“Yeah, there’s a decent amount growing.”
Reidas’s first words on reaching the mana pool hot spot were satisfied ones.
Since he was hired as a guide, he seemed relieved that the objective looked achievable.
“Sulfa, this is it. Like this, you’ll see the mana meter’s needle swing, right? I don’t know why, but the mana density around here is high. And when the mana density is high, medicinal herbs grow.”
“...The needle swinging on the mana meter—there’s a reason?”
“Hm? Nn—what would it be. Feels like if you leave it alone for a while, it stops moving, though. It’s not like the needle stops perfectly anyway. That’s just how it is.”
“I see. Understood.”
This mana meter should be obtained, <Cosmos> judged. Immediately, they instructed the terminals inside Northend City to begin a search.
“Chris, Atro, over here. This is mugwort. You harvest the leaves and use them. It becomes material for wound ointment.”
At the spot Graver pointed to, Chris—Beta Chrysansamum of <Cosmos>—began observing with evident interest.
“Wound ointment?”
“By applying it to an external wound, it suppresses inflammation and prevents it from festering. It also makes injuries heal faster. That kind of magic medicine.”
Mugwort. According to <Ringo>’s image analysis, it was close to wormwood.
“For leaf harvesting, aim for about half per plant. Then you can harvest again in about three days. Taking too much is strictly forbidden.”
“Does it only grow in hot spots?”
“No. It grows in the grassland too. But the only ones that show an effect when you make them into magic medicine are the ones growing in hot spots. It’s a plant you see all over—so much that it even grows in empty lots in the city. You can eat it normally, too.”
While explaining, Graver snapped leaves off with small pops and dropped them into a woven basket.
“For now, we’ll harvest mugwort until we fill this basket today. Also, as for party roles—gathering like this is basically my job. Reidas keeps watch, and Nadira guards me.”
“Division of roles. That is certainly rational. But do you usually operate with just three people? Would it not be better to add more gatherers?”
More hands meant better efficiency.
That was probably a thought unique to <The Tree>, which had pushed mechanized civilization to its limits.
“We think about that from time to time too.”
The one who answered that question was Reidas, the party leader.
“If we add gatherers, we gotta add guards too, or we can’t protect ’em. Add guards and the headcount goes up. Then we gotta increase gear and food by that much. More than anything, people got compatibility, you know. If you don’t get along, there’s no way you can spend days together in the <Demon Forest>. If we’re gonna increase numbers in our party, we’d have to find two people at the same time, and...”
“And we’ve been together since we were kids. We know each other inside out. If we brought in new members now, I’m not confident we could make it work.”
By the way, adventurer parties apparently customarily ran from three to five people, and at most six. Three still seemed few.
Even so, their three-person party had a steady feel, good personalities, and above all, skill.
It was no surprise they had been chosen as the guides requested by <Paraiso>.
“I understand. Human relationships are difficult, indeed.”
“Mugwort’s fine like this. Next is over here—are you good?”
While they were talking, the mugwort harvest seemed to ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) have finished. Graver roughly cut away the surrounding grass around the mugwort plants and stood.
“Besides these medicinal herbs, normal grass grows too. It’s customary, but if you cut down the extra grass like this, it’s easier to harvest again next time.”
“So it’s recognized as hunting-ground manners?”
“Yeah.”
Graver nodded and walked to the next herb’s location.
“This is mini onion. Well, from the smell, it’s probably the same kind as the onion vegetable. The one that grows here is a type where the bulb at the base doesn’t get that big. The ones sold in the city market are bigger, but the ones here are medicinal herbs.”
He dug around the cluster of long, narrow leaves jutting up from the ground and pulled a few plants from the edge.
As described, the base swelled into a bulb of about two centimeters in diameter.
It really did look like a small onion.
“With this too, we only take half. But first we dig them all out, then we bury half back. When you bury them, split the clumps and plant them a little apart. Then they increase on their own and you can harvest again next time. This one takes a bit longer to grow—about five days to get back to normal.”
Graver explained it, but the idea that it would grow and multiply in about five days was a fairly unscientific, fantasy-like plant.
“For mini onion, we use that bulb at the base. The leaves are unnecessary. The bulb is an ingredient for medicine you drink. The effect is bodily activation. It also promotes recovery of magic power. It works even if you eat it as-is.”
“Like the mugwort from earlier—how are the medicinal herbs stored?”
“Mugwort lasts for several months if you dry it. Mini onion, if you keep it out of sunlight, lasts a few weeks.”
As he explained, Graver didn’t stop working. He removed the leaves, cut off the roots, brushed off the dirt roughly, and packed the bulbs into a newly taken-out woven basket. And as described, he buried about half back in the soil.
“There’s one more medicinal herb growing here. Ah—right by Chris’s feet. That’s taraxacum.”
<Ringo> identified it as dandelion. Green jagged leaves spread radially, and a yellow flower bloomed at the end of a stem extending from the center.
“With this one, you target the larger plants. What you use is the root. You can eat the leaves too, but they don’t taste good and they’ve got no medicinal effect.”
Graver looked around, then sat down beside a relatively large plant.
Using a slender digging tool in his hand, he dug up the taraxacum with its root.
“Taraxacum grows all over the place, so you can just take the big ones first. Even if you take them all, seeds will blow in from somewhere. Well, the small ones can’t be used as medicine, so it’s not like we’ll ever really take them all.”
Taraxacum’s root was reasonably thick and substantial. He removed the leaves at the top, brushed off the dirt, and stored it in another fresh woven basket.
“Taraxacum’s medicinal effects are making wounds heal faster, and fever reduction and pain relief. It becomes an ingredient for medicine you drink. If you dry it, you can use it for about half a year without problems.”
Graver dug with brisk efficiency, harvesting mini onion and taraxacum one after another.
Chris and Atro watched closely. Sulfa slowly swept her gaze across the surroundings.
“Usually, we only carry back as much as we can bring ourselves, so the amount’s limited. But if we can load it onto that <Backpacker> behind us, gathering like this will really pick up.”
“...I see. By the way, do you think monsters will treat the <Backpacker> as an attack target?”
“Hard to say. You never know what reasons monsters attack for. If it’s because you entered their territory, then yeah, we’ll probably get attacked. If it’s for hunting, that <Backpacker> doesn’t look like an animal. I don’t think it’ll be attacked aggressively.”
Not much was known about monster ecology. Even these three, with all their experience, only knew surface-level things.
They were adventurers, not researchers. So even if they knew behavior patterns, they didn’t think about what they meant. They didn’t have to.
“Most monsters have an original animal they came from. Some don’t look anything like it, though... Anyway, even if they become monsters, their behavior is similar to the original animal. Similar, but not exactly the same. We adventurers try to avoid them when we can, or we fight by using traps.”
Despite being adventurers, the three of them were cautious by nature. They were perfect as guides, but they probably weren’t very exciting. From the perspective of <Paraiso>’s goal—researching monsters, and by extension researching magic—they lacked a bit of curiosity.
But that was a point <Paraiso> could handle on their side.
No—on the contrary, it might even be worth hiring them under the pretense of being local researchers.
In any case, that three-person party was extremely capable even by <Paraiso>’s standards.
