Author’s Notes:
Here, a chapter since I finished writing early.
Walking out of the main orphanage building, I took some time to tour the orphanage and greet the other children and workers.
My next destination were the two shops as it had been a while since I last saw Morin-san and Anzu. They both offered to make me something to eat, and I graciously accepted their offers. There was no way I could decline after seeing how happy and eager they were to cook for me, after all.
I tried to eat everything, but it ended up being way too much. Since Anzu served her food first, I somehow managed to put it all away into my stomach, but when I received a bunch of Morin-san’s bread, I secretly put most of it away into my Bear Box to properly eat it later.
Since they were both so kind to cook for me, I decided to invite them to dinner at my Bear House tomorrow evening.
My next destination was the Commerce Guild. I wanted to have a chat with Mylene-san as she had to deal with Eleanora-san and Zelef-san because I hadn’t been here.
「Oh, Yuna-chan. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?」
「I heard that Eleanora-san came here when I was out of town.」
「Yes, it was quite the surprise, having her appear out of nowhere so suddenly.」
Mylene-san said with a grim expression.
She then told me that Eleanora-san had even kept her visit a secret from Cliff and Noa. She must really like surprising people. I kind of felt bad for everybody involved but was at the same time glad I hadn’t been around when it happened.
「I already heard some stories from Tirumina-san, but was everything okay on your front?」
I asked, knowing that Eleanora-san had a huge tendency to cause trouble wherever she went.
「Things were fine here. It was hard to figure out what she was trying to do, but she actually listened to Fina-chan properly.」
I had heard that from Tirumina-san as well, but it did seem like Fina had played quite the role back then.
「Fina-chan guided Eleanora-sama skillfully even though Eleanora-sama was just going wherever she pleased.」
When I had asked Fina how she managed to handle Eleanora-san, she said that she「 just asked her normally.」
To other people, that must have appeared to be an amazing feat. Tirumina-san and others weren’t used to dealing with nobles, so just speaking with Eleanora-san would have been difficult for them. I wasn’t sure where Mylene-san stood on this, though. Based on my conversations with Cliff, I assumed she should be comfortable dealing with nobility, but decided to ask her anyway.
「Eleanora-sama rarely comes home, so I haven’t had many chances to talk to her. That’s why, our encounter was rather…」
She had met with Cliff countless times, so she could easily talk with him, but Eleanora-san seemed to be a whole different story.
Since I asked what I wanted to know, I decided to leave so that I wouldn’t disturb her work. As I wanted to give her my thanks as well, I asked her to come to the Bear House tomorrow evening for dinner.
「My, that sounds fun. Okay, I’ll be there for sure.」
After saying goodbye and thinking for the hard work of dealing with Eleanora-san, I left the Commerce Guild.
Now, I just needed to find Cliff and Noa.
「Yuna-san, just where had you ran off to?!」
As soon as I met Noa at her home, she angrily huffed at me. I neglected to tell her anything about me leaving for a while, so I had to properly apologize now.
「I’m sorry. I went quite far away this time, so I couldn’t come back quickly.」
She seemed to have already heard the situation from Fina, so her anger subsided quite easily, and the conversation turned to what happened while I was away instead.
「When you weren’t here, Yuna-san, Mother came home for a bit.」
「Yes, I heard. From what I gathered she came to check out my shop.」
Noa happily blabbed about getting to see her mother, who she didn’t get to see often. She told me how they had gone to the shop together and then even went out shopping in the streets.
「Yuna-san, I heard from Mother that you’ve been going in and out of the capital every so often.」
「Yes, I do that every now and then.」
「I’m so jealous of you. If I could summon beasts like Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear, then I could go to the capital myself as well.」
I only nodded, not telling her about the easier way of travel via the Bear Gate. It did hurt a bit to hide the truth from a child, though.
「Do you want to come with me next time I go there?」
「Can I?」
「Of course. We do need Cliff’s permission first, though.」
A part of me wanted to tell her about the Bear Gate, but I didn’t dare as she might not be able to keep it a secret.
As we continued to chat, Cliff came into the room we were in, apparently taking a break from his work.
「Yuna, it’s been a while.」
「Yeah, I travelled quite far this time.」
「You haven’t been troubling other people, have you?」
Did he have to say that every time we met?
I… was pretty sure I hadn’t, this time around. I didn’t cause trouble: it just came to me on its own accord. Heck, now that I thought about it, I wasn’t ever the reason for trouble… right?
「If you do end up causing a commotion somewhere close to here, do tell me immediately. I can give you protection when something happens.」
Was he saying, “Go crazy and just leave the rest to me,” right now? If he really meant that, then I could go on rampages all I wanted and then just run off saying, “The town lord of Crimonia, Cliff Forscheroze, will take responsibility for everything.”
Well, he did have to deal with the aftermath of quite a few things I was involved in, so I couldn’t really complain.
Once we were finished chatting, I invited Cliff and Noa over for dinner tomorrow. Noa looked ecstatic, but Cliff seemed to be a bit unsure.