why my nested function is returning undefined? [duplicate]

function counting(final=100){
    const initialCount = 0
    return counter(initialCount)

    function counter(count){
        if(count==final) return count
        else counter(count+1)
    }
}
counting() ///undefined

counter is returning undefined, but when i make it log what it needs to return, it does:

function counting2(final=100){
    const initialCount = 0
    counter(initialCount)
    function counter(count){
        if(count==final) console.log(count)
        else counter(count+1)
    }
}

why this is happening?