Chapter 83: The Bear Climbs a Mountain

Chapter 83:
The Bear Climbs a Mountain

 

IT WAS IN THE HENHOUSE that I told Tiermina and Fina about my plan to cross over the mountain range and visit the ocean.

“Are you really going there?” Tiermina asked, worry creeping into her voice.

“I want to see the ocean,” I said firmly, “so please keep an eye on the shop for me.”

Not that I really needed to ask. The shop was already revolving around Tiermina and Morin.

“That should be fine, Yuna, but the Elezent mountain range is harsh.”

“I have my bears, so it should be fine. If it still seems dangerous, I’ll just come back.”

“Yuna…” Fina also looked worried.

“I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. I’ll contact you guys when I get there.”

I pulled out two chibi bears about the size of my palm from my bear storage and handed one to Fina.

“Is this Kumayuru?” Fina looked at the first figure I handed her, then at the second one. The bears were shaped like Kumayuru and Kumakyu.

“It’s a magic device that lets you talk over long distances.”

After slaying ten thousand monsters while I was at the capital, I acquired two new skills. One was the ability to manufacture bear phones that let me talk to people by running mana through them. They were communications devices that used mana in place of radio waves. The other skill was summons cubification. It didn’t seem very useful—why would I turn my bears into cubs? I’d get it if I could make them bigger. If I made them smaller, though, then they wouldn’t be as powerful in a fight. I wouldn’t even be able to ride them!

But then again, seeing Kumayuru and Kumakyu miniaturized was just so soothing. Their little forms as they trotted along behind me were just so cute! And they could even take a bath with me! They could sleep on the bed with me without getting in the way, I could hug ’em like little body pillows…okay, fine. It was a pretty cuddly kind of skill. I could get behind it.

“If anything happens, just run some mana through that bear phone and think really hard about wanting to call me. You’ll get through to the bear phone on my end,” I explained, but…

“Yuna, I’m not some kid, okay? I know there’s no way you can talk to someone who’s far away. Don’t try to make stuff up to make me feel better.” Fina pouted and fumed. Uhh, did she not believe me? Also, she was ten years old. Come on!

“Yuna,” said Tiermina softly, “I’m sure that there might be magical devices like that in the capital, but this seems…” Was it really that rare of an item? In the game, it was probably kind of like the chat function.

“Then how about you try it and see? I’ll talk to you through your bear phone, so let’s go outside to try it.”

Though I said that, it was actually my first time using it. I hadn’t asked anyone else to use it, and I sure couldn’t experiment with it by myself. Even I didn’t know how to connect to their bear phone. Would it have a magical ringtone or something?

To check how the bear phone worked, the three of us went outside. We went a bit away from the henhouse and orphanage, to a less populated place where we could use them without any odd questions.

I ran mana through the bear phone in my hand and willed it to connect to the bear phone in Fina’s hand…and it started to ring! Sort of!

“Cwoon, cwoon, cwoon, cwoon, cwoon.”

Was that a bear’s call?

Really? Seriously?

Maybe I could change it like you could with cell phones…

“Y-Yuna, what am I supposed to do!” As the bear phone crooned on top of Fina’s palm, she looked at it, clearly flustered. Oh, right.

“Run mana through it like a mana gem when you’re turning on a light.”

Fina did that and the bear phone stopped crooning.

“Okay, I’m going to move away now.”

I moved several dozen meters away from Fina.

“Fina, can you hear me?” I spoke toward the bear phone held in my bear puppet’s mouth.

“Yuna?”

I could hear Fina’s voice through the mouth of the bear phone.

“Can you hear me now?”

“Uh-huh, I can hear you.”

“Good!” Whoa, I could actually hear her. It was just like a cell phone or a walkie-talkie. “Okay, I’m going to move farther away then, aaaaand…Fina, can you still hear me?”

“Completely.”

“Yuna, is this really a magical device for long-distance conversation?” I heard Tiermina’s voice come over the bear phone.

“I don’t know its max range, but I think that we should be able to be pretty far apart.”

Since I hadn’t used it before, I didn’t know exactly how far away I could be. But, it was a skill I received from the gods. Gods don’t have to go through crappy cell towers. Probably.

“Well then, I’m going to hang up.”

“Hang what?”

“End the conversation, I mean. Then you try calling me. Do it how I just explained: by running mana through it and thinking you want to talk to me.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

I hung up the bear phone and waited for Fina’s call. The bear phone started to cry out.

“Cwoon, cwoon, cwoon, cwoon, cwoon.”

I don’t know what I expected. It was a little cute, but hard to describe. It’d be weird for this world to have electronic ringtones or jingles, but if it had a recording function, I would have liked to register Fina’s voice for it.

“Yuna, I’m calling. Yuna, I’m calling.” or something like that would be nice. I’d do some research.

I ran mana through my bear phone. The crooning stopped.

“Uhm, Yuna, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

Awesome. Our communications worked both ways. The only issue now was the distance, but I couldn’t check that immediately. I could use the bear transport gate to go to the capital to check, but that seemed like a pain.

“Okay, I’m going back to you, so I’m hanging up.” I cut off the call and headed back to Fina.

“Yuna, this bear is amazing.”

She was carefully gripping the bear phone.

“Right? We can talk to each other with these no matter where we go now.”

“Yes!”

“This really is amazing,” said Tiermina. “I can’t believe we can talk to people who are far away with this.”

“If anything happens, please contact me. If I can get back, I will.” I could get back immediately using the bear transport gate.

“But are you sure about letting Fina hold onto such an amazing magic device?”

“It’s fine. There’s no point to me having two of them.”

If I carried two on me, I’d just look like some dorky kid playing with two walkie-talkies.

“But you’re giving them to us? Wouldn’t you want to give something so amazing to your friends or family back home?”

Oh. Yeah. I guess I would.

Huh.

Fr…iends. That sounded nice.

Fa…mily. What a concept.

“Yuna, what’s wrong?” Tiermina asked me. I guess I wasn’t talking, huh.

“My hometown is so far away,” I said. “I can’t use this with them.”

“Is it really?” asked Tiermina softly. “My apologies.” She didn’t pry. I think she knew not to.

“It’s fine. It’s all fine. Don’t worry about holding onto that, Fina.”

“Okay. I’ll keep it safe.”

I gave Fina a pat on the head.

 

Early in the morning, I got on Kumayuru and headed out to the Elezent mountain range.

It had been a while since I’d had a solo trip, but progress was steady enough. It didn’t take me long to see it. It was white around the peak, so I could tell snow had built up there. But hey, the bear clothes featured cold resistance, so it was fine. Just a girl climbing a mountain in her incredibly OP bear equipment, nothing to see here and—like always—no reason to wear anything else.

Kumayuru headed out of the town and started to run toward the mountain range. As I looked at the approaching mountain, my map updated.

“Boy, that’s…mountainous.”

Before long, I reached the base of the mountain. I heard that there was a path somewhere, but…they hadn’t meant this narrow game trail, right? Still, the path was somehow just big enough for Kumayuru to pass through.

As long as there was a trail, it’d be easier to progress, so I’d take it. Even if I got lost, I’d be able to use my bear map skill to get back. The only inconvenience about it was I didn’t know quite what would lie up ahead.

I returned Kumayuru, who brought me all the way here, and asked Kumakyu to take me the rest of the way. After all, if I only rode Kumayuru, Kumakyu would get sulky.

“Kumakyu, I choose you. You got this, little buddy.”

Kumakyu headed out on the game trail. Though the slope gradually steepened, Kumakyu kept trudging onward. There were a lot of trees at the foot of the mountain and the vegetation was dense, but it thinned out steadily as we went up. Kumakyu didn’t show any sign of fatigue, of course.

My Detection skill showed monster signals, but they were all far off and none of them showed any sign of coming closer. In time, the trees disappeared, replaced with roughly-strewn boulders. When I looked down, I could tell we climbed up a decent amount.

“You doing okay, Kumakyu?”

“Cwoom.” Kumakyu looked up at me.

“Good to hear. If you get tired, let me know.”

I gave Kumakyu a pat on the head. Kumakyu happily sped up and dashed up the sloping path. Snow began to fall, faintly sticking underfoot. Kumakyu ran along that thin layer of powder, leaving bear tracks in their wake.

They say that the weather is fickle on mountains, but I had no idea it’d be like this. Or maybe things were just like that in fantasy worlds?

The snow came down heavier. Thanks to Kumakyu, I’d gotten to this point without much trouble, but a normal person probably would have needed several breaks. Trying to dress for the cold would have weighed them down, but not dressing for it would have made them a popsicle. With my bear onesie, I was neither hot nor cold.

The snow came down still heavier, piling against the ground. Kumakyu didn’t pay any mind to it and ran over the top of the snow. As we climbed, I could see a white wolf to the right of us through the waves of snowflakes.

A snowwolf, its pelt pure and white. Maybe that would make a good souvenir for Fina? But the snowwolf saw me and ran off at once. With Kumakyu with me, it wasn’t going to attack. I wanted that white pelt, but not enough to go chasing after it.

Three types of monsters seemed to inhabit the mountain range: snowwolves, snowrabbits, and snowmin.

Snowwolves were just the same as normal wolves, but white-furred.

Snowrabbits were what they sounded like—just snowy rabbits, but bigger. Harmless if you kept to yourself.

Snowmin on the other hand…those were formed from snow gathering around ice mana gems. I think it’d probably be easiest to imagine them as snowmen with arms and legs. Their attacks were monotonous. They’d try body slamming you or would blow blizzards from their mouths, or at least that’s how they acted in the game. It was so irritating, the way they’d freeze over my weapons and armor.

Also, physical attacks didn’t work on them. If you tried that, they’d just crumble and immediately regenerate. The only way to beat them was by melting their snow using fire.

So, I’d lob fireballs at the snowmin. When the fireball would hit them, the snow would evaporate and they’d drop an ice mana gem. Super effective. These were the mana gems you could use for refrigerators and freezers. They were useful, so I’d pick them up.

Things were going well, but the snowfall steadily turned into a blizzard and…maybe it was time for a break?

Thanks to the bear equipment, I wasn’t cold. Kumakyu seemed fine too. I could keep moving on like this, but the visibility was just too poor. Since I wouldn’t progress well if I forced myself forward, I decided to rest until the blizzard died down.

I tried to find a place to shelter from the snow within my white vision, but…

“Uhhm, I’m not seeing anything.”

I looked across the area, but I couldn’t find any shelter. Maybe I could make one?

As I was faltering about what to do, Kumakyu detected something. A monster? No…I used my Detection skill. It was two people.