“—ake up already! I heard loudly in my ears as I was jostled back and forth.

“Just five more minutes,” I mumbled, trying to go back to sleep.

“You know I can’t understand whatever you said. Anyways, it’s already noon and I’m hungry!”

I ignored the voice, which went on for a while, until I felt myself being lifted off my comfortable bed. I didn’t think much of it until liters of cold water splashed onto my face. That definitely got me wide awake.

“It’s already noon! Why are you so tired this time?” Anortha asked.

Since I was in the bathroom, there was nothing to write with, so I couldn’t retort that if she didn’t force that magic lesson on me yesterday, I wouldn’t be so exhausted.

Now seeing that I was awake, Anortha used magic to dry off the water, and then ushered me into the kitchen. Or at least tried to. After realizing what state I was in, I slipped past her and ran back toward the bedroom.

“You already slept enough!” she yelled as she chased after me.

This is when I really wish I could communicate without writing, I thought. Unfortunately, I couldn’t, so I continued to run.

I threw open the bedroom door and ran to the drawers, then yanked the drawers open, so I could fetch my clothes. At least the elf let me dress up in peace. However, as soon as I put on my last garment, she immediately pulled me to the kitchen.

I looked into the icebox to see what was available for me to cook, and then suddenly had a thought.

I wrote on the chalkboard, “Since I know how to push around mana now, can’t I operate the stove myself now? Or does it take more than injecting mana into the red stone?”

“It is just injecting mana into the fire magic stone, but, uh…”

Anortha was taking a while, so I wrote, “So what’s the issue?”

“Um, you can’t add too much or too little mana, otherwise, it won’t work as expected?”

“I mean I can try it, and as long as I do it slowly and carefully, I should get the amount right, right?”

“Well, yes, but uh —”

“What’s the actual reason you don’t seem to want me to try?”

She mumbled, “I, uh, already don’t do much in the actual cooking process, so I feel like I’m contributing even less, so it feels like an even bigger lie when I say I cooked the dishes.”

I gave her a flat stare, and wrote “You know that is easily remedied by doing actual cooking, or even just the food prep?”

She shifted uncomfortably and refused to look at me.

“Well you should still learn it, since what would happen if I got sick and physically was unable to cook?”

“I’ll just cure you.”

Right. There was magic. “Well, what if I got a disease you couldn’t cure?”

“I know how to cure all common ailments, and even if you got some exotic one, I’m sure I could, or at least my parents could.”

I let out a sigh, and wrote, “Well, alternatively, you can just tell your parents that I’m doing the actual cooking if lying is bugging you.”

“But mother always has been nagging me to learn how to cook, and because she thinks I’m cooking, she hasn’t done that.”

I really wanted to tell her that her mother already knows, but I was told not to, and her mother seemed pretty scary.

Seeing that there is no actual issue in me trying to start the magical stove myself, I wrote, “So how much mana do I push into the red stone anyways?”

“Um…”

Seeing that she was still reluctant, I wrote, “Not my problem if today’s lunch ends up being raw.”

“Can’t I just turn on the stove for you?”

I was still not very happy about my treatment earlier in the day, so I wrote, “You know, it’d be a real shame if I accidentally let slip about who is actually doing the cooking. A real shame.” Especially for myself, since who knows what her mother would do to me, I added in my mind.

Anortha gasped, “You wouldn’t!”

I bluffed, “Oh yes I would.”

She pouted, and said, “Why are you so mean today?”

I wrote, “I don’t know. Maybe someone forced me to move mana even when I was really exhausted, and then proceeded to rudely wake me up the next day, not even letting me get dressed, and then tried —” *snap* Ah crap, the chalk broke. I got another one and continued to write, “to prevent me from using the magic that I had to suffer to learn?”

She said in a quiet voice, “You can go back to sleep if you want. I’ll figure something out for lunch. I’ll be more gentle during the magic lessons. And I’d be happy to teach you how to operate the fire magic stone.”

Wow, she got awfully accommodating all of a sudden.

I wrote, “I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep now, but I would like to operate the stove myself.”

“Okay, you know the amount of mana you were pushing back into me yesterday? Do that for about … two minutes and that should be good.”

“Two minutes? Not seconds?”

“Yes, two minutes,” she answered.

“Doesn’t it take like a few seconds for you though?”

“Yeah, but that’s because your mana output currently is rather… small. But that’s okay. This is literally your second day of learning magic.”

That’s fair I suppose. I grabbed the red stone in my hand and began to pump mana into it, only for it to be immediately snatched away.

“What are you doing?” Anortha yelled.

Confused, I walked back to the chalkboard to write, “I was just doing what you told me to?”

“But the fire stone will just burn your hand if you hold it like that.”

Oh, that’s true. Wait, but, “How else would I put mana in it if I can’t touch it?”

Anortha looked at what I wrote for a good while, and eventually replied, “I don’t know. It does take a short while before it really heats up, but since it’ll take you a few minutes, you’d burn yourself. I guess learn how to increase your output?”

“So in the end, I still can’t do it myself?”

“I guess?”

With a sigh, I tossed the red rock in Anortha’s direction, and she fumbled a bit before securing it.

Lunch time was a lot more quiet than usual, but since I still had a lingering headache, I appreciated the silence. The magic lesson was more taxing than expected, since the food I ended up was not very well done. Since it would be a problem if my employers ate substandard meals, as soon as I finished my meal, I went to sleep.