Arcana Online
Because I’d stayed up late partying until last night, I’d overslept and gotten scolded by Yongyong.
When I took out three Supreme Magic Stones for our Yongyong, who was glaring as if today wouldn’t be forgiven so easily, he said he’d let it slide just this once.
“I’m disappointed you’d bow to capital!”
“Kkyu-ung!?”
Teasing our Yongyong as he stared at me in utter disbelief, I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing.
The quest from Grandpa Kraken.
I pulled out the compass he’d given me, saying it would help me find his youngest daughter.
“Problem Child Compass”
Shows the location of a runaway problem child.
To set out in the direction the compass pointed, I left the city and whistled, waiting until the bear taxi came charging over.
“Doing well?”
“Kraaaang!”
The bear greeted me warmly.
Of course, with a capitalist smile.
Now it was time to negotiate.
“I’ve got to keep going straight in the direction the compass points, but I don’t know how far it is.”
“Kraaaang!”
“Too expensive! Cut me a deal! I’m a regular customer!”
I ended up falling for the bear’s sob story and failed the negotiation outright as we set off.
“Come to think of it, how’s your family doing?”
“Kraaaang!”
“You’re worried they’ve gotten too big? But earlier you said you’d starved yourself and gotten smaller!”
“Kraang?”
It breezily changed the subject, acting like it had no idea what I was talking about, but it was a truly terrifying bear.
While we were chatting about this and that, I felt someone’s gaze on me.
Maybe it was just my imagination. Or so I thought—until I remembered a post I’d seen yesterday.
Someone had said that when they’d shouted because they felt like they were being watched, it turned out they really were being watched.
Just in case, I shouted as loudly as I could.
“Come out!”
To my surprise, nothing came out.
Just as I was getting embarrassed and turning my head away, an angel revealed itself...?
“How did you know? I hid my presence perfectly.”
“Interesting. So this is why the Archangel told us to keep an eye on you.”
The two angels who appeared before me were beautiful, draped in peplos.
I calmed the bear, who was wary of the angels, then climbed down from its back and stepped forward. They looked at me with curious eyes.
“Odd. It feels as though I’m meeting an old acquaintance I parted with long ago.”
“Indeed. To feel this way toward a human is rather strange.”
One of the angels reached into subspace and handed me something.
“This was sent by Archangel Michael. Please accept it.”
A letter was handed to me.
I opened it and read the contents.
It was an invitation.
An invitation to the Heavenly Realm.
“I’ll come get you in fourteen days.”
“I’ll see you in fourteen days.”
The angels left after saying their piece, and I was left standing there alone.
Well, no—I had Yongyong and the bear, too.
“Would it be rude if I sprinkled salt on them?”
“Kkyu-ung?”
“Kraang?”
These days, nothing but trouble and incidents kept piling up, so I really should get an exorcism done at least once.
How far had I gone in the direction the compass pointed?
As the sun sank and the moon rose, I built a campfire to spend the night camping, then snuggled into the bear’s embrace.
It was so soft and warm in the bear’s arms that I didn’t even need a tent.
“Kraaaang.”
“......”
And of course, our bear wanted extra for that too.
If it had been born human, it would’ve become the owner of a massive merchant house. No matter how I looked at it, it had been born wrong.
After logging out, I logged back in early the next morning and found the bear asleep with me still clutched in its arms.
Our bear, holding me so carefully in case I got hurt.
Honestly, how could it not be cute?
“Kkyu-ung.”
“Sleep well?”
Hearing our voices, the bear opened its eyes and greeted us.
“Kraaaang.”
“You couldn’t sleep because I snored, so you want extra pay...?”
“You little punk!”
“Kraha-ha!”
It laughed it off as a joke, but something about it felt off.
It really had been trying to collect, hadn’t it?
I handed over a Magic Stone one by one, then kept moving in the direction of the compass, until something appeared far in the distance.
When I got closer, I saw two people standing guard at the entrance to a village.
“Do you want to wait here for a bit?”
“Kraang!”
I left the bear waiting so I could go into the village, and as I drew near with Yongyong, I made eye contact with the old men standing guard.
“What brings a little miss like you here?”
“We were passing by, so we stopped in. What kind of village is this?”
“Hm? You don’t know our village?”
Looking bewildered, they explained the place to me.
“This is the Sage’s Village, where the Sage himself resides.”
“Sage’s Village”
The sage, a spiritual pillar of Arcadia and the one called the homeland of magicians, lived here in the village and offered people all manner of advice based on his vast knowledge, experience, and mystical power, the guard told me.
After the explanation, I went into the village and found that a great many people had gathered around a fountain.
As I drew closer, I saw an old man seated in the very center of the fountain, with a line of people stretching all around him.
They spoke to him one by one, then thanked the old man with tears in their eyes.
Curious, I went to the very back of the line and waited for a long time before my turn finally came.
The old man looked at me steadily.
I felt as though he were seeing straight through me.
“What brings our little miss to an old man like me?”
“Lately, there have been incidents and accidents one after another.”
“Let me see.”
The old man had been looking at me and muttering to himself, when suddenly he gave me a startled look.
“Oho! W-what on earth is this child...?”
“What is it?”
For a moment, his shock gave way to a look of deep emotion, and he took my hand tightly in both of his as tears spilled down his face.
“You’ve saved so many lives already that I can’t even begin to count them. You are truly a saint.”
“Out of nowhere!?”
After crying for a long while, the old man reached into his robes and took out something.
“This will help you save many more lives in the future.”
He handed me a small box.
“??? Box”
I have no idea what this is.
“When the time comes that you need help, open the box.”
“T-thank you.”
After bowing to the old man, I set off again, only to find the villagers all looking up at me in awe.
My face burned, so I hurried out of the village and whistled.
After waiting a little while, the bear appeared, and we set off on our journey again—but in the end, I still hadn’t learned a thing.
Ugh. My lot in life.
*
*
*
After camping our way onward for days upon days, we finally reached the border of the Avalon Empire.
A massive fortress wall stood before us, and people were being inspected at the checkpoint. If I wanted to go any farther, I’d have to pass through customs.
I was fine, but if I brought the bear with me, there was no doubt some huge problem would arise.
“What should we do? I guess our journey ends here.”
“Kraang!”
The bear said it knew a back route and would catch up later.
Our bear taxi was as reassuring as a steaming bowl of gukbap.
With a cheerful note that illegal entry required a separate hazard fee, the bear vanished.
If it had been born human, it really would’ve become a tycoon.
I took out the pass I’d gotten from Charles and headed for the checkpoint, where hardly anyone was standing in line.
“Imperial Pass”
A pass issued by Charles Caesar, the former Knight Commander of the Avalon Empire’s Imperial Knight Order.
When I showed the pass at the checkpoint, they verified its authenticity and then treated me with impeccable courtesy.
“If you need a carriage, we can provide one that will safely take you all the way to the capital!”
“It’s okay. I’ll just take the thought.”
After crossing the border and walking for quite a while, I heard the sound of something running from far away.
The bear came into view.
How did it possibly sneak across the border!? With that size!?
It gave a shameless laugh, telling me to get on because we had to run, and I just had to ask what that even meant when an arrow suddenly flew our way.
“A monster! A monster has invaded!”
With a loud shout, soldiers began charging toward us.
Seeing this situation, I finally understood how it had crossed through.
It had just marched straight through, completely out in the open!
“You little bastard! And you still want a hazard fee after this!?”
“Kraaaang!”
“You can’t honestly say this isn’t dangerous!?”
Our bear took off at full speed in the opposite direction from the soldiers.
What if they put a bounty on us or something!?
Just then, a message popped into my head.
You have been placed under a bounty in the Avalon Empire.
Name:Yuna (Summoner)
Crime:Smuggling in an unregistered summon
Bounty:10,000,000 gold
Special Note:In possession of a war bear over 15 meters tall
A bounty of ten million gold had been slapped on me.
Once you’ve got a bounty on your head, you can’t use ordinary villages or cities anymore.
And the biggest problem of all was that it made me a target for bounty hunters.
“What are you going to do about this, you jerk!?”
“Kraha-ha!!”
“What do you mean, ‘we were born on different days, but we’ll go together when we die’!? You rotten beast!!”