When Anortha woke up, she saw Pochi absorbed in reading a book. She saw that her message on the chalkboard was erased, and replaced with a rather ominous “We need to talk.”

The elf timidly said, “Good morning. Uh, what did you want to talk about?” which caused Pochi to look up from her book in response and walk over to the chalkboard.

Pochi wrote, “After reading your message yesterday, I feel like there’s some things to clarify, so I’ll start first. I feel like you are selling yourself short too much. Even long before I moved in with you, you fed me, healed me when injured, and also entertained me. After that, you saved me from the rats, gave me a comfortable place to stay, and even taught me many things. So rather, I feel like I’m taking advantage of you instead.”

Anortha countered, “But you accompanied me in my selfishness, went with whatever I suggested, and when I stole all the credit for cooking, you went along with it.”

“Sure, but since you offered me all that before, we can call it even, right? Besides, friends should just help out each other instead of worrying about owing each other, so don’t sweat the small details.”

“But friends would know more about each other, like your preferences and stuff.”

“Yes, exactly, which is why I said we need to talk. Ask away.”

Anortha was relieved to know that her feelings were not one sided after all.

The elf asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

“I always found the favorite color question to be weird since my favorite color depends on what the object is. I usually go with orange, but it’s not like I want everything I own to be orange or anything.”

“Mine is yellow.”

“Given that you changed your hair color to yellow, I’m not surprised at all. I guess it is my turn to ask then. What’s your favorite magic?”

“My favorite magic? That’s an unfair question. It’s like when my parents ask me who do I like better, my mom or dad?”

“So who is your favorite? Your mom or your dad? Okay, that was not a serious question. No need to glare at me like that. What’s your favorite animal then?”

“Lupo.”

“Besides that. I mean I don’t exactly feel like I should be labeled an animal.”

“Uh, then, Ferina. I always wanted one but they cost an arm and a leg, so I can only dream of getting one after going out and getting rich.”

Pochi grabbed the notebook filled with her notes, flipped through it for a while, and then wrote, “What’s a Ferina?”

“Oh, they are those giant, colorful birds that rich people use as transportation. They’re also what carries some of the goods and mail in and out of here.”

“How come I’ve never seen one?”

“Because they’re expensive, they rarely come over to such a backwater place like this. Mail and stuff only come roughly once a week, and since you are indoors most of the time you probably wouldn’t have a chance to see them. So what is your favorite animal?”

“Elf”

“Besides that.”

Pochi contemplated for a bit, then wrote, “Deer? I mean it tastes pretty good.”

“Your favorite food?”

“Those pink mushrooms that you said were poisonous.”

“Well at least it isn’t the deer,” Anortha said in relief. “What’s your favorite game?”

The lupo stared at the chalkboard for a solid minute before writing, “Don’t really have one? All the ones we have been playing are entertaining enough.”

“Come on, you have to have something. Even a general category of games would be helpful.”

Pochi thought for a while, and wrote, “There is a class of games that I do enjoy, but unfortunately we don’t have the specialized equipment to play them so it is impossible.”

“What is the equipment? Maybe I could get one.”

“It’s hard to explain with my limited vocabulary, but it’s a device that can simulate reality in a sense? Well it can also simulate things that can’t be found naturally too. Well the actual nature of the device is that it can do lots of math really fast, and since a lot of stuff around us can be broken down into math, it can simulate things.”

Anortha thought if there was anything like that and came up with nothing. But that did make her wonder where Pochi even got her hands on the device since last time she checked the lupoy were living rather primitively. So, she asked, “No offense, but given that lupoy don’t seem to know about magic, how did you even make or get such a device?”

Pochi froze for a second, then wrote, “Well actually I’m not actually from around here. I’m from a really really far place where such a device exists. Stuff happened, and I found myself in this land, and I was picked up by the local lupo population and lived with them. Also, the device doesn’t use magic at all.”

“Oh, so is that why you aren’t afraid of me? At one point, I snuck off toward your tents and they all fled from the sight of me. So I guess elves aren’t that scary in the place you are?”

“More like elves do not exist at all.”

Anortha thought about what kind of place would that be like if elves did not bother to migrate there. She said, “Let me guess, there’s a complete lack of trees and low ambient mana where you were from?”

“Lack of trees, yes, but I have no idea about mana. Well no one used magic so that seems likely.”

“So what are examples of games that you could play using this device anyways?”

“There are games where you can simulate country building, simulate battles and war, and even simulate dating.”

“Eh? So there are actual people inside the device that you can do stuff like make them fight or even d-date with them?”

“Well no, not actual people. It’s a simulation.”

“But they still act like people? So I could make friends with them, or more, right?”

“Well not really. I mean the dialogue of the people inside the game is prewritten by real people, and there usually is a limited number of choices of dialogue you can say to them too, so it’d be kind of a sad friendship. That being said, there are a few people who get married to fictional characters in real life.”

“How does that work? Can you go and live inside those simulated worlds or pull people out of them?”

“No. It’s as extreme as if you like a character in a book so much you want to marry them, so you tear out a picture of them in the book and act as if that is your spouse. Not recommended to do. So if you want to be friends with the people in the game, you could do something similar, but everyone will think you are crazy. Me included.”

“Oh. What was your life like there?”

Pochi again looked down at the floor, seemingly unsure how to respond. Given the lupo’s previous reaction to Anortha’s questioning, the elf assumed that she wasn’t comfortable with the topic. When she thought about it, Pochi must have been abandoned twice already, and that couldn’t have been pleasant. She quickly said, “If you aren’t comfortable talking about your past that’s fine. I’ll be there to listen when you are ready.”

“Thanks for that,” Pochi wrote. “It probably isn’t as tragic as you are probably thinking about though, but yes, I’m not quite comfortable about talking about my past just yet. Anyways, enough about me for now. What is your favorite game?”

“Mine? Most of my favorites require a certain degree of magic proficiency to play them, so I never introduced them to you. But since you are learning magic, soon we will be able to play them. As for examples, there’s a rather simple one of keeping a ball dry while getting it to a general goal area. Of course, the other player or team tries to get the ball wet instead before it reaches the goal.”

“So you would need to know water magic and wind magic I’d assume?” Pochi asked.

“At the very least. You can still use other types as well.”

“Looks like I need to learn magic quickly to keep you entertained.”

“No, no. There’s no need to force yourself to learn magic if you don’t want to. The games we play are entertaining enough.”

“What gave you the idea that I don’t want to learn magic?”

“Didn’t you not like it when I tried to teach you magic before?”

Pochi wrote, “There’s a difference between not wanting to learn magic and wanting to take a break from lessons. I am eager to learn magic, just not in a way that is overly painful.”

“Oh.”

There was a period of awkward silence after that.

To break it, Pochi wrote, “So looks like we cleared up a few misunderstandings and got to know each other better. It was a productive conversation, and it looks like we can go back to our daily routine.” Pochi placed the chalk back, and then suddenly picked it up and wrote, “Oh right, before we end, I forgot to ask. How expensive was that dinner you had yesterday?”

“Uh I believe it costs about 168. Yeah, so it might take awhile before I can save up enough money, but the food is really good.”

“That’s a lot of money. Okay, that’s all that I wanted to ask you for now, so I’ll resume studying.”

binarysoap

I've been wondering if I should have a holiday special chapter, so here's a poll. Do note that because of time reasons, it will be taking place of a regular chapter if I do it though.