We returned to the guild office.

I placed the bag containing the (smaller) direwolf's head on the counter, and the clerk responded with a bewildered stare.

"What... might this be?" she asked.

"We killed the three direwolves. Here's a direwolf head as proof. Only one, though," I responded.

The clerk covered her face with one hand, and with another hand beckoned over someone from deeper in the office, who took the bag and scurried off into the depths of the building. "Next time, please bring a fang or an eye or a paw or the like. Heads rot very quickly, with how much blood flows through them... Well, either way, I suppose I should congratulate you on a job well done. Good work."

The clerk handed over some bills to Natsuki— the pay, I supposed— who handed back the managrapher, the lens of which was now opaque and covered in a swirling pattern of various shades of red and black.

"We killed three direwolves, about normal size, and then a very large— three, four meters tall— red direwolf showed up. We couldn't beat it, so I used this," Natsuki explained.

The clerk picked up the managrapher, adjusting her glasses and squinting at it from various angles. "Looks like... as you said, a giant direwolf." She flipped the managrapher upside-down. "Nothing special as far as giant direwolves go, though it's heavily biased towards the fire trigram... I'd say IC4, which is fairly standard for giant direwolves. The guild technicians will provide the final judgement."

Natsuki, too, squinted at the managrapher. "How exactly did you just read these swirly patterns—"

"Standard?! Ha!"

An evidently drunken swordsman leaning on the counter guffawed as she banged a beer mug on the counter. Daytime drinking? Natsuki said that people who drink during the day become deadbeats.

"A giant direwolf, at this time of year?! Like hell that's standard! It's pre-cisely because this shit happens that you can tell the Mandate of Heaven has been revoked!"

No sooner had she finished her utterance than did a merchant-looking middle-aged man grab her by the collar and shout directly in her face.

"Revoked?! Are you insulting the God-Emperor, you faithless heathen?!"

The swordsman socked him in the cheek— not with the beer mug, though that would certainly have been more effective— and he fell to the ground. She tried kicking him once, but missed, and fell back against the counter, and faced the ceiling as she rambled.

"How the fuck do you end up thinking that, you dumbass?! Listen, shithead. The Mandate of Heaven is something the GOD-EMPEROR gives to NORMAL fuckin' PEOPLE. If you're implying that there's some SUPER god emperor sitting in the sky somewhere, then aren't YOU the heathen?!"

The clerk sighed.

"As Ryuuha says, it is indeed not common for giant direwolves to appear in early summer. Let us hope that this occurrence is not related to the recent disasters."

Of this entire somewhat-nonsensical discussion, it was these last two words that made the least sense to me. Recent disasters. What recent disasters? Back in Alsaine, there hasn't been anything that could be called a disaster since... well, since that day fifteen years ago.

Natsuki, thinking the same as me, raised this doubt. "Sorry, we're from a bit of a remote place so we don't really know about the current situation here, but... what recent disasters?"

Ryuuha, the swordsman, downed her beer while thumping her fist weakly on the counter. This is why day drinking is bad, you see...

"Since about ten years ago, ya see, natural disasters and shit like that, or shit like monster attacks, 'v been happening more recently. It's s'posed to be the church's duty to protect people from that kinda stuff, you know? But they ain't been protecting nobody, and that's how you know they've lost the Mandate of Heaven! Which is why, I've been saying, it's time to establish... a..."

She collapsed onto the counter, and then slowly onto the floor, and slept. The clerk continued.

"The reason the Adventurer's Guild has so much influence today, after all, is because the Church has been so ineffective at preventing and dealing with those disasters. While I am not qualified to speak of the Mandate of Heaven, it is certain that these disasters became more frequent after the Church indefinitely postponed the Rite of Cleansing."

Natsuki shrugged.

"Then they should just, you know, do the rite or whatever. Then they can blame the natural disasters on something else, like, uh... the Adventurer's Guild, surely. The Church has really lost its edge if it can't fabricate that much social tension."

Natsuki's thought processes are always impressive, if sometimes a little scary.

The clerk looked down, presumably at some paperwork.

"Well, the Rite must be performed by the Saint, so until they find the Saint, they can't do the Rite. I wonder where she might be hiding? She must be in quite a remote location if the Church couldn't find her for ten-odd years..."

Upon hearing "Saint", Natsuki flinched and went quiet. In that case, I have to cover for her!

"Umm, but then, in that case, couldn't they just appoint someone random person as the Saint and then do the rite or whatever?"

"There's supposedly a prophecy or something along those lines. They'd have to find someone who aligns with the prophecy, otherwise one internal dissident and the Church would go up in flames."

Natsuki flinched again. The priests did mention something about a prophecy saying the Saint would have horns. Shit, I should have seen that coming. My followup was bad...

"Ah, it looks like some other adventurers need me, so I'll be stepping away. Don't mind Ryuuha, her party said she's like this all the time. Again, congratulations on completing your first commission. Please do come again tomorrow to take another."

The clerk rolled her chair— wait, since when do chairs roll?— over to another section of the counter, where some tough-looking adventurers were standing and looking uncertainly at Ryuuha's figure sprawled out on the floor. Natsuki and I silently returned to the inn.