Chapter 561:
The Bear Picks Something Up from the Lake
I LEFT THE BUILDING Shia had been staying in. It was dark outside, the streets lit only by the mana gems along the way.
I carried the cub-form Kumakyu around the edge of the lake. The lake was dark too, lit only by the moonlight. The hot spring lake in the Land of Wa was pretty, but the lake here was beautiful too. A pleasant breeze drifted by. My hair fluttered in the wind. I was normally in my bear gear, so I hadn’t felt the wind through my hair in a while.
“Kumakyu, let’s take a short walk before heading back.”
“Cwoon.”
We decided to stroll around the lake a bit. Since it was night, I didn’t see anyone around. I guess people didn’t really come out for fun when it was this dark. If anyone was out, it’d probably be a couple or some drunk.
While I was looking out onto the water, I thought back to the Land of Wa. I really missed soaking in a hot spring. Once I was back at the inn, maybe I could use the transport gate to take a quick trip to one. That said, if I left out Kumayuru, they’d probably sulk for a while. We could all go together after we got back to Crimonia.
“Cwoon.”
While I was lost in hot springs fantasies, Kumakyu cried out in my arms.
“What is it? We’ll go to the hot spring with Kumayuru, okay?”
“Cwoon.”
Kumakyu shook their head and stretched out their right arm as far as it could reach. I looked out to where Kumakyu pointed.
A person?
I thought about hiding Kumakyu at first but then stopped. The outfit the person was wearing looked off. They were wearing a hood over their head to hide their face even though it was hot outside. I wasn’t really one to talk when I normally went out in a bear onesie, today I was in a school uniform. Let’s be direct here: This guy was sus...
I thought about how to prevent the worst-case scenario and decided it’d be best if Kumakyu were with me. If I kept walking forward, I’d end up closer to the suspicious hooded person. Hmm, what to do. Would it be better to ignore it and keep going, or to turn around and end my walk?
While I was thinking, the person pulled something out of who knows where. Whatever it was caught the glint of the moonlight, then they stretched their hand over toward the lake. Their hood fluttered. Was that wind magic?
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the thing in their hand seemed to fly of its own accord into the lake. I followed the object with my eyes. It flew far away, catching the moonlight once again as it went, then fell into the lake with a splash. What in the world was it?
I looked over at the person again, but they’d already disappeared. What was that? It didn’t look like the person was a litterbug. They’d used wind magic to send that thing flying off into the lake on purpose.
It was official: I was curious. Even if I pretended I hadn’t seen anything and headed back to the inn, I’d probably stay up all night wondering what that thing was.
“Haah...”
Well, it couldn’t be helped. It’d be bad if I lost sleep because of this, after all.
So I checked my surroundings, set Kumakyu down, and pulled my bear onesie out of my bear storage. It felt a little awkward, but I pulled the onesie over my uniform. It felt pretty weird with the two layers on.
Since I wanted to get this over with quick, I carried Kumakyu with me and used my bear walking on water skill to walk out onto the lake. Then I headed to the location where I thought I’d seen the object drop. It was around here, I think?
Of course, it was too dark to see down to the lake bottom, even after I used light magic. It was pitch black down there at the bottom. It was good timing that I had learned the bear underwater swimming skill after defeating the orochi in the Land of Wa so recently, so I used that. The skill did just what it said on the box, allowing me to freely dive underwater, but I hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to use it yet.
After I activated the skill, I slowly sunk down into the water. Once under, I was surrounded by an air bubble. Okay, fine, it was a bear-shaped air bubble. I thought at first that this would end up setting off another event or something, so I hadn’t tried using it for a while, but my curiosity as an ex-gamer got the better of me. If I needed to use the skill on the spot, something might backfire, so I’d already tried out the skill once just so I knew how to use it.
When I first tried it out, I hadn’t noticed because I was inside the bubble, but when I looked closely, I realized it was bear-shaped. I could see the ears up above and there was even a little round tail behind me. Did this really needed to be bear themed too?
I landed at the lake’s bottom with Kumakyu in my arms. So where was this thing? It must be around here somewhere. I tried shining my bear light around to search for the spot where I thought the object would be.
“Cwoon.”
Kumakyu cried out in my arms and reached out with their right paw. I whipped my bear light over in that direction. Something glinted in the light. I headed over to it slowly.
“A mana gem?”
Yep, there it was, right at the bottom of the lake. A pretty big one too.
“Uh, it’s just on the ground here, so I can take it, right?”
I grabbed it. It was about as big as the one I got from the kraken.
“It’s okay, right?”
I mean, the person threw it away. They obviously didn’t want it.
“Cwoon.”
Kumakyu’s croon was non-committal.
“Either way, now you’re an accomplice.”
“Cwoon.”
No one was around to see, considering I was at the bottom of a lake, but I felt a tad guilty. After putting the gem away in my bear storage, I made sure the coast was clear and surfaced quickly to make my escape.
Then I got rid of the bear light, took off my bear clothes, and headed right to the inn.