Chapter 239: The Bear Plays with the Village’s Elven Children

Chapter 239:
The Bear Plays with the Village’s Elven Children

 

YOU KNOW, I never would’ve expected that my fantasy world language skill could translate Elvish. I didn’t know how many languages there were in this world, but that probably meant I could also understand other races’ languages. Pretty convenient! I wouldn’t be able to communicate if I couldn’t understand the language, after all.

Still, I was glad that I couldn’t understand monsters or animals. If I could, I probably couldn’t make myself fight them.

 

After the talks were over, I left Mumulute’s house.

“It makes me anxious to leave you on your own, Yuna,” said Sanya, “so don’t stir up any trouble.” Seriously? A moment ago she’d just said that she trusted me in front of Mumulute!

I never cause a scene on purpose. In fact, trouble just seems to come my way, so what could I even do to stop it? Honestly, I wanted to just tell her that. Maybe she should do something to stop anyone from causing me trouble!!!

Sanya headed off with Mumulute and Arutul to check on the sacred tree. I headed my own way to look for a place to set up my bear house.

Hmm…what to do? They said I could set it up anywhere, but putting the house in the village would probably just draw crowds. Yeah, it’d be better to keep it outside the village. I could ask Luimin for suggestions for a place that wouldn’t stand out.

While I paced and thought about it, I came across Luimin and Lucca, both surrounded by elven kids. The second the kids noticed me, their eyes started sparkling. The children gathered around me.

I had a bad feeling about this. “Uh, Luimin? What’s going on…?”

Luimin looked like I’d put her on the spot. “Sorry, Yuna,” she said, and explained…

 

Lucca was playing with the other kids.

Lucca told them about Kumayuru and Kumakyu. He told them all about how nice it was to pet them, how soft their fur was, and how gentle and cute they were.

Even Luimin joined in on the conversation.

The kids got it in their heads that they wanted to meet Kumayuru and Kumakyu.

I showed up.

The children surrounded me. (Which brings us to now.)

 

Jeez, what were Sanya’s siblings even doing?! I guess it was better than them telling people my bears were dangerous or scary or whatever. Still, they also weren’t doing me any favors by going in the other direction and overhyping my bears.

The children pleaded with me to show them the bears, and who could say no with those puppy-dog eyes?

Eh—the house could wait. “Mumulute told me not to summon them in the village, so I can’t do this for long. Got it?” I’d be in trouble if we caused a huge scene, so I made them agree to that first. “And don’t do anything the bears wouldn’t like.”

There was a chance some of them would pull on my bears’ fur or hit them. I’d feel bad subjecting my bears to that, so that was another thing I got them to promise.

“It’s okay!” said Luimin. “I’ll be watching them.”

I put my faith in her and summoned Kumayuru and Kumakyu. We got a lot of reactions: some of the kids shouted with joy, but others were so surprised that they hid behind Luimin’s back. No matter the reaction, Luimin took care of them all.

The children happily patted Kumayuru and Kumakyu. Man…no matter where they went, my bears were always all the rage, huh?

But some of the kids were more curious about me than the bears. “Miss, why do you dress like a bear?” one of the kids asked with the purest look in her eyes. It was nothing like the adults who’d gawk at my outfit.

“I’ve got the divine blessing of the bears.” Which wasn’t a lie…though you could say it was more of a curse than a blessing.

“Can I be blessed by bears too?”

“I…don’t think so. Elves are already blessed by the wind.”

“I think bears are better than wind!”

This was bad. If this girl went home and told their parents, “I don’t want the wind blessing, I want the bear blessing!” that could cause a real mess. Things might end up fine if it ended there, but what if her parents came asking how to get a bear blessing? No thanks.

“The wind blessing is important to elves,” I said carefully, “so you shouldn’t say that. Wouldn’t it be bad if everyone else had the wind blessing and you were the only one who didn’t? Plus, you’d have to dress like this if you had the bear blessing, even when you grow up. What would you think if your parents dressed like me?”

I did everything I could to persuade her. With each sentence, I felt like my HP was being chipped away bit by bit. Here I was, saying stuff that ran counter to my entire existence. What a bummer.

Still, I was so relieved when that all paid off. “Okay! I’ll work really hard to get the wind blessing.”

I’d almost broken myself doing it, but I’d successfully protected this girl’s future.

 

After that, just as promised, they let me recall Kumayuru and Kumakyu before it caused problems. The kids were disappointed, but a promise was a promise.

I was about to search for a place to establish my bear house, but Luimin and the others said they wanted to show me around the village as a thank you. I couldn’t just turn them down, so I accepted. The kids tagged along as we walked around the village. There were fields for crops, but…

“There aren’t any shops?”

“We can manage,” said Luimin. “Sometimes we buy things from the merchants who come through or we go to the town when we need something.”

A small stream flowed through the village, serving as a play area for the kids. The kids practically jumped in the very moment we got to it. When I got closer to the water, they started splashing me too.

“Ah, don’t do that to Yuna!” Luimin warned them. But it was fine—my bear onesie was water resistant.

After that, Luimin and the kids guided me around the village.

 

I didn’t end up having time to set up my own house because I’d played with the kids, so I went back to Luimin’s place. Luimin and Lucca headed over to Talia’s. Since I was going to stay here for one more day, I went to Sanya’s room.

Sanya was back from checking on the sacred tree. “Welcome back!”

“Sanya, you’re done already?”

“We were only checking on it.” Still, Sanya seemed off somehow…

“How does it look? Do you think it’ll turn out okay?”

“It was just as my grandfather described, but the situation is worse than I expected.”

“What did it look like?”

“I tried cutting off one of the parasite vines as a test, but it regenerated at once. It’d be best if we could find the mana gem, but the sacred tree is vast and the parasite has grown gigantic from its power. I’m afraid we’ll need to assemble people to fight it off just as my grandfather said.”

I guess it wouldn’t be simple after all.

“The moment I saw the parasite,” said Sanya, “I wanted to burn it to a crisp, but we can’t. The sacred tree would turn to ashes too.”

Ack. So you couldn’t just deal with it like I’d dealt with them back in the game.

“Also, we’re not that adept at fire magic,” Sanya added. “We probably couldn’t set it on fire, even if we wanted to.”

I knew that wind magic was their forte since they were elves, but I hadn’t known about them being bad at fire magic. “Do you guys need a hand, then?”

“You?”

“I can get in if you take the barrier down, right?” Admittedly, I also wanted to check out that sacred tree.

“I know you’d be a big help, but I can’t just ask you on my own though. There are probably people who wouldn’t like that. They don’t know how powerful you are, either, which complicates things even more.”

Well, I was an outsider…and I couldn’t blame them for not having a ton of faith in a girl wearing a bear onesie. “Still, just let me know if you need help.”

“Thank you. I’ll ask when the time comes. Oh, where did you set up your house?”

I filled her in about what had happened after we separated.

She laughed. “The kids got to you, huh? You do look pretty unusual to everyone.”

I mean…if there were a place where it wouldn’t look unusual, I’d sure like to know.