“…”

Apparently, he had a guest.

“Hey.”

Lawrence wasn’t sure his voice actually made a sound. He was shocked and wondered if the loneliness had finally broken him and he was hallucinating.

But after he shook his head and rubbed his eyes, his guest had not disappeared.

The beautiful girl was sleeping so soundly it seemed a shame to wake her.

“Hey, you there,” said Lawrence nonetheless, returning to his senses. He meant to inquire what exactly would motivate someone to sleep in a wagon bed. In the worse case, it might be a village runaway. He didn’t want that kind of trouble.

“…hrm?” came the girl’s defenseless response to Lawrence, her eyes still closed, her voice so sweet that it would make a poor traveling merchant—accustomed only to the brothels of the cities—lightheaded.

She had a terrifying allure despite her obvious youth, nestled there in the furs and illuminated by the moonlight.

Lawrence gulped once before returning to reason.

Given that she was so beautiful, if she was a prostitute, there was no telling how much he could be taken for if he was to so much as touch her. Considering the economics of the situation was a tonic far more effective than any prayer. Lawrence regained his composure and raised his voice once again.

“Hey, you there. What are you playing at, sleeping in someone’s cart?”

The girl did not awaken.

Fed up with this girl who slept so obstinately, Lawrence grabbed the pelt that supported her head and jerked it out from under her. The girl’s head flopped into the gap left by the pelt, and finally he heard her irritated squawk.

He was about to raise his voice at her again, but then he froze.

The girl had dog ears on her head.

“Mm…hah…”

Now that the girl seemed to be finally awake, Lawrence summoned his courage and spoke again.

“You there, what are you doing, climbing in my wagon bed?”

Lawrence had been robbed more than once by thieves and bandits as he crossed the countryside. He considered himself bolder and more courageous than the average person. He wasn’t one to quail just because the girl in front of him happened to have the ears of an animal.

Despite the fact that the girl hadn’t answered his questions, Lawrence did not pose them again.

This was because the girl, slowly awakening before him and entirely naked, was unspeakably beautiful.

Her hair, illuminated by the moonlight in the wagon, looked as soft as silk and fell over her shoulders like the finest cloak. The strands that fell down her neck to her collarbone drew a line so beautiful it put the finest painting of the Virgin Mary to shame; her supple arms were so fine they seemed carved from ice.

And exposed now in the middle of her body were her two small breasts, so beautiful they gave the impression of being carved from some inorganic material. They gave off a strangely vital scent, as if housed within her arresting charm was a warmth.

But such a fascinating spectacle could just as soon go awry.

The girl slowly opened her mouth and looked skyward. Closing her eyes, she howled.

“Auwoooooooooooo!”

Lawrence felt a sudden fear—it blew through his body like a wind.

The howl was the song a wolf would use to call its comrades, to chase and corner a human.

This was no howl like Yarei had uttered earlier. It was a true howl. Lawrence dropped the bite of beef from his mouth; his horse reared, startled.

Then he realized something.

The moonlit girl’s form—with the ears on her head. The ears of a beast.

“…Hmph. ’Tis a good moon. Have you no wine?” she said, letting the howl fade away, drawing her chin up, and smiling slightly. Lawrence came back to himself at the sound of her voice.

What was before him was neither dog nor wolf. It was a beautiful girl with the ears of such an animal, though.

“I have none. And what are you? Why do you sleep in my cart? Were you to be sold in town? Did you escape?” Lawrence meant to ask as authoritatively as he could, but the girl did not so much as move.

“What, so you have no wine? Food, then…? My, such waste,” said the girl unconcernedly, her nose twitching. She spied the bit of beef Lawrence had almost eaten earlier, snapping it up and popping it into her mouth.

As she chewed it, Lawrence did not fail to note the two sharp fangs behind the girl’s lips.

“Are you some kind of demon?” he asked, his hand falling to the dagger at his waist.

As traveling merchants often needed to convert large amounts of currency, they often carried their money in the form of items. The silver dagger was one such item, and silver was known as a holy metal, strong against evil.

However, when Lawrence put his hand to the dagger and posed his question, the girl looked blankly at him, then laughed heartily.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Me, a demon now?”

Her mouth thrown open wide enough to drop the piece of meat, the girl was so adorable as to be disarming.

Her two sharp fangs only added to her charm.

However, being laughed at made Lawrence angry.

“H-how is that so amusing?”

“Oh, it’s amusing, it is! That is surely the first time I’ve been called a demon.”

Still giggling to herself, the girl picked up the meat again and chewed it. She did have fangs. Add in her ears, and it was clear enough that she was no mere human.

“What are you?”

“Me?”

“Who but you would I be talking to?”

“The horse, say.”

“…”

When Lawrence drew his dagger, the girl’s smile disappeared. Her red-tinged amber eyes narrowed.

“What are you, I say!”

“Drawing a blade on me now? How lacking in manners.”

“What?!”

“Mm. Ah, I see. My escape was successful. My apologies! I had forgotten,” said the girl with a smile—a completely guileless and charming smile.

The smile didn’t particularly sway him, but nevertheless Lawrence somehow felt that pointing a blade at a girl was an unseemly thing for a man to do, so he put it away.

“I am called Holo. It has been some time since I’ve taken this form, but, well, it is quite nice.”

As the girl looked herself over approvingly, Lawrence was so caught on the first half of what she’d said that he missed the second half.

“Holo?”

“Mm, Holo. A good name, no?”

Lawrence had traveled far and wide over many lands, but there was only one place where he’d heard that name.

None other than the harvest god of the village of Pasloe.

“What a coincidence. I also know of one that goes by Holo.”

It was bold of her to use the name of a god, but at least this told him that she was indeed a girl from the village. Perhaps she’d been hidden, raised in secret by her family, because of her ears and fangs. That would fit with her claim to have “escaped successfully.”

Lawrence had heard talk of abnormal children like this being born. They were called demon-children, and it was thought that a devil or spirit had possessed them at birth. If the Church discovered them they—along with their families—would be burned at the stake for demon worshipping. Such children were thus either abandoned in the mountains or raised in secret.

But this was the first time Lawrence had ever actually seen such a child. He had always assumed they would be disgustingly bestial, but judging from appearance alone, this one was a plausible goddess.

“Oh, ho, I have never met another Holo. Whence do they hail?” As the girl chewed the meat, it was hard to see her trying to deceive anyone. It seemed possible that having been raised in confinement for so long, she really did believe herself to be a god.

“It is the name of this area’s harvest god. Are you a god?”

At this, the girl’s moonlit face was slightly troubled for a moment before she smiled.

“I have long been bound to this place and called its god. But I am nothing so great as a deity. I am merely Holo.”

Lawrence guessed that this meant she’d been locked away in her home since she was born. He felt a certain sympathy for the girl.

“By ‘long,’ do you mean that you were born here?”

“Oh, no.”

This was an unexpected answer.

“I was born far to the north.”

“The north?”

“Indeed. The summers there are short and the winters long. A world of silver.”

Holo’s eyes narrowed as she seemed to gaze into the distance, and it was hard to imagine that she was lying. Her behavior as she reminisced about the lands of the north was too natural to be an act.

“Have you ever been there?”

Lawrence wondered if she was counterattacking, but if Holo was lying or merely repeating things she’d heard from others, he would have been able to tell immediately.

His travels as a merchant had in fact led him to the far north before.

“I’ve been as far as Arohitostok. The year-round blowing snow is terrifying.”

“Hm. Haven’t heard of it,” replied Holo, inclining her head slightly.

He’d expected her to pretend to have knowledge. This was strange.

“What places do you know?” he asked.

“A place called Yoitsu.”

Lawrence forced himself to say, “Don’t know it,” to quell the unease that rose within him. He did know of a place called Yoitsu, from an old story he’d heard at an inn in the north.

“Were you born there?” he asked.

“I was. How is Yoitsu doing these days? Is everyone well?” Holo asked, slumping slightly. It was such a fleeting gesture that it couldn’t be an act.

Yet Lawrence could not possibly believe her.

After all, according to the story, the town of Yoitsu had been destroyed by ursine monsters six hundred years ago.

“Do you remember any other places?”

“Mmm…it’s been so many centuries…ah, Nyohhira, there was a town called Nyohhira. It was a strange town, with hot springs. I would often go to bathe in them.”

There were still hot springs in the north at Nyohhira, where royalty and nobility often visited.

But how many people in this area would even know of its existence?