Dawn light spilled across the land, and a light mist hung in the air.
At the sound of birds chirping, the blue-haired girl slowly opened her sleepy eyes. A small head rested in her arms.
"Rudeus... time to get up~" The girl sat up slightly and gently shook the soundly sleeping boy a few times.
But the boy slept on peacefully, showing no reaction.
"If you don't get up, the Superd Tribe will eat you~"
The boy still didn't react. Instead, he burrowed deeper under the covers.
"Sigh..."
The girl sighed softly, then slowly got up and tucked the boy in again. Once she was done, she left the room alone.
"Oh~ Miss Roxy, you're awake? You're up early today~" Zenith was busy at the stove. She smiled and greeted Roxy when she saw her.
"Mm, do you need any help, Mrs. Zenith?" Roxy asked, her eyes still somewhat weary.
"No need~ I'll be done here soon. Is Rudeus still asleep?"
"Mm... let him sleep a little longer."
"That won't do! We can't let him waste such a lovely morning. I'll go wake him up in a bit." Zenith set a plate of breakfast on the table, then went to wake Rudeus.
Roxy sat down at the table in silence, staring blankly at the food.
Three years had passed since she came here... there wasn't much left she could teach Rudeus.
It was hard to believe when she thought about it.
She had only meant to give it a try at first, but had unexpectedly discovered a genius.
He had shattered all her complacency and every bit of pride she once had, making her keenly aware that there was always someone better, always a higher heaven.
Rudeus could actually use Voiceless Magic. Even in the entire country, the number of magicians who could use it could be counted on one hand.
And she had met one in this remote little village.
It was ironic, really. This must have been what people called the arrangement of heaven.
Her thoughts drifted back to long ago...
Back then, she had been young and ignorant, puzzled as to why everyone in the village except her parents seemed to shun her.
She had felt so lonely, so oppressed, so helpless...
Whenever she saw the other children laughing and playing together and finally worked up the courage to approach them, she would find every eye turning toward her at once, their gazes crackling around her...
They said nothing, only stared at her in confusion. To her, their gazes were no different from the way they would look at a monster.
The reason was that she couldn't use Telepathy.
She had fled home in tears and locked herself in her room... her parents hadn't known how to comfort her in that situation, and had simply waited silently outside her door.
Later, she happened to meet the magician Bradikand, and through him she encountered magic.
Later still, his recommendation gave her the chance to enter Ranoa University of Magic. She knew full well it was her only chance to escape that oppressive place.
After she pleaded with them, her parents finally agreed.
She attended Ranoa University of Magic as she had wished, and Jinas was her teacher.
It was during her time at school that she truly came to understand her talent for magic through the eyes of others.
From then on, she gradually grew so proud of herself that she lost sight of everything else.
After she learned Saint Rank magic from Jinas, that attitude finally came to a head.
Young and proud as she was, she had argued with Jinas, who held fast to his principles, and in the end they had parted on bad terms.
Of course, she was the one who left on bad terms, and she began traveling the continents alone.
Along the way, she joined an adventuring party, but it later disbanded because of certain events.
She had also visited the Holy Country of Millis, which was extremely hostile to demons... she had run into obstacles everywhere there.
Because she looked down from the bottom of her heart on anyone weaker than herself and acted all day as though heaven came first and she came second, she had spent over ten years traveling without a single companion.
In the end, after wandering from place to place, she had stumbled into this remote little town, happened to see a request on the request board, and happened to meet Rudeus.
It had all been such a coincidence, almost as though it were predestined.
From the moment she met Rudeus, the arrogance, pride, accomplishments, and everything she had once considered satisfying had all been shattered.
She gradually came to realize how foolish she had been, and how foolish her argument with Jinas had been.
Rudeus was so gifted. No matter how difficult the magic she taught him, he could quickly master it, and before long he could cast it with Voiceless Incantation.
It was talent on the level of a monster!
Although Rudeus had taught her the principles of Voiceless Magic, she actually found them extremely difficult to understand.
More precisely, her body found it difficult to understand the sensation he described.
She had tried without success to this day, so she could only work toward shortened incantations instead.
Because of that, she had nearly suggested giving up on teaching him several times.
Because... it was strange, wasn't it?
She was supposed to be the teacher, yet she was always asking her student for guidance.
But Rudeus seemed to like her very much. However great his talent for magic, when all was said and done... he was only a child of a few years.
So she could teach him more than just knowledge of magic; there was much else she could teach him.
Languages, writing, culture, history, how to deal with people... the things she had seen and heard on the various continents... and so on. All of it was valuable experience.
She had to have something worth offering. That was how she had always comforted herself at the time.
"Teacher, why didn't you wake me when you got up?" Rudeus's voice came from the hallway.
Her thoughts interrupted, Roxy looked back and sighed bitterly:
"Oh, Rudeus, you were sleeping like a corpse. How was I supposed to wake you?"
"Because you didn't use true love's kiss, that's why you couldn't wake me~" Rudeus said with a grin.
"Isn't that only supposed to work on a sleeping princess?" Roxy retorted, her eyes carrying their usual weary look.
"Then I'll be your little princess, Teacher~"
Rudeus had reached Roxy's side by then, and he threw himself into her arms, acting spoiled.
"Oh, honestly, Rudeus. You're this energetic before you've even had breakfast~ Once you're done eating, want to come with me to take a request?" Roxy stroked the boy's hair and spoke softly.
"Yeah, yeah! I wanna go!" Rudeus said excitedly.
The wheat porridge on the table was still giving off warm wisps of steam. Zenith walked over with some fried eggs, and when she saw Rudeus clinging to Roxy and refusing to let go, she couldn't help smiling and shaking her head:
"You're almost six, and you still cling to Miss Roxy all the time. Aren't you embarrassed?"
Rudeus buried his face in the soft folds of Roxy's clothes and retorted in a muffled voice:
"Not at all! I'm going to stay with Teacher forever!"
The tips of Roxy's ears turned slightly red, and she gently patted his back:
"All right, all right, hurry and eat, or someone else will take all the requests." She scooped up a spoonful of wheat porridge and held it to Rudeus's mouth. As she watched him obediently open it, a tenderness she didn't even notice spread through her eyes.
After breakfast, Roxy took Rudeus's little hand and led him out of the house.
The morning sunlight filtered through gaps in the leaves, casting dappled spots of light on the stone road. Wildflowers along the roadside were beaded with morning dew, and the air was filled with the fresh scent of grass and earth.
Rudeus skipped along ahead, occasionally looking back to tell Roxy about the interesting things he had seen yesterday.
Roxy followed at a leisurely pace, listening to his clear voice. The unease she felt about having "nothing left to teach him" seemed to fade a little.
There were already quite a few people at the town's Adventurers' Guild. Roxy walked up to the notice board, her fingertips passing over the request sheets one by one.
Escorting a caravan, subjugating monsters, finding lost livestock... she was carefully looking for a low-difficulty request suited to Rudeus when she suddenly felt a tug on her clothes.
"Teacher, Teacher, look at this one!" Rudeus stood on tiptoe and pointed to the bottommost request sheet, its edges slightly curled.
Roxy looked down. It was a request to restore farmland in Buena Village, and the reward was only two copper coins.
She frowned slightly. The reward was far too low, and restoring farmland was usually dirty, tiring work. But when she saw Rudeus's sparkling eyes, she nodded anyway:
"All right, we'll take this one."
When the two hurried back to Buena Village, they spotted a worried-looking old man standing on a field ridge from afar.
When he saw them coming, the old man hurried over to greet them, his face full of delight:
"Are you Miss Roxy? Oh, wonderful! The farmland can be saved!"
He led them to the edge of the field. The once-level farmland was covered in pits and hollows, with traces of battle everywhere. Broken arrows and charred bits of grass were mixed in with the overturned clods of earth, and the wheat shoots, half as tall as a person, had been trampled every which way, many of them reduced to broken stalks and fragments.
"A group of monsters suddenly appeared a few days ago. They came charging out of the woods to the north." The old man sighed, his voice full of helplessness:
"The village's subjugation party fought them in the field to stop them from charging into the village. The magic and swords weren't very precise, and they wrecked the field like this. The holes in the ground are one thing, but if the crops can't be properly restored, this year's harvest will be completely ruined."
Roxy was just about to offer to level the ground herself, but Rudeus had already let go of her hand and walked into the middle of the field.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, knelt on one knee, and pressed both hands to the ground.
Without any incantation, light brown earth elements quietly gathered at his fingertips.
Roxy had thought he would use simple earth magic to fill the holes one by one, but to her surprise, he merely tapped lightly with a fingertip.
A ring-shaped wave of magic power spread through the surrounding fields with Rudeus at its center, its surging making the air hum.
One by one, the holes in the ground slowly closed and contracted. The overturned clods of earth crumbled on their own into a fine powder and spread evenly across the ground.
It all happened almost at once... Rudeus's movements weren't fast, but they were extraordinarily precise. Every hollow was filled, every raised patch leveled, and even the field ridges and furrows damaged in the battle were restored without the slightest error.
Roxy stood rooted to the spot, too shocked to speak.
The old man beside her, who knew nothing about magic, was even more dumbfounded. Clutching his hoe, he exclaimed in amazement again and again.
Roxy herself could use earth magic, but even she could only roughly level the ground. She could never work with such precision over every inch of soil.
What terrifying control over magic power this required! The more delicate the magical operation, the greater the control it demanded, and the slightest mistake could ruin the whole effort.
Yet Rudeus did it so easily, as though it were the most ordinary little task.
She watched the small figure working in the field, sunlight falling on his hair and giving it a golden halo.
A complex mix of emotions suddenly welled up in her: surprise, relief, and a touch of indescribable pride.
The student she had taught herself had already become this exceptional.
Before long, the entire field was as level as it had been before, as though a battle had never taken place there.
Rudeus brushed the dirt from his hands and turned to give Roxy a radiant smile. "Teacher, I'm done! I'll leave the rest to you!"
Roxy came back to her senses and smiled gently. She walked over to the damaged wheat shoots, pressed her palms together, and softly began chanting a healing spell.
A gentle green light flowed from her palms, enveloping the broken stalks and fragments.
Nourished by the light, the broken wheat shoots stood upright again, their withered yellow leaves regained their tender green, and even the trampled roots put out fine new rootlets.
The old man watched the scene before him, tears streaming down his aged face as he bowed to the two of them again and again:
"Thank you! Thank you so much! You've done our village a great kindness!"
He solemnly handed the two copper coins to Roxy, then insisted on giving them a basket of freshly picked fruits and vegetables as well.
The two said goodbye to the old man, and by the time they were walking home, the sun had risen overhead.
Rudeus carried the basket, skipping along ahead and humming an off-key tune.
Roxy watched him from behind, the corners of her mouth rising of their own accord. It turned out that being teacher and student had never been a matter of one person giving everything.
She had taught Rudeus knowledge and shared her experience with him, while Rudeus, with his innocence and warmth, had healed the loneliness of her past decades.
"Teacher, hurry up! I bet Mom's already made lunch!" Rudeus looked back and waved to her.
"Coming."
Roxy hurried to catch up, sunlight falling on her long blue hair and shimmering with a gentle glow...