Chapter 36: The Bear Uses a Blow Dryer

Chapter 36:
The Bear Uses a Blow Dryer

 

“ALL RIGHT, it’s my turn now!” Gentz headed to the bath.

The remaining four of us toweled off. It would take a while to get our hair dry like that, so I headed over to my room and brought back a pseudo-blow dryer. I’d used earth magic to make something dryer-shaped and set a couple of fire and wind gems in it. There was a chance someone out there sold this sort of thing, but it would have been a pain to look for one in the stores, so I just made one myself.

“Fina, come over here for a sec.”

“What do you need?”

“Turn around and sit here.”

She obediently flipped around to so her back was to me and sat down. Her hair, which was a little longer than

shoulder length, hung down in front of me. I grabbed the dryer and ran mana through it. Warm wind started coming from the dryer.

“Eep! What is that?” Fina squealed, whipping around.

“It’s a tool to dry your hair by blowing out hot air.” I showed her it was fine by blowing it at her hand.

“It’s warm.”

“Now that you know, turn around.”

Fina obediently turned away from me. Once Fina’s hair was dry, I moved on to Shuri, whose hair was a little longer than Fina’s.

“Yuna,” said Tiermina, “that’s a useful tool you’ve got there.”

“I made it since it’s so hard to dry long hair.”

“When you’re finished, may I borrow it, too?” Tiermina’s hair was back-length.

“Sure.” I handed the dryer over to Tiermina once I finished with Shuri.

“Are you sure I can go before you?” she asked. I had my hair wrapped in a towel and hadn’t dried it yet.

“It’ll take me a while, so I can do it after.”

“I’ll use this with gratitude, then.”

Tiermina turned it on her hair as her daughters watched. It was such a wholesome scene. When she finished and handed it back to me, Gentz came back from his bath.

“That was some great hot water. Those bears sure gave me a fright though. Thanks, Miss.” Then Gentz took a good look at me and froze up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Bear girl, you sure look different without your hood on.”

“You think so?”

“I had no idea that your hair was that long under the hood. Hair makes such a difference to people’s impression of you.”

Who are Tiermina and Gentz getting their lines from? I thought.

“I think you look pretty cute in your hood,” he said, “but you look beautiful with your long hair.”

“Yes, I think that too!”

“Praising me isn’t going to get you anything.”

“It’s such a shame that you’re hiding your hair when it’s this pretty.”

Since I couldn’t tell them I was powerless without my bear onesie, of course, I decided to keep quiet. Fina started helping me when I was partway through drying my hair, and I thanked her. Once we were all done, I led them to the guest rooms.

“Gentz, you use the room in the back. I only have two beds for Tiermina and the girls, but could you take that room next to it?”

“Yes, Shuri and I can share a bed.”

I looked over at Gentz. “Gentz.”

“What?”

“Make sure you don’t pay any night-time visits to Tiermina. Fina and Shuri need to sleep,” I told Gentz, with a look that meant business.

“I wouldn’t do something like that!”

“Don’t have her visit you in your room, either. I don’t want to wash dirty sheets.”

“I wouldn’t want you to do that, either!”

“We wouldn’t do anything like that in someone else’s house,” Tiermina said, “especially with the girls around. In any case, we’re all exhausted, so I’m going to sleep. Thank you so much for everything today.”

“Goodnight, Yuna.”

“Night.”

“I’m heading to bed. You were a big help today. Thanks,” Gentz told me sheepishly and headed to his room.

I retired to my room.

 

The next morning, when I woke up and went downstairs, Fina was prepping breakfast.

“Morning.” I greeted.

“Good morning.”

“You’re up early.”

“I always wake first and make breakfast for my family, so I just went ahead…”

“Don’t worry about the ingredients you used or anything. Is everyone else still asleep?”

“Mr. Gentz, I mean my dad, went to work. He said to tell you thank you.”

He had been taking days off work to rush over when Tiermina was sick, then while looking for a house, and moving. He couldn’t keep that up, obviously.

“Shuri and mom are still in bed.”

“Let them sleep. They must be tired.”

Even though I cured Tiermina, she was still slowly rebuilding her strength. Being bedridden so long had cost her, and the move must have left her exhausted.

“It’s fine. Shuri is always asleep until around now, and my mom has been sick for a long time, so she’s not good with mornings, but she’ll wake when I get her up.”

In other words, they needed someone else to rouse them.

“I’m finished making breakfast, so I’ll pay them a visit.”

Fina headed upstairs. After a few minutes, Tiermina and Shuri came down, rubbing their eyes.

“Yuna, good morning. Thanks so much for yesterday.”

She still looked pretty tired. Shuri looked drowsy, too. In spite of that, they dug into the breakfast Fina had made, which consisted of simple veggie sandwiches and some milk. Come to think of it, I hadn’t had fried eggs since I left Earth. I would have killed for a fried egg sandwich right about then.

“Fina, I have something I want to ask you real quick.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you know where they sell eggs?”

“Excuse me?”

“Like I said—eggs. Frying up some eggs to stick between bread is the best, so I’d like to get some. I was just thinking I hadn’t really seen any place selling them.”

“Yuna, normal stores don’t carry luxury products like that.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Only the nobles and a small number of rich people can eat something high-grade like an egg,” Tiermina explained. “You have to go to the woods or something to collect eggs, and if you take too long, they end up going bad, so you can’t bring them back from far away, either. Even if you transport them with a fast horse, it’ll cost more than we can afford.”

“Uhh, can’t you catch some flightless birds and raise them to lay…”

“Flightless birds? Aren’t they birds because they can fly?”

Maybe this world didn’t have chickens? Or maybe this was a region where they didn’t have chickens? If I looked around, would I find some somewhere? I added chicken and eggs to my list of wanted ingredients.

 

After breakfast, the three of them went home in order to finish cleaning up their things from moving. I offered to help, but they turned me down.

“You need to work too, don’t you, Yuna?”

Actually, I had enough money to live without working for a while. A wise person once said working was losing. Still, I decided to head over to the adventurers’ guild to check the quest boards.