“Goodnight, Yuna.”
“Night.”
“I’m heading to bed. You were a big help today. Thanks,” Gentz told me sheepishly and headed to his room.
I retired to my room.
The next morning, when I woke up and went downstairs, Fina was prepping breakfast.
“Morning.” I greeted.
“Good morning.”
“You’re up early.”
“I always wake first and make breakfast for my family, so I just went ahead…”
“Don’t worry about the ingredients you used or anything. Is everyone else still asleep?”
“Mr. Gentz, I mean my dad, went to work. He said to tell you thank you.”
He had been taking days off work to rush over when Tiermina was sick, then while looking for a house, and moving. He couldn’t keep that up, obviously.
“Shuri and mom are still in bed.”
“Let them sleep. They must be tired.”
Even though I cured Tiermina, she was still slowly rebuilding her strength. Being bedridden so long had cost her, and the move must have left her exhausted.
“It’s fine. Shuri is always asleep until around now, and my mom has been sick for a long time, so she’s not good with mornings, but she’ll wake when I get her up.”
In other words, they needed someone else to rouse them.
“I’m finished making breakfast, so I’ll pay them a visit.”
Fina headed upstairs. After a few minutes, Tiermina and Shuri came down, rubbing their eyes.
“Yuna, good morning. Thanks so much for yesterday.”
She still looked pretty tired. Shuri looked drowsy, too. In spite of that, they dug into the breakfast Fina had made, which consisted of simple veggie sandwiches and some milk. Come to think of it, I hadn’t had fried eggs since I left Earth. I would have killed for a fried egg sandwich right about then.
“Fina, I have something I want to ask you real quick.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you know where they sell eggs?”
“Excuse me?”
“Like I said—eggs. Frying up some eggs to stick between bread is the best, so I’d like to get some. I was just thinking I hadn’t really seen any place selling them.”
“Yuna, normal stores don’t carry luxury products like that.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Only the nobles and a small number of rich people can eat something high-grade like an egg,” Tiermina explained. “You have to go to the woods or something to collect eggs, and if you take too long, they end up going bad, so you can’t bring them back from far away, either. Even if you transport them with a fast horse, it’ll cost more than we can afford.”
“Uhh, can’t you catch some flightless birds and raise them to lay…”
“Flightless birds? Aren’t they birds because they can fly?”
Maybe this world didn’t have chickens? Or maybe this was a region where they didn’t have chickens? If I looked around, would I find some somewhere? I added chicken and eggs to my list of wanted ingredients.
After breakfast, the three of them went home in order to finish cleaning up their things from moving. I offered to help, but they turned me down.
“You need to work too, don’t you, Yuna?”
Actually, I had enough money to live without working for a while. A wise person once said working was losing. Still, I decided to head over to the adventurers’ guild to check the quest boards.
Chapter 37:
Fina Gets a New Dad
WHEN I CAME BACK from going to buy my mom something good to eat, Yuna wasn’t there anymore. Apparently, she went home. I hadn’t thanked her enough, and even though we bought the food using Yuna’s money, I hadn’t thanked her for that yet, either.
When I looked at my mom and Mr. Gentz, they were blushing for some reason. I wonder what happened?
“Um, Fina, Shuri. Well—how do I put this—would you like a new dad?”
“A dad?”
It was a weird question. My dad was dead.
“I’m not sure. I don’t really remember my dad, so I don’t know what to think about a new one…”
“I dunno,” Shuri said.
Mr. Gentz scratched his head and looked at us. “Your mom and I are going to get married. Fina, Shuri, would you give us your blessing?”
“Married?”
“I want to become your dad. I want to protect the three of you. I don’t think I’ll be as good as that bear girl, but would you let me protect you guys?”
“Mr. Gentz?”
“Fina, Shuri, would you be okay with Gentz being your dad?” my mom asked us.
I didn’t really get it. But…
“If that would make you happy, Mom.”
Shuri nodded too.
“Yes, that would. And I’ll make sure you two are happy too. Um...thanks, Fina and Shuri.”
Mr. Gentz hugged us. He and Mom did seem happy.
Everything that followed was a mess. My mom tried to get out of bed now that she was better, and I had to get her to lie down, and then keep doing that every time she tried to make food, clean, or go out. Yuna told me to make sure she rested for a while. I had Shuri stand watch over Mom. She seemed happy to spend time with her.
Daddy Gentz was looking for a house where the four of us could live together. I had to get ready to move, little by little.
A few days after Mom was cured, we found a new house and decided to move. I got approval from Yuna for my mom to leave bed. The day we moved, Yuna was going to help, too.
Normally, moving takes a lot of time and money. We would have had to rent a wagon and trailer and make a whole bunch of roundtrips, but Yuna could fit anything in her bottomless bag, no matter how big or heavy it was. When we went tigerwolf slaying, I’d been shocked to see her pull her house out of it and put it back.
Since we got the things in the house ready ahead of time, we were done with everything before the afternoon. We went to Mister Gentz’s house next. It was ridiculous. I don’t know if he ever cleaned it. Mom was super upset. She asked Shuri, Yuna, and me to go to the
