Two Jewels

The boys who had crawled out of the pond spat, “Just you wait!” as a parting shot, then fled like drowned rats.

Only then did the area finally regain its quiet.

“Now I can write my map in peace.”

I sat down on a rock by the pond and finished the map on my clipboard.

“With this, the map from my house to the pond is complete. If I connect everything up in the end, I’ll have the whole forest mapped out.”

I clipped a new flyer onto the clipboard and looked around.

“Guess I’ll go a little deeper. If I remember right, this is the place where I first met Kotone.”

I wondered if Kotone might be here, but she wasn’t.

Instead, I found Onesuko—Lady Monaka’s attendant.

Onesuko had jammed her hand into a crack between rocks, grimacing and groaning as she struggled.

When I called out, “What are you doing?” the wrinkles between her brows deepened even further.

With one hand still stuck, she pointed sharply at me with the other.

“Leopin, you’re the worst! Taking advantage of being childhood friends to do this and that to young Lady Monaka…!”

“What do you mean this and that?”

“I-I’m not about to say something that indecent out loud! I was starting to see you in a better light, but now I’m disappointed! Prepare yourself!”

“What exactly are you planning to do?”

“Starting now, I will deliver some educational guidance—! …nghngggh!”

Onesuko tried to stand, but it seemed her arm wouldn’t come out of the rock crevice.

I sighed.

“Seriously… I don’t know how you got like this, but you’re lucky I found you first.”

“What do you mean by that!? Don’t tell me you’re going to do the same kind of thing to me while I can’t move—!?”

“No. I mean it’d be bad if a monster found you. Just wait there.”

I looked around.

Perfect timing—right beside the rock was the fruit I’d been looking for.

I plucked one green, clustered fruit and peeled it.

Inside was a nut that looked almost exactly like a walnut.

I took two of them and crushed them in my palm.

I poured the pulverized nut into a wooden cup I pulled from my coat pocket.

“W-what are you doing…?”

Onesuko asked, anxious.

“Just watch.”

I said—my usual line—as I kept crafting.

I poured water from the leather canteen in my coat pocket into the wooden cup, letting it trickle in.

Then I stirred it lightly with my finger, and it was done.

I splashed the liquid straight into the rock crevice.

Onesuko’s arm was in there, so of course she got drenched.

“Kyah!? W-what are you—ah!?”

Her arm slipped free with a pop, and she fell backward with a heavy thud.

Then she stared at her newly freed hand as if witnessing a miracle.

“W-wha…!? I got stuck this morning, and nothing I did worked until just now…! I was even about to fire a distress flare!? And you freed me without using any power—instantly—just like that!? W-w-w-wha—WHAAAAAAAT!?!”

Still sitting with her legs tucked to one side, Onesuko looked up at me with disbelieving eyes.

“W-what did you do!? That fruit—this liquid—what is it!? Don’t tell me it’s some drug that causes hallucinations!?”

I glanced at the small amount of white liquid left in the cup as I answered.

“Yeah. That fruit’s called Araimi. If you crush it up and mix it with water, it turns into something like detergent.”

Even after hearing my explanation, Onesuko still looked half unconvinced.

“N-no way… there’s a fruit like that? Something that magical…?”

Then she gave me a sidelong glance.

“…Fine. I’ll at least thank you for helping me.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I’m going to worry! I can’t believe I got saved with detergent by someone whose shirt is that filthy…”

The topic took such an unexpected turn that I blurted out a stupid, “Huh?”

“If you can make detergent, you can wash a dress shirt. So why is yours so dirty?”

She seemed downright obsessed with my shirt.

“…Because washing it felt like a hassle. And besides, why do you even care?”

For the record, this academy has a special rule: only the female students are allowed to use the shower room and laundry area in the school building.

That’s why Lady Monaka and Lady Kotone always smell nice and always wear bright-white robes and hakama.

I felt awkward, like she was calling me lazy without saying it outright, so I changed the subject.

“Anyway—why did you stick your hand in that rock in the first place?”

This time Onesuko was the one who looked uncomfortable.

“That’s none of your business. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Mm-hm.”

I replied, and leaned in to peer into the crack where her hand had been.

Deep inside, something that looked like a dull-glowing blue stone lay there.

“From the look of it, that’s a shard of uncut gemstone. Were you trying to get that?”

Onesuko kept her face turned away, lips pushed into a sulky pout.

“Yeah. Laugh if you want.”

“I’m not laughing. If it’s a gemstone, anyone would want it.”

I tapped my coat’s chest pocket twice.

“Besides… I’ve got a jewel of my own, too.”

At my signal, a mouse crawled out from my chest pocket.

I extended my arm toward the crevice like I was escorting a lady, and she scurried down my arm and into the hole.

A moment later, she returned carrying the raw stone from the bottom.

She dropped it into my palm with a soft plop.

I gently scratched the “jewel” heading back into my pocket with a fingertip.

Then I offered the other jewel to Onesuko—who was still looking away—and said,

“Here. Take it.”

“…?”

Onesuko turned back, and the instant the raw stone entered her view, her slightly upturned eyes went wide.

“Wha… WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?”