Kousuke didn’t just make a peculiar mask out of a hobby.
As he explained to Colette and Peach, he made it with expensive materials in an attempt to overcome his hikikomori tendencies.
Therefore, to avoid wasting the mask he painstakingly made, Kousuke was walking around the Fifth Floor with Nana, completing guild requests.
The request Kousuke accepted this time was for medicinal herb gathering.
That’s right. It was a standard request for beginner adventurers.
The reason Kousuke took on such a task was that he had remade his Crown Card, and he was fulfilling requests that matched his new rank (F).
Two hours after leaving town.
Kousuke, who normally went around collecting materials in the tower while making various excuses, reached his destination without showing any particular signs of fatigue.
“Alright… it should be around here, but… what do you think?”
As Kousuke said this and looked around, Nana, who had obediently followed him this time as well, suddenly ran off.
“Ah. Ahh…”
Kousuke understood the meaning of Nana’s action and, after a slightly disappointed expression, quickly forced a bitter smile.
Nana had run off knowing that Kousuke was searching for medicinal herbs, and naturally, the place where Nana was enthusiastically wagging her tail and appealing was where those herbs should be.
Kousuke, who intended to achieve his goal through his own efforts, was thus thwarted. However, he couldn’t blame Nana.
It was Kousuke’s fault for not giving proper instructions, when he should have told Nana not to search from the beginning.
Kousuke, who had approached, petted Nana’s head as she looked at him with a straight gaze, and picked the medicinal herbs that were there.
Of course, he didn’t pick them all, keeping in mind the future.
Watching Kousuke’s movements, Nana wagged her tail with satisfaction this time.
Since requests for medicinal herb gathering were always accepted, Kousuke decided to continue searching.
This time, to avoid making the same mistake as before, he clearly told Nana that he would be the one searching.
As expected, Nana followed his instructions and obediently trailed behind Kousuke.
…She was trailing behind him, but—
“Koon…”
Kousuke endured his heart breaking as he heard the lonely voice from behind him for the umpteenth time. If he spoiled Nana here, his resolve to find them on his own would be in vain.
Kousuke, thinking this and earnestly searching for medicinal herbs, finally couldn’t resist Nana’s pleading voice.
“Nana. Do you want to search by yourself that much? …Oh, wait?”
As Kousuke asked this, Nana inexplicably shook her head left and right.
Kousuke tilted his head, not understanding the meaning, but seeing this, Nana pointed her nose toward the ground.
Kousuke looked at what was there and crouched down on the spot.
“…So that’s what it is.”
At Nana’s nose was a small cluster of medicinal herbs.
Seeing this, Kousuke finally understood the meaning behind Nana’s lonely voice from earlier.
The voices he had heard multiple times were telling him that they had passed by the cluster of herbs.
And then, he realized he had missed it multiple times and was stunned.
Kousuke petted Nana’s head as she looked at him with an apologetic gaze.
“No, yeah. It’s not Nana’s fault, so you don’t have to make that face.”
“Koon…?”
To Nana, who looked up as if to ask, “Really?”, Kousuke repeated, “Really, really.”
Not to vent his inability to get angry at Nana, Kousuke instead looked at Mitsuki, who had accompanied him.
“…I think it’s okay to laugh if you want to?”
“Eh, no, well. It’s not like it’s weird or anything…”
Kousuke glared at Mitsuki, who said that.
Even though she was covering her mouth, her eyes were clearly smirking, so anyone could see she was holding back laughter.
As Kousuke continued to stare with a reproachful gaze, Mitsuki finally burst into laughter, unable to hold it in.
Then, after laughing for a while, she said to Kousuke,
“Sorry, sorry. But, I think Kousuke-sama is misunderstanding something?”
“Huh?”
Kousuke tilted his head, not understanding, and Mitsuki continued to explain.
“It’s not that I found it funny that you couldn’t find the medicinal herbs, it’s just that your interaction with Nana was amusing.”
Hearing her words, Kousuke nodded with an “Ahh” and forced a bitter smile.
Kousuke mused that his interaction with Nana now would indeed have been amusing, even to himself. From a third-party perspective, of course.
Defeated by Nana’s kindness (?), Kousuke decided to search for medicinal herbs alone in a completely separate location this time.
As a result, he was laughed at by Mitsuki, so he used that as a shield to remove Mitsuki from guard duty as well.
Rather, he told Nana to stay by Mitsuki’s side the whole time, and told Mitsuki not to move from her spot.
Initially, Mitsuki hesitated, but after Kousuke promised not to stray beyond her line of sight, he managed to achieve the current arrangement.
Thus, after wandering around the field for an hour.
Kousuke finally found what he was looking for.
“Alright! I finally found it! …It’s really small, though.”
Kousuke said this while staring at the patch of medicinal herbs at his feet.
There, within a radius of about ten centimeters, medicinal herbs were growing steadily.
“…Hmm. I wonder if it’s okay to pick this…”
Kousuke muttered and pondered for a while, but in the end, he decided to pick just one.
Even if he was bad at searching, he had plenty of experience with harvesting, so Kousuke, who had quickly picked just one medicinal herb, immediately called Mitsuki and Nana.
The one person and one creature, despite being quite far away, quickly ran over to Kousuke.
“It seems you managed to find it safely.”
“Well, somehow.”
Mitsuki tilted her head towards Kousuke, who had a face like he had bitten into something bitter.
“Oh? What’s wrong?”
“Ah, well. Yeah. I guess it’s better to leave things you’re good at to the person who’s good at them. This time, it’s a wolf, not a person.”
As Kousuke said this while looking at Nana, Nana, understanding it was about her, began to wag her tail vigorously.
Seeing this, Kousuke forced another bitter smile and started petting Nana’s head.
“And so, my self-satisfaction time ends here. Shall we go for monster subjugation next!”
As Kousuke declared this with enthusiasm and Nana wagged her tail, Mitsuki muttered in a small voice that neither of them could hear.
“I wonder if it’ll be alright…”
After this, Kousuke would do something similar against goblins.
