Chapter 224: The Bear Takes a Bath with the Elf Sisters

Chapter 224:
The Bear Takes a Bath with the Elf Sisters

 

I TRANSFORMED MY BEARS into their cub forms and headed into my bear house with the elf sisters.

“I’m going to prep dinner. You two can sit wherever you’d like.”

“I’ll help you,” said Sanya, which prompted Luimin to also offer a hand.

“Me too!”

“I’m fine. You two can relax.”

After I got them settled in and resting, I headed to the bath before starting dinner prep. I got the bath and towels ready ahead of time. We’d be sleepy after warming up in the bath, after all.

After I got the bath ready, I went back to the kitchen and started to work. Dinner consisted of the usual fare: Morin’s bread and Anz’s soup. I also dished out some veggies I had on hand and tried to make it a balanced meal.

Then I lined the table with the plates.

“Oh, now, that looks delectable.”

“It really does.”

“Thank you very much, Yuna,” Sanya said.

“Yes, thank you!”

“Well, let’s get to it.” I started digging in.

“It’s delicious!”

“The soup is so warm and good.”

“Thanks. You can have seconds if you want. Just let me know.”

“I never would have guessed we’d have a homecooked meal while out camping,” Sanya said, taking another good look around the house.

Luimin nodded. “This means we can take breaks during the rain. We won’t even have to get wet!” She looked so serious right then that I could practically see her sopping wet on her trip to the capital. “And we won’t even need to keep watch at night!”

Still, I got what she meant. I wasn’t super fond of keeping watch in the middle of the night either. Just imagining it made me sleepy...

“We’ll need to keep watch, house or not,” said Sanya. “Bandits could still attack us.”

A shadow came over Luimin’s face at that.

“We don’t need to keep watch.” I glanced at the bears curled up at my feet. “We’ve got these two.”

“Kumayuru and Kumakyu?” Luimin asked.

“They’ll let us know if we’re in danger, so we’ll be fine.” My bears seemed to have realized we were talking about them. They lifted their heads and crooned.

“They’re amazing!!!” cried Luimin.

Sanya nodded vigorously. “They really are!!!”

The two sisters looked at my bears in admiration. “Yep. You two can rest easy tonight.”

“I suppose we won’t actually need to make stops at any towns or villages, in that case,” Sanya blurted out.

Well, we had a place to sleep, and I had plenty of food in my bear storage. On top of that, we had a bath. We pretty much had everything we needed for our trip. Now that I thought about it, we really didn’t need to take detours to stay anywhere if we didn’t want to. Unless we were planning on staying the night, I really hoped we didn’t have to go to any towns at all.

 

After supper, we took a post-meal break. Luimin played with my bears while Sanya and I watched her.

“So, Yuna, where should the two of us sleep? We would be more than happy to sleep right here, of course.”

“I have rooms for you, so you don’t have to sleep here. But let’s take a bath before we all head to bed.”

“A bath?”

“What, do elves not take baths?” Hmm…I tried to imagine a bathing elf. Seemed to me that they’d prefer fresh, cold water. Maybe a warm bath really wasn’t their style.

“We do. But…a bath?”

So, even elves liked a warm dip in the water. “Yep! I’ll get the bath ready, and we can head to bed afterward.”

We’d been traveling all day on my bears, even before sunrise. They were probably sweaty, at the very least. I didn’t want them having to sit with that all night, getting all that sweat over the covers and everything…

“That’s not what I meant. I’m asking whether you have a bath in this house.”

“Yeah.” I took them to the bathroom. “Please use those towels over there. You do have a change of clothes, right? I’d really appreciate it if you changed before going to bed.”

I really wanted them to be clean when they headed to bed. The two of them gave me dubious looks while I explained things to them.

“Yuna, if I could...” Sanya began.

“What is it?”

“None of this makes any sense.”

Huh? What was she talking about? Well, I guess I’d had a conversation just like this with Cliff once too.

“Sanya…this truly isn’t normal for the capital then?” Luimin asked.

“No. This is completely absurd!”

Well, that seemed like a little much. “Anyway, why don’t you guys take a nice long bath to let the fatigue melt away? You could even head in together.”

I’d taken a bath with Fina and Noa, so I knew it was big enough for the two of them.

“If two of us can fit, then that means all three of us could, right? Since we’re all already here, why don’t you join us, Yuna?” Sanya glanced at the bath. “I’d like to talk to you more anyway.”

“I can just take one after you two.”

“No, no,” said Sanya. “In any case, we’d be the ones going last. It’s not as though we’re actual guests.”

“That’s right!” said Luimin. “I want to help you wash your back, Yuna!”

And now Luimin was joining Sanya’s side? “You really don’t need to.”

In the end, no matter how hard I tried to convince them that I wanted to take my bath alone, I suffered an embarrassing defeat. They wore me down until I agreed that the three of us could bathe together.

Sanya lived up to her name as an elf. She was beautiful. She didn’t have much of a chest, but she was slender, and her waist was way small. Her light green hair hung down her back. She really looked like a mature woman! On the other hand, Luimin was very thin and still looked young. You could say we were, uh…bosom buddies that way.

Looking at the two of them, I suddenly wondered if elves even could gain weight. I’d never seen a chunky elf in any games or comics, after all. Huh, weird.

I stripped down and pulled off my onesie.

Luimin watched me. “Your hair is so pretty, Yuna!”

“Yours is too.” Her hair was beautiful—just like her sister’s.

Once we were done ready to head in, I looked over at Sanya. She was still pulling off her bracelet. It was a nice one, too, embedded with a pretty green gem. She’d polished that thing so much that it gleamed! The whole style of it just screamed maturity!

“Well, then, I suppose I’ll head in first.” Luimin, now nude, headed into the bath.

Sanya grabbed her sister’s arm. “Stop right there!”

“What? Sister?”

“Where is your bracelet?”

The color drained from Luimin’s face.

“I hadn’t noticed until now,” said Sanya. “But all this time, you haven’t been wearing it.”

“Well...” Luimin hesitated. I guess Sanya was talking about a bracelet that matched her own.

“What happened to it?!”

“Sister, you’re hurting me…!”

Things had turned so bad, so suddenly. “I don’t really get what’s going on, but could we talk it over in the bath?” I really didn’t want to hang out buck naked in a changing room.

Sanya seemed to understand what I was getting at. She let go of Luimin’s arm.

Still, Sanya glared at Luimin the whole time we were scrubbing down. Luimin seemed to shrink into herself as she rinsed off.

Hmm. Guess it probably did have something to do with that bracelet Sanya had been wearing earlier. It really was pretty. Based on Luimin’s reaction, I could guess that she’d lost it.

“Luimin, how long are you going to take to rinse off?” Luimin was clearly taking her sweet time in order to avoid heading into the bath. “Get over here and explain yourself. Quickly now!”

Luimin timidly stepped into the water.

“Tell me, right now. Why don’t you have your bracelet?”

“I sold it...”

“I know you understand just how important that bracelet is to us elves, Luimin!”

Luimin shrunk into herself. “Sorry…”

“Tell me the whole story, Luimin. Every. Single. Thing.”

According to Luimin, she hadn’t had enough money to get to the capital. While she was trying to find a way to make some cash, some adventurers had started chatting her up. They told her that they had a way to get her some money.

“And that was?”

“It was a job carrying some things. Putting stuff away, that sort of thing.”

But there’d been a valuable painting among the luggage, and she had torn it. Ugh. Yeah, I think that’s when I figured out where it was going.

“And I didn’t have enough money to reimburse him…”

Sanya sighed. “So, you gave him the bracelet…?”

Luimin sat there in the bath, holding her knees. She nodded slightly.

“Ahh, I understand. But we’ll still need to get it back.”

“But I don’t have the money…”

“No worries, I have enough. You can count on your big sister.”

“Sister, I’m sorry….”

Good. Everything had ended well, and we weren’t going to have a tense trip together after all. What a relief. “Is the bracelet that important?”

“In our village, yes, it’s very important. Our parents gave them to us.”

Parents, she told me, would wear something called a fey stone when they had kids. Once the kid turned ten, they’d have that stone turned into something that could be worn. They didn’t just come in the form of bracelets either. Sanya told me they could be necklaces, hair ornaments, and all kinds of other things.

“Parents pray to their fey stone so their children are born healthy…” Sanya glanced at her sister now. “…and then you went and sold something so important just like that?”

“Sorry...”

“Fine, fine. I know you didn’t mean anything bad when you sold it. I forgot how much of a klutz you are.”

Blub, blub. Luimin half sunk into the water and breathed bubbles from her mouth.

Sanya placed a gentle hand on her sister’s head. “I just wish you’d just told me instead of keeping that from me.”

“These things are important to elves. I got that,” I said. “But is that bracelet really worth money to anyone else?”

Sure, the bracelet might’ve meant something to elves, but what about everybody else? Then again, she couldn’t have paid the guy back if the bracelet was worthless. That painting was supposed to be priceless, after all.

“Humans who wear the bracelet will receive the blessing of the wind.”

“The blessing of the wind?”

“Put simply, it can make wind magic stronger. Those who know this would be willing to pay for such a thing.”

So, it was a power-up item or something? Dang…now I kind of wanted one. Then again, I guess there wasn’t really a point in powering up my bear gear—it was already too OP for that to matter. In the game, on the other hand, I would’ve really loved this thing…

After that heartfelt reconciliation, we all got out of the bath.

I couldn’t really decide whether to wear my white bear outfit or my black bear outfit. In the end, I decided to go with the black; I was pretty sure showing them the white bear outfit would come back to bite me somehow.

 

Once we dried off our hair, I took the two to their rooms. They were the same ones that Cliff and the others had used. I’d already cleaned them and washed the sheets.

There wouldn’t be masculine B.O. anymore. Probably.

“I’ve got beds too.”

“You mean we can use this room?”

“Sure. Use it however you’d like.”

The two of them went inside.

“You’ve given us your bears to ride on and keep watch overnight,” said Sanya. “You’ve given us a warm meal and bath, and now…a warm bed. You say we’re the ones taking you on our journey, but I’m not so sure about that.”

It wasn’t like I could’ve made it to the elves’ village on my own, though. I needed someone to show me the way.

“Yuna! If there are any monsters, I’ll protect you!” Luimin thrust her fist up, and Sanya smiled.