Bring iron ore to Hoelle mountain.
“There aren’t a ton of fun quests.”
“Yuna, is that how you choose?”
“Yeah. I’d rather do fun ones if I do any at all.”
I headed to the C-rank board next. There were only four adventurers there, all of whom seemed to be part of the same party. They were chatting with each other as they picked assignments. I peeked at the board between them, trying to keep out of their way.
Gather wyvern materials.
Slay orc horde.
Protect Fort Saumaug.
Annihilate the Zamon thief gang.
Ogre materials.
There were some fun ones, but I didn’t know where the monsters would be, so finding them would be hard. I would have liked to do the wyvern one if I knew where to look for one.
“Hey, girl in the weird clothes. This board is for C-rank,” a twenty-something-looking man from the four-person group told me.
“I know. I’m just seeing what kind of quests are in C-rank.”
“Just looking? Well, I guess it’s worth it to study your seniors.”
A woman in a sorceress’s outfit looked at me. “Isn’t that that rumored E-rank girl?”
“I became D-rank yesterday,” I said.
“What about your other party members? That little one definitely isn’t of age yet.” It was pretty obvious Fina wasn’t old enough to become a member of a party.
“Didn’t we hear the Bloody Bear goes solo?”
“What’s that about a bloody bear?” said another adventurer.
“What? You don’t know, Toya?” What looked like the party leader joined the conversation. “Supposedly an adventurer who picked a fight with a girl in a bear costume got beat bloody, and she didn’t even forgive him when he apologized. She kept whaling on him even after he was down…and she kept going at it until she’d beaten up all the adventurers around into a pulp.”
Sounds scary, I thought. What bear were they talking about?
“That bear girl doesn’t even butcher her monsters. She just brings corpses in every day, all bloodied up, so everyone’s been talking about her.”
Well, of course a monster’s going to bleed if you kill it with a sword, I thought. Besides, I always put them away right away, so they’d only start bleeding when I took them out of the bear storage.
“They started calling her Bloody Bear because of her attitude and her antics.”
“I had no idea there was a bear like that,” said the leader. This was news to me, too.
“Well, you don’t come into the guild often, after all.”
“Is this bear-girl famous?”
“Totally—she’s killed goblin hordes, a goblin king, and orcs all on her own.”
“Right, and her outfit is weird, too. She’s pretty tough, so word’s been getting around about her lately.”
“I see. My apologies, bear girl. I thought you were just a beginner in a weird outfit.”
It seemed they weren’t bad people. They’d just been trying to warn an apparent amateur that she was at the wrong quest board. “That’s alright. Thank you for your concern,” I said.
“I see. Well, we’re heading out. If anything happens, let us know.”
Apparently having decided on a quest, they headed over to the front desk with the notice they’d plucked from the board. I picked out my own D-rank quest that looked like a day’s work.
“Yuna, did you find something you like?” said Fina.
“Yup. Let’s get going, too.”
Chapter 20:
The Bear Summons a Bear;
The Bear’s House is a Bear House
“YUNA, WHAT KIND of quest did you get?”
“Tigerwolf slaying.”
“Yuna!”
“What?”
“Tigerwolves are supposed to be bigger and stronger than wolves. Are you going to be okay?” Fina latched onto my clothes, clearly concerned.
“Probably?” I bet they were just larger versions of wolves. I gave Fina’s worried little head a pat and headed out of town. There were merchants and adventurers getting a late start lined up at the gate. We lined up, I flashed my guild card at the gate, and we left.
We went off-road and walked for a few minutes to get somewhere where there weren’t as many people around.
There were a couple adventurers staring at us from a distance, but I ignored them and stopped walking.
“Yuna?”
“Give me a sec—I’m going to pull out something to ride on.”
I told Fina to step back a little and stretched out both my gloved arms. I poured mana into them. The bears’ mouths opened wide, and two large, warbling masses, one white and one black, leapt out of the left and right mouths. They started to wriggle, then slowly stood up on all fours.
Shockingly, any creatures I summoned were…also bears.
The bears edged up to me, and I patted their fluffy heads and chins. They squinted like they were enjoying it, and gently nuzzled my face.
“Yuna!” Fina took a step back.
“It’s okay. They’re my summons, so they won’t hurt you. Here, try petting them.”
Fina approached gingerly and touched the bears. When she realized the bears weren’t going to hurt her, she smiled.
“Okay, Fina, how about you ride on Kumakyu?”
“Kumakyu?”
“The white one’s Kumakyu, and the black one is Kumayuru.”
Kumakyu squatted to make it easier for Fina to get on.
“Go ahead.”
Fina timidly mounted Kumakyu. Once she was on, Kumakyu stood up slowly. “Uh-aah,” Fina whimpered.
“You’ll be fine as long as you hold on tight. Actually, thanks to Kumakyu’s ability, the only way you’re getting off is if you jump off yourself. You won’t fall, even if you fall asleep or let go.”
Once I’d calmed Fina down, I mounted Kumayuru. “We’ll start out slow, then speed up once you get used to it.”
“O-okay.”
Straddling our bears, we rode towards the tigerwolves’ den. I don’t have to tell you that the adventurers, merchants, and travelers nearby were gawking at us. I’d been kind of shy about summoning steeds where others could see, but waiting until I was far away from town every single time got old fast, so I decided to just ignore the stares.
Our bears sped up slowly. We were heading into the mountains, even deeper than where I’d found the goblin king. It was a six-hour walk, but we would get there in about half an hour on bearback.
“Aha ha ha ha
