Isaac picked up the harness, and the black dog walked of its own accord to the front of the carriage shafts, adjusting its position to make it easier for him to put the harness on.
Isaac had helped his foster father Edward harness a carriage before, so he was reasonably practiced. As he worked, he looked the black dog over.
This fellow's change in attitude had been awfully quick. A moment ago, it had been putting on an intimidating display, but now it obediently lowered its head to be harnessed...
He had no idea whether Carlo had shattered its dream of being a wolf king with that punch, or whether it had come to some realization on its own.
Once the harness was on, Isaac checked that it was secure. "That's done."
Carlo came over from the carriage and glanced at the harnessed black dog. "More cooperative than I expected."
Isaac opened the carriage door. After a moment's thought, he decided to show his boss some respect and moved aside, clearing the doorway.
Carlo climbed aboard and sat down, nodding in satisfaction. "Not bad. You're really keen to get ahead, aren't you?"
Isaac twitched the corner of his mouth and pointed to the driver's seat. "Boss, do you need me to sit there and drive?"
Carlo opened the little window at the front, used for speaking to the driver, and called to the black dog, "Hey, you cur."
Isaac: "..."
It really was a cur.
"Are you going to behave yourself, or do you need someone to whip your backside?"
Black dog: "..."
It looked back at Carlo, and for some reason Isaac could read a look of resentment in its eyes.
"Looks like it knows how to behave." Carlo shut the little window.
Isaac climbed into the carriage as well and closed the door.
The black dog set off. Its body wasn't particularly large-at least, not at the moment-but it pulled the carriage, which normally required two horses, with ease and headed onto the road.
Several other carriages were also leaving the city gate, and their drivers turned to stare at the sight of a dog pulling a carriage.
This was already relatively normal. Isaac didn't dare imagine what it would have looked like if they'd actually had a tortoise pulling it.
As the horse-drawn... dog-drawn carriage rolled along, Palmer gradually receded behind them. The road was no longer the repaired stone paving near the city gate, but a dirt track mixed with gravel.
The farther they traveled, the fewer traces of human activity remained. Weeds now grew wild in the abandoned fields, and collapsed houses and rotting fences could still faintly be seen, proof that this land had once been worked.
They were remnants of the War of the Churches.
During the War of the Churches, the churches waged war against one another. What began as small-scale conflicts gradually escalated into a war of the gods.
Clerics offered sacrifices, and the gods answered. Demigods descended upon the battlefield and fought one another with immense power. The earth shook, rivers changed course, and cities shattered... Amid the war, only city walls blessed by the gods could shelter people from being wiped out by the demigods' immense power.
The War of the Churches reshaped the way people produced their livelihoods. After the war, the surviving cities organized new efforts to develop the wilderness, but not all the villages and towns that had been destroyed could be rebuilt, just like the ones before him.
Isaac watched the wilderness for a while, then looked away.
Inside the carriage, the seats were upholstered in velvet, worn but reasonably clean. A kerosene lamp hung on the wall, swaying gently with the carriage's movement. His luggage lay at his feet, and Carlo sat opposite him, legs crossed. Carlo took a silver pocket watch from his pocket and flipped open its cover.
"At a normal carriage's speed, it would take a week to reach Vista," Carlo said. "But since we're riding in a dog-drawn carriage, let's go a little faster."
With that, he opened the little window in front of the seats that led to the driver's seat and called outside, "Hey, you cur, speed up."
The black dog bared its teeth and abruptly accelerated. As its speed surged, the wind grew louder, and the scenery outside the window began rushing past much faster.
The road was uneven to begin with. As they accelerated, the carriage jolted and began bouncing violently. Isaac was thrown to one side and hurriedly grabbed the horizontal handrail to steady himself.
Carlo, on the other hand, sat perfectly steady, shifting his weight with the motion of the carriage.
"Boss, is it all right to go this fast?"
"As long as the carriage frame doesn't fall apart before we reach Vista." Carlo then gave the black dog a new instruction. "A straight line is the fastest way between two points. I don't need to teach you that, do I?"
...A straight line was fastest?
Isaac froze. After receiving the instruction, the black dog hesitated for a moment, but soon veered off the dirt road, which was crude but at least still qualified as a road, and plunged into the grassy wilderness. Weeds scraped against the carriage with a rustling sound.
Once they left the dirt road, the carriage swayed even more violently from side to side. Isaac was shaken so hard his insides were nearly out of place. Steadying himself, he said to Carlo, "Boss, even if we're in a hurry, going in a straight line is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?"
"Isn't this road nice and spacious?"
"How is this a road?!"
"Come now, there were no roads in this world to begin with. Once enough people walked a path, it became a road."
"But plenty of roads take detours precisely because people discovered that going straight was dangerous or impassable!"
Carlo raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, you have a point, but that applies to ordinary people."
"Huh?"
"Ordinary people have to worry about terrain, water, supplies, wild beasts, aberrants, and so on, which is why they have to take detours," Carlo said. "But we're different. We have that cur clearing the way ahead of us. If there's trouble, it'll go around it. If it can't, it'll fight whatever it can. If it can't beat it... then you'll take over, and if you can't beat it, I'll have to step in."
Isaac: "..."
Me, fight aberrants? Is he serious?
But his boss didn't seem like the sort who listened much to advice, and Isaac had no better solution, so he could only keep holding the handrail and endure the bumpy ride.
The black dog was much faster than an ordinary horse, and its stamina was astonishing. It ran for nearly two hours straight without showing any sign of slowing down. Outside the window, the scenery changed from grassland to hills, then from hills to a sparse woodland.
After two hours of torment, Isaac gradually grew accustomed to the jolting. He even had the leisure to let go of the handrail, rummage a water bottle out of his suitcase, and take a drink.
Carlo seemed to be dozing, but he wasn't asleep. Whenever the carriage tilted sharply, he would open his eyes at just the right moment to glance out the window, then close them again.
Isaac looked at the gradually darkening sky outside, put down his water bottle, and screwed the cap tight. "Boss, shouldn't we find somewhere to stop and rest for a while tonight?"
Carlo opened his eyes. "Do you need the toilet?"
"Ahem-what I mean is, it's getting dark, and we've been traveling all afternoon. Surely we should..."
Carlo cut him off. "The cur won't get tired from running this little distance anyway. We'll keep traveling through the night and reach Vista before dawn tomorrow."
Isaac had no answer. The black dog had run all afternoon without showing any signs of fatigue. Since the one doing the actual work of pulling the carriage didn't need rest, running straight through to Vista in one go didn't seem particularly difficult.