"Minona, can you even read that?" Robin asked, his voice laced with something between doubt and amusement, eyes fixed on the stiff, newly opened book lying there on the ground like it had been waiting centuries for someone to crack its spine.

On the opposing side there was Minona, that ball of light hovering above the pages, glowing like she thought she was some kind of torch for him, acting as some useful light source. The thought alone tugged a chuckle from him, something that barely surfaced these days, and for a moment, he wondered if she really could read it, or if she was just flipping those pages out of sheer curiosity. She’d claimed she could teach him, but hell, she hadn’t even touched the book with anything other than her telekinetic magic—was that even counted as touching anyway? Was she even literate? No way a bratty princess like her could reject something as basic as reading, right? But then again, was she?

“Hey, human!” she called, a trace of suspicion coloring her voice, that playful tone edged with sharpness now, “I get the feeling you’re thinking I’m doing something stupid.”

Robin smirked, his eyes narrowing in mock innocence. “Me? No, no, of course not.” But the book, damn, that book pulled at him. The mystery of its symbols, the thought that maybe, just maybe, it had something worth knowing, gnawed at the back of his mind. “Why should I bother, anyway?” He jabbed a finger at the book, more out of frustration than curiosity, though the curiosity was there too, scratching under the surface.

Minona’s light flared, a sudden burst of enthusiasm like she'd just conjured up the world’s greatest plan. “This, the Lucian language, I say," she declared, her voice bouncing with the same gleeful mischief she used whenever she thought she'd outsmarted him. Then, her glow brightened even more, as if the very idea filled her with a giddy sense of victory. "At least it’ll give you hope, human. Hope to escape this place and see the world outside,” she floated up close to his face, her light playfully blinding, the weight of her offer hanging between them like some great promise she was just dying for him to accept.

As some wise old sage once said, to truly understand a people, you had to first understand their language. The way they spoke, the words they shaped—those were the bones of their world, of their customs, their thoughts, their every godforsaken secret. Culture was language, and language was culture. Profound, maybe, but Robin, for all his years of silent killing and lurking in shadows, wasn’t a stranger to learning. He had always known the power of a quick mind. It was that same drive—the need to adapt, survive, outsmart—that had sharpened him more than any dagger. And now, with the strange script of this new world staring back at him, there was that familiar thrill again. The thrill of a challenge. A test of his wits. He grinned, the same cold satisfaction tugging at him as it had when he mastered the ways of the blade.

"Yes, teach me,” Robin said, the words rolling off his tongue as though he was already half-convinced he could crack this code.

“Good choice, human!” Minona’s voice chimed with a teasing lilt, that playful edge ever-present. “But first, let’s compare it to your world’s writing, shall we? Maybe we’ll find some common ground, something to make this a little less painful.”

Robin hesitated, then crouched down, dragging his dagger across the dusty ground to scratch out a crude alphabet. “Alright, well… this is it,” he muttered. “The twenty-six letters. This one here, looks like a mountain? That’s ‘A’. And beside it, ‘B’...”

As he traced the letters, explaining each one in his rough, quiet way, he noticed Minona hovering close, her light flickering with a strange kind of energy. She was interested, that much was clear. Not that he could see her expression—if she had one—but the way she flared, brightening to a near-blinding glow, it told him everything. He had to shield his eyes from the sudden burst of brilliance, almost chuckling at her reaction.

"Easy with the light," he muttered, half amused, half exasperated, though something in her radiant excitement stirred something warm inside him—strange, coming from someone who had long since shut out the light.

“Huh,” Minona scoffed, her light flaring in mock surprise. “So we have mostly the same letters, even in the same order! But your world, seriously—just toss out the vocals first,” she commanded, her voice dripping with that same sassy, irreverent tone that always made Robin’s eye twitch.

“What? Why?” he asked, brow furrowing.

“Some of your little scribbles don’t exist in Lucia. Now, erase that one—looks like an overly-constructed bridge. What even is that?”

Robin sighed. “It’s ‘H,’ Minona. I told you.”

She hovered closer, inspecting it with the same exaggerated disdain. “Next, the one that looks like a defective tadpole. Not cute at all.”

His finger slid across the dirt to the letter ‘Q’. “This? I can agree with that,” Robin muttered.

“And that one—what is that? Looks like a reversed mountain symbol. Who designed that, some overly-enthusiastic list-checker?”

Robin traced his blade over the ‘V’. “It’s ‘V,’ come on. You’re being ridiculous.”

Minona’s light flared again. “And this lazy excuse for a letter,” she continued, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “A two lines crossing is a character in your world? Really? Did the person who came up with that think the alphabet was hiding some treasure? Like, ‘the treasure is the alphabet we’ve made all along’ scenario, huh?”

Robin rubbed his temple, knowing where this was going. “Someone thought it looked cool. Philosophical, even.”

“Philosophical, this?” Minona scoffed, her voice rising in playful mockery. “I bet something inside their head as twisted as that ‘X’ characters. And what about this poor thing?” she pointed to ‘Z,’ her voice thick with dramatic distaste. “Looks like lightningstrike but goes horizontal. Honestly, whoever invented these letters must’ve hated the job, and humanity.”

Robin, exasperated, threw up his hands. “Could you show at least a little respect for my language?”

She twirled in the air, laughing with her light flickering in playful bursts. “Respect? For this? Please. Once you learn Lucian, you won’t miss this nonsense.” Her magic sparked, summoning a sharp pebble, which she dragged across the ground in rapid motions, scratching lines and curves that resembled a tic-tac-toe grid.

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“There,” she announced proudly, her tone triumphant. “From the left-top, that’s B and C,” she spun in a lazy circle, her light trailing like a comet before stopping on the left side. “All the way down here—W and Y.”

Robin squinted at the shapes. “You’ve got to be kidding…”

Minona hummed smugly. “Now we’re learning. Start from your name and…”

At first, the grid of symbols made no sense—just scratches on the dirt, foreign and tangled in their strange shapes. Robin frowned, dragging his finger through the dirt, retracing them. But then, as he placed each letter in the order Minona had shown, it became clearer. An unexpected symmetry, each side of the field carrying two characters, with only the center empty. The puzzle was falling into place faster than he thought. He had expected this to be grueling, a struggle, but here, in this odd mix of scribbles and scratches, he found a pattern that made it all come together.

“Minona,” he said, almost in disbelief, “I think I understand this.”

Her light flared, smug and sharp. “Of course you do! You’ve just mastered the basics. Now vocalize them—a, é, è, i, o, u. And don’t you dare drag your feet. Grab the book, and by that, I mean right now!” She pulsed with impatience, her usual bossiness thick in her voice, pushing him forward like a gust of wind too strong to fight.

Robin sighed but obeyed, grabbing the book and flipping it open to the first page. His eyes settled on the arcane symbols, characters etched deep into the parchment—something ancient, something magical. He squinted, tracing them in his mind, the ink forming what he guessed was the title. Five words, all lined in a strange formation that still felt familiar.

“This must be the title,” he muttered, glancing at her for confirmation.

Minona hummed in satisfaction, glowing with pride as if she were a teacher basking in the brilliance of her star pupil. “Exactly. ‘Legendary Tale, King Lucius.’ See? I told you. I taught you the basics, now the rest is on you. Go on, quick! Read it!”

Robin blinked, frowning. “You’re just gonna leave me to it? I thought you’d stick around till I understood at least half of it.”

Her light flickered in a playful taunt, swirling around him like a triumphant dance. “I’ve given you the basics, Robin. You’re clever enough to figure the rest out on your own. Don’t expect me to hold your hand. Besides,” she added with a boastful hum, “you’ll learn faster this way—discovery always beats spoon-feeding. Now stop complaining and start reading. Compare the symbols, find the patterns. You’ll see how the words vocalize themselves if you pay attention.”

Robin felt the weight of her gaze—or at least the glow of it—pressing against him as if to see just how far he’d fall, a baby bird shoved from the nest before its wings were ready. But that was the trick, wasn’t it? You never knew what you could do until the ground rushed up to meet you. He sucked in a breath, steeling himself, then opened the book. The pages stared back, full of arcane symbols, jagged lines twisting together into something ancient, foreign, almost alive. They taunted him, these marks, daring him to fail. Robin smirked, his fingers trailing over the page like a gambler about to roll the dice. This wouldn’t be hard. He’d spent his life learning fast—too fast for his own good, sometimes. And now, with Minona hovering above him, a flickering light of amusement and expectation, he felt that old, familiar challenge bubbling up inside him again.

“You know what?” He didn’t glance up but could feel her light pulse a little stronger, the spark of competition lighting between them. “I’ll take that as a challenge. I might be an outlander, but soon I’ll have native fluency. Just you wait. I’ll read this entire thing and leave you speechless.”

“Yeah, yeah, my students used to say that too—right before they flunked.” Her voice, sharp and cutting, danced with a lazy sort of arrogance. “You think you’re special? I’ve seen that before. Only difference is, I’ll enjoy watching you trip.” She paused, her light flaring as if with a grin. “I was a teacher once. Princess, teacher, you name it. So, enough boasting. Read.”

That flicker—she was amused, but there was something else there, wasn’t there? Not that he’d let it distract him. Robin set his jaw, rolling his shoulders, and dove into the pages. The symbols flowed together, each letter an obstacle he tore down with ease. Words unlocked, lines formed, and the language, strange and foreign as it was, began to sing. The dungeon around him blurred, the cold stone walls and the silence melting into the background as his focus sharpened, lasered in on the task at hand. Every word was a victory, every sentence a step toward proving Minona wrong—or right, in a way she wouldn’t admit. He could feel her light flicker with each word he conquered, though she stayed silent now, her glow steady but somehow softer. She wasn’t mocking anymore.

He smirked to himself, a low, quiet laugh building in his chest. He wasn’t just going to read a little. No, he was going to finish this entire book, cover to cover, and when he did, Minona would have to eat her words. “I’ll read the whole damn thing,” he muttered under his breath, the fire in his chest burning hotter. “And when I do, you’ll have to admit I’ve bested you.”

Her light, though still steady, flickered ever so slightly—a pulse of pride maybe? But she didn’t say anything, just hovered there, watching him, letting him work. Maybe she didn’t need to. Maybe she already knew what he didn’t—that this challenge was as much hers as it was his. And yet, beneath the surface, he could sense her pride, something unspoken in the way her light brightened, as if the fire inside him was lighting hers too. He felt it, even if he couldn’t see her face.

And so, as the final was flipped…

“My head…” Robin collapsed, face-first into the dirt, as if the very life had been sucked from his bones, his energy evaporating into the thick, stale air of the dungeon. “…hurts so much,” he groaned, his voice muffled against the cold stone as he clapped the final page of the book shut with a dull thud.

“Congratulations!” Minona’s voice, as bright as he’d expected, not quite the supernova he’d half-dreamed she’d turn into but still brimming with that self-satisfied glee she wore like a crown. “You finished the book. So, tell me, what have you learned, Robin?”

He barely lifted his head, the weight of exhaustion pulling him back down. Dark circles ringed his eyes, hair in wild disarray, and his hands trembled ever so slightly, like the final throes of a battle-worn soldier. “I’ve lost all sense of time,” he muttered, his voice rough, hoarse from days of silence and mental strain. “But I can tell you about the book, sure. It’s about a peasant who clawed his way up to the throne, named the land after his mother—Lucia—and took on her name, calling himself Lucius the First.”

“So, what do you think of His Majesty?” Minona’s glow flickered playfully, her light circling him like a cat toying with its prey.

Robin buried his face back into the ground, as though the stone might swallow him whole. After a moment, he took a long, deep breath, gathering himself for what felt like the thousandth time. “He’s beyond help, utterly insane!” he shouted, the words spilling out in frustration, his voice echoing against the dungeon walls. “I refused to believe what I’ve read! A mother-obsessed maniac ruling this land, naming it after her, conquering tribes, plundering dungeons—just so he could marry her? Marry. His. Mother! What kind of twisted logic is this? Whoever wrote this saga—whatever drug or liquor they were on—I want some!”

“That’s a brilliant insight, Robin!” Minona chimed in, her voice laced with that familiar mischievousness, glowing with barely contained laughter. “But maybe let’s keep your colorful commentary about our dear mother-obsessed king to ourselves, hmm? Don’t want you meeting an unfortunate end at the guillotine when we’re outside, do we?” She floated closer, settling lightly on his back, her glow flickering like a mischievous grin. “Also, I’ve heard your stomach grumbling. Hungry?”

Robin groaned, covering his face with both hands, as though he could hide from the absurdity of it all. “I don’t want to eat Hundstein!” he groaned, voice muffled by his hands.

“No, no, not Hundsteins,” Minona’s voice was filled with mischief, her light flickering in time with her laughter. “Something better. Something you’re good at… Vegetables!” She chuckled, clearly reveling in whatever plan she was concocting.

Robin groaned again, deeper this time, sinking even further into the ground. Whatever challenge came next, he’d face it. But for now, all he wanted was to escape the madness of kings, dungeons, and glowing orbs.