Chapter 19: The Bear is Dubbed the Bloody Bear
Chapter 19:
The Bear is Dubbed
the Bloody Bear
I HAD A DELICIOUS BREAKFAST that day at the inn, too. Not having to cook was the absolute best. As I basked in my hermit’s dream come true, Fina came skipping in, full of energy.
“Yuna, good morning!”
“Morning.” I slurped my hot soup, savoring the taste. “Just wait a bit. I’ll be done eating in a sec.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
“Elena, could you bring Fina something to drink?”
“Yuna?”
“It’s fine, just sit. I have something to tell you today.”
When I said that, Fina sat down obediently in the chair in front of me. Elena came back with the drink immediately.
“Fina, there are a ton of things I don’t know about, so could I ask you about them?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you need for butchering? All I know is that you need a knife.”
“That’s the main thing. The sharper it is, the better the skinning goes. If your knife is dull, it’s tricky to get a wolf’s pelt off without damaging it. If it’s high-level monster, sometimes you can’t butcher them with a normal steel knife.”
“What about your knife?”
“It’s a steel knife, but Mr. Gold made it, so it’s a good one.”
“Do you need anything else?”
“I guess just a place to do the butchering. It’ll help if there’s water nearby, too.”
“That’s it?”
“I’ll need a whetstone and a place to store the materials. After a while, the meat starts to spoil.”
“So, for the time being, that means you need a whet tone, a place to harvest, and a place for safekeeping, right?” That was alright. I could use the thing I’d made earlier. “One more thing. What are you going to do while I’m out doing quests? Do you want to come with me? Or do you want to wait?”
“I want to go with you, but I’d be in the way.”
“Why would you want to come with me?”
“If I go with you, I might be able to pick some herbs for my mom.”
“In that case, do you want to come?”
“Really?”
“I can protect you. Are you fine with spending the night out?”
“Uhh, I think it’s fine if I tell my mom beforehand. But she’d be worried if I stayed out a long time.”
“In that case, we’ll just do a day trip today. Could you tell your mom it might end up being an overnight and two days next time? Or should we talk to her together?”
“It’s okay. I’ll make sure to tell her.”
I finished my breakfast and took a slow walk to the guild. We got replacement whetstones at a tool shop on the way. When I got to the guild, the other adventurers were keeping Helen busy, so I just headed toward the D-rank board on my own. Fina followed behind me.
The D-rank board didn’t get a lot of attention. The busiest one was the E-rank board. Some people watched me, but no one said anything. It was a busy morning, and no one had time to pay attention to me while they were scrambling for work.
Escort a merchant to the royal sector.
Orc slaying, includes the meat.
Slay a demon monkey that is plaguing our crops.
A sword or magic teacher above D-rank.
Acquire Melmel grass.
Investigate strange monster sightings around Hoelle mountain.
Bring iron ore to Hoelle mountain.
“There aren’t a ton of fun quests.”
“Yuna, is that how you choose?”
“Yeah. I’d rather do fun ones if I do any at all.”
I headed to the C-rank board next. There were only four adventurers there, all of whom seemed to be part of the same party. They were chatting with each other as they picked assignments. I peeked at the board between them, trying to keep out of their way.
Gather wyvern materials.
Slay orc horde.
Protect Fort Saumaug.
Annihilate the Zamon thief gang.
Ogre materials.
There were some fun ones, but I didn’t know where the monsters would be, so finding them would be hard. I would have liked to do the wyvern one if I knew where to look for one.
“Hey, girl in the weird clothes. This board is for C-rank,” a twenty-something-looking man from the four-person group told me.
“I know. I’m just seeing what kind of quests are in C-rank.”
“Just looking? Well, I guess it’s worth it to study your seniors.”
A woman in a sorceress’s outfit looked at me. “Isn’t that that rumored E-rank girl?”
“I became D-rank yesterday,” I said.
“What about your other party members? That little one definitely isn’t of age yet.” It was pretty obvious Fina wasn’t old enough to become a member of a party.
“Didn’t we hear the Bloody Bear goes solo?”
“What’s that about a bloody bear?” said another adventurer.
“What? You don’t know, Toya?” What looked like the party leader joined the conversation. “Supposedly an adventurer who picked a fight with a girl in a bear costume got beat bloody, and she didn’t even forgive him when he apologized. She kept whaling on him even after he was down…and she kept going at it until she’d beaten up all the adventurers around into a pulp.”
Sounds scary, I thought. What bear were they talking about?
“That bear girl doesn’t even butcher her monsters. She just brings corpses in every day, all bloodied up, so everyone’s been talking about her.”
Well, of course a monster’s going to bleed if you kill it with a sword, I thought. Besides, I always put them away right away, so they’d only start bleeding when I took them out of the bear storage.
“They started calling her Bloody Bear because of her attitude and her antics.”
“I had no idea there was a bear like that,” said the leader. This was news to me, too.
“Well, you don’t come into the guild often, after all.”
“Is this bear-girl famous?”
“Totally—she’s killed goblin hordes, a goblin king, and orcs all on her own.”
“Right, and her outfit is weird, too. She’s pretty tough, so word’s been getting around about her lately.”
“I see. My apologies, bear girl. I thought you were just a beginner in a weird outfit.”
It seemed they weren’t bad people. They’d just been trying to warn an apparent amateur that she was at the wrong quest board. “That’s alright. Thank you for your concern,” I said.
“I see. Well, we’re heading out. If anything happens, let us know.”
Apparently having decided on a quest, they headed over to the front desk with the notice they’d plucked from the board. I picked out my own D-rank quest that looked like a day’s work.
“Yuna, did you find something you like?” said Fina.
“Yup. Let’s get going, too.”