Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (Chapter 75-260)

Chapter 209

Chapter 209 – Bear-san Gets Rained On

Since we would be resuming ou trip early in the morning, I instructed Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear to wake me up so that I wouldn’t oversleep.
At least I didn’t have any distractions like games or manga to keep me up all night, so I was able to go to bed early. If nothing happened, I might even be able to wake up on my own.

The next morning, the bears woke me up by lightly tapping my face with their paws. I thanked them and went down to the first floor.

「Morning, Yuna-chan.」

「Good morning, Yuna-san.」

Sanya-san and Ruimin were already waiting for me by the table.

「You’re both up early.」

「That’s because Ruimin woke me up. We prepared some breakfast, but it won’t be as delicious as what you served us yesterday.」

They had prepared enough bread and drinks for the three of us.
I thanked them, then joined them by the table.

「Did you two sleep well?」

「We did. There’s no way we wouldn’t be able to sleep well on such a comfortable bed.」

「The bed was very soft and smelled nice.」

「I’m glad I aired it out, then.」

We then continued to chat as we ate the bread.
The bread wasn’t as good as Morin-san’s, though. Well, it wasn’t like it was bad, but… Morin-san’s was just hard to beat.
With our bellies full, we resumed our journey to the Elf Village.
Our first stop would still be Raruuze, which was also conveniently the place where Ruimin had accidentally torn the painting and had to sell her bracelet to pay it off.

「Hmm, before we talk to the merchant you sold the bracelet to, maybe we should talk to to the adventurers who gave you the job. They could offer us more info on the ruined painting.」

「Talk to the adventurers?」

「Yes. We might learn something that’ll make it easier to negotiate with the merchant.」

Sanya-san brought up a topic midway.

「Well, they are a female-only party, and their leader is called Miranda. They really helped me out by offering me the job when I was stuck with no money. They’re all nice people.」

Ruimin talked about the adventurers with a smile on her face.

「Still, my mistake caused them a lot of trouble…」

「What exactly was the job again?」

The only thing we knew was that she had accidentally destroyed a painting as Sanya-san didn’t pry further.

「I had to clean at a shop that sold things like artworks, ornate vases, jewelries, and other ornaments.」

So, it was a task that required physical labour, but the goods also needed to be treated gently. It made sense for it only to be available for female adventurers.
Still, when Ruimin had been cleaning, she managed to accidentally ruin a painting.
Could it be that those adventurers were working actually with the merchant and simply conned her out of her bracelet?
Yeah, they could have noticed her bracelet beforehand and tricked her into destroying what was actually just a cheap painting. It was something that quite commonly happened in manga and light novels.
Still, I had no evidence of this being the case while Rumin also seemed to trust the adventurers.
It was more likely that she just sold the bracelet because she has no other way to repay them.
While I was glad that she didn’t have to sell her own body, I still couldn’t get rid of the feeling they might have been aiming for her bracelet from the very beginning. Sanya-san had said that those who knew how the bracelet worked should also have known about its true value, after all.
Hmm. I really must have read too much manga and played too many games to think like this.