Dyscalculia, or Dyslexia

Alice's arithmetic and reading-and-writing lessons finally began one afternoon more than half a month later.

According to the schedule they had agreed on, mornings were for Ghislaine's swordsmanship lessons, followed by Teacher Edna's classes on noble etiquette and history.

After a brief midday nap, the afternoons were reserved for reading, writing, and arithmetic under Cui Ciyou.

After making plans with Alice yesterday, Cui Ciyou had arrived at the classroom early to prepare.

That morning, he had even gone into the courtyard and picked up more than a dozen smooth, round pebbles of roughly equal size to use as teaching aids.

More than half a month... At last, the first lesson was about to begin.

Cui Ciyou looked at the ornate empty chair across the desk and thought silently to himself.

Alice probably would not transform overnight into a model student who loved studying.

But at the very least, she should keep her promise and show up in the classroom on time.

As Cui Ciyou waited patiently, the classroom door was gently pushed open.

Alice appeared in the doorway, wearing a relatively simple, light-colored dress that allowed her to move around easily.

Her flame-red hair had been tied into playful twin tails behind her head with two delicate ribbons.

Though her face bore a reluctant expression and her eyes were somewhat impatient,

she eventually shuffled inside and sat properly in the chair across from Cui Ciyou.

She came. She really kept her promise and came.

A flicker of surprise passed through Cui Ciyou's heart, but his expression remained as calm and unreadable as ever.

"Good afternoon, Miss Alice. I'm glad you arrived for class on time."

Cui Ciyou spoke in an even tone, as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Alice gave a quiet "Hmph," turned her head aside, and deliberately refused to look at him.

"All right. Before we officially begin, I need to understand your current level first."

Ignoring her childish little gestures, Cui Ciyou began the lesson directly.

"Based on my previous observations, when it comes to reading and writing..."

"It seems... well, you can barely write a few simple numbers, and even those come out crooked. Is that right?"

Alice's cheeks instantly flushed red. It seemed he had struck a sore spot, but she still retorted defiantly in a low voice:

"So, so what? What's the use of writing? Can it help me beat someone?"

Cui Ciyou replied calmly:

"Perhaps it cannot help you beat someone directly, but at least when you read a contract, you'll be able to tell whether the reward is in gold coins or copper coins. That way, you won't happily help someone count their money after they've tricked you."

Alice choked on his words. She opened her mouth, but had nothing to say.

"What about arithmetic?" Cui Ciyou continued.

"Can you do addition and subtraction within ten? For example, what is three plus two?"

Alice knitted her delicate brows tightly and held out her pink fingers, beginning to count with all her might.

After a while, she finally answered in a small, uncertain voice:

"...Four?"

"Then... what is seven minus four?"

Alice once again plunged into a difficult battle with her fingers. Her little face turned bright red with strain, but in the end, she still failed to give the correct answer.

Just as described in the original work, Cui Ciyou sighed inwardly.

An unquestionable genius in swordsmanship, but when it came to academic subjects that required thinking... she really was an incredibly troublesome idiot.

Even after Rudeus taught her for three years, she seemed to have only reached two-digit addition and subtraction, while her literacy was limited to a few common characters.

At that moment, Cui Ciyou gained a more direct and profound understanding of just how extreme Alice's imbalance in subjects was.

But then again, for a child who had been excessively indulged since childhood, had received virtually no proper systematic education,

and had poured all her energy into the only thing she was interested in—swordsmanship practice—perhaps this was actually her "normal" level.

"All right, it's fine. Not knowing isn't scary. That's why we're here to learn."

Cui Ciyou spoke in a gentle tone, trying to ease Alice's mood.

"For today's first arithmetic lesson, we'll start with the simplest things. First, let's get to know these numbers."

He took out the pebbles he had prepared beforehand and lined them up one by one across the smooth tabletop.

"Alice, look," Cui Ciyou said as he picked up a pebble.

"This represents 'one.' One pebble is one."

Alice looked at the little pebble lying quietly on the table and nodded, indicating that she understood—this really was simple.

"Then," Cui Ciyou said, picking up another pebble and gently placing it beside the first,

"how many pebbles are there now?"

Alice looked at the two pebbles placed side by side, thought for a moment, and quickly gave her answer. "Two!"

"Very good!" Cui Ciyou promptly offered affirmation and encouragement.

"This represents 'two.' Two pebbles are two."

He continued patiently guiding Alice in this most intuitive and concrete manner, teaching her the ten basic numbers from one to ten.

He matched each number one by one with the corresponding number of pebbles.

Then he took out paper and a pen and began teaching Alice how to write the shapes of those numbers.

To Cui Ciyou's surprise, although Alice seemed somewhat impatient,

and occasionally lost focus and drifted off, or made little irrelevant movements,

overall, she was far more attentive than Cui Ciyou had expected.

She seriously followed Cui Ciyou's guidance, carefully counting the pebbles and trying hard to recognize each number.

She even took the initiative to pick up the pen and awkwardly imitate the way the numbers were written on the paper.

Although her movements were somewhat clumsy, and her understanding of the relationships between numbers was extremely slow,

for instance, after reaching "five," she began to struggle noticeably and had to count the pebbles repeatedly before she could barely confirm it.

At the very least, she was earnestly "learning," rather than completely resisting from the very start as she had before.

Seeing Alice's rare cooperative attitude, Cui Ciyou felt a long-lost trace of gratification.

Sure enough, obedient children were still cuter than bratty ones.

But Alice really was not sensitive to things like numbers and words.

In the original work, when it came to hunting goblins, she was quite clever. She could not be considered an idiot.

So, did she have symptoms similar to dyscalculia or dyslexia on Earth?

However, just as this stumbling, unusually slow arithmetic introduction lesson was nonetheless proceeding fairly smoothly,

and Cui Ciyou announced, "We'll stop here for today," bringing it to an end, Alice—who had kept her little face tense as she tried hard to keep up with him—suddenly crumpled.