“As you know, the fights with the pagans have ended for now, and so Nyohhira is losing its reputation as a dangerous but nevertheless irresistible uncharted destination within hostile lands. We must act quickly.”
The chairman was a descendant of this village, but when he was young, he was an apprentice in a large commercial firm in the south, so his thinking reflected southern perceptions of the region as well.
Since what he said was correct, there were no particular objections and the attendees approved it with applause.
But it was also clear why the praise was a bit hesitant.
“So, what are we going to do?”
The chairman reached out and grabbed the wine cask that sat on the long table.
“We will think together.”
A sense of panic hung in the air, but there was no plan. If everyone was to think of something together, the practical troubles would seem endless and they would never reach a conclusion, but if one person came up with an idea, that individual would have to fill in as the coordinator.
And so, they could not be blamed for how the meeting suddenly became a drinking party as they chided one another to think of ideas. This seasonal meeting was also meant as a breather to help everyone keep it together and blow off steam during the busiest time of the year.
Lawrence was also in the presence of fathers with daughters who had all heard about Myuri and Col’s “escape,” so at the end of the day, nothing got done.
But what Holo had said earlier that day stuck in the corner of Lawrence’s mind.
“Everything fades with time.”
Do what you need to do when you need to do it—or you’ll regret it.
Thinking of it that way, maybe that was why Myuri tried as hard as she did.
As Lawrence thought this, he made sure to wash away the sentiment with wine.
Venting his stress with late-night drinking at the meeting and the subsequent hangover, Lawrence somehow overcame the daily work that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment and carried on.
But as the guests left, he suddenly found the bathhouse mostly empty.
Thanks to Holo, there were no accidents due to the snow, and it seemed that Nyohhira would safely make it to spring.
“Mmm…Soaking in the sunrise is the best.”
That day, when the last reluctant guests were finally pulled away by their minders who had come to retrieve them, Holo jumped into the bath as though she had been long awaiting it. The musicians and dancers also descended the mountain seeking more profit at the spring festivals, so for the moment, it was fine to rest without minding the stares of others.
“Why don’t you join me? Wash away all the exhaustion of winter.”
“Hmm? Mm…”
Lawrence gave a vague answer and placed the liquor that had been chilled just for her alongside a serving of pork chops and her recent favorite, which she learned from a traveler—cheese drizzled in honey—at the side of the bath.
He was not looking at her beautiful naked body, but instead focused on something completely different.
“Fool!”
“Huh?!”
She suddenly splashed Lawrence with hot spring water, and he jumped back. As he made sure the letter he held was okay, Holo, who had at some point gotten out of the water, snatched it from his grasp.
“How long will you gaze at this? They are fine, and you know they’ll be fine despite what happens to them!”
“Uh, ah, mm…”
Lawrence made a face like a sheepdog that had its snacks taken away and followed the letter in her hands with his eyes. It was from Col and Myuri. Col had written the top half and Myuri, the bottom; the second page was one they had done together.
The top half was about how the world was changing even more than the traveling pair had expected after they descended from the mountain, and there was a lot to learn. The bottom half was about how there were so many people and how lively it was in the south, and there was lots of food and other interesting things—all filled with spelling mistakes.
When Lawrence read the part that Myuri had written, he grinned over and over, but when he came to the second page, his face stiffened.
There was a full account of the troubles they had gotten into. When Col would attempt to write calmly, Myuri would butt in and try to write odd things. There were many points where it seemed Col tried to express events gently with Lawrence in mind, but Myuri rewrote them with intentionally exaggerated embellishments.
To sum it up, they had found themselves in quite the pickle, but it somehow worked out in the end. Col had been sick to his stomach with anxiety while Myuri seemed to have really enjoyed it. While Lawrence sympathized with the serious-mannered Col, he was glad that Myuri had fun and could not help but grin. Had the unlikely not happened, he would have been even more anxious.
It was like the life-risking adventure that he and Holo had experienced, but he was distressed for another reason as well.
“Still, they get on quite well, don’t you agree?” Holo was glancing over the letter and chuckled. The letter clearly showed how close the two were.
In the same inn, drawing close to one another in the candlelight, shoulders together, holding hands…
“Col is, um, yes, a good brother.” Lawrence cleared his throat and spoke, saying the words he had recently discovered that comforted him. “They always have been close like brother and sister, even more than real siblings, eh?”
“…”
Lawrence insisted, and Holo gave him an astonished look in reply.
“Well, if that is what you wish to believe.”
This male has been foolish for all time, she seemed to say, right before she sneezed.
Shivering, she handed the letter back to Lawrence and picked out a piece of cured meat, then jumped back into the bath. Smoothing out the crease that Holo’s finger left on the paper, he smiled at Myuri’s broken handwriting, but the details had him grimacing as though he was enduring a headache.
But this letter was the first thing his daughter had ever given him, and so he carefully folded it when he heard Holo’s voice.
“Oh, and did you think of anything exciting to do for spring?”
“Mm.”
“We were supposed to plan something interesting so the newcomers on the other side of the mountain leave our guests alone, were we not?”
It was what they had talked about at the meeting, but Lawrence’s face still looked troubled.
“Well…we couldn’t really think of anything.”
“There are saint festivals and such every year.”
Every town, village, and occupation had a patron saint, and throughout the year there were festivals for the saints held in one way or another. In Nyohhira, they happened in spring, and it was a private affair about rewarding the winter’s toils.
“They aren’t very unusual or novel, though.”
“In that case, how about celebrations offering a large wolf some delicious food? I wouldn’t mind.”
Holo made her suggestion as she rested her face and elbows on the edge of the bath, kicking and splashing the water with her feet. With her wet hair thrown up in a very unladylike fashion, she looked just like Myuri.
“If we offer you more than this, you won’t be able to eat it all.”
Expensive delicacies like honeyed cheese were enough. Lawrence picked out a piece, and Holo bared her fangs, seemingly on purpose as a show.
“Hmph. Fine, you traveled here and there as a merchant, yes? There had to be one or two interesting things on the way. Why not borrow from one of those?”
“Hmm…Like the bull-chasing festival, I really liked that.”
“Oh?”
“They close off all the side streets in the town and chase a bull. It goes mad, running down the streets, but they say good luck comes to whoever can touch its tail—it’s exciting. In the end, they roast it and everyone eats it…”
“Why not that?”
“Every year, someone gets hur
t, and there is huge damage to the buildings when the bull smashes into them.”
As a traveler, it was exciting going to such a chaotic place, being so close to danger. However, Holo knew the troubles in preparing buildings for a festival like that and the work that went into keeping everything intact. She made a frown, as though imagining the mess a ramming bull would make.
“’Tis…no good.”
“Right?”
“Anything else?”
“There’s…that. There’s a festival where each diocese in the town makes their own team and parades around the town kicking a leather ball.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“But everyone immediately loses their cool when they take the ball from one another. Even that problem alone would be all right, but there aren’t a lot of young people in this town. Everyone will give up right after it starts.”
Holo’s ears pointed down in disgust, seemingly understanding after imagining the other owners with their bellies sticking out.
“You, too, have been sagging lately.”
“Oh…ahem! Then it’ll probably end up something like putting on some costumes and celebrating that way. There are events like that here and there.”
“’Tis difficult.”
Holo kicked the water again and left the edge, meandering with something that looked like a doggy paddle. She seemed more carefree than she actually was with her hair and the fur on her tail spreading out in the water. Had she really not cared, she simply would not discuss it.
Holo worried about the bathhouse and the village in her own way. If not, she probably would not bother going out every night in the deep mountain snow or silently doing all the mending.
“Hmm.”
As Lawrence mulled over the ideas in his head, Holo pulled herself up onto the center rock and wrung out her hair, tail wagging.
“Come in!”
She called out to him, showing a smile that was more innocent than Myuri’s.
Lawrence still had work to do and waved his hand, but when Holo shot him a disappointed look, he gave in and stripped off his clothes.
“Once you know how enjoyable it is to just laze about, even if someone asked you to come up with some new fun in the spring, of course you wouldn’t have any motivation for it.”
Lawrence murmured to himself, holding cold liquor and looking up at the clear blue sky. He had called for Hanna to bring food and drink and ended up lounging around. Thinking about the other bathhouses and how they were likely in a similar state made him feel even lazier.
“I quite enjoyed lying in the grass when we were traveling merchants as well.”
“Of course. The one snoring loudly in the back of the cart after lounging around and the one sitting in front holding the reins had it differently.”
“I do not snore!”
Holo curled up, not denying that she would lie about in the back of the cart.
“Hmm…But this water is so good and peaceful. If this isn’t paradise on earth, then what is? Everyone should come straight here.”
“Well, ’twas busy for a few years, yes?”
Hundreds of years before Lawrence was even born, Holo had apparently soaked in these waters.
“Right…There actually may be a way to have the Church promote us as an earthly paradise.”
“Hmm?”
Holo looked puzzled, as though this fool was saying crazy things again, but Lawrence thought it could actually work.
“Look, you know about pilgrimages to holy sites, right? If there’s a location where a famous saint is enshrined—for example, a saint that can make the blind see again—those destinations that promise special effects are particularly sought after.”
Next to Lawrence, who rambled his thoughts out loud, Holo continued to sit, seemingly uninterested as she poured herself more alcohol. It was likely because of her experience from ten years ago, when Lawrence would often start talking thoughtlessly about clever ways to make money, and the two of them would wind up getting involved in one uproar or another.
But now that he had thought of something, he could not stay silent.
“Everyone knows that the baths are good for your health, so we could possibly secure the help of the clergymen who frequent this place and have it designated as a holy site. Yes, that’s right. It’s even in their teachings. The opposite of earth is hell, and in between there’s a midway point called purgatory, and if you can atone for your sins there, then those who were destined for hell can go to heaven instead. Like that, in the space between heaven and earth, there’s a paradise that’s neither heaven nor earth, and that is what Nyohhira can—”
Holo stuffed a piece of dried meat into Lawrence’s mouth.
“Guh?”
“So, confess your sins in this purgatory to go to heaven? And what? If you drink and frolic in paradise or whatever, then you go to hell?”
Taking in Holo’s face, flushed from the hot water and the alcohol, along with her reddish-amber eyes, Lawrence thought she looked like a demon.
“Mm…”
“We already get complaints that there are too many people here, do we not? Should the number of guests increase even more, ’tis unimaginable those churchmen would feel obligated to go out of their way and help us.”
“…Mm.”
That was definitely true.
“And it sounds like you forgot, you fool, but you want more guests to come during the season when you have nothing better to do, aye?”
“Yes…you’re right. Yeah.”
Drinking and soaking in the baths was making him drunk faster. Lawrence reached out of the water and grabbed a fistful of snow, putting a bit on his forehead.
“Hmm…I thought that the place between earth and heaven was a good idea…”
“Because there are angels like me here?”
Holo drew close, her laugh sounding like a purr. Her pearl-like skin and supple body certainly gave the impression of an angel.
But as she consumed more jerky, he could see her fangs showing, and anyone could tell she was not someone to become entangled with carelessly. As the one that reached out to her myself, there is no doubt about that, Lawrence thought in self-derision.
“Between heaven and earth…a festival…hmm…”
Next to the grumbling Lawrence, Holo bit into the snow on Lawrence’s forehead, as though she, too, was beginning to boil. But suddenly, when he raised his head, she hurriedly got out of the bath.
“What’s wrong?”
Holo hastened to pull her robe over her head and motioned to the main house with her chin in response.
“Sir, a visitor.”
Hanna had come to call on him with someone in tow. Of course, the villagers could not know that Holo was half-wolf, so she was quite careful.
“Ahh, all right.”
Lawrence rose from the bath and was surprised when he saw who stood at the head of the path leading to the main building.
He could not offer mulled wine, so he had Hanna boil goat milk and drizzle honey in it. But the visitor sat in the chair with a brooding look and stared at his hands, unmoving.
Holo, shuffling her fireplace-dried tail under her robe, came over and poked Lawrence in the back. What is this about? her face asked, but Lawrence did not know, either. At the moment, there were no guests in the quiet dining hall, and the only sound was Hanna preparing dinner. Holo stared with great interest at their guest and sat slightly farther away to work on mending.
Nothing would come of staying like this, so Lawrence opened his mouth first.
“What has your father asked you to do here today?”
The visitor looked like a child, but he was already a hardworking participant in the workforce around these parts, so Lawrence spoke with the respectful tone he deserved. But the boy slowly dropped his shoulders and solemnly shook his head. The sudden visitor was the second son of a nearby bathhouse owner and was around Myuri’s age.
They knew this boy very well, since there were few pe
ople the same age Myuri, and he often played together with her. His name was Kalm. Lawrence could not count the number of times he had yelled at him when he and Myuri misbehaved.
As they grew of age, though they had to help with things around the house and could not play together much anymore, they would still throw snowballs or frogs at each other if they crossed paths in town.
“Have some before it gets cold.”
Again, he offered the drink to Kalm, and the boy took it in his hands.
Then, as though the cup was his cue, he suddenly raised his head.
“M-Mr. Lawrence, I’ve come to ask you something!”
Lawrence was more surprised at how serious he seemed, rather than the sound of his voice.
When he and Myuri had done something bad together and Lawrence scolded them, he was the kind to turn away in a huff and pout. But now, the face of a fine young man was meeting his gaze without hesitation.
“If it’s something I can answer myself, then gladly.”
Lawrence also straightened his back in response, not looking down on the child.
“That’s! Well…”
It was as if Kalm’s energy brought him that far and then petered out. When he opened his mouth, no words came out. His face was bright red, and he seemed as though he had suddenly lost all his breath.
Kalm closed his eyes and gritted his teeth in pain, and Lawrence unconsciously began reaching out to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. But at that moment, Kalm suddenly blurted out, “P-please let me marry Myuri!”
The words, seeming to come straight from his body and soul, became a fierce wind that gusted through the dining hall.
Lawrence, dumbfounded, did not comprehend immediately.
Myuri? Marry?
“Erm, well, even if you say that, uhh…”
Lawrence could not form a thought in his head and was thrown into confusion.
As he did so, Kalm stared straight at Lawrence.
It was a look that said he was absolutely serious.