The Former Child Prodigy Takes On A Medicinal Herb Gathering Quest

“…D-damn it…!”

The man’s voice rang out through the guild, which had gone quiet.

The man who had tried to punch me pushed himself back up. His face was twisted in pain, and one hand was clutching his stomach.

“W-what the hell are you!? Who the hell are you supposed to be!?”

“Who am I? I’m just a beginner with no particular talents.”

At my words, the man’s face turned bright red.

The other adventurers started throwing mocking remarks at him.

“Hey! Don’t go losing to a beginner!”

“No way you were actually serious, right?”

The man, whose face I had thought was already red, turned even redder. He shouted back at the adventurers.

“Shut up! Of course I wasn’t serious! I just let my guard down for a second! Oww, damn it!”

…I see. So he really had not been serious after all.

I had almost started thinking my student-day achievements might actually be useful in the real world. But if the other side had not been serious, then this must have just been a fluke. There was no way working adults could really be this weak.

“Don’t get full of yourself, damn you! Got it!? I was holding back!”

“Of course. You were so weak that even I could tell you were holding back.”

“Y-you little… ngh… damn you…!”

The man spat his anger out through his teeth.

…? Was he angry? I did not really understand his reaction. I had simply agreed with what he said.

Well, I was probably the one at fault.

As expected, lacking cooperativeness—or rather, empathy, like it said on my report cards—really would make life difficult in the real world… My teachers back in school had observed me quite well.

“Tch, what are you all staring at!? The show’s over!”

The man disappeared somewhere while hurling abuse at the other adventurers.

Now then. This had originally been about my adventurer registration. I needed to speak with the receptionist.

“Sorry, shall we get back to it?”

“Eh—ah, yes!”

The receptionist reacted with a visible jolt.

“…Um, are you really inexperienced?”

“Yeah.”

Normally, you would not say you had experience just because you did something during school lessons…

“I do not have any particular experience.”

“…Is that really true, though…?”

The receptionist looked at me with openly suspicious eyes.

That kind of look was hard to deal with. I really was just a NEET… I tapped the documents on the counter lightly with my finger.

“Anyway, I filled everything out. Does that mean I’ll be provisionally registered now?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I heard I need to complete quests for full registration. What kind are they?”

“They’re all simple ones. They’re meant to test whether you really intend to keep being an adventurer.”

“I see.”

Then that was a relief.

“What kind of quests are there?”

“Let’s see… For someone like you, Ilvis-sama—”

After thinking for a moment, the receptionist continued.

“How about hunting a High Ogre?”

“A High Ogre?”

I was not all that knowledgeable about monsters, but…

“Isn’t that pretty strong?”

An ogre was a muscular humanoid monster. I had heard that they were violent creatures that ate people, and that half-baked warriors were no match for them.

And on top of that, this one had “High” attached to it. Wouldn’t that make it even stronger?

“Yes, it is. Even a mid-level adventurer might be in danger.”

“No, no, no, no.”

I’d die! I would definitely die! That was way too much for a Student Sword Saint to handle!

“What happened to ‘they’re all simple ones’?”

“I feel like you could do it, Ilvis-san!”

“No, no, no, no.”

What was with that mysterious level of trust? Was this receptionist trying to get me killed?

“Could you give me something more normal?”

“Ehh? Really…? Then how about a High Troll?”

“Could we maybe do something about that High prefix first…”

I cleared my throat.

“Give me an ordinary one. Something an ordinary provisionally registered person would do.”

“I see. What a waste…”

After making a disappointed face, the receptionist said this to me.

“In that case, how about gathering medicinal herbs?”

And so I headed out to gather medicinal herbs.

In the great forest near the Imperial Capital, all kinds of plants grew. Harvesting them and selling them off was one of the more common jobs around.

Medicinal herbs were in high demand because they were used to make healing potions for injuries, as well as ingredients for various medicines.

Medicinal herbs had strong natural regenerative ability, so even if you pulled them up, they grew back quickly. For people who made a living gathering them, it must have felt like money was growing out of the ground.

That said, it was not something just anyone could do easily.

To begin with, medicinal herbs were still just herbs. For an amateur, telling them apart from ordinary grass would probably be hard enough. And while people casually called them medicinal herbs, that was only a blanket term.

There were Karlsgood Grass, Creepfoot Grass, Cortis Grass, and many other kinds besides. If you did not at least remember the representative ones, you could work hard carrying a bunch home only to find out they were actually just weeds!

The receptionist had called it simple, but it was not really that simple a job.

…And I had heard that herb gathering was a valuable source of income for novice adventurers. If someone gave up over something like this, then they probably had no future in the profession.

That said, I had no problem with it.

Because back in my student days, I had been on the gardening committee. I had ended up memorizing all the basic plant knowledge.

Thanks to that, I quickly found one of the medicinal herbs, Karlsgood Grass.

I nearly felt proud of myself, but no, no. …This was only knowledge I had picked up a bit of during my student days. I needed to keep in mind that compared to the professionals of the working world, it was an embarrassingly low level.

I approached the Karlsgood Grass.

My classmates used to rip medicinal herbs out by force the instant they found them, but—

I would not do anything like that.

Back when I had been taking care of plants on the gardening committee, I had done various experiments and found what I believed was the optimal method for pulling up medicinal herbs.

I placed my hand on the Karlsgood Grass.

I spread out my magic power.

First, using magic, I concentrated the nutrients in the soil into the herb I was about to pull up. In other words, I stuffed the plant full of nutrients until it was bursting with them. The moment it was uprooted, the herb would lose its route of nutrient supply. So the idea was to let it store up plenty beforehand.

Then I would pull up the herb—

But of course, that was not the end of it.

I spread a different kind of magic power.

This time, I coated the surface of the uprooted herb with magic power. That prevented moisture and nutrients from escaping.

In other words, this made it a fresh medicinal herb.

I took a cube-shaped box from the holster at my waist.

It was something called an Item Box. A surprising amount of luggage could be stored inside this tiny box. Of course, it was not infinite. Since the Item Box linked with the owner’s mind, its capacity limit apparently differed from person to person.

I brought the Item Box close to the uprooted Karlsgood Grass.

Take it in—

The moment I thought that, the Karlsgood Grass vanished into the Item Box.

“Good, good.”

After that, the herb gathering went smoothly, and I returned to the Adventurer’s Guild. If you brought medicinal herbs to the guild, they would buy them from you.

As expected, medicinal herbs were a common commodity, and buying and selling them seemed active. There was even a dedicated purchase counter for them.

“Come on! This purchase price is ridiculous, isn’t it!? Give me a little more here, will you!?”

“No, absolutely not. These are such low-quality goods that you should be grateful we are buying them at all.”

I could hear an intense exchange between the adventurers and the purchasing staff.

A clash between people trying to sell for as much as possible and people trying to buy for as little as possible. …Ugh! My stomach! My stomach hurts! I am too soft-hearted, so haggling and negotiation are really not my thing…

Thinking that, I stepped up to an open counter.

A young female buyer greeted me with a smile.

“Here to sell?”

“I’d like you to buy these herbs.”

For the time being, I took out one bundle of herbs from my Item Box.

“What do you think?”

“I’ll appraise them. Please wait a moment.”

The buyer took my herbs in hand. As the appraisal went on, her expression gradually became more and more excited. Every movement she made grew more hurried.

…Yeah, what was going on?

“Eh, no way… What is this supposed to mean?”

After muttering that almost to herself,

“EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?”

The buyer let out a cry loud enough to startle everyone around us. Then she stared at me with her eyes wide open.

“Th-this Karlsgood Grass is the highest quality I’ve seen in ages! H-how in the world did this happen!?”