Chapter 134: The Bear Returns to the Capital

Chapter 134:
The Bear Returns to the Capital

 

WE GOT BACK to the capital without a hitch, and the practical training came to a close. Soon, I’d return to Crimonia and sleep in my own bed for the first time in a billion years. You just can’t get a good night’s sleep in a carriage or camping out, you know? You’ve gotta get back to your own home.

Of course, I could also rest easy knowing that Kumayuru and Kumakyu were present and available for cuddles, but that was obviously just a tiny little fringe benefit.

We passed through the gate and the carriage headed toward the academy. I held my guild card up to the crystal panel and the nearby soldiers gave me a weird look, but there weren’t any issues getting into the capital.

At the academy, there were already some carriages at the parking area behind the school building. Seemed the other student groups were already back.

“That’s that, huh?” I hopped down from the carriage and took a nice, long stretch. Got the kinks outta my spine, all that good stuff. The deed was done. There’d been a bit of trouble (army of wolves, etc.) but the students had come out unscathed. Another S-Rank mission accomplished.

“Yuna, we have to report our return to the teacher.”

Blargh. I was on duty until the report. Ah well. Almost there.

“Jiguldo! You guys are going too, right?”

“Yeah, we’re going. Wait up a bit.”

Oh—and when we’d met up with Jiguldo’s party on the way, we’d ended up traveling together. We’d been headed in the same direction, after all, and more people meant that monsters would have a harder time dealing with us. Even if bandits showed up, they were less likely to try anything if they were outnumbered.

 

We headed to the staff room of the school building to meet up with the teachers and met someone unexpected.

“Pardon us.”

“Mother!” Shia shouted out to Ellelaura, who was standing beside her teacher. “Why are you here?”

“I instructed the gate guard to promptly contact me upon your return. I categorized the order under S-Rank business, so the report came fast.” She smiled broadly, as if that was a sound explanation instead of kinda sorta probably an abuse of power. “Thank you, by the way, for your work.”

Whew. Feel bad for the guy who ran all the way from the gate to the castle to tell Ellelaura.

The teacher nodded absently. “Maricks and Jiguldo’s parties have completed their practical training. We’ll take care of the goods you transported here, so feel free to rest. I’ll take your training report on a later day, but no fibbing, you hear me? I’ll be comparing what you have to say with the reports from your accompanying adventurers.”

The students seemed fine with that. Maricks and the others were free to go home, but—hold on, did that mean I wasn’t off the hook yet?

“Yuna, thank you very much for this,” said Shia. “It was fun being with you.”

“It was a bit of a pain,” I said, “but…I had fun too.”

“Yuna,” said Cattleya, “please give Kumayuru and Kumakyu my thanks. Please let us cuddle with them again next time.” She seemed sad. At one point she’d even asked me to let her have my bears, but I’d politely declined. I couldn’t just give them away. Kumayuru and Kumakyu were my dear family. Priceless.

“Yuna,” said Maricks, “I’m going to train more and become a knight who can protect others like you.”

Not a knight, Maricks? An adventurer? Hello?

“I feel like I learned a valuable lesson from this,” said Timol, bowing his head. “Thank you very much.”

“Oh my,” said Ellelaura, “they’re all such polite kids.”

But the teacher looked puzzled. “What’s going on here?” I didn’t have an answer. I mean, I hadn’t known exactly what they were like before. He’d have to figure out their character development himself.

The students left the staff room together, leaving only Jaden and Mel and me. It was time to give our reports. A pain, but it was part of the job.

“Well then,” said Ellelaura to the teacher, “I’ll take her report over there, hmm?”

“Lady Ellelaura, I don’t see why you need to do that…do you?”

“Oh goodness, it’s no trouble. I just want to hear what she has to say, and you need to talk to the other adventurers, don’t you?” Ellelaura looked at Jaden and Mel.

“I see…I…I’ll leave the young lady bear over there to you.”

Good to hear. Thinking about it now, I didn’t want to tell the teacher about that black tiger. Ellelaura, on the other hand, already knew me.

And here I parted with Jaden and Mel.

“Yuna, we’ll come to Crimonia another time,” said Mel. “When we do, let’s do a job or something together.”

“We could even go slay a dragon,” I responded to Mel’s lip service, which made her and Jaden laugh.

 

Ellelaura and I stepped away from the teacher and took a seat. “Good work, Yuna. How was it?”

“Exhausting. I didn’t think I would be this tired traveling by carriage.” Another reason I was glad to have Kumayuru and Kumakyu most of the time.

“Ha! Thank you, Yuna. Wasn’t it a good experience?”

What, was it supposed to be an experience? I don’t know, it had certainly been…linear events. I gave Ellelaura the report on the practical training. Told her about the goblins, about Maricks and the others, about the village and the black tiger. I’m sure Maricks’s group would confess the whole thing so I couldn’t hide it.

“A black tiger…” Ellelaura looked shocked.

“Don’t go too hard on the kids. They just tried to save the villagers. We didn’t know there was a black tiger, and I didn’t stop them.”

“I suppose no one could have done anything about it. Don’t blame yourself. I’m afraid to think of what would have happened had you not been there.”

If I hadn’t been there—I don’t know, maybe it could’ve gone all right. I suppose with the wrong adventurer guarding them, though, they might’ve wound up dead. “Are they gonna lose points for it?” Sure, it had been dangerous, but they had gone to rescue those villagers. That had to count for something.

“From a tactical perspective, they would lose points, but… Yes, I think that was better than abandoning people. Those children are the future of this country. If young aristocrats abandoned their fellows easily, well… Then again, if saving people is truly impossible, it’s important to give up. I think the children have learned an important lesson.”

So had they lost points or gained them? Or had Ellelaura herself not decided yet?

Hmm. Everybody had their own way of thinking, and figuring out right from wrong was hard. If they lost points, maybe they wouldn’t help people next time. If they got praise, maybe they would do something rash again. Education’s tricky.

“I must thank you for what you did, Yuna. Thank you for protecting the children.”

“It’s fine, that was the job, but I’m turning you down next time.”

“That’s too bad.” (Didn’t seem too bad for me, but okay.) “Well then, what’s your opinion of everyone?”

“Maricks can make decisions, but he can only see what’s immediately in front of him.” Which had its pros and cons.

And Timol? “Timol is timid, but when push comes to shove, he toughens up.” When Maricks chose to stay behind and take on the black tiger, Timol tried to do the same.

Cattleya? “She can really read a situation.”

And Shia? “I think you’d know her better than me.” Besides, Shia had known about me from the start, so it was hard to be neutral with her.

Ellelaura asked me a few questions then, which I answered. Before long, the report was also over, and I could finally go home.

But when I stood up, Ellelaura called out to stop me, “Yuna, wait a minute. Here, take this.”

Ellelaura gave me a thin book she retrieved from her item bag. There was a bear illustration on the cover. It was that picture book, The Bear and the Girl, that I had drawn for Lady Flora.

“The picture book is printed. I thought I’d give you a copy.”

I flipped through the pages of the book. It was nicely bound, actually. Kinda made me feel good.

“Hmm?” Oh, weird—as I paged through the picture book, something piqued my interest. “The Bear and the Girl, with story and art by…‘Bear’?”

Ellelaura nodded. “It’s better than having your real name on it, isn’t it?” She wasn’t wrong, but something about “Bear” seemed odd. “Of course, we can print your actual name the next time we bind your books, if you wish.”

“It’s fine, Bear is good.” As long as it wasn’t my name, why not? I could just think of Bear as a pen name… And a pretty fitting one, admittedly.

“You just wanted ten copies of each, right?” Ellelaura pulled more picture books out of her item bag and set them on the desk. Ten each, including the copy of the first in my hands. “The books are all the rage. Delighted reviews all around. You could sell them countrywide.”

“I have no plans for that.” If they spread across the country, there’d be pressure for another volume, and another volume, and another… Nah, it wouldn’t be fun if I was forced to work on it.

“Well, let me know if you want to sell them. We can go big whenever you’d like.”

“I have to politely decline.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate. Lady Flora and I are looking forward to its continuation though. What do you think of The Bear and Ellelaura for the next title?”

“Why would your name be in there?”

“You’re the bear, aren’t you? In that case, why couldn’t I appear with you?”

“If I did make another one, it’d be with Noa. If you made an appearance, you’d be the villain deceiving the bear.”

“Oh goodness, me? Deceptive? How terrible. Though I’ll admit, I would like a picture book with my daughter in it.”

“I’m not going to draw any for a while though.” I needed a break…

“So you will draw it after a while, hmm? Then please, you must make sure that Noa and I are exceedingly adorable in your illustrations.”

I ignored Ellelaura and put the picture book into bear storage. I’d give them to the orphanage later. These would help the kids study their letters a little.

 

This time Ellelaura really was done, and I headed home. I’d been thinking of saying bye to Jaden and Mel, but the two of them were already gone; there was no way they’d have more stuff to report than me, so they’d probably finished earlier. I headed out of the academy on my own.

I guess I had bad timing, though, since I ended up joining in with the students heading home.

“Isn’t that the bear from the other day?”

“That’s the rumored bear.”

“So cute!”

“There’s a bear walking around?”

“Wonder where they sell clothes like that?”

“What’s up with her and Ellelaura?”

“I want to give her a hug.”

They had the same sort of reactions as when I’d come by the academy before.

Right when I was about to make a break from them all, Maricks and the others appeared in front of me and glared at all the gossiping students.

Huh. Didn’t see that coming. “What is it, Shia? Weren’t you headed home?”

“We were waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“We wanted to thank you, of course.” Shia grasped onto my bear puppet.

“You saved our lives,” said Timol.

Cattleya nodded. “We talked together and decided to thank you.”

“Yuna, let’s grab something to eat.”

“Since we’re students, we don’t have that much money, but we know a place that’s cheap and tasty.”

But the sun was close to setting… “Is it okay if you all stay out? It’s already late.”

“It’s fine. Our families still don’t know that we’re back.”

Then wouldn’t it be bad if they didn’t get home soon?

Nope—Ellelaura knew they were here.

“It’s normal to have a party after the practical,” said Shia.

Cattleya nodded again. “We’re heading out, Yuna.”

Shia and Cattleya pulled me along. Maricks and Timol followed behind us. There was no escape.

The students treated me to dinner.

Yeah… It was good.