Deer, Give Me Your Jewels, Please... [B-Rank Exam]

Ah, Sakuramori. A beautiful forest with such a beautiful theme in bright, cherry-pink fashion. The leaves were starting to sprout out in this early spring morning, and their sharp, bright colors intrigued the librarian and made his heart restful and joyous. It was such a nice atmosphere, that he almost forgot his purpose in this forest to begin with. Why was he walking around with his equipment; Stinkriid and Agmiin? Why was he also geared up with a backpack? What was he doing here again? Wasn’t he satisfied enough with the looks of Sakuramori? He had been here previously with his guildmates in order to aid Alma on a quest, but this time, the quest was his to complete. He was… peaking, in his rank.

There came a time when a wizard of a guild fulfilled the requirements to rank up. These requirements could be a number of quests taken and completed, magical prowess and many more things considered by the respective Guildmasters. Now, his Guildmaster must’ve seen it necessary to bump him up to a B-Rank wizard, and he wasn’t going to disappoint his mistress’ decision. The one who dealt with the details of his specific exam was one of the Aces of the guild, and it was quite clear why he was sent back to Sakuramori, given what he had experienced back there with mentioned Ace…

He had become a fan of the jeweled antlers that the deer native to Sakuramori proudly wore on their skulls. He had even made comments about taking some for further studying, but he was rightfully rebuked by his Ace back then. Nature wasn’t for his taking, for he too was a product of Mother Nature and he had to follow her rules strictly. However, if he could convince the deer to willingly give him samples of their antlers’ jewels, then that would likely be acceptable. He had no intention of taking their lives because of something as mere as jewels, anyway, so when he heard about that possible method, then he nodded in agreement. That was the route that he was going to take, and that was why he was here. Back to the matters at hand.

Every step that he took on his way through the woods of Sakuramori warned those around him, since the branches underneath were broken down by his boots. It was a sore sting to then spot some of the deer once again from afar, only to have them stand up in fear of what was approaching them.

“W-Wait, it’s just me- I mean, obviously you don’t know who I am, but allow me to ex-“ Yuvon blabbered out, only to be met by a horde of running deer heading at the opposite direction from his location, “N-Noooooo…” This was, honestly, saddening for the masked wizard to witness. He didn’t want to scare them, but he really wanted to study those jewels…

With a quick flick of his wrist, he was surrounded by dark-green tentacles that slithered around his body and pulled him into a portal to Apocrypha. Once the tentacles let go of him again, his feet were touching the papers covering the ground, and he looked up at the bright, green and foggy atmosphere. What was he doing here, you might ask? Well, to calm down someone, you had to communicate with them… in their language. He had to learn deer language, so he would take a look in Apocrypha for any books or scrolls that had any information on deer and how to calm them down or befriend them.

His feet led him across the halls of Apocrypha as he felt that he knew exactly where to go to find what he was looking for. This place had a habit of installing a sense of direction to whoever entered, so they would always be able to find the knowledge and information that they searched for. It was a last reward to those who had gone their way to find this place to begin with.

That was why he was quick to find a scroll on deer behavior. The author was a follower of the ways of ancient, Minstrelian beliefs, and he held the crown deer in such high regard that he studied about them and the interaction between them. In his scroll, there was a passage that Yuvon read aloud for himself:

“The crown deer are shy as the purest of maidens in their boudoir. This is a matter of what is written in their heritage; only two things can break the barrier between humans and these deer. One is that you let them eat honey, for this will calm their nerves down. Cover yourself in honey for closer interactions-“

Yuvon had read enough, so he put back the scroll and rushed out of Apocrypha to test this out. Once he was back, he looked at the trees of Sakuramori and discovered one that was leaking resin. Resin in trees and honey had a lot in common, and he didn’t have access to any other honey nearby… even his fridge in Apocrypha was out of honey, so this was his only option.

Once he had covered his clothes in the resin, he took a handful from the leaking tree and approached another, smaller group of four deer; it looked like 2 adult deers, one fawn and a doe. Surprisingly, they were standing up and approaching him, and they began licking the resin off of his clothes… which caused the librarian to sweat violently.

For some reason, to express their joy, Yuvon witnessed that the deer shook their antlers violently, letting the jewels fall to the ground. The young fawn did so too, and so did the three older ones. Looking down at one of the adult deer, Yuvon’s face brightened up. “T-This is it…!” he spoke up loud, suddenly scaring them off again without him meaning to…

But he now had a bag full of jewels from the fawn, doe and the stag… and the teenage one that was chilling about.

WC: 1007

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