After visiting Reinhardt’s booth, Jin and Elsa continued to tour the venue.

  Reinhardt seemed eager to join us, but he became busy handling several customers that visited his booth.

  Jin and company headed to Steirleana’s booth.

  “Hey, Jin. You’ve come. Elsa, too. Welcome!”


  The centerpiece of Steirleana’s booth was undeniably the crystal golem … no, it was a blue topaz golem, Selene.

  With the smooth feminine body line, the transparent blue body looked even more mystical.

  There were other sculptures and vases made of crystals, as well as accessories. Steirleana was skilled in processing such gems and precious stones.

  “This is an exceptionally beautiful pendant.”


  It was a pendant made of pale blue stone, possibly an aquamarine. It was cut in a pear-shape, or sometimes known as teardrop-shape.

  “Oh, that one. I created that pendant with the leftover material from when I created Selene.”


  It was a blue topaz, not an aquamarine. Elsa was fascinated with the beautiful color.

  “Oh, I see.”


  Steirleana looked at Elsa’s face, then Jin’s, and then gave a cheeky smile.

  “Jin, I’ll give you this for the trouble before.”


  Steirleana handed over the pendant to Jin.

  “Huh?”


  “It’s fine. Keep it.”


  Steirleana halfway forced it into Jin’s hands while winking and said, “If you don’t want it, you can give it to someone else.”


  Jin and Elsa backed out of the booth into the aisle. Right at that moment, two customers came by and started to ask Steirleana questions, so Jin and Elsa walked away along the aisle.

  “…”


  While staring hard at the pendant in his hand, Jin finally realized what Steirleana’s intention was and said, “The color of this stone is very similar to Elsa’s eyes. If you want, I’ll give you this pendant.”


  He handed it to Elsa.

  “Yeah, thank you, Brother Jin.”


  Elsa took the pendant while smiling.

  Steirleana gave the two of them a sidelong glance while smiling, thinking that she was spot on with her assumption.

  “Oh, Jin and Elsa!”


  “Yo, Saki!”


  Right when the two of them were thinking of their next destination, they bumped into Saki.

  “Would you like to go explore the venue together?”


  Jin invited.

  “Yeah, I’d love to. I’d appreciate your explanations about various things in this exhibition as well.”


  From then on, three people (and an Automata) toured the venue together.

  “Where’s Aal?”


  “Oh, I asked him to watch my booth for me.”


  Saki left Aal to watch his booth, just like Jin was doing, touring the venue.

  “What’s that over there?”


  Saki pointed at the booth where a crowd of young customers gathered.

  “Shall we go check it out?”


  We pushed our way through the clamorously bustling crowd to get closer, only to find various sizes of … or more precisely, various dolls that fall into the “small” category. They were lined up packed together.

  “These are …”


  Those would be called Figures, the perfect dolls.

  The smallest ones were about 10 centimeters tall, while the big ones were about 50 centimeters tall.

  They were made with various materials such as gold, silver, copper, marble, and crystal.

  Most of them were in the form of girls, with no dresses on, only the molding. But their vital parts were cleverly concealed by how they were postured.

  “They’re cute, but how shall I put it …”


  Saki turned slightly red as well from embarrassment.

  “… Are they your associates, Brother Jin?”


  Elsa said something so unexpectedly wild.

  “Hey!”


  Jin protested, to which Elsa giggled.

  “No. I’m just kidding. Sorry.”


  Elsa’s remark took Jin and Saki by surprise because it never occurred to them she would crack that sort of joke.

  That was probably because she came back to her home country. Jin thought it was wise to have brought her along.

  “Oh, is that Lord Jin over there?”


  Someone called out to Jin who was engrossed in deep thought. The voice came from inside the booth. That would be the person who created those dolls.

  “I’m a Magi Craftsman from Celuroa Kingdom, Clark Lambda.”


  Lambda would indicate that he was the 11th engineer. He was about in his late 20s to early 30s.

  He had short-cropped brown hair and brown eyes. His face looked ordinary and yet had distinct features; his physique was medium-build. At first glance, his appearance left a light impression.

  The models he made were amazing. Perhaps it was due to the biased theme that his rank stopped at the 11th position. Jin was somewhat rudely thinking somewhere along those lines.

  Without breathing a word of his thoughts, he greeted him back.

  “I’m Jin Nidou.”


  “Oh, it’s an honor to speak with you firsthand. Is that Mini Smith? I envy your ability in creating small golems to that extent.”


  Clark paused, then gripped both of Jin’s hands and said,

  “… If only you could make these dolls come to live!”


  He said it with a voice that resembled a shrill scream of the spirits.

  “Brother Jin, it looks interesting over there, too.”


  “You’re right. Jin, I’m going over there, all right?”


  Elsa and Saki bailed politely.

  Jin came to realization and excused himself as well, and then chased after the two of them.

  “Mr. Clark, I still want to look around the venue, so I’ll excuse myself here today. I’ll see you again sometime.”


  “Ah, Lord Jin.”


  Pretending not to hear Clark’s attempt to stop him, Jin left in a hurry.

  “Hee hee, there are so many different people.”


  Saki laughed at Jin who finally caught up to them.

  Thereafter, Jin and company visited several more booths but decided to check out the Alchemist section since there wasn’t enough time.

  The section was also in the same big hall.

  Undoubtedly, the first booth they stopped at was Saki’s booth.

  Aal was there watching the booth.

  “Are those … your display items?”


  Rare minerals that Saki had collected so far were lined up on the display.

  “Yeah, but my favorite is the paper.”


  That item had been submitted for appraisal, and the value would be announced at the end of this expo.

  “This here is an interesting piece because the stone always breaks into a certain shape, so I collected it.”


  He explained while pointing at his collection.

  Regular octahedral fluorite. Slightly distorted cuboid calcite. Dice-type galena. Thinly peeled biotite.

  “Even though they were formed naturally, these stones have amazing shapes …”


  There were crystals in the shape of hexagonal prisms, cubic pyrites, crystals made of rolled garnet, and so on.

  Those minerals were often seen in the science room of any junior high school.

  “Lastly, these stones have beautiful colors, don’t you think?”


  Purple amethyst, blue sapphire, green emerald, yellow citrine (yellow crystal), red garnet, and two-colored watermelon tourmaline.

  Jin secretly thought that if he collected such gems and precious stones, he would deplete all his wealth and wouldn’t be able to afford his employees anymore.

  “You’re selling rubber, how come you don’t display maple syrup?”


  Jin spoke his mind, to which Saki laughed and answered.

  “Yeah, you taught me about those things, Jin. Aside from the paper (because it was unavoidable), I thought to display only my creations.”


  Saki seemed to have pride in his own style.