Chapter 90

CHAPTER TWO “Pursuing the artisan will come with its own difficulties. And reviving forbidden knowledge will be even more difficult than finding it. But we believe this is the path God has shown us,” That was how Canaan concluded the conversation once he finished explaining the details of the technology. The conflict between the kingdom and the Church stood at a standstill for several long years; neither could back down even if they wanted to, and all that waited for them were the ominous signs of war. Canaan’s plan would not only peaceably resolve the sticky conflict, but also sweep away the corruption that had taken hold in the Church over many years. If this was not the guidance of God, then how could Col remain faithful? The technology Canaan told them about could indeed make the impossible possible. “For the sake of righteous faith.” Once he was finished with his speech, Canaan got to his feet and came to stand before Col, right hand extended. Though his smile was not as confident as it was earlier, there was still a boyish conviction on his face, one that knew what they were doing was close to impossible. Behind him, Hyland nodded slightly at Col. Canaan had quite literally risked his life to cross into enemy territory and bring them a proposal that was nigh unthinkable. The great difficulty of this task was a sign of how it could change the very fate of the world itself. It would be a joke if Col did not take Canaan’s hand now, for the sake of peace and proper faith. “By God’s guidance.” Col gripped Canaan’s hand, and Canaan’s cheeks lifted in relief. And instead of offering verbal thanks, Canaan drew Col’s hand closer and kissed the back of it before bringing it to his forehead, as a priest would do. “I thank both God and Heir Hyland that I was able to meet you, Sir Col.” Hyland stood from her chair, too, and she and Canaan exchanged a firm handshake. “Archivist Canaan, I firmly believe that our cooperation will deliver us from this hardship.” “Of course it will,” he said. “Let us pray for a peaceful world under God’s rule.” It would have sound audacious and shameless were anyone else to say that, but that was not the case here. The three of them gripped one another’s shoulders; Myuri, alone, sat pouting in her chair. If they had the time, Col would have loved to speak more with Canaan about the finer points of faith, but it was hard telling whose attention they would catch if he stayed overlong at the manor. Seeing his business concluded, Canaan hopped aboard his carriage, which had been prepared to make it seem like Hyland was heading out, and left. After seeing off Hyland and Canaan, Col and Myuri returned to their room, and Myuri plopped onto the bed. “Ugh, that was so boring!” she exclaimed. Her ears and tail popped forth and flicked to the side. She grasped the puppy, who thoughtlessly rushed to her to play, holding it in both hands and shaking lightly. “Stop that, the poor thing.” “But he’s happy!” She let the puppy go on the bed, and it staggered a bit, apparently dizzy, but it rushed right back to Myuri, tail wagging eagerly as though wanting her to do it again. “He said it was some mythical technology that the Church wanted to destroy! I thought it was going to be a powerful spell or something!” Though that was not exactly what Canaan had said, Myuri had four ears—she was more than capable of hearing everything perfectly; at the same time, perhaps having four ears was what gave her a talent for hearing only what she wanted to hear. “It is powerful magic.” The world beyond the window was still well lit, but the air was cool as the sun began to set. Col closed one half of the window as he spoke. And as he did so, he heard the puppy bark loudly; Myuri perhaps had bullied the poor thing again. “What’s so amazing about technology that can make lots of books?” Myuri must have imagined a legendary sword or something along those lines, but Col believed the technology to be on par with any blade of legend. “Creating books quickly is nothing short of a miracle. You know very well how much effort it is to write, don’t you?” Even if she had been lying about her hands hurting too much to wash her hair, she certainly had not been lying about the aches and pains that came from moving her hand nonstop. “This is a way to completely do away with all the trouble of producing a staggering number of books in a short amount of time. It is an awesome piece of technology.” What Canaan had told them about was brand-new printing technology and the artisan who had mastered use of the technique. It would take even an experienced transcriber months to copy something as thick and dense as the scripture. But using the technology Canaan told them about would allow them to create a large number of copies in just one month with just a handful of workers—or even just one. “I think it’d be even better if the words would appear just by thinking of them, though,” Myuri said, looking away in a huff. She was digging in her heels because the big reveal had fallen short of her expectations. “I’ve already seen what that kid was talking about back in Nyohhira, anyway.” Col closed his eyes at the sheer insolence of calling Canaan, someone who worked at the Curia and had popes in his family tree, “that kid.” Pressing on, he countered with, “You mean wood-block prints, yes? Where images are carved onto wooden blocks, colored in ink, and then pressed onto paper?” “Yeah, those things. I saw one of a knight fighting a dragon.” Nyohhira had many guests who stayed for extended periods of time, and artists of all stripes came by to relieve the patrons of their boredom. What Myuri was talking about were prints sold with images to match what the bards sung about. “What’s so dangerous about that?” “This is something different.” Myuri only shrugged, but this was a technology that could increase the production of books by a factor of not two or ten but a hundred or more. And the reason the Church feared this technology was clear to anyone who regularly dealt in books. But when Myuri had listened to Canaan explain the technology and watched Hyland and Col listen intently, all of them wearing deeply serious expressions, she had looked on with doubt on her face. Or perhaps Myuri’s dissatisfied look had been because she felt left out, unable to share their appreciation. “But they’re just pressing letters onto a piece of paper, right?” “Well, yes…In a broad sense…” It was strange how Myuri could make the most incredible concepts sound so bland. The forbidden technology Canaan had spoken of consisted of several things. First, lead stamps molded into the shape of letters had to be prepared in great quantity. Then these metal stamps would be laid out to reproduce the desired text, coated with ink, and pressed onto paper. It did not differ much from wood-block prints at a glance, but metal type made it possible to re-create the intricacies of script in a legible manner and transfer the characters onto the page in an instant. If that were all, then changing wood into metal would indeed be the only difference, as Myuri mentioned. What was revolutionary was how sentences of text were divided up into letters, which could then be recreated with metal stamps, making it possible to print any text under the sun with the exact same set of tools. Block printing could not accomplish this, and what was even more incredible was that one could create many more stamps at the foundry. On top of that, a wooden stamp would lose its sharpness after several dozen prints; but a metal stamp was more durable by leaps and bounds. An engraving mallet, which pounded patterns into medallions of metal in order to create coin, could last for about a thousand coins. If it were hammering paper instead of metal, it could easily print tens of thousands of pages. The core of the technology that Canaan spoke about was that it brought together technologies that were known but existed disparately. It did this in a way others had never considered before and cleverly put those technologies to use. “With the right tools, we could create enough copies in one month to fill this entire room. And we would never copy the wrong thing, never make a mistake in the writing, and have perfectly formed letters in the same place every time. It is…truly awe-inspiring.” Though it was simple enough, the more Col thought about the ramifications of such a thing, the more he understood how great of an effect it could have on the world. Myuri, however, still did not seem to understand. “Sure, it sounds useful, but is it really worth getting all worked up over?” Her ears and tail, which shared fur color with the puppy, flicked unhappily. “It is.” Her eyes settled on him in disbelief for a moment before she turned to look at the puppy in her arms, then tilted her head in a theatrical manner. “Give it some thought. One could write a text full of lies and then easily spread it among the people.” “Huh?” What the Church most likely feared was the proliferation of texts espousing heretical ideals. Because if they were to spread faster than the authorities could find and burn them, there would be no stopping them. It was precisely because it was so difficult to record things by hand that heresy spread primarily via word of mouth. That made it simple to uproot those ideas, since they only had to follow the chain of the association back to the source. But if printing became a much easier endeavor, then it wasn’t hard to see how the situation could change drastically. If all households could own books written in a script that anyone could understand and would persist for years if treated with care, how would the Church eradicate misguided ideas from the people’s minds? What’s more, those books would propagate without end. Col offered Myuri an even easier-to-understand example. “You know the tale of the great merchant who traveled the world, yes?” “Hmm? Oh yeah. I think Father was reading it back at the bathhouse, and Mother was scowling at him.” It was thanks to the skills of Myuri’s mother, Holo the Wisewolf, that Myuri’s father, Lawrence, was convinced to give up his adventuring life as a traveling merchant and settle down as a bathhouse owner. The reason for Holo’s displeasure was likely the sour prospect of having to set out on a journey yet again, after she went through all the trouble of setting down roots. An exasperated smile crossed Col’s face as he imagined the two, and he continued his explanation. “Let’s say this person happens to stay at a bad inn and ends up writing rather negative things about the Nyohhira baths. And then that book is copied and spread faster than the guests who compliment Nyohhira can talk to one another—what do you think would happen then?” “……” At last, Myuri seemed to understand the sheer power of the technology Canaan had discussed. “So what that kid is trying to do is fight fire with fire?” They would be using technology, one that had been banned due to the fear that it might spread heretical beliefs, to quickly spread God’s correct teachings over the world. That was what Canaan and the other archivists wanted to do. “And the one who knows how to use that technology is somewhere in the kingdom,” Myuri said, somewhat occupied with the puppy’s front paws pressing on her nose as though commanding her to sniff them. She turned to look at Col. “Are we helping them?” Though she supposedly loved all sorts of adventure, she did not seem particularly enthused about this. But it did not seem to be simply because she had been disappointed by the technology Canaan had told them about. After traveling with her, Col found himself doubting her intellect less and less. What the silver hunter was most upset about was not the technology Canaan had spoken of—it was the whereabouts of the artisan they were supposed to be seeking out. “And we’re supposed to look all over the kingdom to find this artisan, when no one knows where they went?” Though the kingdom was an island, it was not a small one, nor was it deserted. Myuri was an adept hunter; she was seeing a very real problem with this plan. “We should be able to find them,” Col said. With her nose to the puppy’s, she suddenly opened her mouth wide, pretending she was about to bite into it, then looked at Col. “I don’t think so.” That was the answer he was expecting, but he was not going to give up now. “Even though you believe a legendary sword is obtainable?” Her wolf ears twitched at the simple provocation. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him, then held the puppy to her chest and lay down on the bed. “Because it’s legend. People talk about legends. We’d just have to follow the trail of the story, that’s all.” That sounded precisely like pagan tales. “The artisan exists, at the very least. I believe they will be much easier to find.” “The legendary sword exists, too!” It was hard to tell how serious Myuri was about the sword, but she was right that finding one artisan within the entirety of the kingdom might be impossible. “Also, you’d know a legendary sword the second you see it. But what about an artisan who knows how to do some weird craft? It’d be nice if they were dressed like an alchemist or something to make it easy, like Miss Diana.” They had been pursued by inquisitors, which meant that was unlikely. “Besides, you’re blind as a bat, Brother. You can’t do it.” He had nothing to say in turn. But if he ran into a setback here, then Canaan and the archivists’ plan would face a setback as well, which meant the kingdom and the Church would remain at a standstill. If they were to let this opportunity go, they would have no choice but to place their hopes of reconciliation on a dream—the new continent. And their only other choice would be a great war, with the honor of both parties on the line. Canaan and the archivists’ suggestion could be a miraculous blow that could cut a path to the future wide open. It was unlikely they would see another development that allowed them to both peaceably resolve the conflict and right the Church’s wrongs. What was at stake here was much too great for Col to give up so easily. Which meant he needed to stoke Myuri’s motivation and embark on this reckless search across the kingdom. “Oh, but you love books, Brother. I bet you’d find them if you just follow the smell of ink,” Myuri said with a chuckle, her tone rather mean-spirited as she played with the puppy. She must have been more upset about him doubting the existence of the legendary sword than he thought. O God, Col prayed silently, because he was aware he was about to do something dishonest. “Let’s say we work with Canaan and the archivists. Do you understand what that would mean?” “Mm?” The puppy had its paws pressed onto Myuri’s cheek, squishing her face in a strange manner as she looked up at him. Even though it was unlikely that she was not cooperating because she was not interested, it was clear how much motivation mattered, considering how messy her writing was when he was forcing her to learn compared to when she wanted to learn of her own will. Perhaps God would forgive him for resorting to a few tricks. “Canaan works in a division of the Curia that manages the archives, a place said to be labyrinthine.” “Okay? Brother, are you using the word labyrinthine hoping I’d be—?” she said and then stopped. The puppy, held high above her, slipped from her hands. “Wait, you mean we could go in the archives?! Do they have adventure stories?!” She took the bait. “Until very recently, the Church has been fighting pagans for centuries. What they are not lacking in are tales of miracles. And that means—” “They’ll have the story of the legendary sword!” Col held his tongue in response, but Myuri not only had human ears, but wolf ears atop her head as well. They lay flat on her head when she did not want to listen to something, but when she did, they would not miss even the whispers of a fairy hiding behind a pebble. It seemed those ears had imagined Col saying, Yes. He did not respond with precise words, nor had he directly claimed that the reward for helping Canaan was entry into the archives. Yet he still prayed silently—God, I have not told a single lie—before continuing. “There may be many hidden stories about the new continent, though they might not be much more than rumors. They keep many banned books that would have been burned outside of the Church’s keeping.” Col emphasized the words banned books, keeping Myuri’s love of adventure in mind. And just as he had expected, her clean, fluffy tail grew in size as it puffed out farther. He had successfully pulled on her reins. Of course, even though it caused him a great deal of vexation, she always tried to leap from his hand. “The books are great,” Myuri began, her canines pressing into her lower lip as a dauntless smile crossed her face. “But that kid works where the pope is, right? Then maybe we can see if the bear is in the Church, too.” “Oh!” The Moon-Hunting Bear was said to have put an end to the age of spirits—those like Myuri. It had apparently destroyed all those who stood in its way, and legend had it the bear was big enough to reach the moon. Such a being could have ruled the world, yet the enormous bear mysteriously vanished. Old legends say it disappeared into the western sea, and there were indeed what looked like footprints on the ocean floor. And with clues pointing toward a new continent at the edge of the western sea, it was a coincidence that was hard to ignore. But Myuri’s imagination had gone far beyond that fairy tale. The bear could have ruled the world, yet it was gone with nary a trace. Her question was, after it vanished, who ruled the world in its place? The answer to that was obvious to anyone who lived in the current age. The Church. “Heh-heh. We’re off to look for someone, aren’t we?” The way she sat up on the bed made it seem as though it was her fluffed tail that lifted her up. Col intended to ask Canaan about the archives in his own way and on his own time, and he wondered if it was possible to get an audience with the pope. Or perhaps it was possible for Myuri to see what he truly was from a distance. They obviously could not leap at him to rip off his mask, so that would be good enough for Col so long as it cleared up her strange fantasies. It was ludicrous to think that the pope and his cardinals were bears dressed in priestly vestments. And so what they should tackle first was the problem before them. “Yes, an artisan. We have scarcely any clues. However…” He decided not to say, I have a few leads. “Okay!” Myuri leaped from the bed; the puppy was tossed in the movement and rolled on the bed. Then she snatched the short sword ordered specifically for her from atop the desk and slipped it into her sash, like a bandit. “C’mon, Brother! We’re off to find an artisan!” Myuri was like well-oiled tinder. She was either cool and silent or a roaring flame. “It’s still bright outside, so we should go to the plaza first! There’s so many people there, we could probably find them right away! We could probably interrogate all the people who smell like ink, like you do! C’mooon!” She grabbed at him and tugged. Col sighed at the puppy, who stared up at them curiously, then readjusted his grip on her hand. “There is no need to interrogate anyone. And we are not going to the plaza first.” “Where, then?!” He could feel the heat from the fire in her reddish eyes as he replied: “To Miss Eve’s.” With her silver, taillike braided pigtails swishing behind her and her sword at her hip—a necessity for leaving the house, she insisted—Myuri dashed on ahead. After informing the elderly servant that they would be going out, Col was timidly reminded that the staff would be beginning preparations for dinner soon; it was very likely Hyland had ordered them to prepare a grand feast. Col promised they would return before sundown and then rushed after the wild girl. It was not long after he set off after her that he wished he had taken the time to nap. But knowing they were headed to the same place, he eventually gave up trying to keep pace with Myuri. Though there was still time before the bells would ring, signaling the closing of the markets, the sky was madder red, and the looks of those he passed were somewhat relieved. The only ones brimming with energy were those who were on their way to the taverns, their workday just beginning; the porters who were glad they were on their last run of the day; and the wolf girl, whose hunter spirit now burned brightly. But such a peaceful evening sight would be engulfed in the color of flames if war with the Church ever broke out. The thought alone was enough to spur Col on faster, and he at last arrived at Rausbourne’s old city. As he made his way toward his destination, he found Myuri, who had grown bored of waiting, practicing her swordsmanship on the side of the road. “You’re so slow!” He had no time to scold her for swinging her sword on the streets. Their companion during the incident with Nordstone, Az, was watching over her. As he turned to look at Col, his blank expression somewhat jovial, he gave a slight nod of the head. “Is Miss Eve in?” “Yeah!” Myuri shouted. She flicked her blade to the side to end her session, then sheathed it. “The movement you take when you stop your blade is important, too,” Az said. “Be mindful of this next time.” “Okay!” Myuri replied, her expression serious in a way she had never shown Col before. “At least practice in the courtyard or something,” Col scolded her. But she only shrugged in response. Though she may master her sword skills sooner than later, it seemed like the day she would become a prudent knight was still far-off. Az led them both into the manor, which had once been used as a loading dock for the trade of wheat in the city. “Whoa,” Myuri could not help but exclaim. The storage area had once been filled with detritus, but it was now stocked high with merchandise. There Eve stood, ledger in one hand, inspecting the stock. “I’m busy, you know,” she said. They had come to see her not long after returning from their journey; she probably thought they were here to bring her more trouble. “We need to speak with you. It isn’t certain, but I believe it is a matter that will involve trade.” They would need to arrange not only for a great deal of ink and paper, but twine to hold the pages together and leather to bind them, then transport for the completed copies if they intended to print a large number of books. And if they wanted to avoid drawing attention, then payment for these things would have to be in secret, and conducting trade discreetly was Eve’s specialty. It was likely they would be relying heavily on her services in the near future. Eve reached up, quill still in hand, to scratch behind her ear, and she looked up at Col as she sighed. “Now what?” Sharon was clearly wary of Eve, and Col, too, started to lose his nerve when he thought about how indebted he would be to her, but he thought of her as a generally good person. His feelings must have been obvious on his face; Eve frowned. “I need you to contact someone for me,” he said. “What?” It was obviously not Eve who voiced her shock in such a silly manner. “Brother, do you know where the artisan is?!” Eve frowned when she heard that, and Col offered a strained smile. “I don’t, no. Miss Eve, I need to contact Le Roi.” Eve’s eyes widened for a moment after she heard the name, but then she narrowed them dubiously. The person Col had mentioned was a merchant he’d met on his travels more than a decade ago who specialized in dealing with books. “If you brought him up to me in the sticks out in Nyohhira, I would’ve thought you wanted a copy of the scripture for yourself,” Eve said. “But now? I’m pretty sure you can ask one of your noble or priest friends for whatever book you want.” She had deduced he was looking for literature that was not so easily obtained. And since Col was asking, she knew it had something to do with faith. “I…doubt it will cause you much trouble, Miss Eve.” “Ha!” Eve barked. She continued with a sharp tone, almost as though she were physically jabbing him with her finger. “You want me to contact Le Roi, who deals in precious books way more valuable than their weight in gold, and then claim you’re not going to cause me any trouble? You’re practically putting the beehive at my front door and telling me you didn’t mean for the bears to come by.” It was a strange metaphor, but he understood what she was trying to say. “You’re not going to help us?” Myuri asked, her red eyes turned up at Eve. “……” Eve looked genuinely displeased; perhaps she could see the wisewolf behind the girl’s eyes. Col did not think that was it. It was because, for some reason, whenever Myuri visited, delicious food seemed to appear even in this manor. In her genuine displeasure, Eve groaned. “I guess I should always be keeping an eye on you, if you decide to go sticking your noses in places I can’t see…” Myuri blinked and then beamed. Though Eve was likely also considering her relationship with Myuri’s parents, her trade with Hyland, and her future business, the biggest reason she agreed was because she was worried about the two of them.