I finished my meal and started thinking about what to do with my afternoon. I pulled up my status screen.
Name: Yuna
Age: 15 years old
Level: 18
Skills: Fantasy World Language, Fantasy World Literacy, Bear Extradimensional Storage, Bear Identification, Bear Detection, Bear Map
Magic: Bear Light, Bear Physical Enhancement, Bear Fire Magic, Bear Water Magic, Bear Wind Magic, Bear Earth Magic
EQUIPMENT
Right Hand: Black Bear Glove (Nontransferable)
Left Hand: White Bear Glove (Nontransferable)
Right Foot: Black Bear Shoe (Nontransferable)
Left Foot: White Bear Shoe (Nontransferable)
Clothing: Black and White Bear Clothes (Nontransferable)
Underwear: Bear Underwear (Nontransferable)
I’d gained a new skill. Bear Map? Seriously, you can’t just tag “bear” onto everything.
Bear Map
Any area seen through the bear’s eyes can be made into a map.
Bear Map invoked a map with me at the center and indicators of the town’s surroundings, the eastern woods, and the area around the village where the goblins had appeared. All the other areas were pitch-black and showed nothing. It felt like a feature ported right over from WFO. It was useful, but I could only see places I’d already been to. I supposed it would have taken the sense of discovery out of things if a map of the whole world had suddenly unfolded before me.
Something came to mind after I saw the goblin king’s cave marked on my map, and I pulled the sword the king had been carrying out of my bear storage. It didn’t seem as sinister in my hands as it had in his. It had turned into an elegant sword with a silver glint to it.
I used Bear Identification on it.
Goblin King’s Sword
Skills: Boost Physical Strength, Supplement Magic
Boost Physical Strength: Increases the strength of the user.
Supplement Magic: The sword can be supplemented with magic.
The sword’s previous ominous vibe was probably a direct expression of the goblin king’s power. When I sent mana through it, it glittered a pretty silver. Maybe I’d try it out when the rain was gone.
But it didn’t seem like the rain would be stopping anytime today, so I went over my to-do list. I was used to being alone at home, but I always had something to play, or read, or watch. Minus all of that, I ended up super bored. The only other thing I could do was sleep, but if I slept in the afternoon, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. All the things I’d spend a sleepless night doing back in Japan were things I couldn’t do here. I needed to get creative.
It bugged me a little to see myself holding the goblin king’s sword with my flabby jelly arms, so I decided to try working out. It might have been because of the bears, but no matter how many times I did push-ups—whether it was ten or a hundred times—I didn’t get tired. I’d never be able to bulk up my arms like this.
With that thought in mind, I took off the bear equipment and stripped to my underwear. Well, I was wearing a shirt on top, but the only bottoms I had on were the bear underwear. The underwear I’d bought the other day felt so scratchy that I didn’t wear them. Maybe I’d go to the high-end store next time.
I tried doing a pushup. I couldn’t even do ten. Nothing had changed since when I was in Japan. I gave up on my jelly arms and obediently decided to wear the bear. Scary as it was, I was starting to become more and more at home in the peculiar outfit.
Chapter 16:
The Bear Takes a Rainy Day Off
Part Two
I GAVE UP ON WORKING OUT and I decided to look for things to do downstairs. The dining room was packed like it was during lunch, but right now no one was eating. Elena sat at the counter, looking tired.
“Oh, Ms. Yuna,” she said, “sorry about earlier.”
“I didn’t mind.”
“So, what do you need?”
“I’m just trying to kill some time.” I sat down at the counter.
“We don’t really have anything for that.”
“Well, could I get something to drink?”
“Yes, you may.” She went into the back and came back with two glasses, one of which she handed to me. “Here, try this. It’s mira fruit juice.”
I thanked her and accepted the juice. It was a little sweet and sour, if a bit lukewarm, unfortunately. Then again, if it was lukewarm…I just had to cool it down. I put the black bear hand on the cup, called up some mana, and pictured ice forming into neat cubes. There was a plunking sound, and ice floated in the cup.
“Wait, what is that?”
“I just put some ice in the juice,” I said. “I thought it’d be better cooled down.”
I took a sip. I’d made it several levels more delicious.
“C-could you do that for me, too?”
Elena offered her cup to me as I savored my juice. I didn’t have a reason to turn her down, so I dropped some ice into her cup.
“Thank you so much.” Elena swished the ice around in the cup and drank it once it was cool. “It—it’s so good. I can’t believe it tastes so much better when it’s colder! This might be great on hot days. But I don’t really have space in the refrigerator to keep juice cool.”
Refrigerators existed in this world. You could make a basic one with any old mana gem, so long as you charged it with ice magic, but if you wanted a fridge with a freezer, you needed an ice-type mana gem. Up north, my bestiary explained, you could find ice-aligned monsters to harvest them from, but the difficulty and the distance involved meant refrigerators with a freezer compartment were luxury items.
“If only my refrigerator were a little bigger…” Elena sipped wistfully at the iced juice.
“Can you not use magic, Elena?”
“Of course not. If I could, I wouldn’t be the daughter of an innkeeper. I’m jealous you can, Yuna.”
The user’s guide for the bear gear said
