The girls’ stamina was even lower than I’d expected. That much was clear. We would need to take more breaks than I’d originally planned. This was the wilderness outside of town. There was no telling when monsters might attack, so I couldn’t let them push themselves to exhaustion. At the very least, they needed to save enough energy to run away from danger. And since both of them were magic users, I had to make sure we moved at a pace where they wouldn’t be too out of breath to cast spells in an emergency. So, as we pressed forward, I kept an eye on their stamina as well as my own. That said, I didn’t want to waste any time while we rested.
“Look, there’s some herbs here.” I pointed out a patch of herbs growing conveniently at the side of the trail. They would be easy to harvest.
Yune clapped her hands together in delight. “Oh wow, it’s really the one from the request! And there are so many growing together!”
It wasn’t a particularly valuable plant, but like Yune said, there was a lot of it—enough to add up to a decent reward.
This was another trick I’d learned from Old Badger. Whenever that scout had started getting tired back when Old Badger had brought us here, he’d used the opportunity to stop and teach us something useful. Doing that was a good way to make sure we weren’t wasting time even during a break.
As I grabbed my own knife to demonstrate, I figured I should check what Liluetta and Yune knew. “Do you two know how to harvest them?”
“Yes, we studied beforehand, so we’ll be fine.”
“No problem.”
Huh?
The girls pulled out knives of their own. All of our knives seemed to have been made the same way, but theirs were a bit smaller and looked brand-new. Actually, those two knives were identical. Liluetta and Yune had probably bought them for herb gathering from the same shop. Their level of preparation was better than I’d expected, and it caught me a little off guard.
But it wasn’t just the knives that surprised me. They both started harvesting the herbs using the exact method described in the request.
“Wait, did you two already memorize the entire request sheet?”
Yune had recognized the herb at a glance, and Liluetta, now crouched down in front of the plants, showed no hesitation in the way she handled her knife. I had originally planned to teach them the right way to harvest herbs. If they hadn’t read the request carefully and memorized the details, there was a chance they might make mistakes. And if they did, Barque, the leader of the guild, would reject all of their herbs after inspection.
As far as I knew, they hadn’t spent much time looking at the request sheet. I’d only shown it to them yesterday morning. We hadn’t had much time then, so I’d only explained that we’d be gathering herbs and they’d be learning through hands-on experience.
So how did they already know the right harvesting method?
“I haven’t memorized everything yet, but the young lady here has it all down,” said Yune.
“All of those herbs are used in magia and alchemy,” Liluetta explained. “I already knew about them.”
“Ah,” I responded. That made sense. She’d said magic, right? There was something about magic and medicinal herbs like the ones on the request that just felt like a natural connection. Liluetta was a mage, so of course she would know about all of that.
“My lady already knew all the names. But since we didn’t know how to harvest them, we studied together last night.”
“Yune, less talking, more gathering.”
Well, knowing what to call an herb wasn’t the same as knowing how to harvest it. Even so, I was a little surprised. Neither of them had become adventurers just to gather herbs, but they had taken the time to research the process for today. They were probably both diligent people. And even though Liluetta did already know about the herbs, she had still memorized the whole request sheet after just glancing at it. Maybe she was actually really smart.
“I always thought herbs were only used by the physician’s guild to make potions,” I said. “But you’re saying it’s not just that?”
That part caught my interest. I reached out and touched the narrow leaf on one of the herbs. I’d never really thought about how the herbs I gathered were used. I knew they had value, and the guild bought them, but I wasn’t sure beyond that. Were they used in the various types of potions I’d seen? Or maybe in ointments or tablets? The request only listed the plants and their harvesting methods, not what they were actually used for. So I was impressed by Liluetta’s knowledge.
But she shook her head. “To be precise, the potions made by the physician’s guild are also a form of alchemy. Medicine making and alchemy are closely related.”
So they were similar but different too.
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
Liluetta stopped harvesting for a moment. She seemed to be thinking it over, but then she turned away from me. “That would be a rather specialized discussion.”
She probably didn’t know the details either.