Chapter 113

Chapter 113 – Bear-san Goes And Digs Up Bamboo Shoots

There was a very gentle knock on the door, as if the person knocking was hesitating .

I woke up and opened my eyes . I opened the window even though the sun had not risen yet .

I wasn’t sleepy since I went to sleep early yesterday .

The door slowly opened, and a certain someone entered the room .

「Big Sis Yuna, are you awake?」

Fina called out to me softly .

「Good morning, Fina . 」

「Good morning . 」

「What about Shuri?」

「She’s awake, since we slept early . 」

Oh right, she normally woke up early with Terumi-san to help her at the orphanage; the one who had trouble waking up early was me .

I asked Fina to leave first and followed her after I changed to the Black Bear Suit .

「Sorry for making you wait . 」

The two were already ready to head out .

It was still dark when we left the Bear House .

「Are you two cold?」

「I’m okay . 」

「I’m okay too . 」

They had coats on, so it should be okay?

When I was wearing the Bear Clothes, I couldn’t really tell what the temperature was like .

「Tell me if you’re cold, okay?」

They nodded .

When we arrived at the city, Deiga-san was already waiting for us, holding a big hoe in his hand .

「Good morning, Deiga-san . 」

After I greeted him, Fina and Shuri did the same .

「Well then, shall we head out?」

Deiga-san put the hoe on his shoulder and started walking .

The four of us headed towards the place where the bamboos were .

「Is the inn okay?」

「Yeah, I have been making preparations since last night, after all . The only thing that remains is the cooking, and Anzu should be able to do that on her own . If she can’t, I won’t let her to go to your place, Missy, and will make her re-do her training . 」

I prayed that Anzu could do it on her own .

We arrived at the bamboo thicket soon after . There were a lot of splendid bamboos .

「Can you really eat something like this?」

Deiga-san knocked on the hard bamboo .

「You can eat the ones that haven’t come out of the ground yet . 」

I looked around for places where the earth was bulging out . Was it here? I dug up the ground using earth magic . I uncovered a big bamboo shoot . It seemed that I had picked the right spot . I skillfully harvested the bamboo shoot .

「So, that’s a bamboo shoot?」

Deiga-san took the bamboo shoot and examined it .

「If you peel it and remove the poison, you can eat it . 」

「Yosh, I understand . I just have to dig them up, right?」

Deiga-san went further inside the bamboo thicket with his hoe .

Did he know where to dig them up?

「Big Sis Yuna, will we dig this up?」

Fina asked while looking at the bamboo shoot .

「That’s right . My plan was to come here and dig up the bamboo shoots with the two of you . 」

「I understand . I’ll do my best . I don’t have any tools for digging, though . 」

「No problem . I will lend Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear to you . 」

I summoned Hugging Bear and Swaying Bear .

「Can you two go with them and look for bamboo shoots?」

When I asked the two, they nodded .

As expected from animals?

「These children will dig up the bamboo shoots, so could you carry them?」

Swaying Bear was paired with Fina, and Hugging Bear with Shuri .

「Swaying Bear, I’m in your care . 」

Fina petted Swaying Bear .

「Hugging Bear, we should do our best so we don’t lose to Sis, okay?」

「I won’t lose either . 」

They headed in different directions .

Then, should I dig around here?

While walking around the area, I dug up all the slightly bulging places .

I didn’t find any shoots sometimes, but I was successful more often than not .

Meanwhile, Fina and Shuri were bringing bamboo shoots to me with their small bodies .

The shoots were all sorts of sizes, big and small .

They brought them over many times, but Deiga-san didn’t bring even one .

You just had to dig and you could find them, but he left during my explanation, so I wasn’t able to tell him the trick to finding them . I became worried .

I continued to dig while worrying about Deiga-san .

It wasn’t good to take too much, so I stopped after taking a moderate amount .

The next time Fina and Shuri came back, I told them that we would stop .

「I lost to Sis…」

Shuri seemed sad .

「Shuri, you lost because you went too far . 」

「I thought I would find more if I went farther, though…」

「The next time we do this, think about how far you have to carry them, okay?」

「Ugh . 」

Shuri puffed up her cheeks and clung to her partner, Hugging Bear .

「Hugging Bear, I’m sorry . We lost because of me . 」

Hugging Bear lightly patted her head . Was he saying she shouldn’t mind it?

Deiga-san was really late though . How far did he go?

I used detection magic to find him . He didn’t go too far .

「I will go to Deiga-san, so please wait here for a minute, okay?」

I left them there and headed towards Deiga-san .

When I reached him, I saw a lot of holes . Even now, Deiga-san was digging a hole .

「Deiga-san, what are you doing?」

「What are you saying? I am digging up bamboo shoots . I’m having trouble finding them though…」

I knew it . He really was digging randomly!

「Deiga-san, there’s a trick to finding bamboo shoots, you know?」

「Is that so? You should have told me that earlier!」

「You went off on your own before I could tell you, right?」

「Was it so?」

「Yes, it was . You find bamboo shoots by carefully looking at the ground for places where the earth is bulging up a bit . 」

I looked around and found a place that was bulging up .

「Deiga-san, that place over there bulges up, right?」

「Ah, you’re right . 」

「Please go and dig over there . 」

Deiga-san went to dig where I told him to .

「Oh! It’s really here!」

「It was about to sprout soon . If it did, it would have become a bamboo . 」

「I see . 」

Deiga-san swung the hoe carefully not to break the bamboo shoot .

As he continued to dig, the bamboo shoot was slowly being uncovered . A surprisingly big bamboo shoot was buried here .

「It’s big, huh . 」

Deiga-san successfully dug up the bamboo shoot using his muscles .

I then told him we would go back since the sun was rising .

「I only dug up one, you know!」

「Time has run out already . If you continued to dig more, their taste would get worse, and that wouldn’t be good, right?」

Deiga-san looked sad when I told him that, but he obediently agreed to come back with us .

I was sure that he, as a chef, thought that he couldn’t serve something that didn’t have the best taste to his customers .

I put the bamboo shoots inside the Bear Box, and we headed back to the inn .

When we arrived at the inn, Anzu was collapsed on the table, exhausted .

「Anzu?」

「Ah, Yuna-san . Welcome back . 」

Anzu woke up .

「Oh, it seems that you managed on your own, huh . 」

「Somehow . I don’t want to do it again, though . 」

「Right, right? Still, if you can’t do this, you won’t be become a full-fledged chef, you know!」

「I’ll do my best!」

Anzu stood up from her chair .

「So, did you find the bamboo shoots?」

I brought out a bamboo shoot from the Bear Box .

「So, this is a bamboo shoot?」

「Should I prepare it, so we can eat it for lunch?」

I showed them how to remove the poison, and prepared the rice .

「I heard it from Anzu, but it seems that the people from the country of Harmony and Peace haven’t come yet?」

「Yeah . We’re troubled, since we can’t procure rice and other commodities . Still, thanks to the feudal lord of Crimonia, wheat is being transported here, and bread has become our main food . 」

Fish and bread, huh . For me, who was born in Japan, it was an impossible combination .

Fish went best with rice .

Wait, there were fish burgers too . Should I make some next time?

「The tunnel isn’t finished yet, right? They brought it anyway?」

The tunnel’s interior was dark; the installation of magic lines wasn’t finished yet .

「Missy, even though you subjugated the bandits and the Kraken, we still have a food shortage . We used to transport the flour by boat, but it’s now quicker to just get it from Crimonia, so we asked them to bring us food . 」

Well, that was true . Even though they had fish now, with just seafood it was still…

It wasn’t my place to talk here, so I kept quiet .

I decided to make the bamboo shoots in front of me as delicious as I possibly could .

First, preparing the bamboo shoot rice, then frying what had to be fried, and finally seasoning what had to be boiled . I made lots of different dishes using the bamboo shoots .

「Sis Yuna, I’m hungry . 」

Now that I thought about it, we did work without eating breakfast, huh .

「It’s ready . 」

I placed the finished dishes in front of the two children .

「It looks delicious . 」

「It isn’t white today?」

Shuri asked while looking at the rice .

「That’s because the shoots that you dug up are mixed in . It’s delicious, so try it . 」

Shuri nodded and brought the bamboo shoot to her mouth .

「Delicious!」

「Yes, it’s delicious!」

Shuri and Fina were eating it happily .

Seeing them eat it like that made me happy too .

「Can I also have some?」

「I prepared enough for all of us . 」

I placed all of our portions on the table .

「It’s delicious and really tender . So the bamboo is soft like this, huh?」

「Well, you can’t eat it after it sprouts; it becomes too hard . 」

「Big Sis Yuna, it’s delicious . 」

「……」

Shuri was eating silently .

「Somehow, Yuna-san looks more like a chef than me . 」

「I can’t prepare fish, so Anzu is more of a chef than me . 」

「Is that so?」

I had never prepared any, after all .

I knew a bit about them, but I had never prepared a fish .

「Yuna-san, you seem like you can do everything . 」

「I only know how to cook it, so I am counting on you, Anzu . 」

「Yuna-san…」

Anzu seemed happy .

「If we had rice, I would sell bamboo shoot rice in the shop, but…」

Deiga-san said while eating .

「Bamboo shoots are delicious even when you don’t eat rice with it, you know . 」

「You’re right . It’s delicious enough to eat it with other ingredients . Although, is giving us these bamboo shoots really okay? Well, it would help us a lot if you gave some to us . 」

Deiga-san managed to dig up only one .

We were able to harvest a lot of them since I used magic while Fina and Shuri got help from the bears .

「No problem . I harvested a lot thanks to these two . We could also go and harvest some more later if you want . It’s difficult to dig them up, right?」

「You’re right, there’s a trick to finding them . I will be okay next time though . You taught me a lot, after all . 」

A little while later, after we finished eating our meals, people started coming in to eat lunch .

Deiga-san and Anzu would be busy soon, so we left the inn to avoid bothering them .