Chapter 232: The Bear Negotiates with the Picture Book

Chapter 232:
The Bear Negotiates with the Picture Book

 

“MR. DOGLUD, there was that one other matter I wished to ask you about.”

Ah, man. We had the perfect window to slip away, but now the old man was striking up a new conversation with Doglud.

“I’m sorry,” said Doglud. “I wasn’t able to procure it either.”

“I see. Even you, with all of your connections, couldn’t find it…” The old man sighed quietly.

He’d asked for something besides the painting? Hm...and Doglud hadn’t been able to locate it …

“You weren’t even able to find the author?” the old man added. “If we could find the person who created it, we may well be able to commission another picture book.”

So, it was the author of some picture book they were looking for?

“For all of our research, we could only find the word ‘bear.’ We couldn’t even locate an author. The only other information we were able to ascertain was that those who have the book are related in some way to the castle.”

Excuse me, say what?

Did he just say the author was “Bear”? And the only people with the book had some connection to the castle? That meant...

“I did so want that bear book for my granddaughter.”

A bear book?!

“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience,” Doglud said.

Was he looking for the bear book that I wrote?!

“Speaking of bears...” The old man looked at me.

Yeah? I thought. So I’m a bear, so what?

Doglud looked me too. “Come to think of it, I did hear rumors of a girl in a bear suit who visits the castle…”

“You dress as a bear yourself,” said the old man. “Do you happen to know her?”

I could’ve said I knew squat. That would’ve been so easy.

“Do you really want that book that much?” I asked instead.

“One of my granddaughter’s friends from the capital showed her the book and she became so fond of it, but I haven’t been able to procure a copy no matter how hard I try.”

He’d been trying to get the bracelet for his granddaughter too, and he didn’t look like a bad guy. After thinking about it for a while, I pulled a book out of my bear storage.

“Was this the bear book you were looking for?”

The moment the old man saw it, he reached out for it. “That it is! This is it!” Once he had the book in his hands, he stood up and shouted. “Then the bear who wrote this is...”

“That’d be me.” You’d think that would be obvious, given my whole style, wouldn’t you, my guy?

“And what of the bear who visits the castle in the capital?”

“Also me, unless something really weird is going on.”

“I see, so you are the author.” The old man looked at me again. “If I may be so forward, would you let me have this book? I will pay you, of course.”

Since he was doing it for his granddaughter, I didn’t really mind, but I was kind of curious how much he’d offer me for it.

“How much?” I asked.

“As much as you desire.”

Okay, that was just ridiculous. How were you supposed to answer something like that? It wasn’t like I wanted the money, though, and I’d kind of asked as a joke in the first place.

He continued, without a note of hesitation in his voice. “How much would I need to offer to take this off your hands, my dear bear lass?”

I kind of felt like he was judging me. Wait…was this guy testing me? Was I supposed to ask for a premium price? For the normal price of a picture book? Hold up, what was the normal price of a picture book?

“So, what’s your answer?”

Uhhh, he was really turning up the heat all of a sudden. I was no match for a merchant, obviously. I felt like I’d lose this match if I just spouted off a random price. Still, I wasn’t exactly hyped about just handing the book over to him for nothing though. So…

“Your granddaughter can pay me for it directly.”

“What was that?” Took you by surprise, old man, eh? I guess that meant I won? He looked downright flabbergasted.

“It all depends on if she smiles when you give her that book. If she doesn’t seem excited to have it, then I’m not forking it over no matter how much you pay me. But if she gives me a spectacular smile, she can have it as a present.”

“Oh ho, are you sure you’re fine with that? You think you can wager it all on my granddaughter’s smile, do you?” He grinned. I guess he liked my proposition.

That firm look he’d had, like he was sizing me up, disappeared. Still, it wasn’t like seeing his granddaughter smile would mean I lost this match.

“You can’t buy a kid’s genuine smile, no matter how much money you’ve got,” I said.

“Absolutely right!” He beamed.

“What would you have done if I asked you for a ton of money?”

“If I could have paid for it, I would have. If not, I would have given up. Luckily, you had a different answer for me. It’s been a mighty long time since anyone’s made me smile like that. I never would’ve expected anyone to demand my own granddaughter’s smile as a payment.”

Maybe. But seeing her excited about the book was the best payment of all. “I’m going to make sure you cough up that price, you know.”

“My granddaughter has joy to spare. You’ll get more than enough smiles.”

Talk about a doting grandparent. Looked like we were all winners here, in the end. At the very least, we didn’t have any losers. To him, seeing his granddaughter smile was a little victory in and of itself.

I’d won too. My book was being exchanged for smiles, after all. Then again, I’d feel like a huge loser if she got the book and wasn’t really into it.

“I have one more thing to ask you, Miss,” said the old man. “What connection do you have with the castle? Why haven’t we been able to learn anything about the book?”

“I asked His Majesty to keep it a secret.”

“His Majesty?”

Both the old man and Doglud seemed flabbergasted when I mentioned the king. “I made the book for Lady Flora in the beginning. But then everyone working at the castle saw her with it and they started wanting copies too. I let them have copies, but only in the castle. I didn’t want anyone finding out about me either, so I asked them to keep the author a secret.”

“That explains why we could find nothing about the book.” The old man nodded. “I see why everyone kept tight-lipped about it.”

“Why won’t you sell it everywhere?” asked Doglud. “I’m sure this would fly off the shelves, especially with the king’s seal of approval.”

“I don’t really need the money, and people knowing I wrote it would be nothing but trouble.”

I asked everyone in the room to keep silent about the book. They all agreed right away…they probably didn’t want to invite the king’s wrath on them, after all. I mean, the king had put a gag order in place for me! I couldn’t just hand the book over without making sure they’d keep quiet. That’d be such a waste.

You never know when it’ll be useful to have a king backing you up.

“It seems the king has taken quite a liking to you, hasn’t he?” the old man noted. “I doubt he would go to such lengths to obfuscate the author of any normal picture book.”

I suppose he had a point. I’d kind of thrown that request out there, but the king had taken it really seriously. Maybe it was just one of my billion secrets, as far as the king was concerned. He knew about the ten thousand monsters I’d slain, the kraken, and that tunnel I’d built. Plus, somebody had probably filled him in about those iron golems. A picture book was a drop in the secret bucket compared to all of that.

“So, my dear bear girl, would you accompany me to see my granddaughter right now?”

“Right now?” Wasn’t this all a bit fast?

“I can’t wait to see my granddaughter’s smile!” From the look on his face, I don’t think he’d take no for an answer.

Eh. It wasn’t like I had anything coming up at the inn anyway. “All right. I’ll go with you. Sanya, you can go back to the inn ahead of me, so we don’t keep Luimin worried.”

Luimin was probably fine since Miranda was with her, but I was sure she was worried.

“Are you sure about going on your own?” asked Sanya, for some reason. C’mon, Sanya knew full well what I was capable of. What was she so worried about?

Although…the fact she cared felt nice.

“Yuna, you can’t go accepting fights even if you’re not the one who starts it, you hear?”

Oh, so that was what she was worried about. I couldn’t make any promises about that. Poor Sanya, thinking that she could suppress the fiery soul of a gamer. Still, I was pretty selective about who I fought with these days, so Sanya didn’t really have to worry about it.

Sanya headed to the inn, and I went to the old man’s carriage to meet his granddaughter.

The sky had cleared. It’d been bucketing rain just earlier, though. Sure was weird weather today, with all these cycles of starts and stops.

The coach driver who’d been standing at the entrance sat down in the carriage. We got off to a slow start. Since I was in the carriage alone with the old man, we introduced ourselves properly.

“So…Yuna, is it? Now, will you tell me why you have that getup on?”

The question on everyone’s minds, huh? Well, I had a brilliant go-to response for that!

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“I won’t dig into it, then. Experience tells me not to ask any further questions.”

The reason wasn’t actually deep. I just couldn’t tell anyone the truth.

“How old’s your granddaughter, Mr. Retbelle?” I couldn’t really tell him much about myself, so I decided to change the topic. (I’m very good at that.)

“She’s five this year. She’s very cute. Looks just like me!”

Was he implying that he was cute? But…how? And she was supposed to be cute because she looked like him? Maybe if she had his nose or something, that’d be fine, but…come on.

I hadn’t asked him for more details, but he started going off about how cute his granddaughter was. Sure, I’d been the one to change the conversation topic, but he sure was long-winded about his grandkid. Then again, I could talk about how cute Fina was all day. Somewhere in the middle of me letting him brag about his grandkid, the carriage stopped.

We’d finally made it.

“Already here, then?” the old man wondered. “There was so much more I had to tell you.”

I’d really heard enough. Really heard enough.

When I got out of the carriage, I discovered we were right in front of a tall building. Looked like it was about five stories tall?

“The bottom is where our business is, and the upper part is my home.”

In other words, he owned the whole building.

“Rodis, if you would mind the carriage?”

“As you wish, sir,” the man in the coach seat answered and drove the carriage away. He left, and we headed into the building.

Retbelle headed up the stairs and took me into the house. “I’m sorry, would you wait here? I’ll bring my granddaughter to you,” he said, and left the room.

I looked around while waiting for him. The place was decorated with paintings and vases, but I had no idea if they counted as fancy or not.

Still, it got me thinking. I kind of liked the idea of getting something to decorate my bear house. Maybe a bear something-or-other that Fina or Shuri would like? Or maybe I’d paint a bear myself?

It kind of felt weird decorating my house with something I’d made myself, though. Maybe it’d be better to have Fina and Shuri draw something for me?

As I wondered about that and checked out the room, the door opened and Retbelle came in. “Thank you for waiting.”

There was a little girl hiding behind him.

I looked at her. Yeah, no family resemblance, even in the slightest.