Night—
The sky was full of stars.
Under the starlight and moonlight, the night sky was surprisingly bright. Even in the countryside of his previous world, Aaron had never seen such a view.
Crackle, crackle!
The firewood in the campfire caught flame, crackling as the firelight danced.
Nfirea sat by the fire, holding several herbs in his hands as he studied them. From time to time he would sniff them, and even bite off a piece to taste.
Grandmother Lizzie stood a short distance away in front of the wagon, checking the condition of the herbs loaded on it.
In the Rock party, only the leader Dosari and the older twin, Rand, stood watch on the perimeter.
The other two had gone to scout the surroundings.
For the moment, they were camping out in the wild.
According to Dosari, there was a village not far from their current position where they could have stayed the night.
However,
Grandmother Lizzie had refused. She did not want to take any detours.
Because there was a crate of rare herbs on the wagon, bought from the royal capital, they needed to get back to E-Rantel quickly to process them. The route she had chosen was the fastest one.
That meant skipping past some towns along the way.
Such a choice on the client's part clearly increased the danger on the road. Under normal circumstances, that would naturally cause dissatisfaction in the adventurer party.
After all!
Clients and adventurers only had a cooperative relationship. If a client did something unacceptable during a job, the adventurers could simply terminate the commission midway.
They would just have to pay a hefty penalty fee to the Adventurer Guild.
Given the current situation—using them as manual labor while completely ignoring the safer routes—an ordinary adventurer party would have clashed with the client long ago.
However!
Once Rock learned that Grandmother Lizzie was the owner of the apothecary in E-Rantel, known as the best apothecary in the entire city,
all their dissatisfaction vanished. They even became noticeably more eager and diligent along the way.
Aaron could not help but sigh inwardly at how exceptionally practical this Rock party was.
He sat by the campfire, watching Nfirea as he focused on his herbs.
Nfirea was holding a thumb-length, slender, root-like plant, and had just bitten off a small piece and put it in his mouth.
In the next instant,
he spat out the bit he had bitten. "So it's bitterroot? No wonder you can't tell the two apart just by looking."
After saying this, he finally noticed Aaron sitting beside him, watching.
"This herb is called bitterroot. It looks exactly the same as this meigen here. You can't tell them apart by sight; only by tasting."
"Their effects are also different. Bitterroot is good for soaking in alcohol and has a certain detoxifying effect. It's a base material for antidote potions."
"Meigen also has a bitter taste, but with a hint of sweetness. It's more suited as a base material for healing potions."
Normally shy, Nfirea's eyes shone and his voice grew more confident when he talked about herbs.
"I see."
Aaron nodded, wearing a look of serious attention.
In reality, he just wanted to see if learning about herbs could net him the Apothecary class.
So far, there were no prompts on his status panel.
"Aaron, are you really interested in herbs?" Nfirea asked, looking at him with bright blue eyes.
"A bit, yes," Aaron nodded.
"Hmph!"
Just as Nfirea was about to say more, a soft snort sounded.
Grandmother Lizzie walked over with her hands clasped behind her back. "Nfirea, don't show off that shallow knowledge of yours."
"Tasting with your mouth is the most basic and lowest-level method of identification. It's not like your nose can't smell," she scolded sharply.
"I understand, Grandmother."
Nfirea lowered his head and replied with some shame.
Aaron drew his gaze back. He did not know whether Lizzie's scolding of Nfirea carried a warning for him as well.
In a world where the spread of knowledge was clearly limited,
his recent questions to Nfirea about herbs really had been a bit inappropriate.
"Don't be nervous."
"I may be a bit stingy, but I'm not going to get angry over something like that."
Lizzie looked at Aaron and spoke calmly.
Uh…
Calling herself stingy—though it was true—
left Aaron, an outsider, very aware that anything he said right now would be inappropriate.
"Just knowing the properties of a few herbs and you think you can brew healing potions? Don't even think about it."
"If you have talent in divine magic, then don't waste your energy on other things. Be it Martial Arts or herbal lore, it's all a waste of time for you."
Lizzie spoke slowly and evenly.
Aaron blinked, realizing she was kindly trying to warn him. He quickly responded, "Thank you, Mrs. Bareare."
Hearing the title,
the wrinkles on Lizzie's face seemed to smooth out a bit. She clearly liked that form of address.
"Bareare" was her family name.
Aaron had learned it while chatting with Nfirea, even if he had already known it beforehand.
Thump, thump.
Two sets of footsteps approached from the dark.
It was the younger twin, Ler, and the archer Bask, who had gone scouting earlier.
With their return, the other two members of Rock visibly relaxed a little.
"Oink… oink…"
A weak groan came from Ler's back.
Ler had a wild boar of at least 200 jin slung over his shoulders, yet he looked completely at ease. "Got lucky and caught a boar. Our dinner's settled."
"You shot it clean through the brow and it's still alive?"
"Heh, Bask, your archery's getting better."
Rand, hands on his hips, stared at the boar on his brother's back, especially the bloody hole plainly visible in its forehead.
"It's just a boar," Bask replied with a light chuckle.
Thud!
Ler walked up to the campfire and dumped the boar on the ground with a dull thump.
"Aaron, it's still got one breath left."
Grinning, Ler pointed to a spot on the boar's neck. "Stab it here and you can kill it in one blow."
"Thanks." Aaron rose from his spot by the fire and walked toward the boar, which was lying on the ground, its body still twitching slightly.
Because Lizzie wanted to return to E-Rantel as quickly as possible, they were taking the fastest route, which meant skipping stays in towns.
Lizzie had clearly planned the route long in advance and had prepared accordingly, so they were not short on food. But that supply obviously did not include Rock and Aaron.
So,
in addition to rationing their own supplies, Rock had been hunting along the way to supplement their food and stockpile. For adventurers, that was nothing unusual.
During all this,
Aaron had mentioned that, if possible, he wanted to land the final blow on whatever they caught.
Outwardly, he had explained that
he was thinking about becoming an adventurer, but had never seen blood before and wanted to get used to it in advance.
Rock had not found that odd at all.
Aaron did not look like an adventurer. Even the lowest-ranked adventurers carried a variety of tools when traveling, while Aaron clearly had no such awareness.
They might have doubted his combat strength, but when it came to experience, they could tell what they were looking at.
Thus,
Rock had not hesitated in the slightest. Over this stretch of road, whenever they caught a beast, they would leave it with one last breath and let Aaron finish it.
Swish!
Aaron drew the short sword at his waist and walked up beside the boar, its body still twitching faintly on the ground.
Without any hesitation, he raised the blade and drove it into the spot Ler had just indicated on the animal's neck.