"I'm leaving now!"

From far away, near the carriage, Jiwoon's shout could be heard.

"This is killing me, seriously..."

Onyxia, who had been sitting on a large rock, got up and dusted herself off. A groan escaped involuntarily.

"We're departing!"

"I heard you!"

Humans are fragile creatures. When signals from their eyes and ears don't match, they experience dizziness and their physical condition deteriorates rapidly.

Even the strongest people aren't exempt. Onyxia only felt queasy, but Rubyca had been utterly defeated by motion sickness. The pathetic loser lay limply beside the demon.

"They said we're leaving."

"..."

"Damn it! If you're going to collapse, at least don't be so ridiculously tall!"

"It's not like I wanted to be this tall..."

"You're built like you could pull the carriage yourself, yet you get motion sickness?"

There had been warning signs.

When returning from Coralford to Silverion, Rubyca had swayed strangely weakly inside the carriage.

Back then, they were traveling on nicely paved roads in a comfortable chartered carriage, so Rubyca hadn't shown such severe symptoms of motion sickness.

This time, the carriage was a cheap one provided by the guild, and they were traveling on unpaved mountain paths, which seemed to have completely turned Rubyca's stomach.

Onyxia tried to support Rubyca by putting an arm around her shoulder, but there was no way Onyxia could carry someone larger than herself.

Eventually, Onyxia managed to drag the half-dragon, who had become a lump of baggage, to the front of the carriage. Seeing her struggling, Jiwoon lent a hand, and they barely managed to get Rubyca inside the carriage.

It was a truly dreadful journey.

The seats were hard, the road was poorly paved and bumpy, and one party member had turned into a corpse before they could do anything...

*If only the atmosphere were a bit brighter?*

The mood inside the carriage was just as chilly. It could compete well with the winter weather that hadn't fully passed yet.

The cause was obvious.

The impudent Squirrel Beastfolk.

Hazel was in a bad mood.

Jiwoon and Hazel. Though both considered Onyxia lacking in tact, the truth was that she wasn't actually that oblivious.

Half the time she simply didn't know when she needed to be tactful, and the other half she just ignored things despite knowing better. The latter was worse, but either way, she wasn't completely tactless.

The root of the problem was the Winter Root.

That herb that Elysia had secretly told only Jiwoon about—that was the cause of the trouble.

※

Pharmacists have a duty to provide medication guidance to patients. While Jiwoon wasn't a pharmacist, he did have the role of giving Hazel the Winter Root.

So one day, as winter was well on its way out, Jiwoon brought up the topic during dinner.

He mentioned that Elysia had given him an herb for Hazel that supposedly slowed down the aging process.

At that point, no one thought this would become an issue.

In fact, it was rather welcome news to Onyxia and Rubyca.

Rubyca had dragon blood mixed in, giving her a longer lifespan than humans, and Onyxia was a demon whose very mortality was questionable.

Everyone was pleased at the prospect of Hazel's aging slowing down. After all, it's not particularly pleasant when someone you're connected to dies.

The source wasn't a problem either.

It wasn't given by some suspicious passing elder, but rather an herb with a sad story—one that a fairy who had lost her loved one to the difference in lifespans hadn't been able to use.

Though not the most pleasant way to put it, it was a stroke of luck for Hazel. An elixir that a fairy who had parted with a beastfolk gave to a young beastfolk, regretting her past hesitation. Didn't it seem like it had found just the right owner?

As for Hazel's own will... was there even a need to ask?

It's not like Hazel was a picky eater who disliked herbs, and practically speaking, her lifespan would increase—who would refuse that?

So Jiwoon mentioned it casually, and Rubyca and Onyxia didn't pay much attention to the development, focusing instead on their meal.

And then the person in question, Hazel, opened her mouth.

"I don't want to eat it."

With one sentence, she betrayed everyone's expectations.

Jiwoon was taken aback.

No, not just Jiwoon.

Everyone was surprised.

Was this something to refuse?

Was there even a reason to refuse?

Jiwoon tried to change Hazel's mind.

"Was that too difficult to understand? Hazel, slowing down aging means your lifespan increases—that you can live longer."

At first, he explained the effects in detail.

Despite her intelligence stat of 18, that was just a game metric indicating talent for magic, not that Hazel was a genius. Maybe she was still too young to understand aging and lifespan properly.

Jiwoon's efforts based on this assumption were in vain. Hazel understood the mysteries of life and death perfectly.

Upon realizing this, the color drained from Jiwoon's face.

*Could it be... she doesn't want to live long?*

Not wanting to live long.

In other words, wanting to die quickly.

Hazel, actually... huh?

Jiwoon wasn't the only one who reached this conclusion.

Onyxia and Rubyca.

Their expressions also turned serious in an instant.

Naturally, Operation Hazel shifted from logical persuasion to coaxing and comforting.

This time, Rubyca and Onyxia joined as allies. The three of them indirectly appealed to Hazel about the preciousness of life, the beauty of living, and the wonderful things she could do in the future.

Normally, Hazel would have noticed the strange atmosphere and smoothly guided the conversation toward a reasonable conclusion while defusing the situation.

Maintaining composure at all times—that was the mage's creed that Hazel had engraved in her heart.

Unfortunately, this time Hazel wasn't in good shape either.

A girl in love is strong.

And becomes a little stupid.

At that moment, Hazel wasn't the cool-headed mage who could correct the oddly flowing situation. She was just a small, dazed girl who had melted into a puddle from the hot emotion called love.

The reason Hazel refused the Winter Root in the first place was because of that damned love.

Jiwoon's preferences were perfectly normal.

The source was Hazel's big data, collected by remembering what every woman looked like whenever Jiwoon turned his eyes toward a passing female.

A girl in love is strong, a little stupid, and sometimes creepy.

Anyway, according to Hazel's collected big data, the conditions for women that caught Jiwoon's attention—or rather, his gaze—were as follows:

Beautiful.

Large breasts.

Slim waist.

Wide hips.

Long limbs.

Nothing more needed to be said.

It was just the modern standard of beauty.

And, surprisingly, when Hazel looked at herself, she found that she didn't meet any of these criteria!

Beautiful?

She was closer to cute than beautiful.

While her future looked promising, her chubby cheeks, which hadn't even lost all their baby fat, couldn't be described as beautiful.

Hazel needed time.

Time to prepare at least the minimum qualifications before the race of love began!

The method to meet these qualifications was simple.

Growth!

Though there were limitations to being a Squirrel Beastfolk, and she couldn't become a Western beauty with an hourglass figure, she at least needed to complete her growth and be considered an adult.

No matter how passionate her feelings were, she couldn't win love in a child's form.

At one point, she had seriously considered using her trump card, "I'll marry you when I grow up," but she had quietly put it aside due to the high risk.

An appeal made when the other person couldn't consider you romantically could be a bad move that might fix your character at that point.

Even after completing her growth, there was a possibility of being solidified as a character like "the kid next door" with people saying things like, "Hazel? She's totally a child."

The role of a heroine with such character traits was predictable.

She would appear as a junior character with a mischievous streak, burst into the main competition between the two main heroines, and use all her soul to appeal through old memories, skinship, and dates, hogging the spotlight for about one volume's worth of content before being discarded.

After instilling a sense of crisis in the main heroines and awakening them, she would be miserably eliminated.

And in the midst of all that, she might say, "Then this is my last request," steal the protagonist's first kiss and run away. Despite being a defeated heroine, she would steal all the big events, becoming the target of criticism among the fandom.

Hazel, who was well-versed in mainstream subculture developments through her long otaku life!

The best conclusion Hazel came to was simply to endure.

And now they wanted her to eat an herb that slowed aging?

In nice terms it was anti-aging, but in reverse, wasn't it the same as growth retardation?

She already had a long way to go and was frustrated—growth retardation was too much!

Since the party members couldn't know these inner thoughts, the three fools mistakenly assumed that Hazel lacked the will to live.

That was the moment when Operation Winter Root went off track and started rolling in a strange direction.

The coaxing phase continued even after dinner.

"Mari talked about you a lot. She said she'd really like to meet you again."

"I see."

"When you become an adult... well, you can drink alcohol freely, smoke as much as you want, and also..."

"Rubyca! Pull that crazy demon away!"

"...?"

"Hazel, let's go on a summer vacation when summer comes. How about Icepeak? We can escape the heat in that cool northern village and see Amiel's face too."

"That's a good idea."

There was no particular progress.

And so Operation Hazel moved on to the next phase.

"Hazel! Look who's here!"

Bringing in an expert for professional counseling.

The expert they brought in was a devout cleric with counseling skills honed through confession. A well-connected person from the temple who loved children, was polite to adults, and had a good reputation among people of all ages and genders.

And, a person Hazel found extremely burdensome.

"Claire is here~"

At this point, Hazel got a little irritated.