The Hundred-Year Herb
She grew depressed.
"……"
"The Hundred-Year Herb? You can buy that at any apothecary."
"It's used a lot in regular potion-making. I heard it used to be incredibly rare, though…"
"These days it's just a common herb. The shortage drove the price up a little, but still. I honestly don't get why this would be harder than killing three hundred orcs… Lea?"
"…It wasn't like that."
The Hundred-Year Herb she knew had been so precious that a noble who managed to obtain one or two in a lifetime was considered fortunate…
Lea lay sprawled on her back deep inside the nest, staring blankly at the ceiling. Beside her, Haring chattered away, a bundle of Hundred-Year Herbs clutched in her hand.
And they weren't fakes, either. Their efficacy was nearly identical to the real thing — if anything, slightly better.
"It wasn't like that in the past. It was genuinely, ridiculously rare."
"How far in the past are we talking?"
"…The last time I saw one was seventy years ago…"
Back then, the seller named the price. Now, though, whether through selective breeding or something else entirely, you could apparently just plant Hundred-Year Herb seeds in any old field and watch them sprout right up. Fully grown in half a year to a year at most?
Then why call it a Hundred-Year Herb?
They might as well rename it Common Weed. In that moment, she felt a profound resentment toward an herb that no longer took a hundred years to grow yet stubbornly clung to the name.
Haring set the herbs down, her expression turning serious.
"Seventy years… so that would make your age—"
"Tsk."
"I'm kidding."
"Aren't you going?"
"I already told you I can't beat the Legion Commander."
"Try haaarder."
"Even if I try, I can't beat him right now."
Outside, heroes had flocked to the nest. Inside, her disciples were digging in their heels, refusing to leave. She considered raising a barrier the way she had yesterday and roasting the heroes alive over open flame — but she remained sunk into her plush nest.
She didn't want to move a single step. She didn't want to get up, unfurl her territorial barrier, take to the sky, and spit fire every which way. She just wanted to stay warm and soft like this and sleep.
"Not doing it today?"
"Too much work…"
"The heroes aren't going to leave if you don't give them quests. Or how about handing out some really hard ones this time?"
"……"
"Like that three-hundred-orc subjugation you gave us before. Or — I actually know a few genuinely rare herbs."
"……"
"If you told them to go fetch those… Lea?"
Kuaaaa…
"She's out cold."
Haring edged closer to Lea, who lay sprawled on her back, snoring softly. Asleep like this, she looked for all the world like an ordinary little girl — far too harmless to be the dragon who had incinerated heroes and put even a Legion Commander on edge.
Poke.
Haring's finger gently prodded Lea's cheek. The soft flesh gave way under the pressure, squishing wherever she pressed.
"It's so squishy."
Delighted, Haring carefully scooted closer and snapped a few photos. Part of her desperately wanted to scoop Lea up and squeeze her, but she didn't want to make an already foul-tempered dragon any more uncomfortable. If Lea woke up to that, she'd be genuinely furious.
So Haring just grinned to herself and kept taking pictures — until Nya-nya slipped inside.
"Is Lea all ri—"
"Shh."
"!"
Haring put a finger to her lips. Nya-nya took in the situation at a glance and nodded. Then she carefully knelt beside the sleeping Lea.
Kuaaaa…
"She's so cute…"
"Don't touch her. She'll be furious."
"Ugh… this is torture."
Nya-nya's hands trembled with longing before she settled for taking a few photos of her own. At least she'd managed to get closer than usual — that was something.
"Is she completely out?"
"Hard to say. Could just be a short nap."
"Then let's wait outside. She must be exhausted after yesterday. I've already spoken to the others, so things should quiet down a bit."
"Okay."
Haring nodded and carefully slipped out of the nest. Outside, the other disciples were doing their best to reason with the users crowding around the entrance.
Coming for quests was fine — just don't cause a scene. Make too much noise and you wouldn't merely die; you might get Heurisk'd entirely.
Not everyone listened, but at least the shouting and the pounding on the nest entrance had died down compared to before.
And before that, post what needs posting.
"The upvotes are going crazy."
Haring surveyed her post with deep satisfaction, then browsed the other threads. Word of Lea had clearly spread far and wide — both the view counts and the upvote numbers on Pro Gallery were climbing at an unnatural rate. Managing it all was getting harder by the day, but as a mere user, that wasn't really Haring's problem.
If it got truly bad, the head mod would step in.
"It's true, though."
Haring muttered it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Even if someone wanted to monopolize Lea, she wasn't the kind of being you could monopolize. She was extremely cute, loved sweets, and sometimes did whatever she felt like — but a dragon was still a dragon.
An existence that even the Legion Commander, who had wiped out heroes with a single spell, had treated with caution. No ordinary hero was going to bend her to their will.
And the Legion Commander quest is still sitting there.
Haring let out a small sigh. She'd managed to stop them from charging off after the Legion Commander for now, but the situation itself hadn't changed. The flood of users had only bought them a temporary delay. Sooner or later, Lea's disciples would still have to go kill that thing.
"Might as well do what I can…"
Haring pushed the worry aside and focused on browsing the gallery and circulating her mana. Until Lea woke up, there wasn't much else she could do.
She dreamed.
In the dream, she sat in the seat of honor at a banquet hall overflowing with gifts. After driving off a demon that had dared try to raid a village that housed one of her favorite shops, she had been invited to a feast and treated to a lavish meal and every courtesy.
"Give me some wine too."
"Children aren't allowed."
"Wanna die?"
"Heh heh. Just a joke."
A delicious cocktail (which she later learned was non-alcoholic) put her in a fine mood, and various nobles and people eager to curry favor sent her gifts. Among them, a man with a memorable mustache drew an elegant wooden case from his coat and presented it to her.
"O great and supreme and beautiful and mighty—"
"Stop stacking those."
"Fire Dragon Lea."
"Go on."
"I have obtained a Hundred-Year Herb for you! A most rare and precious medicinal plant."
"A Hundred-Year Herb? How'd you get it?"
"Heh heh… I scoured every mountain there was. All for the Fire Dragon alone."
"Oh."
The Hundred-Year Herb. Even from the perspective of someone who had lived roughly a hundred and fifty years at the time, it was a precious plant that demanded a considerable wait to mature. An herb so rare that even she, a diligent collector of treasure, rarely laid eyes on one.
Granted, she didn't particularly seek out edible treasures — but even accounting for that, Hundred-Year Herbs were hard to come by.
She plucked the herb from his case. Roughly half the size and length of her hand, a clean, pure white.
Crunch.
"It's sweet."
"Does it please you?"
"Yeah. What'd you put in it?"
"Nothing at all. Though it is a medicinal herb, the Hundred-Year Herb grows steeped in the mana of the mountains, and so it carries a natural sweetness. Ordinarily one decocts it into an elixir, but…"
"Got any more?"
"W-well, no."
"Aw, too bad."
She chewed thoughtfully on the tip of the root, feeling a twinge of regret. Honestly, it wasn't overwhelmingly sweet or delicious the way chocolate or cake was. But a medicinal herb that tasted sweet? The idea of getting healthier while eating something sweet was rather intriguing, and it had a unique fragrance and flavor you couldn't find in ordinary food.
She couldn't quite place it, but it was the sort of taste she might have known in her "previous life."
In the decades that followed, she spent gold coins and treasures to buy up several more. A Hundred-Year Herb buried properly in soil could easily last a thousand years, they said — and the longer it aged, the better its efficacy became.
Deep in her treasure vault, seven Hundred-Year Herbs had been sleeping soundly. She'd planned to eat them one by one as a special treat, or share them with disciples who showed promise…
"It… wasn't a dream."
She woke to find that the Hundred-Year Herb had become as ordinary as any common medicinal plant.
Rising for the first time in three days, she turned her gaze toward the nest entrance. Heroes still milled about outside, and in their hands they held Hundred-Year Herbs — identical to the ones she had so carefully collected. No. Better.
She grew depressed.