Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

「What’s wrong, Yuna-sama?」

Suririna-san asked out of concern, but I couldn’t tell her about such embarrassing things as my panties being seen, or the rampaging rumors about me being a beautiful girl. Also, if I mentioned the latter, it would surely sound like I was actually claiming to be a pretty girl.

The girls had tried their best to console me, but I didn’t think I could recover for a while.

In the end, they had to drag me to the dining hall.

「You’re late.」

When we arrived at the dining hall, we were met by Eleanora-san who was in a much better mood than I was. Earlier, she had looked like a living corpse, but now she seemed to be energetic again. I was envious of how fast she was able to recover…

「Oh my, Yuna-chan, you don’t seem lively at all.」

「You look quite lively on the other hand, Eleanora-san.」

「That’s because I took a break. They complained so much that I told them I would quit even though I’ve won the wager, so they let me off for a while.」

In other words, she had threatened them, which coming from Eleanora-san, could be considered quite a scary prospect.

「So, why are you so down, Yuna-chan?」

「My pure maiden heart has been broken.」

「…?」

Eleanora-san just tilted her head, confused by my reply.

「Um, you see, Yuna-san…」

Shia and Noa went over to Eleanora-san and explained it to her.

「Fufu, those boys who saw your panties had some really good luck.」

It was extremely bad luck for me, though.

「I want to gouge their eyes out and hit them on the head until they forget everything.」

That might be enough for me to be able to get past it.

「Yuna-oneechan, don’t say such scary things.」

Fina and Shuri both looked at me with worry in their eyes.

「I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t do that.」

I didn’t think I could bring myself to actually gouge their eyes out, but I couldn’t deny the possibility that I would hit their heads until they forgot everything if I got the chance. I really wanted to take this seething embarrassment out on something. This was all that old man, Rutum’s fault. If I saw him again, maybe I should send a Bear Punch at his stomach. Still, if I punched him while wearing the Bear Suit, he might find out that I was the girl he had fought with. Then again, wearing the uniform would bring about other problems.

It seemed that I couldn’t actually do anything to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling.

「Oh right, Shia, there’s something I wanted to ask you. When will you get to have a break from school?」

「A break?」

「I wanted to give Tilia my thanks before heading back to Crimonia, but whenever I go to the castle, she is at the academy, so I can’t meet up with her. So, I figured I should go to the castle when she’s on a holiday.」

Her encounter rate at the castle had been zero percent all this time, after all.

「Hmm… We have to clean up and hear the results of the festival tomorrow… We get a day off after that, though.」

In that case, I should go see her the day after tomorrow.

「So, umm, Yuna-san, could you stay behind for a bit the day after? Marcus and the others all wanted to thank you before you head home.」

They most likely wanted to thank me for lending them the cotton candy machines and advertising the shop. I didn’t really need their thanks, but I would be contradicting myself if I went to thank Tilia while not accepting theirs. Hence, I agreed to meet them.

Still, should I meet with them in the morning, and then with TIlia in the afternoon, or the other way around?

「Shia, what should I do with the uniform? Do you want me to wash it before giving it back?」

I had to return the uniform since I was only borrowing it.

「I will give it to you as a gift since I feel like it could be of use to you at a later date.」

Just what was with that prediction? I had no plans to wear the uniform again nor let my panties be seen.

I tried to refuse, but Shia made me keep it in the end.

「Actually, why don’t you enter the academy as a student? If you did that, then the uniform would come in handy.」

「My, what a good idea.」

Eleanora-san agreed with Shia’s suggestion, but others quickly voiced their objections.

「Yuna-san can’t attend the academy; she has to come back to Crimonia with us.」

「I will be sad if I can’t meet Yuna-neechan anymore, so she can’t stay.」

「Yes, there are bound to be problems without Yuna-oneechan at home.」

The three girls all opposed in turn.

It was quite nice to feel needed.

I had no intentions of going to school from the beginning, so I politely declined Shia’s suggestion.

School was hell for a shut-in like me.

Also, even with my Bear Gate, I would have a harder time meeting with Fina and the others back in Crimonia if I attended. Not to mention I would surely get lonely here by myself.

Even though I accepted the uniform, I vowed to myself to never wear it again.

The next day, I simply stayed holed up inside the guest room.

「Yuna-san, let’s go outside. We will have to go back to Crimonia soon, after all.」

「I don’t feel like going outside.」

「Nobody is going to recognize you when you’re wearing the Bear Suit, you know.」

Ever since my panties had been seen, I didn’t have the courage to walk outside.

Noa and Shuri both grabbed one puppet each, and tried to drag me out of the room, but I didn’t budge. Nobody could physically move me while I was wearing the equipment I had received from God, after all.

「Yuna-san, nobody is going to be able to see your panties, either.」

「Yes, nobody will know it’s you, Yuna-oneechan.」

People should eventually forget about it as time passed. Still, if people somehow found out that the uniformed beauty (lol) from yesterday was me, then their memories of my panties might surface in their minds right there on the spot.

Therefore, I really shouldn’t head outside today and instead wait for everyone to forget about me first.

「All the students are at the academy, so you’ll be fine.」

Noa tried to pull my arm, but I still didn’t budge.

It wasn’t only the students who had watched the match. There had been regular citizens, too, and I didn’t know how many of them witnessed it.

「Yuna-neechan, was it embarrassing for you? I’m fine when it happens to me.」

Shuri said as she let go of my hand and tried to lift up her own skirt. Fina, who was next to her, however managed to quickly grab Shuri’s hand and protect her panties from being seen.

Well, we were all girls here, and Shuri was still young. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. Fina, on the other hand, began lecturing Shuri that she shouldn’t lift up her skirt, no matter where she was.

「When you grow up, it’s embarrassing to have your panties be seen by boys.」

As soon as Noa let go of my hand as well, I leapt onto the bed behind me and summoned Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear in front of me.

I had just made the invincible Bear Wall to shield me. Nobody could get past this wall, so the girls couldn’t drag me out now.

「Swaying Bear, Hugging Bear, protect me! Oh, but you can’t hurt them, okay?」

Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear looked quite troubled by my request, especially since the challengers had already arrived at the Bear Wall. Shuri and Noa were happily assaulting the wall, diving onto the Bears.

「It’s big Swaying Bear!」

「I haven’t seen them in their big forms ever since we came here.」

The two of them grabbed onto the Bears, and after a while, Fina also joined them. The three of them then began playing with the Bears and stopped trying to get me to go outside.

The wall had protected me, one way or another.

The following day, Marcus, Timor, and Cattleya arrived after breakfast, just as promised.

「Yuna-san, we would like to thank you for helping us.」

They all gave their thanks in turn.

I was happy to see that they had cleaned up the machines before returning them; the machines always ended up being all sticky from the cotton candy and were a pain to clean. Seeing the machines reminded me that I had promised the king that I would bring him some cotton candy when I had the chance. Things might get troublesome if I were to forget and go home, so maybe I should bring some for him when I visited Tilia later today.

「Thanks to you, Yuna-san, we won third place in the food department.」

Shia shared the results of the school festival.

I had almost forgotten all about the voting for the best programs.

On the third day, the king had crashed the festival, which caused the number of votes that day to plummet.

「I still don’t get how we only ended up third, though. I really thought we were going to get first place.」

Marcus was not convinced with the results.

「Is third place bad?」

「Not really. All food stands did quite well, so getting third place is pretty amazing.」

「Yes, but we sold so much, there’s no way we only got third.」

「Marcus, you’re so persistent. Didn’t you hear from our classmates? The food was mysterious and tasted good, but it didn’t fill their stomachs, so we didn’t get that many votes because of it.」

Cattleya explained to the grumbling Marcus.

「But, everybody ate it so happily…」

「Yes, they did, but it’s still great that we were able to get third place in the end.」

「Fine, I get it.」

「Also, if it weren’t for those faulty ballots, we might have been able to get second place.」

Timor’s comment made the three of them look grim.

「Faulty ballots?」

「Yes, you see, many people wrote “bear” instead of our shop number. We thought that people must have written it down because they saw the bear ornament that you made for us. But, that couldn’t be, right…?」

「Well, I heard it started from day one. And, even I could tell the difference between the before and after…」Marcus said as he looked at me.

「Yes, the rumors spread quickly, after all.」Cattleya also glanced at me.

「Yep, that must be why.」Timor turned to me as well.

「Our stall became the bear’s stand from day one.」Shia explained in the end.

The girls turned their gazes at me after that, too.

Based on Shia’s explanation, there had been a huge amount of people who tried to vote for ‘bear’ on the first day. The committee in charge of the votes had decided that the ‘bear’ referred to the Bear ornament placed at Shia’s stand on the second date, but by then, the ‘bear’ votes already decreased. Also, when they had looked into it more, they found out that a girl dressed as a Bear had wreaked havoc among the other stands, so they decided that the votes were actually for the girl dressed as a Bear.

That meant people had been trying to vote for me, didn’t it?

「People probably voted for you when you were wearing the bear costume. The voting committee had some trouble at the beginning, but when they found out that a girl wearing a bear costume stormed through the stalls and realized the votes were meant for her, they treated it as a faulty ballot. If you continued to wear your bear outfit for the second and third day, you might have received enough votes to win.」

In that case, it really was a good thing that I hadn’t continued to storm through the game programs on the second day. Well, I hadn’t been wearing the Bear Suit, so it would have been fine even if I did, right? Still, all in all, it had been smart of me not to stand out so much after the first day.

「Speaking of you adding scores, there was another program that also benefited by your actions. 」

「Yep, she most certainly helped them out quite a bit.」

They all started nodding at each other, but what had I been responsible for this time?

Well, it turned out that the program which hosted students-versus-knights practice matches had also won third place in their group.

「There was a huge uproar when that program managed to get placed in the rankings. From what a friend told me, there were many people who spent all three votes they had for the program.」

「That must be because of Yuna’s match. I wish I got to see that…」

「Me too, I really wish I could have seen it.」

「I’m so jealous of you, Shia-san.」

「I went through a lot of trouble because of that, you know.」

Apparently, many people had ended up voting for the students-versus-knights program, but it couldn’t have just been because of me. Maybe something else had happened after I left that made people want to vote for it.

「Well, someone I know who watched the match said they gave all three votes to the program.」

「One of my classmates said they did so as well.」

「One of mine told me they told me they were moved by the pretty girl’s strength, so they just had to vote for her.」

Yeah… It most likely wasn’t me. Me, a pretty girl (lol).

「During class yesterday, Yuna-san became a huge topic for everyone.」

It was all that old man’s fault.

With this, I really could never go near the academy again.

Author’s Note:

Thank you for 30,000 bookmarks. I really appreciate your continued support.

Unfortunately, the cotton candy shop only made it to third place.

The problem seemed to be because people simply can’t get full from eating cotton candy.

The Bear got many votes, instead. Had Yuna fought her matches in the Bear Suit, the Bear would have won the contest.

Next chapter, Yuna will go to the castle.