Chapter 136 – Bear-san Meets Marcus And His Party Again
When we reached the Adventurer’s Guild, we saw Marcus and the rest of his party standing near the entrance.
The three of them noticed us and rushed over.
「Yuna-san, why are you here?」
「More importantly, why are you with Shia-san...」
「Shia, what’s going on?」
Marcus, Cattleya, and Timor all started speaking at the same time.
「Hey guys, long time no see. Are you all doing well?」
「More or less.」
「It has been a long time since I last saw you, Yuna-san.」
「Yuna-san, it’s been a while indeed.」
They all answered vigorously, but something was still bugging me.
「Marcus, what’s with the bruise on your face?」
「Ah, this...」
Marcus pointed at a purple bruise on his right cheek.
「My father hit me for putting everyone in danger with my selfish actions and not listening to your instructions. He got really angry. He even went as far as to ask me: ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’」
「And then he punched you...?」
Marcus laughed while pointing at his cheek again.
「He’s right, so this is normal. He also praised me, though. He said that it’s better to take action than to pretend not to see anything, but also told me to only take action after considering my strength, the strength of my allies, and the information we have on the enemy.」
Now that he mentioned it, Eleanora-san had also told me something like that.
Well, all of this was partly my fault, but since Marcus had already accepted his punishment, there was nothing I could really say.
「I was really surprised the first time I saw his bruise. He came to the academy just a day after he was hit, his face still really swollen.」
「Yeah, it really surprised me, too. It used to be a lot worse compared to now, after all.」
「I was really wondering what happened when I saw him.」
「You’re saying that he used to look even worse?」
Well, quite some time had already passed since the guard mission, and for the bruise to remain until now...
How hard did his father hit him?
「Is it okay now?」
「Yeah, it is. It’s no big deal, really.」
Marcus lightly rubbed his cheek.
「You say that even though you made so much ruckus just when we touched it before?」
「I remember correctly, you even had tears in your eyes.」
「Of course it hurt when you touched it the day after I had been hit.」
Shia and Cattleya laughed as they reminisced about it, but I agreed with him.
Even though I had no experience with being hit like that, I knew that if you touched a swollen cheek, it would hurt. Honestly, even just imagining it made my cheek hurt.
Wasn’t it weird that when you saw someone else hurt, you started to feel the pain as well?
「What about the others; was it okay for you, or did people get mad at you too?」
「Professor and Eleanora-sama did get angry.」
「My mom was mad because I didn’t back you up, Yuna-san.」
「They got mad at me, too, saying irrational things like ‘You were supposed to stop Marcus’... They said it like I was his guardian or something...」
「But in the end, no one punched you guys, right?」
Marcus said sulkily, which made everyone laugh.
Well, the way I saw it, Marcus was the leader of the party, so he had to take responsibility for the others. His father must have taken that into account when he punched him.
Also, this world wasn’t like Japan, where they would say, ‘He’s just a child’. I was sure, he must have been scolded hard.
If his father said something like,『It’s not our child’s fault, the one who was in the wrong was the adventurer.』, I would have had to use the favor I had with Eleanora-san or the King.
「So, why are you two together then?」
「I had something to do at the Commerce Guild, and met with Shia there.」
「When I was on my way here, I saw a Bear-san in front of me, so I rushed to catch up with her.」
You didn’t really have to rush...
「At the Commerce Guild?」
I told them why I had been on my way to the Commerce Guild, and what had happened afterwards, then presented the dismantling master Fina to them.
When I introduced her like that, Fina dismissed it by saying,『I can only dismantle simple monsters,』 and looked at me reproachfully.
Why? Even though I only told them the truth...
Look at me, I couldn’t even dismantle a wolf...
「Are you telling us you brought such a little child all the way to the capital just because you wanted to buy a mithril knife?」
「I think it is okay since it is Yuna-san, but just two girls traveling alone is dangerous, you know.」
Timor and Cattleya looked at Fina and me with surprise.
Well, it was normal to think that two girls traveling from Crimonia to the capital was dangerous.
「Yuna-san has Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear, so there is no need to worry.」
Marcus threw me a lifeline.
「Oh, that’s right.」
「Still, dismantling a Black Tiger, huh. Is it really impossible with a normal knife?」
「If they could, they wouldn’t have had to come to the capital to get a mithril knife.」
「You’re right. If it was easy to pierce the Black Tiger with a normal knife, it wouldn’t be so hard to defeat it.」
「Marcus, you should stop saying stupid things and start studying.」
「I know this much, at least. I just wanted to ask!」
Marcus became sullen since they were making him look like an idiot.
「But I didn’t think that I wouldn’t be able to get a mithril knife even though I came all the way to the capital!」
「Ore shortage, huh.」
「Now that I think about it, some adventurers were talking about it, weren’t they?」
「I also heard about it a few days ago: something about monsters appearing at the mine.」
「Well, it doesn’t really affect me, so I don’t know the specifics.」
「The mine is too far away, so we can’t go there, either.」
「More importantly, if I were to go at a place like that, my father would punch me again.」
They all laughed again when Marcus said that.
「So you guys don’t know much about it, huh.」
They all nodded.
This meant that the information about the shortage wasn’t widely spread among the citizens.
Gazar-san said that they were getting ore from another place, so the shortage wasn’t as bad as to bring about chaos.
「But mithril, huh. I also want a mithril sword...」
「It’s too soon for you, Marcus.」
「Yea, too soon.」
「I also think so.」
「Why are you all saying that... Well, my father said the same thing too, though... Still, if I had a good weapon, I would be a bit...」
Marcus mimicked raising a sword.
「It’s not good to blame the sword for your lack of skill.」
They all retorted.
「Anyway, why are you guys here?」
I had something to do at the Adventurer’s Guild, but I couldn’t think of anything that would make students come here, too.
「We registered ourselves at the Adventurer’s Guild.」
「Even though you’re nobles?」
「It’s to get some experience since we don’t want something like before to happen again.」
Something like before... Did they mean the Black Tiger encounter?
「Even if you guys did your best, I don’t think you will be able to defeat a Black Tiger, though.」
「We don’t plan on fighting a monster like that... but we would like to be able to defeat low class monster without any difficulties at least.」
「And that’s why you decided to come to the Adventurer’s Guild?」
「Yeah. I had trouble getting permission from my father, though.」
Marcus started to explain how hard it was to get his father’s permission to register.
He told us about almost getting hit again by his father, being made to fight him, and learning tactics from him.
「The one who had it hard was me. Your father is the captain of a knight order, so you were fine, but my father is the minister of finance... He wouldn’t allow his son to become an adventurer even if it was only for a short time.」
「I apologized for that many times already, didn’t I?」
「You really had it hard, huh.」
「What about you, Shia?」
「I didn’t ask my father but got permission from my mother.」
Cliff... You were just pitiful... Your daughter didn’t even talk to you about such things...
「In the end, they allowed us to do it as long as we only accepted requests to defeat low class monsters from the nearby forest.」
They told me that wolves were the only monsters at the nearby forest. That’s why the forest was named The Beginner Forest, and only rank F and E adventurers could enter it.
It was meant to train the adventurers of the capital, it seemed.
Well, it made sense. If low class monsters were all exterminated around the capital, the new adventurers would have to leave the capital, and the capital wouldn’t be able to raise capable adventurers anymore.
The Adventurer’s Guild considered everything carefully and managed it well, huh.
I also recalled being scolded once for killing too many wolves around Crimonia.
They asked me to refrain myself from killing everything and leave the wolves to the new adventurers. It was the same for both cities.
So, Marcus and his party went to the nearby forest to hunt wolves when they had time now.
There were other monsters in the forest as well, of course, so they hunted them while they were at it and...
「You all became rank E?」
「Well, it’s normal for us to get rank E at least .」
「I think it’s amazing.」
「Yuna-san, you’re younger than us, but you are already rank C, right? Even if you praise us like this......」
Just now, what did he say?
Younger?
It seemed that Marcus didn’t only have a problem with his head but also with his eyes...
Were there any eye doctors in this world?
If we didn’t bring him to one soon, it might be too late.
「You’re right. I’m not happy that someone younger, who is already rank C, is praising me when I just became rank E...」
Huh? There was one more person with eye problems over here...
「You’re totally right. When Yuna-san, who is rank C and younger than us, says that, I can’t really feel happy.」
This was strange... The people with eye problems kept increasing...
The last one was doing her best to contain her laughter as if she already knew my age.
「Could I have a moment?」
「Yes?」
「How old do you guys think I am?」
「13 years old, right?」
「Aren’t you 13 years old?」
「Taking adventurer rules into consideration, it has to be 13 years old. It is impossible to register before that, after all.」
Shia was the only one laughing.
「Hmm, really... from which angle can you see me as a 13-year-old?」
「Don’t tell me you’re younger!?」
「That’s impossible, Marcus. There is an Adventurer Guild’s rule for that, after all.」
「Yuna-san, don’t tell me you lied about your age and...」
The three of them gave me doubtful looks.
「I’m 15. No matter how you look at me, I’m 15, right?」
「「「......」」」
The three of them turned stiff when I said that.
「Hmm, Yuna-san, you’re the same age as us?」
「That’s right.」
「You’re joking, right?」
「Oh, I got it. Yuna-san, you’re an elf, right?」
「Nope. I’m a normal human.」
I wasn’t from this world, though.
Shia was still laughing next to them.
「Shia, you knew!?」
「Yep, I heard it the first time we’ve met after all. She showed me her guild card as well.」
「The same age as us... I can’t believe it...」
「I can’t, either...」
I showed them my guild card to prove that I was 15.
I was just a LITTLE shorter than other people, that was all, you know.