Chapter 171: The Bear Goes to Get Her Mithril Knife from the Capital

Chapter 171:
The Bear Goes to Get Her Mithril Knife from the Capital

 

THE NEW SHORTCAKE was selling great, Nerin was working hard, and things were finally slowing down at the shop. I decided to head to the capital.

It was about time for me to pick up the mithril knife I’d ordered from Ghazal, after all. It’d been more than a couple of days since I’d made the order, and I’d already gotten Shuri’s knife from Gold. It was safely in my bear house’s storage, so she could use it whenever she wanted.

Since I was heading to the capital anyway, I decided I’d also bring some cake to Lady Flora. It’d be lonely going by myself, so I decided to invite Fina along. I was planning on a one-day trip this time, so I wouldn’t need Tiermina’s permission either.

However…Fina turned me down this time. I told her I’d go on a different day if she had something she needed to do, but she’d told me that she didn’t have anything planned.

Wow. It might’ve been the first time Fina had ever told me no about anything. What was this...this pain stabbing into my chest? It was like when you go up to your own dog, and it just runs away from you. I was practically close to tears.

“Yuna?”

“Did I do something to make you hate me, Fina?”

“N-no, you didn’t. I don’t hate you at all, Yuna.”

“Then why did you say no?” She said she didn’t hate me, but she’d always said yes as long as she didn’t have something to do. Maybe she’d finally grown too old to hang out with a girl in a goofy bear outfit…

“Yuna, it’s not that. Please calm down.”

Fina filled me in on why she didn’t want to come with me this time: she didn’t mind going to the capital, but she didn’t want to go near the castle for a while because of what had happened last time.

“I don’t think that king would care much. And if he does, I’ll knock some sense into him.” I started shadowboxing with a couple quick bear punches. I’d give that king a bear punch here, and there, and right there!

“If you did that, you’d end up in jail.”

“Not if I don’t get caught I won’t.” I could shoot off some air shots at him from far away.

“Yuna!”

“I’m kidding.”

If he actually did try anything on Fina, though, the joke was over…and so was the king, maybe.

And so, alas, I ended up going on a lonely journey through the bear transport gate and arrived at the capital. First, I headed to Ghazal’s place. It was time I finally ot that knife or he’d end up mad at me.

When I came out of my bear house at the capital, I pulled my bear hood low over my face and headed over to Ghazal’s forge at a quick trot.

Unlike when I was in Crimonia, I was showered by yet another abundance of stares and murmurs about the “bear.” A certain amount of attention was always inevitable, considering how rare the sight of someone in a bear suit was, but more people around meant a lot more comments and stares. As I walked, I avoided the thoroughfares with lots of foot traffic.

 

“Excuse me!” I shouted when I got into the forge, which brought Ghazal out from the back.

“Finally decided to show up, have you?” he said when he saw my face.

“Sorry. I had a lot of stuff going on.”

“I kid. You came all the way from Crimonia, didn’t you? You’ve already paid your bill, so you were free to come when you pleased.”

Based on the look on his face, Ghazal seemed convinced that I really had spent the last few days traveling the whole distance the normal way.

Instead of, say, baking cakes and taking siestas and goofing off with Kumayuru and Kumakyu. If I’d really put my mind to it, I could’ve come back here using the bear transport gate to get it at any time—here he was, acting like I’d rushed right back when I’d really been putting it off the whole time.

Not that I could actually tell Ghazal any of that.

“Though I do recommend that adventurers come as soon as possible—even a day sooner—to pick up their items,” he added. “When push comes to shove, it can mean the difference between life and death.”

He wasn’t wrong. If I ever ran into an enemy with magic immunity, the only thing I’d be able to rely on was my weapons. A mithril knife might’ve made the difference between a win and a dead bear.

“Did you get both of them done?” I asked.

“Of course I have. How many days do you think it’s been?” Ghazal handed me two bundles wrapped in cloth. I pulled one of the cloths away to reveal a knife in a beautiful scabbard. The grip was black and ornate. I looked closely at it.

“Is that a bear?” A bear face had been carved into the handle like it was some coat of arms.

“Looks good, don’t it?” Ghazal looked pleased with himself.

“Did you carve this in yourself?”

“I wasn’t gonna, but you were taking your sweet time coming to get it. I got bored, started engraving, and wound up with this.”

“Um, sorry.” Sorry I couldn’t be bothered to even come here to pick it up, I apologized internally.

“Try unsheathing it.” I pulled the knife out like he told me. It was a beautiful blade. When I held it up, the polished blade reflected the light streaming in through the window. “How’s the grip? That black one you got there right now is the right-handed one. Hold it using the black bear.”

“The black one?”

“Yes. The other one has a white grip. That’s for the white bear on your left hand. Color-coded knives for you. Convenient, eh?”

I pulled out the other knife that was still bundled in the cloth, revealing a gorgeous knife with a white grip. There was a bear engraved into this one, too… “You didn’t go out of your way to make separate right and left knives, did you?”

I’d never heard of games having different weapons made for a person’s dominant hand. But then again, there were definitely left-handed kitchen knives and stuff. I’d heard blades could also have slightly different angles to their edges that you could hardly notice. That was probably the difference here.

“You did tell me you’d carry both of them in either hand when you fought. I made them easier to hold for the hand they’re made for, but you could use them with either hand.”

“Gotcha. Could I test-drive how the mithril knives cut then?”

“Aye, tell me if something seems off about them. I’ll fix them up right away, if I can.”

With that, I headed outside of the shop and pulled out an iron golem from my bear storage, Ghazal following close behind. Time to see how sharp these babies were. “So I just need to route some of my mana though them?”

“Aye, that will make the edge of the knives change. The sharpness of your blade will echo the strength of your own mana.”

“So if the blade can’t cut, it’s my mana’s fault?”

“You tryin’ to imply the quality of the knives I’ve forged is lacking if they can’t cut?”

What could I even say to that? I guess all I needed to focus on was whether the knives could cut through stuff. I’d save worrying about a problem till there was a problem.

I grabbed the knives in the mouths of my bear puppets. Let’s see…what had it been like back in the game? I hadn’t worked with daggers much, but I’d used them occasionally. Knives are light, so it’s easy to move fast while handling them, but they didn’t pack much punch. Still, you could also throw them, and you didn’t have to pack tons of power into every swing. Like any weapon, it depended on who you were up against.

After I gripped the mithril knives, I used the fundamentals of magic to gather mana into my bear puppets. Then, at once, I came at the iron golem’s right arm with a swing of my right knife, followed right up by my left. The golem’s arm split in two without resistance and fell to the ground.

“Whoa! Ghazal, did you see that?! I sliced right through the arm. It was all swoosh, clang! This knife’s amazing!” (I was a little worked up, okay?)

“It’s not the knife that’s amazing, Miss,” he said, beaming. “Even a mithril knife can’t cut through iron as easy as that.”

“You sure it’s not your knife, Ghazal?”

I backed away from the iron golem a little. Then I ran at it and gave it a couple slashes as I passed by it. The golem clattered to the ground in pieces. Beware, I thought, the bear ninja! Oh, could I pull off being a ninja while dressed like this? The bear gear was pretty conspicuous, what with it being a huge bear onesie, but…maybe?

“A fine attack, Miss. I couldn’t even tell how many times you cut the thing.”

Ghazal approached the sliced-up golem and inspected the sliced cross sections, then he approached me. “Show me your knives,” he said. I handed them right over to him like he asked. He held them up to the sky. “Not a single nick even after cutting through iron. That’s power. Your power. You got the muscles for sword fighting, and the mana flows through you well. This is exactly why Gold calls you an excellent adventurer. Can’t judge a book by its cover—you’re living proof of that.”

He handed back my knives, which I put away in my bear storage. Now this was a good shopping trip.

If only I could’ve fought the iron golem with these knives. I wanted to see if I could slice things up with them in a real battle. An iron golem you used for slicing practice was entirely different from one hardened by mana using its mana gem, like all monsters were. Too bad I didn’t have anything to practice on with my new weapons…

“Still seems like a waste,” Ghazal said as he looked at the collapsed iron golem. “If you’re going to cut up iron, you could’ve used an iron rod instead.”

I’d just felt the itch to try out my knives on the iron golem, though. “Speaking of which, I see that you’ve got that iron golem on display now.”

“The customers like it more than I’d expected. They’ve never seen an iron golem in such good condition. It’s a bit of a local novelty right now. Doesn’t boost sales, but it’s good advertisement.”

I’d told him he could turn the thing into scrap if it was in the way, but I can’t pretend it wasn’t nice seeing it still there. After that, I took the leftover mithril from him.

“Well, thanks.”

“Wait. Are you leaving those scraps outside the shop like that?”

 

Ghazal pointed at the scrapped golem. I hadn’t wanted to bother putting it away in my bear storage. But when I started to clean up the golem bits, I came up with a great idea.

“Umm, it’d be a lot of work cleaning this up...so you can have it.”

“Child, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Even chopped up like that, it’s still good iron you’re leaving me with. Do you even know how many weapons and tools someone could make out of this?”

“You say that, but I’d never used chopped-up pieces of iron like this.”

“You could sell it. It’ll fetch a great price.”

I looked at the metal scraps. I’d chopped them up too fine. It’d be so annoying, putting those into my bear storage or pulling them out. “Nah, I don’t need it. It’s too much of a bother.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll buy it off of you. But I won’t be able to give you much.”

“Oh! What if we say it’s a gift for you engraving those bears into my knives?”

“That won’t do, Miss. I’ve already gotten too much from you, and I’d like to be on equal terms with you.”

Dang. Now I had to take his money.

“And here’s the letter of introduction to that master I promised you. I also drew a map for you. As long as you follow that, you shouldn’t lose your way.”

“Thank you. I’ll go there next time.”

“Mm. Please give my regards to him.”

Finally, I thanked Ghazal and left the shop.