She was right. After the incident at the chapel, when he met up with Le Roi and the guard and Myuri was about to go back into the city, he had said the exact same thing to her to pass on to Lutia, all in an attempt to comfort the uneasy Myuri. “You were so close to finding out when you gave me the message for Lutia, just like I hoped you would.” She had been so anxious then, but she had also been so relieved when he said they would not abandon Lutia. The outlines of his world blurred. “But if you and everyone else leave the city, it would be so easy for the bad kids here to stay a step ahead of Lutia. That’s why…” The look in Myuri’s eyes finally helped Col realize, despite how dense he was. Myuri and Lutia were the same. “If we keep helping Lutia with her unsolvable problems, then my journey with you will last forever.” Crystal drops spilled from Myuri’s eyes. Col idly mused how her eyes, inherited from her mother, were bright red even though her tears were clear. “If Canaan’s telling the truth, then once this council thing is over, our journey will be over, too. So when I learned what Lutia was doing, it hit me right in the heart. I didn’t realize that was also an option.” It was not simply that they were both wolves. She was like Lutia in the sense that she understood, from the very depths of her heart, how she felt. “But that would mean…tricking you. And then I realized I would have to get in your way forever, so…” She gripped the hem of her clothes with one hand and furiously wiped away her tears with the other. “But…if we could help Lutia…and my journey with you lasted forever…then I thought…maybe…” That was why she had removed her sword, decorated with her knight’s crest, and shoved her sash into the very bottom of her bag, and returned to wandering the chaotic streets of Aquent regardless of whether her plan would go well or not. She was smart, attentive in many things, and she could see far into the future. Yet here she was. Col looked down at her, sobbing after finishing her confession, and a memory of a time when the girl was no bigger than her own tail came back to him. The power and vigor of her tail, roughly the same size of her body in those days, often meant that the rest of her was at its mercy. And even when she grew bigger, it still held considerable sway over her. Though she had logic and reasoning, it was never enough to suppress her ears and tail. And Myuri’s confession made such perfect sense, it was astonishing. There was nothing beyond Col’s understanding, and all he could really say was it was completely understandable coming from Myuri. The reason he felt disappointed, even, was because he sensed no malice from her. And so he could not help his sigh, because it was not as though she was trying to deceive her big brother. It was because the little black snowball she had tried to drop from the top of the mountain was rolled up in assumptions. “Listen to me, Myuri.” Myuri shrunk into herself and her tears stopped. Col winced to see Myuri so thoroughly frightened, but he collected himself and maintained the angry look on his face. “I already told you about the ecumenical council, didn’t I?” Tears that had stopped from fear did not stay stopped for long, of course. They began to well in her eyes again. Col tensed, steeling his emotions so he would not be swayed by them, and continued to speak. “According to Canaan, the Church has decided to hold the ecumenical council because they are left with little choice. And so if we attend, perfectly positioned to do so, then it is entirely possible they may accept our demands—that means there is a chance this fighting between the kingdom and the Church will come to an end. That’s what I believed.” That was, in essence, what had led him to leave Nyohhira. That would also mean his dreams would be coming true. “But that will not be easy. Printing many copies of the scripture and distributing it across the world to sway everyone to our side is one thing we have to do. And doing that alone means we will have to keep visiting cities like this and keep running around to complete various tasks. I told you that would mean we would have to overcome many trials like this in the future, didn’t I?” When Col had explained all that to her, Myuri had instead whined about not being able to go to the desert. Col had interpreted her demands to go to the desert literally, but Myuri’s concerns ran deeper than that. Were they not going to the desert? Did they no longer have any plans to visit places that no one she knew had ever been, places that only existed in books, like the desert? Did they no longer need the impossible dream of the new continent? Did that mean the journey she thought would one day reach its destination was actually no more than a trip with an unceremonious end? Col had thought he had realized that was the way Myuri thought. But he had not thought it was something so important that it needed solving immediately. Though he had not believed he did not need to play along with Myuri’s typical naive dreams, their clear misunderstanding had been born from this. And that was why, as Myuri listened to him speak, resentment had slowly been building inside her. Though tears still spilled from her eyes, she lifted her head to look at him. The look in her eyes told him she had something to say. Col stared at her in return—he was ready to listen. What was it that led Myuri to abandon her path of knighthood, to collude with Lutia, all supposedly for the sake of making sure their journey lasted forever? “When…” As she spoke, her ears flicked about and the fur on her tail stood on end. She drew up her knees, lifted herself off the ground, and her pointed canines gleamed beneath her wet lips. Col almost could not help but glance at the pouch of wheat that hung around her neck, the one she received from her mother. “When you defeat the Church…” “When I defeat the Church?” he repeated, fully intending to maintain his dignity as her older brother. “You’re going to work at Blondie’s place, aren’t you?” “………” If this was meant to be a surprise attack, it was masterful and incredibly effective. “What? Y-you mean…Heir Hyland?” He forgot to maintain his angry posturing, and his question made him sound like a fool. Myuri apparently found that reaction itself unpleasant—she bared her fangs and began to growl. He flinched at her threatening demeanor; Hyland’s name had come up much too suddenly. He wondered, though, if her jealousy toward Hyland was the cause of all of this, but that didn’t make much sense. When he considered how much she had warmed up to her as of late, it was hard to imagine that would be the source of her anger. So Col working under Hyland served as the key for something else. When he realized this, he finally managed to draw something from the banks of his memory. “Could this be about…if I were to become a priest, you mean?” Similar to the students who drifted into this city, Col had a dream when he so boldly set off from Nyohhira. Though it was not his primary objective, he thought Heir Hyland would reward him after they successfully righted the Church’s wrongs. Originally, he had been motivated by the selfish desire to use the Church’s authority to protect the village he once lived in, only to find the teachings he had come to learn meshed so well with his personality. They were genuinely wonderful. And that was why he thought it would be lovely if he could become a priest one day, so he could guide troubled people and lessen the hardships of this lamentable world. And it was his end goal of becoming a priest that had been his justification for why he could not marry Myuri. But at some point on their dizzying adventure, he had completely forgotten about that. Or, the other thing that had come to mind, was that perhaps she thought Col becoming a priest meant he would become an enemy of all nonhumans like her. But Myuri herself, after all was said and done, seemed to have enjoyed dressing up as a saint, so she must have the intelligence to easily separate her true, inner feelings and what she showed to others. In which case, what was it that Myuri thought about the prospect of Col becoming a priest? Col held his breath as he stared back into those red eyes, and the silver wolf spoke. “We won’t be adventuring, and you won’t make me your wife, but if you’re working at a church that Blondie builds then I’ll have nothing to do! You—you—” She leaned forward like a wolf ready to pounce. “You’d send me back home!” “Oh, wait, My—” He had no time to say the entirety of her name. Myuri rammed her head into his stomach. The force alone sent him flying. She had done so not to bite him, nor to get him out of the way so she could run. She was just like a small child holding on with her skinny arms, refusing to let go, telling her brother that absolutely nothing had changed since then. “I don’t want that! I don’t want to go back to the village alone!” she screamed. Just as the words left her mouth, her tantrum began to build again, and before long she began to cry. It was a childish wail, unlike her crying from earlier. Though it was a sight he had often seen back at the Nyohhira bathhouse, now it had been so long since he had last seen her like this that it felt surprisingly new. At the same time, he realized this showed just how much Myuri had been hiding her childishness, in the truest sense, for the entirety of their journey. He looked down at her as she sobbed and clung to him, and he gave a deep, disappointed sigh. When he then wrapped his arm around her thin frame, he thought she might peel it away, but she only clung tighter. Though she seemed wide open, the hidden parts of her were held deep down. Maybe that was why when he started talking about what knights should be like, that had caused her to push herself to grow up more quickly than was necessary. The spark that had lit this mess of emotion on fire was the clash between the reality that this journey would one day end and her older brother’s dream of becoming a priest one day. And the wolf, afraid of the blaze, had panicked as she lost her cool and concocted a fake attack. But as Col watched Myuri sob in his arms, he was not frustrated with her, nor was he angry, of course. If anything, he was relieved. Though she occasionally acted on the whims of her youth, Myuri was still a vigilant and coolheaded wolf, and though she was somewhat different from Col, she had still wrestled with a great deal over the course of their journey. Even though she often cried or got angry or had fits of selfishness, in the most crucial moments, her logic and reasoning never led her astray. Just like a wolf leaping unerringly at its prey. And what of it? When she noticed Lutia’s secret, she sympathized with her, schemed with her for questionable ends, put their plan in motion, and in the end, regretted it all. Though it made logical sense as a series of events, the reasoning did not quite add up. Perhaps it would be a bit of an exaggeration if Col were to say that he was delighted to know that Myuri, too, had her foolish moments. While she clearly felt guilty, at the end of the day she had been plotting to fool her brother. But that was not the true reason he was not ready to forgive the wailing girl. It was simpler than that. Myuri had overlooked something far more fundamental. It was time to fulfil his role as older brother, a role which had remained unfilled these past few weeks. “Listen to me, Myuri.” After letting her cry for a little while, he rubbed her back and placed both hands on her shoulders, then peeled her away from him. As he carefully moved her away, like peeling a scab from skin in a way to keep oneself from bleeding again, the silver girl looked up to him with the smoldering embers of her eyes once there was distance between them. “Think about this simply.” Myuri’s tears fell like hot springs as she hiccupped. Col continued. “If I told you to go back to Nyohhira, would you do so without question?” Col thought that perhaps there might have been a frown on his face. Because he had pictured himself telling Myuri to go back to Nyohhira due to one reason or another, and the trouble that followed was so easy to imagine. “Would you listen to me, no matter what sort of reason I gave you?” There was a phrase: no matter what. When Col had been busy preparing for his departure, Myuri had insisted she would be coming along with him and had even gone as far to sink her teeth into his arms and legs. She had ultimately hidden herself in an empty barrel and followed him ever since. She would be coming along, no matter what. It was impossible to picture that same girl choosing to go back to Nyohhira of her own volition. He was confident enough to swear to God. No matter what, Myuri would never leave his side. “I think you’ve been writing too many fantasy stories.” Perhaps a weaker-willed girl might listen to her older brother’s request without question and return home in sadness. But that was just a fictional girl that Myuri was picturing, or perhaps the sort of girl a bard might sing about. There was no doubt she had been so drawn in by Lutia’s story of loneliness that she, too, began to think she was the main character in a tragedy. When it came to sentimental matters, she was, after all, just like any other girl her age. “Well?” Col asked again, and Myuri stared up blankly at him. “Would you listen to what I say if I told you to go home? Is there any sort of reason that would convince you go home?” “………” Myuri sniffed, then shook her head. Apples did not fall into the sky. The sun did not rise in the west. And much in the same way, this wild girl would never go home even if he told her to. “…Er… I… W-wait…” Myuri’s wolf ears flicked back and forth, hesitant, and her tail drooped listlessly. Soon her expression followed, and her head drooped awkwardly. “You so foolishly get ahead of yourself.” Col knocked lightly on her head, and like a stake being driven into the ground, her head fell and her back hunched over. “But I suppose you sympathized too closely with Lutia’s plight.” Myuri, whose fingers were folded so tightly together, unable to control herself, suddenly looked up when he said that, as though recalling something important., “Oh! B-Brother!” “What is it?” “Wh-what should we do…about Lutia…?” She seemed ready to burst into tears yet again, and a jolt of tension ran through Col. “What was it that the two of you were plotting in the end?” Col was always suffering stomachaches in Nyohhira because the mischievous Myuri was more cunning than any adult. And on top of that, she and Lutia were connected by a darker motivation this time. “Well… It looked like you and everyone else were going to solve all the problems so easily, so I told her…she should probably work more closely…with the southern eagles…” Perhaps the conclusion they came to was that in order to oppose the Twilight Cardinal, an extraordinary bookseller, and a prodigy boy who worked in the heart of the Church, that was their only choice. The southern eagles, too, had plenty of reasons to talk to Lutia. “Have those talks happened yet?” When Col asked if there was still time, Myuri’s eyes quickly darted around the alley, panicked, before settling on Col once again. “I—I don’t think so…” The southern students who came to attack the chapel had sounded like they were doubting Myuri and Lutia. As Col concluded that must mean nothing definitive had happened yet, Myuri spoke up again. “L-Lutia said she was gonna purposefully make the rescue mission a total, tragic failure to earn the other students’ trust… She said it would be their present…” Lutia had already decided to hide her fangs and claws. And now she was attempting to sell out her conscience. She believed this was much preferable to waking from the dream. Col sighed deeply, and Myuri flinched, drawing up her shoulders. “We cannot allow Miss Lutia to brand her heart in this manner.” She was not a lost sheep. She was a lost wolf. The water ran deep and dragged the weak into the dark depths. Myuri had left her knight’s sword and sash behind. She attempted to stand, apparently no longer able to bear her own carelessness, but Col stopped her. “You will not be taking part in this.” “B-but—!” “No buts. You two colluded to perform wicked deeds. If you changed your mind, then who is Miss Lutia going to believe?” “Oh… Um…” Myuri’s ears drooped. In order to untangle this complicated mess of hair, they would have to work out a plan for freeing each strand without breaking any. “Listen to me. I saw through your plot. And then your brother, the Twilight Cardinal, rebuked you, grabbed you by the scruff of your neck, yelled at you, and made you confess to everything as you cried. Do you understand me?” “Huh? But…that’s…” Myuri shrunk as though her head was being pushed down, but her lips still moved as though searching for something to say. “And that is why I will be the one to put Miss Lutia back on the proper path.” This way, Myuri would not be labeled as a traitor who would so easily divulge secrets, and Lutia would not have to experience being betrayed by the first and only fellow wolf she had met in her entire lifetime. The reason Myuri eventually confessed was because for wolves, hierarchy was absolute—when her elder brother grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, she had no choice but to cry. “In the meanwhile, you should… Yes. You should meet with Mister Le Roi and the others and stay put with them.” It was unlikely Lutia would believe Col if her accomplice was with him. And there was yet another reason why he was sending her away. “Go…to the others?” The hairs on Myuri’s tail stood on end out of discomfort, perhaps because she had pictured going back to them. Her eyes turned up desperately toward Col, pleading with him to allow her to stay here. “Your knight sword and sash are there. You need to go back and understand the meaning behind your knight’s vows.” Myuri looked like she was going to burst into tears again, and she eventually hung her head. “Good grief.” Col ruffled Myuri’s hair because he understood she did not scheme with Lutia out of greed and self-interest. She had sympathized with the girl’s loneliness, and she genuinely could not bear to ignore the plight of a wolf who had no home to return to. Though she constantly derided her brother for being too softhearted, Myuri was exactly the same. But what set them apart was that while she was softhearted, she was also keen. She had realized that she would allow her own dream to continue into eternity all while helping Lutia, and so she decided to work with her. “I will not be overlooking your latest trick like your usual antics. I will be punishing you for this.” Myuri, recalling how often she had been scolded back in Nyohhira, lifted her head and gaped like a fish. “Do not make that face at me. Put your ears and tail away and go back to Mister Le Roi.” Col clapped his hands, and Myuri, who had been sitting huddled in her despair, slowly got to her feet. She then turned to look at him again, eyes begging for his pity, but he found it rather easy to stare back at her with indifference. That was because he had a little feeling about what she might do. And just as he thought, after the scared girl’s eyes darted around his face, she stuck her tongue out at him and then scampered away. Col had no idea if she was a child, or an adult. Then she came to a stop at the entrance to the alley a short distance away, and turned to look back at him. “Please save her, Brother.” That was all she said before vanishing into the dark of the alley. He almost wished she would never grow up, and that she would always stay this way. “Now then.” There was one lost wolf left. He planted his feet firmly on the ground to set off, but he was not sure of the roads in the dark. He naturally thought about getting Myuri to lead him to the Green Gourd, but that only caused him to smile wryly to himself—he also relied on her a little too much. Though Col got a little lost along the way, he managed to find his way to the Green Gourd somehow. As he looked up at their usual hotel, it did not immediately seem much different, but he looked closer to see candlelight flickering beyond the cracks in the shutters, and to see the silhouettes of people busily coming and going. It seemed he had made it before the plan to save the kids had been set in motion. Lutia was attempting to earn the southern eagles’ trust by purposefully causing the plan to fail, all so that she could work even more closely with them. If it went well, then her boys would never find out about her secret arrangement, and they could continue fighting the southern eagles as they always had. But Lutia knew the truth, and it would only corrode her pride like it had been exposed to sulfur. The reason she had made such a dark decision was most certainly not out of emotional weakness. If anything, it was due to Col’s own naïveté—his innocent belief that all her problems could be solved, and therefore, they should be. He had never even stopped to consider that someone might need those problems to exist. That was exactly the same as the knightly orders and children of nobles who lost their way once all the wars stopped, even though a world without war was strictly a better one. Therefore, it was clearly wrong to one-sidedly rebuke Lutia for being a liar. But this was not a matter of whether what Lutia was doing was right or not. It could not be healthy for her to continue dreaming in this city, which sat somewhere between heaven and earth, still imprisoned by the memories she had of her hair—or fur—being combed by the fire. It was even less healthy for her to work with the southern students so she could remain in this stasis, getting the poorer students entangled in it all in the meanwhile. Though Lutia might scoff at him, saying this was none of his business, he knew that if he did not reach out to her here, as someone who aspired to be a man of the cloth, then he would have to hide his copy of the scripture beneath the carpet, just like Myuri did. If someone was hurt and in pain, then he had to take their hand and pull them out of the darkness. And unlike Myuri, who could only think of licking one another’s wounds, Col had another way of resolving this. “Is Miss Lutia in?” When Col threw open the door to the Green Gourd, the tavern was filled with quiet bustle and the murmur of voices. Some people present were wrapping leather straps to the handles of shiny pots and pans and strapping them over their chins like helmets. Some were doing practice swings with rolling pins, and some were checking to see if their leather riding whips were in good shape. Every single one of them were younger boys, and in the candlelight, it seemed like a scene from a child-friendly tale of adventure, the sort Myuri might think up. The innkeeper, among the very few adults present, responded, overwhelmed. “Lutia’s…upstairs…” “Thank you.” Shaking off the stares of the boys readying for battle, Col headed upstairs. The boys on the second floor were also busy with their preparations, and the floor was in total disorder. Col could not see Lutia at a glance, so he climbed to the third floor to find it surprisingly empty. When he turned his gaze upward, he was also asking God for luck in the impending clash. Col had a secret plan to persuade Lutia. But he could not completely rid himself of the feeling that it was none of his business. He would need decisiveness to close the gap. And that was why he needed God’s guidance, more than ever. When he came to the fourth floor, the door to the armory of knowledge was open, and light spilled out from the inside. “Miss Lutia.” He stood in the doorway and said her name. It was likely she already knew he was coming even before he had stepped in the building. With an exasperated look on her face, she closed the book in her hands. Judging by the thickness of it, it was a copy of the scripture, written in the script of the Church. “So the Twilight Cardinal has come in the silver wolf’s place. This can only be bad news.” “It is good news, actually.” Lutia turned to look at him. “Because I’ve come here to pull you out of this nightmare.” The wolf had hidden her pain and her true self; only one corner of her mouth turned upward in a smile. Perhaps this would be seen as a smile on the face of a human, but it was also the look of a bloodied wolf who had finally been backed into a corner after a hunter had tracked its bloody trail. “This is none of your business.” “I thought you might say that.” Col took a big step into the room, and he thought for a moment she was going to throw the scripture at him. But Lutia remained still, and instead revealed to him her wolf ears and tail. It was as though she was telling him she was going to bare her teeth and claws next if he took another step closer. “You shouldn’t do this.” But Col continued to casually close the distance between them, unafraid. Lutia’s eyes widened, and she faltered. “Miss Lutia, I thought you were a proud wolf. You must stop this at once.” Flames burst behind Lutia’s eyes, furious that he spoke like he knew what he was talking about. Perhaps that was the fire of the hearth she had come to know in her past, or perhaps the fire of the candles she used to mourn her former lords. “If you continue to steep in this fake conflict, then who are you bringing happiness to?” The poor students desperately held on to the hope that they might be conferred a degree one day, and Lutia continued to wish that time would stop for her. In an ambitious city such as this, no one would think it odd to entertain such idle hope. “I apologize for foolishly trying to resolve your problems without fully understanding your circumstances.” The Twilight Cardinal had power even beyond Col’s imagining. This was the first time he truly understood that such vague notions as renown and connections could be wielded with such terrifying power. Because the problems Lutia had comfortably deemed unsolvable were quickly shoved aside in the face of his power. “Now that I know, I still believe the problems must be uprooted.” “Shut up!” Lutia bellowed, peeled back her lips to bare her fangs, and leaped at him. When a wolf of the forest loomed over a person, ferocious growl accompanied by bared teeth, most would desperately try to pull back and run away. But the difference in power between a wolf that lived in a forest and a person who lived within the confines of a city’s walls was vastly different. Such a thoughtless reaction rarely helped in any situation. But there was a trick. One did not need to use power in order to confront such ferocious power. What he needed to do was the opposite. “Miss Lutia.” “—?!” For a moment, it seemed as though Lutia did not understand what had happened. All she knew was that she had been pulled into an embrace, and her fangs had caught nothing but air. If this were Myuri, she may have anticipated this and put distance between the two of them, and she knew how to get out of Col’s hold by wriggling like a lamprey if need be. That was because Myuri was so full of others’ love that Col was surprised she never burped from it; she had been given hugs her whole life. But Lutia was not like that at all. She had once shyly confessed that the days she spent letting people comb her hair before the fire and calling her Lutia had nearly numbed her mind. So it made sense that half of her life story didn’t teach her how to deal with someone coming in straight for a hug. “I am not your enemy.” “Grrrgh!” She growled, twisted, but Col’s right arm wrapped beneath Lutia’s left arm, and his left arm pressed down on the top half of her right arm, pinning it in place even as he wrapped around her. While keeping their mirrored postures in place, he grasped his left wrist with his right hand to maintain his position; not even a thrashing Myuri could easily escape from this. It seemed Lutia did not know how to give herself strength the way she wanted, so all she did was fruitlessly struggle. She could not bite at Col either, of course, so it almost seemed like she was drowning. “Miss Lutia, I am not your enemy.” If this were Myuri thrashing in his arms, he would prepare himself for a head-butt, but Lutia did not seem to think that far. Or perhaps her anger and thrashing was just for show—all she did was awkwardly twist and growl. Col considered it was because of these things that she did not return to her wolf form, so he let go without warning. Lutia staggered back, putting space between them. But all she did was stare at Col nervously, as though bewildered that she had been let go. “You should return to the correct path.” And she was perfectly capable of doing so. But his words clearly warped something in her mind. It was only for a few moments that she seemed furious he was overstepping her boundaries, but Col soon understood this was the look was of a girl who could no longer withstand the pain. “…No.” Because what she so childishly whispered were essentially the first pebbles in a landslide. “No… No, no! No!” Lutia shook her hair loose, screamed, and dug her fingers into her hair in a furious scrub. “What do you know?! I’m alone! No one answers my howls! The ones who took me out of the forest died! Left me by myself! Abandoned this city!” she shouted, eyes still set firmly on him. But what she was really looking at were the memories of the lord and lady she loved so much. The days she thought would continue forever came to an end without fanfare, and in her eyes, as a spirit who would live for a very long time, it was a betrayal. And because she knew thinking of it in that way was wrong, she did not know how to relieve her pain. Perhaps she needed a dream like this so she could forever keep this long-running nausea at bay. Legend had it there was a family in the desert nations who once served the king, yet engaged in assassination; they needed the smoke of special herbs in order to keep the fear at bay. Much in the same way, she had inhaled lungful after lungful of the decadent air of this dreamlike academic city. Half a smile sat on Lutia’s face while tears spilled from her eyes. A wolf of the forest would never weep. Only those who knew the warm hearths of the human world could cry. “What…do you…?” And the foolish sheep, who had no confidence in anything, said to her, “I do know. I understand.” Perhaps the exhaustion that had seeped into his tone made his words sound more authentic. “Because the wolf at my side was frightened by the same shadows not long ago.” And in order to chase those shadows away, Col had made her a promise. I will always be on your side. But he could not use the same method in order to persuade Lutia, because their relationship was not the same as his and Myuri’s. And the first method he thought of, inviting Lutia on their journey, was not only rude, but even insulting. Because since she was sad after losing her lord and lady, it would be impossibly brazen for them to offer to be their replacements. Myuri, too, was likely intending on talking down Lutia as well. But Myuri had Col, and perhaps the words she had given Lutia to help ease her loneliness had no power over her precisely because of that. Perhaps the reason she wanted to bond with her over darker motives was because she knew that was all she could do. And so, in order to solve the problems that were causing Lutia pain, she needed to form a different kind of bond. The kind that not even Myuri could offer. Col had been thinking about that the entire way to the Green Gourd. It was clear a simple promise held no meaning if it was nothing but words. Yet sometimes, one person would cut themselves to convince another to trust their resolve and words. Lutia had done something similar by betraying her good conscience to work with the southern students, the ones she had spent so many years fighting. In that case, Col knew what Lutia needed to hear. All he needed to do was think back on her when they first came to the city. That was where his clue lay. Col stared straight into her eyes and said, “Bards say that a broken heart can only be healed by new love.” “Er, what?” In order to draw the attention of an excited dog, the first thing one needed to do was do something unexpected. “I have a wolf who never wants to leave my side. She thinks that once the end of an adventure is in sight, she can prolong it by forcibly creating new adventures.” “………” Lutia was silent. She was likely thinking of Myuri, who quite literally sniffed out her deception from the letter’s scent, and with whom she then shared her secret. “Despite your fangs and claws, they served no use when it came to parting with the people you loved. They could not even protect them from the unfairness of the human world. And that is why you tried to find new power in human society.” Of all the written powers, ecclesiastic law was among the most powerful. Nations may rise, codify their own laws, and then fall, but only the Church’s laws survived throughout the eras. “But you said the nobles who took away the land of the lord and lady you so loved had been working with the Church, right? What if I told you there was something that could shake the very foundations of the Church?” Lutia, who had remained on her back foot for most of the conversation, finally managed to find her footing, and she tensed. “That…doesn’t exist. The ruler of the human world is the Church. If the people in red capes and golden crowns said the same thing, then I would’ve seized everything with my fangs and claws a long time ago.” Swords and shields could only do so much. In reality, there was no country in the world that had as far a reach as the modern Church did. As such, anyone who haphazardly confronted the Church with force would be met with force overwhelming. And for that reason, Lutia wanted to learn ecclesiastic law so she could get close to the Church, much in the same way Col embraced Lutia. “Or what? Are you telling me the Twilight Cardinal’s going to be the one to bring down the Church?” Her wry smile seemed forced, and of course, that was not what he meant. But there were things he was keeping from Myuri, too. “I do not want to bring down the Church. I want to fix it.” She must have thought his reply evasive at best. She was doing her best to emphasize the sneer on her face, the sort that only came about right after getting frightened. “But I have found something that could turn the entire righteousness of the scripture on its head. That knowledge comes from the ancient empire, passed down within the desert nations.” Lutia’s scornful grin froze. “What…are you—” Despite her clear bewilderment, Col stepped forward to close the distance between them with a single stride. She tried to escape, but he grasped her shoulders firmly and leaned in so close that he could count every damp eyelash on her eyelids. He did this because he knew no one else should hear this. Not even the moon. He whispered into the wolf’s ear—it was only for her, and no one else in the world. “It’s the shape of this world.” “The…the shape?” “Does the sea have an end? What lies beyond it? And…” He glanced out through the crack in the open window. “Why the moon waxes and wanes…” Lutia’s eyes widened because she knew what he was talking about. In her search for kin, this girl had been looking up houses with wolf crests, those that could trace their lineage back to the ancient empire. If she had learned the desert languages along the way, then she would have learned about this story in her studies. Because grammar books typically used stories to teach. There were plenty of odd stories from the ancient empire that the modern Church mindlessly suppressed. And among those, the greatest one was the idea that the world was not flat, but round. A silver, metallic globe had sat hidden in Nordstone’s house. It was as though the moon itself had fallen to earth and etched out the lines of the world map. The moonlight had partially illuminated the globe, and it was a perfect recreation of the phases of the moon. “I think there is a possibility that the Church, too, refuses to wake from its own slumber.” The scripture said this world was created by God, unique in its properties, and that it sat in the center of all of creation. But if there was no end to the sea, if one traveled west only to return from the east again, and if that same assumption could be applied to the moon, given the way it waxed and waned, then the sun was undoubtedly the same. And if that were true, it would be hard to believe that all the stars in the night sky were any different. Which meant the concept of a heaven and earth and underworld, all created by God and passed down for a thousand years, was much too narrow for reality. If there was no heaven in the heavens and there were many earths like the one he stood on now, then exactly which star above them did they go to when they were called to God’s side in death? And if digging a hole straight down only brought one to the other side of the world, then where was hell supposed to be? There were plenty of intelligent people within the Church. They had realized long ago that if they acknowledged the world might be round, then that could possibly cause an explosion of problems beyond their control. And that is why they worked so hard to put a lid on those ideas and pretended like they never existed. “There was once a nonhuman alchemist who lived with a noble. She was a cat spirit—once she created a model of the world, she suddenly left on a journey, saying she was going to head to the edge of the west. It was through knowledge of the ancient empire that she observed the night sky and studied how the stars crossed the heavens. I have been told the alchemist set off in search of a new continent, but I think that is not exactly right. I think she wanted to confirm the shape of our world.” Col paused, then abruptly and deliberately changed his tone: “I want to right the Church’s wrongs.” He believed they needed to be woken from their bad dreams, even if it meant waking up to a painful reality. It was better than continuing to lie. “I have not told Myuri this. It would be a…powerful drug for her.” He could not even begin to imagine how she might react. It was not something he could tell her while it was still merely conjecture. “But you—you lost your dear lord and lady, came face to face with the injustices of the world yet did not use your fangs and claws as a crutch, found a path to ecclesiastic law through logic and reasoning, and stood tall as you followed that path. I believe I can trust you with this knowledge.” Col took Lutia’s hand. She looked at it as though a terrible and alarming jewel had been placed there. “So would you solve this mystery in my stead?” Col had a feeling he might be doing something terribly cruel. He was taking away the problems of the vested interests that were so deeply rooted within the academic city and saddling her with something else beyond measure. He could not even begin to fathom how one might confirm the shape of this earth. The cat alchemist hopped on board a ship and journeyed west. Maybe she had been thinking she might be able to come back from the east. But this was a problem that might never be solved, just like Lutia wanted. And this time, it was the Twilight Cardinal entrusting her to solve it. He was not following his principles in an attempt to wake only Lutia from her slumber. That was because he had left something in Lutia’s hands that was essentially a heretical belief, one that the Church would not hesitate to mark as a falsehood for the sake of their faith. “Just like there was once a Moon-Hunting Bear, I believe it’s now the wolf’s turn.” Lutia’s knowledge, fangs, and claws allowed her to tackle the world’s mysteries in a way the Twilight Cardinal could not. And as a nonhuman, Lutia had plenty of reason to pull the carpet out from under the Church. “You…” Lutia stared blankly up at him, and then gave him a lopsided smile. “I am the Twilight Cardinal. Is that not apt for the sliver of time that sits between night and day?” He was clueless when it came to the opposite sex, and he was at the mercy of the ever-shifting line that divided good and evil. But he could walk confidently within the world of spirits. If he could bring the two worlds together, then he could love a just Church while still questioning its foundations. “I trust you, so I give you the key.” The key to a door that might be better left closed. But this was far from just a method to earn her trust by sharing a secret. He had to fight the Church head-on alongside Hyland and Canaan, and he could not simply set off on a jaunt across the desert like Myuri wanted. Forget openly investigating an idea that was even more absurd than that of the new continent, one that would undoubtedly be considered heresy. But it was something someone had to test, and if there was anyone who could, Col did not trust anyone more than Lutia to do so. That the surprisingly shy Myuri would work with her on a shady plan was proof enough for him. If Myuri trusted her, then of course, Col could, too. “You may lose more people dear to you in the future.” He had placed the true key in Lutia’s hands. “But you will always find new people who care for you.” And that was why he wanted her to wake up from her slumber in the dark, get to her feet, and begin to walk again. Perhaps it was cruel, perhaps it was indeed none of his business. It was not something he could promise would happen, anyway. But this was what Col believed. He believed in the words of a god whom he had never once met, after all. Lutia stared hard at him, then quickly looked away. She dipped her head, as though swallowing something, and then looked up at him again. “…I think I get why a girl like Myuri is so attached to you,” Lutia smiled, rubbing the back of her hand against her teary eyes. “You’re stupid for telling me a secret like that. An utter fool.” Col drew up his shoulders and smiled. He was used to being called names like that. “Time to wake up, huh?” She dropped her eyes to her palm again. When she clenched her hand into a fist, she lifted her head. “Fine. But on one condition.” “What is it?” Like the wolf girl she was, Lutia bared her fangs, undaunted, in an endearing grin.
Chapter 111
40 min read