CH 22

Meanwhile, a week had passed since Citrina had left. The Pietro Duchy had been in a quiet period of upheaval.

Aaron came in and filled the space when the nameless knight left.

He was meeting Aaron a week after Citrina had left. Desian’s eyes that looked at his brother without any emotion had become strange.

In Aaron’s hand was the sword Citrina gifted him. Aaron set his sword on the table.

“Brother.”

“…..”

“Citrina’s room smelled good. It was always like that. Do you remember, Brother?”

Desian had a gruff face. There was not even a slight change in expression.

“Brother, I can’t smell anything now”

The talk was completely one-sided. Desian stared into his eyes.

“Get to the point.”

“I’m going to become a knight. I want to protect Citrina with this sword she gave me.”

“You don’t have to protect Citrina.”

It was Desian who bared his fangs at his brother. It was surprising since he showed such a friendly attitude towards Citrina.

Aaron gave a small smile and whispered.

“Yeah, but I still want to go the to knight’s academy.’

“Do as you will.”

Desian nodded without much emotion. Aaron grinned at the sword in his hand. That was because Citrina gave him the sword.

As Aaron stared at the sword, he said

“How far has Citrina gone? I’m curious.”

****

After signing the dwarven contract and collecting the Silmaril, Citrina headed to the atelier’s shared house with Adilac. The atelier provided individual rooms for the disciples.

After saying goodbye to Adilac, Citrina went to her room and took out the Silmaril.

“What if this isn’t it?”

In a way, she had gambled away four years of her life.

Citrina’s lips opened.

“Hi, Gemma, will you appear?”

When the world tree had died, pieces of it had scattered all over the world as Silmaril. The jewel spirit had hidden in this piece since the fall of the Holy Kingdom.

Unlike other spirits, summoners did not need special abilities to call her. It was said you could summon her if you called her name close to the jewel.

……

But it was surprisingly quiet.

‘Oh, is this not it?’

Citrina turned the gemstone back and forth. It was close to the depiction of Silmaril from the original work.

‘No matter how much I look, I think Gemma is the hidden boss.’

Citrina was deep in thought. She thought that this gemstone was the correct one, but didn’t know how to wake her.

‘How did Elaina’s assistant call Gemma?’

She thought all she had to do was call Gemma’s name. ‘Should I do it kindly?’

‘Is being kind the key?’

Gemma was said to be a delicate spirit.

Citrina put the Silmaril on top of the small bedside table. And she called the name of the spirit as if she were singing, friendly and quietly.

“Gemma.”

A little wind tickled her hair. Citrina closed her eyes and felt the wind. The calm wind was lovely.

-Who are you?

Citrina didn’t open her eyes or answer. The warm, tranquil wind surrounded her.

-Are you the one who woke me up?

-Yeah, it’s me.

Citrina answer Gemma’s wary whisper with an extremely sweet voice.

-How did you know my name? Do you want to form a contract?

An insubstantial low voice reached Citrina ears. It was a neutral voice- neither male nor female.

-A contract?

-Yeah. Do you want to form a contract?

-That’s right. What do you want, Silmaril? I’ll give you that.

What Gemma wanted was Silmaril from the world tree. Only with that Silmaril could Gemma advance to an intermediate spirit.

-I like only the finest Silmaril.

Gemma didn’t speak for a while.

‘The spirit is sensitive to authenticity.”

In particular, the jewel spirit was good at measuring real and fake, true and false.

Therefore she could probably tell that Citrina’s words were not a lie.

The gentle breeze stopped.

Nevertheless the voice in Citrina’s ear was different from what she expected.

She had red cheeks and a doll-like appearance, about as small as Citrina’s palm.

A winged spirit appeared with twinkling hair and sparkling eyes.

– Give me Silmaril and the music box.

-Music box?

-Yeah. What will you do with it? I’ll usually sleep in your necklace, but sometimes I’ll sleep in the music box. The magic in there feels awfully good.

Gemma whispered with a dreamy face.

Citrina looked at the music box. It was the music box that Desian had cast magic on and Aaron had given her.

What kind of magic was in there that a spirit would admire?

-The contract is set. I’ll help you in the future. When is the deadline of the contract?

-Just until I die.

-Alright. I’m really excited!

Gemma flew around the room. Something glittery fell along the wing’s path.

Citrina was very happy to leave Gemma to her own devices.

The spirit was invisible to other people. She was only visible to the person she protected. Therefore she was fine leaving the spirit to fly happily.

Also, she thought about how she would begin learning about the process to make jewelry tomorrow.

It felt like the world she had dreamed of was opening up.

Her heart sang.

It was just enough to look forward to tomorrow.