Arcana Online
Where was I?
A blinding white ceiling came into view, and the place below it was packed with patients.
Right. I was in a hospital.
“Ms. Han Yuna.”
“Y-yes!”
“Your tests are all finished. We’ll call you on your phone once the results are ready.”
“Thank you!”
When I got up and stepped out of the waiting room, Lara was waiting for me by the door.
“All done with the health checkup?”
“Yep! But was it really necessary?”
“Of course it was! If you want to play games, you have to be healthy first!”
After joining Frey Guild, I’d come in early in the morning for a guild-sponsored health checkup.
So they really do have four major insurances, huh...
I was glad I’d told Yongyong I was sleeping in, at least. Otherwise, he would’ve chewed me out again like last time.
Since I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before for the checkup, I followed Lara down to the hospital basement to a porridge shop and tried to take the edge off my hunger.
After a simple meal, I got a call saying the results were in, so I headed back to the waiting room.
When I sat down and waited, a nurse called my name.
I followed the nurse into the examination room, and Lara came in with me too.
Inside, the doctor was studying my chart with a grave expression.
“Have you lost consciousness recently, patient?”
“How did you know?”
Lara stared at me with wide eyes the moment she heard that.
Ah. I’d misspoken.
“Your numbers are really bad. You’re malnourished, too...”
“Malnourished!?”
“For now, we’ll give you an IV drip and prescribe some medicine. Take it regularly, and make sure you eat proper meals. If you don’t, this could turn into something serious.”
“Yes, doctor.”
I followed the nurse to the IV room, and while I was getting hooked up, Lara sat beside me with a murderous look in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what...”
“I told you clearly to say something if things were hard, didn’t I!?”
I had no excuse.
She was staring at me with tears in her eyes, and if I said the wrong thing here, I’d be total trash...
After I apologized, Lara thought it over for a long time before looking at me with a face like she’d made up her mind.
“I know all about why Yuna is living in that house, so I won’t tell you to move next door. Instead, I’ll move in next door to you.”
Lara said she was going to move in beside me.
No, wait—someone already lives next door, though?
She called someone while I was nearly done with the IV, and just then the bell rang.
“Yes. Thank you for your hard work.”
After hanging up, she said the moving date had already been set. Already!?
“I’m buying it for double the market price. Moving expenses included.”
“......”
Lara was showing me there was nothing money couldn’t do.
Well, if there was something money couldn’t solve, she said with a laugh, then it just meant there wasn’t enough of it.
It was terrifying.
She drove me all the way home, said we’d see each other next week, and then left.
For a long while after, I just stood there staring at the empty space where Lara had been.
My chest felt tight, but I didn’t know how to put it into words.
A world where I knew no one.
In a world that had once been colorless, color had begun to seep back in.
*
*
*
“Kkyuu!”
“I said I was sleeping in today, didn’t I?”
“Kkyuuu!”
“So this is you cutting me some slack?”
As I patted Yongyong’s head while he munched on a magic stone, I opened the window and looked out over the city.
The bear taxi had been driving like a maniac, so I’d arrived earlier than planned.
We really did get faster.
Thanks to that, I also got a little taste of hell...
Ugh. Just thinking about it made my stomach lurch.
“Kkyuung?”
“I’m fine.”
I soothed Yongyong, who was worrying about me, and packed up my things. Then I checked out of the hotel lobby.
“Thank you for everything.”
“Not at all! It was an honor to serve you!”
On the way out of the City of Stars, I said, “Let’s stop by the Information Guild one last time before we go.”
“Kkyuu!”
“Hey, now. We can’t do that. They helped us when we had no magic stones at all.”
“Kkyuuu...”
Calming down Yongyong, who cared about no one but me, I headed for the Information Guild.
I went into the general store that served as the guild’s hideout and told the employee why I was there. They guided me to the request room.
Inside, Erika was drinking tea, and the moment she spotted me, she welcomed me with a bright smile.
“My little cutie came to see me?”
“Hello!”
I sat across from Erika, and she handed me a cup of tea. It was sweet.
“Here to say goodbye?”
“Yes! It’s about time for me to leave.”
“Then how about a little errand on your way out?”
She handed me an envelope and a pouch.
Quest received.
Deliver mail to the Information Guild located in the commercial city of Thalassa.
Reward: pouch of magic stones.
“My little cutie’s leaving, so I can’t send you off empty-handed.”
It was called an errand, but really, she was just looking after me.
“Thank you.”
“Heh-heh-heh. If you’re grateful, come visit again.”
After saying my goodbyes, I left the general store and headed out of the city.
Standing by the roadside a little ways from the city, waiting for the bear taxi, I heard the sound of something coming from far away.
But it didn’t sound like just one.
It sounded like several things were running toward me.
Something came into view, and then I realized—an entire pack of war bears was charging this way?
At the front was a particularly huge bear, followed by a crowd of war bears.
“Who are those war bears beside you!?”
“Kraaaang!”
“Their family!?”
The reason they’d been taking my magic stones all this time—
They’d come to introduce me to the family they’d been feeding with them.
They were all so big, and with them surrounding me like this, it was kind of scary...?
The curious war bears padded closer and sniffed at me, but the instant their eyes met Yongyong’s—
“Kreeeegh!”
—they dropped flat into a posture of submission, just like the first bear had when we met.
I was staring at the war bears lying on the ground, completely flustered, when the bear stepped in and sorted everything out.
“Kraaaang!”
In an instant, they all backed away.
Then the bear came closer to me and bowed its head politely, as if thanking me.
“Why are you being so formal with me?”
“Kharhar!”
Laughing, it told me to hop on already, but it had gotten even bigger, so climbing aboard was a struggle.
With a lot of grunting, I hauled myself onto its back, and it set off slowly while the other war bears followed behind.
Now that I was traveling with a whole pack of war bears, I finally looked a bit like a proper summoner, didn’t I?
“Let’s go!”
“Kraaaang!”
*
*
*
The war bear pack’s movement was astonishing.
On the road to the commercial city of Thalassa, we encountered plenty of monsters, but none of them dared attack us.
No, they ran the moment they saw us.
Well, I guess when a huge bear more than ten meters tall leads a pack of equally massive war bears, no sane monster would pick a fight.
We traveled together over mountains and swam across rivers, and I didn’t even know how far we’d run.
Every time we stopped to rest, I took magic stones out of the pouch and handed them out one by one, and if Erika hadn’t given me that pouch, I definitely wouldn’t have had enough.
After running for what felt like forever, the commercial city of Thalassa finally came into view in the distance.
A colossal spire stood at the center of the city, and all around it were countless buildings.
After saying goodbye to the bear pack, I followed the road toward the entrance to the city, only to find two gates.
One was crowded with people, while the other stood almost empty.
The moment I started toward the empty one—
“Child, you can’t go that way.”
“Huh?”
I turned toward the voice calling me and saw an elderly woman looking at me.
“That entrance is for nobles only.”
“Nobles?”
“Yes. Common folk like us have to line up over here.”
Even if I looked like this, I was a duke.
Well, I held a noble title in the Demon Realm, anyway.
Would that not count...?
There was no point standing out for no reason, so I joined the line behind the old woman and chatted with her while we waited. She ended up giving me a lot of useful information.
“Just because it’s a commercial city doesn’t mean everything here is cheap, child.”
“Really? I thought it would be cheaper than other cities.”
While we talked, my turn came before I knew it, and after passing through the checkpoint and entering the city, I found a place bustling with people.
From merchants selling goods on the street to wagons hauling piles of cargo past us.
After saying goodbye to the old woman, I unfolded the map and headed for the Frey Guild headquarters that Lara had told me about.
On the way there, just as I was about to turn into an alley, I bumped into someone.
“What the hell!? Hey, kid. Watch where you’re going!”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking ahead.”
Red hair, and a pervert who walked around without a shirt...?
He glared at me and looked me over, his expression fierce.
“If you’d been a second later, you could’ve gotten hurt! Did you hurt anywhere!?”
“Huh? No, I’m fine.”
“Then be more careful! This is the kind of city where you can lose your nose if you’re not watching yourself!”
Grumbling, he fussed over me out of concern. No, wait—was this a tsundere?