Minato Ward, underground car park of a shopping centre.
Luo Shu sat in his parked car, checking the LINE interface on his phone.
[Mira Tsubakihara: Emergency help!! Come pick me up at this location ASAP. (GPS location map.JPG)]
After glancing at the message, Luo Shu waited about six or seven minutes in the underground car park before looking up to see Mira Tsubakihara emerge from the lift. She wore a light blue pleated skirt and a straw hat.
Spotting her, Luo Shu flicked the windscreen wipers, causing the car's headlights to flash twice.
Noticing the signal, Mira immediately looked over. Through the windscreen, she caught sight of Luo Shu and brightened, quickly approaching.
With a click, Mira opened the passenger door and slid in, exhaling deeply as she said:
"Saved!"
She then pulled out her phone, opened the navigation app, and handed it to Luo Shu:
"We need to go here next. Please!"
Taking the phone, Luo Shu gave it a quick glance before setting it aside. As he started the car, he asked curiously:
"What on earth happened that made you use words like 'emergency help'?"
"Ah~" Mira blinked, then clasped her hands together apologetically. "Actually, the jewellery shop suddenly had a difficult customer, so I got delayed and almost missed meeting a friend. That's why I..."
"...So you called me as a free chauffeur?"
Luo Shu couldn't help but laugh:
"I thought something serious had happened. Really, don't use such worrying words next time."
"Hehe~" Mira grinned sheepishly, then muttered under her breath: "I didn't expect Sonoko to suddenly drag her best friend along to buy jewellery..."
"Sonoko?" Luo Shu paused before pressing the accelerator, glancing at Mira. "The difficult customer?"
Mira fastened her seatbelt and stretched:
"Yeah, Sonoko Suzuki, the second daughter of the Suzuki conglomerate. Her older sister Ayako is a good friend, so I had to personally attend to her."
"I thought today would just be a quick visit to the shop."
Hearing this, Luo Shu fell silent for a moment before asking curiously: "...Was the friend Sonoko brought along named Ran Mouri?"
Mira looked at him in surprise: "You know them, Shu-kun?"
"I have some business dealings with Ran's father, Mr Kogoro."
Luo Shu explained casually, then quipped:
"Is the rich people's circle really this small?"
Even in Mira's jewellery shop in Minato Ward, Sonoko Suzuki and Ran Mouri could appear?
Had he arrived too late? If he'd come earlier, might he have seen Ran and Sonoko?
"So you know them through Ran's father. No wonder."
Mira nodded in understanding, then added wistfully:
"Still, Sonoko and Ran are really close, aren't they?"
"How so?" Luo Shu asked as he drove out of the underground car park.
Mira blinked and smiled: "All the jewellery Sonoko picked out was under 30,000 yen."
"I see..." Luo Shu looked suddenly enlightened upon hearing this. As the second daughter of a conglomerate family, Sonoko Suzuki naturally had no shortage of money to spend, yet she deliberately bought inexpensive jewellery – undoubtedly to accommodate Mouri Ran's financial situation.
Someone who was so considerate of her friend's feelings... No wonder Mira Tsubakihara had said the two were close.
"But come to think of it, why doesn't Sonoko Suzuki take Mouri Ran to more suitable shops? The jewellery stores in Minato Ward are mid-to-high range, aren't they?"
Hearing Luo Shu's words, Mira Tsubakihara's gaze drifted slightly before she murmured quietly:
"Probably because of that new line of Lucky Amulets recently released by the jeweller's..."
Hearing this, Luo Shu immediately guessed something and glanced sideways at Mira Tsubakihara:
"You've been selling defective alchemy products at jewellery shops?"
Mira Tsubakihara's awakened skill was artefact crafting related to Alchemy. Due to personal preferences, she'd recently been researching gemstone jewellery-type enchanted items.
Being a novice, Mira produced quite a few defective products. Just in these past few weeks, Luo Shu alone knew she'd consumed dozens of kilograms of gemstones.
Luo Shu had even contributed some points to exchange for cheap supernatural materials from the system, allowing Mira to practice with them.
After all, as an Alchemist—a profession with great late-game potential—Luo Shu naturally wanted to invest heavily in her development since he'd encountered her.
With such mass production, defective items were inevitable.
At Luo Shu's question, Mira pinched her thumb and forefinger together:
"I only sold a tiny bit of the defective ones."
Luo Shu gave her a look but didn't mind her selling mystic side products. Mira wasn't foolish enough to sell anything substantial. Those defective items Luo Shu had seen were probably only slightly better than the trinkets sold at shrines.
That slight advantage is that they actually contained mystic side power, but just barely.
Suppose a Common Rank ability was an adequate supernatural power worth 100 Points when sold within the Divine Pantheon. In that case, the energy attached to those defective items might be worth 0.1 points at most.
Truly possessing ability yet utterly useless.
"You mentioned Lucky Amulets earlier... were those experimental items made by extracting power from the Lucky Wallet?"
"Yes." Mira's expression soured at the mention of the Abyss Artefact Luo Shu had lent her for several days. "All the practice gemstones and silver jewellery failed."
"Victory and defeat are common in battle. Besides, failure is perfectly normal when starting out in Alchemy."
Luo Shu glanced at the map Mira had handed him earlier, driving out of the underground garage towards Shiba Park:
"By the way, which friend did you make plans with?"
Mira smiled cheerfully:
"A girl from my old neighbourhood. She's such a sweet, sensible child, it almost hurts."
"Oh, incidentally, she's planning to rent in our apartment building. I promised to help her move today."
After a pause, Luo Shu said in a peculiar tone:
"This neighbourhood girl you mentioned... wouldn't happen to be called Mahiru Shiina, would she?"