Chapter 112: The Bear Becomes a Picture Book Author?

Chapter 112:
The Bear Becomes a Picture Book Author?

 

“YOU WERE GOING TO ASK the trade guild about the honey,” said Tiermina, “and you ended up slaying monsters?”

I took a bite of a pancake that absolutely dripped with honey. Same batch I’d just gotten with Kumayuru and Kumakyu, actually. “I just went with the flow I guess?”

Tiermina let out a long, resigned sigh. C’mon, I had gone with the flow! But when I’d gotten to the trade guild, they told me I wouldn’t be able to find out about the status of the quest without asking the adventurers’ guild, and when I went to the adventurers’ guild, I ended up running into the adventurers who said they couldn’t fulfill the quest because the goblins ended up being orcs. All flowed pretty logically, you know? I went with the flow, slayed the orcs, and there we were.

“Well, thank you anyway,” she said. “This is a favorite with the kids. I really didn’t want to stop selling it.”

“I’m glad I got to act like the place’s owner for a change.” I’d been leaving the shop in Morin and Tiermina’s hands, but I’ve gotta get up and do something for the place every now and then, right?

“Ha ha! Come on, now, you always act like the place’s owner. We’re all grateful, too—me, Morin, and the orphans.” Tiermina kept flattering me, and I kept ordering delicious pancakes. Ooo, and the new bread selections too… “Are you really going to eat all of that?”

“I’m going on a little trip, so they’re presents.” Now that we had all that honey, I thought of bringing stuff to Lady Flora.

“Presents? Then I’ll ask them to pack them for transport. I’m on my way out too.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m heading to Mr. Lem to ask about stocking up on the honey. We also need to discuss prices.”

With a few parting orders to the kitchen, Tiermina left the shop. The kids brought me my pancakes and bread, I took it with me, and I headed back to my bear house to bear gate my way to the capital.

As I headed to the castle, there was such a different vibe from the one in Crimonia. People stared as I walked past. I guess Crimonia was easier to live in now that they knew me. I mean, people would stare in Crimonia, too, but it was different.

Before I could even show the castle gate guards my guild card, they opened up a path for me. “Come right in.” Seemed a little too easy, guild card or no, but at least I didn’t have to put up with any questioning or suspicious looks.

Just one weird thing, that was all: one of the many guards ran off as soon as he saw me. Hmm. I wondered if…

Heading to that familiar room, I sighed and resigned myself to what was coming. I passed through corridors I’d seen countless times. The castle workers and I traded greetings; there were a lot fewer surprised faces around when people saw me inside the castle. This place had truly accepted the way of the onesie.

I got to the room and knocked. A girl’s voice answered me.

“It’s Yuna, the adventurer,” I answered, which prompted a woman in her early twenties to come out. It was Ange, the one in charge of taking care of Princess Flora.

“Oh! Why, it’s Madame Yuna. Welcome, come in.”

“Is Lady Flora in?”

“She is,” said Ange, letting me in with a smile.

“The bear!” Princess Flora came running over the second she saw me, giving me a hug around the hips. I gave her a pat on the head, and she beamed up at me.

“Lady Flora,” said Ange, “you do seem to like Madame Yuna, don’t you?”

“Yes! I love her!” Her smile was so bright and honest.

“Ms. Ange,” I said, “I brought her some lunch. May I?”

“Yes, you may. I will inform the chef.”

The chef would be prepping the royal family’s lunch about now, and he was sure to be making Lady Flora’s meal too. I always tried to come early enough to tell the chef before that could be a problem, so we didn’t end up wasting food.

“Please make sure to apologize to the chef for me,” I added. I interfered with the chef’s job, after all.

“I will, but I doubt that the chef would be upset considering how ecstatic he was about that recipe you gave him the other day.”

“Good to hear. Could you take this to the chef too, then? It’s our new product.” I pulled the new breads Morin baked from my bear storage and handed them to Ms. Ange.

“I’ll get right to it. Now, if you could look after Lady Flora…” Ange bobbed her head and left.

I looked over at Lady Flora. “Hey, are you hungry?”

“Uh-huh. I am.”

“I know it’s a little early, but how about we have lunch?” I took Lady Flora over to the table in the room. She happily sat in a seat as I lined up the breads in front of her. They were still fresh out of the oven, and a pleasant aroma wafted over us.

“Can I…can I eat them?” Lady Flora’s eyes glittered as she gazed at the sweet treats.

“You can eat whatever you like, but let’s make sure you wipe your hands first.” I used a damp towel to clean off Lady Flora’s hands. As she screwed her face up deep in thought, trying to figure out which bread to eat, there was a knock at the door. It opened before we even replied. The usual crew came piling in.

The crew consisted of the head of the country—the king himself—and Ellelaura. There was also a pretty lady I didn’t recognize. Based on her clothes, she couldn’t be a servant; she wore a luxuriant and beautiful dress, nothing to work in. If I had to guess, I’d say she seemed like she was in the same position as Ellelaura.

“Oh my goodness,” she said, “why…she really is a bear.” Whoever she was, she knew about me.

“Mummy!” When Lady Flora saw the woman, she hopped out of her chair and trotted along over to the lady with a full smile on her face. Her mother? Okay, so…if she was Lady Flora’s mother then…in other words, this was the queen herself.

The lady (the queen!) gave Lady Flora a gentle hug. When their faces were side by side, I could see the family resemblance. Whoa, would Lady Flora grow up to look so pretty? And jeez, that queen was pretty, um. Well-endowed?

The queen noticed my staring and came right over to me with Lady Flora. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Kiteia, Flora’s mother. I’ve heard so much about bears from this little one,” she said, glancing down at her daughter’s smiling face.

“I’m Yuna.”

“Yuna, is it? May I join you? My daughter speaks constantly about you, and I’ve been ever so excited to meet you after all of her stories.”

Not like I could say no, even if I had a reason to. The king and Ellelaura had already sat themselves down. This kind of stuff always makes me wonder what royalty is supposed to do, you know?

“It seems you really do dress as a bear,” said the queen pleasantly.

“Uh-huh…” There. Nice and ambiguous.

“It’s a cute look,” she added.

“Cute!” Lady Flora mimicked, then she hugged me. “Soft.” She rubbed her face into me.

“Ha ha! Seems she is quite fond of you.” Once I brought Lady Flora over to the table with me, I found the king and Ellelaura there choosing bread for themselves.

“The bread looks scrumptious,” said the literal, actual monarch of the country.

“It really does. Now which shall I choose?” muttered Ellelaura.

“So hey,” I said, “hi guys, I just want to be sure, but…why’d you come here?” The queen came to meet me, but what business did these two have with me?

“Because you stopped by of course,” the king proclaimed.

“We don’t have any other reason,” Ellelaura declared.

Which meant they had no reason. Okay, then?

Then the king picked up the bread I brought and started digging in, all without even asking if he could. “Very good.”

“Yeah, totally. But, uh, should a king really be eating food from a commoner?”

“If you really wanted to kill me, you wouldn’t even need poison. You could just chop my head right off, couldn’t you?”

“But you’re supposed to be careful about things like this, seeing as how you’re the royal family. And the bread was…I mean, I brought it all specifically for Lady Flora, so please don’t just eat it without asking.”

Lady Flora picked up a piece of bread with melted cheese. “I want this one.”

“That looks delicious too,” said the regent of the realm.

“You wanna eat some, Daddy?” Lady Flora offered the bread to the king and tilted her head to the side.

“Ha ha, I’m fine. I’m already eating this one.” The king gave Lady Flora a happy little pat on the head.

“Ah, may I have this one, then?” The queen picked up an egg sandwich.

“Please,” I said, “eat anything you’d like.”

“Ah, so she gets special treatment?” the king said.

Hey, I just met her. I had to make some effort.

“In that case,” said Ellelaura, “I’ll have the same thing.” She picked up an egg sandwich like the queen.

As they were all eating, there was a knock at the door and there was Ange with the drinks. For some reason, she’d prepped a ton of cups.

“Thank you for always taking such good care of my daughter,” the king said to me.

“Nah, no need. As long as she’s happy, it brings me joy.”

“My,” said the queen with a chuckle, “you really do wear such a cute bear outfit. Flora went on and on, telling me how ‘the bear was cute,’ but! Oh, that little tail! Delightful.” The thought of me coming up as a topic of family conversation was gonna make me blush. I wished they wouldn’t talk about that stuff, but I couldn’t just forbid Lady Flora from talking about me.

“Still, you do some very amusing things,” the king said. Since I had no idea what he was talking about, I just nibbled on my bread. “Oh, I mean the tunnel and Mileela. Cliff seemed absolutely exhausted when he came to report about that the other day,” the king said with a hearty laugh.

“Is Cliff still in the capital?”

“He’s already left. Grumbling all the while about a mountain of work he needed to finish, to boot,” said Ellelaura.

“Yeesh. Seems tough being a lord.”

“You speak as though you had nothing to do with it.”

I mean, I didn’t.

“If Cliff collapses due to overwork,” said Ellelaura, “you will take responsibility for that, won’t you?”

“What, would you rather I close up the tunnel?” If I did that, Cliff’s workload would dry up.

The king cut in: “I can’t have that. Cliff will just have to do what he can.”

“In that case,” I said, “I think the responsibility lies with you, Your Majesty.”

I successfully passed the buck to the king. Man, that felt good.

Ellelaura nodded. “Then perhaps I’ll head back to Crimonia in order to lend my husband a hand?”

“Ah, no need. We’ve arranged to send people to Crimonia. He’ll just need to do what he can with the people he has until then.”

“Oh, really?” Ellelaura’s mouth tightened, as if she was fighting a frown. “And here I was thinking I could finally go back.”

I put a pancake in front of Lady Flora and loaded it with just devastating amounts of honey.

“Bear, what’s that?” she piped up.

“This is a pancake. They are very delicious.”

Lady Flora gripped a fork with her tiny hand and dug into the honey-laden hotcakes. Since the adults were wistfully looking at the pancakes, I brought some out for them, too. Once Lady Flora finished eating and looked satisfied, I brought out my second gift.

“Lady Flora,” I said, holding out a book, “this is for you.” Across the front of the book, in huge letters, it said: The Bear and the Girl, Volume Two.

“It’s the bear book!” Lady Flora happily accepted it. The moment she did, Ange, who was behind her, leaned forward and stretched her neck to catch a glimpse
of it.

“Ange?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Weird. I wonder what that was about?

“Is this a continuation of the book I saw earlier?” the king asked.

“Lady Flora liked it, so I wrote up the next part.”

“A jack-of-all-trades, eh? You’re a first-rate adventurer, a top-notch magician, a fine cook, and a picture book artist on top of it all.”

“Drawing is just a hobby though.” There were tons of better artists in this world.

The king spoke up: “I have a request, Yuna.”

“What’s that?”

“I would like to make copies of the book you drew. There are many who want to read it; I keep receiving requests for its loan. You could probably sell copies throughout the country.”

“Who exactly wants my book?” There was only one copy of it in the whole world. I hadn’t thought anyone would find out about that book.

“Mostly the women with children who work in this castle, but lately, some of the men want it for their families too.” As though to prove his point, Ange took peeks at the book from behind Lady Flora.

“Your drawings are so striking. Several people have already asked me about the book too,” Ellelaura said.

“But why does everyone know about the book I gave Lady Flora?” I thought Ange would be the only one who could enter this room.

“Lady Flora is always happily carrying it around with her,” said the king.

“Is she really?”

Ange nodded. “When the weather is nice, she’ll bring it to the garden and have her servants read it to her.” Whoa, had Lady Flora really been doing that? I mean, it wasn’t like I could ask her to stop. Here she was, at that very moment already happily reading the new book I made her.

“And thanks to her carrying it around everywhere, the precious book you’ve made is getting dog-eared,” Ellelaura added. “It would be such a relief if we could make a copy for her to carry around.”

I supposed it would be a shame if the book I made for her disintegrated and she couldn’t read it anymore. Copies could preserve it; just like someone photocopying something important or keeping their favorite stuffed animal from childhood in a box for safekeeping.

“In that case,” I said, “sure you can.” (Behind Lady Flora, Ange looked ecstatic.) “But please only distribute it among the people in the castle.” It made me embarrassed to think that people were reading it, so I really wanted to limit the readers to the people who already wanted the book.

“Why’s that?” asked the king. “If you sold it throughout the country, it would fly off the shelves.”

“Well,” I said, looking for the right words, “isn’t it kind of embarrassing to have something you made circulating all across the country?”

“Why are you saying that now, of all times? And in that outfit?”

I guess this onesie was embarrassing even in another world. Since everyone interacted with me like I was normal lately, I’d almost convinced myself otherwise.

“Your outfit isn’t embarrassing, Yuna. It’s cute,” said Ellelaura.

“Bear, you’re cute!” cried Flora happily.

“Yes,” said the queen, “you’re extremely adorable.”

Why was it that their words didn’t make me happy? A bear outfit might look good on a little girl like Lady Flora, at least. Maybe I’d bring one of the bear jackets from the shop over for her? I thought the queen would get a kick out of it. Heck, it might even annoy the king.

 

They talked me into it: I allowed my book to be mass produced.

“Once you print them,” I said, “could you give me some books too?” Since they were already going to the trouble of printing them, I figured I might as well give the orphans some copies. There were some little kids there who still couldn’t read, and I could use this to get them to study.

“Sure. How many would you need?”

“Maybe about ten of them?”

“What will you do with so many books?”

“If Lady Flora is enjoying the book that much,” I said, “I thought I could give books to the orphans.”

“In that case, of course. Ellelaura, I’m leaving that up to you.”

Ellelaura nodded. “I will place the request immediately.”

And that’s how a snack run for a kid turned into a limited run for a kids’ book hitting bookstore shelves.