"This must be several carats, right?"
Dian held the transparent, reflective crystal between two fingers, examining it in the faint sunlight.
He took a deep breath, suppressing his excitement.
Honestly, diamond chips would not have been worth much, but what he held was no chip. It was a loose diamond with a fairly decent shape.
Dian roughly estimated its size and figured he could upgrade himself to rich-guy status the moment he got home.
"Ah... life really catches you off guard. Never thought I'd see this day."
He gazed at the captivating little thing in his hand. Of course, the glittering carbon compound itself did not particularly interest him.
But!
He was interested in what the little thing represented.
Dian drew a deep breath, as though he could smell the most intoxicating scent imaginable.
The scent of money.
Arcanine suddenly sniffed, then immediately stood up and roared.
"Roar!"
A figure abruptly became visible. The Pokémon was tiptoeing directly in front of Dian, having apparently concealed itself with a Ghost-type's natural ability to turn invisible.
"Ya mi!"
The short, dark-purple humanoid froze. Sableye tilted his head and glanced around, then continued tiptoeing toward Dian.
Dian stared expressionlessly at the Sableye, who was still trying to pretend nobody could see him.
Had this fellow never encountered Foresight or Odor Sleuth? Did he still think he had not been exposed?
Dian had been prepared for this all along. As the saying went, wherever there were gemstones, there was probably a Sableye. After all, these Pokémon fed on all sorts of crystalline gems.
"Ya mi..."
Still believing he had gone unnoticed, Sableye gradually approached Dian, then compared their heights and realized he probably could not reach.
After all, he stood less than half a meter tall—not even a third of Captain Levi's one hundred