Chapter 7:
No Longer Jobless

 

Sylph’s father was a handsome man. Did all elves look like this or was this particular family just especially pretty? 

He was stationed at a watchtower at the edge of the settlement. He held a bow in one hand and seemed to be chatting with a few other men. 

“Father! I’ve brought your lunch!” Sylph called out to him, pressing his two hands to either side of his mouth. Sylph’s father peered down at him and clambered down the ladder to reach him. After he made it down, he took his lunch and patted Sylph on the head.

“Hey, Phi. Thanks as always. Were…you bullied again?” 

So he knew about it. That’s interesting… 

“Yeah, but I'm okay now. She helped me out,” Sylph motioned towards me.

“My name is Lumina Greyrat, It’s nice to meet you,” I introduced myself, bowing in the traditional Japanese style. I defaulted to this each time I spoke to someone new, which made me believe that old habits certainly died hard.

 “Greyrat, you say? As in Paul Greyrat?” I nodded. It seemed like he’d worked with my father before. 

“Yes, I’m his only daughter,” I spoke, trying to come across as casually as I could.
He chuckled, and said, “You’re polite for a child of Paul’s. I’m Laws, and I hunt here in these forests. You have my apologies for what happened back there with you and Phi.” 

I raised an eyebrow at that. Was he apologizing that I had to step in to save his child? 

“I know how my kid must look, but it’s just something from further back in our ancestry. Please don’t think less of Phi,” Laws said. Hearing him say that kind of made me upset. 

“So you’ve just accepted that your child is being bullied day after day for something they can’t control? Really?” I said with a hint of contempt in my voice. 

He widened his eyes. “Look, I… I hate it as much as you do, but with Phi’s hair color being the way it is, there’s just not much I can do. I’m sorry.” 

I see. I’d have to take this into my own hands. I cooled myself off a little and spoke with conviction in my voice to get across how much I meant my words.

“Laws, I know what I’m about to ask may seem a little sudden, but please take me seriously,” I asked.

He put his bow down, and his ears twitched. “Go on.” 

“May I teach your child some basic offensive magic so that they can fight back against the bullies?” I stood firm and awaited Law’s answer. After a few moments, he spoke up.

“...How much would I have to pay you for this?” 

I shook my head. “It would be free, sir.” 

“Those are impressive words for a girl your age,” Laws said. “I heard you were Roxas's student, so you probably mean it.” 

I nodded my head. “I see. Very well. I’ll start paying you 2 large copper coins every month, does that sound good?” he asked. 

I was going to be paid? For something I wanted to do? This turned out a lot better than I was expecting. 

“Thank you for entrusting your child’s education unto me, it means a lot,” I said, as I bowed again.

 Laws chuckled heartedly. I looked up, puzzled as to what he found funny. 

“Hah, Paul was right. He said that talking with you makes one feel like a bad parent,” Laws said, nodding to himself. A smile crept up my face thanks to it.

I felt a tug on my dress’s sleeve. I looked over to see Sylph tugging it with his face cast down. Seriously, he looked so cute I almost mistook him for a girl at times. 

 “Laws, today I’ll start testing the waters. I’ll let you know how it goes when I see you again tomorrow. Well then, we’ll be off.” 

“Oh, yes, of course. Just don’t get too close to the forest.” Laws said. 

“We’ll be playing at the large hill with a tree, which is near the field with the berries. I promise Sylph will head back home before it gets dark.” 

This wasn’t Japan. I couldn’t just phone home and tell them where we were if I stayed out after curfew.

 Laws looked slack-jawed, and stammered out, “Oh… o-okay.” Sylph and I started in the direction of the hill, leaving Laws to his obligations. 

“Sylph, what if I told you that you could fight back against the bullies?” 

He looked at me timidly. “B-but they’re too strong…” 

Of course, he’d think that. From what I could infer, he’d been dealing with people like them all of his life. But I wanted to show him that he could try to stand up for himself and stop being afraid of them. So, I cast a small but substantially hot sphere of fire in my open palm and dispelled it when I balled my hand into a fist.

“If you agree to be my student, in a few months you’ll be strong enough to laugh at those boys,” I said. Sylph’s eyes glimmered. “I’ll teach you everything I know about magic and more.”

“Is learning magic difficult?” he asked me, ears twitching. 

“I’m not too sure about that, but trust me when I say I’ll make sure you learn,” I declared.

Lately, my mana reserves had been bottomless. I had no idea what I was gonna do with it, leading me to think of other ways to improve. The first thing that came to mind was sparring with someone, but there was never anyone good enough at magic around me. So what better way than to train up my sparring partner myself? 

“I-I’ll be your student. I’ll be in your care…” Sylph stammered out.

“Alright, Sylph! From now on, call me Big sis!” I declared, a cheeky smirk forming on my face. 

“A-alright, Big sis…” He stammered out. Ah! This feeling! I want to be called that over and over! I snapped back to reality once I noticed Sylph tilting his head slightly at me. 

“Er, let’s get on it!” I beamed.

---

When I got back home, my father was waiting for me. 

“I’m home, father!” He smiled at me. 

“Hey, sweetie. Come in.” I walked inside of the house. It seemed Zenith was still at her clinic. My father motioned toward a chair and sat down.

I sat down, and said, “Did you want to talk to me?” He nodded and inhaled. 

“I heard from Mrs. Eto that you burnt the hair of her son today. Sweetie, you have to be more careful! You’re just a girl, after all. Those kids could hurt you.” 

Hurt me? I hate to break it to you, but I don’t see that happening at all.

“Oh, but I didn’t…” I trailed off. My father seriously believed that I had hurt those kids. “I didn’t hurt them, just scared them off,” I said. 

He shook his head. “You mustn’t make excuses. You hurt those boys, so you have to apologize to them tomorrow, okay?” 

Eh? They should be apologizing to Sylph! 

I waved my hands in front of me. “Wait, wait. But I didn’t do anything. I even–” 

My father held up his pointer finger. “I’ll let you off without punishment if you apologize to them tomorrow.” 

This was getting more and more ridiculous. Did he seriously not trust my word? Was he going to be like this with my future siblings as well? I might as well set him straight. Hah. Setting my father straight. Is it just because I was an adult once, or is this guy more of a deadbeat than I thought?

“I–” The sound of the door creaking open cut me off before I could begin.

My mother walked in, seemingly a bit tired. “Oh hey, you two. What are you guys talking about?” 

I muttered, “He’s asking me to apologize for something I didn’t do and won’t take no for an answer.” 

Zenith looked puzzled. “Elaborate, will you sweetie?”

Paul began talking. “It all started when—” 

My mother bonked him on the head. “Not you, I meant Lumi.”

 I smiled at her and began recounting my story. It seemed like Paul wasn’t letting up at the beginning, but as I got to the part with Sylph, he widened his eyes. He chuckled every time I called him Sylph, though I don’t know why. I wondered if they had a history or something.

“And so yeah, that’s why father sat me down,” I finished my explanation.

 Zenith bonked Paul on the head again. “You have to listen to her side of the story! And what was that about scolding her?” He sighed. 

“I wasn’t being harsh on her, since she’s a girl,” Paul offered.

Zenith deadpanned. “What part of being a girl matters here?” Never change, parents. Paul was more or less one of those people who expected less of women. I didn’t think too hard about it, seeing as how back in the medieval days, that was the norm. But that reminded me of something.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you guys! I have a job!” I exclaimed. 

They both froze and then stared at me. “A job… you say?” Paul stammered out. 

“Yeah, I'm tutoring that boy I saved! It’s 2 large copper coins a month,” I explained.

 Zenith looked at me incredulously. “I… Congratulations on your first job!” I nodded, with a smirk on my face. 

I was no longer jobless.

---

I was now six. It was the springtime, and the rain was coming down now and then. In the mornings I practiced healing magic with my mother, and in the afternoon I would tutor Sylph in magic while improving myself at the same time.

I had learned up to intermediate-tier healing and detoxification magic, and my father had tried to persuade me to learn just a tiny bit of swordsmanship. It was probably him being starved of a sparring partner. I knew how that felt. But I still wasn’t a fan of how the sword felt in my hands. So I passed on it. 

Right now, I was heading up to the hill where I usually tutored Sylph. I say I’m just a tutor, but in reality, we were good friends. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Sylph.” He smiled and nodded his head. “Not at all. Good evening, Lumi.” 

We started lessons like that most of the time. It was quite literally that one date scenario with the ‘Oh, sorry to keep you waiting! No, I just got here” interaction. And I very much liked it.

In other news, Sylph’s hair was growing longer, making me wonder if he wanted to go full-in on that androgynous look. Sometimes I even thought of him as a female in my head. Eh, that doesn’t matter. I’ve got to focus on these lessons more than he does.

During the first few classes, those kids—no, rats came around several times. I always drove them off, and sometimes even burned a little of their hair to teach them a lesson. I didn’t hurt them per se, but they were trying to bully Sylph so I didn’t care what happened to them. 

Enough about those pricks. Sylph had grown a lot during the last year. Like me at the beginning, he could only cast a few spells at a time before tiring out. But as time went on, his mana capacity was exponentially increased. Where we were at now, he could take classes for half a day. 

Speaking of classes, I bought some fancy-looking glasses with my salary and tied my hair back in a hair bun to fit the whole tutor look. It took me most of the money I had saved up with my salary, so I was looking forward to seeing what Sylph thought of it. To my dismay, he laughed at me when he saw it. I liked it, so his opinion didn’t matter.

Even though he was a decent student, he struggled with a few things in particular. Past experiences with certain elements could make your casting worse. Sylph in particular had burnt his hands long ago with a metal skewer.

Even though he stated that he had no prominent aversion to fire, I figured his inability to improve that school was probably due to something in his subconscious. He had stayed beginner-tier for fire magic while he was intermediate in all the others. He picked up on the basics fast enough, but he couldn’t do some of the more advanced stuff; which I sort of expected. 

I had lent him my wand I had gotten from Roxas a while ago, and now it was practically his instead of mine. He was trying out a high-level water intermediate-tier spell and was concentrating heavily. His face was steeled, and he had his eyes shut. He looked so adorable! I wanted to take him home. 

“Lumi. What does this word mean here?” I looked over, and he was pointing to a word in the Guidebook To Magic. 

“It says, ‘Tornado’” I answered him without looking up from scribbling down notes in my lesson planner. I was a decent writer back in my past life, so it helped with organizing some of my notes.

 Sylph’s ears twitched. “What does Tornado mean?” 

I sat down next to him and said, “It’s a huge collection of warm air rapidly spinning around in the sky. It’s like a fierce windstorm, but scaled up to one that could destroy a city easily.” 

“Woah, that sounds scary. Have you ever seen one?” Sylph asked. 

“Oh me? Yeah, they looked intimidating when I saw them. To be fair, I was only like te-” I cut myself off there. I occasionally slipped up like this, spitting out some information that no ordinary six-year-old could. Someone who was seriously paying attention to what I said could probably figure something out.
“You were what?” Sylph asked, with a puzzled expression. 

“Haha, moving on! Your task for today is to cast the Intermediate-tier spell Ice Pillar. Go on now.” 

I had been also teaching Sylph how to read and write. When Laws caught wind of that, he doubled my salary. I didn’t even ask for it! He was such a nice person, even despite his glaring flaws.

 “May these droplets of the sky cool and harden so you may carve it into a column—Ice Pillar!”

“I did it! Look, Lumi!” He had managed to pick up the spell that fast? Maybe he was an actual prodigy. I was more or less just cheating with my memories of my previous world. 

“Hey, you’re improving, Sylph. I’m proud of you.” I pat him on the head. 

“Ah, but the cool things you do aren’t in the book, right?” Hmm? Cool things? Did he mean my melded magic? 

“Ah, those are written here.” I pointed to Hot Hands and Waterfall. “You just have to cast them at the same time and you could make hot water.” 

“At the same time? You can do that?” Oops. Another slip-up. 

“Err… you can only do it if you learn how to cast without incantations,” I said. His eyes glimmered. “Please teach me, Big sis!” 

I sighed. “It depends if you’re able to or not. Here, hold your arm out.” 

He obeyed, so I began giving him some advice. “You know that feeling you get in your veins whenever you cast a magic spell? Remember that feeling as you try to replicate exactly how it felt. Now, try.” 

“Hnhh!” He grunted in concentration. This went on for about a minute until he dropped his hand. “I can’t do it, Lumi,” he pouted. 

Hmm. I’d thought something like this would happen. Incantationless magic was all in your head, so it’s natural that the process would be different for everyone. That’s probably why so few people have the skill. Or maybe I truly was a badass. 

“I did it! Look, Lumi!” Ah, okay. Maybe not then.

I clapped, and said, “That was great! I can teach you a lot more stuff now.” He smiled. 

His grin only grew as he started casting more and more magic spells without the incantations. Maybe since he had already been trained to use magic with incantations, it was easier to transition to not using them at all when the time came. 

Or maybe Sylph was just a natural-born prodigy. 

I felt a few raindrops fall on my head. “Hmm?” I looked up, and there seemed to be a storm off the left. It was moving in our direction.

“Whoa, those clouds are dark!” I nodded in agreement. “We should probably head home, Sylph,” I replied. “Okay, but don’t forget your tutoring glasses again.” Hah. I chuckled, and told him, “Thanks.” 

We made our way to my house, as it was closer to us than Sylph’s place.

---

By the time we got to my house, it was pouring. 

“Greetings, young Mistress Lumina. I see you’ve brought your friend along, too. I’ve already prepared a bath for you two,” Lilia spoke, momentarily pausing her sweeping to bow at us.  

I bowed in return and said, “Thank you, Lilia.” 

She was always so thoughtful. Even when she had to do jobs that I know I would have hated to do, she did them without question. That might’ve been because of how well she views my family, but I digress. Her time in that royal palace had made her one hell of a maid, that was for sure.

She handed us two towels and returned to sweeping. I set one down and dried off Sylph’s hair with it, causing him to squeal in surprise. After I finished that, I dried myself off. 

“Where’s my mother?” I asked Lilia. 

“Lady Zenith just in the back, tending to the garden. She should be heading inside soon,” she told me. 

Lilia pointed upstairs, and said, “Go on then, I wouldn’t want you two catching a cold.” 

I nodded, and the two of us made our way upstairs. Just outside the door of the bathroom, I froze. 

Wait, what? We’re going to take a shower together? I knew brothers and sisters did this, but Sylph and I were certainly not that close yet. Plus, I knew for sure that I wasn’t ready for this sort of skinship despite all of my thoughts about him being cute. He was still a male at the end of the day.

 Sylph asked me, “What are you waiting for, Lumi?”

I stuttered out, “Y-you can go first.” He tilted his head. 

“What’s wrong, Lumi? We’re both girls, so it’d be faster to take one together, right?” 

Ehh?