A Drop of Hope is one of the earliest side quests — classified as a "Myth" — you can pick up in Nioh 3. It sends you on a somber errand: a dead man's spirit asks you to recover stolen medicine and deliver it to his sick wife. The quest spans two locations in the Tenryu River region and ends with a mini-boss fight against a Yoki outside the man's home in Hamamatsu.
Quick answer: Talk to the ghost near the Hamamatsu Gate Shrine, kill the bandits at the camp to the southwest, and loot the Physick from a corpse by the campfire, then head south to Hamamatsu Post, defeat the Yoki guarding a small house near the Terrace shrine, and interact with the wife's body inside to finish the quest.
Where to start A Drop of Hope
The quest-giver is easy to miss. Head to the northern portion of the Tenryu River area and look for a floating golden spirit near the Hamamatsu Gate Shrine, along the cliffside just north of the shrine. Nioh 3 doesn't always surface side quests on the map until you physically get close to them, so you may need to walk right up to the spirit before the prompt appears. Interact with it, exhaust the dialogue, and the Myth will activate.
Retrieving the Physick from the bandit camp
Step 1: From the spirit's location, follow the road southwest. Your map will highlight a search area once the quest is active. You're heading toward a small campfire surrounded by several outlaws.
Step 2: Before rushing in, use a bow or rifle to pick off the archer perched on the rocks above the camp. Leaving that archer alive creates problems once you engage the melee enemies below.
Step 3: Move into the camp and clear the remaining bandits around the fire. Watch for a guard hiding behind a destroyed building on the camp's edge — he's easy to miss if you approach from the north. Sneaking around and stealth-killing him first lets you fight the lead bandit one-on-one.
Step 4: Once every enemy is dead, interact with the corpse closest to the campfire to pick up the Physick. The ghost will reappear and ask you to bring the medicine to his wife in the town outside Hamamatsu Castle.
Delivering the medicine and defeating the Yoki
Step 1: Head south from the bandit camp along the road toward Hamamatsu. When you reach the Hamamatsu Post Terrace shrine, look for a small house nearby. A large sword-wielding yokai — a Yoki — stands guard at the front door. That's your destination.
Step 2: Engage the Yoki. Despite being flagged as a mini-boss, it behaves like a beefed-up version of the standard Yoki enemies you'll encounter throughout the game. Its attack pattern consists mostly of forward slashes and a Burst Break that you can counter. Block or dodge the initial combo, then punish during recovery frames.
Step 3: Pressure the Yoki between its attack strings. Its ki meter drains quickly under sustained aggression, especially if you're fighting in samurai form. Stunlocking it with a chain of attacks is entirely viable. If you have your Living Artifact ready, activating it should let you burn through the Yoki's health pool before the transformation timer expires.
Step 4: After the Yoki falls, enter the house and interact with the body inside. The wife has already died. The man's ghost appears one final time, grieves, thanks you, and departs to join his wife in the spirit realm. The quest completes here.
A Drop of Hope rewards
| Reward | Details |
|---|---|
| Ninja's Locks | x1 — used to unlock new Ninja skills |
| Omamori (Ninja) | x1 — accessory charm |
| Omamori (Samurai) | x1 — accessory charm |
The Ninja's Locks are the standout reward here. They're a currency for expanding your Ninja skill tree, and getting one this early in the Warring States chapter gives you a meaningful head start on builds that lean into ninjutsu.
When to tackle this quest
A Drop of Hope has no unlock requirements and sits in the Warring States period alongside other early Myths like Insatiable Hunger and Desecrated Hot Spring. Completing it before you push into the main assault on Hamamatsu Castle is a good idea — the experience and gear from clearing the bandit camp and the Yoki fight help, and you'll ideally want to be around level 12 or 13 before facing the tougher yokai that populate the castle grounds. The Yoki itself isn't particularly dangerous at that level, but going in underleveled can make even a mini-boss punishing.
Once the ghost finishes his final dialogue and fades away, the quest log updates, and the rewards land in your inventory. There's no follow-up mission tied to A Drop of Hope, but the Ninja's Locks alone make it worth the short detour.