No cheating, ever.

    “Oh, this is it!”

    “That is correct, Adry-sama.”

    I nodded my head in confirmation as Adry-sama showed me the herbs he had picked, and then raised his hands up.

    “I did it! I can finally tell them apart!”

    “Keep up the good work.”

    I determined that it was time for Adry-sama to be on his own, so I looked around to collect some additional herbs as well.

    As Ruby said, there seemed to be a lot of herbs growing around here, so I gathered enough not to disturb everyone.

    Oh, I found lemongrass. This is also a considered a medicinal plant, isn’t it?

    “Oh my, I found something good?”

    Ruby bounced excitedly to the base of a nearby tree, where he found a familiar mushroom.

    “Ruby… what are these mushrooms? The color is… quite poisonous-looking, no?”

    Mariel-chan, who was staring at Ruby with a suspicious look, was beckoned over a little bit, and when Ruby whispered something into her ear, Mariel-chan’s face turned bright red.

    Ah… I guess he told her that it’s an aphrodisiac mushroom.

    Ruby and Mariel-chan nodded at each other and started picking the mushrooms.

    “Mariel-san, Ruby. Those are not what we came here to look for.”

    Mariel-chan got startled when I called out to them, but Ruby continued on with his mushroom gathering.

    “Uuuuummmm, this mushroom can be used in various ways…”

    Mariel-chan, who was making up excuses as she went along, was quite suspicious.

    “You don’t need this, do you, Mariel-san?”

    “… Yes.”

    It’s just to advance your wild delusions, right? You don’t have a use for this, right?

    “Oh, geez~ don’t be so stiff, alright? You know what this is, don’t you?”

    Ruby, who was going at his own pace, told us to go back to gathering medicinal herbs, as he continued picking the mushrooms.

    I urged Mariel-chan, who seemed to be still unsatisfied, to resume herb gathering.

    “Sheesh that Ruby, what does he plan on using it for?”

    I can’t think of any good situation where Ruby would use aphrodisiac mushrooms.

    “W, who knows…? Rather than that, Cristea-san, what did he mean by u, u, using… err, using that mushroom in a tight spot?”

    “Ahh, that’s…”

    After casting a soundproofing spell around us so that the others couldn’t hear us, I recounted in a few words what had happened when I had caught Kaguya.

    “Eh…? T, then, when you met the black cat Kaguya for the first time, she was aiming to eat you?”

    “Yes, well… I was just in the middle of harvesting, so I fed her that mushroom, you see…”

    “Cristea-san… have you ever been told that you are too reckless?”

    How rude. Don’t call me reckless.

    … Although I won’t deny it, since I got reprimanded by Otousama and Oniisama.

    “W, well, isn’t it fine? Kaguya is currently living with our family peacefully as a cat. So everything turned out all right.”

    “This mushroom… I thought selling this mushroom to my Father for a high price, but… Cristea-san, shall I give it to you for self-defense?”

    “No, thanks.”

    There are no young noble ladies carrying around aphrodisiac mushrooms for protection, okay!?

    I politely declined and advised Mariel-chan to get rid of it or turn it in to her Company as soon as possible.