Chapter 62: The Bear Obtains Cheese

Chapter 62:
The Bear Obtains Cheese

 

I LEFT THE GUILD and headed toward the plaza where the booths were set up. Getting something in my belly was at the top of my to-do list. Since there were a lot of booths, I felt like it’d take days to see all of them if I took my time. While I was perusing the items on display, I saw some backs I recognized. I slowly approached them from behind to surprise them. It seemed like they were caught up looking at something and didn’t notice me coming up to them.

“Fina! Noa!” I called out to them.

“Y-Yuna?!” Noa exclaimed.

“Yuna! What are you doing here? What about the adventurers’ guild?”

The two of them turned around in shock.

“I’m done with that, so I’m window-shopping. So, what were the two of you looking at?”

When I looked where the two of them had been looking, I could hear some sort of dispute.

“It looks like there’s an older man selling strange food that’s making a commotion.”

“Strange how?”

“Supposedly, it’s moldy.”

Mold, huh? I went ahead of the girls to see for myself, and found an older man and a young guy getting in a fight in front of the stall.

“How can you sell something like that?! You’re just causing trouble for everyone around you!”

“This isn’t just any ordinary mold.”

“Mold is mold!”

“You can eat the inner parts of this.”

“You can’t eat something that’s growing mold like that!”

The old man was trying his best to explain, but the other man wouldn’t listen and simply complained.

What interested me were the things lining the store. That stuff was undoubtedly mold. But that wasn’t a problem. It was cheese. It was unmistakably cheese. You could eat it alone, or between bread, and above all else, you could use it to make pizza.

I also really wanted to eat au gratin, though I was still a ways out from making that a reality.

“You two, that’s cheese.”

“Cheez?”

“You don’t know what that is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I don’t either.”

If these two didn’t know what cheese was, it had to be rare. I had to get my hands on it by any means necessary.

“As I said, this is food.”

“Nobody is going to eat this stuff!”

“Yuna?” Fina called out to stop me, but I got in between the two.

“Sir, that’s cheese, isn’t it?”

“Yes indeed, you know what it is? What a lovely outfit you have there, lass.”

“What the heck? You popped out of nowhere. And what is with your clothes? I don’t care if you’re just a girl, don’t you dare butt in!”

Standing this close, I realized he reeked of liquor. “This is food,” I said, “If you don’t even know that, you can keep quiet.”

“You telling me stuff riddled with mold is supposed to be food? Don’t make me laugh!”

Drunkards were nasty. They wouldn’t listen to people and if you ignored them, they’d just start complaining for ungrounded reasons.

“Hey, you listening to me?!”

The guy tried to grab my shoulder. I caught hold of his arm and threw a soft bear punch at his stomach with my off hand. The man bent over and dropped to the ground, unconscious. And I thought I was going easy on him.

I left him where he fell, turned to the older man, and talked to him like nothing had happened, “Sir, are you all right?”

“Yes, you were a lifesaver. Thank you.” The old man looked between me and the man on the ground. “Well then, miss, you know about cheese?”

“You ferment milk to make it, right? I don’t really know all the details about how it’s made, though.”

“That’s right. You sure know a lot for a youngster.”

“Sir, is it okay if I have a sample?”

“Of course, please try some.” The man cut a thin slice of cheese with a knife.

“Yuna, you’re going to eat that?”

Fina and Noa seemed worried. Well, I was eating something that had mold growing on it, so I guess they couldn’t help it.

“The mold is just on the surface, so it’s fine.” I popped the bite-sized piece of cheese into my mouth. It was a little strong, but definitely cheese. “Do you guys want to try it too?”

The two shook their heads. It was tasty, though.

“Sir, you’re selling this, right?”

“Yes, we needed money in the village, so I came to the royal capital to sell cheese, but no one would buy it.”

Yup, I thought, looks like cheese really hadn’t spread around in this world. Just like the guy from earlier, Fina and Noa didn’t know what it was.

“So that basically means I can buy everything you’ve got, right?”

“You’ll buy some, lass?”

“It depends on the price. How much is it?”

“I actually sell it by weight, but one block would be about this much.”

“I’ll buy it. I’ll take it all, please!”

“Are you serious about this?” The man looked at me like he didn’t believe me. Well, I guess I’d find it hard to believe someone saying they’d buy all your stock when no one would even look at the product before.

“Yeah, I’m serious.”

I took out the money. Surprise formed on the man’s face. “Thank you, bear girl.”

Right as we finished our deal, a commotion sprung up behind me. It looked like some patrolling soldiers arrived.

“We heard there was a fight happening here. A bear? Ms. Yuna?!” It was Ranzel, the guard who had helped out with the bandit group. “Ms. Yuna, what are you doing here? I heard a fight broke out here.”

“Nothing happened. A drunk guy was making a scene, fell down on his own, and fell asleep.”

I looked at the man I’d taken down earlier with a bear punch. He’d fallen for a different reason than I said, but he really had been drunk. Ranzel looked at the collapsed man, and then at the crowd.

“Is this true?” he asked me, seeming dubious. The drunk started to foam at the mouth slightly.

There was no getting past this guy. I decided to be honest with him.

“The drunk guy was starting a fight with this man, so I came to his aid.”

“What the bear girl is saying is the truth. She saved me.”

“It wasn’t Yuna’s fault,” said Noa.

“Yuna protected the man,” said Fina.

On top of that, people around us also started advocating for me. I guess anyone would side with a girl in a bear onesie over a drunk. Ranzel scratched his head.

“I got it. I’ll turn a blind eye this time.”

Ranzel directed his subordinates to carry the man.

“This time I’ll treat this as a drunk acting out of line, but please don’t cause any more trouble, Ms. Yuna. It seems to follow you wherever you go.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Even if that weren’t the case, people are gathering from all over, and we’re already having a hard time keeping things civil. Please actually do keep out of hot water.”

Here I was unable to make that promise.

“Well then, I’ll be heading off,” Ranzel said, bowing his head before leaving with his subordinates.

I resumed my cheese talk with the old man.

“Miss, it looks like I’ve caused you trouble. Thank you for what you’ve done.”

“Don’t worry about it. I wanted cheese either way. Supposing if you still have some, I’ll buy it.”

“I’m sorry. I only brought what I could carry from the village. This is everything. There’s still more at the village, however.”

I didn’t need an apology from this man—no, this saint of cheese. Still, I was overjoyed to hear there was more wherever he came from.

“Well then, could you tell me where your village is? I’ll go there to buy some later.”

“I would be happy if you did, but are you really that in need of cheese? I think this is a considerable amount already.”

“I’m sort of looking after some kids at an orphanage. I was thinking I’d use this cheese to make them something to eat later.”

“I see. All right, if you come to the village, I’ll welcome you.”

“Thank you.”

“Not at all, I should be the one thanking you. If I couldn’t sell this, I would have been in trouble.”

“Really? In that case, I can pay a little more.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s fine. In exchange, sell it to me a little more cheaply when I visit.”

“Yes, of course. If I don’t have to come to the capital, that saves me trouble.”

I got the location of the village from the man and put all of the cheese I bought into my bear storage.

 

We left the man and I ended up going around with Fina and Noa to the stalls.

“Yuna, is the ‘cheez’ from earlier really that good?” Noa asked me. I must have been acting upbeat.

Bread was obviously on my mind, but I was also thinking of eating pizza when I got home. Between this and the potatoes the other day, it was like someone was just telling me to make pizza. A smile naturally formed over my face.

“Hmm, I guess it depends on the person. I like it, but there are also people who hate it.”

“Then…would you let me try some?”

“I-I’d also like to try some.”

“Well then, how about we head back home right now and make pizza or something? Most people like pizza, after all.”

Like I needed an excuse. A part of me hoped they’d turn out to be cheese philistines.

“Yes, I would like to try some.”

I tried remembering what ingredients I had in my bear storage as I bought the ingredients I was missing for pizza, and we ended up heading back to the bear house.