I’d think about it after getting to town.
Chapter 3:
The Bear Trades in the Wolves
A GUARDSMAN WAS WAITING for us at the gate. He stared straight at me, and that was when I remembered what I looked like.
Bear. Ursidae. Bruin. Teddy. Whatever word you chose, the meaning was the same. I looked suspicious, but not in a frightening way. Fina had called me “cute.” Actually, I felt so cute it was embarrassing. It probably would have looked cute if a girl around Fina’s age wore it, but not so much for a recluse like me.
Regardless, the guard really didn’t need to ogle me like that.
“You there, girl, you were the one who went out to look for herbs, weren’t you? Did you find any?”
“Yes,” Fina said. She smiled.
“Good. Looks like you kept your promise and didn’t wander deep into the woods. There are monsters in there.”
I smiled wryly at those words.
“And what’s going on with you, strangely-dressed lass?”
“Do me a favor, and don’t mind me.”
“Well, everyone has their own style, I suppose. Anyway, if you’re coming in, show me your identification.”
Fina showed him her resident card.
“I’m not a resident in this town,” I said, flapping the bear’s mouth open and closed, “but I heard that I could get in if I paid.”
“Your identification…” The guard could only get out those two words.
“I don’t have any, but I can get in as long as I pay a silver coin, right?”
“You don’t have anything at all? It can be an identification card from any town.”
“I was living in a place without cards.”
“I see. In that case, we’ll take a silver coin as tax and look into your criminal record.”
I pulled a silver coin from the white bear’s mouth and handed it to the guard.
“Well then. If you could come over here…”
There shouldn’t be any issues, since I hadn’t committed any crimes since coming into this world. I hadn’t committed any crimes in the real world either, obviously.
No, really.
The guard brought me over to a building close by; probably one of the standard-issue barracks that always seemed to show up in fantasy novels. He led me to an area like a reception desk and laid a crystal panel in front of me.
“Please place your hand on this crystal. If you are a criminal, it will turn red.”
“I just need to put my hand here?”
“Yes. It will react to your mana and look you up.”
I put my hand on the crystal panel, but it didn’t react.
“Looks like you’re fine.”
“Can you really tell with something like this?”
“You don’t even know what the panels are? Where are you from?”
“A distant village.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll explain it to you. This crystal panel is connected to all the other crystal panels in the country. When a baby is born in town, it gets issued a resident card and has its mana registered at the same time. They do the same thing in the capital and the other towns. That way, we can tell where someone came from.”
So it’s like a citizen registry.
“When someone has committed a crime,” he went on, “we can log that data in the crystal panel. If the person is registered, the data will be transferred to all the crystal panels. Based on that, a criminal won’t be allowed entrance to the towns or capital anymore.”
“What happens if they use a guild card, or someone else’s card?”
“That’d be impossible. The cards are made to respond to mana. If the mana doesn’t match the one that it’s been registered to, the card won’t respond.”
So mana’s kind of like a fingerprint?
“But if the mana isn’t registered, there’s no point, is there?” I asked.
“That’d be the case. But it’s essentially only villagers from way out in the boonies, who’ve never traveled to the towns or capital, who don’t have cards. It’s unlikely they would be felons.”
I thought that was unlikely too.
“That’s it for now. Anything else you’d like to know? If not, you can go into town.”
When I thanked him and left the room, Fina was waiting for me. I gave her a pat on the head.
“Yuna, was everything okay?”
“Yeah, it was fine.”
“Then let’s go sell the wolves at a guild.”
Though the town wasn’t that far off from a town in the game, I felt like there was something different about it. Also, for some reason, I felt like everyone was looking at me. Maybe it’s because I’m an outsider?
“Your clothes sure do stand out, Yuna.”
Oh, right.
I was wearing a bear onesie.
Fina led me to this big warehouse-looking place. There was a good-sized building next to it and adventurers carrying swords and staffs milling around. Since their status screens wouldn’t appear, I couldn’t tell whether they were players from the game or NPCs. I wanted to examine them more, but I decided to follow Fina for now.
“They’ll buy them here. Excuse me,” Fina called out to a guy behind a counter, “we’d like you to buy wolves from us.”
“Well, if it isn’t Fina. What’re you doing here at a time like this?”
“I came to sell stuff.” Fina placed the wolf materials she held onto the table. I did the same.
“How’d you come across wolf meat and pelts?”
“They tried to eat me while I was picking herbs, and then she saved me.”
“You went to the woods?!” the man at the counter exclaimed.
“Yeah. I ran out of herbs for Mom.”
“Haven’t I told you over and over again? If you need herbs, I’ll get them for you.”
“But I can’t rely on you forever, Mr. Gentz. Especially since I haven’t paid you for them.”
“Like I said, that doesn’t matter. If something happens to you, what am I supposed to tell your mother?”
“It’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve gone to the woods tons.”
“But didn’t you just get attacked by wolves? And you got saved by that weird—that odd—girl there. Thanks, miss—for saving Fina,” he
