Chapter 23: The Bear’s Summoned Beasts Are Bears, and the Bear’s House Is a Bear House
After accepting a request at an open reception desk, we leave the guild.
“What request did you take, Big Sis Yuna?”
“Subjugation of Tiger Wolves.”
“Big Sis!”
“What?”
“I heard Tiger Wolves are bigger and stronger than regular wolves. Will you be okay?”
She grabs my bear outfit anxiously.
“Won’t I be?”
They’re probably just larger wolves.
I pat Fina’s head and we leave the city.
At the gate, merchants and adventurers making a late departure are lined up.
We join the line, show our guild cards, and leave the city.
After passing through the gate, we walk for a few minutes, then move away from the road to a place where no one is around.
A few adventurers are watching us from a distance.
Ignoring them, I stop walking.
“Big Sis?”
“Wait a second. I’m bringing out our transportation.”
I tell Fina to stand back a little and stretch out the black and white bear gloves on my hands.
I channel magic power into them.
The bears’ mouths open wide, and a white object and a black object shoot out from them.
The objects begin wriggling.
Slowly, they rise onto four legs.
Yes, they are summoned bears.
The white bear and black bear walk over to me.
They rub against me, so I scratch their faces and chins.
They narrow their eyes happily.
They’re fluffy and feel wonderful to touch.
One gently presses against my cheek.
“Big Sis!”
Fina takes a step backward.
“It’s okay. They’re my summoned beasts, so they’re safe. Here, try touching one.”
Fina cautiously approaches and touches a bear.
Once she realizes it isn’t going to do anything, she smiles.
“Alright, Fina, ride Kumakyu.”
“Kumakyu?”
“The white bear is Kumakyu, and the black bear is Kumayuru.”
Kumakyu lowers its body so Fina can climb on easily.
“It’s okay.”
Fina carefully climbs onto Kumakyu.
As soon as she is seated, Kumakyu slowly stands up.
“Uwaaaah!”
“As long as you hold on, you’ll be fine. Actually, thanks to Kumakyu’s abilities, you won’t fall off unless you deliberately jump down.”
The viewpoint is surprisingly high, so it might be scary at first.
“Even if you fall asleep and stop holding on, you still won’t fall.”
After calming Fina down, I climb onto Kumayuru as well.
“We’ll start slow. Once you get used to it, we’ll speed up.”
“O-Okay.”
The two of us, mounted on bears, start running toward the mountain where the Tiger Wolves live.
Needless to say, the nearby adventurers, merchants, and travelers stare at us with curiosity.
At first, I thought about summoning them somewhere out of sight.
But going far away from the city every single time just to summon them felt troublesome.
So I decided not to care about being seen anymore.
The bears carrying us gradually increase their speed.
Our destination lies even deeper beyond the mountain where the Goblin King was found.
It would take six hours on foot.
With these bears, it takes about thirty minutes.
“Ahahahahaha!”
Fina is having a great time.
I have no idea how fast we’re actually going.
The bears don’t come with speedometers.
I’ve never driven a car or motorcycle before, so I can’t judge speed by feel.
Still, it’s obvious we’re moving very fast.
Despite the speed, we don’t feel any wind pressure.
A force surrounds the entire bear, protecting us from it.
Because of that, we could even sleep and still reach our destination.
After increasing our speed even further, we reach the village where we gathered information during the Goblin subjugation in about thirty minutes.
Not wanting to alarm anyone with Kumayuru and Kumakyu, we avoid passing through the village and head directly into the mountain.
Once inside the mountain, our speed naturally decreases.
From here, we climb at a leisurely pace.
“I think it was around here.”
The request form said they appeared somewhere in this area.
Finding a flat spot halfway up the mountain, I dismount from Kumayuru.
“This should be fine.”
I check the surrounding space and obstacles.
Then I take something out of the Bear Box and place it down.
“Big Sis Yuna!”
Fina screams at the sight of it.
She’s been screaming a lot today.
What appeared is a house.
The Bear House.
A two-story house with a yard stands before us.
The front exterior is shaped like a giant bear standing on all fours.
The entrance is the bear’s wide-open mouth.
The second floor looks like a bear cub sitting on top of it.
There’s even a storage shed next to the house.
“Let’s go inside and take a break first.”
“…Okay.”
Kumayuru and Kumakyu remain in the yard.
The two of us walk into the bear’s mouth as though we’re being eaten.
Inside the Bear House, the atmosphere resembles a Japanese-style home.
“Take your shoes off there.”
I’m not sure about this world’s customs, but I tell her anyway.
After removing our shoes at the entrance, we enter the living room.
The first floor contains a living room, kitchen, bathroom, toilet, and a small storage room.
The second floor contains my room and several guest rooms.
The rooftop is located at the bear cub’s head, and I’m thinking of using it to hang laundry.
“Just sit anywhere around here.”
I point toward a sofa-like chair.
“Big Sis Yuna?”
“What?”
“What is this house?”
She looks around the room before asking.
“It’s a house I made with magic.”
During my experiments, I learned that the Bear Box has effectively unlimited capacity and size.
So I made a portable house for traveling.
The house itself was created with earth magic while imagining a bear.
Doing so increases its durability.
For the interior, I freely shaped walls with earth magic and divided the rooms however I wanted.
Rooms requiring water have water magic stones installed.
There’s even a refrigerator in the kitchen.
Light magic stones are installed throughout the house as well, so it stays bright even at night.
The only things this house lacks are a television and a computer.
If it had those, it would be the perfect shut-in home.
I head to the kitchen and hand Fina a chilled fruit juice.
“Big Sis Yuna, are you some kind of noble?”
“No.”
“Then are you a princess?”
“There’s no way a princess like me exists. I’m just a normal adventurer.”
Fina looks like she wants to say something but closes her mouth.
“After we rest, I’m going to search for Tiger Wolves.”
“What about me?”
“You can go look for medicinal herbs for your mother with Kumakyu. As long as Kumakyu is with you, it’ll be safe. And if you ever feel like you’re in danger, come back here. There’s a barrier around the house, so it’s safe.”
“…”
“I’ll leave monsters in the warehouse next door too, so if you have time, I’d like you to butcher them.”
“Can I do that later?”
“Isn’t that up to you? You get ten percent of whatever the materials sell for. Whether you find your mother’s herbs first and then butcher them, or spend all your time looking for herbs, that’s your choice.”
“Okay, I understand.”
“Then let’s go to the warehouse next door. I’ll explain everything.”
The warehouse can be accessed both from inside the house and from outside.
It’s about twenty tatami mats in size.
Inside, there’s only water and a workbench.
Nothing else has been placed there.
I take ten wolves and ten horned rabbits out of the Bear Box and line them up along the wall.
“You don’t have to do all of them. Once you finish butchering them, could you put the materials in this room?”
The room next door is a refrigerated storage room.
It was mainly built to store large quantities of things that need to stay cold.
Because time is stopped inside the Bear Box, it can’t actually chill things.
Of course, if I put the Bear House itself into the Bear Box, time would stop there too.
“Well then, I’m heading out. Be careful. If anything happens, just rely on Kumakyu and you’ll be fine.”