Chapter 202: The Bear Reunites with Ellelaura

Chapter 202:
The Bear Reunites with Ellelaura

 

WE WERE ABLE to exterminate the big mole without incident.

“That’s basically it, right?”

Marina said that finding two big moles in the same place was unheard of. Apparently, they’d find places with plenty of food and start producing a ton of offspring. They’d have a lot of babies too, so if you waited too long to exterminate them, they’d eat everything around and end up hurting a lot of people. Just one of those weird fantasy world things, I guess. I couldn’t imagine it happening in my old world.

All that was left, now was exterminating the moles that the big mole had produced, but it was getting late. Since we’d probably worry people if we headed home too late, we ended up heading back around then.

“Marina, Elle…thanks for everything today.”

“Not at all. We were so happy to see you, Lady Misana, especially after so long.”

“Lady Misana, if anything happens, please just call us.”

Until Elle ran out of mana, the two of them were going to stay behind to exterminate the moles. We left them to their mole search, and I started walking back with the three girls.

Partway there, we passed by that tree that was perfect for a midafternoon nap. Come to think of it, I wondered what happened to the person who’d been napping there. I tried checking it out as we walked by, but I didn’t see anyone. They were right there when we were exterminating the big mole, hadn’t they? Maybe they moved somewhere else after all the commotion?

On the way home, I took a close look at the three girls. They were filthy—both when it came to their faces and their clothes. We had been walking around in the middle of a field, after all. Their feet were especially dirty. This seemed like something we’d get in trouble for if we got home, so I supposed I couldn’t let them stay like that? I couldn’t do much for their clothes, but I could at least clean up their faces.

“All three of you, stay still.”

I used water magic to dampen a towel and rubbed their faces clean. Their faces were fine now, but there still wasn’t anything to be done about those clothes. Yeah, trouble might be ahead for them regardless.

I was thinking up an excuse as we got back to the residence, but right as we got inside, I saw a familiar face.

“Mother!” Noa ran to her mother, who had clearly just arrived herself.

Ellelaura turned around when she heard her daughter. “Noa?!” A smile broke out over her face. “You look like you’re doing splendidly.”

“Yes, I am. But why are you here, Mother?”

“Why, I came to see my beloved daughter. What else?” Ellelaura tried to give Noa a hug, but stopped partway. “Noa, you’re filthy.”

Noa looked over herself again. Her beautiful clothes were pretty grody. Since I hadn’t come up with an excuse, I decided to take the blame. I was the one who was watching them, after all. “Ellelaura, sorry. I took the three of them to the fields, that’s why they’re dirty.”

“No. I said that I wanted to go, so we went,” Misa said, contradicting me. Of course.

“I said that I wanted to go too,” Noa butted in, “so it’s not Yuna or Misa’s fault.”

Here I was trying to take the fall for them, but they were trying to take the fall for me instead.

“Ha ha! I’m not upset at you. And if you’re worried about dirty clothes, I got into much more muck when I was your age.” Ellelaura smiled and hugged Noa, not minding the grime at all.

“But mother, I’ll get you dirty.”

“What mother wouldn’t hug her own daughter because of a little dirt?”

“M-Mother!” Noa was struggling to breathe, but it was a heartwarming scene.

“But really, Ellelaura, why are you here?” I asked.

“Hmm. Well, I really did come to see my daughter. Ten percent of it is for work, another ten so I could see Cliff, and eighty percent of it was to see Noa.”

Uh, I didn’t even know where to start with that one. She could’ve at least given Cliff and Noa equal shares, and her work was supposed to be more important.

“There’s something I’ll need to discuss with you later, Yuna. But before that, I need to greet Gran. Let’s head inside.”

We entered the place with Ellelaura, and Meishun came running. Just one sight of us and she yelled out: “Why are you all filthy?!” She looked a little mad at the sight of the three girls.

“I’m sorry, Meishun,” said Misa. “It’s all my fault.” She told Meishun she’d been in the fields with Marina.

“But I said that I wanted to go, too, so it wasn’t all Misa’s fault,” said Noa.

“Me too,” added Fina.

Noa and Fina tried taking some of the blame for Misa. When Meishun saw the three of them protecting each other like that, a gentle look came over her face.

“I wasn’t really upset at you,” she said.

“Really?” Misa asked dubiously.

“Yes, I’m not upset. But please use the bath to wash yourselves up. You cannot come to dinner as you are, after all.”

The three of them said they would and headed off to the bath together.

Meishun smiled as she saw them off. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen Lady Misana have so much fun. Please go take a bath with them, Mademoiselle Yuna.”

“I can take one later. I’ll go after I talk with Ellelaura.”

“With...Lady Ellelaura?!” The three girls had distracted Meishun from even noticing the noblewoman. When she saw Ellelaura, she looked shocked.

“Meishun,” said Ellelaura, “it’s been so long, hasn’t it?”

“I apologize for not noticing you, ma’am.” Meishun bowed her head deep and low.

“It’s all right. I did come unannounced, after all. I’d like to greet Gran. Would I be able to meet him?”

“Yes, I believe so. He has already finished meeting all of his guests for today.”

And according to what he said that morning, it was a lot of people.

“Yuna,” said Ellelaura, “I’ll go greet Gran. You can have a bath with everyone.”

“Please do,” said Meishun. “Since it would be quite an issue if you were to walk through here with dirty feet...” She looked at me. “Didn’t you also go to the fields, Mademoiselle Yuna?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“But it seems you’re not dirty. I can’t tell from your black foot, but your white foot looks pristine.” Meishun looked at my feet, picked them up, and looked at the bottom of them.

“They’re made from a special material, so they don’t get dirty.”

They didn’t need to be washed. They’d stay clean even if I wore them for an entire year straight. They were amazing in that they’d never soil or start smelling bad—not even if someone poured muddy water all over me.

“How curious.” Meishun cocked her head to the side in puzzlement, looking at my bear gear. “Yuna, please take your time in the bath. I’m sure you must be tired after watching over the children.”

Great, but I wasn’t so sure that bathing with them would actually be restful.

Well, Noa and Misa were nobles who supposedly had training in etiquette, so they probably wouldn’t goof off in the bath. (Warning: They definitely goofed off in the bear bath.) And Fina was good, so she’d be fine. I promised to meet with Ellelaura later and headed to the bath.

 

Once I got there, the three of them had already changed out of their clothes.

“You’re late, Yuna.”

“I was having a quick chat with Meishun and Ellelaura.”

“Let’s get in soon.”

“I’ll be there in a sec, so you three head in first.”

I let the three of them go first, then pulled off my bear clothes and headed in. Though the family made up only one half of the nobility in charge of the town, they still had a grand enough bath. The four of us could fit in it with room to spare. Since Noa was helping Misa scrub down, I called Fina over, “Fina, come here. I’ll help you wash up.”

“I’m okay. I can do it myself.”

“I don’t mind.”

I forced Fina to sit in front of me and started washing her back and her head. Next, I tried to wash my own hair. The three of them offered to help, but I politely turned them down and told them to soak in the bath. Noa complained, but I ignored her.

Once I was done getting clean, I used my hair dryer. It wouldn’t do me any good to catch a cold, after all. I left the bath and went back to the room to find that the three of them had started playing Othello. While I was lounging around and watching them, Ellelaura came into the room.

“Mother!”

“You’ve all cleaned up, haven’t you? Perhaps I’ll borrow the bath later on.” She patted her daughter’s clean head as she made her way into the room. “Thank you for what you did, Yuna.”

“Huh?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I heard about what happened from Cliff and Gran. If you hadn’t brought Zelef in, things could have gotten dangerous.”

Oh, that. “I brought him over, but Zelef still did all the hard work for the party.”

“Yes, I heard. And apparently Zelef gave Gajurdo a talking to for insulting the food. I wish I was there to see it,” she said with a sigh.

Me too, honestly. I wish I could’ve seen that dumb noble I’d heard so much about have a miserable time…

“So, about Zelef,” she said. “After Misana’s party, I’ll take him back, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. In return, I’ll leave Cliff and Noa with you.”

Fine by me; I was glad that I wouldn’t have to go back to the capital. When all was said and done, it would’ve been a pain. “That’ll help a lot, but are you sure you’ll be fine on your own?”

“I have a few people with me. I’m having them stay at an inn until it’s time to leave.”

Yeah, I guess even Ellelaura wouldn’t come out to a place like this alone.

“Although I really could’ve been fine on my own,” she mused. “But His Majesty simply insisted I take them, so I had little choice.”

She had little choice? She was a noble, so it seemed to me like having a guard would be a real no-brainer.

“Mother, will you stay with us until you need to go back?”

“I have work, but I suppose I can spend some time with you.”

“You have work?”

“It’s an order from an ill-tempered king, if you will. I do wish I could have ignored him and spent time with you, Noa.”

That was her way of saying sorry, I suppose. Come to think of it, she really had said that she’d come on business—ten percent business, anyway.

“Will you finish your work right away?” asked Noa.

“Hmm. I don’t think I could during the daytime. But I’ll have time at night, so we can spend that time together then. So, Yuna, if you could watch over Noa during the afternoons?”

“What’s your work, by the way?” I asked. “If you can’t talk about it, I won’t ask any other questions.” I really didn’t want to get pulled into any annoying drama, but I also didn’t want to cause trouble for Fina and the others. I figured it’d be best to ask about it.

“It’s to inspect this town. His Majesty was attempting to send an official, who I usurped—err, that is—who I requested to replace.”

Wait, did she just say usurp?

“I’m surprised the king allowed you to come.”

“That’s because I worked oh-so-hard to petition him. It went a little like this: I want to see my daughter, I want to see my husband, I want to see my daughter, I want to see my daughter, I want to see my daughter. After all that—you know, sort of a chant after a while—he finally gave me permission to come here.”

Jeez, she must’ve really annoyed the heck out of him. And had she even bothered to mention Cliff, her own husband, in that little chant? “So…what are you inspecting?”

“Oh, nothing particularly important. I’ll just walk around town and gather information. After that, I’ll talk to Gran and Cliff, then think over what to do next. Oh, and I’m planning to attend Misana’s party tomorrow.”

Didn’t an inspection usually have a bit more, y’know…structure?

“Like I said,” she continued, “the real work starts later. After the party, I suppose? I’ll need to look around town, go to the Adventurers’ Guild and Merchant Guild, and pay a visit to the Salbards.”

Ellelaura ended up participating in our Othello contest once she spotted the board. We ended up playing until Meishun called us for dinner.