Chapter 216: The Bear Receives a Package from the Land of Wa

Chapter 216:
The Bear Receives a Package from the Land of Wa

 

YESTERDAY, when I was having a meal at Fina’s house, Tiermina told me that a delivery I was looking forward to had arrived at Anz’s shop. It was from Jeremo of Mileela, which meant it was probably the package I’d ordered a while back from the Land of Wa. Today, I was going to Anz’s shop to get the package.

 

Anz, Seno, Forne, and Bettle from Mileela were living on the second floor of Anz’s shop. The other girl from Mileela, Neaf, ended up working at the orphanage, so that’s where she was staying.

I opened the door to the back entrance and found Seno; she was the youngest one, after Anz. She was a bubbly person when she worked in the shop—always all smiles. “Oh, Yuna. What brings you here?”

“Is Anz in? I heard from Tiermina that a package from Jeremo came in from Mileela.”

“Ah, that delivery. Sorry, Anz is out with Forne looking for ingredients.” I thought she’d be here, since it was the day the store was closed, but we’d just missed each other. Anz liked to look at ingredients for herself during her days off, so she would go to the market. Bettle had apparently gone to the orphanage.

“What are you up to, Seno?” I asked.

“I’m minding the house.”

“I’m not really sure what to do, then…”

“You mean about the package? I know where it is.”

“Really?”

“Anz told me to hand it over if you turned up.”

“Cool. Can I see it?”

Seno led me to the warehouse. “Here’s your delivery.”

In the corner of the warehouse sat some wooden crates and burlap sacks. “Yuna’s Package” was written on the stuff in a cutesy script. Well, that made it easy.

“Oh, we put anything that can spoil into cold storage.”

I’d deal with that stuff later, then. For now, I went to check the packages in front of me. First, I checked the burlap sacks. Score—rice! “Is it okay if I take all of this?”

“That’s fine. Everything is yours, after all.”

I put the bags of rice into bear storage, feeling immense gratitude. Finally, I’d be able to have rice at home. I’m Japanese, after all…I yearned for rice. After putting the rice bags into my bear storage, I noticed burlap sacks of a different color.

“Seno, what’s in these other bags?”

“Umm…” Seno paused thoughtfully. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s a different variety of rice.”

“A different variety rice…?”

“If memory serves. Anz said something about mochi rice?”

“Mochi rice?!”

“It all looks the same to me, but I guess it’s somehow different.”

Well, they both just looked like rice—at a glance. If you compared them side by side, the color was slightly different. Still, it was hard to tell the difference by sight alone. Still…if this actually was mochi rice…!

“You know what it is, Yuna?” Seno asked.

“Basically, yeah.” Ah, mochi rice. If it really was that, I could make mochi! That sounded so good…

After that, I opened a wooden crate that was storing pots. Oh? They were filled with soy sauce. In a small box next to that one, I found seaweed. Okay, the universe itself was basically telling me to eat mochi right now.

There were tea leaves too, and…what was that larger crate? It was filled with lovely cloth. I tried unfurling one. It was a yukata; a hairpin was nearby too.

Thought so. The Land of Wa was similar to Japan.

But I hadn’t worn a yukata since elementary school. How do you put one of these on again? I vaguely remembered seeing it on TV. Maybe muscle memory would kick in if I tried it on? I kind of wanted to have Fina wear one.

It’d be nice if we could all wear yukatas and watch fireworks. Did fireworks even exist here? This world had magic, so there probably wasn’t any need to invent gunpowder. In that case, maybe I could make firework magic? I could launch fire magic into the sky and make it explode. Or maybe lightning magic would work for that? Maybe I’d try it out next time I had free time.

What else was there? A tanto dagger? Whoa, now that was cool. I liked knives and European swords as much as anyone sensible. Still…being Japanese, I naturally had a soft spot for these kinds of blades. I pulled it out of its sheath. Ooooooh…now that’s a beautiful blade. As pretty as the mithril knife was, this more or less matched it. (I bet it was expensive.)

I was overjoyed.

On top of all of that, there were handkerchiefs, ribbons, and pretty fabrics. I looked over all of the boxes before putting them away into my bear storage.

 

After I checked everything in the warehouse, we headed over to the next room—the cold storage. Seno immediately started shivering from the cold. My bear clothes gave me cold protection, so I didn’t have to worry about that. Putting aside how the bear clothes looked, it was nice that I didn’t have to fret over being too hot or too cold. Anyway, this is where they kept food and drinks for the shop. There was also a freezer room for the frozen fish and meats.

“Your stuff is on this shelf.” Seno pointed—there were earthenware pots like the ones that had contained the soy sauce, all lined up. I wondered what was inside those.

I picked up one of the pots. It was tightly sealed. I pried open the lid and found something inside that looked like…brown clay? This smell…could it be...?

Seno peered in from behind me. “That’s miso.”

Oh, yeah. It sure was. I could make soup—miso soup! Miso soup with rice, plus omelets with nori. My old Japanese-style breakfast was now complete.

Top priority, above all things—even above the mochi—was making miso soup as soon as humanly possible. I opened the pot beside it to find another type of miso that was a different color. Oh, they had different kinds of miso too? It would be fun to make miso soup with this.

Breakfast was complete, but…it still felt like there was something missing. What was it? It was on the tip of my tongue…

I thought there would be miso in the next pot I opened, when a sour aroma spread throughout my mouth and made me pucker. I was salivating from just the smell.

“That’s umeboshi,” said Seno, wrinkling her nose with disgust. “I don’t like them because they’re sour.”

There were pickled plums inside the pot. So nostalgic…

Seno looked at the umeboshi and backed up a bit. Of course, being Japanese, I was fine. These were a staple in my fridge back in Japan.

They were great in rice balls. Since I also had tea, I could have umeboshi rice soup. Just smelling the umeboshi worked up my appetite. That was it, that’s what I’d forgotten—I’d been missing umeboshi.

I immediately added umeboshi to the menu I had in my mind.

 

All the ingredients were so similar to stuff from Japan. I just had to go to the Land of Wa at some point. There were probably all kinds of other familiar things there.

All that hard work to defeat the kraken and dig the tunnel was paying off. I guess people really are rewarded for their efforts.

 

Having picked up my delivery, I cheerfully returned to my bear house, did the laundry, and tidied up a bit. With that done, I started preparing dinner a bit early. I was making miso soup, of course.

I made soup stock from kelp and prepared the ingredients. I had wakame, but…dang it, no tofu. Maybe there was some in the Land of Wa? If so, I just had to buy some.

For now, my miso soup ingredients were wakame, daikon, and carrots. When I taste-tested it, it was unbearably delicious. I also cooked some rice and served it in a Japanese-style rice bowl. The bowl came with the delivery, and I decided to use it right away. Finally, I placed an umeboshi on top of the rice.

I also had miso soup and grilled fish. Naturally, I drizzled soy sauce on the grilled fish. Finally, to complete my Japanese meal, I prepared some hot tea.

Done and done! Even if I also kinda wanted pickled vegetables now…

“Thank you for the meal!”

I started with the miso soup. Yup, delicious. Then, I took a small piece of the umeboshi using my chopsticks and ate it with the rice. The sourness spread throughout my mouth. It was great. And the grilled fish was so yummy. Finally, I poured tea over the rice and made rice soup.

The delicious cuisine was a nice reminder that I was Japanese, you know? Plus, it was so good that I ended up having seconds of both the rice and the miso soup.