Chapter 73: The Bear Snags Bakers Part Two

Chapter 73:
The Bear Snags Bakers
Part Two

 

THE NEXT DAY, when I talked to Morin and Karin about our next steps, I noticed a commotion outside.

“Come out here!”

“We’ll break the door down!”

“Get out here, bear!”

Sure was noisy outside. Maybe I needed to put in some insulation.

“You don’t think they’re from yesterday…” Morin stood up.

“Yuna,” Fina said, giving me a worried look.

I turned a smile to her so she wouldn’t be anxious.

“I’m going to take a quick peek.”

“Yuna?!” Morin looked shocked when I said that. “It’s dangerous.”

“You don’t need to worry. Despite my outfit, I really am an adventurer.”

Morin looked me over. I in no way resembled an adventurer. I might have made her way more worried.

“You saw me when I was beating those guys when they came to the store.”

“I did…but if something does happen…”

“As your employer, it’s my job to protect my employees.”

After I told the three of them not to go outside, I went out on my own. There was a portly man on the lawn leading a group of about ten men.

“So you’ve finally come out, bear girl,” the man said, grinning.

“Who the heck are you?”

“I’m the merchant, Lord Jowlz.”

“Lardy Jowlz? That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Why you little—!” one of the underlings yelled.

Looks like they didn’t take a fancy to that. I thought it was a great name.

“Back down! So, bear girl, looks you like really did a number on some of my men yesterday.”

“They were the ones who pulled a knife on me first. Should I have sliced them up?”

“You think you can get away with defying Lord Jowlz in this capital? How about I sell you along with that baker’s daughter?” he said, still grinning.

I wanted to dribble him like a soccer ball up and down my property.

“But,” he said, “if you give back the baker family, then I’ll forgive you this time.”

“You know what? You’re seriously mistaken if you think that things are always going to go the way you want them.”

“Looks like you don’t know how the world works, either. There are some people you just can’t pick fights with in this world. Just because you’ve got some talent, you can’t just stick your head in things.”

Jowlz’s men drew their knives.

“That’s enough. Could you close your mouth? It stinks.”

I couldn’t actually catch a whiff of him at this distance, but I was feeling nauseated.

I opened the ground beneath his men’s feet. The merchant Jowlz was the only one left standing as they all fell into a hole. It was about a five-meter drop; they undoubtedly had broken bones. If they’d been unlucky, they might have even died.

“You little…so you’re a sorceress?”

“I’m an adventurer.”

“A girl dressed as weird as you is supposed to be an adventurer…”

No matter how I was dressed, I was an adventurer. I approached him.

“Keep back!”

“Then would you like to get in the hole yourself?”

I just wouldn’t feel satisfied until I punched him at least once for Morin and Karin.

“Who do you think I am? I’m Jowlz the merchant. I even have clout with the master of the adventurers’ guild. What’s a little girl like you supposed to be able to do?!”

“Oh, I don’t know who you are.”

Jowlz was caught off guard by the unexpected address. He turned, and there was a person with long ears and long, light green hair standing in front of him.

“Sanya,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

“I happened to be walking around, and I heard those men saying things to each other like ‘The bear house is over here,’ ‘The bear is strong, so be careful,’ ‘Please let us get revenge on the bear,’ so I thought it was about you, Yuna, and tailed them.”

Well, if they were saying stuff like that, it’d definitely be about me.

“So, I heard that we’re supposed to know each other. Did I just imagine that?”

Sanya looked upset.

“You’re the master of the adventurers’ guild?”

“Yes, I am. I don’t actually know you, but I do know that bear over there.”

“Don’t you screw with me! Who cares about guild masters! I’m close with the king himself. If I told the king about you guys, then you know what’d happen to you?”

Was this merchant an idiot? There was a saying that goes something like what happens once, happens twice or something, right?

“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

Yeah, for some reason the king turned up. Could I joke about that?

“The king? There’s no way the king would be here.”

That’s what I’d think too. Why was he here?

“You’re free to believe it’s not true, but you used the king’s name in a criminal offense. Don’t think this will be treated lightly. Sanya, sorry for asking you to do this, but could you seize him? Please inform the castle as well.”

“Oh well. I suppose I’m the only one who can do it among us.”

Sanya put Jowlz in a headlock. I never got to punch him.

“Let me go. Do you even know who I am?”

“You’re pretty rambunctious.”

Sanya knocked him off his feet. Since Sanya punched him for me, I guess that was fine by me.

It looked like the two of them resolved things neatly. I guess that saved me trouble, so it was fine.

“So, what business would His Majesty the king have with me?”

“What? You’re not going to invite me in?” he said, looking at the bear house.

“You want to come inside?”

I didn’t really want him to, though.

“Anyone would want to go inside after seeing that house.”

“Before that, how did you know where my house was?”

“Ellelaura told me, of course.”

Well, I guess that was the only source of information he would’ve had about it.

“Ahh, all right.”

For some reason, the most important person in the country ended up coming into the bear house.

“Yuna, was everything okay?” Fina asked.

Fina and Morin seemed worried.

“It was fine. The guild master came by.”

“Oh good. So, who is this man?” Fina asked.

Well, I guess anyone would be curious about that.

“He’s the king.”

“Uhhh, the king?” Fina tilted her head to the side.

“Yes, the king.”

“You mean the most important person in the country?”

“Yes.”

“Wh-why would someone like that be here?!”

“I dunno. Why don’t you ask him?”

Fina whipped her head to the right and left. Morin and Karin were both pale. They might have known what the king looked like.

“So what was it you wanted to ask from me?” I asked the king as he looked around the room.

“Oh, yes of course. I wanted to ask if you could make the pudding from earlier for the birthday celebration. I’m sure it will give everyone a surprise if we served that at the banquet.”

What was he thinking?! Could I say no?

“So, by any chance, could I refuse…?”

“What? Are you saying you’re refusing me, the king?”

I guess when it came to the king, it was his way or the highway.

“It’s not that. I need ingredients to make the pudding.”

“If you require money, I will pay it.”

It wasn’t a matter of money. The issue was the eggs. I just replenished the eggs the other day, so I could make the pudding. The issue was how many I’d need to make. Of course, I couldn’t go to Crimonia again to get more eggs.

“Also, how many would I need to make? I can’t make a ton of them.”

“If you can, three hundred.”

Three hundred, huh… I thought. If I used the pudding I made the other day and the remaining eggs, maybe it was possible? I just replenished my eggs; maybe this was the perfect time to show Morin and Karin how to make pudding?

“So? Can you make it?”

When I thought about how it was for the king’s birthday, I realized I didn’t know when it actually was.

“I think it should be fine, but when was the festival again?”

“C’mon!” the king joked.

I just hadn’t been interested in knowing. It’s not like I could help that. The most I knew was that it was probably sometime soon.

“Yuna, it’s in five days,” Fina told me in a quiet voice from behind me.

“In that case, could I bring them to you on the morning of?”

“Yes, that’ll do.”

“Also, I’d prefer if no one found out I made them.”

“Right. We’ll have you sneak into the castle and put them in one of the empty rooms somewhere.”

“If they’re not chilled, they’re half as good though.”

“In that case, we will prepare a refrigerator in the room.”

If he was going to go that far, I didn’t have a good reason to say no. Pudding ended up being added to the menu of the king’s birthday celebration banquet.

 

The king went home, and Sanya had taken the trash that was making a commotion outside to the guard station, so my house was quiet again.

The atmosphere in the room changed somehow.

“Uhh, what’s gotten into everyone?”

I felt like everyone was looking at me differently.

“Uhh, Yuna, who are you? Are you really a noble?” Morin cautiously asked me.

“I’m not. I’m a normal adventurer.”

“But the king seemed to be so friendly with you.”

“We just happened to have an opportunity to meet each other.”

“But the king himself came over to your house.”

“That was just because he wanted to have some pudding.”

“But…”

The two of them really wouldn’t believe me. Even Fina was starting to look at me like I was an aristocrat. All that king had brought was unnecessary trouble for me. What else were they supposed to think? When somebody who was practically a god suddenly appeared in front of them, anyone who that person seemed to know would end up feeling like they were also at the same level. That was the same in any world. If you were a politician, you’d know lots of politicians. If you were a doctor, you’d know lots of doctors. If you were a teacher, you’d know lots of teachers. If you were a performer, you’d know lots of performers. If you were a shut-in, you’d know lots of shut-ins. (You’d see them a lot in the game.)

No matter what occupation you were in, you’d know a lot of people in the same circle. In that case, the royalty would know a lot of nobles.

“Ahh! Anyway, I’m not an aristocrat or involved with the royalty.”

I forcibly ended the conversation and talked about how to make pudding.

“So, it’ll be a little earlier than planned, but I’m going to have you both help me make pudding starting tomorrow.”

“Does that mean we’re making food for the king’s banquet?”

I nodded. If they were going to learn how to make it anyway, it’d be faster if we did it through practice.

“We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Would it go into the mouth of the king himself?”

“Well, I think he would be eating it.”

“I can’t do something so frightful.”

“It’s not like we’re going to be poisoning them.”

It wasn’t anything to be so reluctant about, but the two of them wouldn’t agree to it.

“You won’t consider it at all?”

I felt like I was bullying them. Thinking about it from a general point of view, commoners making food for the king might’ve been unbelievable. Well, if somebody told me I’d be making food for the prime minister or some place’s president, I think I’d feel the same way. Since forcing the impossible wasn’t a good idea, I decided to make a hundred puddings with Fina in the end.

“In that case, Fina, the two of us will have to make them.”

But Fina shook her head.

“I can’t!”

Et tu, Fina? I thought.

 

The next day, I made the puddings by my lonely self after failing to persuade Fina to help. For the time being, I had the three of them watch from the side so they could learn how to make it. At the very least, I wish they’d crack the eggs, but they wouldn’t even do that. Putting it together with the pudding I made the day before, I decided to make three hundred puddings by myself. I silently cracked the eggs and whipped them. The three of them just watched. Were they that reluctant to make food for the king and his court?

They didn’t pick up on the bitter thoughts I radiated, and I ended up making the three hundred puddings.

I lined up the vast amounts of pudding in a gigantic refrigerator. Though most of the eggs I replenished were gone, Morin promised to make bread, so I was looking forward to the next day.