Chapter 61: The Bear Goes to the Royal Capital’s Adventurers’ Guild

Chapter 61:
The Bear Goes to the Royal Capital’s
Adventurers’ Guild

 

SINCE I NEEDED TO REPORT the completion of my quest escorting Noa, I decided to go to the adventurers’ guild the next day. I told Fina to go off with Noa again, just in case there was any of the usual trouble with the adventurers because of how I looked. If anything happened to Fina, I could never explain it to Tiermina.

I let the inquisitive gazes of the populace shower me as I headed over to the adventurers’ guild alone. It was right where the trade guild said it’d be, straight down the large street that was close to the new bear house. The capital’s guildhouse was bigger than the one in Crimonia. A bigger guild meant more adventurers, and more adventurers meant more punks. Even on the way in, I noticed some tough customers coming in right with me. I felt like a kitten heading into a pen of wild beasts. I was right to leave Fina behind.

Please, no “Well you’re a wild bear, aren’t you?” jokes. Thank you.

I pulled my bear hood down low and went inside, not locking eyes with anyone. The moment I went inside, the whispers started.

“Did a cute bear just walk in here?”

“You’re right, there is a bear.”

“That’s a bear, alright.”

“What a cute outfit.”

“Bear attack. Somebody slay it. Bwa ha ha ha.”

“Oh c’mon. You can’t say stuff like that, even as a joke. You’ll scare the lass.”

“Then how about I slay her?”

“If you get close to her, that bear’ll run away.”

Clatter.

I heard the sound of a chair toppling over in the back.

“The bloody bear…” a man at the back murmured. “You shouldn’t lay a hand on that bear.”

“What’s with you? What’re you shaking for?”

“Don’t get involved with that one.”

“What’s up with that guy?”

“Who cares, somebody go talk to her.”

“In that case, I’ll go warn her off.”

A nearly two-meter-tall giant approached me. He grinned.

“Hey, bear girl. What did you come here for in that cute outfit? This isn’t the type of place girls like you should be.”

“I just came to report my quest completion.”

“You’re reporting on a quest? Are you an adventurer?”

“Well, yeah.”

Laughs slipped out from all around me.

“Wait a minute. Since when could children become adventurers around here?”

I knew this routine. Guys like this were everywhere; I ignored him. When I went to pass him, the man stretched out a hand toward my bear hood. I caught hold of his hand with a bear puppet and flung him right out the front door. The adventurers stared in confusion and amazement.

“What just happened?”

“Didn’t she just throw him with one hand?”

“Must’ve been your imagination.”

They continued clamoring as the guy I threw out came back in.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, coming up to me while rubbing his head. Then, as he reached out a hand in order to grab me again, I grabbed his arm and tossed him back out the door a second time. That had to be self-defense, right? The guild went silent.

“What did you just do?”

“He came to attack me, so I just tossed him.”

Three men surrounded me.

“You guys are kinda in my way.”

“Did you think we’d just let you get away with doing that to our buddy, bear girl?”

“He was the one who attacked me out of nowhere.”

“Don’t you screw with us!”

The men were coming to attack me, so I grabbed their arms the same way I had with the other guy a moment ago, and took out the trash. At this point, the rest of the guild really went quiet. I stepped outside, where the men I’d thrown over the threshold were trying to stand up.

“You little…”

Was this farce going to play out every time I hit up a new guild? I really was glad I hadn’t brought Fina along. Once the men stood up, they scowled at me. They weren’t pulling out weapons, so I guessed that was a good thing, at least.

Since the men were closing in on me, I invoked a wind spell that blew up like a geyser out from under them. They soared into the sky in an instant. It took them higher than I was expecting; from the ground, they looked as big as grains of rice. Those little grains gradually grew louder as they grew bigger.

“Gyaaaaaaah!”

“Somebody heeeelp!”

“We’re gonna diiiiiiie!”

“…”

Right before they landed, I made a cushion of wind. The men were caught in the cushion, and in the next instant, I flung them into the air for a second time. I repeated this several times, and once they stopped screaming, I let them back down onto the ground.

“Don’t attack me again, okay?” I told the men, but they weren’t listening. It looked like they fainted. Well, at least that meant they wouldn’t be messing with me anymore.

I left them behind and went back inside. The other adventurers were watching me from the entrance. Among them was a woman who was walking over to me.

“Well well, just when I’d come out thinking I heard a commotion, I find an adorable bear.” The woman smiled at the sight of me and the collapsed adventurers. An elf? Her hair was long and light green, and I could see long ears peeking out through the strands. She was beautiful and fair-skinned. “That’s some impressive magic you’re using.”

“They were the ones that attacked. I was just defending myself. I’m sure those adventurers watching from over there can attest to that.”

“Can they?” The elf turned around and looked at the first row of adventurers. They nodded, though vaguely. “I do think you overdid it a bit.”

I thought so, too, but people like that just wouldn’t listen unless you drove the point home yourself.

“Well, I guess they learned a lesson. Make sure none of the rest of you cause trouble either, okay?” the elven woman warned the onlooking adventurers.

Who was she? The adventurers’ reactions gave me the feeling that she wasn’t just another one of them. She was sizing me up in a way I wasn’t used to.

“I see. You’re that bear there’s been rumors about.”

“Um, who are you?”

“I’m Sanya, the master of the adventurers’ guild here in the royal capital.” All of a sudden I understood why everybody here hung on her every word. “I heard about you from Gran—a girl in a bear outfit that defeated a troupe of bandits singlehandedly. I thought Gran was exaggerating, but it looks like it was true.”

Sanya looked at the dazed adventurers. One of them regained consciousness, but it didn’t look like he intended to fight me again—not that he could with the guild master around, anyway. If he did come back for more, I’d just send him on a stroll through the sky again.

“That’s why I told you not to mess with the bear,” an adventurer at the back murmured.

“You knew about that bear?”

“Yeah, I know how terrifying and powerful it is. That’s why I told you to stop.”

I must not have been the only adventurer visiting from Crimonia. With the way he was cowering, he might’ve been one I’d beaten.

“Well, what are you here for today?”

“I came to give a quest report,” I said.

Sanya took me to a reception desk and sat down with me.

“Well then, could I have your quest completion document and your guild card?” I handed over my guild card and the quest completion document with Ellelaura’s signature. “An escort quest for the Fochrosé family, was it? Here, this is the quest fee, and this is the fee for escorting Gran.”

“For escorting Gran?”

“Gran came by the other day. He asked me to handle the quest fee and the quest completion procedures when you showed up.”

So that was why Gran’s name had come up before—he jumped through all the hoops to treat our chance meeting as an escort quest. I thanked him mentally as I accepted the money.

“I’ll treat both the Fahrengram and the Fochrosé family escort quests as D-rank quests.”

The D-rank quest count on my guild card increased by two as she said that. Apparently the higher the number I had, the better the impression strangers would have of me if I took on their escort quests. Since that part of the data was recorded on the card, you couldn’t see it without a crystal panel.

“The guild master in Crimonia gave me a letter,” I said. I’d gotten the letter to help ward off trouble, but trouble found me before I could hand it over.

“That must be from Ralock.” So that was his name? Sanya skimmed the letter. “Looks like it’s too late for a lot of these things.”

I was thinking the same thing.

“Let the guild staff know who you are, but you should still be careful. That said, you have a staggering slaying record. I can hardly believe the part about the tigerwolves, much less that you killed a black viper solo.”

She was reading the data on the guild card that was coming up on the crystal panel. I was wondering this for a while, but how did that crystal panel and the guild cards work? I guessed this was par for the course in a fantasy world.

“Considering that, I can’t believe you’re at Rank D.”

Sanya returned my guild card. I finished the quest report and delivered the letter from the Crimonia guild master, so with that, my business here was done. After that, I’d take a quick peek at the quests they had, and then maybe continue my sightseeing around the capital.

“Are you not taking any quests?”

“I just got to the capital, so next time.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

“I want to go sightseeing around the capital, and I was wondering if there are any stores around here that sell unusual things?”

“Unusual as in?”

“Like ingredients or tools, anything would be fine.”

“The trade guild would know more about that. But I guess right now that’d be the west district. They have all kinds of shops set up.”

“The west district, then. I’ll go over there next time.”

I thanked her and left the adventurers’ guild. This time the adventurers didn’t say anything as they saw me off.