Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

Chapter 246 – Bear-san Learns About the School Festival

Everybody was wearing their uniform… Had they just come back from school?

「Yuna-san, why are you here in the capital? Did you come because of work?」

「Not really. What about you guys? What are you up to?」

Had they come here to do homework or something?

I had always kept to myself, so I had never participated in a study session before.

Well, I hadn’t needed to study to begin with, so I wasn’t making excuses. It was just that I had always been able to do everything by myself without a problem and hadn’t needed any help.

「We came to discuss our school festival project.」

「School festival project?」

It seemed they weren’t here just to hold a study session, after all.

「Yes. The students of the academy have to prepare a program for the school festival. We’ll all be participating, but we can’t seem to decide on what to do…」

Shia explained.

It looked like even the schools in this world held events like school festivals.

By the time I had entered junior high school, I had already become a shut-in, so my only knowledge of school festivals was limited to what I had seen on TV or read in manga.

Maybe the festivals were similar in both worlds? I grew a bit curious at the prospect of joining one here.

「A school festival sounds interesting.」

「If you like, you can come and see us.」

「Really?」

「In general, only those who live in the capital can come, but we are also allowed to invite acquaintances from elsewhere, so there’s no problem.」

Well, I did want to take a look, but would it be a good idea to go to a crowded place with my Bear Suit?

Wouldn’t people mistake me for a mascot, then? Or, at least look at me weird?

「Anyways, did you guys at least come up with an idea for what you want you want to do?」

Eleanora-san, who had been listening this whole time, chimed in.

「Yes, but our ideas are all over the place, so we can’t pick one…」

Shia said, taking a glance at her schoolmates behind her

「Anyway, we ended up deciding to discuss it further here.」

「At least you should have a lot of ideas, then. What are they?」

Eleanora-san asked and looked at everybody expectantly.

Marcus answered first.

「I suggested that we hold a sword competition.」

「A magic competition might be nice, too.」

Cattleya added her idea.

While sword and magic competitions sounded typical for a fantasy world, wasn’t that a bit dangerous for a school festival?

「I want to make something we can sell.」

Timor added in.

「And you, Shia?」

「I’m fine with doing a competition, but as we already spar during our regular lessons, I hoped we could do something that can only be done for the school festival.」

「That’s exactly why we should do a competition. It’ll stand out, and we don’t have to prepare anything. Easy.」

「True, but it will be almost the same as what we do in our classes.」

「Yes, but people outside of the school don’t get to see it, do they?」

Did Marcus really want to show off that badly?

If he wanted to stand out that much, I had a great piece of advice for him: just put on a Bear Outfit.

「How about we really open a stand and sell something?」

「What would be sell, though?」

「Food, maybe?」

「Other classes are already doing food carts, though.」

「Yes, I’ve also overheard them bragging about how they have already gathered a lot of delicious ingredients to use.」

Marcus and Cattleya pointed out the problems with Timor’s suggestion.

「So, Marcus and Cattleya want to hold a competition, and Timor wants a stall. What about you, Shia? What would you prefer?」

After listening to the explanation of other three’s suggestion, Eleanora-san asked Shia again.

「If I had to pick between them, then the stall, I guess.」

「How about you two, Cattleya and Marcus. Would you be okay with a stall? 」

「I want to stand out, so we shouldn’t pick something too normal…」

「I’m also okay with the stall idea as long as we make it interesting. I most certainly want to avoid selling the same thing as other people.」

Basically, Marcus was fine with a stand as long as it stood out from the rest, while Cattleya wanted to sell unique things.

In that case… they just needed something unique that would also stand out.

「Shia, Timor, what do you think about the competition idea?」

「I don’t mind, but it depends on how we gather the contestants. Usually, those who want to participate are all strong people.」

「If we’re not doing a stand, then we have no other choice but to go with a competition.」

「In other words, you’re all okay with each other’s idea to some extent.」

For some reason, Eleanora-san started to take lead of their planning even though she was an unrelated party.

Did she have an occupational disease? Eleanora-san was the type of person to throw herself into managing all things she found interesting immediately but on the other hand refused to do all troublesome work.

「In that case, let’s think over the stall option first. You can compete with other people anytime, but you don’t get many chances to run a stand, after all.」

「True, but even though Timor suggested it, he didn’t have any good ideas for what we should sell.」

「That’s why all of us should try to brainstorm something together.」

「Yes, if we keep acting like this, we’ll never decide. We have to submit our program soon, so we don’t have much time left.」

Shia looked troubled.

「Shia, you should suggest something, too.」

「That’s right. We don’t mind doing a stand, but we need to decide what to sell if that’s the case.」

A school festival, huh. I had never participated in one, but I did have some similar experiences like opening stores, performing in plays, and even making music.

Still, as expected of a fantasy world, people here did do interesting projects involving swords and magic. There were most likely quite a few school festival programs that could only be found in this world.

「Yuna-san, do you have any good ideas, perchance?」

「Me?」

Suddenly, they involved me into their discussion.

「Yuna-san, you’re running a shop in Crimonia, right? Do you have something that’s rare and will be popular if served at a school festival?」

「Shia, you shouldn’t ask Yuna-chan for something like that…」

Eleanora-san scolded Shia.

Something rare that would be popular, huh? It should also be easy to make, right?

Making pudding was too time-consuming, and they could have issues with procuring enough eggs, so I immediately removed it from the list.

They would need a stone oven if they wanted to make pizza, so if they had to run the stand indoors, they wouldn’t be able to use one. What else could I offer them?

「Yuna-chan, you don’t have to think about it that seriously. This is their problem.」

Eleanora-san’s warning made everybody stare at the floor.

Well, this was starting to get quite interesting for me, so I decided to ponder for a bit longer.

It shouldn’t be something completely standard. For example, it could even be things that were done for other festivals, like goldfish ladling, ring toss, or target shooting. If they ran a food stall, they could serve thing like yakisoba, shaved ice, candied apple, grilled squid, grilled corn, and frankfurt sausages! Oh, I had completely forgotten all about those.

Anyway, there were plenty of foods that were easy to make. If I recall, I had even made some of them some for Fina and Shuri before. Those two hadn’t recognized the dishes, so maybe there weren’t any regular festivals in this world?

Well, they had grown up in poor conditions, so that could be why they had never heard about them. Fortunately, Fina’s family no longer had to worry about food ever since we had met.

「I might have a good idea. Do you want to hear it?」

「You do?! Please tell us!」

Shia sounded very happy when I told her I might have something for them.

「Well, I don’t know if anybody here has heard about this before. It’s very possible that all of you know already what it is.」

「What is it?」

「There is a type of candy made from granulated sugar. It’s texture is like cotton. Does this country have anything similar? 」

「Candy that’s like cotton? I’ve never heard of anything like that. How about you guys?」

Shia’s school friends shook their heads, so we all turned to Eleanora-san.

「I’ve never heard of something like that, either.」

Eleanora-san didn’t know what I was talking about, either, but I shouldn’t completely rely on the

people here. There were two daughters of nobility, the son of a knight, and the son of an important financial figure. It was possible they never heard of it because it wasn’t considered a high-class candy. I should ask someone with a normal background just in case.

Just as I was thinking of who to ask, Suririna-san came into the room with some tea.

「Sorry for intruding. I’ve brought some tea.」

「Thank you, Suririna.」

Suririna placed the tea on the table and started to leave.

「Please call me if you need anything else.」

Maids should be considered commoners, right?

I could trust that her answer would more accurately reflect that of the common folks.

「Suririna-san, if you don’t mind, I have a question for you.」

Just as Suririna-san was about reach the door, I stopped her.

「A question for me? I will try my best to answer it.」

「Do you know of a candy made from granulated sugar that has texture like cotton?」

「Candy that is like cotton?」

Suririna-san tilted her head as she thought about it.

So, nobody knew of cotton candy in this world, then?

「I’m sorry, but I’m not quite sure if I’ve heard of something like that before.」

「Then maybe this idea will work. Suririna-san, I would like your opinion on this as well, so could you please join us?」

「Madam, may I?」

Suririna-san looked at Eleanora-san.

「I see no problem with it.」

Having received Eleanora-san’s permission, I took out a certain device from the Bear Box.

「Yuna-san, what is this?」

「This is called a cotton candy machine. It can make candy that looks like cotton.」

I had worked pretty hard to make this thing.

One day, I had come across a shop that sold granulated sugar and realized I could make cotton candy. I had immediately tried to make the machine, but my first try was a disaster. Only after many adjustments and hours of hard work, I had managed to make a functional cotton candy machine.

In the end, I had used it only once even though I had gone through all that trouble of making it. Anybody would get tired of eating cotton candy very quickly, after all.

It was something to be eaten once in awhile and most definitely not everyday. That was why I had left it to collect dust at the bottom of my Bear Box till now.

Following the machine, I also took out some granulated sugar I had bought at the shop and poured it into the circular mound in the middle of the machine.

「That’s just normal granulated sugar, right?」

「Yes, you can buy these at both in Crimonia and the capital.」

I had first discovered that this sugar was sold at the capital, but later got Fina to tell me where I could get it at Crimonia as well.

Quite a few people liked to buy it to make sweets, it seemed.

「And we can make this cotton candy with this?」

「Yeah.」

I placed a fire magic stone into the machine and the center began to heat up. Quickly, I began to spin the sugar, and onn the side of the center circular mound, white cotton-like threads began to pop up.

「Yuna-san! Something weird is appearing!」

「That’s cotton candy.」

More and more threads started to gather; oops, this wasn’t the time to stare. I completely forgot to prepare the wooden sticks. No, not disposable chopsticks, but proper wooden sticks.

I quickly took out a couple from the Bear Box and started to move one in a circular motion around the inside of the circular mound of the machine, causing the threads to immediately start coiling around it.

I was a bit clumsy at first but slowly got used to it.

The cotton candy grew bigger and bigger as I continued swirling the stick to coil more threads onto it.

「Yuna-san, this is amazing.」

「Wow, it’s getting bigger.」

Once the cotton candy seemed big enough, I stopped the machine from spinning.

The first cotton candy was complete. It looked just like the ones that could be bought at a food carts. The shape looked a bit off, but that couldn’t really be helped as I didn’t have much experience in making them yet.

「Here, it’s done.」

Everybody looked at me and the cotton candy in awe as I offered it to them.

「Is anything wrong?」

「No, um… it is just really strange, that’s all.」

「Yuna-san, is this magic?」

「No, it’s candy made of sugar.」

I said and held out the cotton candy closer to Shia.

「It really looks like cotton.」

「Yeah, it does.」

Everybody continued staring at it.

「Yuna-san, how do you eat this?」

Oh right, noble ladies shouldn’t gnaw on things, should they?

「You pinch off bite-size pieces with your hand and eat it.」

「With your hand?」

「Oh, could it be that nobles shouldn’t eat things using their hands?」

「No, there’s no such custom, but…」

Shia looked at the cotton candy again, then pinched some off with her fingers and ate it.

「It’s sweet.」

「Well, it is sugar. What did you expect?」

I didn’t use any other ingredients, so of course it tasted like sugar.

「Shia, let me try some as well.」

Shia passed the cotton candy to Eleanora-san who pinched a bit off to try it.

「Wow, this is really sweet.」

「Shia, can you let me try some as well?」

「I would also like some.」

「Me also.」

Cattleya, Marcus, and Timor’s curiosity were piqued.

Shia held the cotton candy out in front of them, and they all pulled off a piece.

「It melts in your mouth instantly.」

「It’s so weird.」

「It is, but it’s so good.」

It seemed all five of them were really trying it for the first time.

「Suririna-san, this is the candy I was talking about. Have you seen it before?」

Shia passed the cotton candy to Suririna-san who also pinched off a piece and put it in her mouth.

「No, I’ve never heard of or tasted candy like this before.」

「Shouldn’t this be a good thing for you to sell at the school festival, then? Do you think it will sell well?」

The students looked at each other then looked back at me.

「It will stand out like how Marcus wants it, and it’s unusual, which is what Cattleya wants. Also, it can be sold at a stall like Timor wants. I put everyone into consideration.」

「Yuna-san, we’re very thankful for your idea, but are you sure it’s okay to let use use your recipe like that?」

「Yes, would it really be okay? If we promoted it, I am certain it will sell, but…」

Shia and Timor were worried if it was okay for them to sell this unknown candy.

It wasn’t that amazing, and it also wasn’t something to be eaten everyday. It was best to only eat it during festivals. Just recalling eating cotton candy at festivals when I had been in elementary school brought a smile to my face.

「Yuna-chan, wouldn’t it be better for you to serve this at your shop?」

「This candy is meant for festivals, so I have no intention of selling it there.」

「Meant for festivals? Really?」

「Well, if it bothers you that much, just promise me to keep the method of production a secret.」

Once I said that, Eleanora-san looked at the students.

「Can all of you keep quiet about how it’s made? If you can’t promise us that, I won’t give you permission to make it.」

「Eleanora-san?」

Why would a school event being ran by the students need Eleanora-san’s permission? Not to mention this was just cotton candy we’re talking about here.

「I want to try this, so I promise I won’t tell anybody.」

「I promise as well.」

「I’ll bring the secret to my grave.」

「… I won’t tell anybody either.」

Everybody agreed to Eleanora-san’s demand.

「Alright then. Yuna-chan, I’m sorry, but can you please teach them how to make it?」

Just like that, it was decided that they would sell cotton candy for the school festival, and we immediately began practicing.

Still, why was Eleanora-san managing everything here?

Author’s Notes:

I apologize for the delay.

We’ve just released the information regarding the publication of Volume 3.

I appreciate all your support.

Also, the school festival arc officially begins!