Chapter 86: The Bear Goes to the Adventurers’ Guild

Chapter 86:
The Bear Goes to the Adventurers’ Guild

 

“YUNA, DEAR, this is the inn.” And it was a lot bigger than I expected. “There are usually people who come from other seaports to buy fish. Right now, though, there are…vacancies.” The two of them went inside first, then I tagged along.

“Is Deigha in?”

“That you, Damon?”

A tan machoman sat behind the counter, buffly. Our eyes met.

“Muscles?” I blurted.

“Bear?” he blurted back.

He did have pretty ridiculous muscles. Like some kind of sea god, right out of the waves.

“Damon,” he grunted, “who’s that cute girl in the bear clothes?”

“The girl who saved our lives. We nearly died in the snow on the way to Crimonia.”

“That’s overstating it a little,” I said.

“And she’s too modest to boot. We collapsed in a blizzard, and she found us. Then she protected us and got us all the way back to the seaport.”

“This little bear girl did that…”

“She wants to stay at the inn. Do you have any open rooms?”

“Mm. We pretty much just have the adventurers who came in earlier. Tons of vacancies.”

“So you could you let her stay here?”

“Yeah, of course. Can’t serve meals, though. I bet Damon’s told you this, but we’re short on food in this seaport. Sorry to be rude, but I don’t have the reserves to go feeding a stranger.”

Ehh. I had the bread Morin made me and tons of other stuff, so I didn’t have any issues when it came to food.

“If you happen to have ingredients,” he added, “I could whip something up, though.”

Since he offered, I decided I’d take him up on it. Too bad I couldn’t get any seafood, though. I pulled meat, veggies, flour, and other stuff from my bear storage and set them in front of the machoman.

“If you could make something with this…” I said.

“Whoa, whoa—how’ve you got this much food on you?!”

I shrugged. “I don’t know how long I’ll be staying, but just whip up something tasty, if you could. If you need more ingredients, just let me know.”

“All right, I got it. I’ll get something ready right away. Wish I could serve up some seafood, though. The name’s Deigha.”

“I’m Yuna.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Miss Bear.”

Why couldn’t he just use my name like a normal person? Why couldn’t anyone?

Damon and Yuula headed home and I got my prepped meal, which was surprisingly delicious. The guy could cook. With a full stomach, I was shown to my room. Since there were tons of open rooms, he let me have the biggest single room on a deferred payment plan. There was even enough room to summon my bears.

I sat down on the bed and pulled out my bear phone. Fina might be worried about me, so I called her.

“Yuna?!”

After a few bear calls, Fina picked up.

“Fina,” I said in my best secret agent voice, “I’m in.”

“Really? Thank goodness.” I could hear how relieved she was. It was touching that she was that concerned for me. “So is the ocean pretty?”

“Yep. Pretty, big, blue.” Though I still hadn’t seen it up close.

“That’s so nice. I wish I could see it.”

“If Tiermina says it’s okay, do you want to come with me sometime?”

“Do you really mean it?!”

Well, I couldn’t really bring her until after the bandits and the kraken were gone, but why not? Speaking of which, I didn’t want to worry Fina, so I didn’t tell her about the bandits, kraken, or famine. I just told her I was going to take in the chill ocean vibes for a while and might take a little time to come back to Crimonia.

“Well then, if anything happens, don’t hesitate to call.” It was late, so I wanted to keep the conversation short.

“I won’t. But Yuna, please don’t do anything reckless either.”

 

I awoke the next morning to two huge black-and-white buns resting on my bed. I inspected them more closely and saw that Kumayuru and Kumakyu were curled up and sleeping on the bed in cub form. Right, I’d summoned them as a security measure the night before. There was a fifteen-year-old maiden sleeping here, after all, so I needed at least a little security.

My bears were sleeping so peacefully, though. They were going to wake me if anybody came, right? When I petted them, they looked at me, gave small matching yawns, and…immediately curled up again. I recalled my little guys, climbed out of bed, and changed from my white bear clothes to my black bear clothes. Then I headed on to the dining hall downstairs.

“You’re early. I’ve got food ready if you want it.” Macho muscleman Deigha served me breakfast, and it was delicious as before.

The workers at the inn included Deigha, his wife, and their kids, who took more after their mother. They were all older than me, and the son helped out with the inn while also working as a fisherman. Though they’d been cooking at the inn with the fish the son caught, he was stuck on land like most of the fisherman and so was helping out back at the inn itself.

I think the sister was a few years older than me. She would help with cleaning, laundry, cooking, and anything her mom needed. I was relieved to find that they weren’t macho like their father. Would’ve been way too much macho for one building.

“How’s it taste?” Deigha grunted. But he grunted everything.

“Great!”

“Well that’s good to hear. And you’re sure we can have a share to eat too?”

“You’re letting me have a nice room. It’s the least I can do.”

According to Deigha, some households were close to running out of food. Though they were splitting among people they knew, even they were almost out. “At the very least,” I added, “the trade guild is distributing food, right?”

“Hmph! They’re pretending to, that’s for sure, but they’re actually just lining the pockets of the rich.”

Just as Yuula and Damon said. In that case, I guess it’d be better to avoid the trade guild as a place to hand out food. “You can’t get food either, then?”

Deigha shook his head. “The adventurers’ guild is hunting wolves and other animals in the woods to distribute those, but that only goes so far.”

“The adventurers’ guild is doing that?”

“Aye, they’re helping a lot of people, too.”

So the trade guild was trash, but the adventurers’ guild might be decent. Interesting.

 

When I left the inn, I headed to the adventurers’ guild with the help of Deigha’s directions. I found it right away; it was smaller than Crimonia’s. I prepared myself for another fight with rowdy adventurers as I went in, but…

“No one’s…around?”

“How rude. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

I looked in the direction of that voice to find…an exhibitionist. She wore a short skirt, a shirt that emphasized her abundant cleavage, and was drinking even though it was morning.

“All right, cute cub, what’re you doing in an adventurers’ guild?”

“This is the adventurers’ guild, right?” I hadn’t accidentally walked into an adult shop, then?

“Yeah. What of it?”

“What’s with that outfit?”

“Rude. These are my clothes. Drives the boys wild,” she said, bending forward to emphasize her chest. Okay, way to rub it in on the bear girl with the washboard chest. I’d catch up with her in a few years…right?

“Okay,” I said slowly, “but there aren’t any men here? Or…anyone?”

“’Course not. You haven’t heard what’s going on in this town, bear?”

“Kraken, bandits, famine…I get the gist of it. And a few high-ranking adventurers ran off with some of the townspeople, leaving only the low-ranking adventurers left.” And nobody else.

“You’ve got it mostly right, kiddo. But the adventurers who stayed are hanging out at the trade guild.”

“Really? Why the trade guild?”

“They’re low-ranking, but they can still hunt lesser monsters. The trade guild buys those at a steep price, so most of ’em have gone over there.”

I see. So they were making their money off selling to the trade guild rather than here. The adventurers were choosing the big bucks over the big bust…not that I was going to say that out loud though.

“The adventurers’ guild can’t buy stuff for higher prices?”

“Hmph. I’ve heard that one before.” The woman glared at me. I couldn’t help but flinch—her gaze was so sharp. “Ha ha, I’m joking. You’re a jumpy one. What’re you here for, cutie bear?”

“I heard you haven’t got enough food, so I came to help. I’m an adventurer.”

“You? An adventurer? Pfft. Heh. Ahahahaha! Been a while since I had a good laugh, thanks. You’re supposed to be an adventurer, little bear girl? Aha ha ha!”

She kept breaking out into new peals of laughter.

“Yeah, I am an adventurer. Okay?”

The woman sipped at her drink and nearly snorted it out in another cackle. “S-sorry, sorry, I—pfffeeeahhahahahaha! I really just, ah, (snort) can’t imagine a girl wearing such a cute bear outfit being an adventurer. Just to make sure, would you show me your guild card?”

“What about yours?”

“Oh, right. My bad. I’m the guild master of this town. Atola’s the name.”

I never would’ve guessed. Guess they just didn’t have enough talent around. I handed my guild card to Atola.

“Aren’t there any other staff here?” I asked.

“Nah, we don’t have time to dillydally while the town is in this state,” she said, and immediately took a massive swig of booze. “Whew. No dillydallying. Now, those who know how to fight are in the mountain gathering food and the stronger ones are negotiating a dispatch of adventurers. Everyone else is butchering the monsters and animals or distributing the food.”

Deigha said something like that too, that the adventurers’ guild was distributing food.

“Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed from the ‘absolutely everything around this place,’ but we’ve got a food shortage right now. Giant squid troubles and such. Tons of townspeople without enough to eat. I can’t just stand by and let them starve. I’m going to do everything in my power for them.”

Huh. I guess I shouldn’t have judged her by looks; she was working hard for her townspeople.

 

Atola went behind the guild counter and set my guild card on a crystal panel, which she started to operate.

“D-Rank Adventurer… Name: Yuna,” Atola read out loud. “This is…” She narrowed her eyes as she read aloud. I wish I could’ve seen it too. “Monster…slayings…tiger…black viper…bandits…quest success rate…one hundred percent?”

She was muttering in a voice so low I could barely catch it. Based on the snippets I heard, it seemed like she was reading up on the monsters I’d slayed. Atola finished reading my info and…froze up.

“Okay, joke’s over. This is…” She took a deep breath “…this is unbelievable. Who are you, really?”

“Just an adventurer.” What else could I say?

“Just an—excuse me, but you singlehandedly slayed a goblin horde and their goblin king. You slayed tigerwolves and a black viper. You’ve taken down bandits, and there’s not a single black mark on your record. No failures. This is unbelievable.”

But it was true.

“And you did it all—every single thing—alone? Come on.” Atola narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. “I just don’t see it.”

What, was it the bear suit?

“This is already too much, and on top of that…this? Really?”

“What do you mean?” There shouldn’t be anything recorded about the ten thousand monsters I’d slayed, right? Sanya made sure of that.

“There’s a note here that only a guild master can view.” She looked me over again, as if watching my reaction. “Kiddo, you’ve got the Kingdom of Elfanica’s seal on here.”

“Elfanica’s seal?” First I was hearing about it. “What’s that supposed to be?”

“It’s given to adventurers and merchants who have the kingdom’s utmost trust. It’s conferred to those who worked for the sake of the country and achieve great things. You’re not faking your age, are you? Some kinda weird aging backward disease?”

“I’m a fifteen-year-old girl.” And one with no idea about that thing stamped onto my guild card. It had to have been the king who did it. They must’ve done it while they were entering the entry permit into my guild card. If they were going to do that, I wish they’d at least let me know about it.

“What did you do in Elfanica Kingdom?”

“Just, uh, helped somebody out a little. You know?” I mean, I couldn’t tell her that I killed an army of monsters hell-bent on destroying the kingdom in a quest of mad vengeance. It had to have been the whole thing with the ten thousand monsters.

Atola narrowed her eyes and looked at me dubiously. “You’re not involved any with the royal family,
are you?”

“No. I’m just your everyday adventurer.” As if I’d be running around in a bear outfit if I was royalty. But this did raise the question: if I went to guilds in other towns, would this always cause such a commotion? “Is it possible to erase that info or something?”

“Wh-What’re you saying?! You’re talking about erasing the seal of Elfanica Kingdom.”

“Yeah, but it’s really inconvenient when it makes people flip out like you just did.”

“Look, it’s fine. The only ones who can see the seal are guild masters. When you use your card normally, no one’ll know. But if you’re having trouble at a guild, you can show it to the guild master and probably get pretty good treatment.”

Guess it was like how they used identification seals back in feudal Japan. Still, though… “But what if the guild master goes around spreading it?”

“They better not. Seals meant only for a guild master’s eyes are considered top secret. Disclosing it to anyone would be a real violation of privacy.”

Great. But Atola did seem like a humongous lush, so that wasn’t super encouraging.

“You’re dressed oddly,” she said, “but you’re powerful. We’re honored to welcome you to our guild.”

She offered her hand, and I grabbed it with my bear puppet. Just like that, she slipped into her role as the guild master.

“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” she said, folding her hands. “What brought you to the adventurers’ guild, Yuna? You wouldn’t happen to be here to take care of our bandit problem, by any chance?”

“I could do that, too, if you’d like, but mostly I came to offer food for anybody who needs it. It sounds like coming to the adventurers’ guild would be a better idea than the trade guild.”

“No kidding. I’m glad to hear it, Yuna.”

“Would wolves work?”

“They’re meat, aren’t they? Hell, even one or two would help right now.”

Oh, good. I had five thousand dead wolves.

“Sei! Are you here, Sei?” Atola turned to a back room and called out.

“What do you need?” A male staff member appeared from the back room.

“Sei, how’s our food supply looking?”

“Not especially good. We are prioritizing the distribution to the elderly and children, but we don’t even have enough for them.”

“I see. This girl will apparently give us wolves, so if you could please handle them…?”

This male staffer, Sei, gave me a look. “Guild master, who is this adorable child?”

“She’s Yuna, an adventurer. Came in yesterday, she says.”

“An adventurer? I see. I am Sei, a worker at the adventurers’ guild. Nice to meet you.” He didn’t make any fuss about my appearance and just gave me a polite greeting. Didn’t even ask about the bear outfit! “Is it true that you are giving us wolves?”

“Yeah. I have other stuff, but mostly wolves. I mean, a lot of wolves.”

“That would be very helpful.” He bowed his head and thanked me.

“Cool. Uh. Now, I do have about one thousand five hundred and seventy eight (maybe seventy-nine?) dead wolves for you all, so I’m probably going to need a place to just, like. Stack ’em, I guess. A wolf…stacking…zone.”

That wasn’t the real number, but it sounded like enough to cover the town here. Wish I had some veggies and bread, though.

“What did you just say?”

Their jaws were on the floor.

“Oh, I’m looking for a dead wolf zone. For all the dead wolves I got. ”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Did you just say a thousand and a half?!”

Maybe a thousand wasn’t enough for a food-starved seaport? “I could part with two thousand, if you want”

“That isn’t the—hm. You have a lot of wolves. Where are you even keeping them?”

“Look, I killed the wolves and I just have them, okay? I’ve got an item bag that holds a ton of stuff,” I answered. I wasn’t lying.

Atola nodded slowly. “That seal of yours. I think I may understand why you have it.”

“A seal?” Sei repeated her.

“Don’t worry about it, Sei,” said Atola. “Yuna, if you really have that many, just a hundred will do us fine. We couldn’t butcher a thousand of them even if you gave them to us.”

Made sense. I didn’t know how many staff she had, but butchering a hundred wolves would take time. But man, just a hundred wolves wouldn’t help me clear out my inventory.

“Sei, please lead her to the storehouse. Then, please have all the staffers butcher and distribute them.”

“Oh, and guys? Please don’t tell anyone I gave you the wolves.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to draw attention.”

Atola and Sei looked at my outfit again. I knew what they really, really wanted to say. But there was a pretty big difference between standing out for my looks and standing out because I just fed a village. People might end up getting in my face because they wanted more food. I couldn’t deal with that.

“Got it. Sei, please keep this secret.”

“Understood. Ms. Yuna, this way please,” Sei answered, and he led me to the storehouse.

“This is our, ah, ‘dead wolf zone,’ as you so colorfully put it.”

I pulled out the wolves from the bear storage and piled them into a heap on the floor of the storehouse.

“Thank you very much, truly. This will be of help.”

 

It was too bad I couldn’t get rid of as many wolves as I hoped, but Sei told me that they tell me if they needed more. It looked like I had another chance to get rid of my stock.

For now I headed to the ocean—finally.

I mean, if they would’ve had a market, I would have bought seafood practically first thing. It didn’t seem like that’d be possible, though. And if I went ahead and fished without asking, I’d definitely get in trouble, wouldn’t I?

When I started walking toward the ocean, I saw Yuula ahead of me.

“Hey Yuula, where are you headed to?”

“To you, of course. Didn’t I promise you yesterday? I’m here to show you around the seaport. But when I headed to the inn earlier today, I heard you already left. I was looking for you.”

“Sorry. I went to the adventurers’ guild.” I hadn’t forgotten—I was just so worried about the seaport’s food issue.

“Are you free now, though? I can show you around, if you’d like.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, with a grateful smile.

“Great! Where are you trying to go, Yuna?”

“For now, I was thinking of heading to the ocean.”

“In that case, I’ll lead you there. What would you like to do after that? Is there anywhere you want to go? There’s not much going on right now, admittedly.”

“If there’s a place selling fish, I’d like to check it out.” Not that I expected there to be one right now.

“The trade guild is managing the fish, so you’d probably need to go there to buy some. You might be able to buy some if you paid, but the pricing’s ridiculous.”

Supply and demand, I guess. I had money, so I could buy some, but it felt messed up to buy the seaport’s limited food resources just because I had a hankering for fish. “Oh, and where’s Damon?”

“He’s giving out the food you gave us to the people we know.”

“Are you sure about doing that? Is there enough?”

“We’ll be okay. We’re trading our limited food with each other.”

“If you don’t have enough, please let me know. Like, uh, wolves for instance.”

 

After we walked for a while, the coast came into view. The vast expanse of the ocean spread out before us. Blue and endless ocean, white-speckled skies. The sea was so placid that it seemed ridiculous to think a kraken might be lurking. To the left, I saw a ton of fishing boats moored in the harbor. I bet they’d be out to sea without the threat of the kraken.

“Is your ship out there too?” I asked.

“Yes, we have one there. Not that it gets much use these days.”

“Where does the kraken appear?”

I pointed out at the ocean that spread out before my eyes. I just couldn’t believe that a kraken existed in such a calm place.

“Anywhere it wants. It attacks any ships that go out too far. Since some of the people who were fishing nearby got attacked too, we know it doesn’t have a main hunting ground. I’ve mentioned before—it’s even come close to the seaport. It could appear anywhere.”

Right now, I had no way of fighting a kraken. I couldn’t fight on top of the ocean. I couldn’t fly and I couldn’t dive into the water. The game had an item you could use to breathe underwater, and some players had a Mermaid skill for these things. But I didn’t have an item to help me breathe or swim underwater. I couldn’t fly either, obviously. I couldn’t defeat the kraken with my current abilities at all.

If we could only fight on the ground, I could’ve served the whole town roasted squid. But there was no point in whining about the things I didn’t have. Even with the bear equipment, I couldn’t fight in the ocean. All I could do was hope for a high-ranking adventurer or the troops to make a move.

 

I looked over the ocean as I walked along the coast. There were little things around the beach—clams, maybe? If I just had miso, I could have served them up with some miso soup.

I put out the money for the job, so I wondered if I could get a high-ranking adventurer to come out to slay that kraken. Walking along the beach, I could see a cliff ahead of where we walked.

“Yuna, the bandits appear ahead of that cliff,” Yuula warned. If I walked alone, I wondered if they’d attack me?

Yuula and I ended up wandering around town until sunset. When we stopped by the adventurers’ guild partway, I saw them distributing the wolves and some other food I gave them.