Spice and Wolf (2024) Ep 2 – 4

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Lawrence has raised a fuss about Holo taking his hard-earned clothes for her own and spending an entire coin on a boatload of apples, but he certainly wasn’t expecting her to help pay him back so quickly. It was rather shrewd on her part, but Holo was able to successfully outwitting the merchant for a better profit on the pelts. Lawrence had initially succeeded netting more than 132 Silver and was going to be satisfied with 140, that is until Holo stepped in. She did so by addressing the quality of the pelts’ resilience and their fruity aroma, a cheeky tactic thanks to the abundance of apples she purchased on their way there. It’s funny because here I was thinking how sticky they’d be if she were tossing those leftover cores into the back there. It did leave Lawrence feeling a bit concerned that she kind of conned him on the aroma part, but it looks like they didn’t take it too badly, but instead took it as a learning experience if anything.

On their way to Pazzio, they’ve met a rookie merchant called Zheren approached Lawrence with an offer to participate in a potential opportunity for profit to reacquire a newly minted coin going into circulation. Lawrence wasn’t sure about it at first, but ultimately decided to give it a shot. He still had his reservations about it, so when he got to Pazzio, he sought out Weiz, and appraiser he has worked with before take a look at the new coin. Weiz’s claims nothing has changed, but when Holo gets a chance to compare the purity of the coin that they realize the exact opposite is true. The coin is in fact losing it’s purity. That means this is existentially a scam that screws over the merchants who chooses to invest in this scheme. So Lawrence decides to share this information with Milone Trading company’s branch manager Richten Marlheit.

It was pretty obvious that things wouldn’t pan out as Lawrence had hoped when the amount of profit he could earn from this would be enough to finally find a town to settle down in and open up his own shop. There’s no way it would be smooth sailing in a deal as large as this one, and sure enough that was the case.

As one would expect, someone looking to thwart a grand scheme to make a large profit will not be ignored. Perhaps you could say Lawrence was a bit naive in that regard, of not really thinking of the potential dangers before he made any agreements. Thankfully for Holo, she was able to sniff out the dangers, but due to excessive drinking, she wasn’t able to remember the warning she wanted to tell him, until it was already too late, forcing them to flee their inn and Holo insisting she’ll serve as a distraction.

However there was yet another miscalculation on both of their parts. They both were banking on Milone Trading Company to help save her, but that wasn’t necessarily going to be the case. It was a lot more complicated than that, but to really, it should come as nobody’s surprise that they’d prioritize profits over saving Holo. That isn’t to say Richten is so cold-blooded that he’d ignore the glaring obvious abnormally in this case, of the fact they shouldn’t have anything to hold as a leverage, except for one thing: The fact they know that Holo is the Wise Wolf, and threaten to turn her in to the church. That’s where the real problem lies. It was in fact, a concern that did cross Lawrence’s mind when they first arrived in Pazzio. But Holo genuinely didn’t think it was going to be a problem since she felt as though the village had long forgotten her, carrying on the tradition for the sake of it, and not because they actually remembered or believed in her anymore.

So now Lawrence has no choice but to be completely honest with Richten, that Holo is none other than the incarnation of a wolf that brings bountiful harvests. Whether that’s actually enough to change their minds to help out, or worse see her as an entity that needs to be purged by the church, we’ll have to find out next week

Apart from that, we definitely gotten some good development between Holo and Lawrence. The first was really drawing the line of each other’s comfort-zone, as well as recognizing what might be funny to one isn’t to another. Holo meant no harm when she was teasing him about being hunted by the wolves, claiming that they eat Humans to gain their power. But for Lawrence has already go through the trauma of being attacked by wolves on eight different occasions, and at least one time where he had seen at least someone he was fleeing with mauled to death, it was far from funny and made a point to never joke about that again. Frankly, you have to hand it to him for not being more afraid of Holo after all of that. But perhaps it’s because they can actually communicate and he sees that she means no harm that he doesn’t let that trauma consume him whole.

Of course just as much as he has his trauma, Holo has hers, where she has witnessed humans hunting and killing her fellow kin too. It’s thanks to this unfortunate joke that they both recognize it’s a sore spot for both of them, and they ought to be mindful of each other about it.

This week, because Lawrence got all excited about the profits that could come out of this collaboration with Milone Trading Company to thwart Medio Trading Company’s grand scheme, we got to learn not only of Lawrence’s dream, but also see just how fearful Holo is of being left alone again.

Lawrence can relate to some extent, as it’s lonely working as a travelling merchant, as you’re unable to settle down and form relationships with people, much less feel as though he has the opportunity to find a wife… But what’s even lonelier is a god who outlives all of her kin and friends she makes along the way. Holo is unbearably lonely, and the idea of not having a companion to accompany her back home made her feel very sad, to the point she actually cried. Get a man like Lawrence who’d let you wipe your nose and tears with the drawing of your dreams! It was nice how he comforted her, giving her the hug she really needs, though he wasn’t expecting her to drag him into bed, which did almost lead to a very intimate moment only to be spoiled by Medio Trading Company goons coming for them. But who to say she wouldn’t had stopped him there anyways (since it does seem a bit soon to jump to that), it seemed she had really only dragged him under the covers for the purpose of quickly getting his eyes used to the darkness as quickly as possible.

It was very endearing however, how Lawrence went onto promise her while they were running that they’ll go out shopping and get her a comb for her lovely hair, to which she said would rather have for her tail. It was rather cute how he thought of all of this while they were being pursued. Stay classy Lawrence.

But now Holo’s been captured, and she’s trusting that he’ll be able to help bail her out. Entrusting him with some wheat grains is one security measure, as she says she resides within them. As long as he has that on him, she should be okay. She was pretty confident that she’d be able to handle the Medio Trading Company, but she definitely underestimated their reasons why she was so deliberately targeted in the first place.

Before I wrap things up, I’d like to note: Coming into this series, I did expect this to be a tricky one to cover because it is slow, and throw the talks of economics in the mix, when it comes to a writing about it, my brain just turns to mush. So this will not be covered episodically unless I feel I’m actually able to write something I’m happy with for the episode on its own. That’s why as of last week: I’ve decided it would be best to approach covering this series in “arcs” if it really comes down to it, since it does make it easier to do so. It’s not my preferred approach, but we’ll do whatever works since I do want to cover this. However if it proves to be too difficult, then I might have to yield it because it’s no fun when struggling too get my thoughts out properly. I’ll let you know if it comes down to that though. I did consider putting off this entry one more week to just cover the rest of the arc, but we’ll start with this for now.