Chapter 115: The Bear Goes Out With the Sisters

Chapter 115:
The Bear Goes Out With the Sisters

 

SEVERAL DAYS after coming back from the capital, I heard the tunnel was basically done, so I thought I’d take a day trip to Mileela. I wanted to get my hands on a certain ingredient.

It’d be a lonely trip…but then I remembered that Fina wanted to see the ocean, so I headed over to the orphanage to invite her along. Fina and Shuri worked at a lot of different locations to help out. They watched over the little kids at the orphanage, helped them take care of the kokekko, lent a hand at the Bear’s Lounge, harvested my monsters, and did all kinds of odd jobs.

For the time being, I headed over to Tiermina at the orphanage, who would probably know where they were. I found the orphans collecting eggs in the henhouse. They’d wash the collected eggs with water and put them away in the cases I made using earth magic.

“Morning everyone!”

“Bear girl!”

“Oh, good morning!”

“Yuna!”

They ran right over to me, shouting happily. Looked like everyone was doing their part. They were carefully holding the eggs, feeding the birds, cleaning up the henhouse, and each doing what work they could. Liz divided up the tasks according to their ability. The bigger kids did the heavy lifting, and the ones who were good with animals took care of the birds.

These kids had all either lost their parents or been abandoned, so they’d convinced themselves they didn’t need anyone to care for them. Liz and the headmistress were slowly teaching them to trust again.

Liz herself came over to me. “Ms. Yuna, good morning.”

“Morning, Liz. How are the kids?”

“They’re good kids, so everything has been going great. They know what keeps them fed, after all.” Liz helped teach them that.

“Cool. If you need more help or anything else, just let me know.”

“We’re doing fine. The kids and I are all happy thanks to you. Asking for anything else would just upset this little harmony we have going,” Liz answered back with a joyful smile.

“Don’t say that. Actually, tell me if you need anything, okay? If something bad happened to you or the headmistress, that’d be a disaster.” I wasn’t exaggerating either. If either of them passed away or something, the orphanage would be in hot water. The two of them were pretty much the orphans’ parents and older sisters rolled into one—basically the only, and therefore precious, family they had.

“I mean it,” I added before heading out. “Tell me if you actually do run into any issues.” Then it was off to the shed next to the henhouse, where I found Tiermina counting eggs with Fina and Shuri. Looked like it was orphanage work for them today.

“Ah, Yuna! You’re here awfully early today.”

Usually I’d pop in at the shop for the mornings and eat breakfast before coming over to the orphanage. I hardly ever came here first thing. “Could I borrow Fina for a bit?”

“Oh, you can borrow her anytime.”

Fina pouted. “M-Mom!”

Tiermina chuckled as Fina gave her little, harmless bops. “So, why do you need Fina?”

“I’m going out for a little, and I didn’t want to go on my lonesome.”

“Where are you going?”

“I was thinking of heading to Mileela.” Word about the tunnel spread pretty widely throughout Crimonia, so of course Fina knew about it by now.

“You wanted to go, Fina, didn’t you?”

Fina seemed troubled as she looked at Tiermina and Shuri. Her face said she did want to go.

“Don’t worry about this,” said Tiermina gently. “Just go on.”

“But the eggs…”

“I’m fine. I’m normally doing this alone,” Tiermina said.

“Okay. Thank you, Mom,” said Fina, and gave Tiermina a huge hug.

“All right! Time to borrow your little girl, then.”

Tiermina laughed. “You can take her anytime.”

“Mom! Yuna!” Fina shouted, looking embarrassed.

“Wish I could go, sis.” Shuri looked at us sulkily.

Oh, hmm…leaving Shuri behind would sure be sad. “Could I take Shuri too?”

“Are you sure she wouldn’t get in your way?” Tiermina looked at Shuri worriedly.

“Nuh-uh, I won’t do nothing to get in the way!” Shuri said with a pouty little kick at the ground.

“How about we go together then?” I said.

“Really?” Shuri perked up. I felt bad for Shuri—I always took Fina places with me, but this time there wouldn’t be anything dangerous about our trip. I didn’t see any problems with taking Shuri.

“Yuna, are you sure you want to also take Shuri?”

“Yeah, it’s no biggie.”

“If you’re sure. Now, you two, make sure you behave for Yuna.” The two happily nodded and, just like that, I successfully got myself some extra hands to help me get certain ingredients. Heheheh. “You make sure you enjoy your time alone with Gentz, Tiermina.”

Sure, they’d gotten married, but they probably never had a chance to be alone together with both Fina and Shuri around. Since Tiermina always helped me out with stuff, I had to occasionally return the favor, you know?

Tiermina turned bright red and glanced at a spot on the ground. “Yuna…”

 

I left the shed—we were gonna head out right away. It wasn’t like I needed to prep anything in particular. The two girls seemed happy about getting right to it.

“Sis, Yuna, hurry!” Shuri ran ahead of us, Fina following close behind.

Hmm, how would we get to Mileela? I considered using the transport gate even though Shuri was with us…

“Yuna,” Shuri piped in, her eyes glittering, “are we going on the bears?”

“What, do you want to ride them?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded meekly.

I’d shown Shuri my bears and let her climb on them before, but never taken her on a ride. “Bears it is, then.”

“Yeah!” Shuri was all smiles. I took the two out of the town, summoned Kumayuru and Kumakyu, and Shuri squealed at the sight. “It’s Kumayuruuuuu!” Shuri tottered over to Kumayuru and hugged the bear. Kumayuru sat down on the ground tolerantly as Shuri grasped and pulled at its fur.

“Shuri,” I said, “we’re gonna go soon. Hurry and get on.”

Fina pushed her little sister up onto Kumayuru and then climbed on herself. Once they were both on, Kumayuru slowly stood up. Shuri looked like she was having the time of her life on top of Kumayuru. “Whoa! We’re so high!”

“Shuri,” I said, “don’t make a fuss. That’s not being nice to Kumayuru.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kumayuru,” said Shuri, giving Kumayuru an apologetic pat. Watching the two happy sisters, I got onto Kumakyu and we headed out for Mileela.

This was Shuri’s first trip out, so we went on a slow run. I guess she enjoyed herself, since she made an energetic fuss on top of Kumayuru. Fina, sitting behind Shuri, was doing her darndest to tell Shuri to be good.

“Kumayuru, faster!” Shuri cried.

Kumayuru crooned and went slightly faster.

“This is so fast!”

“Shuri, don’t wiggle,” Fina cautioned, “it’s dangerous.”

Shuri acted like she was on top of the world…for a while, anyway. She grew quieter and quieter, and started to doze off. Riding the bears was like sitting on a warm, high-quality combination-blanket-and-rocking-chair, so it was easy to get sleepy.

“Fina, we’re going to go a little faster, okay?”

“’Kay.” They wouldn’t fall even if they fell asleep, but Fina still hugged Shuri carefully to make absolutely sure.

The bears sped up.

Eventually, Shuri rubbed her eyes as she looked around herself. “This is…”

“We’re almost at the tunnel,” I said.

“The tunnel?” Shuri repeated.

“Mmhm! I’ve heard about it. They made a huge tunnel in the mountain. If you go through it, you’ll apparently see the ocean.”

“Oh-shen?” Shuri looked around. “Are we at the ocean already?”

“Almost, I think!”

When we got to the patch of forest outside of the tunnel, the woods were cleared. Used to be you’d need to go right through the woods first, but they cut down the trees and leveled the place. There was enough room for a carriage to get through now.

I had Kumakyu walk slowly so I could get a look around. They did a great job leveling the place—had they used mages? I could hear the sound of trees being felled coming from far off. When I got closer to the tunnel, I started seeing a few people—I guess they were from Crimonia, since they’d wave when they saw me. Shuri saw that and waved her hand wildly back. Agh, super cute.

We got to the tunnel. The area around it was mostly cleared out now; the trees around it disappeared and they put up shed-like buildings. The thing that stood out the most to me was a bear statue standing next to the entrance. The cartoonified bear held a sword and stood as though protecting the tunnel.

“There’s a bear?” said Fina.

“It’s a bear!” Shuri jumped off of Kumayuru and ran over to the bear statue.

“Yuna, what is this?”

“Please, please don’t ask.” And she actually did refrain from asking. I was happy she was being considerate.

 

As we made a fuss in front of the statue, a worker came out from the shed. “I wondered what that racket was. So it’s you, bear girl. What are you doing in a place like this?”

“I hoped to go to Mileela. I’ve got Cliff’s permission, so could I go through the tunnel?” I had indefinite free tunnel usage marked on my guild card. Since I had the bear transport gate, I doubted I’d use it all that often, but it wasn’t like I had a reason to turn it down.

“I heard that from Lord Cliff,” said the man, “but we haven’t finished setting mana gems into the tunnel. There are dark spots. If you’re fine with that, then you can go through.”

“I’ve got magic, so I’ll be fine.” Wait, hold on. “Did you really hear about me from Cliff?”

“All the foremen here have. He told us that if we saw a girl in a bear costume, we should let her through.” Very gracious of him. “Also, if you’re going in, there are construction workers doing their jobs in there. Please don’t spook them. They’d be startled for sure if a bear just suddenly appeared behind them.”

Who wouldn’t, honestly?

We headed into the tunnel. Since there were mana gems set up at the front at regular intervals, it was pretty bright. Green and brown mana gems were set up in regular intervals to go along with the light mana gems—man, this must’ve really cost a pretty penny.

Shuri looked all around as though the tunnel itself was a spectacle. As the bears ran, the light cut off and the back of the passage darkened. When we slowed down and kept going forward, we found people at work installing the mana gems.

“What’s going on?!” One of the workers noticed us and looked our way. “A bear?!”

“No, it’s the bear girl.”

“Ugh, don’t scare me like that!” It felt weird that they knew about me, even though I didn’t know them. Was this how celebrities felt?

“Bear girl,” one of the workers called, “are you going up ahead?”

“I’m planning to. Can I?”

“I don’t mind, but as you can see it’s kind of dark.”

“I’m fine. Got magic.” I summoned up a bear light.

“I see. Make sure you’re careful, though.”

“Thank you,” I said. Fina bobbed her head, Shuri waved, and we left the construction worker. We lit the rest of the way using the bear light and, as though she’d grown bored of seeing the same scenery, Shuri went back into sleep mode.

We went faster on our way to the exit of the tunnel and, eventually, I saw a small light in the distance.

“Fina,” I said softly, “wake Shuri up. Once we exit, we’ll see the ocean right away.”

Fina shook Shuri. “Sis?” Shuri said, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s the exit. It looks like we’ll be able to see the ocean soon, so wake up.”

“Uh-huh,” Shuri answered and looked ahead.

And Kumayuru and Kumakyu broke out of the darkness of the tunnel.