“What we know so far makes it seem like even if they are forced to work on the development of the land, it won’t be so bad. That means Lord Tonneburg is probably a better person than we think, and that he has little intention of exploiting the villagers. But in that case, something else will have to make up the difference.”
Holo brought the flask to her lips but did not drink. Her intelligent eyes stared at the map.
“Building a road is hard enough under normal circumstances. It’s that much more difficult to do in heavily forested land. At the same time, they’ll get quite a lot of lumber from cutting down trees to make room for the road. And they could easily make up for the cost of building the road after factoring in the profits that will be generated by the smithies and other things that come later. Karlan seems to be especially keen on getting lumber, so even if they compromise on a great deal with Lord Tonneburg, they probably thought it all added up. And from Lord Tonneburg’s perspective, he probably thought it would be more beneficial to take them up on this proposal instead of watching helplessly as a new road wraps around the forest…even if it means losing a part of the forest’s wealth.”
“Mm.”
“And Meyer seems to be a skilled ranger. I bet Lord Tonneburg already asked him to find the best route through the forest.”
It was then that he and the Karlan council saw they could both profit from this and decided to work together.
“That’s what things look like in the merchant’s world,” Lawrence said. “What does the wolf think?”
Holo huffed a little sigh at the question, readjusting her position on the bed. She then whipped her head to the side, ripping apart the sinewy jerky in her mouth; the only times she ever really acted wolflike in this manner was when she was in a bad mood.
“Only the most witless of fools would build a road here.”
Lawrence looked at the map, and then to Holo. “You mean like how the mayor explained?”
Everyone would lose everything the forest had to offer. Even if Holo did not quite understand how the manure from free-roaming livestock fertilized wheat fields, she was intimately familiar with how the plants in the forest grew after watching them for countless years.
“Humans will walk here, they will burn charcoal along the paths, and then create metal, no? At that point, the road ceases to be a simple path in the forest. It divides one wood in two, creating entirely separate places.” Noticing Lawrence’s weak response, Holo continued with a sigh. “Shall we consider the fox?”
“The fox?”
“You merchants think of the land in your reliance for roads for your cargo. That makes you a cat. Cats claim the paths that go from house to house.”
Interested, Lawrence turned his chair to face Holo completely.
“These landowning lords are stereotypical mutts. They draw the lines on their papers telling everyone precisely what belongs to them.”
“And what about the foxes?”
“Foxes appear to be like both, but they are exceptionally greedy. They cannot live in smaller forests. Splitting a large wood in twain does not create two territories. It will simply be too small for the foxes, and then they will no longer have any place to live.”
Huh. Lawrence was impressed, but he was not entirely sure how this was relevant. Sensing this, Holo looked at him like he was a disappointing apprentice.
“No foxes means more rats, and without any predators, the fawns will thrive.”
“Hmm. I guess you’re right.”
“An excess of deer and mice means saplings shall be eaten away, and that will cause the forest to grow thin. All that will remain will be higher trees that are covered in needly leaves, making the wood dark and quiet. ’Tis not a suitable wood for fattening pigs and goats.”
The needly-leafed trees she mentioned were likely conifers. Broad-leafed trees, ones that struggled to reach greater heights, made easy meals for deer and other critters of the forest, so only the taller coniferous trees could survive uncontrolled booms of wildlife. And when the canopy inevitably started blocking sunlight from reaching the forest floor, new grasses would not grow there. Just as the mayor so passionately proclaimed, it would have a huge impact on the undergrowth that indirectly supported the wheat fields.
“’Twould look like a nice acorn—one full of holes that has most certainly been hollowed out by pests.”
If a road cut through the forest, with charcoal-burning huts and smithies built along it, and Karlan’s lumber was felled here instead of being brought in from Salonia, then the forest’s interior would change drastically.
It was very much the same as an insect burrowing through an acorn and consuming the insides.
“From my point of view, forests such as these will eventually come back to life given enough time.”
From the way she spoke, Lawrence knew right away that she was speaking about spans of time that were far beyond the scope of human lives.
It naturally showed that what the mayor and Meyer were saying was no exaggeration.
“But Meyer must’ve explained that to Lord Tonneburg, right?” Lawrence asked.
In response, Holo only took a silent sip from the flask. She must have also thought that, considering his skill, Meyer was aware of all of this.
That meant either the topic was too foreign for the lord to comprehend, or he understood and still decided it could not turn out that badly and went ahead with Karlan’s proposal anyway. Whatever the truth, that led a very vexed Meyer to throw himself at Lawrence and Holo’s mercy after spotting them in Salonia.
Lawrence sighed and stood from his chair. Once he sat down beside the sullen wolf, he unfolded himself to lay on the bed.
As he stared at the ceiling, Holo peered down at him with an indescribable expression.
“It’s honestly a good plan, at least on paper.”
And that was why Lord Tonneburg decided to go along with it. While there were some concerning details, a deal without apprehensions was either a scam or had simply not been examined thoroughly enough. It was hard to consider the lord’s decision a foolish one.
Meyer had asked Lawrence to fix his lord’s miscalculations, somehow persuading him that the plan itself was not viable at all.
Then what is it they must do to protect both forest and wheat fields?
Lawrence heaved a great sigh, and his eyes darted to Holo’s face as she remained sitting.
Holo was sharp—she noticed his gaze right away, and her ears straightened.
But since she did not turn to look at him, Lawrence spoke.
“Just to be clear, I’m not secretly thinking that we’ve been thrown into a cumbersome problem or anything.”
The hairs on Holo’s tail stiffened, like a rabbit taking a deep breath.
“Even a dog will find a bone if it goes for a walk, they say.”
“……”
Holo peered over her shoulder and greeted him with an unusually deep scowl.
“It’s an old human saying. It means that once you act, there will always be consequences.”
Lawrence gave a small smile as he moved his hand, burying his fingers into the fur of her tail.
She immediately whipped it out of range, bringing it back only to smack the back of his hand.
“Fortune and misfortune are neighbors.” Lawrence repeated the motion, this time tangling his fingers through the fur. “Both good and bad things ebb and flow, like interwoven strands of rope. And the rope itself is sturdy enough to hold what’s most important together.”
As Holo stared at Lawrence’s hand playing with her tail, a look of understanding crossed her expression right before it scrunched into a frown.
“The latter half of that sounds like a falsehood.”
“It’s not a saying yet, but I bet it’d really take off in Nyohhira.”
Holo narrowed her eyes and dropped her shoulders, tired.
“You know, I’m glad we came across this problem here. If Salonia’s wheat harvest got worse, then it would eventually start affecting the prices of the wheat we order in Nyohhira. And even if we fail to get through to Lord Tonneburg, we can get ahead of the issue and start thinking about what we can do to prepare.”
There was a special sort of excitement in his voice when he spoke of commerce. Holo listened to him, not once doubting him.
“So long as we don’t make a total mess of this, I think it’ll end in our favor either way.”
Lawrence had told himself falsehoods in order to convince himself to take on Meyer’s request, but what he said now was no lie.
He stopped digging his fingers into Holo’s fur and began to run his palm along the length of her tail.
Though she had fallen behind on maintenance what with all the hangovers and the travel, her tail was still as soft as ever.
She did not like having her tail played with, but despite her grouchy attitude, she relented and allowed him to do as he pleased. Perhaps she felt like she owed him a debt for getting him involved in a problem that seemingly had no solution.
Yet just as it was said that merchants had two tongues, Lawrence did, in fact, have an idea.
He played with the fur on her tail as he gathered his thoughts.
Lawrence did not consider himself exceptionally gifted, but he did have an advantage over other merchants. To be more specific, he had Holo—and because she was at his side, he could approach things from angles other humans could never imagine.
This plot to cut down the forest was among those things.
“I guess the goal is to make it seem like Lord Tonneburg’s calculations are off. That seems manageable enough.”
Holo’s eyes widened.
“Really?”
“Probably. But there’s something we need to check. Tomorrow we’ll talk to Meyer and…”
Lawrence gave a loud yawn as he talked. They had been traveling for days and days, and now faced with his first big problem in a long while, he realized that he had been using his brain more than he had thought.
He knew he had to blow out the candle, close the window, and get under the blankets since the nights were growing colder, but it was too much for him; his eyes remained closed.
But not a moment later the light vanished from beyond his eyelids, and he heard the creak of the window shutters closing. He felt the wooden frame of the bed shift, and soon, he was covered in blankets.
Though this was normally a routine that Lawrence always carried out, there was an exception like this about once a year.
“I am the wolf who presides over the harvest,” Holo murmured beneath the covers.
That night, Lawrence dreamed he was a seed-bed, buried in the earth.
I must work hard to produce beautiful blossoms, he thought.