I stepped into the living room. Inside was a wooden table, a little old but with fine decorations carved into it, surrounded by four chairs. It looked a little expensive for just one person, but I supposed it wasn’t too weird if you were an adventurer with a fixed base in Esma.
“Are you a tea or coffee person?” Tiesel asked.
“Neither, really,” I replied.
“All right, then I’ll put on some coffee. Milk? Sugar?”
“I’ll have it black. Anyway, I wanna get down to the matter at hand.”
Ignoring my comment, Tiesel headed to the kitchen and started to carefully pour coffee from the pot into two mugs. I hadn’t expected to be welcomed in hospitably let alone receive some coffee, so I felt a bit on edge.
“You’re an adventurer to your core, aren’t you?” Tiesel said with a wry smile, before placing two identical mugs onto the table. “It’s not poisoned, so take whichever you like.”
“Thanks.”
I chose the mug on the right and took a sip after seeing Tiesel drink some first. Mm-hmm... Bitter. I would have felt bad about asking for milk and sugar, so I hadn’t, but coffee was a luxury I didn’t get to have often, and I wasn’t used to the taste. How annoying—if Leen were here, she would’ve filled the mug with both.
Tiesel’s eyes wrinkled with pleasure; evidently, he drank this stuff all the time. What a sweet little life he had.
“Sorry for asking you to come all the way here,” Tiesel said.
“It’s fine. It’s part of the job.”
I was playing the role of messenger pigeon today. I hadn’t heard much of the details of the quest, so I didn’t know what awaited us. I was itching to get into the nitty-gritty. I steeled myself and downed my bitter coffee.
“Whew... I was told to ask the client for the details,” I went on.
“Yeah... All right, let’s talk business.” Tiesel put his cup down, and his smile disappeared as his face took on a serious expression. “First of all, I want to apologize. This has to do with the gemstone I tried to sell you.”
Tiesel bowed his head slightly, and then pulled out the ring from yesterday and placed it on the table. The ring was finely made, and the gemstone glittered with an astounding light. Looking at it and then at Tiesel’s Sphere, it was clear just how different they were. Although the colors were similar, the gemstone on the ring seemed to pour out light itself. It was obvious that Tiesel was a decent adventurer, but even the deep hue of his Sphere paled in comparison to the gemstone on the ring. If I hadn’t been told a thing, I would say that it was a Carbuncle Stone without question.
“So...it’s a fake, then?” I said.
“No. It’s real,” Tiesel said, a smile appearing once more as he tossed the ring like a coin. “But it’s not got that much value. No, it’d be better to say it’s lost its value.”
I didn’t know what he meant.
Tiesel got up and led me upstairs. At the end of the short hall, there were two doors. I wondered if Sharney lived here too. Tiesel must have realized what I was thinking, for as he opened the door nearest to us, he said, “Sharney’s room is the one at the end of the hall, though no one’s using it right now.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She’s been living with her fiancé for the past half year.”
“Ah, I see.”
I could sense a flush of anger as Tiesel had said “fiancé,” but I decided to ignore it for his benefit. I followed Tiesel into the room. There was a bed, a bookshelf, and a desk all crammed inside. It wasn’t all too big, but fine enough for one person. On top of the desk...
“Mi...foo...”
...there was a carbuncle, fast asleep.
This was the first time I’d ever seen one—they were rare creatures, and that was why Carbuncle Stones accrued such value. However, I’d heard stories of carbuncles from people who’d seen them and had even seen a painting of one before. They had long, wide ears like rabbits, and their bodies were covered in soft fur. They were like—how to put this—slightly scruffy but fluffy cats. The one on the desk was small enough to hold in both hands. Its fur was fully black, aside from the ends of its ears and its paws, which were white. And there, on its forehead, like I’d seen a number of times today and yesterday, was an orange Carbuncle Stone.
“Mifoo... Mii...foo...”
The carbuncle’s breathing was labored, and it wiggled its paws every now and then before going still once more. Even I could tell that this monster wasn’t well.
“Explain,” I said.
“I found him about a year ago during a quest.”
Tiesel placed his hand upon the tired carbuncle’s head, gave it a stroke, and it wheezed once more with a “mifoo...” It seemed a little more relieved when he did so.
“I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world,” he went on. “There were so many costs with Sharney’s wedding, so I thought if I could hunt this guy, then I could make a killing.”
This didn’t seem to be the attitude to display toward a creature you were stroking, but to be honest, if I’d found a carbuncle during a quest, I probably would’ve thought the same thing. Even someone not very smart like me could tell it was cute, but that was another matter.
“I fired off a quick magic spell from behind, but he dodged it. I thought I’d fumbled my chance and lost him for good, but...”
“But?”
“For some reason, he came over to me, wagging his tail. I was a bit confused, but he wouldn’t run even when I reached out. When I picked him up, he started squeaking with this ‘mii mii’ sound.”
“And you felt sorry for it and took it home?” I said.
This emotion was completely foreign to me, but it seemed like an odd decision for an adventurer who prioritized pragmatism.
“No, I actually tried to see if I could strangle him, but he dashed off as soon as I showed any ill will.”
I’d like to rescind my earlier statement—he was an adventurer to the core.
“But even then, he wouldn’t leave my side. I tried throwing him some food and he ate it up,” Tiesel went on.
“Food...?”
“Yeah, look. Fetur!”
As Tiesel said this word, his Sphere glowed with a pale light, and a small ball of flame appeared in thin air. This was a pretty orthodox but useful form of fire magic called Flarema. The fire disappeared in an instant, and all that remained was a number of particles, orange like his Sphere, hovering in the air. These were similar to the green particles Leen’s staff could conjure, albeit on a smaller scale.
In the next moment, the carbuncle opened its mouth and the particles zoomed toward it. After taking them all in, it let out a little burp, before sighing with another “mifoo.” It looked like it had calmed down, and its breathing had settled.
“This thing eats mana particles...?” I muttered.
Mana could be transformed into a variety of different states—magic was the ability to control this. You used catalysts that could give mana different affinities, used spells or runes to affect or alter them, and then used tools to bring it all together. There were many steps required to activate magic, but due to the various boons it provided, it had been something that people had studied for ages and applied for use in various fields.
Adventurers such as Tiesel, who were wizards, could engrave magic into their Spheres allowing the Sphere itself to be used as a catalyst, casting magic with a single registered word. When this happened, the mana remnants that were used in the spell would change color due to the influence of the user’s Sphere. Basically, just as Leen and Tiesel had both demonstrated, when magic was used, colored particles appeared. Tiesel had used his fire magic just now to create mana particles to feed to this carbuncle.
As for the particles that I’d created when neutralizing a witch’s curse...I still didn’t know.
“That’s not all. You came at the perfect time. Look,” Tiesel said.
“Mifoo, mifoo... Mii...foooo...”
I looked over to see the carbuncle shaking its head, and suddenly the Carbuncle Stone dropped from its forehead.
“Whoa...”
A hugely expensive gemstone...just dropped off?! Huh, who knew you could get one without ripping the carbuncle to bits.
“Mifoooo...”
The carbuncle slumped onto the desk, maybe because the act had been tiring. Where the stone had once been I could see the beginnings of a new gemstone starting to form.
“The ring I showed you earlier and the Carbuncle Stone you were shown in the market yesterday...were both made by him,” Tiesel said.
“No way...”
Tiesel’s “pet” carbuncle had been producing Carbuncle Stones for free! This was like a literal golden goose! No, maybe even more valuable than that. It was a limitless source of money, an ultimate form of alchemy. Tiesel shook his head, evidently seeing from my expression what I was thinking.
“It didn’t go quite so smoothly. You should know exactly why.”
“Ah.”
As soon as he said this, I realized—I myself hadn’t bought the hugely discounted Carbuncle Stone.
“He can produce one per week. At first, I made a lot of money. A hell of a lot. Even with merchants involved, I came away with a small fortune.”
“I bet.”
I imagined the first sales went by without issue, earning Tiesel a lot of profit. However, the problem was that he was dealing in gemstones.
“This guy can only make the same color of Carbuncle Stone. So because I couldn’t offer anything different, I got fewer and fewer sales. People want something that no one else has, you see.”