"......" (Lydia)
"Lydia, wake up." (Zect)
My body was shaking.
"What happened?" (Lydia)
When I opened my eyes, I saw my brother shaking my body with one hand and holding a sword with another.
It's a little bright.
It felt like morning.
"We're surrounded by wolves" (Zect)
My brother's words woke me up in an instant.
I looked around and saw that we were surrounded by wolves.
I slowly stood up.
There were five wolves.
"Sorry, I didn't notice." (Lydia)
Normally the sound would wake me up, but I was in such a deep sleep that I didn't notice.
I hadn't been able to rest properly since I entered this forest.
It seemed that the giant Snake had caused us to become more tired than we thought.
But I was glad my brother noticed before we were attacked.
My brother readied his sword, and I readied my bow.
What should I do?
There were five in front of me, and more further into the forest.
Are there five, six, or more?
There were so many that I couldn't hear them all.
First, I should defeat the wolves in front of us and reduce their numbers even a little.
I shot an arrow.
The arrow penetrates wolf's body, stopping it from moving.
The arrow triggered the other wolves to attack.
There were a lot of them.
There's no time to think. I fired an arrow at the first wolf I saw.
My brother skillfully maneuvered to keep the wolf from getting close to me.
My arrow hit another wolf.
Now we were thinking about reducing their numbers by even one more.
"Brother, right!" (Lydia)
Responding to my words, my brother dealt with the wolf that was attacking from the right.
I shot an arrow straight ahead.
I was so distracted by the wolf in front of me that I was late in noticing the sound.
A loud crawling sound could be heard.
"Nii-san, the giant Snake is approaching!" (Lydia)
"Which way is it coming from?" (Zect)
"To your right, Nii-san!" (Lydia)
I shouted from behind my brother so that he could understand.
What should I do?
If we ran away, we'd be showing our back to the wolves.
Above all, we couldn't run away from the wolves.
"Lydia, run. I'm counting on you to take care of Mom and Est." (Zect)
My brother shouted and ran towards wolves.
I soon realized it was to let me go.
My brother's favorite saying was always, "If anything happens, run away and I'll be the decoy."
I laughed and said, "It's okay, I'll just abandon you and run away."
But I couldn't say that now.
I gripped my bow tighter.
There's no time to think.
If I didn't run now, we'll both die.
...Brother.
The moment I started to run, there was a commotion in the forest.
It soon became clear why.
The Giant Snake's movement speed had increased.
"Nii-san!" (Lydia)
At the same time I screamed, a nearby tree fell and a giant Snake appeared.
The wolves were eaten as soon as it appeared.
Suddenly, my movements stopped.
I knew in my heart that I had to run away, but my feet wouldn't move.
"Lydia!" (Zect)
My brother's voice brought me back to my senses.
The giant Snake swallowed the wolves.
It looked around as if searching for its next prey.
But why could I still hear the crawling sounds?
The sound got louder and louder.
"Nii-san, another one is coming!" (Lydia)
At the same time as I spoke, another head appeared.
The wolves escaped.
However, the giant Snake appeared and liquid spurts out of its mouth.
Purple liquid splashed onto a wolf's body.
I soon realized it was poisonous.
When poisoned, the wolf became slow and collapsed.
The other wolves also ran away.
The giant Snake moved as if chasing them.
Luckily, it wasn't looking at us.
It was heading towards the running wolves.
The giant Snake moved and begind chasing the wolves.
Where I thought the tail was, there was a head.
Its eyes on its head spew a poisonous liquid when it saw us.
Luckily, the poisonous liquid fell off.
It then tried to spit poison, but another head got in the way.
It chased after wolves and pulled the other head, causing the poison to be spat out in the wrong direction.
"Let's run!" (Zect)
Hearing my brother's voice brought me back to my senses and I started running.
Now, with both of its heads getting in the way, it was our chance to escape.
My brother and I ran.
Just run.
There was the sound of confused movement behind me.
We ran.
We got away from the giant Snake even a little.
There's no escaping the giant Snake that was chasing us.
The sounds of my own running, my breathing, and my heartbeat were so loud I couldn't hear the sounds around me.
Please, let me hear what's going on around me.
My wish would not come true.
My breathing and heartbeat never stopped.
My brother and I kept running and made it back to the entrance of the cave.
I couldn't run anymore.
The sound of my breathing blocked out the surrounding noise.
The heartbeat was also loud.
"Did we get away?" (Zect)
"Nii-san, what is that?" (Lydia)
"One body with two heads." (Zect)
I couldn't believe it, but it had two heads.
The giant Snake was troublesome enough, but with a monster like that around, we wouldn't be able to collect Veltora Grass.
"...I guess we have no choice but to give up." (Zect)
I couldn't argue with what my brother said.
I was sure he felt the same way as me about wanting to go and collect Veltora Grass.
But with monsters like that nearby, we couldn't go and collect them.
It was just luck that saved us this time.
While we were fighting the wolves, a giant Snake appeared and recognized the wolves as food.
Such a miracle would never happen again.
If you thought that it would happen, no matter how many lives you had, it would not be enough.
Even though I hadn't made up my mind yet, I heard a sound I didn't want to hear.
"Nii-san, the giant Snake is approaching." (Lydia)
"Let's go into the cave." (Zect)
My brother lighted the lantern on his waist.
There was no choice but to run away.
My brother entered the cave and ran off.
I ran, using my brother's light as a guide.
The crawling sounds from behind never stopped.
"Nii-san, it's in the cave." (Lydia)
"Don't stop. Run." (Zect)
My brother and I ran.
I'd been running so much that my legs were getting really tired.
I wanted to rest, but I couldn't rest.
Please, don't follow us.
My wish was not granted.
The crawling sounds didn't stop.
The further into the cave, the larger it became.
It might have been the nest of the giant Snake.
The giant Snake chased after us.
It's painful.
I started to feel dizzy.
Please, don't chase us.
I was in so much pain I thought I couldn't go on, when suddenly I saw a light in the distance.
Is there a light in a place like this?
The exit was still far away.
There were people here. If they're here, they might be adventurers.
Because of us, we got caught up in it.
My brother seemed to notice as well and yelled for them to run away.
As I approached the light, I saw people riding bears.
Bears in front and a giant Snake behind.
There was no escape.
Just when I was about to give up thinking about it, I heard a girl's voice from up ahead saying, "Run!"
My older brother also said that bears was better than the giant Snake and ran toward the bears.
There's no time to think.
I ran too.
I was out of breath and thought I couldn't run any further, when a black object dashed past me.
The sounds of fighting begin to be heard behind me.
I stopped running and looked back.
There, a girl dressed in black was fighting a giant Snake.
An unbelievable sight unfolded before my eyes.
To think she could fight such the giant Snake.
The girl in black moved with incredible speed.
Then, just when it seemed she had been eaten by the giant Snake, the mouth of the giant Snake was destroyed.
When the giant Snake fell, something that looked like a rock was appeared in its mouth.
Did she defeat it?
No, there isn't just one head.
That giant Snake had two heads.
Just as I was thinking that, I noticed some movement around the tail of the giant Snake.
Just as I was about to speak, my brother shouted.
"It's still alive!" (Zect)
The head on the tail of the giant Snake moved.
As expected, it was alive.
I screamed to tell her that it was poisonous.
If something were to spit poison on you in a cave like this, it would be disastrous.
The girl struggled, unable to cope with the poison.
Should I provide support with a bow?
No, if it hits the girl it'd be a big problem.
The girl was fighting alone because of us and there was nothing I could do.
It's as if we had imposed a giant Snake on them.
Things you shouldn't do as an adventurer.
I could not do anything but watch.
The little girl with the bear was talking to it.
She handed the bear something, which it accepted and threw towards the giant Snake.
It was an unbelievable sight.
The bear threw something.
The thrown object flew straight into the giant Snake's_ head and hit it.
Broken?
Did you throw a bottle?
The giant Snake rampaged and opened its mouth wide.
The scene that followed was a rock appearing in the mouth of the giant Snake, just like the head of the giant Snake earlier, and the mouth was destroyed, causing the giant Snake to fall.
"...Nii-san, that girl was the one who defeated it, right?" (Lydia)
"Yeah" (Zect)
Just when I thought it was all over, two girls appeared with bears and defeated the giant Snake.
No matter how much I told people this, no one would believe me.
"Thank you, Nii-san." (Lydia)
"Right." (Zect)
We approached the girls and thanked them.
As we got closer, I saw that the girl's black figure was actually dressed as a cute bear.
When I asked her about it, a little girl told me, "This kid likes bears, so don't worry about how she looks."
So I decided not to ask any more questions about bears.
The girl dressed as a bear introduced herself as Yuna, and the little girl introduced herself as Marne.
Marne, who I thought was a little girl, I was surprised to learn that she was half-elf and older than our parents.
Now that I knew she was older than me, I couldn't call her by her first name, so I decided to call her Marne-san.
It might seem strange to call someone who looked like a small child "-san," but she saved my life.
We talked about each other's situations.
They told us that Yuna was an adventurer and Marne-san worked at the Ministry of Magic in the Royal Capital.
They told us that the bottle of liquid that the bear threw at the giant Snake was a liquid that Snake hated.
When my brother found out she worked at the Ministry of Magic, she asked if she knew any pharmacist.
I immediately understood what my brother was thinking.
However, Marne-san worked at the Ministry of Magic in the Royal Capital. She might be related to pharmacists.
"If this keeps up, they'll just take advantage of us. And my sister, too." (Zect)
I know.
But…….
While my brother and I were talking, Marne-san shouted.
"Oh come on, speak up now. You guys have something to say to me!" (Marne)
My brother and I nodded and prepared ourselves.
He proposed a deal to Marne-san.
My brother quickly spoke about how he wanted the medicinal herbs he had collected to be purchased at a fair price, that he wanted him to introduce him to a pharmacist, and that he would collect the herbs if asked.
Marne-san got angry and told us to explain more in detail.
My brother and I told her about my sister's illness and how we could not defy the pharmacist.
Marne-san was also knowledgeable about medicines, so she decided to make the medicine for me.
Moreover, she promised to buy the herbs from me at a fair price.
All we had to do was collect Veltora Grass and give it to Marne-san, who would make the medicine for us.
However, when we went to collect Veltora Grass, a pack of wolves got in the way. They maybe weren't there, but they maybe were.
With two people able to defeat the giant Snake, one would think that monsters would be fine too.
We were torn between wanting to go with them and worrying that if they found out where the medicinal herbs grew, they might take them away.
The person in question worked at the Ministry of Magic in the royal capital.
If we were ordered not to collect, we could not disobey.
That's what a country was like.
My brother said that we should go out and collect the materials by ourselves, but he asked me what we should do if a monster like the giant Snake appeared.
Once it appeared, all we could do was run away.
This time, we were only saved because they were there.
If they hadn't been there, we would have died.
What's more, they said that it only took them two days to get here, collecting all the samples.
Those words alone revealed their abilities.
My brother seemed to understand too and begged me.
However, it was up to Yuna-chan, Marne-san's guard, to decide whether or not to take us.
Yuna-chan's response was that she wanted to know where the medicinal herbs grew.
It’s a lifeline for us.
What if we were deceived?
Perhaps sensing our feelings, they said that once they had collected the medicinal herbs they were looking for, they would never come back to the forest again.
If there were any medicinal herbs they want, they said they would ask us for them.
They saved our lives. We decided to accept Yuna-chan's conditions.
Author's Note
If you write only cheats, it becomes difficult to write a normal adventurer, right?
And that's how Lydia was saved by Yuna.
*Volume 11 of the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear paperback edition was released on October 4th.
*Posting will occur every 4 days.
If I will be taking a break, this will be announced in the postscript, and if I am suddenly unable to post, I will let you know in an activity report or on X (formerly Twitter).
[Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear to be released]
Book volume 20.5 was released on May 2, 2024. (The next volume, volume 21, is planned and in the works.)
The 12th volume of the comic was released on August 3, 2024. (The release date for the next volume, 13, has not yet been decided.)
The second volume of the comical spin-off was released on March 5, 2024. (The release date for the next volume, volume 3, has yet to be determined.)
The 11th volume of the paperback edition was released on October 4, 2024. (The deadline for the campaign to win a big acrylic stand featuring Yuna and Shuri on the cover is January 20, 2025. 20 lucky winners will receive a prize.) (The release date for the next volume, 12th volume, has not yet been decided.)
*Thank you to everyone who reports typos.
Some of the kanji have been corrected to match the book, so please understand that there are some parts that have not been corrected.