Chapter 200: The Bear Reunites with the Adventurers

Chapter 200:
The Bear Reunites with the Adventurers

 

THE DAY AFTER Gran’s party, Gran and Cliff came to the room with Misa in tow to formally thank me.

I heard some stuff yesterday from Noa and Gran. It seemed that the party was a huge success thanks to Zelef. Tons of merchants and bigwigs had decided to hear Gran out.

Apparently, a ton of people were asking about Zelef. I guess sketchy people would ask questions if the head chef of the palace just showed up. If it seemed like the king was going to get involved, none of them likely wanted to be on Gran’s bad side. Nobody would be dumb enough to oppose the king. They were probably trying to gather info.

Gran’s story was that, with Zelef and Botts being friends, Ellelaura had asked for a favor to get him to come here, using her authority as the lady of the Fochrosé family and her position in the capital. They weren’t telling anyone that I was the one to ask.

Besides, even if they did say that the bear brought him over, most people wouldn’t know what that meant. Since I personally didn’t want to get involved with anything annoying, it was fine by me.

Apparently, the pudding was all the rage at the party too. And someone knew about my shop in Crimonia as well.

One of them had whispered to Gran, “Do you happen to know the bear?” And Gran had answered, “Yes, she’s a friend of my granddaughter.” That seemed to have startled them. I kind of wanted to know what was so surprising about it.

A weird thing to whisper, honestly. Though I’d prefer that to shouting.

“Yuna,” Cliff said, “I need to help Gran for a while, so if you could watch over Noa for me. If she makes a fuss, you can force her to stay in her room.”

“I wouldn’t make a fuss,” Noa proclaimed.

“Then you won’t cause any trouble when it comes to anything bear related?”

“Well...” Noa hemmed.

Wait, what was that about bear-related things and trouble?

“You already promised,” Cliff warned.

“You’re so mean, Father.” Noa pouted slightly.

Gran would leave Misa with me, too, but… “Just to make sure, we’re okay when it comes to that dumb aristocrat, right?”

“I think he won’t cause trouble for a while,” said Cliff.

“The Salbards are unlikely to cause trouble as long as Master Zelef is around. If Master Zelef happened to tell the king anything about them, they’re aware that there would be consequences.”

It almost sounded like Zelef’s word held more weight than that of Cliff or Gran. “So we can go out? I was thinking of walking around town this time.” I could manage if I was alone, but if I wanted to walk around town, I knew the little ones would want to come along.

“I want to go too!” Noa said promptly. Misa and Fina said the same thing a split second later. “We’re in another town, after all,” Noa added. “Father, seeing lots of other towns is part of my studies, isn’t it? You do always say that, don’t you?”

“I do, but...” Cliff looked at his daughter thoughtfully. He looked over at me next. “Can you promise you’ll stick by Yuna?”

“Yes!”

“Yuna, can I leave my daughter in your hands? If she wanders off without permission, I’m sorry, but I’d need to ask you to bring her back home. If that happens, make sure to lock her away in her room.”

I didn’t mind escorting her, but trying to find Noa if she wandered off sounded like a pain to me. “Noa, can you stay behind in your room?”

“Yuna, that’s so mean. I won’t wander off on my own.”

“Okay, okay. You absolutely can’t leave my side though, got that?”

“Grandfather...” When she saw that I was taking Noa with me, Misa also started to petition Gran.

“Hm. Miss, would you be able to watch her like you’re watching Miss Noa?”

“Sure!”

Misa was now going with us too. I gave permission to Fina to come, too, so we all headed out together.

 

For the second time, I led the three girls out of the residence. We were interrupted last time, so I was hoping we’d be able to finally take our time. If the three of them weren’t with me, I actually wanted to go check out the Adventurers’ Guild, but it looked like I’d need to give up on that this round. It wasn’t like I was planning on picking up a quest, but I was thinking I might try to get one next time I was around. Could be something interesting, after all.

If I couldn’t go to the guild, I kind of wanted to see the places selling food. I wanted rarities, whether vegetable, meat, or fruit. I’d sometimes see things in this world that I’d barely ever seen in Japan. There were tons of things I hadn’t known about, like spicy foods and sweet fruits. I wanted to buy samples of those if they were around. But—putting Fina aside—Noa and Misa probably wouldn’t enjoy getting dragged to a place.

“Anywhere you want to go?”

The three of them looked at each other and brooded for a little before any of them said anything.

“I’m okay with anywhere.”

“Same here.”

“I’d like to go to the food stands again,” Misa said after a pause. “The food there when we went last time was very good. I don’t get to eat at those places often...”

“You don’t?” I guess the daughter of an aristocrat couldn’t just go for a stroll. Maybe she wasn’t able to go out because of that dumb noble? “Are you two okay with that too?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Yes.”

With a destination in mind, we headed to the plaza where the food stalls were.

“Do you normally eat at food stalls, Noa?”

“I do. I eat there a lot with my mother.” Huh. Ellelaura did seem like she’d be the type to take her daughter there. “Sometimes I even go on my own. But lately I’ve been going to your shop instead, Yuna.”

At first, I wondered if it was okay for a noble’s daughter to go out on her own, but I suppose that I’d seen Noa come by unattended. Her maid, Lala, sometimes came by to bring her back home. I guess there were a lot of different kinds of nobles in this other world.

“Noa, that’s so unfair. I’d like to go to Yuna’s shop too,” said Misa.

“I’ll take you there next time you’re in Crimonia.”

“Will you really? That’s a promise, then!” Misa was jubilant, but I wondered if she would really make it to Crimonia.

 

Once we got to the spot with the food stalls, we let Misa lead us around to what she wanted to eat.

All the people working the food stalls stared at me when they saw my outfit. Yeah, I get it. That happened last time I came here too. I ignored them and made my food orders. While I was looking around the plaza, I spotted some udon noodles.

Oooo, they had udon in this world? I guess all they needed to do was knead some wheat and cut it into thin strips, but still…

While I was deeply moved by my discovery, Fina said something absolutely ridiculous, “You can eat that at Anz’s shop.”

“Fina, my dear,” I said. “What, pray tell, did you just say?”

“You can eat that at Anz’s shop,” Fina told me again very seriously, word for word.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“The soup is different, but you can get it there to eat. You always eat rice when you go to Anz’s shop, so you probably just didn’t notice.”

Oh. Uh. I mean, I never even gave the menu a glance when I went to Anz’s shop, so she was probably right. I just focused on making orders that revolved around rice. I left the menu-making to Anz and Tiermina.

I never in my dreams would’ve thought that I’d be able to have udon at her shop. Maybe I’d try some when I got back. For the time being, I ordered the udon (udooooon!) before me. It was good, but the broth left something to be desired. Anz’s would’ve used seaweed soup stock, so it’d probably be better. I really wanted to get home.

 

After eating the udon, we took a break at a bench—we were stuffed. That was when I saw two people I recognized.

“She really is here.”

“She is.”

Uhh, let’s see…that was Marina, and the other one was a mage with huge boobs. She’d guarded Gran, and her name was…was…

She introduced herself before, but I’d only met her once, so I’d forgotten. Which was totally normal, and not insulting, and I decided not to feel bad about it.

“Hello Marina, Elle,” said Misa, saving my life.

Right. Yeah, it was Elle. That was her name. Thanks for the Elle, Misa.

“Lady Misana, it has been too long.” The two of them greeted Misa.

“What was that you said earlier?” I said. “You weren’t looking for me, were you?”

“Yes, since the guild was buzzing with talk about a girl in a bear outfit,” said Marina.

“Rumor has it the outfit was cute too,” Elle added.

“There were even a couple of people laughing about it.”

Elle tried to follow up with something nice, but Marina butted in with a joke.

“Well, I thought it was you right away, Yuna,” said Elle. “What are you doing with Lady Misana?”

“She invited me to her birthday party.”

“Her birthday party?” Marina looked at Misa.

“Uh-huh, I’m going to be ten.”

“Are you really? Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“So why were you two looking for me?” I asked.

“We weren’t, actually. We were just about to head out to exterminate some moles in the fields outside of town. That was when we spotted you in your bear outfit.”

“Moles…eating crops?” Like, moles moles? The ones that dig underground? According to Marina, the moles were eating the crops, so they needed to be dealt with. Is…is that a thing that moles do? Eat crops?

Was this really a job for an adventurer?

“Yes, they are,” said Elle.

“Of course, not all moles eat crops. But the ones that showed up have apparently been messing with them.”

“And so we’re about to head out and exterminate them.”

“Have you not seen a mole before, Yuna?” asked Marina.

“I haven’t.” I was a city girl born and raised, so I hadn’t had the opportunity to see any.

“There are huge ones like this.” Marina spread out her arms. Okay, nope, that was way too big to be a mole. Unless that was just how things were in this world, maybe?

Still, I couldn’t wrap my mind around adventurers exterminating moles. I guess there were a lot of odd jobs; it wasn’t all just slaying monsters and guarding people. I wondered how they were going to exterminate these moles, considering they’d probably be underground. All I could come up with was using earth magic.

I kind of wanted to see how they did it...but I guess that wasn’t going to happen with the three girls with me.

But when I looked at said girls, they seemed even more interested in seeing the moles than I was—or at least Noa and Misa were. Fina looked nonplussed. Guess that was the difference between nobles and the common folk.

“Yuna!” Misa and Noa tugged at my bear clothes.

Did they have to give me that look? They really seemed like they wanted to go.

“Are the fields far?” I asked.

“If you go out the gate and head to the right, you’ll see them right away.”

Close, then. “Would it be dangerous?”

“Of course not. There aren’t any monsters nearby, and the woods are far enough away that there aren’t even any animals. But for some reason, we’re still getting moles coming out of nowhere and destroying the crops.”

“Since food is vital to the towns, we adventurers sometimes exterminate the moles.”

Not dangerous and close by, then. “Do you all want to go?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go!”

Noa and Misa energetically responded.

Fina smiled and watched them. She kind of looked like the oldest one of the bunch, like she really had it together compared to them.

“Lady Misana,” said Marina, “it won’t be very interesting to watch. Elle will root out the moles from underground with her magic and I’ll exterminate them. That’s all we do.”

“So we can’t go?”

“Well, it’s not that you can’t go.” Marina looked at me helplessly.

“I’ll make sure to watch over them,” I said. “You two remember what Gran and Cliff said, right?”

“Yes,” said Misa.

“That we’re supposed to stick close to you, Yuna.” Noa hugged me.

Did she actually get what he meant though? That smile on her face made me wonder.