"That is so. It is a prank of the demons, and the world does not function well as a result. If Mercenary were a female, and I a male, an unspeakably savage dem—"

Zero coughed. She was probably going to say something about sorcery or the like.

Even though Theo was just a kid, it wouldn"t be good to reveal herself as a witch.

"I would employ savage methods to make Mercenary my wife…"

Her words were no less fearsome even after she caught herself, were they…

I"m glad I"m a man. So glad. I haven"t thanked G.o.d for it recently.

"Zero, do you like Pops?"

"It goes without saying. If I did not, why do we travel together? But more importantly, now that I have slept in Mercenary"s fluffy fur, normal beds can no longer offer me a good night"s sleep."

"So I"m just a bed to ya… Listen, Theo. You"ll be in trouble if you take a woman"s "like" seriously."

"Don"t joke, Mercenary. If you really were just a bed to me, I would have already killed you and skinned you for your pelt."

"Eep," Theo squeaked.

Right? Women"re scary, ain"t they?

I slowly nodded at Theo, and Theo nodded solemnly back.

Our hearts were one then. For some reason or another, I felt I would get along well with this one.

After lunch, we walked through the forest, heading toward the Holy City of Arcadius, where the Saint supposedly was. Once we were out of the forest and on a road, I checked our position on the map, and saw that we really had taken a dramatically shorter route compared to the road.

"I"m good with odd jobs, aren"t I?" Theo laughed.

Actually, he was almost too good. We immediately decided on a place to camp out thanks to Theo, and I was left with basically nothing to do.

And even then—

"When night comes, how "bout I take the watch?"

When Theo said that, I took a little offense.

That meant that among Theo"s employers until now, there were some who had made a kid take the night watch. Theo acted calm, like the matter was settled.

Theo had said that his father was dead. I didn"t know where his mother was or what she was doing, but there were no adults in his life to protect him.

What was normal, what was proper, and what was wrong—Theo knew none of those things, only what to do to survive and to get work.

"…Pops?"

Theo was looking at me strangely. I looked at him and signed. I didn"t want to pay him lip service, but I felt it would be bad to be honest with him.

Zero took off her overcoat and wrapped Theo in it.

"Mercenary is a beast, so he doesn"t need to watch for wild animals and keep a lit fire through the night. Thus, he doesn"t need a night watch either. If you feel cold, I can lend you my overcoat. I sleep with Mercenary, so I"ll be warm.

"Isn"t that so?" Zero laughed, looking over. Now that she"d taken off her coat, there was no hood to hide her weapon-like beauty, so it was on display for the world to see. I merely glanced at her face out of the corner of my eye and nodded.

Theo stared at the overcoat in disbelief, timidly opening his mouth.

"But if the fire goes out, we"d need to light it again, wouldn"t we? That"d be terrible…"