"Is this Palmer Jewelry Shop?"
Fuck, that startled me.
I was just about to open the shop door when a voice suddenly came from behind me, without so much as a hint of a presence.
It was rare for customers to show up starting at this hour. I was so startled I almost let the curse slip straight out.
I swallowed the words hanging on the tip of my tongue along with my breath and turned around, hanging a smile at the corner of my mouth.
"Yes, it is. I apologize for my inadequate reception."
I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I apologized first anyway.
The customer in front of me was flaring his nostrils. His eyes were sharp, too. He looked like the type who would’ve started a whole scene if I hadn’t apologized quickly.
"How can I help you?"
I hurriedly opened the door and let him inside. When I asked with a face that didn’t drop the smile, the customer went, "Ahem," and spat out a dry cough. Luckily, it was a signal that he’d let it slide once.
Now I can confidently say I can put on a sales smile at any time. Thanks to the training I got in the Jongno jewelry district. Even the people everyone else called problem customers were precious customers to me. I couldn’t afford to lose even one.
There was a time when I’d wasted energy wondering if I was living too cravenly. That was back when I was still young and stupid.
In Jongno, I came to my senses late, but here, in Henia, I didn’t even have time to think. If I’d been buried in pointless thoughts, I would’ve already been sold off onto a fishing boat. If that had happened, I’d either be in some fish’s belly by now, or I’d have become a pirate waiting my turn to be hanged. Either way, my neck wouldn’t be where it was.
Tap, tap, tap.
I heard the customer tapping the floor with his cane. He couldn’t easily reveal what business he’d been waiting outside the shop for even before I opened, but he also couldn’t hide his impatience.
He clearly hadn’t come to buy jewelry. He’d come to sell it.
I quickly swept my eyes over his outfit. The hat that should’ve had beaver fur attached looked bare. The buttons that should’ve been on his coat were missing, and loose threads dangled from the front where he couldn’t even fasten it properly. The overall silhouette was also way behind the times.
I had my estimate. He’d obviously blown everything at the gambling table all night, then hastily ripped off the fur and the buttons to sell them. Then he’d lost even that, gotten thrown out of the gambling den, and immediately came running here with a gemstone in his hands—an incurable addict.
The stale, soaked-in smell unique to marijuana stung my nose.
Honestly, he was a welcome customer. A gambler who needed cash fast.
"Please take your time looking around, and if you need any help, call me."
While I stepped back and lit the shop, the customer’s impatience hit its peak. The man, who looked to be in his fifties, was rummaging through his chest in a hurry and even dropped his cane.
Thunk, thunk—rrrroll.
The cane rolled across the marble floor with a loud racket, but I pretended not to hear it.
The man fumbled and pulled out a gemstone.
"A yellow diamond, I see."
When I said it while looking at the large yellow gem, the customer’s complexion brightened instantly.
"Top-grade in both quality and size. And it’s an item with deep history, too."
It looked like money he hadn’t even received yet had already made him comfortable. I nodded while listening to his boastful words that didn’t match his earlier haste.
"May I examine it closely?"
"Granted."
While I peered at the diamond through an appraisal loupe, the customer must’ve picked up the cane that had been rolling on the floor, because a steady tap, tap echoed.
"If you’re a proper jeweler, you’ll recognize its value. These days, New Continent goods are getting attention, but this is a different class altogether. I’ve decided to sell due to circumstances, but if you won’t acknowledge its proper value, then, well…"
The man brought his cane down with a heavy thud. It was a pretty threatening sound.
"It has a lot of impurities mixed in."
Even so, I had to say what needed to be said.
"What do you mean by that!"
"Because of the inclusions, the transparency is significantly reduced and the color is dull. The cutting work itself isn’t bad, but I can’t give it a good grade because it’s a simple baguette cut—a rectangular cut. The cutting style is old, so the reflectivity is terrible. Like this, you can’t properly bring out a diamond’s brilliance. The latest trend is more complex and more precise cutting. If you re-cut it, the weight will drop significantly. Naturally, there will also be cutting costs."
It was an uncommon size at around fifteen carats, but even if I took it to Jongno, it would be hard to get paid for it by weight. The lowest grade, an I-grade, where you can confirm the inclusions with the naked eye. And on top of that, in this world there was one more factor that affected a gemstone’s value.
"More than anything, the contamination rate is so high that it’s in a state where it can’t accept mana. A mage would never touch it."
Gemstones have high value as beautiful ornaments, but they’re also mediums that amplify mana and give it concrete form. Even magical items that let non-mages use magic require gemstones as essential components. Whether a mage is skilled or not, they have no choice but to work hard to get their hands on high-quality gemstones.
But a gemstone as severely contaminated as this, no mage would even spare a glance. So the gambling den wouldn’t have accepted it either.
This customer wouldn’t have been able to accept that. So he got thrown out. The picture drew itself.
For a moment, I almost laughed. That words like mana and mages could feel so obvious to me, that I’d end up “explaining” things like this to a customer—seven years ago, I couldn’t have imagined it for a second.
Back then, I was running an ordinary precious metal shop in Jongno.
It wasn’t exactly ordinary that I’d inherited a jewelry shop after losing my parents and my older brother—my whole family—in a traffic accident, but still.
"Nonsense! Do you have any idea how many mages have coveted this gemstone? How dare some half-baked hack slander my gem?"
With an old man’s anger, he looked down at the diamond in front of him again. The dull reflection almost made me click my tongue.
"It may have been like that before."
Back when baguette cuts were the latest trend. In other words, a very long time ago.
Given the gem’s large weight, it would’ve absorbed and released a lot of mana as well. That meant the probability of contamination would naturally increase. And since the cut wasn’t precise enough to influence the flow of mana, all the more so.
Still, to leave it neglected until the erosion progressed this far.
"But now it’s heavily contaminated. To the point you can clearly confirm it with the naked eye."
"You…!"
"Three hundred heni. No matter where you go, there won’t be a place that will offer this much."
If you converted three hundred gold coins of this era into the value of Korean won in the 2020s, it came out to roughly ten million won. It was a lot of money, but as the value of a fifteen-carat diamond, it was pathetic.
If this yellow diamond had been in perfect condition, even fifty thousand heni wouldn’t have been a waste. But in its current state, it wasn’t good even for use as mere decorative jewelry, let alone as a magical item. Since being old was its only advantage, even three hundred was a generous offer.
"Impudent…! How dare a lowly beta!"
What button had I pressed? The customer suddenly grew violently angry, as if he might swing the cane at me at any moment.
So this customer was an alpha after all. I felt a faint vibration at my wrist. It was a signal that the customer in front of me was giving off pheromones. It was so weak it was easy to miss, like an alarm going off while you’re deep asleep.
Just like I’d naturally come to use words like mana and magic, I’d also come to accept classifications like alpha, omega, and beta. And the fact that they were a standard of status.
It wasn’t that I fully understood and used the terms. In any case, unlike visible magic, I couldn’t smell pheromones.
I—this body of mine—was especially dull even among betas. People said that even if betas couldn’t smell pheromones, if an alpha or omega really put force into it, you could feel their presence, their pressure—but I’d never properly felt it. Even with an alpha right in front of me like this. My wristwatch vibrated because it detected pheromones, so I just went, oh, pheromones are coming out.
If I’d been working at a grocery shop instead of a jewelry shop, my constitution wouldn’t have been a problem at all. I wouldn’t have had to meet high-ranking people.
But I worked at a jewelry shop, and because I had such a dull constitution, I had to have the list and characteristics of the alphas and omegas living in the capital memorized. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake with those precious people.
So why didn’t I know this customer?
I hadn’t heard any rumors of an alpha or omega entering the country recently. Even if someone was a provincial noble, anyone with a townhouse in the capital was someone I knew.
An alpha who’d been off my list until now, then the moment he entered the capital he started gambling. The smell coming off him reeked as badly as the opium stench—just foul, pouring out. I didn’t care about his circumstances or the detailed history of his goods, though.
While I was thinking about the alpha in front of me, the cane came down at me with all his strength.
Clang!
It sounded like someone was about to shout, “Wrong answer!” I blinked. I was too dumbfounded.
The protective barrier installed on the display cases was a maintenance-cost monster. Every month, you had to swap in a one-carat diamond. If this shop were mine, it would be hard to resist the temptation to downgrade the barrier. The one who installed this expensive barrier wasn’t me, but my employer.
Clang! The sound rang out once more. The customer, who’d swung his cane with all his might, wobbled as if he might fall backward from the recoil of hitting the barrier.
"Be careful. All the display cases have protective barriers installed. I’m concerned you might get hurt."
"Cowardly…!"
It seemed my kind explanation pressed his button even deeper. I could only feel wronged.
Cowardly? So I was supposed to just take the cane as it came down? Let him smash up the display cases, too?
Did this customer not have a brain? Ah, right—his brain had melted from gambling and opium.
He seemed to think that since it was a beta’s shop, an alpha like himself would be fine even if he smashed everything. As if.
There weren’t many people who could cause a ruckus in shops around here and still go home just fine. An alpha I couldn’t recognize? Then it was straight to the police office. This was the kind of area where you couldn’t do business without some solid backing. My employer had some pull, too.
And even if I really were cowardly, so what? Charging forward bravely with nothing but courage was the stupid thing. What was I supposed to do, bravely fight back against an old, entitled alpha who didn’t even see betas as people?
That yellow diamond—an old man’s pride and lifeline—was inevitably going to end up in my hands anyway. At a price lower than he’d ever imagined.
"If you’re not satisfied with the price our shop has offered, you’re welcome to inquire elsewhere as much as you like."
I placed the yellow diamond on a tray and held it out with a polite explanation. The customer’s face turned bright red and his whole body shook. He was gripping the cane so tightly I could hear it creak, and his expression was full of grim resolve—like he absolutely had to land a hit on me no matter what.