“So,” I said, “guess we can go home now.”
“Well, I’m tired.”
“That’s fine. I’ll carry you.” I didn’t want to take my time getting home.
“Yuna…you’re not thinking of…”
“We’re in the mountains and the roads aren’t great, so hush.”
With a grin, I scooped up Rulina, who looked like she had given up, and started heading down the mountain.
Jump! Jump! Jump! Every time I leapt, Rulina would scream, which was kind of noisy right next to my ear, but I ignored her and kept running. Once we neared the village, I let Rulina down and we headed to the gate. Rulina seemed a little unsteady on her feet, but it was probably my imagination.
We greeted the gate guard and headed to the village chief’s house.
“Uhh, it seems you’ve come back early. Was it an impossible endeavor?” The village chief’s face seemed to say, I thought so.
“No,” said Rulina, “we defeated all the goblins.”
“What was that?” His expression changed to shock.
“We’ve completed your goblin slaying quest. These are their mana gems.”
Rulina pulled a leather purse out of her bottomless bag. She untied it, showing the village chief its contents. It was probably filled with the goblins’ mana gems, but I wasn’t about to look in there. I didn’t want to see a bunch of bloody mana gems. That would spoil my dinner.
“It seems you have slain the goblins. But isn’t this a bit more than expected?”
“There were about a hundred there.”
“A hundred?!” The village chief was beside himself. Fair enough, given he’d just found out there were twice as many goblins threatening his village as he’d thought.
“Please be at ease. We defeated all of them. We also found the nest the goblins were using as their base, cleaned it out, and sealed it up, so we don’t think any new monsters will take up residence there.”
“Th-thank you so very much.” The village chief bowed his head. “Please allow us to prepare an inn for you to stay in tonight.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“No, we’re heading home.”
Rulina and I spoke at the same time. We looked at each other.
“Yuna, it’s getting late.”
“We can get home before sunset.”
“You’re not planning on carrying me again are you?”
“Two times, three times, what’s the difference?”
“But they’re being so kind to us.”
“I believe in getting bothersome things over with quickly.”
“Oh, fine,” Rulina conceded reluctantly. “I have to report on the goblin king anyway.”
Once the villagers were done thanking us, we left. I must have scared the living daylights out of Rulina after taking all those death-defying leaps on our way down the mountain, because this time, she grabbed hold of me herself. “Please be gentle when you’re running. Also, no jumping—at all!”
“Okay, okay.”
“I hate to say it, but it’s really comfortable in this bear thing’s arms.”
Rulina patted the sleeve of my onesie. I wasn’t thrilled about being touched like that, so I grabbed her and broke into a sprint to forestall any more petting. The ground was even here, so it was easier to run than on the mountain.
I detected monsters far off but ignored them and ran past. Occasionally, we passed by some adventurers and carriages, but I ignored them too. They were raising kind of a hubbub as they traveled, but at the speed I was going, I’d be out of earshot in a second.
I caught sight of the town’s gate.
“This is kind of embarrassing,” said Rulina, “so could you let me down soon?”
She started to say something into my ear, but I ignored her and kept running.
“Y-Yuna? Please?”
Rulina clutched me tighter, but it didn’t hurt. I just went straight to the west gate, taking the guard by surprise with my arrival. Rulina was red in the face as I let her down and silently handed over my guild card. The guard silently checked it, and we went silently into town.
“Uh, so, want me to carry you to the guild?”
“Stop!”
Rulina was still flushed as we headed to the guild together to give our report. There were quite a few adventurers loitering around the guild entrance, but just when I was wondering how we’d get through them, they noticed me and a path opened up, like the sea parting for Moses.
When we entered the guild, the front desk was crowded. Someone called to us as we tried to get in line.
“Rulina, what happened?” Lanz and Gil were sitting in chairs, watching us.
“Lanz, why are you here?”
“Why? Because we thought you’d come back, and it looks like we were right. If you’re back this early, you must have come running home with your tail between your legs because of how many goblins there were.”
Lanz smirked, clearly pleased by the prospect. Did he realize that us failing the quest meant that he’d be failing it. too?
“Lanz,” said Rulina, “we finished the quest. Unfortunately.”
“Wha?!” His dumb face grew even more vacant looking.
“We finished the quest. A hundred goblins, plus a goblin king to boot.”
“What? What’re you saying? A hundred goblins? A goblin king? That’s not even funny.”
“It’s not a joke.”
Thanks to Lanz’s big mouth, all the adventurers inside the guild were looking at us at this point, whispering among themselves. “A hundred goblins?” “A goblin king?” “They must be kidding.” “There’s no way they could have beaten a goblin king.” “But it’s that bear.” “It is that bear.” “Maybe that bear really could do it?” “Yeah, I mean, it’s a bear.”
Seriously—did they think it was because I was a bear?
Helen drew us aside at this point. “I’d like to ask you a few questions. If you could come this way…”
She led us to a desk off to the side, away from most of the people. “Now, I’d like to hear what happened. The quest you accepted was to defeat a group of goblins that had appeared near the village of Touz, was it not? A group of about fifty?”
“Yes, but when we got there, there were a hundred of them.”
“Excuse me for saying this, but do you have the mana gems as proof of defeat?”
Rulina pulled the leather pouch she’d shown the
