Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (Chapter 75-260)

Chapter 211

Chapter 211 – Bear-san Negotiates with the Merchant – Part 1

Sanya-san borrowed a room in the back of the guild for us, so we entered it with Miranda-san and her party in tail to listen to their side of the story.
Apparently, after Ruimin had accidentally torn the painting, she simply gave her bracelet to the merchant in order to not get Miranda-san’s party into trouble and left the city without telling them anything.
Sanya-san looked more and more exasperated as she listened to the story.

「………..」

「I mean, it was my fault, so I couldn’t drag everyone else into it.」

「You could have at least talked about it with us first.」

「……….」

Ruimin looked down, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

「If Dogrude-san knew how important the bracelet was to the elves he wouldn’t have accepted the bracelet.」

「Yes, and this all happened only because we gave you the job, so we are all responsible for it.」

The other two female adventurers spoke up as well.

「But it was my fault. I’m the one who tore the painting. It had nothing to do with you.」

「As I said, we were the ones who gave you the job, so we all share some of the responsibility for what happened.」

「That might be true, but… 」

「Even so, there was no reason for you to just disappear on us. Do you know how worried you made us?」

「I’m sorry…」

Ruimin shrunk into her chair and apologized with a barely audible voice when the three of them disputed her reasoning.
I also apologized to them in my head. I had doubted their intentions and was almost sure they were after Ruimin’s bracelet. I thought they had just been working together with an evil merchant.
When Ruimin had explained what happened, I first assumed that the adventurers had tricked her into giving up her bracelet. Instead, these adventurers seemed to be genuinely worried about Ruimin from the bottom of their hearts.
They had found Ruimin wandering around in the Adventurer’s Guild and listened to her story about having no money to get to the capital. Then, they kindly offered her a job to earn the money she needed.

「Based on what you said before, it sounds like the bracelet hasn’t been sold yet to someone else?」

「Yes, you’re right. After we found out that Ruimin left her bracelet and disappeared, we immediately negotiated with Dogrude-san and asked him not to sell it to anybody for a while.」

「We didn’t know how long he would be willing to hold it for us, so we even discussed the prospect of buying it back ourselves before he sold it to someone.」

「Yeah, but with us just being low-rank adventures, it would take us a while to get there… He did promise to wait for us, though.」

「All of you…」

Ruimin’s eyes began to tear up and she looked back up at the people who cared about her so much.
I could hardly believe it. They had actually intended to buy it back for her and negotiated with the merchant to hold onto it until they had the money.
Well, that was kind of stupid of them, honestly. To them, Ruimin was a complete stranger, not even a real acquaintance. It would be very unusual for someone to try and buy back something so personal for someone they had just met.
If I had relatives like that, I would cut ties with them immediately; I wouldn’t want them meddling with my business.
Well, I had already done something similar, too, but not to such a length. There were acts of kindness even I wouldn’t do; I wasn’t as naive as them.
Still, I couldn’t really say I hated people who would go to such lengths for random strangers.