Chapter 30: Fina Works

Chapter 30:
Fina Works

 

A FEW DAYS AGO, I went with Yuna to go tigerwolf slaying.

 

While Yuna went to work, I stayed in her bear house and worked on breaking down her old kills. At one point, I went out to look for herbs for Mom, but almost got lost. I only made it back thanks to Kumakyu.

I asked Kumakyu to wait outside, went to the storehouse, and pulled a wolf from the cold storage. It was small for a monster, but big for me, and I struggled to lay it out on the table. Yuna had set up a stool for me, so I didn’t have to stand on tiptoe.

I used my skinning knife to clean the pelt and separate the meat into cuts. I also took out the mana gem and set it aside. The parts we don’t need go into the trash bin. Apparently, the trash bin is a very deep hole; Yuna told me to make sure I don’t fall in.

It’s scary, so I made sure to be careful around it.

After I butchered a few wolves, the storehouse door opened. Yuna was back. I wondered if she already beat the tigerwolf? I wasn’t even done with the first batch yet. Yuna told me she wanted me to pull out the tigerwolf’s mana gem. It was part of my job, so I said I would, of course.

I was surprised by how massive the tigerwolf was. Yuna was so cool!

A tigerwolf is the same type of monster as a wolf, so its mana gem is in the same spot, kind of between the heart and liver. It was about twice the size of a wolf’s and had a different sort of luster to it. I washed it with water until it was clean and gave it to Yuna.

 

We ate lunch, and I got back to butchering wolves. Yuna said she was going to sleep a while. Maybe she was tired from fighting the tigerwolf?

I decided to try my hardest, too. I’d work hard to get all the butchering done.

Once I wrapped up, I went to the second floor to go wake Yuna. I didn’t know which room she was sleeping in, so I knocked on the door of the closest room and ducked inside when I didn’t hear anything. There she was. She looked really comfortable.

I shook her awake. “Yuna, Yuna.”

She woke up.

When she got out of bed, her clothes were pure white, exactly like Kumakyu. She looked cute in her black bear outfit, but she looked cute as a white bear, too. I guess she can reverse her clothes to switch between being a black bear or a white bear?

After I told her I was done with my work, we ended up going home. Yuna made the bear house disappear. Magic sure is amazing. We went back on Kumayuru. Apparently if she uses just one of the bears, the other one gets grumpy. I think I understand how they feel.

The gate guard was so surprised. Anyone would be, seeing the three of us, but the bear was cute, so I didn’t think he should be too worried.

 

Since I was going to work the next day too, I went to Yuna’s place at the inn, but she apparently didn’t have anywhere to process the bodies. Since it would be a pain to have to leave town every time we needed any butchering done, she visited the adventurers’ guild to ask them about getting a space of our own. They told us to see the trade guild, so we ended up heading there.

It was becoming a really big deal. I started to feel nervous.

When we got to the trade guild, everyone looked at Yuna. That bear outfit sure does stand out. Yuna talked to the reception lady at the desk for a couple of minutes and walked away with a plot of land. The lady took us to the empty plot, and Yuna plopped down the bear house there.

No matter how many times I saw it, it was amazing.

I got to work right away. That day, I butchered tigerwolves. It was supposed to be pretty similar to working with wolves, but even a kid like me knows tigerwolf pelts are expensive. I had to be really careful removing them, or they’d turn out worthless. Still, I tried my hardest, and when I wrapped up for the day, I felt I’d done an okay job.

For a few days straight, I went to Yuna’s house and wore away at the pile of bodies.

Then, one day while I was in the middle of cleaning and separating meat, I felt dizzy for a second. Just when I thought I might be in trouble, I collapsed.

Unluckily, Yuna saw and ran over to me. She looked at my hand and got this really concerned look. I was bleeding. I must have cut my hand a little when I fell. It hurt some. Not that much.

Yuna touched the place where I was bleeding. I think she did something magic. It felt warm, and then it stopped hurting, and my cut even disappeared. It was amazing.

She took off the bear glove and put her hand on my forehead. Apparently, I had a fever. She told me to go upstairs and sleep in a bed in one of the rooms for now. When I was lying in bed, she touched my forehead again. That time, she kept her bear gloves on. It felt so nice and soft, and that feeling just got stronger and stronger, until I ended up falling asleep.

 

It was dark out when I woke up. She told me that she’d made me dinner, and that I should take it home and eat it. Then she told me that I should take the day off tomorrow. Yuna said I could come to her house two days later. She told me that, from now on, I would take a day off from harvesting every three days.

If I did other work on a day off, she told me she wouldn’t let me do her butchering anymore. She was worried about my health, so I decided to do as she said.