Chapter 82: The Bear Becomes Bored

Chapter 82:
The Bear Becomes Bored

 

SALES AT THE SHOP were going well. Morin was on the prowl for new bread, and even she was investigating how to make new kinds of sandwiches with novel ingredients. Slowly we built up our menu.

The adjustment of the opening hours also went well. The kids had gotten used to their work too, and were even into it.

When Rulina and Gil’s guarding job reached its end, the kids looked disappointed. The two were well-liked by the kids. Well, guess they would end up becoming more popular, considering they saved the kids from any grumpy customers.

Since leaving us, the two adventurers broke from Deboranay and were taking on solo quests or forming temporary parties. Occasionally, they’d come into the shop as customers.

 

Today, I was using the bear transport gate to go to the capital so I could see Princess Flora. (Gotta love instant teleportation.) Since the bear house was in a relatively upper-class district, there weren’t many people passing by. The main road, on the other hand, was packed as usual.

When I reached the castle gate, the soldiers gave me a careful look. By the time I closed in, they seemed to know who I was.

“Yo. I’d like to see the princess. That okay?”

I pulled my guild card from my bear bag. I had an entry permit for the castle registered to my card. When I presented the card, I could make the entry permit show up by pouring mana into it. Nobody could see that entry permit otherwise.

What was my business? To see Lady Flora, of course. I still couldn’t just go in to see the princess unsupervised, so they told me to wait while they called Ellelaura. It didn’t take long.

“Yuna, it’s been ages!”

“It’s nice to see you again, Ellelaura.”

“Did you come to see Lady Flora?”

“Yeah, just to catch up and all.” I’d like to stop and see Lady Flora more, but if I showed up too often, people might start asking inconvenient questions.

With Ellelaura accompanying me, I went inside, made a beeline to Lady Flora’s room…and found the king waiting there.

“Your Majesty,” Ellelaura said, a playful edge in her voice, “are you playing hooky again?”

“Come now, Ellelaura, I’m taking a normal break. Not an…Ellelaura-style break.”

“Pardon me, Your Majesty, but I happen to be doing my job by leading Yuna here.”

“You’re currently very hardworking.”

“Currently? I always take my work seriously.”

“Really, now?”

“Well, Your Majesty, why are you taking a break in Lady Flora’s room? Don’t you usually do that in your own private chambers?”

“Because I received word that Yuna had come. I know that Yuna sees Flora whenever she visits.”

While the two bickered, Lady Flora approached me.

“Hello, Lady Flora.”

“Bear, you came to see me?”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

Leaving the quarreling adults to their own devices, I took Lady Flora’s tiny hand in my bear puppet and led her to the table, where I had her take a seat.

“I brought you some pudding,” I said, “so let’s eat it together.”

“Uh-huh.”

I put four puddings down on the table, which brought an end to the arguing right quick—Ellelaura and the king immediately sat down with us and started chowing down on the pudding.

Lady Flora’s expression as she savored the pudding was the last straw in something I was debating back and forth with myself. I pulled out a piece of paper from my bear storage and placed it down in front of Ellelaura and the king.

“What is this?” asked the king, squinting down at it.

“The pudding recipe. Please use this to make some for Lady Flora.”

“Are you sure?”

“As long as it makes Lady Flora happy. I don’t know when I can come back here, either, so pudding duties are on you all.”

“Indeed. I graciously accept your gift. Rest assured, I’ll only share the instructions with my personal chef, whom I can trust.”

“Don’t worry too much if it gets leaked—no need to punish anybody.”

“Worry not. There are no people among the royal chefs who would leak information.”

“But there might be people who would steal it.”

There were intel thieves no matter what world you were in. Just pick up a history book. You can approach zero leaks, but you can’t reach it.

“If there is anyone who would steal a recipe from the royal family,” said the king with sharp lion’s smile, “I’ll give them a fitting punishment. Don’t you worry.” Terrifying! But man, at least he was taking this seriously. “And know that I do not blame you for only visiting occasionally. We are a slight distance away from Crimonia, after all…though perhaps moving here could solve that issue.”

“I support what you are saying, Your Majesty,” Ellelaura butted in, “but I can’t allow that to happen in consideration of Crimonia.” Oh no. Were they about to start fighting over me or something?

“I was thinking of popping by the ocean for a bit,” I said quickly.

“The ocean?” Ellelaura repeated.

“Yep. There’s an ocean to the east of the capital, isn’t there?” I’d gotten that scoop last time I came by the capital. I heard that if you kept going east, you’d hit the ocean. I didn’t know how far that was, but I’d get there if I rode my bears long enough.

“What? You want to go to the ocean?” The king scratched his chin, puzzled.

“I want to get seafood.”

“You do so much for food,” he mused. I’m Japanese—how could I explain it to him? If I couldn’t get rice or miso, I at least wanted seafood. Grilled squid and takoyaki sounded great right about now. Or later. Or always?

“To forget the joys of food,” I declared, “is a great loss in life. Since people must eat to live.”

“Really makes you think,” said the king, popping a bite of pudding into his mouth.

“I wish there were an ocean near Crimonia,” I said, sighing.

“There is,” said Ellelaura.

“Huh?” I froze.

“Come now,” the king snapped, “can you really call that near Crimonia?”

“Can you two slow down for a sec and explain?”

“Yes, yes. You know about the large mountain to the northeast of Crimonia, right?” he asked.

I nodded. I could it see from the town. It was really more of a mountain range, from what I could see.

“If you climb that mountain, you reach an ocean. It’s a whole ordeal, though, to climb it or to go around it.”

So all along there was an ocean beyond that giant mountain. So close and yet so far!

“There’s even a seaport,” said Ellelaura. “Most folks don’t visit on account of the mountain, but…well, I suppose you do have those bears of yours, eh?”

I did have those bears of mine! I wouldn’t need to head to the ocean from the capital, and it was closer…if I could get over the mountains.

“Yuna has bears?” The king furrowed his brow.

“Yuna summons them.”

“Well, well! You’re simply full of surprises!”

“They are very cute and very good bears.” Ellelaura almost sounded proud of them. And the more she described them, the more fascinated the king and Lady Flora became.

“It makes it easier to get to the capital,” I admitted.

“You have bears?” Lady Flora asked.

“Bears, huh?” The king repeated.

Lady Flora had a sparkle in her eye and the king himself seemed fascinated. Inevitably, I prepared to summoned my bears…right in the middle of the princess’s room.

“Are you really sure about this?” I asked.

The king shrugged. “Ehh.” Well, he was the most distinguished person of the country, and I’d gotten his permission, so I summoned Kumayuru.

“A real, actual bear. Fascinating!”

“Bear!”

Lady Flora approached Kumayuru, but the king just watched and didn’t try to stop her. They seemed awfully blasé about it all.

“You have another one, don’t you?” asked Ellelaura.

“You have more?”

I stuck out my left hand and summoned Kumakyu.

“A white bear, I see. How rare.” The king approached and touched Kumakyu. “It really is docile.”

“As long as you don’t do anything to the bears, they won’t do anything to you.”

“White bear!” Lady Flora, who was hugging Kumayuru was surprised at Kumakyu’s white coat.

Showing no fear, Lady Flora started to play with Kumayuru and Kumakyu. She got on Kumayuru and rode the bear around the room.

“Yuna,” said the king, watching my bears. “What are you?”

“I’m a D-rank adventurer.”

“A D-rank adventurer who can defeat ten thousand monsters?”

What, was that a problem?

“Actually, Yuna, you’re still D-rank even though you defeated those ten thousand monsters, aren’t you?”

“Because—as we all know—it was an A-rank party that happened to pass through who defeated them,” I said firmly.

“You should’ve revealed yourself.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“You wear that outfit and yet you shy away from attention,” said the king, looking exasperated.

Yeah, those were totally the same thing. What a brilliant analysis from His Majesty.

“If you’d acknowledged that you had defeated them,” the king continued, “you might have risen to B-rank.”

B-rank, huh? I could hide that, but it still led to questions, and questions could lead to the whole “defeated ten thousand monsters” thing. Nah.

“Oh, by the way, Yuna, you haven’t received any reward from His Majesty yet, have you?”

“She was the one to turn them down, Ellelaura. That isn’t my fault.”

In exchange, I asked him to promise to keep silent about me. I made that deal so I could live in peace, though I knew he also asked Cliff to support me when it came to my shop. But, since both His Majesty and Cliff were keeping silent about that, I wasn’t going to bring it up.

The conversation died down soon enough. Though I tried to go home, Lady Flora wouldn’t let go of Kumayuru and Kumakyu.

“No. I wanna play more.”

Eh, why not. I could stick around the castle till dinner.