Chapter 222: The Bear Wants to Go to the Elves’ Village

Chapter 222:
The Bear Wants to Go to the Elves’ Village

 

“Huh? Yuna, you want to go to the elves’ village?”

“Yeah. Would I be in the way if I did?”

Scenes where elves attacked intruders to their elven wood were classic tropes. There’d be an elf with a bow up in a tree. And he’d be all like “Leave. Take a step further and I’ll shoot you!” So, I didn’t want to cause trouble for them, but…I also couldn’t just stay home after all this.

“That’s fine. They’ll be on guard with a stranger coming in, but you should be all right as long as you’re with us. Still, the village is far away and located deep within the woods. It’s quite an ordeal for any normal human to get to it.”

With my bear gear, I could walk as far as I needed, no problem. Plus, I had the bears themselves. I could get there by riding Kumakyu or Kumayuru, and I could

even nap on the way. I wasn’t going to have any problems traveling whatsoever.

Uh. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty dependent on bear stuff, aren’t I?

“Yuna…I hope you know that it’s not a quest. There isn’t a reward, and it won’t count as an achievement to go toward your rank.”

I didn’t need money or the rank; I just wanted to see a standard, fantasy-world elven village. When I told as much, they looked exasperated with me.

“If you say so, Yuna,” said Sanya. “There really isn’t anything interesting there.”

Maybe not to elves, but I was sure there’d be tons of interesting things for this particular human girl. There’d be treasures to behold, or precious medicinal herbs that could only be found in their woods—the elven woods were uncharted territory as far as I was concerned. Plus, elf villages are always major staples in games, novels, and comics. It’d be a huge waste not to see one myself if I was already in another world! Even if it wasn’t super interesting, I was content just seeing where elves lived in in this world.

It was sightseeing.

I was thrilled to get Sanya’s permission to go with them right when, all of a sudden, someone interjected rather contrarily.

“Sister, are you really planning to bring Yuna with us?” Luimin looked up at Sanya in disbelief. Was she against having me tag along? I’d been really hoping for her blessing. I didn’t want things being tense between us if we were going to be travel buddies.

“It’s very far away,” Luimin continued. “And Yuna is still just a child.”

A child? And hey, I wasn’t that little! Plus, Luimin wasn’t all that grown herself, physically. Especially in certain areas...

But apparently Luimin’s objections to me coming along were about safety.

“You’re small too, Luimin,” I pointed out.

“Maybe so, but you’re a human, Yuna. You’re not an elf. It’ll be too dangerous.”

The concern from Luimin was nice and all, but this was a little much.

“So, you’re worried about Yuna being in danger,” Sanya said, as though she were holding something in her back teeth. She turned to me and gave me a look.

Why was she looking at me like that? Wait…no, I got it. I guess I needed to convince Luimin it’d be fine for now.

“Luimin, I’m an adventurer,” I said. “I know how to fend for myself. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re an adventurer?” She looked at me dubiously, as though she couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

Here we go again. No one was going to believe a girl wearing a bear onesie claiming to be an adventurer.

While I was trying to figure out how to explain it to Luimin, Sanya came to my rescue. “Despite her outfit, Yuna is a fine adventurer. It’ll be all right. She won’t hold us back.”

Man…I wish I had a good objection to the bit about the outfit. Couldn’t she be more tactful if she was going to back me up?

“Yuna, it will be a long trip,” said Luimin. “You won’t be able to go home for several days. It’ll be perilous. There will be monster attacks and sudden, drenching rains. And it’s not just the monsters that’ll be dangerous—the people will be too. They’ll come up to us assuming we’re easy marks. They’ll try to swindle us.”

She spoke like she knew from experience. I could see that Luimin hadn’t had an easy time traveling here to the capital. I kind of wanted to pat her on the head and tell her she’d tried her best…

If it rained, I could take shelter in my bear house. With my skills, I could handle just about any normal monster. I already knew about stranger danger too, so I’d just beat them at their own game. I wondered whether it was just in my head that the last bit, “they’ll swindle you,” had packed so much emphasis when she’d said it.

“If you’re that worried for her, Luimin, why don’t you protect her? You’ve matured a little, haven’t you?” Sanya proposed, a nefarious grin gracing her lips.

Luimin stared at me. She brooded for a short while. Then, finally: “All right. I’ll protect Yuna. But you make sure to watch over her on the way home, Sister.”

Things had gotten a little weird, but Luimin had given her consent for me to tag along.

I was more worried for Luimin, especially after she’d collapsed right in front of my bear house. She seemed really klutzy. I got the feeling that letting her walk off on her own was dangerous. Regardless, Luimin was probably worried for me.

“Well, then, let’s figure out our plans.”

After that, Sanya carefully took stock of her work. We decided on the day we’d head out, among other things.

“Sister, how should we get there? A carriage?”

That seemed like a pain. The worst thing about carriages was how slow they were. Horses were much better. But Luimin might have proposed a carriage because she was thinking of me.

“Luimin, how did you get all the way here?”

“I used shared carriages and walked.”

Shared carriages were one way of getting from one town to another. They were kind of like buses and trains back in my original world. You could use them as a way to get to a specific destination. If you got an expensive one, they’d come with guards. I’d sometimes see escort quests, but most places had long-term contracts with adventurers; they were rarely put up on the guild boards.

“Hmm…right.” Sanya seemed to think for a moment. “Yuna, could I ask you for a favor?”

She was being ambiguous, but I knew she probably was asking me for Kumayuru and Kumakyu. I didn’t mind, so I nodded. The carriage would take way too much time. Besides, I preferred traveling on my bears. The sisters would be doing me a favor if we took them.

We figured out our schedule and how we’d be traveling. We decided to meet up at the Adventurer Guild on the day of departure and parted ways.

 

Once I was out of the guild, I used my bear transport gate to go back to Crimonia so I could tell Fina and Tiermina that I was going on a trip.

“Yuna, please be careful,” Fina told me.

“If anything happens, I’ll call you over the bear phone.” I was more worried about Fina and the others. That’s why I told Fina to make sure she called me on the bear phone. I could come right back as long as I had the bear gate.

Tiermina spoke up. “I’m sure you’ll be fine with how powerful you are and with those bears, but please, try to get back as soon as you can. I think the orphans will be worried if you’re gone too long, and Fina and Shuri always seem down without you around.”

“I’ll try to get back as soon as I can,” I promised. It kind of made me happy that so many people cared about me. I hadn’t had much of that in my old world.

If things got hairy, I could set up a bear gate at the elves’ village and cut my trip short. The only issue was that I couldn’t tell Sanya and Luimin about the gate.

 

One the day of the trip, I headed to the Adventurer Guild. The sun had only just started to rise.

Ugh, I’m sleepy…

I didn’t think we had to leave so early, but apparently, they wanted to head out before there was a crowd trying to get in or out of the gates. Honestly, I couldn’t argue with that. The capital gate tends to get traffic.

I yawned as I headed to the Adventurer Guild. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being up this early. There weren’t that many people around. No children to point fingers at me, no people whispering about me… I did encounter some people who looked shocked when they ran into me, but it wasn’t anything compared to usual.

Sanya and Luimin were already there waiting for me at the guild.

“G-gwood mowning,” I said with a yawn.

“You seem tired, Yuna,” said Sanya.

“I don’t usually wake up this early.” Normally I’d get another hour or two of sleep.

It wasn’t like I ever had to wake up early for work. When I did need to travel, Kumayuru and Kumakyu could get me there in a flash, considering how fast they were. Even if I needed to get to the capital, I could just use the bear transport gate. I didn’t have any reason to wake up early. Even Fina didn’t come over to do her harvesting work at my house until after sunrise.

“You two don’t seem tired,” I added.

“We’re elves. We’re used to waking with the sun,” said Sanya, but Luimin immediately contradicted her.

“Sister! What are you talking about? You would have never woken up if I hadn’t been there to wake you. And you never actually get up, no matter how many times I try! On top of that, you were just yawning a moment ago!”

A brutal exposé.

Wicked—so basically, I could yawn all I wanted without feeling bad about it. I didn’t hold back and let loose another one. Guess I’d be taking a nap on one of my bears once we got going.

“Today was different from normal,” Sanya insisted. “I was working so late last night that I had trouble waking up. It’s not like I was sleeping in because that’s how I normally do things, you know? It’s…it’s not that!”

Huh. So, Sanya had an actual reason for her yawns, unlike me.

“Yuna, where are the horse and carriage?” Luimin piped up. What a strange thing to ask.

Why did she think I was getting horses ready? When Sanya and I shot her weird looks, Luimin started to explain, seeming flustered. “The other day, my sister asked you to prepare the transportation, so I thought you would get the horse and carriage. Was that not the plan? Or did you make reservations for a shared carriage?”

I looked at Sanya. She had a slight smirk on her face. So, she’d neglected to tell her little sister about my bears. Teasing her, eh?

“Luimin, it’s okay,” she said. “Yuna has prepped a way for us to get to the village.”

“Has she?” Luimin gave me a concerned look.

I nodded. We weren’t lying.

“Well, let’s get to it!” Sanya started walking toward the gate.

Luimin followed, looking confused.