Let's Gather Flower Buds

Alexia-san and I split off from the others and headed for our destination.

Our objective was to collect flowers that served as fragrance ingredients.

Unfortunately, they weren't commercially available, so we had to go pick them ourselves.

It had been a while since I'd been apart from Yohane-sama, since we'd been together so much lately.

Walking along, I found myself reminiscing about the early days. Looking back now, I must have cut such a pathetic figure… I'd even made Yohane-sama help me get dressed, hadn't I. My face flushed red, and I nearly covered it with my hands.

"What are you doing?"

Alexia-san, walking beside me, stared at my odd behavior in exasperation.

"It's nothing…"

"Is that so."

She said it and let her hair stream in the breeze. She always looked so composed. I envied that.

"The flowers we're collecting this time… apparently, the scent is extracted using a special solution. So we need to keep them as pristine as possible, and they have to be kept cold after picking."

I relayed the information as it had been told to me.

"Ah, so that's why it's me. Though I feel the combat balance is a bit lopsided."

"Yes. There shouldn't be any danger on their end either, so Elza-san should be more than enough."

"Quite. I simply cannot picture that priestess being in any sort of peril."

Donning her priest robe, swinging that mace around, shrugging off any damage that came her way. The gap between how she looked and how she fought was still something I couldn't quite get used to.

"So, where is this place?"

"According to the map… here."

I unfolded one of the simple maps sold at Yohane-sama's shop and pointed. The gathering spot was in a forested area past the cliffs where we'd gone to dig for burning stone. Information is sometimes worth more than gold. Those were Yohane-sama's words, I think.

He always had the relevant information researched to some degree beforehand. Thanks to that, I could focus on the adventuring side of things. I was grateful.

"I'd prefer not to spend a night in the forest."

"It is a bit scary. Elza-san's not with us, so we can't put up a barrier either. We do have holy water, at least."

"That helps. Let's just get this done quickly."

We talked as we made our way toward the destination.

At a slightly quicker pace than usual.

When Alexia-san first joined us, I think I'd been nervous and timid about talking to her, given she was a former noblewoman turned slave. If Elza-san hadn't been there to bridge the gap, the two of us alone probably couldn't have managed the awkward silences back then. Now, after everything we'd been through together, relying on each other and trusting each other with our backs, there was no discomfort.

Her way of putting things could be blunt at times, but I knew that was just who she was. By the time we ran out of conversation, we'd arrived at the forested area.

Cutting through the trees, there was a clearing in the center with no canopy. The flowers we were after apparently only grew in this spot, at least anywhere near the city.

The weaker monsters seemed to sense the gap in power and had no interest in attacking us. The aggressive ones were another matter, but those we simply cut down.

We pushed through the forest and stepped into the clearing, just as described. The view of dappled sunlight filtering through the trees was beautiful enough to linger over. I wished I could have shown it to Yohane-sama.

The target flowers were easy to spot. They grew in clusters, and there looked to be enough for what we needed. The flower was called moonlit fragrance, apparently. I leaned in for a sniff. A sweet, calming scent.

"So the buds are the ingredient we need. Please pick the whole flower, stem and all."

"And we need to keep them cold. Collect them in this jar, then. I'll pack ice around it to keep it chilled."

"Thank you. Let's get started."

We split up and got to work, plucking flowers in silence. Ramiza-san had also told us not to pick everything clean. When harvesting plants, it was important to leave some behind.

If you stripped a spot bare, nothing would grow back, and that would be a problem later. Made perfect sense.

Between picking flowers, I occasionally cut down the monsters that wandered close. Alexia-san was doing much the same.

She couldn't use her signature fire magic in a place like this, so every time a monster showed up, she was swinging her battle-axe.

I'd been thinking that it might get stuck in a tree if she wasn't careful, and sure enough, mid-swing after dispatching a monster, the blade lodged itself firmly into a trunk.

I carried an armful of flowers over to the jar.

"Can you pull it out?"

"It's a bit tricky… Hnngh!"

We both grabbed the handle and pulled.

At first it wouldn't budge, but once we braced our feet against the tree and really put our backs into it, the axe finally came free.

If I'd been wearing a skirt, the whole world would have gotten an eyeful. This was exactly why pants were better for staying active. Even if Yohane-sama seemed to prefer skirts.

The tree had been a fruit tree, apparently, and a few pieces of fruit tumbled to the ground from the impact. They were sweet, so we picked them up and ate them to quench our thirst. Watching Alexia-san eat, there was a certain elegance to the way she did it. I tried to mimic her, but it clearly took a kind of refinement I didn't have. It just wasn't the same.

"Looks like we'll be done sooner than expected."

"Well, for us, something like this is little more than an errand."

The monsters, which would have been the biggest concern here for most people, posed no threat to us. That in itself was proof of how much we'd grown, and that was surely a good thing. Where exactly the line for being a full-fledged adventurer was, I couldn't say. I just followed Yohane-sama's lead.

Fortunately, I'd also come to feel certain that we were being treated well.

We finished gathering what we needed before dawn and left the forest. A large Snake Monster that had tried to interfere at dusk, we took down together. We roasted it and tried some. It was actually pretty good.

We decided to walk to the city walls using illumination magic. This brought back memories. We'd spent a night with our backs to the outer wall once, hadn't we.