Volume 7 - Chapter 9 – The Ores (2/2)
“Isn’t that fluorite.”
Elsa caught his absent-minded muttering.
“Fluorite?”
“Mm, yeah. It’s the gem that, um, Edem is holding. It’s a neat octahedron, right? Fluorite has that kind of cleavage.”
Fluorite is calcium fluoride. In fact, it is also used in iron manufacture. At the very least, the electric furnace that Jin fell into utilized it in its blast furnace to draw out the foreign matter called slag while manufacturing iron.
And that’s why contrary to expectations it was a mineral Jin was familiar with.
Because it was too soft for a gem (4 on Moh’s hardness scale), no one but some collectors gathered them.
This was probably also one of the freebies for tourists.
“My my, Edem also found a splendid gem. I’m glad.”
“Brother, I found a pink gem.”
“Is that so, good for you.”
“It is.”
Jin had no intention of throwing cold water on the delighted family. However. Their intimacy was just a bit enviable, he thought.
“Alright everyone, did you have fun? It’s about time for us to get out, so please follow me.”
The guide then raised his voice. The eight people returned the borrowed Magi Tools and returned the way they came.
＊ ＊ ＊
When they came out, the clouds had split and bits of blue sky peeked out from between them. The blowing winds were already the winds of spring.
“Ahh, the outside air is good, isn’t it.”
Jin said while stretching, Reinhardt also agreed with an ‘indeed’, and Elsa too nodded rapidly.
“Well then, farewell everyone.”
The wife of Viscount Secatt said her goodbyes. While waving her hand Schiede said,
“Mister, miss, bye bye!”
Jin and Elsa waved their hands a bit in return.
It was precisely lunchtime so they decided to try going into a nearby restaurant.
Because this was a mining village, the restaurant’s insides too were decorated with various large and small crystals, gems, and pieces of ore.
“There’s no Aquamarine?”
Elsa asked Jin with a low voice.
“Aquamarine, huh. I wonder.”
Aquamarine resembled the color of Elsa’s eyes well. That was one of the reasons it was Elsa’s favorite gem.
“Ah, that seems to be the case.”
There was a fist-sized crystal decoration. Aquamarines were the same mineral as emeralds, but emeralds were crystals born deep underground in enormous pressure, while aquamarines could be found inside regular pegmatite.
“That’s, pretty.”
“It’s pretty even without polishing, huh.”
“Mh-hm, I’d say that if a polished gem was a dressed-up beautiful woman, a raw gem would be a pristine village girl.”
“? ? ?”
“…”
Reinhardt sudddenly cut into the conversation. Both Jin and Elsa couldn’t help making an undescribable face as Reinhardt said something uncharacteristically pretentious.
“Huh? I’ve got a feeling that you’re thinking of something awful.”
Reinhardt guessed and said while smiling bitterly, then,
“It’s not just your imagination. A line like that doesn’t suit Rai-nii.”
Elsa revealed her honest impression.
“That’s terrible. I was just considering whether or not to buy that gem, but should I not?”
Reinhardt said as if disgruntled and,
“Sorry. Rai-nii is handsome.”
Elsa said and edged closer to him. Reinhardt’s bitter smile intensified,
“Just when I think you’ve become more of an adult, but you never change, huh. Oh well, I’ll buy it.”
Reinhardt was weak towards his cousin.
＊ ＊ ＊
“So sapphires like that still come out…?”
The guide who had watched Schiede hand it over to her mother, the Viscount Secatt’s wife, reported it to the miners’ guild.
After that, the tunnel for tourists was closed for two weeks, and mining was cirred out, but far from pink sapphires even regular corundum was found barely found.