I Became the Emergency Food Supply of the Bear Family - Chapter 67

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 67

The next day, during lunch.
“Ber! Over here, over here!”
Anya, who had come to the Dining Hall with Ber, turned her head sharply at the familiar voice. Two male students were seated at a table nearby.
Both had chestnut hair and golden eyes, and bore a striking resemblance, yet their presences couldn’t have felt more different.
Hair combed back with impeccable neatness, white collar crisp without a single wrinkle, a ribbon draped elegantly. Fair skin and those mysterious golden eyes that seemed to pierce through the very essence of things made him look like a remarkable nobleman.
The other was an entirely different picture—sweat-dampened hair carelessly brushed back, his jacket and ribbon nowhere to be seen, a few buttons of his shirt undone and hanging loose. His skin darkened by the sun and his innocent, childlike expression paired with broad, open shoulders.
You could tell at a glance that he was a student of the Swordmaster Department.
“Oh, it’s Perdi and Louie.”
Ber approached their table with familiarity, using their names with ease.
Perdi and Louie? Could they possibly be Fernando Grizzly and Louie Philip Grizzly?
The two brothers of the Grizzly Family she’d only heard rumors about were right before her eyes.
“Come to think of it, you two haven’t met yet. It’s fine—they already know about the sponsorship anyway.”
Ber approached the hesitant Anya, took her hand, and gently pulled her forward.
Before the meal began, Ber introduced Anya to the two male students, referring to them as her brothers. In that instant, the two students’ expressions twisted with sadness, and they let their disappointment show—wondering why she wouldn’t call them her older brothers.
From that point on, Ber and the two brothers began to bicker with the ease of long familiarity. Watching the three of them, Anya ventured a careful question.
“Um… why did you two decide to sponsor me, when you hadn’t even met me?”
“Huh?”
Louie stared at Anya with a baffled expression, as if wondering what she was saying.
“Well, you made the decision without meeting me first. I just wondered if that was really all right.”
Anya’s gaze fell to the table.
Even for wealthy nobles, deciding on sponsorship couldn’t be an easy matter. Financially supporting a complete stranger was no trivial decision.
It was useless to ask now, and the question might have been overstepping, but Anya felt uneasy.
If Ber, like her and her mother, was being used by the Grizzly Family…
‘I have to save her.’
She had no way of knowing whether she could actually do it, but she wanted to try her best. That was why Anya still harbored doubts toward the Grizzly Family.
“Well, why wouldn’t it be fine?”
But the offhand answer was so far from what she expected that Anya found herself bewildered.
“Yeah. It’ll be fine. Ber decided it, so what’s the problem? I trust her.”
“Hey, you’re not the only one, you know. I’m also fully trusting our beautiful sister, aren’t I?”
“Ugh. Gross, so stop it.”
As Louie leaned his face toward Ber, she flinched back, her reaction genuine and sisterly.
“…Oh, well then, I’m relieved.”
Anya forced out the words, trying to hide the confusion that had crossed her face.
It was then that Perdi broached a new topic.
“By the way, how are you getting on, Ber?”
“Hm?”
“How’s life at the Academy treating you? Are you doing well?”
Anya’s hand, which held her fork, trembled slightly. She had just recalled what happened yesterday. When she glanced back at Ber, there wasn’t the slightest change in her expression.
“Of course I’m doing well! You know, I have a roommate named Sylva, and she’s so much fun. She’s practically glued to her bed almost every weekend, and one time…”
Ber began to unfold her story about her roommate with an expression of pure delight.
With a composure so complete that it seemed impossible yesterday’s incident had ever occurred.
The moment Anya saw the light in Ber’s eyes, she understood.
‘It’s the same as me.’
Just as she didn’t include her academic struggles or yesterday’s incident in the letters she wrote to her grandmother and grandfather.
She didn’t want to worry them.
Her family.
No one who saw that expression—so utterly free of deception—would hold onto their suspicions.
‘Ber isn’t fooled.’
Watching her older brothers listen to their sister’s story with joy written across their faces, Anya smiled softly.

***

A week had passed since the incident with Lorenzo.
By the professor’s order, Lorenzo had been suffering through daily bathroom cleaning duties. Some of his hangers-on had already abandoned him, tired of how he kept pushing the chores onto them.
Released from Lorenzo’s threats and harassment, several students quietly came to Ber and Anya to express their gratitude.
Ber, the youngest daughter of the Grizzly Family, flaunting her closeness to her older brothers. Anya, drawing the attention of professors and students alike with her cute appearance and excellent grades. As the two increasingly became the center of the General Studies Department, Lorenzo found it absolutely unbearable.
“Damn it…!”
Lorenzo threw down the mop with a clatter and cursed.
Did he think he’d just end like this?

Lorenzo’s rampage began the next morning.
A Team Duel style physical education class in which students would cooperate to find hidden puzzles scattered throughout the Imperial Academy.
Among students buzzing with excitement over the treasure-hunt-like activity, an ill-fitting scream suddenly pierced through.
“Kyaaahhh!”
“Wh-what is that!”
“Everyone, get out of the way!”
Something enormous was charging toward them at incredible speed. The gray dust kicked up from the ground was so thick it blurred the creature barreling through it.
“Wa-wait, there’s someone in front of it!”
“A girl!”
“It’s chasing a girl!”
“Hold on, isn’t that a wild boar?”
At someone’s shout of “wild boar,” the students’ minds immediately conjured Lorenzo’s face.
“Quick, call a professor! Call a professor!”

While the students were in chaos.
‘This… this crazy bastard…!’
Ber was running frantically down the Garden Back Path. Behind her came the thunderous hoofbeats as the wild boar—Lorenzo—pursued her relentlessly.
-How much longer will you hold out? Just transform already!
Lorenzo bellowed like a madman, laughing as he said it.
Normally, a demi-human in Beast Transformation cannot be heard by a demi-human in Humanization form. But Ber, who possessed the Power of Spring, could understand him—as long as the other wasn’t a true animal.
‘I… my legs have no strength left.’
Whether the beast pressed her or not, she was reaching a state where transformation was her only option. As a rabbit, she might have been able to escape the boar, but as a human it was impossible.
‘But if I transform, I’ll be exposed.’
If this creature learned that her true form wasn’t some legendary monster like a Yeti but rather something as mundane as an Arctic Hare, word would spread through the entire Academy. It was too early to be discovered, and yet…
‘But it’s better than dying!’
Ber quickly surveyed the terrain around her, and the moment she spotted a thicket of suitable height, she began her transformation.
Within seconds her transformation was complete, her now-tiny body vanishing entirely into the bushes.
-Finally showing your true form, you bastard!
Lorenzo’s voice dripping with madness, he crashed through right behind her. His long ears twitched, precisely capturing the boar’s approaching footsteps.
Thud, thud-thud.
The moment the heavy footsteps reached the ground before the thicket, Ber launched herself to the right, hiding deeper within a different bush.
-What? I thought you’d be here.
Lorenzo trampled through the bushes indiscriminately, tearing them to shreds, muttering to himself. Had those hooves landed on her, nothing would remain but fragments.
-There’s… a scent coming from somewhere.
Lorenzo sniffed the air, emitting a sound as terrifying as it was piggish. Indeed a boar—that superior sense of smell. But before she could even marvel at it, Lorenzo shifted his massive bulk toward the thicket where Ber was hiding.
‘Oh…!’
Lorenzo thrust his huge face into the bush. The moment his wrinkled snout brushed her fur, Ber held her breath and launched herself behind a nearby tree.
-Found you.
A white shadow flashed before his eyes. Lorenzo, not missing that glimpse, stretched his massive frame forward.
She was about to be caught. She was about to be eaten. Thinking so, she shut her eyes—but felt neither impact nor pain.
‘…?’
When Ber opened her eyes, there was a face she hadn’t expected to see.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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