Chapter 34: The Bear Helps Move

Chapter 34:
The Bear Helps Move

 

FINA’S FAMILY DECIDED on their new home—a place near the adventurers’ guild, on Gentz’s request—and paid for it with Gentz’s savings from his lonely bachelor life. I was at Fina’s house today to help with moving.

“Bring the stuff you want to take over here. Make sure to put the small stuff in a box together.” I started putting the things they’d packed away in boxes into the bear storage. “Are you taking this table, too?”

“We don’t have money to buy a new one, so yes please.”

“In that case, you’re going to take the chairs too, right?”

“If you can fit those, please.”

The family brought out other stuff while I was occupied with Tiermina’s instructions, and I kept putting more and more of it away. Fina and Shuri had worked hard to pack all of their meager belongings.

“Yuna,” said Fina, “could you take the bed, too?”

“Sure.” I went over to Fina’s room. All that remained were a few boxes left in one corner and the bed in question.

“Just one?”

“Yes, Shuri and I sleep together.”

“Well, in that case, you need to have your new dad buy another one for you.”

I put Fina’s bed away in the bear storage, then dipped into Tiermina’s room and did the same with her bed.

“Say, your bottomless bag is pretty amazing, miss. We’d normally need a cart to haul all this stuff.”

Well, that was because it was an item I’d gotten from the admin and/or god—not that I could tell them that. I went to each room and put all the large furniture in my storage.

“Is that all you need to move?” The house was bare.

“Yes, thank you, Yuna,” Tiermina said.

With the first phase dealt with, we headed to Gentz’s house.

 

I’d often heard that men living alone lived like slobs and wondered why. Apparently, Gentz hadn’t escaped that stereotype. He’d known for a few days that they’d be moving today, so why hadn’t he cleaned up?

“This is pretty terrible,” Tiermina muttered quietly as she looked around.

“Sorry,” Gentz said with a hangdog expression.

“Yuna, sorry, but could you take the girls to the new house?”

“Sure, I can.”

“Fina, you get the boxes for your room in order ahead of us. I told you how we’d split the rooms yesterday, so you already know what to do. Also, I’ve cleaned the rooms to a certain extent, but I didn’t get all of it, so could you finish up? Prioritize the sleeping areas first. Once you finish that, I’ll leave arranging the things to you. Please clean the other rooms, too. I’ll come by after I finish cleaning here.”

She handed over the keys to the new place to Fina.

Next, she looked at me, “Yuna, I’m sorry, but once you get the stuff moved, could you come back here?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, if you three could do that, please.”

What else did I expect but military efficiency from the single mom of two kids? We headed to the new house, which sat midway between the inn I’d been staying at before and the guild. It was bigger than their previous house but didn’t seem dusty at all; credit to Tiermina for the advance cleaning.

“Yuna, could you take out the cleaning supplies?”

I pulled them out. Fina took a bucket and headed to the kitchen to draw water from the mana gem.

“Yuna, could you come to the second floor?”

The three of us went up to the second floor. Fina checked out the room on the right. It was over six-tatami-mats wide, which, to my Japanese sensibilities, was pretty roomy. Fina opened a window to air out the room.

“Shuri, open the windows in the other rooms. After you do that, could you start cleaning?”

Shuri nodded and left.

“Yuna, could you place the furniture?”

Just as Fina told me, I started setting the furniture and beds down. Even if I put them down in slightly the wrong place, I could use my bear strength to finetune their placement. At the end, I put down the boxes with Fina and Shuri’s things on the floor.

I set Tiermina’s bed, furniture, and boxes on the floor of her room, figuring she’d have her own ideas about what to do with them. I held off on taking out the smaller things and went back to the first floor, where little Shuri was working her darndest to get it clean. I deposited the table, chairs, tableware, and such in the kitchen. Finally, I put the leftover items I wasn’t sure about in an unused room on the first floor.

“Fina, this is everything. I’m going back to Gentz’s.”

“Thank you so much,” said Fina.

“Thank you,” said Shuri.

“Make sure you put some elbow grease into it, you two.”

 

When I got to Gentz’s house, there was a mountain of boxes waiting outside. It smelled of a quick and dirty fix. Gentz seemed exhausted but followed Tiermina’s instructions obediently. Apparently, he was already whipped.

I followed Tiermina’s instructions myself, and soon the last of Gentz’ stuff was in bear storage. His house now empty, we headed to their new home.

 

Inside, the mountain of stuff was half-cleaned up. Fina and Shuri came over as they realized we were back.

“Fina, Shuri, good job.”

“But it’s not done yet.”

“It’s not getting done in a day. For now, let’s just make sure we have a place to sleep. Yuna, could you put anything that we can move by hand, other than the furniture, in the back room on the first floor? I’ll tell you where to put the rest.”

We set up the larger items we’d brought from Gentz’s house, placing them in the corners of the rooms where they belonged. Apparently, Tiermina and Gentz would figure out exact placement later. When we weren’t sure where something should go, we put them in the first-floor room from earlier.

“Well, we’ve made sure we have a place to sleep, so let’s call it a day.” Tiermina came down from the second floor to the first. “Fina, is the kitchen all set up?”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t cleaned that up yet.”

“It’s okay. You’ve been working very hard, Fina, Shuri. It’s not your fault that a certain idiot didn’t clean things up in advance.”

“Sorry.” Gentz hung his head low.

“Dinner’s gonna take a while if we start now.”

“Why don’t we go eat out somewhere?” Gentz said, hoping to recover his honor.

“We can’t. Now that the four of us are living together, we’ll have new expenses. I don’t have any money saved up, and we can’t use your savings for something like that.”

“But it’s too late to start cooking now. What are you planning to do?”

The two of them glared at each other. I wish they’d stop acting like they were about to divorce right on the first day they’d moved into a new place.

“Oh, okay,” I said. “I’ll pay, so let’s go eat somewhere. That works, right?”

“We can’t impose on you any more than we already have, Yuna. We’re already grateful that you moved our things. It would have cost us to hire movers, and doing it ourselves would have taken us several days. We can’t eat out on your dime after you’ve done so much for us.”

I didn’t mind, but I could see why she’d think that way. “In that case, how about you make a meal at my place?”

“At your house?”

“You can use any ingredients you want, so whip up something good.”

“Umm. I guess that should be fine? Okay! I’ll make something delicious for you.”

Relieved to finally reach a compromise, the five of us set off for the bear house.