked him to read up on the new continent.

“Apparently, lots of people hired alchemists during the war.”

“Is that so?”

“They sometimes appear as side characters in adventure stories, supporting their allies in battle by making potions or building ancient weapons, but apparently, that’s what really happened. It sounded like they did a lot of work that didn’t involve turning lead into gold.”

In which case, it was natural that she thought of Eve.

Some people would do anything to serve their lands in times of war.

“Maybe it was someone with a strong sense of obligation.”

That one comment aligned with the systematic view of the fields before them.

This was all supposition, of course, but it was something they needed to keep in mind while talking to Lord Stephan, the new Lord Nordstone.

“Well, I suppose this should be enough for our initial investigation.”

“Yeah.”

Myuri may have been disappointed that they had not found a fellow wolf in the wheat fields, but she did not seem to be particularly bothered by it.

“I guess I want to meet the previous lord, too. I’d like to ask about the fields.”

“And not the new continent?” Col asked, surprised, and Myuri shrugged.

“I don’t think he’ll have better leads than me or Miss Ilenia.”

“Well…I suppose that’s true.”

No human stood a chance against them, considering how they could ask whales and migrating birds.

At the same time, would anyone even consider crossing westward without something of substance backing their conviction?

And if he did indeed hold a valuable clue suggesting the existence of a new continent, then they would finally have a way to end the conflict between Kingdom and Church peaceably.

As he considered how this felt backward from how things used to be—he was hoping for more from the new continent than Myuri was—he refocused his thoughts.

“Either way, it would be rude to meet with the retired lord without properly greeting the current lord beforehand. First, we will ask Az to arrange an audience with Lord Stephan.”

As he wondered what sort of things he would tell them, he noticed how Myuri, who was still crouched down, playing with the dirt, narrowed her eyes and observed the field.

“What is it?”

Perhaps she had found a bird’s nest among the fresh wheat.

Then, without looking back at Col, she sniffed the air.

“I kind of sensed it earlier, but I think it’s the soil. Whenever the wind blows, I smell something strange.”

“A smell?”

Myuri and her blood of wolves could track a deer through the forest by scent alone.

But it was not good for an outsider to stay crouched by someone else’s field. It was not harvest time, so it was unlikely they would be mistaken for wheat thieves, but it was not unusual for travelers who just so happened to be passing by to be blamed for bringing in pests when serious damage to the crop was discovered.

“Myuri,” Col said to her, minding the looks the farmers were giving them from a distance.

“Hmm, I wonder what it is.”

She stood, brushed herself off, and tilted her head quizzically.

They then returned to the harbor town, found Az, and asked him to arrange an audience with Stephan. Considering how busy the town was, and how they did not notify him ahead of time, Col thought they would not receive an answer for a few days, at least. But a reply came just before dinner, informing them that the lord would be welcoming them the very next day.

“It seems the lord’s sense of danger is genuine.”

It meant that he was not inviting the Twilight Cardinal over in his downtime while running his fiefdom.

“You have a big responsibility,” Myuri said as she gave Col a big, mischievous smile.

It was not long ago that he was no more than a student working at a bathhouse—the world was a strange place. And it was plenty strange that a rambunctious girl had somehow ended up becoming a knight, so perhaps that was simply the way the world was meant to be.

“I hope this goes over smoothly.”

Az nodded, while Myuri gave an uninterested shrug.

The next day, clouds hung in the sky and a wind blew through Raponell. There had reportedly been a storm on the mainland a few days prior, and the dark and heavy clouds had finally reached the Kingdom.

Myuri, unusually, had her hair braided, perhaps out of her distaste for the tousling wind. There was an odd gallantry about her in the way she wore the priestess-like robes and how the thin sword at her side made her look like a warrior maiden who boldly inspired true believers in the war against the pagans.

“How do I look?”

When she noticed him staring at her, she deliberately started acting provocatively, which pulled Col back to reality—that was how much it suited her.

“You look more like a proper young lady than usual.”

She almost gave into her joy, but then realized that remark also meant she was normally childish, so she pouted instead. Her happiness eventually won out in the end, however; she played with her braids and kept turning around, like a puppy who realized she had a tail for the first time.

They then boarded the carriage that Stephan sent to the company building, made their way through Raponell, as lively as ever despite the cloudy skies, and eventually arrived at a manor atop a small hill. The stucco, single-story building had many outdoor corridors, which made it seem more like the summer home of a successful merchant instead of the abode of a landowning noble.

After passing by the orchard, the trees bending in the wind, and a statue of Saint Ursula, they came to the front entrance where they were greeted by several servants and a young man clad in a scarlet cape.

“It is my humblest pleasure to welcome you here, Your Eminence, the Twilight Cardinal.”

Stephan was tall with sloped shoulders, which lent him a rather hapless appearance. His drooping, kind eyes would make him seem a rather mild-mannered lord if he were a few years older, but right now, it looked as though he had lost out to the weight of his responsibilities and was on the verge of tears.

No, indeed, perhaps the reason Col thought that was because right after they exchanged a handshake, Stephan deliberately removed his cape, lay it on the ground, and kneeled.

“Your feet here, please.”

The servants waiting beside him brought over barrels filled with water, and Stephan rolled up his sleeves. Myuri stared, wide-eyed, but Col knew what this signified and swallowed his tense smile, mimicking Stephan to kneel.

“I am no saint, but I am delighted to receive your kind thoughts, Lord Stephan.”

This was in imitation of a historical account where the emperor of a great empire repented for his wrongdoings and personally washed the feet of a saint who came to visit his capital city. Judging by the nervous looks of the servants waiting around them, someone was being a little too attentive and had suggested this strange idea.

“Umm, uhh…”

Stephan, however, had apparently not expected his gesture to be rejected, and he looked pitifully baffled.

“Lord Stephan, history says that the saint and the emperor of the time had a genial talk in the garden.”

Col offered the man a lifeline, and Stephan nodded eagerly as he stood up.

“I-indeed. Please, follow me.”

Already tired, Col stood as well, brushing off his own knees. Myuri’s eyes were still widened, as though she had just bore witness to a strange ritual.

On the other hand, Stephan made his way to the garden without going through the manor, which caused the servants inside to panic—this was clearly not in their plan of action, and they caught a glimpse of the commotion inside as they passed by.

Myuri slowly began to grasp what was going on here, and there was an unmistakable expression of amusement underneath her mask of composure.

Col almost felt a sense of regret for how overly conscientious Stephan was acting toward him. That was because it was the actions of the previous lord that had forced him to go through all of this, and not his own doing.

Stephan was sweating, despite it not being hot at all, as he gave orders to distant servants with cued looks while he led Col and Myuri to a gazebo beside the vegetable garden, furnished with stone benches.

Furs had been neatly laid over the cold stone benches, but Col could see servant girls with their shoulders heaving, out of breath, standing several paces away from them.

“You have a lovely garden,” Col said, as a way to begin the conversation, but Stephan’s expression stiffened, as though he had just pointed out something negative.

“W-well, this manor was originally a summer home for one of the town merchants, you see… I realize it is rather garish, but it was surrendered to me in exchange for an exception of an arrearage of taxes, so… T-trade in our Nordstone territory has been affected by the discord between the Kingdom and the Church…”

He had interpreted it as a sarcastic remark toward the lavishness of the estate. Myuri poked Col’s knee, as though telling him he was a fool for saying something so carelessly. Figuring it was best to not blunder any attempts to ease the atmosphere, Col cleared his throat and got straight to business.

“Now then, I am here on orders of Heir Hyland to hear your story.”

“Y-yes.”

Stephan, a man not much older than Col himself, sat up straight, as though a metal rod had been threaded through his back. Perhaps in his point of view, Col held the powers of life and death over him and his people.

“I hear horrible rumors persistently circulate in your realm. Things regarding ghost ships, alchemists, and the like. We have also heard that you were doggedly searching for the continent that supposedly lies at the edge of the western sea.”

Col had been cautious to make sure his tone was not accusatory, but it seemed that Stephan had been fully prepared for this to come up. He took a deep breath and murmured in understanding as Col spoke, like an apprentice relieved that his master had presented a problem he had studied.

Col did notice, however, that Stephan’s eyes occasionally darted away, and he found an old butler standing there, wringing his hands in worry. Perhaps the two of them had gone through mock question and answer sessions together.

Col found himself silently cheering the lord on despite himself.

“I inherited my title from the previous lord.” Stephan’s tone created a firmer start than Col had been expecting. “I am greatly apprehensive of all this gossip that surrounds my lands. As a devout follower of God’s teachings, I cannot abide by such slander,” he continued, looking straight at Col, a calm returning to him as he spoke. “I would like to explain my situation in detail.”

“Of course,” Col replied with a smile, “I often lent an ear to old lords that came to bathe in Nyohhira who had pasts they could not share with their vassals.”

Like a farmer who saw the welcome rains after a drought, Stephan began to speak.

“First, at the source of all these awful rumors, is the alchemist.”

The word caught Myuri’s attention, drawing her focus away from the herb garden and orchard she had been regarding with great interest.

“This alchemist served the previous lord’s family—that is to say, my great-uncle’s family.”

The brief sentence contained a surprising bit of information. My great-uncle’s family suggested to Col that the line of succession in this household was rather complicated.

“If I may… Was the previous lord not your father, Lord Stephan?”

“No. He was my grandmother’s sister’s husband, someone who inherited the title from an outside family.”

The way he said outside family offered a glimpse into his coarse feelings on the matter.

But first, Col nodded, urging him to continue.

“The previous head of our house… Well, the previous transfer of the title happened decades ago. We lost everything during the war, including the lord of the time and his male heirs; all that was left was a swaddled babe—that was my grandmother—and her sister. We needed a male heir as soon as possible.”

“Decades ago? Does that mean the previous lord at the time was yet a child?”

“Yes. My great-uncle came from a house called Gressia, whose land was lost during the war, and he was said to be the only survivor.”

Myuri loved stories of war; after quietly repeating the name of the house, she said to Stephan, “Were they on the mainland for a time?”

“So you know of them?”

Stephan seemed less surprised and more excited.

“Well, yeah, I’m a knight.”

Her bold attitude must have convinced him that she was some influential noble’s child. He placed his hand on his chest and bowed awkwardly.

“That is correct. Once, in time of war, House Gressia ruled over territory that the Kingdom claimed on the mainland.”

“But it was hard to defend a place across the sea…right?”

Myuri loved tales of war so much that she had gone as far as to ask about these things from the legendary golden sheep who was said to have taken part in the founding of the Kingdom of Winfiel himself, so her knowledge was on par with that of a seasoned writer.

“It was not just House Gressia, but our House Nordstone that found ourselves subject to the whims of the war. One family had lost its territory, and the other had lost its successors. And so our houses were brought together through the king’s good offices, commanding us to keep the Nordstone name while carrying on the Gressia bloodline.”

The prickly sensation he harbored for the previous lord stemmed from how the man came from a different house entirely, even though Stephan himself was of Nordstone blood.

“And as the fires of war consumed House Gressia, it was that very alchemist who took the last survivor, my great-uncle, and escaped with their lives.”

Myuri looked as though she completely understood; how she accepted the situation was almost palpable. This meant that the alchemist was not a winner of merit from House Gressia, but the previous Lord Nordstone’s savior. No matter what unreasonable demands this alchemist may have had, the previous lord may have felt compelled to oblige.

“And it is thanks to this alchemist that House Nordstone currently thrives as a great producer of wheat.”

That was unexpected.

“Did the alchemist cultivate the wheat?”

“I’ve only heard the stories from the old servants and from the previous lord himself, but that seems to be the case. She apparently studied various agricultural methods and all kinds of cereals from around the world. After much trial and error, she selected a hardy grain that would thrive in our soil, then devised the incredibly efficient system of crop rotation. I heard it was a tremendous undertaking.”

Col and Myuri had seen the fields before they came, so it was easy to imagine just how challenging a feat that must have been.

“Though I suppose you could say this is something that only an alchemist would attempt—I heard she tried any and every method she could think of…,” Stephan said evasively, peering at Col with a cautious look.

“There is nothing to worry about. Only God and I will know of this conversation.”

Stephan nodded and continued to speak.

“I believe going to lengths to hide this now will only attract greater suspicion if someone catches wind of it later. I trust Your Eminence to be a fair and trustworthy judge of character, so I will tell you everything.”

What Stephan revealed next told Col that all his roundabout preliminary remarks were no exaggeration.

“My great uncle and the alchemist even tried sacrificing goats in the fields under the full moon in order to hasten the wheat growth.”

“My…,” Col murmured unwittingly. Stephan’s tone suggested he did not suspect there was any heresy at play.

“I have heard that such prayers for a good harvest are still practiced in far-off lands. According to the farmers who saw it take place, the alchemist was chanting something in tongues while the young lord sprinkled the goat’s blood across the fields. They only attempted this a few times, perhaps because it yielded no results.”

And yet they had attempted such a thing more than once; when Col pictured the goat with its throat slit, he involuntarily put his hand to his own throat.

“Conversely, when they heard from a pious priest that wheat grows better with encouragement, they decided to sing hymns in the fields every day.”

Col wished that God had answered their prayers, but it was clear there had been no favorable results, since they had not seen any priests roaming around the crops when they paid their visit the other day.

“Anyway, they tried all sorts of unconventional methods. But they did eventually find the right thing to do, which meant the wheat established itself in the ground and began to ripen.”

“So then, are the statues and the centerpieces of the festivals all in the alchemist’s likeness?” Myuri asked, and Stephan blinked before responding.

“Do you mean Saint Ursula? As you say, that was the patron saint the previous lord chose to commend the alchemist’s accomplishments. Horrible rumors would spread if too many people found out it was the alchemist who succeeded in raising the wheat.”

Alchemists themselves were not heretics, but it was one of the professions most closely related to heresy. Though this alchemist had saved the previous lord’s life and transformed this land into a fruitful one that overflowed with golden wheat, from an outsider’s perspective, there was no reason to idolize her.

But considering how Saint Ursula was chosen from among many patron saints of the harvest only cemented the idea that the icons had been made in her image specifically. It was Myuri who had suggested that the previous lord had been in love with the alchemist; she and Col exchanged a meaningful look.

“I believe due to all of that, and how the previous lord’s wife—my great-aunt—died young without having any children only encouraged the alchemist’s selfishness. After the wheat growth stabilized, she engrossed herself in all the experiments she wanted to do, and my great-uncle granted every wish she had. Others started thinking my family practiced heresy around this time, which was when he was summoned to the royal court, where he was forced to explain himself.”

This lined up with Hyland’s recounting of the incident, and now knowing the bigger picture, Col understood why he was acquitted.

At the same time, he understood the bitter feelings of those around him.

“And…the ghost ships and the new continent?”

Col brought up what he had been most curious about as casually as he could muster.

“Yes. According to my great uncle, the alchemist became convinced that there was a continent to the far west, through study of astrology or something like that.”

Col thought he heard Myuri sigh, but he pretended not to hear her.

“The ghost ships were caused by experimental ships sent toward the new continent. I hear she deliberately chose stormy days to send out these ships to let them be battered by the high waves so she might improve on the design, all so that they would be able to withstand the formidable voyage westward. It was because of that, that many people thought they were ghost ships.”

Myuri had explained the truth of Simmons’s story by theorizing the alchemist had deliberately tried to create ghost ships, and she had been absolutely right.

“But the alchemist passed a long time ago, before I was born. My great-uncle is still enamored with the land beyond the sea, and he has not yet given up on it…”

Stephan sighed, as though a storm had passed, and folded his hands anxiously in his lap.

As silence fell over them, Myuri spoke up.

“We also heard that your previous lord was buying a lot of fool’s gold. What was that for?”

Stephan took a deep breath in response to her question, and gave a tired reply.

“I hear he still offers it to her grave—it was always for the alchemist. Originally, her specialization was metallurgy.”

“Metallurgy?”

Pyrite was not suitable for refining, if memory served Col correctly.

“Yes. One can extract acid from pyrite, and she needed that acid for her experiments.”

“Acid?”

“Yes. It does not seem to be very well-known, so I can understand why there are those who suspect she may have been up to no good with the fool’s gold. But that does appear to be why my great-uncle offers it to her grave to ease her blessed sleep.”

“I see.”

When they had stood in the fields, Myuri suggested that the previous lord may have been someone with a strong sense of obligation.

Col nodded in acknowledgment of what she brought up in the past, and Stephan let out a deeper sigh, turning to Col with a pleading look.

“Twilight Cardinal, our land has been dealt an ill-omened lot. And my great-uncle has indeed feverishly played accomplice to the alchemist’s questionable acts, which I would not blame you for deeming heretical. But it was not done to turn away from God, but rather to nurture wheat in our land and save our people from starvation. If you have it in your heart to grant us mercy, then I would only ask you keep in mind the relationship between my great-uncle and his alchemist as well.”

The alchemist was not only the previous lord’s savior, taking his hand and spiriting him away from the flames of war that engulfed their homeland, but also the one who had worked hard to transform a long-barren land into fertile ground ripe for wheat production.

Why would he be so harsh on someone like that?

“The slanderous ones say that God has turned his back on our family, on our land, and that we are cursed. But that is not true at all. Please understand this.”

Stephan acted much too genuine to be deceiving Col, and his story sounded perfectly reasonable.

“God knows how faithful you are, Lord Stephan. I will report to Heir Hyland all I have seen and heard, but I doubt there is anything you will need to worry about.”

If anything, Hyland was hoping to shield House Nordstone from censure.

When Col said that, Stephan reached out to grasp his hands, unable to contain his welling emotion, and placed them on his forehead. As Col thought about how he was greeted here, and how Stephan must favor exaggerated gestures, Stephan suddenly gripped his hand tightly.

He looked up at him and saw Stephan regarding him seriously, as though he was ready for his own death.

“I realize this is brazen of me, but now that you understand the situation our land is in, I have something to ask of you, Your Eminence.”

“…You do?”

Stephan looked like he was about to beg for his life, but Col was certain there was nothing he or his lands needed to worry about, just as he had said. As he wondered what it could be, Stephan spoke.

“I have been working desperately to show that House Nordstone, and by extension, all the people in the areas surrounding Raponell, live properly under God’s teachings. For that, I have ordered the church to open its doors, and the people pray and refrain from making merry after sunset.”

The true situation aside, the town indeed seemed to be a fervently religious one when judging it by appearances, and it did not seem Stephan was lying about his intentions.

“I thought it was wonderful how the town behaved. But…?”

“Yes, but. I am doing all this from a perspective of faith, yes, but also because we have the priest of this land, Father Lacrouts, with us. Father Lacrouts is a terribly devout individual who became priest around the same time I assumed my title, and his piety is admirable, but…”

Stephan looked as though he was bearing through a stomachache; Col could imagine what came next after he trailed off.

“He believes House Nordstone to be heretical?”

Stephan nodded slowly.

“No matter what I say, no matter how much I pray to God, Father Lacrouts’s misunderstandings will not go away unless we resolve a fundamental problem. The previous Lord Nordstone, my great-uncle, pays no respect to the Church at all. He does not respond to Father Lacrouts’s summons, of course, and he even ignores the inquiry letters.”

Col sensed Myuri sitting upright.

She perhaps did so because she may have thought the old lord’s actions did sound heretical.

But Stephan said, his expression worn as though suffering from great discord, “My great-uncle is not a heretic. He is simply a bear of a man.”

That brief utterance explained everything.

Animals were associated with unique meanings, just as there were expressions like, “as cunning as a fox,” or “obedient as a sheep.”

Bears carried with them a rather powerful connotation.

Col could then imagine a terribly stubborn, uncompromising old man.

“But I know that even my great-uncle will have no choice but to listen to you, considering how many problems you have solved so far within the Kingdom, Your Eminence. Please talk to him and get him to resolve Father Lacrouts’s misunderstandings. If not, then I am certain that before long, Father Lacrouts will summon an inquisitor and accuse us of grave crimes against the faith.”

What shape would that take in this day and age, given the ongoing turmoil between Kingdom and Church? Stephan was likely inconsolably nervous that his lands might be used as an excuse by either side to fan the flames and involve themselves.

And in the current state of affairs, it was hard to guarantee that such a thing would not happen.

Hyland was praying for stability in House Nordstone and their valuable wheat fields.

And Col was also planning on asking the previous lord about the new continent.

But Stephan’s attitude was desperate enough that Col would have helped him, regardless of any talk about the new continent.

“It may not be much, but I will do all I can to help you.”

Stephan looked as though he had received tidings from heaven, and bowed his head solemnly.

Afterward, once Stephan regained some composure, he timidly invited Col and Myuri to stay for lunch. But this visit had been suddenly arranged, and the servants looked like they had been panicked this entire time. Col could not find it in his heart to have them running around on his behalf any longer; when he gently refused the offer, he thought he saw some of the servant girls in the distance breathe sighs of relief.

“My great-uncle built a hut in a forest outside of Raponell for himself to live in. It sounds nice if I call him a hermit, but in reality, he refuses to interact with people and has grown increasingly eccentric,” Stephan told them as they parted. What he was most likely worried about was the Twilight Cardinal visiting his abode and finding him right in the middle of slitting the throats of goats for ritual sacrifice.

“Honestly, I wish I could go with you, but…I made a promise to him that I would not step foot into his forest.”

From what Az had gathered, the two did not get along, and there were rumors that the elder of the two was locked away somewhere. That was incorrect, but it did not sound as though the rumor was entirely baseless.

“But do tell me when you will be heading that way. I shall send a guide with you.”

“I appreciate the consideration.”

When Stephan heard Col say that, the tension left his already-drooping shoulders, as though he had used up the last of his energy.

“May God bless you, Lord Stephan.”

For a brief moment, Stephan’s face lit up, like a spark that flashed on a used-up candle.

Col and Myuri then, once again, boarded the carriage that had brought them there and left the manor behind. Stephan stood there for a long time watching them leave, likely less due to anything that had to do with etiquette, but because that was simply the kind of person he was.

They did not have far to go, so it wasn’t long before the carriage reached the harbor and returned them to the trading house. As they watched the carriage, marked with the Nordstone family crest, vanish into the busy city street, Myuri murmured, “All kinds of people end up as landlords.”

The lords in the stories that Myuri knew and loved were either top-class swordsmen and wise generals, or villainous, fattened scoundrels who never let go of their wine.

“But he seemed good-natured and kind. I am certain he manages his lands well.”

“And the other was like a bear, he said.”

Just as mercenaries often used wolves, a symbol of strength, on their banners, calling someone a “bear” carried its own unique meaning.

“What should we do, Brother?” Myuri asked, her hand resting on the grip of her sword, her red eyes shining brightly.

Perhaps she was thinking of this stubborn old former lord as the villain in her personal adventure story.

“…It still is not lunchtime yet.”

“It’s settled, then.”

They sought out Az and explained the situation, and he prepared a carriage for them. Az was also to come with them, just in case.

Even though they had left not long before, they had Az ask House Nordstone for a guide to the previous lord’s house, and it was a young gardener who emerged, out of breath.

His eyes were wide with bewilderment, having been suddenly assigned such an important job, but his face flushed red for a different reason when Myuri flashed him a smile. It seemed, after interacting with Rhodes, the boy from the Knights of Saint Kruza, the mischievous girl had gotten a taste for this.

“That is not something a knight should do,” Col scolded her, but she pretended not to know what he was talking about.

It was only in situations like this that she seemed oddly grown-up.

“Let’s go, then.”

On Az’s command, the carriage set off along the road that led northwest.

After leaving the harbor, they quickly reached old Raponell, from which they took the road heading farther north.

The wheat fields, land they had thought was flat, was in fact made up of gently rolling hills, and after going through these for a while, they came to a low indentation in the land where a forest sat like a puddle.

The forest and the fields were rather close; Col was wondering if it was in the process of being reclaimed when they found a work hut right in front of the forest. Sure enough, that was where the guide boy stopped the carriage.

“You will come to the house if you follow the path, but Lord Stephan has told us not to enter the forest, so…”

“Very well. We will walk from here, then.”

The boy breathed, relieved.

They left the carriage to the attending gardener, and the three of them entered the forest.

“This is a good wood,” Col said.

The Winfiel Kingdom had long ago been covered in forest, but much of it was lost when more and more people came to live on the island, so areas like this were unusual in the modern day.

They walked along a narrow, winding road, and when they came to a rickety wooden bridge over a little stream, they saw a bright spot among the trees.

Standing in it was a darkened building covered in moss, one in which Col would expect to find a wizard living.

“A perfect spot for a suspicious man with suspicious rumors about him.”

Col understood what Myuri was saying, but there were several things of note when he took a closer look.

“The windows use glass. And look, the firewood is piled meticulously by the wall, the fireplace is of fine stonework, and the grass around it has been cut neatly. That looks like a patch of weeds over there, but they are all herbs for medicinal use.”

“You’re right. And look how fat the chickens are.”

It was not just chickens, either. There were also pigs and sheep roaming freely in the back, leisurely munching on grass.

The whole area was being cared for, contrary to the initial impression it gave off.

Even if the owner were a heretic partaking in questionable magic rituals at night, he was at least a hard-working person during the day.

“And…this smell.” Myuri held her head up and sniffed. “It smells like you.”

“Like me?”

Col wondered what that meant when there came a sound from inside the house and the door flung open.

“Gulart! How did it go?!”

Out came an old man, with his thin, white hair smoothed down, and a magnificent gray beard topped by an aquiline nose.

“Gulart… Hmm?”

The old-fashioned house with its deep eaves made the inside dark, even in the daytime.

The man had come outside so quickly that his eyes had not yet adjusted.

After emerging from the house, the old man then squinted at them, as though glaring at them, and said, “You Gulart’s men?” Col moved to give his name, but the old man’s eyes narrowed further. “No. You there, you’re the Twilight Cardinal.” He pointed at Col, and Col gulped. “Did Stephan tell you to come here? Is that fool in this forest?”

The old man stretched his neck to peer down the path leading toward the house.

Astonished as he was, Col quickly regained his composure.

“You are—”

“Nordstone.”

When he looked at Col with those clear, pale eyes that often came with age, Col faltered.

“It seems Stephan has told you most of the story already.”

When he said that, Col immediately knew he was being tested. The old man had likely used the name of the land he had already retired from deliberately as well.

Myuri sighed, perhaps not amused by how the old man held the initiative over them.

“Well, come in. I would’ve had to see you sooner or later.”

“Me?”

Col received no reply, and the previous lord, who had called himself Nordstone, entered the house.

“He seems like an interesting old man.”

Myuri’s eyes were trained on the doorway that Nordstone had disappeared through with a defiant look. Her sash with embroidery in gold thread, priestess-like robes, and braids made her seem reliable.

“I will stay here. I think things will get a little complicated if more people are in there than necessary.”

Az had deduced Nordstone’s nature with a single glance.

“Understood. I ask for your aid if worse comes to worst,” Col said earnestly, and Az smiled lightly and drew up his shoulders.

Col then followed his battle maiden into the house, only to hear her let out a sigh of wonder.

“It’s like three of you live here, Brother.”

They came upon a sea of books, which was likely what Myuri had meant when she mentioned his scent.

“This is incredible.”

Cracked leather bindings, security chains rusted through and not connected to anything, small clasps no longer usable due to how the paper had swelled—the state of preservation was nowhere near perfect, but one needed quite a bit of capital in order to personally own so many books. Stephan had told them that he had spent quite a bit of the realm’s profits on the alchemist, and it appeared that had not been an exaggeration.

“It doesn’t look like anyone else is here,” Myuri said as she peered around cautiously, straining her eyes to see in the dim. Col, on the other hand, was so curious to see what was inside the stacks of books that he reached out to one and flipped open a page.

“This room is…whoa.”

Myuri peered into the room to the left of the entrance and was shocked.

The entire right-hand side of the wall was covered in shelving, lined with all kinds of rocks and stone. There were easily identifiable things like crystals, to stones stuffed with purple gems, beautiful green stones, and even natural gold that looked like a lightning bolt shot from the ground.

And, of course, there were specimens of fool’s gold, like dice stuck into stone.

“Wow… There’s so much of it. Hey, do you think he’d have that stuff here?”

“What stuff?”

“The stone fabric.”

She was talking about the relic they had seen in Desarev—the cloth of Saint Nex.

The cloth was celebrated for never catching fire, and that was because it was made of stone.

“Asbestos, is it?” They heard Nordstone’s voice coming from the adjacent room, and he appeared a moment later. “That’s an unusual article you know about. Are you interested in stones?”

“We saw a strange fabric that wasn’t made from plants or insect silk or metal at all. I was so surprised when I heard it was made out of stone.”

“That would be of salamander scale, yes. I don’t have any here, but such a strange specimen fascinates me.”

Myuri’s eyes lit up because of the storybook name he used to refer to the stone.

She looked up at Col with delight—He called it a salamander scale!

“It was just as I said. They are no simple fanatics.”

“Huh?”

When Myuri turned around, Nordstone already had his back to them.

She glanced around dubiously, and after making a noise of discontent, she looked up at Col.

“He must be talking to himself,” Col whispered to her. Situations like these often came up in stories about hermits who lived secluded from civilization. Talking to another self within oneself was a peculiarity of wise old sages, but speaking with someone others could not see often invited misunderstandings from those around them.

Things like this likely only fed the rumors surrounding Nordstone.

Myuri paid one last glance at the shelves of stones and then followed their host.

The next room was also overflowing with trinkets and knickknacks, but this room seemed more like it belonged to a merchant’s company. A cabinet with small, square compartments, the kind one might find in an apothecary’s shop, caught Col’s eye. Each little compartment contained a different type of grain.

“That’s a lot… But they’re all a little different. There’s so many kinds.”

“He likely ordered them from all over the world for research.”

Grains have all kinds of different distinguishing characteristics, depending on their native region. Regardless, what people all looked for from these different types were a short height, the ability to withstand the cold, and a large yield in the harvest. Grains that had all of these characteristics were highly sought-after for cultivation across many lands, so it commanded a price that was much higher than any ordinary food product, as Lawrence had once explained to Col. But it was not easy to coax grain from another land to take root far from home, and Holo had once said that this venture often ended in failure.

People found and cultivated stronger and stronger grain and continually attempted to get it to take root while overcoming all of these obstacles. Sometimes they did it for the money, sometimes it was to make a barren land produce staple crops so that their people would be saved from starvation and poverty.

An old, worn piece of paper was plastered to the wall, illustrating in a fine hand all the growth processes and characteristics of all kinds of different grain types. Nordstone likely stood before this paper back when the wheat fields were nowhere as big as they were now, worrying over breeds of wheat.

There was a desk in the room, one that looked like Nordstone spent all his days poring over it with a stack of paper bundles before him. The ink bottle was overflowing like a volcano, and ruined quills were scattered everywhere—it was like he had devoured a bird of knowledge.

Col spotted raw onions, meant to keep the drowsiness away, and he felt a sense of affinity for the man growing within him.

“Hmm? What’s that, Brother?”

Myuri pointed to a large metallic contraption by the window, placed there as though to be hidden.

“A distiller, perhaps?”

It was big enough that two adults would be necessary if they were to carry it with their arms wrapped around the sides. It seemed cramped in the small room filled with all its things, and they could only see the top of it.

They must have been researching alcohol along with the types of wheat, so they might have a product that sold easily.

But the still was of such fine make—the parts they could see were practically a perfect circle. And on it were what looked like rows of strange curvilinear markings that perhaps had some kind of arcane meaning to them, like they were speaking to the spirits of alcohol.

As Col considered that it might be a contraption for extracting acid from pyrite, they heard Nordstone’s voice calling from the next room farther in.

“What are you doing?”

Col tugged on Myuri’s clothes, was still fascinated by the room around them, and they ventured deeper into the house.

There, they found a hearth, a water pail, and a dining table; the door leading to the back was open, where a pig lay sleeping, blocking the entrance.

“This room is mostly empty, which calms me.”

Indeed—unlike the other rooms, this one was well-kept, and it almost felt as though it had suddenly grown quieter.

Nordstone sat down and motioned for the other two to do the same.

“This is the only spot that is not mine.”

When he said that, Col recalled how harried he had been earlier.

“Is it this Gulart’s, then?”

Nordstone looked at him and shrugged.

“You saw Stephan this morning, didn’t you?”

This man not only knew what they were up to, but knew Col’s face specifically, and had even called him the Twilight Cardinal.

If it was not magic, then Col had no ready explanation for this.

“Do you have friends in town?”

“I knew you were in Raponell before that fool did.”

Col looked at Myuri, who in an imitation of Nordstone, shrugged.

The lands of House Nordstone had been made rich and productive by the old man sitting right in front of them.

His influence could still be felt in the area, and he likely had people in town who relayed every last occurrence to him.

“But what I found strange was that you went to the fields first. Are you not here as inquisitors?”

“I am not a priest. This is not an inquisition,” Col replied matter-of-factly, and Nordstone’s brows raised slightly.

“Then why is the Kingdom’s favorite Twilight Cardinal here in my lands?”

Perhaps his turn of phrase my lands was a joke on his part.

One could interpret that as either the Raponell port, or as this house in the woods.

“First, I came to hear your story because the new lord has taken over a land that has come with some rather odd rumors, and he wishes to clear his name in order to protect the territory from horrid gossip.”

“Mm-hmm.”

The disagreeable Nordstone reminded Col of all the stubborn, former landowning nobles that often came to the bathhouse in Nyohhira. With those images in mind, he continued, “And the second, we wish to ask you about the new continent.”

“What?”

As Nordstone’s eyes rounded in surprise, Col pressed the attack.

“I believe the existence of the new continent may be the key to de-escalating the conflict currently brewing between the Kingdom and the Church.”

“………”

The dumbfounded Nordstone wore his natural expression, which almost made him seem like a young boy brimming with curiosity. Perhaps the stubborn, grimacing attitude was the face he habitually wore as a ruler.

“Would you be able to help us, Lord Nordstone?”

Col made it a point to say the man’s name.

Former landowning nobles who were retired and had perfected their stubbornness were often pained by loneliness and a sense of irrevocable loss.

Almost all of them made the same face when someone told them they were still at the center of the world and that their power was needed.

“…I see you are no ordinary young man.”

“Oh, nonsense.”

It was not very virtuous to rely on such shrewd techniques, but God would surely forgive him for using them to accomplish his goal.

“That will save us time.”

When Nordstone spoke, something else came to Col’s mind.

“You said earlier that you needed to see me.”

“Indeed I did. If you know of the new continent, then you surely heard about me going to the royal court asking for funding, yes?”

“Yes. I heard it did not go very well, unfortunately.”

Col put it mildly, and Nordstone’s aquiline nose shook as he laughed.

“I wouldn’t even use the word well. I swear, all they did was call me a swindler, even though they’ll drool over talks about mountains of gold that don’t exist. The fools don’t understand at all.”

From the outside there was not much difference, but to him, and perhaps even Myuri, this was much more important than any mountain of gold.

“But it might be a different story with your authority, no? You have the backing of the royal family, don’t you?”

Financial support he may have been unable to collect under the Nordstone name could perhaps be obtained in the name of the Twilight Cardinal.

This was a man who could make realistic calculations even while he remained cautious about whether or not Col might be an enemy probing his defenses. Though he was a bit different from merchants like Eve, they stemmed from the same place as supremely rational individuals. This old man was hiding a power that could overwhelm a person, and it reminded Col of the massive wheat fields.

“And you say it’s the secret to quelling the fighting between the Kingdom and the Church? Is this the royal family’s plan? Are they trying to find the continent?”

His questions came in rapid succession. Col knew that if he gave a vague answer, it would only cause more trouble for him.

“No, this is still little more than my own personal idea. But I would still like to hear what you have to say.”

Col did what he could to keep up while also giving himself defensive measures.

“…Hmm.” Nordstone suddenly took on a critical look, glanced at Myuri, then glanced back to Col. “Well, you at least don’t seem to be fools who’ve taken on a dull request from Stephan.”

“Oh, well… He did ask us to persuade you to explain yourself to Father Lacrouts at the church.”

“Hah!” Nordstone barked, wrinkles gathering between his brows in annoyance. “Why should I give in to those fools? I’d rather kneel to God himself! If their heads were screwed on a little tighter, then we’d be further along in our search for the western continent.”

Col ignored the former half of his statement because he found himself sympathizing with the man, but he could not ignore the latter half.

“Did you just mention the search for the new continent?”

“I did indeed. Do you know how much trouble they’ve caused us?”

“Do you mean…because of the alchemist?”

The alchemist’s astrological practices were what had originally suggested the existence of a new continent, after all.

“Where do they think the bread they eat and the luxurious churches they call home came from, eh? It was my alchemist that got the wheat to grow so well. And yet they kept trying to prosecute her, all because she was an alchemist. The Church itself used to keep alchemists for their wars, and now look how selfish they are!” Nordstone shouted, a result of years of pent up hatred, and then took a deep breath, huffing briefly. It was then that Myuri spoke.

“So did you choose Saint Ursula for the festival because it’d be like a little tribute to her?”

Nordstone stared at her, but there had been no one in Nyohhira better at coaxing the stubborn old nobles than her.

“They told us you were a dependable person with a strong sense of obligation.”

“…You’re right. But I hate the people who do an about-face the moment they start currying favor with the Church, and I hate that I had no choice but to do exactly that.”

Myuri nodded deeply, then took the thin sword Hyland had given her along with the scabbard out of her sash.

“I don’t want to imagine someone slandering my brother and then claiming he’s someone else entirely, either.”

On her scabbard was their wolf crest, and a smaller version decorated Col’s own belt. Under normal circumstances, many would question what a slip of a girl like her knew about such things.

But before Nordstone laughed, he offered a brief question.

“I’ve been wondering. Why do you two wear the same crest?”

“I’m his knight. ” Myuri’s answer came readily.

The tails of Nordstone’s eyebrows then drooped.

It was a surprising expression, one Col realized after some time was a smile, and what he said after that was even more surprising.

“Heh… You remind me of myself when I was young…”

Myuri, however, seemed somehow confident that he would say something like that, and said, “You tried to protect the alchemist, right? Like me.”

Col was astonished by the power of Myuri’s imagination. When he considered the age difference between Nordstone and the alchemist, he could see a very similar sight playing out here. A boy, his life saved, desperately trying to protect a shunned alchemist, trying to act grown-up and even taking on the sword.

“But I…couldn’t save her.”

“You’re following in her footsteps, though.”

When she said that, Nordstone smiled gently and slowly stood up, his hands still on the table.

“I haven’t brought you drinks yet. I always let Gulart take care of that stuff.”

This was perhaps less of a case of Myuri’s charisma, and more that the two of them shared some kind of unique connection. Or, more simply, she understood that he would be the kind of person that she would like as they gathered more information on him.

Myuri watched Nordstone prepare their drinks with an unpracticed hand, then glanced back at Col. When Col dropped his head in confoundment, she nodded with satisfaction; but he knew that her topic of being unable to protect someone dear to her would have repercussions for him.

House Nordstone had been subjected to the whims of a hapless era.

The former lord that had built up that generation placed three cups of wine on the table.

“I was going to compel you into listening to me if you were ignorant religious fanatics,” Nordstone said, and Myuri smiled. “But I wouldn’t be able to face my alchemist or my late wife if I made you two tell lies.”

Col and Myuri exchanged glances when he said that, utterances that almost sounded like he was talking to himself, and Nordstone took a sip of his wine before continuing.

“I bet you showed some false evidence to the court to make them help you raise funds. You sure need a lot of courage to say that a new continent would help bring peace to the conflict between the Kingdom and the Church.”

Even though it was not much more than a tentative theory, Col felt like the idea was enticing enough to pursue it, and they surely would have made the plunge if he showed them believable evidence.

“The Kingdom and the Church are presently fighting over the limited coin that exists in the world, like the tithes. But if an entirely new land were to enter the equation, then I thought that perhaps they could set aside their current disagreements.”

“Oh-ho. I doubt neither the king nor the pope thought this dispute would drag on for as long as it has. I would imagine both of them are hoping to pull out as soon as possible, but…neither side can keep this up. It’s not a bad idea that they would gleefully leap at the notion if word of a new continent came up.”

Col understood the logic right away, perhaps because Nordstone was somewhat like Eve.

“But the way you talk about it, Lord Nordstone…,” Col began, probing.

The old, retired lord gave a dissatisfied sigh. “You’re right. There are no clear leads that decisively prove the existence of the new continent. If you went to the court with circumstantial evidence, you’d only be sullying your own reputation.”

Their efforts had been in vain.

Col tried to hide the disappointment on his face, but Nordstone instead smiled cheerfully at them, either because Col had failed at hiding how he felt, or because Nordstone had sharp eyes.

“You probably thought I had some solid basis for looking for the new continent when you heard the rumors about me, didn’t you?”

“Well…yes.”

“My alchemist was convinced, though.”

Stephan had mentioned astrology.

Though they were not heretics, the eyes of an alchemist were always focused on things beyond reality.

“It started when we realized what was hiding between the lines of stories as we collected farming techniques and grain seeds from around the world,” Nordstone began, but paused to pull a bit of grape out of his mouth that had gotten into a sip of his wine, his face as though a sour recollection had crossed his mind. “Most of the wheat cultivation methods follow the example of the ancient empire. And the empire was big enough to the point where they say that the seasons were different on the western and eastern edges. Because of that, it was generally accepted that there were still continents out there in the world yet undiscovered. There were even stories of people cultivating wheat on boats so that they could survive long journeys in hopes of finding those new lands.”

This sounded like a story Myuri would normally get excited over, but she sat and listened quietly.

“In a way, I think my alchemist believed in the new continent for my wife’s sake to begin with.”

“Your wife?” Myuri asked, and Nordstone nodded.

“This land was once a barren wasteland that never produced enough food. When the lord at the time passed, his daughters fell into poverty and never had enough to eat. Because of her impoverished childhood, my wife often fell ill. The reason I never gave up on the endless task of planting wheat was my wife, to whom I made my marital vows even though we were so young. I was yet a boy without a beard back then, you see. All I could think of was giving her a chance to eat good bread.”

They had been told that he had slit a goat’s throat and sprinkled the blood on the fields.

Col imagined a young Nordstone under the light of the moon, a determined look on his face.

“My alchemist was generally detached from everything, but she seemed to get on well with my wife. They often chatted at length about fanciful things. One of those was the new continent.”

A tale of a land at the edge of the western sea for a sickly girl.

Nordstone still pursuing this topic to this day meant the situation had an entirely different shade of meaning.

“I never had children. Nor was I an inheritor of Nordstone blood. My wheat took to the land, but I have always felt like an outsider here.”

Myuri sat up straight, as though inhaling, because she felt a deep kinship with the man.

This girl, too, once sat in front of a great map of all known lands and realized that there was no place for her in this world.

“That’s why I pretended not to hear any of that noisy chatter, but was so deeply swayed by it. I think my wife noticed anyway, though,” Nordstone said, turning his gaze beyond the opened window. “She jokingly told me to find the new continent one day in her stead. Or maybe that was her way of telling me to live freely and not worry too much about the family after her death.”

The people he met here in this land had been washed away by the tides of time.

And Nordstone had reportedly met his wife when they were both very young children.

Their bond was less that of husband and wife, and more like that of brother and sister, or perhaps even like comrades in arms who both knew the pain and struggle of battle.

“My alchemist was oddly stubborn for how she always wore a smile. I don’t know if she convinced herself after telling my wife all those stories, or if she had always been earnest about it, but she eventually engrossed herself in talk of the new land.”

“But before she could…,” Myuri said briefly, and Nordstone nodded.

“I have no choice but to carry on her will. No—” Once again, his face took on a boyish look. “After all she told me, I want to see it for myself, too.”

Had Myuri’s ears and tail been out, they would have been puffed like flowers in full bloom.

“Stephan’s anger over my research expenses aside, do you understand why I refuse to give in to the Church’s demands to repent for my past sins when they keep bringing her up?”

This was not an opportunity to hold a conversation of understanding from the perspective of the very pious priests, but instead a series of unilateral condemnations, forced penance, and then absolution of sins carried out by those who deemed themselves superior. Though it was an act of proper faith in the eyes of the priests, Nordstone had his reasons to resist.

Myuri, of course, sided with Nordstone.

“Brother.” Her voice was sharp and accusatory. Her glare told him he should understand what was going on.

“I understand.”

Col figured that Stephan was probably well aware of all of the circumstances at play as well.

But this Father Lacrouts was a real person, and the unpleasant conflict between the Kingdom and the Church was indeed still ongoing, and the reality was that Stephan needed to govern this land to protect it.

After thinking for a moment of what to say, Col decided he had no choice but to be honest.

“Could you not act the part of a ruling noble for the time being? For the sake of this land’s stability?”

Needing to accept something while fully aware of how unreasonable it was must have happened more than once or twice in all the years that he had spent as lord. Col knew that him stubbornly building a house like this in the forest and forbidding Stephan from entering suggested that he was perfectly aware of what was right and reasonable.

He understood the log, but refused to play along, which led to him holing up here.

“…Are you telling me to kneel to the Church?”

“Not for the sake of your name, but for palpable benefits.”

Nordstone smiled, partly because he had passed on the “name” of Lord Nordstone long ago.

The man who cultivated the ocean of wheat then asked in turn, “What would those benefits be, then?”

“I cannot make any promises, but…negotiating with Heir Hyland to find the new continent, et cetera.”

The other reason Nordstone smiled was because of how weakly Col spoke, unable to say anything for certain in the most critical moment.

“Your knight is making quite the bitter face.”

The dismayed Myuri placed a hand on her wine cup, threatening to take a sip if Col continued with his foolish behavior.

“It is precisely situations like these where you need to make bold promises you cannot keep.”

“…I will bear that in mind.”

Nordstone’s shoulders shook in one last bout of laughter before he spoke again.

“In which case, I have one request to add to the beneficial side.”

“What…would that be?”

Col sat up straight, and Nordstone quietly stared at him before continuing.

“I need money to reach the new continent. But I’ve passed on my title, which means I’ve lost my rights to the monies that allowed me to do as I please. That means I now need to raise my own funds. I’ve started dabbling in smuggling with the ship I need to reach the new continent.”

He was likely going to ask for help in that regard.

As this thought crossed Col’s mind, Nordstone continued.

“A few days ago, that ship got caught in a storm and has run ashore on the mainland. It’s already under the care of the local nobility, but if they find out it’s a smuggling ship, not only will it be confiscated, but my sailors will be hanged.”

Col remembered what Simmons had said. Shipwrecked boats that drifted ashore always came under the jurisdiction of the local rulers. But in the case of a smuggling ship being discovered, it would only work against them.

“That smuggling ship was carrying cargo from several companies in town. Trade has been a mess due to the conflict between Kingdom and Church, and lots of people are having a hard time because of it. Some will be left in dire straits if we lose that cargo. Gulart should be at the harbor devising a plan of action, but no word from him means we don’t have many options.”

That explained why he had been so impatient and had flown from his house the moment he sensed people approaching.

“But it all came to me when you arrived. You have connections with the Bolan Company, don’t you?”

Since he knew that Stephan had summoned the Twilight Cardinal, and had known that Col had arrived at the port, he most certainly knew it was through Az’s mediation that they were staying at the company.

“We do, yes…”

“They’re a good-for-nothing company, but they’re cunning in these kinds of matters.”

Col was unsure if he was complimenting or disparaging the company, but Myuri seemed to be happy about the statement, so it must have been a good thing.

“Could they take on my smuggling ship somehow? Disguising a ship like that as a legal one sounds like a trick those people there are familiar with.”

When he mentioned this, Col agreed that it sounded like something Eve might do.

“If you can save my smuggling ship, then I’ll pretend to go along with Stephan’s wishes. I’m sure we can work something out if I lend out as much of my cargo space as that greedy company needs.”

If Nordstone were to kneel to the Church, then the seed of all Stephan’s worries would be uprooted.

If House Nordstone remained secure in the future, then the price of wheat in the Kingdom would also remain stable.

And this old man would be able to pursue his dreams of finding the new continent.

If that happened, then perhaps both Col and Myuri could press on to this new land as well.

Did the scales balance out?

Col glanced to Myuri beside him, but her steadfast red eyes showed that she had already made her decision.

As disgusted as he was by the idea of smuggling, he told himself that the old man would surely repent for his ways before a priest, and he replied, “I can make no promises, but I can negotiate with them.”

Nordstone stared at him for a moment before casting his eyes downward.

“Thank you. That is an important ship, one that will take me to the new continent.”

His dreams were perhaps foolish.

But now that Col knew his reasons, he found he could not make light of them.

Col and Myuri left the house and reconvened with Az, who had been hanging around in the shade of the forest trees. Myuri seemed to know where he was, but Col had absolutely no idea; he had let out a rather silly-sounding yelp when Az showed himself.

Once he had calmed down, he informed him of what Nordstone proposed to them, and Az looked to the sky for a moment, thinking.

“It shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve sheltered smuggling ships in similar situations before.”

While it was not something for which Col could praise them, they were certainly reliable.

“Then I’ll ask the birds to send Miss Eve a letter,” Myuri said as they returned to the forest path. Though she often belittled Sharon by calling her a chicken and whatnot, she knew when it was time to rely on her skills.

“Does it seem as though you can solve the problems here?” Az asked.

“Lord Nordstone said he would acknowledge the Church’s authority if we can provide aid to his smuggling ship. But there are dim prospects for finding the new continent.”

Az nodded slightly. “We were thinking about fixing the wheat market prices if it looked like there was going to be any trouble, but it doesn’t seem like it.”

Col gave a dry smile in turn, thinking about how Az was undoubtedly one of Eve’s subordinates.

Afterward, they reconvened with the idle gardener at the forest entrance, and once again returned to Raponell harbor as the sun was setting. Az immediately left to write the aforementioned letter once they returned to the trading house, then Col signed off on it, and they gave the envelope to a bird that Myuri had called over and let it fly.

“It was kind of grumpy that it has to fly at night.”

“I made sure to tell the lady of the house to give it a substantial treat.”

As they watched the bird fly off into the darkened sky, Myuri and Az spoke.

“I think it’ll be there by tomorrow morning, so a quick response would be tomorrow evening.”

Col was shocked by what Myuri said.

“They can come and go that quickly?”

“I’d be just as fast, maybe a little slower, if I ran seriously.”

He smiled wryly at the odd sense of competition she had and closed the window.

“But Brother,” Myuri said suddenly after Az went to order dinner to their room. “Are you still going to help the old man even when you’re finished with this job?”

He readjusted the window shutters that were rattling in the wind before thinking over Myuri’s question.

“You are asking me if I am going to keep searching for the new continent, yes?”

Myuri, sitting on the bed, shrugged her shoulders in lieu of an answer.

“As I promised, I will negotiate with Heir Hyland. But I cannot lie about the prospects of the new continent. As for securing financial support from the royal court…it will not be easy.”

Its existence was only spoken of in a mythical manner in texts dating back to the ancient empire, and besides the alchemist’s astrological studies, there were no other clues to follow. This meant that Nordstone was not looking toward the edge of the western sea for any logical reason.

Maybe it was because of how cheerfully his wife and the alchemist spoke of it. Or perhaps it was because he did not see this land as his final resting place.

“But as of now, the only one building a ship for the voyage to the edge of the western sea is Lord Nordstone. I do hope to assist him somehow.”

Myuri looked as though she was trying to accept what he said, but in the end, was unable to.

“The old man himself said that he doesn’t have any clues.”

Col raised his eyebrows in response to the odd statement. It was as though she was saying that it was odd for them to help Nordstone search for the new continent.

But from her somewhat fretful attitude, he understood what it was she was trying to say.

Myuri was smart.

It was because of how sharp she was that she noticed things she perhaps did not want to know.

“You are right. From what Lord Nordstone told us, it sounds like he is searching for the edge of the western sea on fewer, even more ambiguous clues than we have to rely on.”

There was no doubt that Myuri was questioning why this unpromising talk was only spurring on her hardheaded brother further.

“But you still want to help him, regardless of the presence of any clues. Isn’t that correct?”

Myuri pursed her lips and jerked her head backward in displeasure.

Of course, she firmly wanted to help the old man. But much more pressing in her mind was the apprehension that her good-natured brother had taken on Nordstone’s request for her benefit.

Why was it, then, that Myuri thought such a thing?

“I’m…not a girl that always needs protecting.”

There was no doubt that in Nordstone’s shadow, she had seen herself standing frozen before the world map. Not only that, but Nordstone had sadly been left all alone before being able to accomplish anything, with the dreamlike edge of the sea the only thing remaining for him in this life.

Hearing the tale brought an unbearably frigid chill over Myuri.

Perhaps it was a sign of her maturity that she was confronting the matter head on instead of becoming dejected about it, but Col felt as though she had let the title of “knight” pull her along too far.

But he also knew it would be a problem if he treated her as a weak girl forever.

He thought a moment before speaking, making sure not to hurt her pride.

“Your enemy is my enemy.”

He would not protect her, but fight beside her.

It was a line that was often said in knights’ tales, and Myuri seemed to interpret it as Col avoiding the question, so he added something else in his own words.

“Becoming an adult does not mean being able to solve all your problems by yourself to begin with.” He sat down gently beside her. “That much is clear just by looking at me, is it not?”

“…Aren’t you just especially helpless?” the offended Myuri said, looking at him.

She was precisely right, however, so he collected himself and asked in turn, “What about your parents, then?”

Myuri’s parents were both incredible individuals. But together, they had reached a place that neither would have been able to reach on their own.

At the end of the day, her favorite adventure story was that of her parents.

And they had done plenty of things that had left even Col, who was a child at the time, at his wit’s end.

He smiled at her annoyed manner, because he wanted to convey to her that there was no need to rush.

“I will of course support you in reaching your ideal knighthood. But knights need to rest, too.”

“………”

She shot him a sharp glare, furiously and dramatically pulled out the ties keeping her hair braided, and flew into his arms.

“…Then the knight is resting now!!” she declared with a muffled voice, squeezing him tightly.

Col wrapped his arms around the stubborn girl, and her puffed wolf tail began thumping up and down.

He wore a tired smile when a sudden thought came to him—perhaps a young Nordstone, throughout all the troubled generations he lived, had thrown himself at someone like this from time to time.

Myuri rubbed her face into Col’s chest before lifting her head, as though coming up for air.

“Brush my hair,” she said, as though burying all the temptation she had to ask favors from him on the pretense that she was a knight.

“As you wish.”

As Col brushed out her loosened braids, Az returned to the room with an armful of food.

“Should I leave you?”

Az’s pointed question was his way of making a joke; Myuri, of course, could not sit still when she smelled the grilled cow shoulder and bread.

It was overcast the following day as well, and though there was no real wind, it was rather chilly.

Despite that, Myuri had the window open first thing in the morning and placed her chair by the perch so she could gaze out at the sky.

Even though she herself had said the earliest the bird they had sent to Rausbourne would return was in the evening, she waited for it as though it would come back at any moment.

And as though answering her prayers, the seabird flew into their room after noon.

“Thank you!”

The bird’s feathers had been neat and smooth the previous night, but were now all ruffled; after Myuri patted its head and wings, she gave it bread as a reward. The reliable messenger puffed up in pride before flying off once again.

Col unfurled the wax-sealed letter to find an elegant scrawl.

“What does it say?”

“Advance preparations are required in order to disguise the smuggling ship as a legal shipping vessel, so they are unable to help this time around. And so, they will be handling the matter by treating it as a smuggling ship.”

“What? …But isn’t it a bad thing if they find out it’s a smuggling ship?”

According to Nordstone, not only would all his cargo be confiscated, but his sailors would be hanged.

Myuri curiously tilted her head and looked at Col, but he knew no better.

“Either way, we should show Az for the time being.”

They then headed for the trading house loading dock, showed the letter to Az, and he seemed to grasp the point right away.

“It sounds like they will arrange for the smuggling ship to be investigated by Rausbourne judicial authorities and then collect it that way.”

“Ah, I see. So you will be using your jurisdiction.”

Myuri was smart but still unfamiliar with how much of the world worked, so this explanation made her scrunch up her face.

To those with power, jurisdiction was an important thing that served as the basis of shared governance. The one who prosecuted criminals showed who it was that ruled over that land, which naturally involved financial interests, such as penalties and the confiscation of assets. Which was why things regarding jurisdiction were not often contested unless there was good reason.

Therefore, by officially investigating Nordstone’s smuggling ship for engaging in illicit activity in Rausbourne’s jurisdiction, they could bring the ship under Rausbourne control without arousing suspicion. By giving thanks to the lords in question for capturing a ship they had been pursuing, they would surely hand over the ship, along with its crew, to the city of Rausbourne.

Then, once Rausbourne’s judicial authorities had taken the ship, they could deal with the ship and its crew through Eve’s connections and Hyland’s authority.

It was a fluid series of events, like the flow of a river spinning the gears to crush grain into flour, but Myuri did not seem to be interested in all those details.

“We’ll do anything to help them! And?”

“Well, we’ve sent an employee to the mainland port of Kerube on a high-speed clipper in order to collect the ship in question.”

Kerube was the name of a place Col had not heard in a very long time, but it was a different word that earned Myuri’s reaction.

“A high-speed clipper?!” Myuri asked, standing on her toes and spurred on by her curiosity, as Col held her by her shoulders.

There were other things in the letter that had caught Col’s attention.

“The letter also asked us to head there.”

“We cannot completely trust the noble Nordstone, you see. There is a chance this may be bait to ensnare the Bolan Company.”

As Az spoke easily, Col found himself holding his breath. He had been so involved in backing up Nordstone’s story that he had completely forgotten that they were getting embroiled in highly illegal activity.

As he considered how Myuri would sting him for this later, he saw how she also wore a sullen look.

“This is simply for caution’s sake,” Az said to the dissatisfied girl—it was unthinkable to her to doubt Nordstone like this—and he folded the letter. “Now, shall we meet up with the employee from Rausbourne in Kerube?”

“Yes. We will first meet there, then make our way to where the ship ran ashore.”

“Very well. This means, then, we will need to find a ship heading for Kerube right away.”

Col looked at Myuri, and Az spoke again right after the two exchanged a nod.

“I thought this might happen, so I have already arranged for one.”

Such efficiency was to be expected from the escort Eve had sent to accompany them.

Az informed Stephan that they would be leaving the city, and since he was to act as a go-between for contact with Nordstone, he ended up staying in Raponell.

The ship he prepared for Col and Myuri was one a Raponell merchant was using to re-export wool that had been brought to the town as payment for wheat by another merchant that lived farther inland in the Kingdom.

Myuri was impressed by the scale of commerce such transactions implied, which involved several disparate places, but she was soon surprised—not long after shoving off, the opposite shore suddenly came into view.

“There were once warriors who could throw javelins to the opposite shore.”

“Wow.”

There was a lot of cargo on this ship, and considering how wildly it rolled in the strong winds, it made the hold a much more dangerous place, so Col and Myuri stood on deck.

Luckily, Col did not feel seasick, perhaps because the opposite shore was in view the whole time, despite how much the ship rolled.

“Did you meet Mother and Father in Kerube?”

“Farther upstream on the river that flows through Kerube, to be more precise. I was out of money for my travels and I was at my wit’s end when they saved me.”

“Ah, so right when they were fighting with Miss Eve about the miracle elixir, right?”

There was a creature with one big horn on its head that roamed the colder regions, called a narwhal. Its bizarre horn was valued as an ingredient in an elixir that purportedly guaranteed long life, which meant there had been a huge commotion about the horned animal that had been captured in that town.

Memories of himself running around the town with Myuri’s parents replayed in Col’s mind.

“They have good shellfish, right? I wonder what it tastes like.”

“We are not traveling for fun.”

“Rgh… I—I know that!”

Her nature as a rambunctious girl showed itself whenever she let her guard down.

The ship caught a good wind and proceeded forth along the choppy waters, changing its course from north to south and back again.

Toward the end, the oars powerfully struck against the waters to steer them in, and they arrived at port while the sun was still high in the sky.

“Wow, this is a really big town, too.”

Just as Myuri had said, Kerube had grown considerably livelier in the decade since Col had last visited. The righteous faithful and the heretics had faced off from opposite sides of the river for many years, so the northern side of town, which had originally belonged to the pagans when he was a child, had been in a sad, run-down state. But from what he could tell from atop the ship, the northern side of town had developed explosively, and the southern side had prospered as well.

Col supported the staggering Myuri, the rocking and rolling of the ship still affecting her even though she did not get seasick, as they made their way to a certain building in Kerube.

They came to a magnificent structure that looked like it was a trading house, but was, in fact, not.

“The Rowen…Trade Guild?”

In the entrance of the imposing building, which had forgone all excess decor, was a metal sign, blackened from age. After she dubiously read what was written on it, Myuri looked up at Col.

“Your father used to work here.”

The mountain-born girl knew the story of the narwhal, but it seemed she was unfamiliar with the concept of a trade guild. She tilted her head in open confusion.

When they opened the doors to the guild hall, all eyes fell on them. Few, if any, were friendly looks, but the indomitable Myuri glared back, and it was not long before they heard a voice from the counter.

“My, could it be?”

Col recognized the cool features of the one who held a quill.

“You know the head master?” a nearby bearded merchant asked, shaking his mustache damp from wine as he spoke.

Col had a feeling the name of the Twilight Cardinal had been making the rounds in this area, but as he thought about how much trouble it would be if someone brought up his name, the man reading through thick ledgers at the counter, Lud Kieman, placed his quill down and stood up.

“It seems we have important visitors today. You there, open the back room.”

A young apprentice merchant hurriedly ran off at Kieman’s command.

“Oh-ho, goodness!”

The bearded merchant briefly raised his hat, as though saying he was pleased to make their acquaintance, and the other merchants changed their tune, greeting them cordially. Col smiled wryly, recalling how he often dealt with people like this in his travels.

They followed Kieman, walking among the curious gazes.

The door closed behind them, and with the sense of eyes trained on their backs very obviously gone, Col breathed a sigh of relief.

“It has been quite a while. I was rather unsure if you would know who I am.”

When Myuri’s parents opened the bathhouse in Nyohhira, they had apparently consulted with Kieman on the financial side of things. Afterward, they had done a great deal of business with this trade guild to stock the bathhouse, but it had been a very long time since they last met in person.

“I sort of recognized your face. But what tipped me off was this young lady here.”

“Me?”

Myuri stared blankly at him, and Kieman gave a strained smile.

“You look just like your mother. It reminds me of how badly I was burned back then.”

The narwhal incident had made such a memorable uproar, one that balanced life and money on the scales.

Kieman offered them fine chairs to sit on and poured wine from the decanter into silver cups for receiving guests that the errand boys had brought in.

“…Hey, Brother, was he in love with Mother?” Myuri asked Col quietly, and Col could not help but smile.

“And? The Twilight Cardinal has been making quite the waves lately; what has brought him all the way out here?”

He had always been as sharp as a knife, so of course Kieman was well aware of what was going on in the wider world; his age had only given him the strength of a sturdy hatchet.

“Actually, a Winfiel Kingdom ship has run ashore near here. I have come to retrieve it.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Our towing ships and personnel will need to use the harbor here, so I was hoping you would lend us your aid.”

Eve’s response letter had given details about the area. She had also commanded him to say these things in—perhaps he had been imagining it—a delighted hand.

“The ship will be sent along on Miss Eve’s direction. She asks me to thank you ahead of time for your help.”

“………”

The one Kieman had contested so desperately for the narwhal was none other than Eve.

A wolfish smile crossed his face and it almost seemed as though the hairs on his head stood up straight.

“Will…you work with us?”

Perhaps Col should have mentioned it first, instead of keeping it a secret and telling him later. He wondered if Eve had purposefully written a letter in order for that to happen, but when he saw Kieman’s reaction, he sensed a different intent.

“That snake of a woman…,” Kieman muttered, openly annoyed, and Myuri’s eyes glimmered, sensing an amusing quarrel. “Yes, of course I will assist you.” He smoothed his hair back with a hand, crossing his legs in an exaggerated manner. “We at the Rowen Trade Guild guarantee the safety of commerce between the Kingdom and Ploania. We cannot leave such a thing to an outsider merchant.”

It sounded as though he was fighting Eve for territory in the surrounding seas.

It almost seemed like Eve wanted to taunt Kieman with the fact that she had Rausbourne under her control. He hid his desire to not let Col and Myuri get involved in such a quarrel behind a big welcoming smile.

“Where did this ship run aground, then?”

“Ah, right. Just a bit to the north of Kerube, I heard, near a village called Caracal.”

“I see. That’s a tricky area to navigate. Sand that flows from the river through this town is taken north by the currents in the sea, creating a large, sandy beach. It is shallow up there, and the sandbanks change with each storm, making it a dangerous spot. If a ship tries to avoid the high waves out at sea in bad weather and gets too close to shore, boom,” Kieman said, looking at the area map hanging on the wall. “I would say it’s far preferable to getting ripped to shreds after crashing into a reef, however. How is the ship?”

According to Nordstone, the ship had only run aground on the sandbar there and was largely unharmed.

“Fine, I hear. As is the crew.”

“So we might not need a dock for repairs. I will speak with the city council, then. It’s hard to tell how this conflict with the Church will turn out, so there are plenty of people here who are hoping to gain the Kingdom’s gratitude.” By the time he said that, a civil, merchant-like smile graced his face. “And if I may ask, is this a ship I am better off not examining too closely?”

There would have been no need for someone like Col to wander about with Eve’s message if this was a legal vessel.

Col simply offered a vague smile in reply, and Kieman briefly sighed before nodding.

“In that case, let us dispense with the formalities here. Why don’t you enjoy the delicacies our town has to offer?”

Myuri’s face immediately lit up, and Col lightly patted her knee.

Two towns along the same coast would sometimes have vastly different types of fish, and even differing styles of preparing said fish.

Kerube used liberal seasoning in many of its dishes, possibly because it had many visitors from farther inland of the mainland. A more unusual food was its caviar; Myuri piled the salty, black pearls onto her toasted bread and bit into her creation, pleased with herself.

They were given a premium room in the guild house, and surprisingly, a piece of the narwhal’s horn decorated the wall. Myuri stared fixedly at it and sniffed at it, but she did not seem particularly fond of it.

It was an object of legend, said to grant everlasting life, but seeing it in real life was like seeing any other object in real life.

The day passed and they spent the night; by the next morning, the wind had died down and the skies were clear.

“The weather has been restless for a while now, but the sun means you will have a peaceful sail to Caracal.” Kieman had invited them to breakfast; he scooped out the yolk of his eggs and ate only that. “Ah, yes. How is the good man Hilde doing?”

“Old man Hilde?” Myuri asked in response as she ate her omelet, one that used plenty of butter and five eggs. “We saw him a little while ago. Do you know him?”

“I dare say the Debau Company is a major power in ascendancy right now. We get a lot of ore coming in from them at the harbor here, and there were talks not too long ago about them opening a local branch in the near future.”

“Wow.”

Myuri was impressed by how curious it was that they had acquaintances all the way out here, but when Col wiped away the piece of omelet that had stuck to her cheek, she just gave him an annoyed look.

“I had heard your names from someone who had come on that regard, in fact. I was thinking about how that took me back when you two arrived yourselves.”

“Huh, I wonder who it is?” Myuri mused, munching on her omelet.

“Shall I send someone to seek them out? They may still be in town.”

“Oh, you do not need to,” Col replied, but he was still curious. The first person who came to mind was a priestess who had taught him the basics of God’s teachings, but she lived far, far away, and he was unsure of her relationship to the Debau Company.

When there was barely any of Myuri’s massive omelet left, there came a knock at the door.

A waiting servant took the message, then whispered it to Kieman.

A look of surprise crossed Kieman’s face as he turned to Col. “It seems as though the judge’s ship has already arrived from Rausbourne. On a rowed ship, no less—that snake must be putting quite a lot of effort into this.”

Myuri shoveled the rest of her omelet into her mouth and stood from her chair.

“Let’s go see the ship!”

It was a fast ship, which meant it was not the stout sort that had brought him and Myuri over, but a thin, dragonfly-like one. It was the pinnacle of sea warfare, one with oars on either side that cut across the water not with sails, but with pure brute force.

They had gotten into a lot of trouble when a ship like that chased them around the northern islands.

“Let’s go, Brother! Hurry!”

When Col looked up, he saw Myuri with a cheeky piece of bread in hand as she left the room, and he sighed. Perhaps she had extra energy since she did not have sword training in the morning.

“She has a different charm from her mother,” Kieman said, amused, and stood from his chair.

When they exited to the outside, they found the harbor still wet and glistening from the nighttime dew, perhaps because the wind had been humid late into the night before. The waves offshore were calm as well, meaning the harbor was full of ships readying to shove off, people carrying cargo to these ships, and fishing boats returning from the morning venture.

Though he was nervous about being able to find Myuri, as he approached the pier he spotted an eye-catching ship docked there, and he immediately spotted her at a nearby pier, gazing up at the ship’s striking figure.

Unlike a merchant ship, which prioritized cargo space, this kind of ship had been built to slice through the waves on the water, and it certainly excited the adventurous boy inside Col.

Myuri did not even pay him a glance when he came to stand beside her; her eyes shimmered more brightly than the sea under the morning sun.

“We should go back on this boat, Brother!”

“All right, all right.”

Col simply responded with what came to mind; as they waited for the ramp to be lowered from the ship’s deck, he spoke with Kieman about what was to happen next.

First, they would make their way to Caracal with the messenger from Rausbourne, relay their circumstances to the local lord, and on the small chance that the crew had been apprehended, request their discharge. They would then dispatch a tow boat, which would likely come later, and bring the stranded ship with them. In case it was too damaged to be towed, or if someone was suddenly injured, then they would wait for further instruction.

As they spoke, a few people wearing similar clothing alighted to the pier. They were the officials dispatched by the Rausbourne city council. They immediately took note of Col and offered him a respectful nod.

They must have shoved off before the sun rose, and Col greatly appreciated all the pains they had gone through, when Myuri suddenly cried out in a strange voice.

“No way!”

“What is it?”

Myuri stood staring at the ship, her mouth agape, and did not seem to hear his question.

And then, like a fleeting hare she dashed off, bounding up the ramp.

“Hey, Myu—”

Col’s scolding vanished into the hustle and bustle of the port, and what instead came out was an exclamation of surprise.

“Miss Ilenia?!”

Hugging Myuri on the deck was Ilenia, her black hair standing out.

She turned to face Col and smiled, said something to Myuri, then they both began to descend the ramp.

“I received a letter from Lady Eve saying you were off to meet a noble obsessed with the new continent.”

Col pictured Eve joyfully writing about Nordstone in a letter to Ilenia.

“And she said this noble had some kind of problem, right? If someone with the same goals as us is in trouble, then we must help them.”

Ilenia wanted to use this chance to create a connection and bind them together.

Her incredible speed in taking advantage of this unique opportunity was likely the influence of her boss, Eve.

“You count for more manpower than we could ever ask for, Miss Ilenia!”

Myuri was wholly attached to Ilenia, so the specifics of why she got to reunite with her hardly mattered to her. She was overjoyed clinging to the gentle girl.

“We are not heading off to battle, you know,” Col chastised her, but he received not even so much a glance in response.

He dropped his shoulders in defeat, when Ilenia said to him with delight, “There is someone else here who wields far greater power in human society.”

“Huh?”

It was not Col, but Myuri who asked. She looked up, Ilenia’s hair mushed up against her face, and sniffed the air with a look of displeasure.

“Ugh… Don’t tell me…”

Then, as she cautiously looked back up to the ship in disgust, a familiar silhouette appeared.

“Chicken!”

Myuri growled, baring her teeth, and Sharon shrugged before making her way down the ramp.

“You, too, Miss Sharon?”

Col was shocked—he was not sure she was that interested in the new continent, but she instead sighed at him.

“I’m not like this eccentric sheep. I’m only here because I was given a job. Smuggling ship, was it? I’m a retired tax collector, so the stars aligned for me.”

This interaction had depths to it, so it was possible there would be unpleasant implications for those who actively serving as officials. That meant the ideal candidate was a former tax collector like Sharon, who was aware of all the relevant procedures but would not have to worry too much about any potential trouble that might arise in the future.

“I’m squaring this away and then going home right after. I’m busy.”

“Hah. It’s not like you were invited, you know,” Myuri snorted, provoking her, so Col made sure to give her a little poke in the head.

“A knight respects even her enemy.”

“Ugh…”

Col knew she was weak to the word knight, when Ilenia said to her, “I heard you’d been knighted, Myuri.”

“I was!”

Her mood immediately brightened. Sharon’s shoulders drew up in shock.

“Heh-heh, shall we go, then?” Ilenia suggested, smiling cheerfully at the exchange between Myuri and Sharon.

The dragonfly-like high-speed clippers cost a staggering amount of money to operate, because the operators needed to secure rowers. Myuri stared hard and with excitement at the rowboat, desperately wanting to see what it was like to be aboard one, but their group ended up heading to Caracal on a smaller boat. Along the way, Myuri filled Ilenia in on their conversation with Nordstone; Sharon teased her when she brought up the ghost ships, and she bared her teeth at her in return.

And so the boat left Kerube, and Col watched as the sandy beach along the shore grew bigger and bigger. It seemed to extend as far as he could see; he spotted fishermen hanging up their nets to dry on posts. The water was shallow, just as Kieman had explained, and the waves collapsed back into the sea rather far away from the land, washing over the beach for quite a distance.

Once she was finished recounting their journey so far, Myuri leaned so far over the edge of the boat to watch the water that it looked like she was about to fall off; she was rather shocked that the seabed beneath the water occasionally seemed so close that she could reach out and touch it, regardless of how far away they were from the shoreline.

Along the way, they went slightly upstream on a small river and stopped by a seaside lodge meant for travelers for a quick break. There they had a lovely lunch, consisting of wheat bread that Kieman had sent along with them, and gathered information on the ship that had run aground off the coast of Caracal.

The lodge master told them that the ship came in about a week ago in a storm, but the way he spoke was somewhat murky. “I’m not sure if that ship’s good news,” he said ambiguously; perhaps the locals were already suspicious of it being a smuggling ship.

After leaving the lodge and venturing north once more, they soon caught sight of blackish rocks on the cape jutting out toward the sea. The rough rock face was in stark contrast to the velvety beaches, which led Myuri to give a sigh in admiration.

Someone had placed a saint statue at the tip of the cape, which prayed for safe passage on the seas. Both Col and Myuri looked up at it, mouths open in awe, and one of the officials spoke up, pointing to their destination.

When they looked away, they saw a lone ship in the distance, its bow pointing toward the sky at an unnatural angle.

“That it?” Sharon murmured, humming. “That’s a nice ship. Big hold, too.”

“I hope they weren’t carrying cargo that was too valuable.”

Ilenia’s concern came from the possibility that the handover could get messy if it came to light that the ship was carrying incredible riches.

“There’s someone on shore. They’re waving to us.”

Myuri pointed out to the beach at a group of men, sitting idly around a campfire, who stood up and started waving at them.

“They must be the lookout for the nearby village. There are bandits who target stranded and sunken ships, you know,” Ilenia explained, and Myuri nodded, intrigued.

The group’s boat glided above the shallow waters, passing the beached ship from afar. It was not much later that boats properly tied up onto the beach, fishing huts, and houses on land came into view. This was Caracal. When their boat docked at the small pier, this was the first thing the crowd of villagers asked:

“Did you bring the priest from Kerube?!”

It was a question that was strange enough to cause Col and the rest of his group to exchange looks.

Sharon put on her official tax collection face and asked, “What do you mean?”

Caracal was a simple fishing village, and many of its residents apparently commuted to work in Kerube, so there were only about twenty people in the village.

Sharon and the others who had come from Rausbourne wore uniforms that clearly marked them as officials, so the villagers treated them with the utmost courtesy, the whole village escorting them to the mayor’s house.

The building was made of wooden boards and thatched roofing; the main room had a floor of compacted earth and soon grew hot and humid due to the close proximity of all the people inside and a total disregard for any ventilation.

“We are tax collection officials from the city of Rausbourne in the Winfiel Kingdom. We are here for the ship that has been beached off the coast of your village, and we wish to speak with the ruling noble with regards to this incident.” Sharon took charge of the situation and opened a certificate that they had brought along to show the mayor. “We wish to tell him that we will be taking custody of the ship on the grounds of its smuggling operation in the Kingdom.”

The mayor, who looked like he had been baking on the sunny beaches for decades, sat rigidly and properly, which did not suit his thin appearance, then glanced to the well-built man who waited beside him.

“He will pass the message on to the lord right away.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Sharon said, withdrawing a small cloth pouch and placing it before the mayor with a practiced hand.

The faint metallic sound suggested there were beads of gold or silver inside.

As the villagers left the house to pass on the message, the mayor quietly stared at the pouch and made no movement to take it.

He said, “There is one thing I would like to ask you.”

Sharon nodded silently, urging him to continue.

“Are you truly here to collect that ship?”

The way he said it did not suggest he thought of it as theirs to keep.

His tone, instead, was worried, as though he was watching out for them.

“We are, yes.” Sharon, looking every bit a tax collector, briefly cleared her throat before continuing. “Ah, right. Some mentioned something about a priest. What was the purpose of that?”

The mayor stroked his sparse, white beard, glancing at the remaining villagers with a perplexed eye.

All of them looked like they were trying to unsnarl a pile of tangled nets.

“We are but hapless lambs. Please understand that the miasma that comes off the sea sometimes bedevils us.”

Sharon lifted her chin lightly, signaling that she accepted his apology.

The mayor breathed slowly and said, tired, “That ship is cursed.”

Sharon, as expressionless as a predatory bird watching her prey, glanced briefly at Col.

The mayor continued, “On the night it ran aground, we found that the soup on board was still steaming, but no one was aboard.”

Myuri leaned forward, having heard this story before.

“We have time until the lord comes,” Sharon said, her tone suggesting they wanted to hear more. The mayor in turn began to speak, as though relieved he could finally part with the story he had wanted to tell.

What the mayor told them sounded like a mix of Simmons’s story from not long ago and the anecdotes told about Nordstone.

According to him, a lookout was stationed on the coast on the night of a storm, as was their practice.

Then, the lookout spotted a ship desperately fighting against the wind.

Despite their best efforts, the ship soon ran aground on the sandbar.

The villagers sent out their fishing boats, managed to get close to the beached ship, but received no response at all—the ship remained utterly silent.

They threw up a ladder and looked around inside but found no one aboard.

They would have noticed if people abandoned ship, considering that the shoals extended so far out in all directions, but they didn’t see a single soul.

The following day, an official ship had been sent out on the lord’s orders to secure the beached vessel, and still they found no one, despite all the signs of the sailors’ interrupted lives.

“Typical situation that leads to the creation of ghost stories.”

When the mayor was done with his story, the officials from Rausbourne produced sheets of paper to log the incident. Col, Myuri, Sharon, and Ilenia left the job to them, exited the mayor’s house and began walking along the beach as they reviewed the information.

“But the one who found the ship was a villager, right? He saw them adjusting the sails and paddling the oars to fight against the wind, right? But then there was no one on board after it ran into the sandbar,” Myuri argued, and Sharon shrugged.

“He could have been drinking. Probably didn’t say anything because he was scared of getting scolded. Sounds like something a mutt like you’d be familiar with.”

“Nuh-uh!”

It always ended up like this when Myuri and Sharon were together, and Ilenia was smiling, enjoying the lively exchange.

Ilenia looked out at the ship, enshrined in the water, and said, “Personally, I just can’t get over how this ship belongs to a lord whose territory has an abnormal number of these ghost-ship incidents.”

“Hey, you’re not saying that this is a real ghost ship, are you?”

As Sharon looked at her in astonishment, Myuri smiled at her.

“The owner of this ship told you to save the vessel and its crew, didn’t he?” Sharon turned to Col.

“Well, yes.”

“Then the answer’s obvious.”

“Huh?”

Col blinked in response to what Sharon had said. Myuri, and even Ilenia also stared at her blankly.

Sharon then lifted her head, eyes narrowing as she watched the sea birds, then dropped her gaze again.

“The lord’s here. Let’s head back.”

Myuri looked at Col with dissatisfaction, but he had no way of knowing what it was that Sharon alone had realized.

It was a lesser noble family, one of the many dotting this region, that ruled over Caracal; a timid-looking man appeared riding a gaunt horse.

“You must be the ones from the Kingdom.”

He spoke to them from atop his horse, not in an authoritative manner that challenged their identity, but like a lost traveler who had happened upon a band of locals.

“We come from Rausbourne in the Kingdom of Winfiel. That ship off the coast of this village is a smuggling ship Rausbourne officials have been pursuing for some time, so we will be taking it in accordance with royal jurisdiction.”

The lord clambered down from his horse, his attendants supporting him by his rear as he did so, signaling that he was clearly out of practice. Col thought he shrunk back and was at a loss of words after hearing Sharon speak so civilly yet boldly, but that did not seem to be the case.

That was because after a dumbfounded moment, his face broke out into a broad smile.

“Oh, God! Thank you for sending me these people! How troubled I was by how this ship loomed over the shoals!”

Sharon flinched slightly, but she still had enough composure to nod graciously.

“First, we would like to verify the ship’s condition. We would also like prove that we are not an unlawful group and would like permission to approach the ship.”

“Yes, yes! You there, send out the boats, now!” The lord gave orders to the mayor and the other villagers, and they leaped up and raced toward the shore.

After watching them leave to carry out his orders, the lord turned back to Sharon.

“Did they, um…tell you any strange stories?”

His voice was quiet, like a merchant begging pardon for a crime.

“There is no need for you to worry. We of Rausbourne are responsible for this ship and will take it into our care, no matter what happens.”

“Oh, oh! Glory to the Winfiel Kingdom’s sigil of the sheep!”

The lord raised both his hands up high, but Col did not think this was an act. The villagers were hoping for a priest to arrive from Kerube; they were terrified at the possibility of this being a bona fide ghost ship.

Of course, they were not so much afraid of the ghosts themselves, but rather felt aversion to getting involved with unnecessary trouble in a situation like this, where religious matters could easily spark some wider commotion as the Kingdom and the Church jostled for position.

It was not long before a villager came back to inform them that a boat was ready for them. With Sharon at the helm, they all climbed in, plus two of the officers. The lord went on a different boat with the mayor to accompany them.

It was a small boat, one that glided along the water by pushing a pole against the sand at the bottom, and one could reach out and touch the clear surface of the water. Myuri watched all the sights with great interest—the fish that darted away, and the clear view of the seafloor.

But that only lasted until they approached the beached ship. It seemed so terrifyingly large now, perhaps because they were in a much smaller boat than the one they arrived on. It sat wholly on the sandbar, like a giant creature in great distress.

“It’s especially shallow here. We’re far out from the shore, but we could easily walk the rest of the way.”

Even though they were far enough away from the shoreline that they could no longer see the faces of the people standing there, there were spots around the bottom of the boat where the sand was peeking out through the water.

“By the way, can you climb a rope ladder, Brother?”

The lord’s boat had arrived at the beached ship ahead of them, and there were rope ladders hanging down from the deck in places.

The deck looked like it was miles above them from directly below, and Col understood that Myuri had not said that as a tease or in jest.

“What, you have water right below you to catch you if you fall. Let’s go,” Sharon said curtly, taking the initiative to climb first.

“After you.”

It was Ilenia who said that, mostly in consideration of what she was wearing.

Myuri took hold of the rope ladder and climbed up, proceeding at an absurdly swift pace. Col was not very confident in his own ability, but he would not declare himself unable to climb with the lord and the others watching him. With no other choice, he reached out, put his leg up, and managed to reach the top all while combating his fear.

As he stood there breathing raggedly, Sharon and Myuri had already finished looking around the deck and were moving through the open doors and heading below deck.

The impression he had gotten from below led him to believe that the angle was less sharp than it actually was, and now that he was up top, it felt like he might fall over at any moment. There were already piles of sand on deck, carried in by the wind, and it was beginning to look like a truly abandoned vessel.

Col waited for Ilenia, who informed him that the officials, the lord, and the mayor would remain waiting in the boats below, so they followed after Myuri and Sharon.

“It’s so quiet, like an empty shell.”

Just as Ilenia had said, there was a silence that hung over this ship that was different from the kind found in ships docked at the harbor. They could hear the water rushing toward the beach, which only emphasized the sounds of their footsteps on the wood.

The inside of the ship was rather dark, yet seeing the bright blue sky and the beautiful sea from the windows made it feel somewhat like a daydream.

On the contrary, it had been almost a week since it had run aground, so Col sensed no life in the vessel. There were no lurking shadows, nor were there any skeletons prowling about.

It was tricky to get a foothold on the ladder due to the tilt of the ship, but when he did come to the second level below deck, he found the row of oars.

There were a lot more openings in the wall here compared to the other places, so it was brighter and airier.

“He wants to go to the new continent on this ship, was it?”

Myuri had passionately told Ilenia about Nordstone, and that was exactly why Ilenia had come along.

“That is what he told us. He was conspiring with the crew at the same time, scraping up as much funds as he could for his adventure through smuggling.”

“We must help him if we can.”

However, the crew remained missing. If they were to believe what the villagers told them, whoever was on board had been doing their best to control the ship right up until the moment they ran up onto the sandbar, but not a single person emerged from the ship afterward. Logically, someone should have been on board…As Col quietly mulled all this over, he almost thought he could hear the ship breathing as it creaked, perhaps because of the faint sounds of the waves lapping up against the bottom of the vessel.

He had thought that the ghost ships were a fancy borne from the alchemist—he had hardly expected to see one for himself. No, this cannot possibly be a ghost ship, he thought to himself, but he suddenly grew uneasy when he could not find Myuri, who had come down belowdecks before him.

“What about you, Miss Ilenia?”

“Hmm?”

Ilenia was not that far from him; she was investigating the rowing benches, cargo packed neatly underneath them, and she slowly turned back to him. Just as Col was about to ask whether or not she believed in ghost ships, they heard a familiar shout coming from astern.

“Don’t do it, Chicken!”

Both Col and Ilenia blinked, turning toward the direction of the voice.

“I won’t do it! Not on my life!”

“Why do I have to go alone, then?! You come with me! C’mon, I’m opening it!”

“Nooo!”

Col and Ilenia exchanged quick glances and ran in the direction of the shouting. They quickly came upon a ladder leading farther down. It looked to be where the crew stored their cargo, because they could see crates and stacks of sacks in the dark.

But the clatter and Myuri’s almost-cries came from a place farther below.

“They must be in the bilge,” Ilenia said before descending the crooked ladder unsteadily. It was dark in the hold, as there were no windows; the air was stale and there were a good deal of flies. The crew’s food must have been among the crates, and it was likely rotten.

There was another ladder that led down another level, where they heard the noise.

Col peeked down and saw it was dark. There was an odor that stung his nostrils.

“I believe this is where the waterline would be when the ship is sailing,” Ilenia said, standing next to Col as she came down the previous ladder and peering down. “I believe that is where they would put all the heaviest cargo to ensure the ship stays upright.”

“Shall we go down? It smells quite awful, though…”

Not only was the air in the hold stale and stagnant, there was also a distinct stench wafting up from below. It reminded him of the cheap taverns in the back alleys of the big cities.

“Luckily, it doesn’t seem like we’ll need to.”

“Huh?”

Just as Col asked in response, there came the sound of rushing footsteps, and Myuri emerged from the darkness.

She practically flew up the ladder.

“—Choo! Ah-choo!”

Myuri came to the top of the ladder with tears pouring down her cheeks. Col moved to give her a hug, not sure what could have possibly happened, but she pushed back on his chest. She ran toward a small window at full speed and stuck her face out of it, her tail puffing and shrinking as she breathed in and out.

Col watched, unsure of what was going on, when Myuri soon sunk to the floor and sneezed the moment she managed to regain her breath.

“Heh, what a weak little puppy,” Sharon said as she emerged from the lower level a few moments later, but she herself occasionally rubbed at her nose and ran her hands over her clothes.

“What on earth happened?” Col asked Sharon as he rubbed Myuri’s back. She kept sneezing even as she remained sitting on the floor. He remembered them saying one thing or another about opening something, but Myuri’s current state told him it must have been the gates to hell.

“We found the hiding spot for cargo, one usually found in ships like this. We even found their wastewater.”

“Ah…” Ilenia gave a vague, sympathetic smile as she glanced at Myuri. It was not possible to cut holes into the bottom of the ship, so due to how it was built, all liquid that spilled onto the floor would leak and pool in the dark depths of the ship. Myuri’s earlier cries were because it was a torturous place for someone with a wolf’s nose.

“A determined smuggler would sit in the dark in the waste, cradling his goods, though.”

“I…could imagine how that would make things difficult afterward.”

The first wave of Myuri’s sneezes finally calmed; she clung to Col, wiping away her tears. It seemed as though she had sneezed away her knightly pride and valor.

“I take it you didn’t find anyone in there?” Ilenia asked.

Sharon briefly let down her hair, then tied it back up as she replied, “No, no one.”

This meant that the ship was empty, and if the villagers who said that no one had come out of the ship were to be believed, then the crew had all abruptly disappeared.

As Col recoiled—no such thing could be possible—Myuri blew her nose into the handkerchief Ilenia had lent her and said, “Sniff… They weren’t in the bottom, but I know…sniff…where they might be.”

“Yeah, it could mean one thing.”

“You didn’t have to take me with you…”

Myuri shot Sharon a spiteful look, but Sharon remained cool under that withering gaze.

“What do you mean?” Col asked, and Sharon swept her gaze across the full hold and stomped her foot on the floor.

“The size of the ship from the outside doesn’t match up with the height of each floor on the inside.”

Col looked up and down, comparing the floor and the ceiling, when he finally noticed what she was talking about.

“A double bottom?”

“It’s a clever build. That Nordstone’s a right scoundrel.”

“Do you think the crew could all be in there, then?”

Logic stated that if someone entered a house and no one left, then they would have to still be inside.

When Col asked his question, Ilenia replied, “I wonder if they would come out if we called for them.”

“Put yourself in their shoes. What would you do?” Sharon asked.

Ilenia placed her hand to her chin and smiled dryly. “I would hold my breath, no matter what anyone said, and wait for a chance to escape.”

“Exactly. The authorities will use whatever honeyed words they can to coax you out, you know. Come on, mutt. Get up.”

Sharon kicked her heel against the floor, and Myuri puffed out her tail.

With a tired sigh, Col wiped away what was left of her tears with his sleeve, and she reluctantly stood.

“I bet there’s a hidden entrance somewhere on this floor…Actually, I’d rather we leave searching around the bottom floor for last.”

The bottom must be smellier than Col first thought if Sharon felt compelled to spell that out.

Col thought about how Myuri would be able to sniff out the entrance to a hidden room if people were hiding inside, but the girl was still sniffling, so he reconsidered.

“Shall we search by sound?” Ilenia suggested, looking at Myuri’s wolf ears. Myuri’s sensitive ears had discovered a cavern in the Desarev cathedral by using Ilenia’s giant hooves to cause vibrations.

“This ship’ll fall apart if you start stomping around. It’s not a big place, so let’s do this properly.”

Ilenia drew her shoulders up, offended, but she also seemed to be having fun.

“Any entrance would usually be hidden by cargo. It’d probably be under that big pile over there.”

There were all sorts of boxes stacked in the hold, but there was an even bigger stack of crates astern.

“But what is this? A rock?”

There was a pile of thick, linen sacks, each large enough to fill an adult armful, and something heavy sat inside each one. Sharon gave one a light kick, but it did not budge.

She sliced open the tight knot of a nearby sack with her dagger, peered inside, and gave an unusually loud cry.

“…Gold?!”

She tilted her head after she said that.

“No, it’s not. It’s something else.”

“Is it fool’s gold?” Col asked.

Sharon turned to him, pulled out a bit of ore that looked like a warped die, and tossed it at him.

“Yes, it’s pyrite,” he confirmed.

“Is Nordstone a con man?” Sharon asked.

“He offers the pyrite to the alchemist’s grave. The alchemist was amazing, you know,” Myuri piped up.

“Huh?”

Myuri completely supported Nordstone’s story, but Sharon looked at the pile of pyrite sacks with a doubtful eye. Col, too, began to question the situation, though his reasons may have been different from Sharon’s.

According to Stephan, pyrite was a material the alchemist used in her specialty research, metallurgy, and so Nordstone had continued to offer bits to her grave.

That alone he could understand. Everyone mourned differently.

But seeing all this pyrite for himself, he clearly understood that there was something odd about that.

“He offers all of this to her grave?”

Myuri, who had been kicking at the joints in the floorboards with the tip of her toe, looked up.

Sharon brushed back her bangs and frowned. “It doesn’t sound like he’s offered her grave this stuff just once or twice from the way you two talk about it. He’s constantly offering it to her, but he still buys this much in one smuggling run? Why does he need to offer her so much pyrite?”

“He could build a small mountain out of it.”

Myuri would have lashed out if Sharon was the only one to comment, but her tail drooped when Ilenia spoke up as well.

“…That’s just how important she was to him.”

It made a certain sense to bury your savior along with all the things they loved in life.

The alchemist had saved Nordstone’s life and helped establish him in his position as a new lord. Col could understand if there was nothing in the world he could do to fully express his thanks. There were stories of lords who lost their beloved family and kept their family graves decorated in flowers all year round, after all.

“Hmph. Well, if he’s smuggling this stuff, then he should know how much the tariffs would cost him.”

The only real use for pyrite for most people was in scams by pretending it was gold. As Col calmed Myuri, who was upset with Sharon now that she had lost interest, he chanced upon a strange-looking protrusion at the joint between wall and floor. He simply thought that was how the ship was made at first, but when he approached and rubbed his eyes, he saw it looked like a wedge.

“What is it, Brother?”

“I may be wrong, but…”

He crouched down and reached out to it, pushing it side to side, but it did not budge.

Just has he thought it was simply a part of the ship’s make, Myuri found something similar not too far away.

“There’s one here, too. This one’s… Hnnng!”

She grabbed it with both hands and tried hard to pull it out, but all that happened was her tail puffed up; the protrusion did not budge.

“Hmm… Oh, what about this?”

She unsheathed the sword at her hip and stuck it into the wood. She tried to extract it like it was a lever, and Col was worried that she would achieve nothing besides breaking the sword Hyland had so graciously given to her.

Myuri then put her weight onto the handle, and the wood lifted.

“Oh, so it comes out there. Which means… Hup!”

She put the sword back, and this time, the piece of wood came out with a small tap on the sword’s handle.

“Brother, we’ll do that over there, too.”

With a confident look, she pulled out the wedge just as she did before.

“Is that the key for the entrance? That means we should get the cargo out of the way here.”

Sharon guessed there would be a hidden entrance somewhere, so she and Ilenia began to move the stacks of crates.

And with the weight of the cargo gone, the joints in the floorboards began to protrude slightly.

“—Choo! …Sniff. He—he, got it.”

The combination of the stench in the hold and the dust from moving around the cargo caused Myuri to start sneezing again, but she was thoroughly engrossed in her treasure hunt.

“Hey, stop gawking and start helping,” Sharon said, her sleeves rolled up from moving around the cargo. Col rushed to help, but Myuri folded her arms with a straight face.

“Unlike you, Chicken, we’re the brains of this group.”

She pulled on Col’s sleeve as he stepped forward to help, taking him back to where she was standing. She had turned the discovery of the wedges into her own achievement.

“You damn mutt…”

Ilenia was enjoying Sharon’s grumbling a great deal. It wasn’t long before all the cargo was moved out of the way.

“Come on, come on!”

Col calmed Myuri, who could not contain her impatience, as he investigated the false floorboard with Ilenia.

“This goes…here? Oh, no, over here. It seems we lift it up toward the bow.”

“Then lift it up a bit. I’ll stick this in it,” Sharon said, a wooden stick resting on her shoulder. Col was unsure where she found it and where it had originally come from.

“Col, please stand by Myuri.”

“What? But I can help, too,” Col said, surprised, but there came a tug on his clothes from behind him.

“It means you’ll only get in the way, Brother.”

He turned around, then turned to face forward again, and Ilenia smiled.

He thought again how Ilenia’s true form was an enormous sheep, one big enough to possibly overpower Myuri.

“There probably is a specific hook pole or something of the like to open this hatch somewhere,” Ilenia said after kneeling to the ground, as she poked her finger into the small opening between the floor and the wall.

“And…up!”

She used her strength to lift it, and a floorboard came up with the sound of creaking wood. Sharon promptly stuck the wooden stick inside, securing the opening.

Ilenia stuck both of her hands inside this time and adjusted the placement of her feet.

“I wonder what kind of treasures are hiding in there!”

“It would be quite the trouble if we find a hiding crew instead of treasure.”

“Maybe the crew’s holding onto the treasure!”

Col sighed at Myuri’s complete transformation into a treasure hunter while Ilenia lifted another floorboard in one swift movement.

“Ooh.” Myuri breathed a sigh filled with expectation, but reality hit them right afterward.

“Huh?”

The darkness under the floorboards rippled, a muddied liquid-like substance spilling forth.

It rushed over their feet like raging billows, and for a moment, Col thought the seawater had burst from the bottom of the ship.

But the ship was currently resting on a sandbar, so the water line should have been nearer the bottom-most part of the ship.

Just as he questioned again what the liquid could be, it vanished in the blink of an eye, just as quickly as it appeared.

“Was…that an illusion?” Col murmured absently, but he could still sense something writhing in the darkness below the hatch.

It was almost as though pieces of the dark were slithering out from the hole; when a piece of this darkness placed its hand on the edge, it was illuminated by the dim light shining through the small windows.

“A mouse?”

The mouse, who had missed its chance to escape, noticed Col, gave an alarmed squeak, looked back and forth, then dove back into the hole. When the other brown mice had all escaped at once, it had made it seem like a gush of muddy water.

Col breathed a sigh of relief in knowing it was a false alarm, but Myuri, beside him, had fallen onto her rear.

“Are you all right?”

“Ooh…”

He helped the dizzy girl up—perhaps she was not as fond of mice as he had assumed—Sharon spoke up in a calm voice.

“They say mice escape all at once from a sinking ship… I guess there’s a reason why these ones didn’t.”

Col looked to her, unsure of what she meant, and saw she was holding a larger mouse by the scruff of its neck. Of course, the eagle avatar, a natural predator to the mouse, had managed to deal with the surge of mice quite calmly.

“Hey! You! Let go! Let go of me!”

The mouse thrashed about and spoke human words.

“You know people all over think this is a ghost ship.”

Sharon shook the ill-mannered mouse to shut it up.

It went limp, now compliant and thoroughly dizzy from the shaking.

“These were the ones piloting the ship. They probably shrunk down and hid here if anything happened to them. And to the humans, in a way, this was a genuine ghost ship.”

It was a ship only for nonhumans.

And when they were mice, they could turn the ship into a deserted vessel in a flash.

“Everyone else ran over here.” Ilenia returned from the other side of the room after chasing the escaped mice.

“This idiot looks like the leader, so we could leave him alone and he probably won’t leave. And more importantly.” Sharon peered into the hole. “What the hell is this?”

Col thought her tense expression was strange.

That was because he could hardly imagine anything more surprising than a talking mouse.

Myuri finally sat up, so he placed a hand on her back to support her as he peered into the hole.

“………”

His breath had caught in his throat in the most literal sense of the phrase.

His lungs stopped in the middle of taking a breath, and air seemed to rush back down his throat on its own volition.

He saw what lay in the gaping maw of darkness that reared up from the dim hold.

“…Human bones?”

Among the pile of bones, its contours faintly illuminated, the empty eye socket of a skull stared up at them.