Herb Gathering Quest #2
Herb Gathering Quest #2
I'd heard the party was gathering at the south gate of Yoen-su City.
We were set to leave that morning, so this was no time to dawdle.
I grabbed my crossbow and headed straight for the south gate.
I stepped outside the city gate that served as the entrance.
People setting out on their journeys had been gathering there since the early morning hours.
There, I looked around for my party members.
Picking out people who'd taken the same request was simple enough.
The wooden tags we got from the guild each had a specific mark carved into them. I just had to find people with wooden tags bearing the same mark.
'There they are.'
After weaving through the crowd for a bit, I spotted my first party member.
A man with a small build, like a child.
His face was babyish too, so for a moment I nearly mistook him for a young boy.
But I scrutinized the man and realized he was an adult halfling. The pointed ears that stretched into a diamond shape were proof he was definitely a halfling.
Halflings usually stop growing at less than half the height of a human.
If he was that size, he was surely an adult.
I cautiously spoke to the halfling.
"Excuse me, are you the one who took the herb collection request?"
"That I am."
A gruff voice that didn't match his childlike appearance.
The halfling looked up and stared at me.
"It's the request to gather Moonlight Herbs, right? I took the same request. My name is Luke."
"My name's Ethan. So you're the reliable incubus Wendy was talking about? Well, that's a curious thing. I thought incubi were a race with nothing but mating on the brain."
"Ha, haha. I'm not like your average incubus. Unlike my kinsmen who can't control their lust, I live a wholesome life. So wholesome, in fact, that I still haven't shed my virginity."
I gave the halfling Ethan a brief self-introduction.
But Ethan took my words as a joke.
"A virgin incubus? Funniest joke I've heard lately. How can a man be born an incubus and still be a virgin? I've heard every last one of your kind graduates from virginity before they turn seven. By using that perverted mind-bending power to seduce women."
"You know your stuff."
"And with that blond hair and those burly muscles, you've got a face that says you swap out your women every month. Am I wrong?"
I couldn't very well say he was wrong, so I just gave an ambiguous smile.
Well, even I think it sounds like bullshit.
A blond delinquent-looking incubus introducing himself as a virgin.
A virgin succubus would honestly be more plausible.
"Anyway, as you can see, I handle a crossbow. I can take on a supporting role in the party, providing fire support from long range."
"I'm a swordsman. Small of body as I am, I'm sturdy and can hold out for a long time. Leave the front line to me. Well, it's not like an herb-gathering request is going to throw much danger at us anyway."
Ethan held a short sword and buckler in both hands. The forearms visible past his sleeves were packed with solid muscle. He seemed at least sturdier than your average halfling.
Ethan and I waited for our other party member.
We didn't have to wait long; the remaining party member appeared before us shortly after.
It was good that people gathered quickly.
But the moment I saw our party member's face, I couldn't help but panic.
"A... a woman...?"
Because a female party member had appeared.
And a remarkably beautiful one at that.
A beauty with red hair that flowed down to her waist.
Unlike her youthful, girlish face, her outfit was fairly revealing. She wore a top that openly showed her shoulders and navel, and short leather pants that left her pale thighs exposed.
Her high-bridged nose and sharp eyes created a rather haughty impression.
"Hey, you two. You're gathered here for the herb collection quest, right?"
"Huh? Y-Yeah, that's right."
I stammered the moment my eyes met the red-haired woman's.
Because the thought that I was well and truly fucked flashed through my mind.
Fucked in what way?
The situation right now: a female adventurer had joined my party.
I figured Wendy must've made some kind of mistake while she was putting the party together. It was common sense that a female adventurer wouldn't join a party with an incubus. Even when a party did form, they filled it with sweaty men almost every time.
Women on the continent avoid incubi.
It was because of the grotesque rumors that circulated about them.
The bit about some incubi being deviants who collect hymens, or the crazy ones who kidnap girls who just started menstruating. The whole race was branded with a stigma straight out of some nhentai nightmare. That was the incubus.
Women on the continent were taught from a young age to guard themselves carefully around incubi.
So I had never once formed a party with a female adventurer.
If I applied for a party and there was a female adventurer present, I got flatly rejected. Surely this red-haired woman who just showed up would avoid me, too.
Maybe a mistake happened when the message was being passed along, and she hadn't heard the info that there was an incubus among the party members.
I fiddled with the horns on my head and broke out in a cold sweat.
Was this party about to disband?
Would we have to go home without even getting to set out?
"The mark is the same, so... you guys must be my party members, right? That's what the brown-haired receptionist explained. So I just gotta go pick herbs or whatever with you guys now?"
"Th-That's right."
The moment I nodded, the red-haired woman's gaze landed on the top of my head.
She clearly saw the dream demon horns hanging there.
What comes next is probably the usual reaction.
A look like you've just seen something disgusting.
"Wait a sec..."
The red-haired woman's eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth.
"What the hell are those horns? They're cool as hell."
"Huh?"
"They look like goat horns, really sharp. Can't you use 'em like a weapon if you headbutt someone? The mainland really does have all kinds of weird-looking other-races, huh."
But it was a far cry from the reaction I'd anticipated.
That was all the reaction she had to the horns. She didn't show any particular emotion about my race. As I stood there speechless, Ethan, who was standing next to me, kept the conversation going.
"I'm Ethan. A halfling from Black Valley. What should we call you?"
"Just call me Rebecca. I'm from the Kingdom of Zakarta."
"Zakarta...? Never heard of that kingdom before."
"You probably wouldn't know it. It's super far from here. Don't really need to know. It's the kind of place you'll probably never set foot in your whole life."
"I see. Well then, let's head out to gather those herbs."
She was a breezy sort of woman in many ways. Before we set off, Rebecca asked me my name on the sly, so I answered Luke. She still didn't seem to care about my race at all.
Why was she so utterly defenseless in front of an incubus?
As we set off to gather herbs and I talked with Rebecca, I gradually came to understand the reason.
*
"The Kingdom of Zakarta? You're saying there's a nation in the middle of a desert?"
"Yeah, a country built by the desert tribes banding together. Sandstorms blow there practically nonstop, so outsiders have a hard time getting close. The kingdom's people rarely venture out to the outer continent either."
A while later, the party members, myself included, boarded a carriage. It was heading to the lake where the Moonlight Herbs bloomed. The distance was pretty far, so the three of us decided to split the fare and take the carriage.
There wasn't much to do inside the carriage besides look at the passing scenery.
During the ride, I chatted with Rebecca about this and that.
"Actually, I haven't been on the outer continent for long myself. So I'm still trying to adapt. But every time I see another race, I can't help being fascinated. I once met a wolf beastman and thought he was a monster, pulled a sword on him and everything..."
Rebecca was a woman who didn't know much about the ways of the world.
Apparently, the kingdom she had lived in only had humans, and other races almost never came around.
I could plainly see that Rebecca was a foreigner from a strange land.
Just thinking about the question she'd whispered in my ear when we got on the carriage made it obvious.
━ But can kids do adventurer work too?
━ A kid, who do you mean?
━ I mean Ethan, sitting in the front seat. He's totally a little kid. Does he not have parents, so he's earning money on his own? Gotta admire that.
━ That guy's a full-grown adult. He's probably older than you, Rebecca.
━ Huh?
━ You see the pointed ears? That's proof that Ethan is a halfling. The halfling race, even fully grown, only gets about half the size of a human. He looks like a kid, but he's actually an adult.
━ O-Oh, really? Another race? I see...
At my pointed explanation, Rebecca's face flushed slightly, maybe from embarrassment. After that, we talked a bit more, and I finally had the question I'd been holding resolved.
Why didn't Rebecca avoid incubi?
It was obvious. Because Rebecca knew absolutely nothing about the race called incubi. Coming from a distant foreign land, she'd likely never once heard any of the sleazy rumors about dream demons.
'Is this a good thing? At least the party didn't disband because of it.'
Just as I was making a relieved face, Rebecca suddenly spoke to me. For some reason, she was fidgeting with her fingers and reading my expression.
"Actually, before we left... there's something I should've mentioned first."
"What's the matter?"
"Honestly, this is my first time doing adventurer work. Heading out to collect herbs right now is my very first request."
"Oh, you're a first-timer?"
That's when I felt a few more questions resolve themselves.
The slightly awkward look Rebecca had when we first met. The way she deliberately pointed at the mark to confirm we were party members.
That made sense if she was a first-time adventurer.
I'd looked pretty damn stupid when I was doing my first request too.
"A first-timer, huh..."
I stroked my chin and paused for a moment.
Honestly, what Rebecca just said wasn't exactly polite behavior. In the adventurer industry, it was an unwritten rule that first-timers should identify themselves as first-timers when they introduced themselves. First-timers who kept their mouths shut were called [Sukko].
Sukko!
Shorthand for 'snot-nosed brats pretending to be veterans.'
There'll be time to explain the detailed origins of that name later.
Anyway, the important thing now was that Rebecca had just sukko'd.
"That's not a very good move."
"I-It is? I didn't know."
She hadn't done it on purpose, but maybe her conscience pricked her, because Rebecca couldn't meet my eyes.
But I didn't really feel like getting mad at Rebecca.
Ethan, who was probably all ears in the front seat, was likely the same.
"Ethan, this person here is a first-timer."
"I heard everything."
"You don't really mind, right?"
Leaning back in his seat, Ethan bobbed his head.
"No need to split hairs between first-timers and vets on a simple herb-gathering request. As long as they've got arms and fingers, they can pull their own weight. Of course, it's a bit spiteful not to mention being new beforehand. But I'll let it slide this once."
"There you have it, Rebecca. Honestly, I don't really mind either."
Only then did Rebecca look up at the sound of our voices.
Her previously intimidated expression brightened right back up.
"Y-You really don't mind? Well that's a relief!"
"But from now on, no matter what request you take, if you're new, you have to say so in advance. Requests like monster subjugation are strictly split between first-timers and veterans. If you keep your mouth shut, you could get yourself permanently buried in the adventurer business. Please be careful."
"Got it-."
Rebecca nodded briskly, as if she understood.
That fresh, eager reaction stirred a perverse feeling in me without my realizing it. Because the moment she confessed she was a first-timer, a special scent began emanating from Rebecca's body.
The kind of scent that draws the attention of veteran adventurers in an instant.
The 'lewd scent' unique to newbies.
A rookie adventurer taking on her very first request today.
That lewd scent was practically vibrating through the carriage.
As a senior who'd planted my feet in the adventurer industry first, I couldn't just leave a promising adventurer sapling to her own devices. The time had come to show a veteran's attitude befitting a second-year adventurer.
'Fuckin' A, rookie adventurers turn me on so goddamn much.'
I resolved to look after Rebecca as much as I possibly could.