Chapter 103: The Bear Goes to the Trade Guild

Chapter 103:
The Bear Goes to the Trade Guild

 

I STOOD BEFORE what was now “Bear Tunnel,” trying to grin and bear it through the humiliation. Man, Cliff’s smile made me wanna get back at him…and just then, I had an idea on how.

Yeah, I’d make a bear statue for him, all right. I gathered my mana and crafted a realistic bear in the middle of a ferocious roar, ready to tear some poor jerk to shreds. Very satisfying…until someone gave me a whack on the head.

“Ouch.”

A soft one, but come on!

“What do you think you’re making?”

“Why, it’s a bear, Cliff! Didn’t you want a bear?”

“Why did you make it look so ominous and scary?”

“To make you mad?” Another quick, light bonk. “In that case, what kind of bear am I supposed to make? Say ‘a statue of you’ and I walk out, by the way,” I said, rubbing my head.

“Make something like the ones at your shop, why don’t you? People love those little guys.”

Jeez, even Cliff found those chibi Nendoroid bears cute. They’d really taken off, even in Crimonia. Every once in a while, I’d spot kids coming to the shop and hugging them in delight.

“In that case,” said Milaine, “it would be nice to have it holding something, just like the bear at the shop.” (Fun fact: the bear in front of the shop bore a loaf of bread not just for the sake of holding something, but because the bear was a baker.)

Cliff nodded. “Then how about swords? They’ll be like guardians of the tunnel.”

“Good idea, Cliff.”

They went on without me, the person who was actually doing the statue labor thing. The old guy gang and Atola didn’t know about my shop, so they just kept out of it and listened.

“But then wouldn’t it also need a shield?”

“I think that’d just get in the way.”

Cliff and Milaine finished their discussion, and we went with a cute bear like the one at the store, but with a neat sword. Now, I thought the bear could use a big ol’ shield—maybe coincidentally too big—but that earned me another bonk on the head.

Weird. I thought it was a good idea. If it was going to be a guardian, then it’d definitely need a big shield to guard things, right? We ended up with a Nendoroid-style stone bear statue holding a sword by the tunnel entrance. The shield was rejected because it made it so you couldn’t see the bear (which was a total coincidence).

“They’re rather cute bears.”

“Indeed…”

Atola and the old guy gang looked unsure as they inspected the statue.

“What is it? You don’t like it?” And after all my hard work…

“No, it’s not like that at all, just…the bear seems almost too cute. That said, I think it’s better than the freaky one from earlier,” said Atola, shaking her head. The old men agreed. No one really objected, at least, so boom: one Nendoroid-style stone bear holding a sword on the Mileela-side entrance of the tunnel, ready and done. And now…ugh, I’d see a bear every time I used the tunnel.

 

With the tunnel inspected and the bear statue erected, we returned to the seaport.

“What do you want to do next, Cliff?” asked Milaine. “I’d like to head over to the trade guild.”

“Right. I’ll need a lot of assistance from them—I’d better drop by too.”

“No kidding—having the lord of Crimonia present would give me a whole lot of leverage if I need it.”

“So about me…” I started. No way they could possibly need me for this one, right? Off I went, now…right?

“Of course, you’ll be accompanying us as well,” Cliff said, as though it was only obvious. “You have more clout than I do, after all.”

He must’ve been teasing again. No way a bear could have more political power than a lord.

“You’re right,” said Milaine. “Based on everything up until now, Yuna would have more pull.” C’mon, wouldn’t a lord be good enough?

As if reading my mind specifically to annoy me, even Atola butted in: “I think that having Yuna around would make discussions go a lot smoother.”

Political clout? Me? Ugh, I wanted to scream. Me? Me?

“I’ll have the carriages head to the trade guild,” Atola said, and the driver headed on out.

 

Yep, they won: I ended up following them to the trade guild, and all in the same carriages we’d come by.

“Atola,” I said, trying to change the subject “so about that plot of land…” I asked Atola for a plot of land where I could build a bear house. Since I was going to build a house in an ocean-side town, I wanted to make sure I had a nice view.

“I’ve found a few good options, so I thought you could choose your favorite.”

“About that…could I build my house in a place between the tunnel and the seaport, like Cliff mentioned earlier?” It wouldn’t stand out as much that way.

“That would be fine, but are you going to build it by yourself?” Atola mused. “I guess you’d be capable of that.” She’d seen the bear statue, after all, so she looked half-convinced.

“You’ll tire yourself out trying to follow along with her absurdity,” said Cliff. “She made a bear house overnight in my town. You can’t imagine the commotion.”

Oh, I guess I had, huh? It felt like forever ago, but I guess it was just a few months ago.

“A bear house?” Atola repeated.

“Every single one of the houses she makes is a bear house. She’s got one in the royal capital, and it’s just as bearish as the rest.”

I gave him a look. “How do you know about my house in the capital?”

“I saw it, obviously. Ellelaura howled with laughter when she got a look, let me tell you.”

Right, of course Cliff visited the capital, so of course he knew about that and my traveling bear house. Nothing to do but roll with it, I suppose.

“Cliff.”

“What is it?”

“About the house I’m building—can I put it anywhere? Do you have any ideas? I’ll hear you out.”

“None in particular. You can build it wherever you like, as long as you don’t block the road.”

I looked to Atola for final confirmation. “Yeah, fine by me. I’ll tell old man Kuro and the others.”

With permission from Cliff and Atola, I could put the bear house wherever I liked. I started staring out the carriage window right away, wondering where. Maybe…there? Or no, duh, this spot was way better? I noted a few of the candidates in my head and tried imagining it. That spot was closer to the tunnel, but far from the seaport. That one was close to the seaport, but far from the tunnel.

Ooo, but maybe that spot would work? It was close to the beach. All that bear house imagining made the trip go quick—before long, the carriage pulled up to the trade guild. We got off the carriage, and Jeremo and the old guy gang loaded off too. Atola led the lot of us inside.

“Atola? Has something happened to all of you?” The staff were surprised when Atola and the old man gang came in.

Atola looked around. “Is everyone here?”

“Uh, a few people are out,” one of the staff members answered after a brief check.

“Right. We’ve got enough. Would you listen carefully to what I’ve got to tell you? You can tell anyone who’s out when they return.”

The staff members stopped what they were doing and gathered around, listening.

“We all know what happened with the previous guild master, and we know that we need a new guild master right away. For this task, I would like to announce we have selected Jeremo.”

“You chose Jeremo?” The staff turned to look at him. Jeremo glanced at the exit.

“I apologize for making a unilateral decision about this,” said Atola, “but we needed to.”

“Not at all,” said one of the staff quickly. “Atola, if you and the elders have decided this, then we won’t object.” The others nodded along…

…or most of them did. “Are you sure the seaport branch is allowed to pick a guild master itself? Don’t we need to check in with the trade guild headquarters?”

“I’ll send them a report,” said Milaine, taking a step forward, “so there’s no need to worry.”

“Um, and you are?”

“I am Milaine, trade guild master of Crimonia. After hearing what Atola and the elders had to say, I decided to install him as the guild master. Of course, this is temporary, so if doesn’t seem to be a good fit in the end, I will have him step down.”

The staff seemed shocked by Milaine’s dramatic entrance. Can’t say I blame them—to these guys, she just came out of nowhere.

“Please note, too, that this seaport is now under the jurisdiction of Crimonia’s Lord Fochrosé and his family.”

The staff looked to Cliff, lord of Crimonia, and waves of shock ran through the crowd.

“But I thought we were nowhere near Crimonia?”

“That,” said Milaine with a smile, “is not a problem.” She explained that I had…“discovered” a tunnel that connected to Crimonia, and soon enough people would be able to commute between the towns.

The staff looked conflicted. Jeremo had become the new guild master out of nowhere, after all, and all because some foreign trade guild master and the lord of Crimonia himself popped in out of the blue to declare it. Drop on that a tunnel connecting to Crimonia being discovered just now, out of nowhere, and the future plans the two told them all for their seaport? It was their whole future, blurted out all at once, and it was a lot to process.

Oh, and me? I listened from an out-of-the-way chair I plopped myself down in. Did they even need me?

Sure, I didn’t mind in the end, coming all the way out to the trade guild, but Cliff and Milaine were all “Yuna asked us to come here,” and “The bear asked us to do this,” to the trade guild people. I hadn’t said a single word.

Jeremo came over to me, sighing as he did. “Cliff and Milaine are really something.”

There they were, giving detailed instructions to the trade guild. Hurray. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be over there listening in?”

“They told me what I need to do. Are you sure you should be hanging out in the corner like this?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but Cliff and Milaine sure trust you.”

Did they? “We’ve got deep history.”

Things had started with the orphanage and Cliff. I refused to sell him the eggs, we cleared up that misunderstanding, and I escorted Noa to the capital. I’d even slayed ten thousand monsters to protect Cliff. When it came to Milaine, there was all the stuff with the kokekko eggs, and all her work to open Morin’s shop. The two of them knew, too, that I defeated tigerwolves and a black viper.

Put it like that, and you could say that I was indebted to them. I’d helped them out, too, even if we hadn’t known each other for long. So much had happened, and all so fast…

Nothing like this—no relationships like this—would’ve been forged back when I shut myself in my room, day in and day out.

It didn’t take long for Cliff and Milaine to finish their explanations, and we all headed back to the inn. I couldn’t stop myself from muttering to myself about whether there was any point in having me there, but…both everyone from Crimonia and everyone from Mileela told me, “Yes.”

Because only I’d spent a lot of time in both towns, obviously. That was probably it.

As Cliff said: “They trust me because you’re here.”

Or, in the words of the geezer brigade: “We trusted Lord Cliff because you seemed to trust him.”

Even the trade guild staff told me that they could trust anyone who was friends with the girl who saved the seaport. Which was some serious responsibility, right? If one side betrayed the other, wouldn’t that become my responsibility? So weird. When had my life turned into this?

No one asked how I felt about it.