Midnight was not far by the time I had the lights of Faulsen in my sights. I was quite sure I’d never undertaken any task as laborious before in my life since the day I’d climbed down from the mountains. Several times I considered giving up and spending the night outside. The most tempting point was at Mr Kynes’s cabin, but the lights in his windows were out and all was quiet by the time I made it that far. I had not the heart to disturb the old man in his slumber, the head and skin of a beast on my back and his crossbow discarded on the hills. There was only a mile left from there to the town, at any rate.

However, I did borrow a wheelbarrow from the shepherd’s shed with my own permission, which allowed me to ditch the horribly impractical stretcher and make the rest of the way dramatically easier, not to mention speedier. I could take the wheelbarrow back tomorrow, along with a few coppers for the trouble.

The Guild bureau was long closed, of course, but that was fine. Ms Vera had not specified a time limit for the quest, so I could report it in the morning just as well.

But my workday was not done yet.

I had to temporarily store the spoils of war in the backyard of our house. I covered the vile head wrapped in the pelt with a tarp, and turned the wheelbarrow over the suspicious bundle, so that no scavenger lured by the foul reek would rip them, or drag them away. I couldn’t afford to neglect my gear either. I washed my well-used utility knife and dagger, and honed the edges, to have them ready for service again in case any sudden need arose. Though the rain had ceased, my uniform was still wet and covered in patches of dirt and grass green, so I scrubbed and rinsed off the stains and hung the garments to dry.

Strangely, despite casting Water Sphere and Whiplash in rapid succession only a few hours ago, it still felt like I had Power left to spare. Doing the same a year back would have left me nearly bedridden. Thinking back, the spells had quite a bit more kick to them too today. I had relied on Aqua far more than usual in the past few weeks, could that be the reason? I knew magical ability was strengthened by use, theoretically, but I hadn’t expected such rapid development.

Or was it because I had an unusually pressing reason to push myself?

Oh well, I could think about that later.

At last, the menial chores taken care of, I could go indoors and warm up. As late as it was, I could certainly use a hot cup of tea before bed—and that sandwich.

There were still lights inside, to my surprise.

As I was taking my shoes off, Ms Vera rushed to the entryway, wide awake, and I pondered for a moment if the house weren’t on fire. That would have crowned my day. She paused at the mouth of the hallway, looking exceptionally distraught.

“You—! You’re…!” the furian lady gasped and stammered, apparently without having planned her lines very far ahead.

“Good evening,” I greeted her, having put my boots away. “You are up rather late, Miss. I had assumed you would be asleep at such an hour.”

Perhaps assisted by my composed demeanor, Ms Vera got her vocabulary under order again.

“As if I could sleep, you dork! Where have you been? What were you doing out there at a godless hour like this!?”

“Hm?” I turned to her with a somewhat puzzled frown. “Was a curfew established without my knowing? I had no idea. It appears there has been a slight miscommunication at some point.”

“As if!” she growled in answer. “Are you messing with me now!?”

“No? Then what could be the problem? Is your brother still out? That is certainly alarming. He was supposed to have come home well ahead of myself.”

“Huh?” Ms Vera paused to blink for a beat. “Eh, no, Norn’s home. He came back just now. That’s not what I was worried about. I was just…”

“Worried? What about? Your family is unmistakably safe, yes? There is no cause for unrest then, as far as I can tell.”

The landlady’s mood and expressions shifted at such a rate, I had trouble reading them. At first she appeared mighty awkward and almost shy, and in the next clawed at her hair in overflowing vexation.

“Argh! Take the hint already!” she yelled. “It’s you I’m talking about here, you dimwit maid! What the devil happened to you!? No sign of either of you for the whole day—I already thought I sent you to certain death! Do you have any idea how nervous I was? Would I have to call the guards and arrange a search party in the middle of the night? Then Norn came home looking all weird, not answering me, saying I wouldn’t believe it anyway and that I’d hear everything later! What’s that supposed to mean? I was going fast out of my mind here, wondering if he didn’t push you off a cliff, or something! Would I have to cover up a homicide now?”

Her very spirited tirade flew largely over my tired head.

“My, how little faith you have in your own brother,” I commented. “You make it sound as though he could casually murder a maid and make a jest of it afterwards.”

I couldn’t tell whether to be awed by Ms Vera’s willingness to sweep the atrocity under the rug for her sibling’s sake, or be plain abhorred.

The person herself scratched her neck embarrassedly.

“No, I wouldn’t go quite that far…Norn’s not a bad kid, alright. But, you know, furians are kind of stronger than ordinary humans, accidents could happen. And he’s not very good with new people, is pretty bad at expressing himself too, and gets easily jealous. And he’s been staring real hard at you ever since you showed up, and—Well, sometimes I have no idea what goes through that kid’s head…”

“Nonsense,” I dismissed her concerns. “Norn is an exceptionally courageous, reliable young gentleman with a good head on his shoulders. He has my unconditional trust.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Oh.” The elder sister blinked her eyes, deeply puzzled. “Well, look at you. If nothing weird happened, that’s fine, I guess...But what were you doing out there, that kept you this late? Did the investigation really take the whole day?”

I had hoped to save the report till the Guild tomorrow, but now that she asked, I could only answer truthfully.

“As promised, I went to seek out the rumored direwolf. Unortunately—or perhaps fortunately—it was also found. Disposing of the thing was rather tricky and took some great exertions, which have left me terribly fatigued at present. Which is why I’d love to go and wash up now, and sleep posthaste, if you'll allow me. I would ask you to leave any additional questions for the morrow, if possible.”

I had wondered how Ms Vera would receive the news, but her reaction was not at all as I had imagined. Not the slightest bit shocked, or horrified, or even a little bit surprised. Her face melted into a wide, sunny smile and, with a warm laugh, she patted my shoulder.

“What? Come on, I was only honestly worried about you there, Ms Maid! Relax! It’s all right! I won’t get mad at you only because you came home empty-handed this once! You don’t need to cook up any stories! I’m not going to kick you out over something trivial like that. You get the investigation fee, anyway. I promised that, didn’t I? You won’t even have to pay me a cut this time. Don’t worry about it! What matters is that you’re both back safe and in one piece!”

“…”

It seemed that the landlady’s mind had casually rejected every word I just said.

But I didn’t have the necessary vigor left to argue my case. I could already tell it would take more words than I had left in me today. I therefore abandoned the topic uncontested and bid her good night.

I went briefly upstairs to my room to leave my bag, hiking equipment, weapons, and tools and socks and stockings and the headpiece, and traded them for a towel and soap. Barefoot, in only my light, white under-dress, I returned downstairs to the bathroom. I did quickly rinse off the warg blood up on the hills, but it felt like no amount of washing in the world was going to get rid of that dirty dog smell.

Ms Vera’s house was more modern than it looked on the outside, with special attention put into the bathroom’s construction.

In the far left corner of the room posed a large aluminum barrel with a lid, under it a low, stone-made fireplace to heat the water in the barrel. The fire would simultaneously heat the stone bath nearby, when needed, though filling up the barrel and the bath took several bucketfuls of water and multiple trips to the well.

Thanks to the effort required and the lack of enthusiasm on the residents’ part, there were only three regular bath days per week, Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. On other days, you had to make do with a bowl of plain water heated just about enough to not seem freezing anymore.

My body yearned for a hot soak after everything, but it was Monday. It was also, as said, quite late, and I was much too sleepy to fill the bath and wait for it to heat up. There was no fire left in the heater and the firewood rack asked for a refill too. The sun would rise before I was done. I would have to content myself with a thorough scrubbing with cold water instead.

Irritated by the fact, I swung open the bathroom door perhaps too brashly, almost recklessly, you might even say carelessly, without first checking if anyone else was in. I barged into the room, my belongings under my arm, and then froze short in my tracks.

In only a heartbeat, I became aware of the slight miscalculation I’d made. A whole series of miscalculations, in fact, dating back to hours ago, speaking volumes about the overwhelming fatigue hanging upon me, body and soul.

The young master of the house had not, as a matter of fact, come home that much earlier than I had, despite the generous head start I’d given him. Suppose I had overestimated how quickly a flock of sheep was willing to travel on the way to the pen, while also underestimated my own speed hauling the beast head on a stretcher downhill.

As an unfortunate consequence, the time when we would require the bathroom ended up heavily overlapping. That is to say, the person I imagined was already in bed, counting figurative sheep by now, was in reality not.

There, in the light of almost burned-out candles, posed our Master Norn in person now.

How bright was that light, in eyes accustomed to night. It left naught up to imagination.

Our arbalist, our hero of the day, Ms Vera’s younger brother, was caught in the process of pulling on low-cost linen underwear; an act which left the youth largely au naturel in my view. Indeed, with him bent over like so, his back turned my way, I had a very generous view of the particulars you typically wouldn’t expose to another. The short, blonde-furred tail, which continued as a natural extension to the spinal column between the pale buttocks. And past there—

It took me a moment to process what I saw. Or, rater, what I didn’t see.

To make matters more confusing to my weary mind, the certain elements of male biology you would expect to see represented from this angle were only conspicuous in their absence. The things that should’ve been seen couldn’t be seen. Instead, I observed in the youth’s nether regions geometry of an entirely different sort.

Very confusing.

I was by no means an expert on human anatomy, or beastman anatomy, but I had seen various illustrated books meant to introduce the essentials to willing scholars. I had also, to my chagrin, come to behold the genuine article in the field before, during an occasional riverside trip or two, shown off by both high-ranking and low-ranking swimmers of the Imperial Household with all too little shame. Since swimming trunks were still a rather new innovation of fashion, not always available, or were—for cultural reasons—shunned by those who should have worn them.

That said, thanks to this indirectly obtained wealth of samples, I was confident I would not, as a consequence to my own ignorance, mistake as a man someone whom Mother Nature had equipped for life otherwise. As hard as my mind tried to deny it, there was only one logical conclusion to be drawn from the evidence now on exhibit in front of my eyes.

I had been cheated.

I had been, for the past month, knowingly, purposefully, misled.

My good will and faith had been taken advantage of, to convince me of matters that were not true at all, and couldn’t endure closer scrutiny.

But I had my “a-ha!” moment here. Lies had short tracks, as they said.

I had broken through this cunning veil of deception, and would not be so easily fooled again. I would go to sleep tonight one inch wiser than I was yesterday.

And so, half with righteous disapproval, half with pride, I ventured to declare,

“I can’t say I never suspected it, but you really were a—”

My sentence was left unfinished. Speedily recovering from her dismay, Norn scooped up her shorts from the floor and threw them at my face with a gusto. Through the dark of the night rang the powerful, high-pitched yell of a maiden.

“—CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR ALREADY!”