Chapter 50: Gathering Raspberries and Lessons Learned
When Qiong Xing said it slowly, as if confirming it with him, Joa looked like he was about to cry for a moment, then smiled and said that it was good.
It seemed he had remembered what Qiong Xing had said yesterday.
Seeing Leander and Elias nearby with envy plainly written all over their faces, Qiong Xing tossed food into their mouths as well, then began thinking about what to do today.
There should have been at least a week of leeway before the guild request deadline, so there was no need to rush.
He wanted to look for friends for Cari, but he also wanted to repay the kindness they had received after being taken care of here since yesterday.
"Is there any work we could help with as well?"
"Huh?"
"Yesterday and today, you’ve given us food and even lent us a room. If there’s anything we can do, we’d like to repay you that way."
"You... are you really human?"
"Huh?"
To be suspected of not being human.
Qiong Xing touched his head just in case, wondering if beast ears had sprouted without him noticing, but there was nothing of the sort.
How disappointing.
His hope he has tiger ears.
"No, it’s not about having ears or anything like that. I just never thought there’d be a human who’d talk about repaying a favor."
In a world where many humans saw beastmen as nothing more than slaves or objects, someone like Qiong Xing was apparently the first of his kind that Joa had ever encountered.
"Well, don’t worry about it. We’re the ones who got you dra..."
"That sounds great! Let’s have them help!"
Before he knew it, behind Qiong Xing and the others stood Fei and a familiar cat beastman.
"Fei, Ato, what are you say-"
"If they want to repay the favor, then let them do it, right? So, here you go."
"Here you... go?"
What was handed over was a neatly woven wooden basket.
There was nothing inside it, and when Qiong Xing looked up, unsure of what to do, his cat-like eyes smiled warmly back at him.
"There’s a spot nearby where wild raspberries grow. The boss knows the place, so we want you to go with him and pick some."
Apparently, bringing back wild raspberries, something the women loved would count as repaying the favor.
If that was the case, then let’s go.
As Qiong Xing rose while glancing at Leander and the others, a voice suddenly stopped him.
"I wanna ask those two over there to do something else."
"Huh?"
"What?"
Leander, your attitude is bad.
Perhaps because he didn’t want to be separated from Qiong Xing, Leander glared sharply at Ato, but Qiong Xing stopped him by gently patting his head.
"Hey now, don’t glare, don’t glare. We’ve been taken care of since yesterday, so you two should do your best to help too. Is it okay if we take Cari with us?"
"Hmmm, yeah, I guess so. That kid doesn’t look very strong either, so I want the three of you to go. ...(It’ll probably work as supervision too.)"
"We’ll do our best."
Qiong Xing didn’t catch what was said at the very end, but it seemed they had been given a different task because they weren’t suited for heavy labor.
Being judged to have strength on par with young Cari was, admittedly, a bit of a shock.
"Alright, let’s go, Joa. Don’t worry, I’m good at gathering!"
"...Yeah."
Please don’t make such an uneasy face.
He was an adventurer, after all.
Although he still an F-rank adventurer.
While holding Cari with one hand, Qiong Xing pulled Joa along and headed outside.
Several hours later.
"That’s a poisonous mushroom, I’m telling you! And throw away those ominously colored berries too!"
Qiong Xing and Cari, who had gone to gather wild raspberries with Joa, had been getting lectured nonstop.
Mainly Qiong Xing.
"Seeing that color, how could you even think about eating it, huh?!"
"I thought it would be nice since it’s so colorful. Then, how about this one—"
Red, blue, and yellow, the colorful mushrooms looked like they would decorate a plate beautifully just by being there, but apparently they were poisonous mushrooms.
Thinking that wouldn’t do, Qiong Xing reached up to pick something that looked like a pomegranate hanging overhead, only for his hand to be slapped away with incredible force.
"Don’t ever touch that again. Just touching it will give you a rash, and it’ll stay for days. Got it? Don’t ever touch it."
The purple pomegranate-like thing apparently caused rashes just from contact.
How terrifying!
Although they had gone out to gather wild raspberries, every mushroom Qiong Xing picked up along the way was immediately scolded by Joa and hurled far away.
"I thought it might be tasty, though..."
"You need to have a bit more sense of danger. Dying because you ate something just because it looked pretty would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?"
"Mom, embarrassing?"
"Ghk!"
Sorry for being an embarrassing mom, Cari.
If it were just Qiong Xing alone, maybe it would end with nothing more than an upset stomach, but Cari was here too.
If he fed something to Cari just because it looked pretty and it ended in death, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
For Cari’s sake as well, Qiong Xing resolved to do better.
"That said, Cari has really grown attached to Joa, hasn’t he?"
Yes, at first, Joa had gotten angry at Qiong Xing for picking up nothing but dangerous things, and seeing that, Cari had been afraid of Joa.
But once it was explained that Joa was doing it for Qiong Xing’s sake, so that Qiong Xing wouldn’t get hurt, Cari must have decided in his own way that Joa was a good person for Mom.
He no longer feared him, and now Cari was constantly being held in Joa’s left arm.
Mom’s dignity... well, it might as well not exist.
Thinking they looked just like a parent and child, Qiong Xing noticed that Joa seemed happy to hear that too as he bashfully rubbed Cari’s head to hide his embarrassment.