The Girl's Prayer

"So, today, let me get a sense of your fundamentals first."

Sylutia wore a white blouse and a plain blue skirt today. The outfit made her look bright and lively, much better than the unchanging black dress she had worn for so long.

In the training ground's rest area, the girl hung up a small blackboard and began tutoring her two classmates.

After talking with them and finding out what they knew, she quickly understood their situations.

Comia's problems weren't too serious. Aside from a few more profound and obscure topics she didn't understand, she grasped most of the material. She had simply forgotten some of it because she hadn't reviewed it much.

Karen's problems were much more serious. She knew the terms for most of the material but didn't understand how they related to one another. She also had plenty of trouble with basic arithmetic, writing, and word choice.

This is going to be a long road, the girl thought.

Still, she had to try. She couldn't give up before they'd even begun. She started teaching Karen the basics, while Comia only needed to review and reinforce what she had forgotten.

Two hours passed quickly. When they were done, Sylutia didn't keep them late. Instead, she announced that today's tutoring session was over.

"Phew, I thought Tia was going to keep teaching forever." Comia slumped over the desk. She had watched Sylutia go over the basics with Karen for ages.

"Everyone has limits to how much they can understand. Covering too much in one day isn't a good thing. Besides, you have training to do, too. You can't neglect that." She put away her notes.

"Oh, right." Sylutia remembered something and looked at Karen with some curiosity.

"Karen, could you teach me how to shoot a bow?" She had never tried archery before.

"Tia wants to learn that?" Comia was the first to express surprise.

"Archery is pretty tiring. Drawing a bow takes quite a bit of strength." She had tried it herself before.

"But there are low-poundage bows at the training ground. Tia can give one a try. Well, some noblewomen use them for fun now and then, just to look the part."

As she spoke, the three of them went to the archery range on one side of the training ground. They soon found the short practice bows.

With Karen's careful instruction, Sylutia got a general idea of how to draw a bow and what to watch out for.

"Beginners shouldn't use bows with too high a draw weight," Karen reminded her.

"First, they're hard to draw. Second, if you release the string without an arrow, its snapback can hurt you, and it can damage the bow, too."

"I understand."

Sylutia held the short bow, nocked an arrow, and slowly drew the string. Then, following Karen's advice, she released it. The arrow barely reached the nearest target.

("Basic Archery" proficiency +12)

Basic Archery Lv.0: A skill still being learned. Current progress (12/100)

Having gained a little insight, Sylutia looked at the arrow shaft jutting from the distance. When she shot a second time, her aim was noticeably better.

By her fifth shot, the arrowhead finally landed in the target's bull's-eye, though not quite in the center.

Phew, this is pretty interesting. It's completely different from using a melee weapon, the girl thought as she lowered the bow.

Unlike a sword hilt, which stayed in her hand, an arrow was beyond her control the instant it was released. So she couldn't handle it with the same precision and flexibility she used with a sword. Most of the time, she had to prepare beforehand, calculating the force, trajectory, wind direction, and the state of the target.

By rights, someone with excellent archery skills should also be good at mental arithmetic. Even if they relied on intuition, that was still a subconscious response calculated by the brain.

Thinking about it, Karen might not be stupid. She'd just never had proper guidance or education.

Over the following days, the three of them continued learning and training together until Baron and Mick had recovered from their injuries and returned to class.

When Mick first heard Teacher Heide say that Sylutia would tutor him, a surge of delight rose in his heart, but he quickly suppressed it.

It's only tutoring. Don't read too much into it, he told himself, trying to stay calm.

But that afternoon, when he actually sat in the rest area and listened to the girl's clear, gentle voice, he couldn't help noticing a few things. He also began to pick up on details he had never paid attention to before.

Tia didn't just have a lovely voice. Her figure and complexion were beautiful, too. It was just a shame that those thick glasses ruined her looks.

"Pay attention to the lesson." The girl tapped the blackboard lightly with a wooden pointer, snapping Mick out of his thoughts.

"Yes." He had no choice but to sit up straight, making Comia beside him cover her mouth and giggle.

After tutoring Mick for a few days, Ray joined them, too. He, Mick, and Karen had consistently ranked at the bottom of the class in Secret History Class.

Teaching one was teaching; teaching three was no different. Tia didn't mind. In the process of instructing them, she gradually came to understand how ordinary people viewed much of the material.

She had received nearly sixteen years of a comprehensive Earth education in her previous life. She understood how different subjects related to one another and had a framework for understanding the world as a whole, so she found many things easy to grasp. But for ordinary students from humble backgrounds, who knew nothing and were unfamiliar with many concepts, learning those same things was entirely different.

Take an engine, for example. She knew it had to be cast from a sufficiently strong metal alloy, that some kind of combustion reaction inside it provided energy, and that mechanical transmission carried the power to its various parts. She also understood how the different gears and connecting rods meshed together to create differential speeds and make adjustments.

A single engine involved the combined application of materials science, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and mechanics.

But someone who knew only one of those subjects and had never encountered the others could easily misunderstand things because they lacked an overall framework.

While teaching her classmates, Sylutia also did a good job of organizing the knowledge from her previous life in her memory.

Come to think of it, those lessons had been so long ago, yet she could recall them clearly now. She could even remember her elementary school classmates' names. It was almost unbelievable.

Life grew peaceful and stable. In the mornings, Sylutia attended lessons with her classmates. In the afternoons, she tutored the three struggling students, then practiced archery in her free time. She cared for the flowers and plants in the backyard at dawn and dusk. In the evenings, she chatted with Talia, listening to her share the latest gossip from Scorched Stone City, and then went to bed.

Before she knew it, a month had passed.

The Swan Orchid she had carefully nurtured had finally begun to bloom.

Sylutia carefully crouched down and cradled the small, tender-green bud in her hands, her heart filled with joy.

After all, it was the first flower she had grown with such care. She had devoted a great deal of time and effort to it, and she had been looking forward to this moment.

[Swan Orchid] (Rare-82): Blooming. Humidity is not at the optimal level; increase it by another 23.53%. The ambient temperature is slightly low; raise it by another 7.4 degrees. Ventilation is optimal. Nutrients are plentiful. Micronutrient levels are sufficient...

Several little shoots emerged from the pale-green and tender-green bud. In this place, so full of life, a faint power of the Emerald Nectar Aspect was gathering. It was just one step away from a complete First Order—Emerald Nectar Aspect.

Even with her eyes closed, she could sense the faint herbal fragrance and invisible ripples coming from the bud in front of her.

It's still a little short. If she could fill in that last missing piece, the flower would probably bloom with the complete power of a First Order—Emerald Nectar Aspect.

Temperature and humidity. She straightened up and looked around the small courtyard.

There wasn't enough time to build a glass greenhouse, and she didn't have enough money for it, either.

For now, she could only use another method.

After asking around, Sylutia found a glass workshop in Scorched Stone City. She paid six silver coins to have the workers make three large glass cloches for her, then carefully brought them back home.

She chose the three Swan Orchids in the best condition in the backyard and carefully covered them with the glass cloches. She dug a few narrow channels underneath for ventilation and watering. It wasn't perfect, but it was still a great improvement over the previous conditions.

With the three Swan Orchids about to bloom, she added a little more Emerald Dew Water to help the Emerald Nectar Aspect condense.

When she was done, Sylutia stood beside a glass cloche and gently stroked it, thinking to herself.

Even if the flowers don't bloom with a complete Emerald Nectar Aspect, I won't be sad or disappointed. This is the best I can manage for now.

Still, I hope you bloom in all your glory. I'm looking forward to seeing it happen.

Standing before the Swan Orchids, the girl prayed silently.

The autumn wind swept a few fallen leaves into the little courtyard and lifted her fine strands of hair. As the girl prayed with her eyes closed, the tender-green bud inside the glass cloche slowly unfurled. A first sliver of a gap appeared between its closed petals.