Two More Gemstones

Onesuko caught the gemstone I tossed as if it were a drop of life itself, cradling it in both hands.

She stared back and forth between it and my face, blinking over and over, then shook her head hard as if trying to deny reality.

At last, she managed to squeeze out a hoarse voice.

“Y-You… processed the uncut stone…?”

“Yeah,” I replied shortly.

Onesuko lowered her gaze again and stared at the Aquamarine I had processed.

Then, as if the gravity of the situation finally hit her, she snapped her head up.

“N-No way, no way, no waaaay!? Y-You really processed an uncut stone!? Processing gemstones is incredibly difficult! How could you possibly do that when you’re supposed to be jobless!?”

“It’s true that I’m jobless. I might not match a professional, but the result isn’t bad, right?”

“Not match a professional!? That’s a lie, isn’t it!? It’s cut this beautifully!? You’re jobless, so how could you pull something like this off!?”

“I can’t tell whether you’re insulting me or praising me, or whether you’re happy or not.
Anyway, it should fit into the hilt now.”

Onesuko snapped her gaze downward.

She drew her sword from its scabbard and hurriedly pressed the blue gemstone into the hollow in the hilt.

Then, as if pulled in by a magnet—

…Kachiiiiiiin!

—the gemstone snapped neatly into place.

At that instant, the entire sword was wrapped in a faint blue glow.

“A-Amazing…”

Onesuko whispered, holding her breath.

“With sloppy processing, the gemstone won’t fit and has to be glued on… But this is like the sword itself welcomed the gemstone…!”

Her body began to tremble.

“I-I can’t believe it…! That I could obtain my very first gemstone this quickly…! I was prepared for it to take a whole year just to get one…! And yet, less than a month after enrolling…! And even if I managed to get an uncut stone, I thought it would take at least three years before a student capable of processing it appeared…! I never imagined there’d be a student who could process it in under an hour…!”

Her voice was shaking uncontrollably.

Looking up at me with eyes as wet and shimmering as the Aquamarine itself, she said,

“Ah… th-thank—!”

This time, I stopped her with my index finger.

“Hey, that oath is important, right? Then save it for someone even more important. And sure, I processed the gemstone, but most of the credit goes to Tom. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything at all.”

Tom let out a happy “Pyaa!” and leapt down from the rock, landing beside Onesuko.

“T-Toooom-kuuuuuuuuuuun—!!”

Clutch! Onesuko hugged Tom tightly.

She pushed him over and buried her face in his belly, rubbing back and forth.

I stood up, stretched once, and looked up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves.

“Alright then, let’s go look around a bit.”

From Onesuko, still face-down, came a muffled voice.

“Look for… what, exactly…?”

“A griffon bird’s nest. I think there’s probably one around here.”

I switched jobs to Ninja and began climbing a nearby tree.

Noticing this, Tom wriggled free from Onesuko’s grip and followed with a cheerful “Pyaa!”

“Right, you’re good at climbing trees. Come along.”

“Pyaa!”

From the ground came the voice of a model student scolding two mischievous boys.

“Leopin-kun!? What are you doing climbing a tree!?”

“I told you already—I’m looking for a griffon bird’s nest.”

“Does one really exist!? And even if it does, what are you planning to do with it!?”

“Just watch.”

“It’s dangerous! Don’t blame me if you fall! Tom-kun, come back here!”

Ignoring her warnings, Tom and I slipped smoothly up the tree.

As we crossed a branch like tightrope walkers, a scream rang out.

“Kyaa!? Please stop! If you fall, it’ll be terrible!”

Balancing myself on the branch, I replied,

“You’re pretty overprotective too—you’re just like Monaka. When we were kids, she’d always panic below every time I climbed a tree.”

“So you’ve been troubling Lady Monaka since forever!? And of course she panicked! She was worried about you!”

“Which means you’re worried about me too, Onesuko.”

“Y-You idiot! Of course not! I’m worried about Tom-kun! I couldn’t care less about you…! If a jobless guy like you fell and died, I wouldn’t feel a thing!”

At that moment, I spotted something glittering inside the hollow of a massive tree.

The hollow was lined with dry grass, scattered with mirror fragments and silver cutlery.

“Found it!” I said, bending the branch and jumping over to the tree.

“No!? T-That’s a lie! Don’t die!” came a desperate scream from below.

“I found the griffon bird’s nest!”

When I reported from the branch above, Onesuko froze, staring up at me.

She covered her mouth with one hand and clutched her chest tightly.

“That gesture really is just like Monaka,” I remarked.

“S-Sure… but more importantly, that’s enough already, right? It’s dangerous—come down…”

“Can’t do that. This is where things really start.”

“Leopin-kun, what have you been trying to do all this time? A griffon bird is still just a bird, right? At most, its nest would have eggs. Risking injury just to grab something like that…”

Rummaging through the nest inside the hollow, I answered,

“When I saw that uncut stone in the rock crevice, I wondered why a gemstone would be there at all.”

“Now that you mention it… but couldn’t someone have dropped it?”

A voice of realization rose from below.

“Don’t tell me… the one who dropped it was…!?”

“Exactly. Griffon birds have a habit of collecting shiny things. The reason it attacked Onesuko to steal the stone might be because it was originally its treasure. And if it ‘dropped’ it, that means the nest had to be somewhere nearby—higher up.”

My guess was right on the mark.

And if it was a griffon bird that dropped gemstones, then surely…

“Oh, there they are! Yellow uncut stone and red uncut stone—got them both!”

“E-Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—!?”