Chapter 3:

My Tutor

I have now turned three years old.

Time didn’t go by particularly quickly or anything, there just wasn’t much going on in general. The only thing that broke up the monotony of my days was the rare times my mother moaned in a new way at night.

Aside from that, I was growing up nicely. I peered into a bucket of water to try to see what I looked like in this world and was pleasantly surprised. I had my father’s vermillion eyes and inherited a small beauty mark just under my left eye. On the other hand, I had received my semi-blonde hair from my mother’s side.

“Honey, doesn’t Lumi look just like you?” My father said warmly while stroking my head.

“But she has your eyes. They’re so pretty,” my mother spoke, a kind look in her eyes. She kissed me on the forehead and set me down on the ground.

“Lumi certainly loves that book, doesn't she? I bet she’s going to grow up to be a real scholar,” my mother said, puffing up her chest like a true prideful mother.

My father laughed at that one. “With my blood, I’d be surprised if she ever goes to school.” What do you mean by that? Paul, don’t tell me you’re a flunkie…

Mother poked him in the gut and said, “It’s too early to be talking about school anyways.”

The book they were talking about was A Textbook of Magic. I seriously carried that thing everywhere. I also never openly read it in front of my family, since they hadn’t formally taught me to read yet.

Although, I could tell that Lilia knew something at least. She’d constantly move me to my bed whenever I passed out from practice and bring towels to clean up any mess I made with earth and water magic. I had to give it to her, she was amazing.

I had thought about revealing my magic potential to my parents, but I decided to wait until I was at least Intermediate-tier so that the surprise was as big as I could manage. I’d kind of plateaued with my healing magic since I only knew one spell, and the book didn’t contain any intermediate healing incantations.

My mother works at this village’s equivalent of a small hospital, which is a clinic. I could fix my plateau if I tagged along and listened to the incantations that she said, but something about leaving the house right now unsettled me. Just something for another day, I supposed.

However, the day I would pull off an intermediate spell came much faster than anticipated.

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One day, I was in the room upstairs like always. I had noticed my mana reserves were off the charts. I could barely even empty the tank these days. I glanced at the book, which happened to be open to a page with the incantation of the Wind Intermediate-tier spell, “Sonic Boom.”

Hehe… why not?

I had previously thought that I would do this in front of my parents, but I’d seriously embarrass myself if I couldn’t pull it off. I know it would be expected of a three-year-old to screw up like that, but I still had a smidgen of pride left in me. As for the spell itself, I hoped I had the mana capacity to do it.

I took a deep breath and began to chant. “May a shred of the power that rules the skies come unto me. Let a mere mimicry of the heavenly breath befall all those who wish to cause harm–Sonic Boom!”

The mana gathered in my arm. The constant use of smaller-tier spells had made me numb to the sensation, but this time was different. The mana density was much more defined, putting a bit of strain on my hand. Like a small windstorm, the air around my feet picked up speed and brushed past me the way a gentle breeze would.

When I felt like my mana in my arm hit the upper limit, I released the spell. The wind expelled from my hand made a sharp cracking sound as it hit the wall, tearing through the wall so swiftly that you would’ve missed it if you blinked. Once it was all said and done, the wall was nearly falling apart because of the gaping hole I had left in it.

I stood there, flabbergasted. I had vastly underestimated the power of these spells. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea how much money it would take to repair this level of damage. And it's not like it was an accident either. It looked like a hole made from magic. And the only one here was me. What should I do? What do I…

Tears started welling up in my eyes. Paul rushed into the room. I stared at him in horror, expecting some sort of reprimand. What if my family wasn’t actually that rich? What had I just done?

But, despite all of my worries, all he did was pick me up and pull me close to him.

“Lumi, are you alright? Hurt anywhere?” He patted my head.

I felt like crying. This was the first time someone had ever treated me like this in nearly fifteen years. I buried my head into his chest.

He muttered, “Was there a monster? Nah, couldn’t be. Not around here.”

I heard footsteps coming from outside the room. I heard my mother’s voice. “Oh, my.” She seemed calm, as she always was. I popped my head out of my father’s embrace. She peered at the hole in the wall, then at me, and then at the book in that order.

She then put on a warm smile, one so wide it almost creeped me out. Was my mother going to take this badly? Before I could start overthinking it again, she spoke.

“Lumi, you wouldn’t have happened to say these words here out loud, would you?” she asked, in an increasingly excited tone.

“I’m sorry,” I said, in the loudest voice I could muster. Which happened to be barely audible.

My father looked bewildered. “You’re sorry? That was an Intermediate tier sp–”

“Oh, sweetie! You heard her, didn't you? Our baby’s a prodigy!” She clapped and started to jump up and down in joy. Zenith was certainly taking this well. Paul on the other hand, still had something to say.

Paul looked at me. “Wait, hold on for a second. You’re telling me that you, a three-year-old child who doesn’t even know how to read yet, or–”

“We’re going right to Roa next week and posting a request for a magical tutor! She’s going to be a world-renowned mage when she grows up!”

Zenith was over the moon. If I were in her shoes, I’d react more like Paul. Surely she should have interrogated me a little more before celebrating. I had no clue why she was so willing to accept this, but I wasn’t complaining. If she’d been observing me closely over the last year, I wouldn’t be surprised if she truly thought I was a genius, what with how I taught myself to read.

I’d been surrounded by so-called geniuses all my life. My brother and sister all grew up faster than I did, picked up things I could barely do, and could master them instantly. My parents were the type who said, “Oh, maybe he’s a genius.” even if it wasn’t that impressive. Yet I was never on the receiving end of those remarks.

Finally, after so long, maybe I could be a genius.

“Honey, we have to get her a tutor, surely there’s someone capable in Roa!”

Paul looked thoroughly confused. “So we’re going to ignore the fact that a three-year-old child cast an Intermediate-tier spell? That’s absurd!”

My mother shot back, “Well, that’s all the more reason to get a tutor for her!”

Paul began to stare at me as if saying that he knew there was more to it than me just being a genius.

He sighed. “Okay, but once you have a boy, I’m going to train him up as a swordsman. No complaints?”

Zenith smirked. “No complaints. I guess we should really get on making Lumi a brother, then.”

They wrapped themselves in a hug and then separated to go to their bedroom. Never change, parents. Never change.

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About my father. From what I gathered from conversations he had with my mother, he was employed as the village knight. That was our family’s main source of income. He went out every night or so and hunted monsters in the nearby forest to protect the village from any harm or attacks.

That meant that he held the highest position of power in the whole village, which had to give him some authority over things. My mother told me how much the village respected him and how he had strong bonds with his coworkers who helped him out with his job. But even still, I doubted the quality of any tutor that could respond to the request. Who’d want to accept a job out in the sticks, with less than average quality of life, and to tutor some knight’s kid?

“Hello, I’m Roxas Migurdia. Saint-Tier wind mage, at your service. Uhm, it’s nice to meet you.”

My expectations were blown to bits. Here I was, envisioning an old man with a long beard, with decades of experience. Yet before me, right outside the door to my home, stood a pretty boy who looked to be in his first year of high school.

He looked the part of a magician despite his age. He wore a light white and white robe and a pair of long black shorts, leaving his pale, cleanly shaven legs exposed in the breeze. His wavy, blue hair extended down to his neck and was let loose without so much as a hair tie to keep it in check. The only thing he wore on his head was a modest, stout wizard’s hat that was the color of the night sky with blue highlights.

Roxas looked quite professional, but not intimidating in the slightest. He had an anxious undertone to his mannerisms, which made me want to go up to him and pat his head. I decided right there that this man would be my husband someday in the far, far-off future. He was adorable.

As I studied him, my parents stayed quiet for a bit too long. It was getting uncomfortable, honestly.

“...” The silence couldn’t be any louder. My father finally spoke up.

“Hey… uh, are you the home tutor?” He said, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck and averting his eyes.

Seemingly trying to pick her words carefully, my mother hesitantly followed him up. “Aren’t you a little…”

She trailed off afterward, leaving her sentence hanging, further increasing the awkwardness of this whole situation. I had to do something about this atmosphere–I didn’t want to make an unpleasant first impression.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The first thing to pop up in my head were the words, You’re pretty! I pushed it aside–surely there was something less out of left field than that. As it so happens, I blurted it out anyway.

Roxas looked taken aback for a bit before he regained his composure. “I-I don’t know how to respond to that, but thank you.” He gave me a cheery smile and focused his attention on my parents.

“So… where’s this student of mine?” He offered, seemingly a little lost.

My mother responded. “That would be our Lumi right here!”

I gave Roxas the biggest smile I could. He lowered his eyebrows in what looked to be disappointment. He muttered something under his breath, which I could just barely make out.

“Jeez. I went through all the trouble just for this?”

I furrowed my eyebrows. Just for this? What do you mean by that, go on, tell me.

“Say something?” My father asked.

He chuckled softly. “Ah, nothing much, I was just wondering how much your daughter would be able to understand about the principles of magic.”

Well, that was to be expected. But couldn’t he have a little more faith in me? Wasn’t I the spitting image of someone you should trust the word of? Well, maybe not now. But you’ll see!

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Paul said. “You’ll be just as bewildered as I was.”

Roxas sighed, and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

And so, that was the first day of training under Roxas.

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Roxas

“Hah.” My first reaction to the job posting was a chuckle.

It interested me a little, though. It was to tutor the ‘Magical prodigy' daughter of a knight named Paul Greyrat. The so-called prodigy herself was named Lumina Greyrat. On the job listing, it said “Accepting all mages Advanced-tier or above in any school of magic,” making me more than qualified to take on the job.

The only issue with that was that the knight lived smack dab in the middle of nowhere, in a settlement called “Buena Village.” Normally, I would have never accepted it. But when I saw the monthly wages, I changed my mind: Ten Asuran Large Copper coins. That’s twice what I get every two weeks!

Having made up my mind, I took the job listing and accepted it at the front desk of the Guild.

I departed soon after. But when I found out how old the daughter was, I was taken aback. She even complimented me out of nowhere. She was pretty charming, if anything. Certainly not “Magical Genius” levels...

…Is what I thought. I decided to start her off slowly like any good tutor would. I figured I’d play around with her for a little while, decide she was hopeless, and get on my way. It wouldn’t have been the first time that a job turned out to be underwhelming, so I was fine with it.

Of course, I had to be wrong. I was acting all smugly until she cut off her incantation in the middle of casting an Elementary-tier wind spell. Not even my master, who taught me my very first spell, could do such a thing.

To be frank, I was shocked. “You cut off your incantation?” I asked her.

She looked a little timid while answering me. “Yeah.”

I had to inquire further. If this was truly what I thought it was, tutoring this girl might shape up to be the most interesting thing I’d go through in years now. “Do you do that often? Or was that just a fluke?”

After a moment of hesitation, she responded, “I usually don’t use them at all.”

“Not at all?!” I exclaimed.

I was skeptical. If this was true, then I could see why her parents made her out to be such a prodigy in the job listing. But this could also be another classic case of a spoiled child lying about her capabilities to her naive parents.

“Show me how you do it, then,” I said, letting a bit of a sharp tone seep into my words. Ah well, not like she’d catch on anyway.

She sighed. Huh? Where do you get off sighing at me? Ah, I probably shouldn’t be too harsh on the kiddo.

She raised her arm confidently and smirked at me.

“Go on, aim for that tree over there,” I said.

“Are you sure, Mister?” she said as if she knew something I didn’t. What was there to worry about a small tree? If it was important, I could just restore it before anyone else found out.

“Of course. What are you waiting for?” I motioned for her to proceed, to which she shot out a streamline of wind forward that shot through the tree, ruthlessly tearing the thing in half.

My jaw dropped. So she’s the real deal, huh? An incantationless caster, and three years old at that. Never thought I’d see the day.

“Ah, yes. I get it now. That makes a lot of sense. Are you feeling tired right now?” I wouldn’t be surprised if she was suffering from mana exhaustion after pulling that off. I didn’t have an inkling of a clue as to how incantationless magic worked if you were the one casting it, so I had to go off of some archaic assumptions.

She responded with a smile. “Not at all, Teacher!”

Of course. “Maybe it's worth teaching this girlie after all,” I muttered under my breath.

Well, if she could do that much, I wanted to see just how much potential she had. I was already forming a plan in my head as to how to gauge her current progress when I heard an ear-piercing cry.

“Aaaaaahh!” What happened? Is someone hurt? I turned around to see Zenith, the mother of Lumi, pointing at something behind me. It was the tree I told Lumi to demonstrate on–it was now snapped in half.

Lumi scrambled over to me, and whispered, “That was my mother’s favorite tree, and she spends all day watering it and taking care of it.”

My eyes widened and I swiftly turned to face her.

“Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?” I exclaimed, trying my hardest to keep my voice low.

“Ah, well, it’s fine! I’ll vouch for you and everything!” she said, confidently beaming at me with a smug grin.

“That’s not the problem here!” I exclaimed

I could already tell that I was going to be in for it now.

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Somehow, I wasn’t let go right there and then.

Soon after we started lessons, my student started to grill me with all sorts of questions about the world, as if she were starving for knowledge. For the next few weeks, I tried my hardest to train her and answer all of her questions when I could. It took a while to get into a good schedule, but I managed it.

I came to grow fond of Lumi. One of the things she asked about the most was about the geography of the world. I wasn’t too knowledgeable about that subject, but I told her about this village, Buena Village, and where it was located in the Asura Kingdom. I tried to explain how the Asura Kingdom was split into a few territories known as Regions, and that the one that she lived in was known as the Fittoa Region.

She didn’t stop there pestering me with questions, so I brought out one of my maps and showed it to her. We spent one or two weeks studying it–Lumi absorbed herself into learning about the map almost instantly. What a strange girl, I thought. She was a bit smug and prideful at times, and sometimes she said some seriously out-of-pocket things, like “You should show more of your skin,” or “Could I wear your robes?” for example.

That wasn’t to discount her better attributes, of course. For whatever reason, she spoke like a grown adult. Putting the inherent uncanniness of talking to a toddler who used the words “and thus” in her sentences aside, she was easy enough to get along with. I couldn’t imagine having these sorts of conversations with a regular girl her age. On top of that, Lumi was a hard-working child, and she knew a lot more than I could ever think of knowing at her age. At her age… that just brought back bad memories.

Maybe I would’ve learned this much if I hadn’t run away from home. There's no use thinking about it thirty years after the fact. Move on, Roxas.

Before I knew it, a month had come and gone since I arrived in Buena Village. I had adjusted to a nice pace and Lumi was steadily improving as time went on. While I’d like to say I was completely focused on tutoring Lumi, there was one thing I vividly recalled the most.

One night I was walking around in the house at night. I was particularly thirsty that night, so I wanted to get a wooden cup and make some water. However, before I could get to the cupboard, I heard the sounds of a bed frame creaking and moans coming from somewhere. Instead of rushing back to my room like a normal person, I decided to investigate. What I found was the door of the parents of Lumi’s bedroom slightly ajar. I peeked inside.

They were making love. Pretty passionately too. I never realized how much of a beauty Zenith was until now. Her blonde hair was ruffled as she was sliding against the bed. It was a sight to behold. I wouldn’t call myself a pervert, but I couldn’t help but be switched on.

I’d been pretty pent up since there wasn’t a lot of privacy in this home—even my guest room walls were paper thin. So I decided to release some stress right then and there. I finished with my business soon enough and got out of there before I could be noticed by anyone. Well, I hoped I did.

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“Mister Roxas, what exactly are demons?” I had been amid a lecture conversation with Lumi, and the topic of Demonfolk arose. I don’t think she knew I was a demon, however.

I told her all about the Demon-human war. Since she had demonstrated that her interest in learning was akin to a scholar’s, I gave her a crash course in it.

After I was finished with my spiel, I told her that I was a Demon. She seemed surprised to hear it since she perked up like a cat would after being lured with treats. It's cute to see such a genius be astonished at something.

“You must have noticed your parents’ surprise when they first saw me, right, Lumi?”

She responded with, “I figured that was just because you were little!” She’s still on that? Oh, what I’d do for my body to mature five years.

“I am not little,” I said gruffly. I told her about the hair color of humanoid demons. I belonged to the Migurd Tribe, a fairly small tribe that lived on the northeastern edge of the Demon Continent. Members of our tribe rarely set foot outside the continent, so I understood why they were so shocked to see it.

I explained how most humanoid demon tribes have distinct hair colors. I made sure to tell her about the dangers of the Superd. I told her about their key characteristics, and to run away if she ever saw one. The main reason why people distrusted demon tribes like us was because of how similar our hair color could look to that of the Superds–which was emerald green.

My hair was a deep blue, but the wrong lighting could make it look green. It was yet another thing I cursed the world for bestowing upon me.

“I think your hair is very pretty, Mister,” Lumi said, smiling aptly.

She’s always complimenting me. It’s nice since she’s as cute as a kitten, but I wish she would acknowledge our age differences. If she kept this up, I’d be accused of something that I’d never do.

“Oh, thank you very much. But that’s the sort of thing you should say to a boy you like after you’ve grown up a little.” I admit that hearing that someone liked my hair was reassuring, but it didn’t land quite as well coming from someone so young.

She frowned, and said, “But I like you, Mister!” Sigh. I knew it was coming. I’m flattered, but I'm not so inclined to go after a three-year-old. How would that even work? I shooed that thought out of my head and decided to respond in a way that wouldn’t shatter her heart. It was the least I could do for such a good student.

“Well, if you still feel the same way in fifteen years, feel free to repeat that to me.”

She seemed content with that, which gave me a strange feeling. What if she did propose in fifteen years? Well, not like I’ll be sticking around that long anyway, so that’s no issue.

To end my lesson, she asked me if I knew anything about how to draw or create Magic Circles. While I was interested in the prospect, it wasn’t anywhere near my area of expertise. She looked devastated when I told her that, so I made a mental note to tell her about how she could study it formally once she was old enough. But for now, I was content to keep on teaching.

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Roughly a year went by. Lumi turned 4 years old. She’d grown quite a bit in her magical studies and could cast Advanced-tier magic in all four schools. Incantationless, of course. She was the very definition of a star student.

Since I wanted to buy her a wand soon, I began to save up by doing odd jobs around the village. Stuff like watering crops, making it rain and getting rid of stray debris. It was fun to see all the villagers light up at my skills. At this rate, I’d end up getting a big head.

One day, out of nowhere, she asked me, “Mister, couldn’t I call you Master instead?”

Hah. I’m hardly a master if I’m barely keeping up with my pupils, I thought. Besides, my master got envious of my ability after she had been teaching me for a long time. The thought of doing that to my student was off-putting.

“No, you’ll probably surpass me soon anyway. It would be a little weird, don’t you think?”

She shook her head. What would she gain from calling me that? She could call me Teacher if she wanted. Even though I could’ve just shut her down, I wanted to make my points clear. I didn’t want to make the impression that brute forcing something like that would solve things, after all.

“If I became upset at my own students' talent, I couldn’t even call myself a good teacher at that point. You see where I’m getting at?” She pouted. After seemingly giving it a few moments of consideration, she conceded.

“Well, I guess you make a decent point. I wouldn’t want you to feel like that, Mister Roxas.” Hm. I expected her to keep on debating until I caved in, but I’m not going to complain about her giving up on it.

Oh well. As long as she understands, I’m happy to continue teaching her until… until what? Until she surpasses me? That day wouldn’t be too far off. I’d say probably around her next birthday would be when it happened.

Ah, I know what I can do. We could hold a graduation ceremony that day, to commemorate how much she’d grown since we first met. Then I could be satisfied departing afterward. That sounds great to me. I’d tie up the loose ends and get to my next destination, wherever that’d be

And so, I decided to teach her as much as I could before her next birthday.