Chapter 206: The Bear Walks around Town with Two Gentlemen

Chapter 206:
The Bear Walks around Town with Two Gentlemen

 

MISA’S BIRTHDAY had turned into a whole thing. Still…even though I’d wound up in a dress and Noa had really wanted those stuffed animals of my bears, things had turned out all right in the end. After that mess, this whole debate kicked off about where to put the iron golem I’d gifted Gran.

Gran himself was pretty gung ho about having it set up near the front entrance, but a ton of people were against the idea. “Father, please! Anything but the front door. You’ll terrify any newcomers!”

“Is that a problem?” Gran countered.

“You just can’t!” said his son, Leonardo. He shot me a glance. “If you keep insisting on putting it out there, I’ll have Yuna take it back.”

Since there were other people who didn’t want it there either, Gran gave up on putting it near the front door. After a little discussion, they put the iron golem in the main hallway on the second floor. Most guests wouldn’t see it, but they could still go upstairs if Gran wanted to show it off. That got everyone on the same page.

For some reason, I ended up being the one who had to haul it up there. I mean, they told me they “didn’t have the means to easily move something as heavy as that around,” so what else could I do? I put it in my bear storage, headed upstairs, and set it up in the hallway.

Mmm, this thing sure looks spiffy!

The texture of the metal was nice. Mud golems were fragile and not particularly snazzy. Yeah…yeah! This guy would look good with some silver and gold golems accompanying it. Well, I mean, if those things even existed. Mithril-plated golems existed, so gold or silver ones seemed plausible enough.

 

Once I got back to my room from the party, I stripped the dress off right away and changed back into my bear clothes.

My bear onesie just made me feel at home, you know? It was the texture, and the reassuring safety blanket-like feeling. I’d resisted at first—it felt kinda embarrassing—but now, I wanted to wear the thing…and that was a terrifying thought.

There I was, pining for my bear onesie, which practically made it cursed armor. You hear about that in books and manga and stuff—cursed armor that’s impossible to take off all the time—but my onesie made the wearer want to put it on, which made it an especially nasty curse.

When I turned to the side, I saw Fina pulling off her dress too. She looked relieved. I guess she had a different reason for wanting to get out of hers. I heard her whisper, “Thank goodness! I didn’t get it dirty.”

I guess she was right—we would’ve had a real situation if she’d sullied it.

Once we were undressed, I asked Noa what to do with the gowns. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t know the first thing about washing dresses, and it wasn’t like this world had dry cleaners.

But when I tried giving the dress back to her, Noa flat-out refused to take it. “You may keep the dress, Yuna.”

I couldn’t just take an expensive dress without any reason. “I really couldn’t.”

“No, it’s a fair trade. This dress in exchange for those stuffed animal bears. You absolutely must give me some.”

So we were bartering. If she paid me in advance, I’d definitely have to fulfill my end of the bargain. I didn’t have any problem with that since I’d planned to give her stuffed animals from the get-go, but when was I going to ever wear a dress like this again?

“You may have that one too, Fina,” Noa continued. “Do please take good care of it.”

“I won’t ever have a reason to wear it, so even if I do take it...” Fina tried her hardest to resist.

Noa, however, wasn’t backing down. “So you went to Misa’s birthday party, but you won’t come to mine? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Th-that’s not...”

“Then you can wear it to my birthday party. If it ever stops fitting, do let me know. I’ll make sure it gets tailored.”

With all escape routes blocked, Fina ended up accepting the dress.

 

The day after the party ended, Cliff and Ellelaura came to the room early in the morning to talk about what we’d be doing. Since we were leaving for Crimonia in two days, they said we could do whatever we wanted until then. Ellelaura still had some work, but she was leaving soon afterward.

“If that means Noa is going home in two days,” Ellelaura mused, “then maybe I’ll go home that day with her.”

C’mon, Ellelaura, please do your job…

Anyways, since we had some time to kill before we went home to Crimonia, I decided to explore the town.

“Well, I’m heading out!” I told the girls.

“Okay.”

They saw me out as I left the room. For the first time in a while, I was doing my own thing without them. Fina, Noa, and Misa would have a tea party in Misa’s flower garden. They invited me, but I said I was good—I wanted to go hunting for ingredients.

When I got to the front door, I ran into Zelef and Botts.

“Master Yuna, are you going out?” Zelef asked.

“I am. Are you two heading out too?”

“Yes! Botts has kindly offered to show me around town.”

“Are you on your own today, bear girl?” Botts asked, looking past me to Fina and the others.

“The girls are having an intimate tea party together,” I said, “so I was thinking of exploring town on my own.”

“In that case, Master Yuna, will you accompany us?” Zelef asked.

“Wait, Zelef,” Botts butted in. “You mean want to walk around with a girl dressed as a bear?!”

He didn’t have to put it that way...although he wasn’t wrong about the bear thing. Still, it’d been a while since I got a reaction like that.

“Miss, I’ve actually been wondering,” said Botts, “why do you wear that getup? You were dressed so normally yesterday.”

I puppeteered my bear puppets’ mouths open and closed and glossed over the details. “The clothes act as an item bag, among other things. It’s convenient!”

“You really threw me for a loop when you pulled out that iron golem. You brought all those ingredients from the capital with that item bag of yours, didn’t you?”

“Come now, Botts, didn’t you want to thank Yuna? You could at least show her around the town.”

Thank me? What’d I do to earn a “thank you” from Botts? It wasn’t like I’d healed his arms or anything.

“All right, all right. Any place you wanted to see, bear girl?”

“I want to check out ingredients. Oh, and a stop by the Adventurer Guild would be nice, if there’s time for it.”

“Speaking of which, Yuna, are you really an adventurer? Zelef said so, but I still can’t wrap my head around it.”

Once again, the onesie was mystifying people. I couldn’t blame ’em, though.

“Oh, just forget about it,” Botts said. “We were already on our way to look at ingredients, so I can take you there too.”

I didn’t have a reason to turn them down, so I decided to tag along. If anything came up, we could just split up. And so our unusual ragtag team of three left the estate together.

“Thanks for bringing Zelef here,” said Botts, walking beside me. “You’re the reason why those other nobles didn’t get a chance to walk all over us.” Oh, so that’s what he wanted to thank me for. Everyone said that that noble family was a total nightmare.

“I still can’t figure out where you learned to cook like that. You called those pudding, cake, and whipped cream, didn’t you? And Zelef here says you’ve got other tasty recipes up your sleeve!”

“Botts, you promised not to pry…” Zelef interjected.

“You got me there. But I am a chef—I can’t help but be a little curious.”

“I know the feeling,” Zelef answered.

“And she taught you how to make those things, Zelef?”

“That’s right. She did teach me!” Zelef stated. (Was it me, or did he sound like he was boasting for some reason?)

Botts could’ve asked why I’d given Zelef the recipe if he wanted to. Lady Flora was the answer…I wanted her to enjoy the treats whenever she wanted, so I’d taught Zelef the recipes. Obviously, I didn’t want her to overindulge, so I’d told him to not go overboard with her treats. But Botts didn’t know about all of that, and it seemed to be getting on his nerves. We kept talking about the pudding and cake I’d made while we walked.

“You’re setting up shop in the capital, then?” Botts asked.

“I’m going to help set it up before it opens,” I said, “I’m gonna teach all the workers the recipes. Want to join in, Botts?”

“No, I’ve still got my debt to Lord Gran. I need to pay him back for picking me up while I was down.”

Wow, Botts really had his priorities right, even if he didn’t look like it.

“I could still teach you, Botts,” I offered.

“Will you?!”

“Yeah,” I told him. “But you’ve gotta promise me some things.”

“You want me to make promises?”

“Don’t teach anyone else how to make them. And please don’t set up your own business to sell any of it.”

“I haven’t got the funds to set up shop. I’m purely interested in the craft, as a chef. We could put it in writing, if you want.”

“I don’t need a contract or anything. Oh, and there’s one more condition. This one’s the most important one.”

“More important than the other two?”

Don’t spread it to others. Don’t open up a business.

That was all important, but there was one thing that towered above both.

“Ah, of course. I suppose that is very important since you’re working for Lord Gran,” Zelef said. Apparently, he’d caught on.

“You figured out what she means?” Botts asked Zelef.

“She made me promise as well.”

“Is there really anything serious enough to require such a promise like that?” Botts murmured.

“There is,” I said. “You can’t make the recipes every day, even if Misa begs you. Cake is especially sugary, so you should only make it once a week, maybe twice at most.”

I wasn’t backing down on that point. I’d feel bad if Misa, adorable as she was, started putting on weight. More importantly, it’d be unhealthy if she ate too many sweets.

“But that’s so trivial...”

“Nope, it’s of utmost importance for a growing girl. If Misa gains too much weight and can’t find a husband, Botts, then that’s on you.”

“Uh, wow…when you put it that way, I guess it is pretty important,” said Botts.

“Make sure to keep an eye on Misa’s meals. You can’t make desserts every day, even if she begs you.”

Zelef nodded. “Yuna told me to do the same for Lady Flora.”

“You’ve got it! It’s a promise,” said Botts.

Since Zelef was staying for a while, we decided he’d teach Botts the recipe.

 

Once we got to the market, we examined a ton of stuff.

“We’re being watched,” said Botts.

“Yes, they are looking at us…” added Zelef.

They seemed bothered by the people looking at us. Maybe it was because we seemed like such an odd bunch. When this here girl in a bear suit took a trip with young girls like Fina and the others, it was a very different look from walking around with these two guys.

“The more people around, the more looks we get,” Botts commented.

The shopkeepers and shoppers kept watching us. The word “bear” was getting tossed around all the time now. Fine by me, I guess, so long as they didn’t touch me or start something. Botts seemed pretty resigned as he showed me around the shops, though.

Since we weren’t that far from Crimonia, the stuff sold in the shops wasn’t all that different.

I guess I wouldn’t find anything out of the ordinary unless I headed to a place with a different climate. Still, there were a few things I didn’t recognize so I decided to interrogate the ingredient experts.

“That fruit there has a bit of a sweet-and-sour flavor,” said Zelef. “It might be a tasty substitute for strawberries if you’re making a cake.”

“Yeah, seems like it’d suit an adult’s palate,” Botts added.

“And that one there is just plain sweet, so kids would be thrilled if you used it in a cake.”

Mmm, this was illuminating! “Shopkeep!” I called out. “I’ll take this whole box, and also, that fruit right over there!”

The shopkeeper was pretty surprised when I brought out the money to pay him. I guess I was buying a lot more than most people do?

Or was his surprise about the outfit? Nah, no way…

“Are you really buying all of that, Master Yuna?”

“Crimonia might sell them too, but I don’t want to bother hunting them down,” I replied.

“But isn’t this quite a lot?”

“They’re souvenirs for the kids at the orphanage.”

“What orphanage?”

Oh, I guess I’d never filled him in on that.

“I’m kind of helping manage an orphanage, so these are going to be souvenirs for the kids.”

Botts was shocked. “What? You manage an orphanage?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to…”

“Are you part of the nobility or something?”

“No, I’m just your regular, everyday girl.”

“A regular, everyday girl, you say.” Botts looked at me dubiously.

Yeah, I’d say I was your average girl for sure.

Outside of the bear stuff, I mean.

 

We did a pass around the market and, before long, finished up our shopping.

“Shall we turn back for now?” Botts proposed.

“What will you do, Master Yuna?”

“I’ll head back after roaming around the town a bit more. Thank you so much for everything, guys. I learned a ton.”

“Wonderful!” said Zelef. “Next time, I’ll show you a hole-in-the-wall location in the capital. There’s a place that sells all kinds of rare foods from various locales.”

Oooo…now that caught my interest. We made plans for that, and then I headed out…