Bear-san Dives Into The Mine, Part 1
The hero arrived at the mine to obtain the materials needed to save Princess Fina, who had been captured by the witch Eleanora.
A golem stood in front of the hero. As the golem launched its punches, countless pebbles flew through the air.
The hero dodged, but she couldn’t dodge every strike, and a few pebbles hit the hero’s cheek.
Petchi, petchi, petchi, petchi
It didn’t hurt, though. It was as if they were soft. Such weak attacks wouldn’t defeat the hero.
The hero ran at the golem while it continued to launch countless harmless pebbles.
Such weak attacks were of no concern at all, so the hero didn’t stop her assault.
Petchi, petchi, petchi, petchi
The pebbles continued to hit the hero’s cheek, but they still didn’t hurt.
Then, the hero, who was about to slice the golem with her sword, suddenly couldn’t breathe anymore.
What sort of attack was this!?
It felt as if something was pressing against her face.
She was suffocating……
‘So, I will die because of an unknown attack like this……’
The hero lost consciousness.
"Uwaaaah, I can’t breathe!"
Thud
When I woke up, something fell from my face.
"Hugging Bear?"
I saw Hugging Bear, tilting his head in front of me, and Swaying Bear next to him.
"Is it possible that the dream I just had was your fault?"
Those soft attacks from the golem and the suffocating feeling at the end.
I looked at the two, and they let out small ‘Kuun’ cries.
I looked around the room and saw that the sun was shining into it; they seemed to have woken me because it was already morning.
"Thank you, but you two should think of a way that won’t make me suffocate next time, okay?"
As a protective measure, I summoned Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear yesterday night.
I was never more defenseless than when I slept, after all.
I recalled them into their gloves, changed back into the Black Bear, and went to the dining room to have breakfast.
I was thankful that the bears woke me up, but I would like it if they stopped jumping on my face as they did it. I almost died of suffocation. If it had lasted any longer, I might have appeared on the obituary section of a newspaper. The title would have been, “A girl wearing a bear suit has died.”
Well, it wouldn’t have been like this at all if I just woke up when Hugging Bear and Swaying Bear were softly hitting my cheeks. People didn’t easily wake up everyday, though. There were times when they wanted to wake up late, too.
Still, I had work this time around, so Hugging Bear had to wake me up. I should be thankful and just bear with it.
As I was thinking about Hugging Bear and Swaying Bear, Mel-san and Senya-san arrived.
I couldn’t see the two men yet.
"Good morning, Yuna-chan."
Mel-san greeted me, while Senya-san just lightly waved her hand.
"Mel-san, Senya-san, good morning."
"Yuna-chan, will you go to the mine after breakfast?"
"I will just check the situation for now. I can’t just stand around, after all."
I had to save the imprisoned Princess Fina, too.
"Then, how about coming with us?"
"With you guys?"
"We know your strength from the rumors, but… your appearance is…"
"I can only see a cute bear."
They started petting my head when they said that.
"We are worried, since you don’t seem that strong…"
"…So, the two of us talked about it and decided we should go together."
They displayed their worries for me quite firmly.
It was easier for me to move around on my own, though. Well, I did want to see how strong rank C adventurers were, so…
What should I do?
First of all, how about they stopped petting my head?
The two sat down next to me and ordered breakfast.
"But won’t it be a problem if you two don’t ask Jade-san first?"
"It’s okay, even if we don’t talk to him."
Mel-san said.
No wait, Jade-san was the leader, right? This was something you were supposed to discuss with him, right?!
While I was talking to the two of them, Jade-san and Toya-san came down from the second floor.
"You’re all early, huh."
"You’re just late. By the way, Yuna-chan will be coming with us today."
Wait… I didn’t accept it yet, you know!
Also, she said it like it was a done deal.
"Okay."
"I’m also fine with that."
Hey, were you two really okay with this!?
Shouldn’t you normally discuss it before agreeing?
In the end, my silent protests didn’t reach anyone, and I had to go with them.
There were many tunnels we could use to enter the mine.
I didn’t know how many decades or even hundreds of years the mine had been here, but it seemed ancient, and they made new tunnels every now and then.
The golems had appeared in the most recent one, which they had already been digging out for a few years now.
It seemed that there were two entrances you could take to get the first golem. It didn’t matter which you took, though, since they met halfway.
The Idiot Rangers always used the same entrance, so Jade-san’s party always entered through the other one.
It seemed that they did that so the Idiot Rangers couldn’t say anything about Jade-san’s party stealing their prey or the like.
This was the correct way of dealing with the Idiot Rangers; it was better to avoid the idiots than to crush them.
It was similar to arguing with stupid people. They were selfish, narcissistic, didn’t listen to other people, altered the facts to their liking, and acted rashly. When they failed at something, they blamed others for their mistakes. There had been many similar idiots in the game, and I had learned that it was better to stay away from them.
However, if an idiot came to me, I would crush them…
The entrance to the mine was a short distance from the town, and when we arrived at the mine, it was pitch black inside. Just as I thought that a magic light would be necessary, Jade-san stood next to the wall close to the entrance and put his hand on it, making light appear inside the tunnel.
It seemed that it had been made like the Bear Tunnel; the light magic stones were linked by magic lines, which lit the path when the switch was hit.
Well, it was the same lighting method used in houses.
The tunnel was large enough for a carriage to pass through without a problem, but I saw no mine wagons or even rails; it seemed that they didn’t use them in this mine.
Honestly, I didn’t even know if wagons existed in this world, but how were they transporting the ores without them…?
When I asked Jade-san, he told me that they first put them into cloth bags and then placed those in item bags.
As expected from another world. By putting the ore into an item bag, they made it easy to carry. Most likely, less people were needed to transport it when compared to using a wagon; depending on how much you could put inside the item bag, a single person would be able to transport more than a wagon.
Still, since big item bags were high-class items, they probably weren’t used at the mines, right?
When we entered the tunnel, I saw that it continued for a long time; I couldn’t see the end from the entrance.
I tried using the Bear-san Map, and it showed the entrance of the tunnel.
It seemed that I could even use it freely while underground. I wouldn’t get lost with it. Sadly, only the places I had already been to were shown, but it still automatically updated as I explored, so there was no real problem.
I tried using detection magic next and detected several golems in front of us, but since the area they were in had not been explored yet, I only saw their dots in the dark part of the map. I didn’t know if they were on our level or not.
Well, this was a good time to test my Bear Skills.
We moved with Jade-san in front, Mel-san and me right behind him, and Senya-san and Toya-san at the rear.
"We will first encounter Earth and Stone Golems."
"They are easy to defeat, but unfortunately, we can only sell their magic stones, and those don’t sell for much."
Earth Golems, huh. It might be a good idea to test them against my Bear Golems.
Just as I thought that, an Earth Golem appeared, right where my detection magic had spotted it.
It was about two and a half meters high and had thick limbs.
Being hit by such thick limbs wasn’t something that could just be brushed off; it would be dangerous for normal people.
Jade-san gave instructions to the party and ran in.
Mel-san instantly cut off the golem’s arms with wind magic. Did they always do it this way? It wasn’t enough to stop the golem, and it continued to advance towards us before Jade-san cut off its leg with his sword. The golem, with its limbs cut off, fell down where it stood. Senya-san jumped on golem’s back, made a hole around the golem’s heart with a knife, and took out its magic stone, making the golem crumble to dust.
The party had good coordination and teamwork.
Toya-san’s role was to keep an eye on the surroundings.
Hmm, would the golem stop moving if I broke its magic stone?
Since I didn’t care much for magic stones, it might be simpler to just destroy them.
Anyways, now that I had seen them fight, I understood how their party worked.
Jade-san used his big sword, Toya-san wielded a smaller one, Mel-san was a magician, and Senya-san used a short sword.
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Translations from: Xant & Minions
Author’s note:
I’m really sorry. My computer is in bad shape. It freezes often, and sometimes even refuses to reboot.
I will probably be late with releases because of my computer from now on and might not be able to answer to your comments.
I hope you can be understanding about this.