Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

After teleporting to the Bear House in the capital, Sanya-san and I headed straight outside.

「I still have a hard time believing this. We were in the village just a moment ago.」

Sanya-san said, gazing at the scenery of the capital like it was something incredible.

「Please don’t tell anybody about this.」

「I won’t. I don’t want to die from laughing, after all. Also, I probably shouldn’t forget to mention this: as to return the favor for you saving the village, you may come to the Adventurer’s Guild if you run into any trouble in the capital and I will personally take care of it.」

Oh right, Sanya-san was the guild master of the capital’s Adventurer Guild. I could trust her saying she would be able to help if something were to happen. Anyway, it was always nice to have a favor from an influential person.

「Well, Sanya-san, I’m off to home now. If anything happens, just let me know.」

「Wait, Yuna-chan. Mind bringing this with you?」

Sanya-san said and handed me a keychain-like item with multiple brown feathers attached to it.

「What’s this?」

「I made this out of feathers from Forgue, my summoned bird.」

After she said that, she summoned her bird.

The eagle-like bird silently stood perched on her arm.

「So, this is the bird that peeked on me while I was changing. Its name is Forgue, you say?」

Forgue, huh? That was a rather cool name.

The name could rival my Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear.

「Are you still holding a grudge about that? That was kind of your fault, you know. You just suddenly decided to start stripping; there wasn’t much I could do.」

「Okay, fine. I will drop it. So, what is this for, then?」

I asked her about the keychain.

「You can carry it with you, or place it near the window of your house. My bird will use it as a marker and will fly to it. If something happens, I can easily contact you through it.」

Her summoned bird seemed to be able to do the work of a carrier pigeon even though it didn’t look like one at all. It could even do something like that, huh. Well, it made sense: if a pigeon could fly long distances and deliver news then a summoned bird should be able to do the same.

Giving her a Bear Phone would work better, of course, but the summoned bird would make it a bit easier to communicate without a phone..

「So, I can hang it somewhere inside a room, close to the window?」

「Yeah, that should do. My bird will sense the location of the feathers as long as you don’t put it too deep in.」

That also meant I couldn’t put it into my Bear Box.

I still didn’t completely understand how the Bear Box system worked, but I was pretty sure that the summoned bird wouldn’t be able to come if I put the feathers inside the box. It was best to just follow Sanya-san’s instructions and hang the keychain somewhere in the house.

「Still, if your summoned bird can to that, shouldn’t you have sent it to the Elf Village from time to time?」

From what I had gathered, Sanya-san hadn’t returned to nor contacted anybody from the Elf Village for ten years straight.

If she had a summoned bird, the least she could have done was send a write a letter every now and then.

「I’ve never tried to have it fly such a long distance, so I’m not sure if Forgue could get all the way to the village. I’m thinking of at least trying it now, and have Forgue deliver a letter to Labilata, and see what happens. If it doesn’t work, I can always ask you for help, right?」

「Well, if it’s just passing a letter, it should be okay.」

Also, as long as it wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

Then again, knowing Sanya-san, she would most likely send one letter per year.

That took care of everything I needed to do in the capital, so I said bye to Sanya. I immediately headed back inside the house to use the Bear Gate to go back to Crimonia. I made sure to stop by my room and hung the feather keychain next to the window.

Would here be okay?

Well, Sanya-san most likely wouldn’t be contacting me, and even if she was, it most likely wouldn’t be something important.

Still, if she kept contacting me for stupid reasons, I would have to go and scold her.

Only once I reached Crimonia, I realized how long I had been away. Taking in the nostalgic scenery before me, I really felt like I had returned home. This place had slowly but surely become my hometown.

Although I felt like just wandering around town for a bit, I decided to rather head straight for the orphanage so that I could let Tirumina-san and Fina know I had returned. I figured they would be working at the orphanage around this time of day.

When I arrived at the orphanage, I immediately noticed a loud group of children running around outside. I had taught them how to play tag, so maybe that was what they were doing?

Soon, the children realized I was there.

「It’s the Bear-oneechan!」

「Onee-chan.」

The children all ran up to me with big smiles on their faces.

「How are you all doing? Have you been causing any trouble for the Headmistress or fighting with each other?」

「We’re great!」

「We’re working properly, too.」

「And, we aren’t arguing with each other.」

All the children replied energetically.

「You’ve all been good, then.」

I said and began patting their heads.

I also made sure to pat them equally, so that they wouldn’t get upset.

「By the way, are Tirumina-san and Fina here?」

「Yes, they are. They’re with Headmistress right now.」

So, were they done with gathering eggs at this point? I thanked the children for letting me know and headed straight for the dining hall, where I was met by Tirumina-san and the Headmistress chatting while drinking tea.

「Yu-Yuna-chan, you’re back?」

「Oh, Yuna-chan, welcome home.」

「Yes, I’m home. I just returned today.」

I said and took a seat next to them.

「You were away for quite a long time.」

「The Elf Village was farther than I expected.」

「I can’t even imagine such a distance.」

「So, did anything special happen around here?」

「Anything special… Yeah, it did! And you not being here caused us a big problem for us.」

Tirumina-san shouted as if suddenly remembering something.

What could have happened to make her act as such?

「The wife of Crimonia’s lord, Eleanora-sama, and the Royal Head Chef Zelef-san both came here to see you. It was terrible having to greet them.」

Oh right, I had heard about that from Fina.

So many things had happened at the Elf Village afterwards that I had completely forgotten about it.

According to Tirumina-san, Mylene-san had brought the two of them to the orphanage. She had informed Tirumina-san that the lord’s wife and the Royal Head Chef were here on the stop, causing her to be so shocked she couldn’t even respond, freezing up completely.

Even so, that hadn’t been my fault. There was really no reason for her to be angry at me. If she had to pick someone it should be Eleanora-san who had come without any prior notice.

Well, I also visited the castle without ever making appointment, so maybe I didn’t really have the right to complain here.

「Without Mylene-san and Fina being on my side, I don’t know what I would have done. My stomach hurts just thinking about it.」

「Mylene-san and Fina helped you?」

「Yes. Mylene-san guided them here and even answered all of their questions. If she wasn’t there, I would probably just embarrass us all.」

It seemed like Mylene-san was actually acting as a proper guild master for once.

「Well, if Eleanora-san just contacted me before coming…」

I had disappeared off to the Elf Village too, so maybe this was indeed partly my fault.

Also, if I had been here, I may have been able to do something to help Tirumina-san regardless.

「Based on Eleanora-san’s reaction, I think she was trying to surprise you: that’s why she came without any prior notice.」

I could understand if it was just Eleanora-san, but I didn’t know why Zelef-san tagged along with the idea.

Tirumina-sam then explained that Eleanora-san was disappointed to find out I was away. She must have been very eager to surprise me, huh.

「So, what exactly did the two of them come here for?」

「They said they came to inspect your shop here to use as a reference for the shop you’re opening at the capital.」

「That shop won’t really belong to me, though. I mean, they will be serving my recipes, like the pudding, but the castle will be managing the shop.」

「Really?」

「Yes. I just taught them the recipes; everything else is left to them.」

Tirumina-san then proceeded to explain that, after coming to the orphanage, Eleanora-san had checked out the henhouse. She had been completely shocked to see the children working so hard and even seemed to enjoy speaking to them. The children didn’t know that Eleanora-san was a noble, so Tirumina-san had been very worried that they might act rudely and make her mad, but her worry was all for naught. After her chat with children, Eleanora-san and Zelef-san headed straight to my shop.

「When we brought them to the shop, they caused a big ruckus over things there.」

First, they had been surprised by the stone bear statue outside of the shop, and once they walked inside, they just wandered around for a while, looking at all the bear figurines decorating the shop.

I could completely see Eleanora-san waltzing around the shop as she pleased, but Zelef-san as well?

Tirumina-san continued and explained how Zelef-san had made a commotion while eating the food there. Hopefully they hadn’t caused too much trouble for the other guests…

「Did they calm down after that at least?」

「Yes, Mylene-san and Fina managed to keep a close watch over them.」

Again, I could understand Mylene-san doing so, but Fina as well?

「Fina was chatting with Eleanora-sama as they were walking around and eventually got her to take a seat. I was surprised to see the two of them conversing with each other so casually.」

Well, I had dragged her to many places with plenty of nobles and royalty, as terrible as that might sound to do to a commoner

Also, lately, I heard that she had been hanging out with Noa a lot, and was even exposed to Eleanora-san for an extended period of time.

All that forced Fina to grow more accustomed to nobles, and seemingly, all her nervousness was now gone.

As her big sister, I was both happy and sad by this growth of hers.

Anyway, after Eleanora-san and Zelef-san had eaten Morin-san’s food, they had been pretty much done there. Just what had the two of them been thinking?

The next day, they had gone to Anzu’s shop to check it out and taste some food.

Finally, on the third day, they had gone back to my shop right when it opened, ate more food, and took some food with them to bring home before having to rush back to the capital the same day.

「It was very chaotic. They aren’t bad people, but it was very tiring to tend to them.」

Tirumina-san thought about their visit and let out a heavy sigh.

「Thank you for the hard work…」

Just as I said that, Fina rushed into the dinning room.