“Hello everyone. Yes, yes I know there’s a princess in the room and I’m just a boring teacher but please try to pay some attention, okay?” An energetic looking young lady told the class. I smiled softly at how she worded it.
“I apologise. I didn’t mean to attract much attention but with the clothing that is rather difficult” I said politely to our new teacher.
I heard almost everyone whisper in their own words how even without the white clothing I’d stand out but I ignored it.
“As the class pointed out in their painfully obvious gossiping I am afraid you would stand out even without the clothes, miss primrose. Having a kitten on your head and such distinctive physical features tends to do that. While I’m on the topic though I would like to tell everyone that yes, she is approved to have the kitten and that there is an important reason for it but that’s on a need-to-know basis. Feel free to start up any wild rumours you want just try not to get yourself detained for insulting the crown in the process. Now, as introductions I will be your teacher from today onwards. Lillian Williams, pleasure to meet your acquaintance’s, everyone” She said rather cheerfully.
While considering the dream I had last night it seems suspicious that I’d hear the name William again so soon but I know that he is completely, irreversibly dead so it really is just a coincidence.
“Sigh, not going to stop gossiping hey? Fine, I’ll make you all a deal. As a new teacher I obviously have it within my rights to let everyone do a self-introduction so that means this princess your all excited about is included in that. I wasn’t planning on doing this originally but if you can all agree not to gossip at least for the rest of the lesson, I will let you all do a self introduction” She totally is bribing them. This teacher is interesting.
“Yay! That wasn’t so hard, right? As a reward why don’t we have the princess herself start us off?” She coaxed. I didn’t mind so I obediently went up to the stage.
“Hmm, how about saying name, hobbies, interests and a brief summary of ourselves?” I asked our teacher politely. I am trying to play the role of a princess after all, naturally I need to keep up my public image. What I do in my own time is my own decision but when I’m in the public I have to act respectably. That’s actually why I wasn’t allowed out till I was four. It was simply usual procedure since most children learn to control themselves by then in our society.
“That’s sounds fine.” She agreed easily.
“In that case it is a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Scarlet Primrose and although I am quite public due to my status as the third princess, I hope you will all treat me as you would any other. As for hobbies I guess they would include Art, music and photography while my interests lay in enchanting, science, magic theory, technology, formations and training. There are many other subjects I am knowledgeable on as well but they would not count as a hobby or interest. As for the summary of myself I like to socialise with friends and family the majority of the time but when I am not doing so, I usually spend my time studying and training. The mana-based computers where originally designed and introduced by me so if anyone needs help with projects or even just pointers feel free to ask any time.” I said as elegantly as I could manage (which is pretty damn elegant).
“Ah, and the kitten’s name is Sapphire for any who are curious. Will that be all, Miss Williams?” I asked our teacher politely.
“Yes that is fine, princess” She said with a lopsided grin.
After that, I returned to my seat where another five introductions where done before it was Azure’s turn.
“Azure Firefox. Hobbies include training, playing with master and serving master while interest are all around master. You won’t find any history about me before I was adopted into the royal family and if you do I can guarantee it is false but from two years ago I have been living with master.” She said in a really devoted tone.
“Azure, you where supposed to tell them about yourself not talk about me. You like chocolate and anything cute and you tend to enjoy talking to our friends and playing games with me while occasionally going exploring while you think no one’s looking to add to your teddy collection.” I scolded softly but with obvious warmth.
“M-master, that’s embarrassing” She said as her face went red.
“I have a kitten doing backstroke on my head right now.” I reminded her. When everyone started watching her do backstroke she got embarrassed and hid her head, making them all do an ‘aww’ or ‘kyaa’ sound.
Naturally there will be a lot of tension around us from our positions so I’m trying to dissolve it. Plus if I don’t show that I care about Azure they will try to bully her for stupid reasons like ‘clinging to the princess’. Even if she is a god, they don’t know that so we obviously can’t use our power and in that situation they could actually hurt her with their bullying. Well, mentally atleast.
After that event the rest of the class introduced themselves without interruption and then it was our teachers turn.
“As I’ve already said, my name is Lillian Williams and I am your teacher. Hobbies involve star hopping with my friends, shopping and adventuring. For those of you who don’t know what star hopping is it’s basically just enhancing your muscles with mana and jumping from one planet or astral body to the next. It’s quite fun and when you are all stronger you should try it sometime. Recently my interests lay is dating, teaching, researching and magical engineering and a summary of myself from what I’ve been told by my friends is enthusiastic, thrill seeking, bright and charismatic. A summary of myself in my own opinion would be that I love teaching but while I am not teaching I go thrill seeking and adventuring. So if I ever disappear it’s likely I’m either dead, kidnapped or trapped in some random trap. The later two have both happened several times but so far I’ve always made it back here.” She said enthusiastically. So cool teacher type?
A student put their hand up and she told them to ask away.
“Have you ever met a man?” She asked. It seems even the enthusiastic teacher was thrown off for a second there before regaining her wits. I mean, a kid asking if you’ve ever met a man is a little hard to answer.
“I’ve met a few million men actually but yes, I have met a man. There where men on this world until just under two years ago, you know. Most of our nation has met men especially since a lot travel off world for adventuring, holidays, business deals and dates. Our nation is quite small in the grand scheme of things and while we are a female only nation most are male and female.” She answered once she thought about it for a sec. It even threw me off a bit when the kid asked that so it’s no surprise she was a little stunned.
“My parents told me men where cruel and barbaric animals who resort to brute force whenever someone uses a word more complicated than their peanut sized brains can handle.” Another little girl interrupted much to my amusement.
“There are certainly men like that but I think you will find that most men don’t fit those terms. While yes, there are bad men in any civilisation there are also a lot of good men who are kind, caring and helpful as well. Being a bad person isn’t simply limited by gender miss parker as woman can be just as cruel and evil as men if the situation or circumstances call for it. It was largely overlooked due to the massive changes our nation went through recently but a few years ago a noble was executed for having around one hundred woman and children in a dungeon where she would rape and torture them regularly. It is certainly not a nice topic to discuss but being a bad person cannot be attributed to something as simple as gender.” She answered easily. I guess she would have heard a lot of questions like this over her life as a teacher so it would be easy to answer
“It is true that men smell more though” She added in afterwards, making the class laugh.
After that she mainly just talked about what we’d be doing for the rest of the year and what we’d be learning before class time finished. Staying true to their word the class didn’t gossip until class was over and it was lunchtime but then all their suppressed gossip went into overdrive and they where probably the loudest class out of them all.
“You’re having fun, aren’t you, Sapphire. Getting embarrassed when everyone looks at you… I don’t believe that for a second” I said to her once we where away from the others. She just gave a weird cat grin (yes it was totally a failure) in reply and went back to licking her paws.
“Master why didn’t you tell me you knew about that…?” Azure pouted to me.
“Because it was cuter to watch you think you could hide it from me” I answered happily.
“Ugh… then why did you tell everyone about it?” She asked in defeat.
“I thought they’d bully my little cuddle buddy if I didn’t. I was just making it clear that your mine” I teased her as I put my arms around her neck from behind and cuddled her, letting her walk me to wherever we where going.
Sapphire reached down her paw and pulled my eyelid open, much to my annoyance. As punishment I shook my head, watching as she scrambled to hold on. I smirked victoriously before closing my eyes again.
The games continued however as this time she leaned down and bit my nose softly and I flicked her forward so she was holding onto my chest with her claws but couldn’t get out because we where moving and the gap was too small between Azure and me. I grinned at her and poked my tongue out as she did as close to a scowl as a kitten can do.
With a well-timed leap, she landed on my shoulder and licked the inside of my ear. Honestly I didn’t expect her to go so low so it surprised me just as much as it felt weird and disgusting. In retaliation I bumped my shoulder up really fast and when she was in the air I grabbed her with my lips like when an adult cat carries a kitten. If she goes low, I go low.
For a while she uselessly tried to escape the awkward position until she resorted to pulling Azure’s hair until I let her go and she growled at me before curling up to go to sleep on my head again. I totally won. Still, that wasted most of the walk time so I only got to sleep on Azure’s back while cuddling her for around a minute more before we arrived at our destination.
It was a pre-agreed garden area that belonged to Amber’s group where we would all meet up. Of course there where some extras I’ve never met before but that didn’t really faze me. Sapphire did a daring leap towards her sister only to miss when she bent over to pick up a fallen pin and hit Emerald in the stomach instead. She growled at her sister and I totally knew she would get lectured later for not catching her.
“How’s the first day so far, sis?” Emerald asked me once she stopped laughing at Sapphire.
“It’s been fun. It seems we got an interesting teacher rather than some stuck up old lady so things are looking bright” I answered her lightly.
“You’re lucky. I got stuck with miss Edwards in my first year. She was a real asshole and she had a grudge against nobles that only came second to her grudge against royalty. Of course she never did anything far enough that we could actually formally complain about her but she knew how to balance on the line very well. When news came around that she was retiring last year the whole cafeteria was cheering.” I never knew her first teacher was like that.
“So that’s why you didn’t want to go to school” I realised.
“No that was because she had a fight with one of her friends and knew it was her fault but didn’t want to apologise” Amber intruded herself into the conversation.
“A four month fight?” I asked sceptically.
“I… we where both avoiding each other. She wouldn’t talk to me unless it was for me to apologise and I wouldn’t apologise unless she talked to me. Eventually amber got sick of it and interrupted.” Emerald said awkwardly.
“Ah, there’s the childish sister who wanted to name me butterfly.” I said like I found something I had lost ages ago.
Amber cracked up laughing as soon as I said that.
“Why did my sister have to have super memory?” She asked exasperatedly.
“Even if I didn’t have super memory a moment as important as that would have stuck regardless.” I corrected her with a grin.
“I feel like I just missed something important” Crystal said as she came to join in.
“You did” We all said in sync. Just to be evil sapphire even tried to meow out the words in sync with us as well.
For the rest of the break time we just continued making small talk and messing around while Crystal kept trying to ask what she missed and we refused to tell her. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything but it is still more amusing to leave it to bother her all day instead.
About half way through I began to use Azure as my cuddle toy again as I did the same thing as last time without the movement part since we where standing still. It’s so much more comfortable to do this instead so naturally I would. Ember tried to convince Azure that she didn’t have to let me do that but naturally she let me. I grinned evilly at her and poked my tongue out childishly before making a big show of cuddling up to my cuddle toy. She was just jealous.
After that I mainly idly followed through the conversation while replying to the important stuff only but otherwise relaxing. The dream last night left me really tensed up and quite tired considering how much I was crying. It’s not really physical fatigue since my vitality is too strong for that but my mind was still feeling the effects of reliving the main bad memories from my last life in one night. Atleast I didn’t relive more of them. Sometimes I relive up to a month in one night, it’s horrible, especially since I only have bad dreams.
We agreed to only meet up there once a week on Fridays since everyone else has their own little social groups and our meetings where just to review the events and plan stuff for the weekend anyway but after that we went our own ways. Lunch was coming to an end anyway so we had to get indoor sports hall our teacher told us to come to before it did. On the way there I couldn’t walk like I did last time unfortunately since there where people watching as compared to using a back path where we where alone but I made do by playing with sapphire.
Azure being an all-knowing world dungeon means we can avoid people pretty easily usually since we know where they are but the path was quite public this time with no hidden escape routes so things weren’t so simple.
The indoor sports hall was one of the more mixed ones in the school with almost everything present but most of them are focused on certain aspects like training, sparring, racing, swimming etc. This one had a bit of everything inside it. The inside was around 100km with the space enchants so it’s not as big as it could have been but it was still a considerable size.
“Master, we’re early.” Azure commented.
“Yes by around five minutes, right?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“Yes.”
“How about we play a game then, Azure? We wouldn’t want to disappoint the people after all.” I asked in amusement.
“What do you suggest, Master?”
“Sleeping. Let’s see if any of them can bare to wake me up. I am the perfectly elegant and cute third princess after all” I told her playfully. She totally saw through it as a desire to rest but she conceded regardless.
Laying down on a spot of grass I laid my head on her lap and let the artificial sun trickle through her hair onto my face.
Just as I had hoped when other students started trickling in half a minute later they all stayed quite at the scene, not willing to disturb me, and it was only when our teacher came in two minutes late that I was disturbed. Even then she seemed hesitant to wake me but I suspect that was more because she liked the quite I brought rather than feeling the same as the students who weren’t willing to disturb such a ‘perfect’ scene. Of course she still did.
“Wake up sleeping beauty, Azure. Class time.” She said dismissingly.
“I’m surprised you know that story sensei” I replied. If she heard it I figured she had probably been to earth so the sensei part was just a test to confirm that.
“I’m more surprised that you do, princess. Earths fairy tales aren’t exactly popular among magic civilisations so the chances of you knowing them would be miniscule” She sounded a little suspicious.
“My grandmother like’s Earth’s culture quite a bit so it is only natural that I would pick up a few things. Since Earths entertainment industry largely influenced our own as well with things like internet, anime and social media it seemed like a good topic to look into at the time.” While it’s true that the airhead does like anime since the ‘characters are cute’ I learnt so much about it from my last life. You would be surprised how many gods have visited the world through word of mouth or personal like’s and experiences. I actually had to leave the gods alive on that world simply because I would have became public enemy number one if I didn’t. While I can look after myself it would have been annoying if gods came and looted my territory while I was out. I was still able to trace a lot of their regulars though and hunt them down so it was a fair trade.
She looked a bit curious at that but otherwise didn’t comment and our private conversation came to an end as she addressed the rest of the class.
“The regular school days are fairly simple. 8 am to 10 am is class, 11 am to 2 pm is gym and 3pm to 5pm is class again. The one hour gaps in between are break periods where you can do whatever you want. On some days and events this schedule will be changed but in that case you will all be notified in advance. On Saturday you will be attending class as well but it only lasts from 8 am to 11 am so you still have time to do whatever brats like you do on a weekend. Today the day will end early with us staying here till 3 pm and then you are all free.
Our purpose in these four hours are to identify everyone’s strengths and weaknesses within the physical abilities department whether it includes strength, speed, reflexes, power and combat capabilities and based off of the results a training schedule will be designed for everyone. While as a nation of cultivators we do allow you to hold back in your tests and abilities, I would like to remind everyone that if you where to hold back in say strength, your training would naturally be lighter than your ability level and as such you won’t gain anything from these schedules. If you go all-out from the start we can give you schedules that actually are improving your strengths rather than wasting time and being overtaken by everyone else.” She told everyone seriously. Is she a training nut? She hasn’t been serious all morning and now as soon as we get to training it’s like she’s a completely different person.
“Miss Williams, I am still injured from a recent accident that tore out my left calf and while it only needs around another two weeks to heal fully is it possible to do this test again? I don’t want to be stuck with a light training schedule all year because of this injury.” Ouch. It’s been a long time but I remember how much that hurts while you are still a low levelled cultivator.
“We will be officially updating the training schedule every month after some more tests like this one but for special cases like this we can make exceptions. I will arrange for you to stay here with me for around an hour after school once you have fully recovered to update it faster but for today try to preform to the best of your capabilities without straining the injury. There are certain areas in the school with formations that speed up natural recovery so I suggest you spend most of your free time inside but since it was an injury that occurred while you weren’t enrolled in the school I am afraid you aren’t eligible for free treatments from anyone in the recovery ward.” She told her and everyone else by extension.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Thank you I didn’t know there where any places like that” She replied genuinely. Since she is from the talented commoner group based on her uniform she probably couldn’t afford to get proper treatment and had to instead rely on cheap recovery pills and her own mana which would hurt quite a lot. The formations themselves are usually used to mass-recover stamina and magic by digesting the food at rapid rates so she will have to eat a lot but since food also helps with recovery naturally it will be faster and less painful for her.
The kid looked quite happy about that and her previous slightly depressed atmosphere totally reinvigorated itself until she was energetic and happy but I could already see some of the rich kids looking at her in contempt for not being able to afford proper treatments. Arrogant assholes.
“The first test is simple. Everyone will be running one kilometre without mana enhancement to test your body’s speed and technique. Afterwards you will do the same distance again with mana enhancement to test your body enhancing skill and technique. I want you all to take in mind that while mana can augment your abilities it only improves the base and while breakthroughs improve that base that doesn’t mean you can simply rely on breakthroughs alone to improve your power. Many cultivators are able to fight those in higher realms based off of high mana manipulation skills and lot’s of physical training.” She told us in a business-like voice.
The rest of the lesson was boring. Pretending to be at certain strength levels that are in reality so far below the both of us is rather troublesome and while we did obviously outperform everyone else since we had our positions to consider it was as a whole just a troublesome task. Since Azure publicly called me master as well I had to outperform her or even with such high results my reputation would be damaged for being weaker than my ‘servant.’ While we could easily trick the amateur’s in the room into thinking we where protégé’s I know the teacher saw through us easily as holding back due to her experience. It’s not like it matters but it is still annoying.
All the young girls are almost at the level of having sparkles in their eyes when they look at us or me especially and I’ve been spending the entire lesson trying to work out ways to get out of our ‘training’ every day. It won’t improve us at all so it’s just a waste of time and even if school in general can be considered useless to us I’d rather not spend three hours doing such weak training every day. In the end I opted for a private discussion to straight out ask her to let us off. Once I had decided on that I simply gave her an official-looking note that asked her to talk to us privately afterwards.
“Seeing as you made a show of handing over that letter I’m guessing you want something from me that can be explained to the rest of the class as an order from your parents?” She asked flatly after it was just the three of us (sapphire doesn’t count).
“Of course. Naturally I am able to get an official letter to you as well within the hour but I needed something to explain what will happen in the future to the rest of the class. I apologise if the theatrics inconvenience you in any way.” I told her clearly.
“I’m sure they will but how much will depend on the contents of this so called letter.” She replied with a sigh. I can’t blame her for that since the paper work would be annoying regardless and she doesn’t seem like someone to enjoy that.
“Officially it will be us leaving the school grounds every day to do our own private training so I imagine this will have benefits to you as well since we are a distraction to the rest of the class but I know you could tell we where holding back so whatever schedule we are given based off of our results will be a waste of time for us. Since there are occasionally students who opt for this option anyway the official process shouldn’t be too tedious for you.” I told her simply. Of course I’m still being polite but it wasn’t exactly a request.
“Okay. Although it is rather annoying to fill out the forms I can have them done by the time you come back with a real letter. As a price for that though you will be helping me create the training schedules since I was already pressed for time to begin with without an extra hour and a half of paper work and informing the principle and faculty. Actually make that two hours since I imagine sapphire will be going with you and by extension her sister. While I don’t have to fill out anything for her sister sapphire is technically a member of the class even if it is a special case.” She told me rather simply.
I smiled at her genuinely. I was right that this teacher was interesting. Usually a teacher would cave easily instead of roping a princess into paper work so I guess she is quite good. Well she is a stage twenty one cultivator at the age of 197 so her talent and influence must be quite high so it’s not unexpected but even without that her personality would make her do the same thing.
“I’m fine with that. I was watching them all anyway so it should be easy to write it into a schedule. As a free hint since you reacted so interesting I will tell you that Suzuka Lia has a massive natural aptitude for redirection type combat and if you start her off with some proper training she will naturally be very thankful to you in the future. You could even become a personal tutor to her as it is your area of specialty as well.” I told her with a hint of amusement while her eyes widened.
“How would you even be able to tell that after one lesson?” She asked curiously.
“Think back on her sparring and reaction speed tests. Combined with her dexterity and you get a clue, right? But I seriously doubt anyone taught her this as she is from common birth which means she picked it all up herself. Her actions and reactions may be amateur but it is obvious she has potential if you consider she was able to get so far without any help or conscious training on her part.”
You can tell by her movements that she never tried to train them but yet they are still incorporated into her style unconsciously so her talent is considerable. Plus I scanned everyone’s soul and she has abnormal amount of growth and talent for it. Of course she still needs training but it’s to the level where she could easily catch up to our teacher and maybe even surpass her eventually. Being a stage twenty one so young is naturally impressive but they both have similar cultivation talent while Suzuka has slightly better aptitude for fighting than our teacher. If Suzuka can get support from a noble family like hers who is focused on that style and has a lot of wealth from their young protégé’s progress than she can grow massively.
“I’ll give her some private lessons and see how it goes then. Anyway is there anything else we need to do now before we go separate ways or will I see you in an hour?” She asked me.
“Is everyone doing a day of this length today or do I need to go pull Sapphire’s sister out of class to tell her?” I asked while I was here.
“No everyone will be doing this today so we can get the training schedules up to date for all our students but it is possible that she could still be with a teacher should she have any business with them like a private lesson. You’ll have to go and find out yourself.” She told me.
“Okay thanks. See ya sensei” I said as Azure and I left.
“Stop calling me sensei it makes me feel like an old man.” I looked at her weirdly at that.
“You know that sensei is teacher in general and not anything to do with old or men, right?” I asked her with a frown.
“The first anime I watched on that world had a really old and grumpy man being called sensei all the time so now I always think of him when I hear it.” She answered with a slight tinge of frustration.
“Okay sensei” I said on purpose as I closed the door behind me. I saw her falter for a second before the door finished closing and I felt rather proud of my brief mischief.
“That was mean master” Azure scolded me as soon as we got away.
“Isn’t it natural to do little things like that in order to rid ourselves of the distance’s between us? Even if we are gods for as long as we play mortal making connections is a must and as far as connections go the heir to one of the top hundred noble families and a known protégé is a fairly good one. In the future she will atleast make it to around the twenty eighth realm before she reaches 1000 years old providing she doesn’t die or experience any crippling injury’s. If she focuses on cultivating she might even reach around the thirty fifth realm eventually, making her a power house in this nation and someone with a lot of influence. Her purity is a bit low to reach god though.” I defended. In reality I just wanted to tease her a bit but it’s true that I take into consideration who I bother to act like that around before hand.
“So you want to make friends with her?” She asked me with a confused tone.
“Not particularly. I guess it could be considered friendship by normal standards but I kind of set my standards for who I consider a friend pretty high. She’d be more like an ally I guess.” To me friends mean a lot so casually being able to claim that I could be friends with anyone isn’t right. While I could certainly form a connection with almost anyone with enough effort on my part the people I can call friends feel a lot deeper to me than that to me. Other than my family it is only the twins, Azure and my sword that can be considered as true friends and I don’t even regularly talk to my sword. Everyone else doesn’t know it exists.
“Where’s crystal right now?” I asked. I could simply stretch my mana out to find her but it seems pointless when Azure always knows.
“She’s alone on the far side of campus reading a book.” Azure would lead me there so I didn’t need to know the specifics.
----
[Quick POV Change]
As I was reading I was startled by a small stone person appearing in front of me. Upon closer inspection I realised it was Azure projecting it to me since it was literally a small copy of her but when I realised I froze like a deer caught in the sight of a hungry wolf pack. I knew I couldn’t run and that I was screwed but there was nothing I could do about it.
“The others know you are reading but I didn’t tell them what so you have time to change the book before we get here. I don’t think you should let your sister catch you reading an incest love story, crystal. By the looks of it there are also a lot of… naughty scenes in it. Don’t worry I won’t tell them.” She sung to me. My face immediately heated up and I could do nothing to stop it as my blush spread.
I even went so far out of my way to not be caught by anyone… how did this happen? I was already embarrassed about it when I wasn’t being stared at by a smirking goddess, now I feel like I might physically pass out from the intensity of my blush.
“I-it’s not what it looks like” I tried to defend. Her small expression totally didn’t believe me at all.
“It’s okay. It’s not exactly unexpected considering the link you have between each other, it was only a matter of time until one of you got curious. You should wait for your sister to mature a little more first as she is still getting used to being physically alive but no one objects to it.” This is just going from bad to worse by the second. At this rate I really will pass out from embarrassment.
“I-I’m not going to d-do that to my sister!” Crap that wasn’t even what I was trying to say.
The small Azure floated up to pat me on the head, making me open my tightly closed eyes again in surprise.
“I’m sorry crystal. I shouldn’t have teased you about it but you looked so cute that I wanted to mess with you a bit. We all love you and whether you fall in love with your sister or not isn’t something you need to be embarrassed about. Just make sure that if you do you don’t ignore that because you are siblings, okay? If you do you’ll only hurt yourself and I don’t want to see you get hurt. I know that you haven’t worked out how you feel yet but no matter what I am here for you and so is master and your sister. I can’t tell you everything will be alright or easy in either case since there will always be variables but don’t think that you have to be in love with her because of your link or that you are because of it. Don’t suppress your feeling and make sure you are happy, okay? I know your scared about hurting yourself and others so I know you will overthink this a lot but no matter what happens we will always be with you”
I started crying at some stage as she hugged my face and I felt like the pressure that has been bothering me ever since I got my sister back disappeared. I was always thinking about what would happen if I did and I was so scared of it that I’m avoiding even confronting myself to find out if I really do love her or not and it was so heavy.
“Thankyou…” I whispered to her after a few minutes.
“You don’t need to burden yourself with so many worries, crystal. We’ll always be here, I promise. Until you work out how you feel I can talk to you anytime. Master will be here in a minute so you need to focus, okay?” She asked me coaxingly as she rubbed my hair. It felt weird with how small her hand was but yet it was still such a big feeling of comfort and relief that I couldn’t help but smile.
“Fine. But you have to stop worrying as well then.” I told her sternly as I cleaned up and put the book away.
“What do you mean?” She asked with a confused voice.
“I’ve been feeling conflicted with my feelings for months. Do you really think I wouldn’t notice yours? Even if you are in the body of a six year old your emotions are still the same as an adult, right? I know you feel guilty because you love your master but she is in the body of a six year old and doesn’t feel those emotions yet, atleast not romantically. If I have to talk with you about my problems and get embarrassed then so do you.” I told her as her little stone body somehow managed to blush.
“H-how?” She asked defensively.
“The look on your face when she pats your head or plays with you, the small blush when she hugs you, how happy you are whenever you see her, and last night when you where so worried about her when she was crying. Even if friendship can write off some of them there where obviously some things that couldn’t be written off and I noticed them. I’m sorry though, I selfishly didn’t want to talk with you about it because I thought you’d talk about my problems. But now you don’t get to escape. I’ll make you talk later.” I told her with as confident of a voice as I could muster.
“Just don’t tell master, okay? I don’t want her to force herself to fall in love with me once we are older because she knows I love her. I want master to be happy more than anything so she can’t know and master would create a distance between us if she knew” She told me with both determination and sadness.
“Okay, then no telling my sister or scarlet anything either, okay?” I asked her as I put my finger forward.
“Deal” She shook my finger. Then her body disappeared and I saw her actual body appear a few hundred metres away with the others in tow.
Even if It was embarrassing I’m glad that happened. Whether I am in love… I don’t know. But regardless, now I will face that head on instead of running. Seriously, to think we suddenly formed a secret alliance… maybe things weren’t as hard as I thought they where.
----
[Normal POV]
I so saw them making some secret deal just then and although I don’t know what it was I suddenly feel like I should be on guard. Who knows the amount of damage those two could cause if they put their minds to it. Maybe I should form an alliance with Sapphire to fight them off? Then again she’d probably just help them with whatever evil plans they have instead… luckily sapphire was asleep and they didn’t know I caught the handshake so I’m semi-safe for now. Still now I have to ask if Crystal wants to join us for training. I don’t expect her to say no but it’s still better to ask anyway.
“We’ve arranged it so we can skip out on gym class to train together. You in?” I asked as we sat down with her under the tree.
“Will we actually be training or are we going to be messing around?” She asked cautiously.
“A bit of both I guess. Does it matter? With your sudden strength increase you haven’t been able to get any benefits from gym anyway. Explaining how you’re a nineteenth realm was already off the table so just like us their training will be useless to you.” I told her simply.
“Yeah, I guess. It is rather annoying to pretend to be weaker than I am. I imagine it’s not to the extent of you two though. We must all be like snails to you” She said with a smirk.
“Actually if you put an enchant to slow the snail down by a few hundred times it’d be more accurate” Azure commented.
“It’s an expression, you don’t need to get technical.” She replied flatly.
“Pfft, anyway, so your in then?” I asked her with clear amusement at Azure’s faltering face. She obviously didn’t expect her to say that and especially with such a dead voice so it was funny to watch her try to form a reply while failing miserably.
“Yeah I’m in. Let me make a call to my parents about it but do you need permission notes from them for the school or can your family cover it all? They are both off-world right now so you’d have to travel a bit if it’s the former.”
“My parents can cover it fine. The royal family has a lot more influence in our nation than most do in others since our system is set up so that nobles don’t hinder us as much. Since I am super popular as well with being a publicly named historic god-level being to them since I culture hacked our nation by mistake we can do practically anything we want. Anyway I’m going to go ask my sister’s if they are joining in then I’ll go raid the palace for permission forms. You’ll still have to take it to your teacher but otherwise things should be easy.” I told her casually. It’s rather scary the amount of influence the royal family has over the nation considering that not all rulers are good people but the level I have over it is terrifying. I could kill fifty people in broad daylight for no reason and take a minor hit to my reputation, not that I would.
“Master do you want me to come with you?” Azure asked me.
“No it’s fine. I’ll just teleport around since I’ve got to go help miss Williams after this anyway so you guys can stay here.” I told her as I put Sapphire onto her sisters lap.
“Wake up, sis” Crystal said as she started poking her sister awake. When she woke up she just looked tiredly up at her sister in annoyance before closing her eyes again.
After that I went to my sisters to tell them since they have been hiding their strength as well so it’s useful to come with us and when I got approval I popped over to visit my parents a visit. It’s only been one day but mummy was way too dramatic about it… anyway I got all the notes before back over to hand them out to my sisters and Crystal and I took the rest with me to our teacher. Azure went with crystal (presumably to get out of work and finish scheming) while sapphire came with me since she likes my head best. With my strength and experience I walk without bumping all over the place so it’s peaceful to sleep on me compared to the others. My hairs also really thick and silky so there’s that too.
On that note I’ve been keeping my hair at around the back of my knees in height after I tripped over my hair a few months ago while walking and I figured that was a little extreme. Sapphire was annoyed because she used to use my hair like a slide since it dragged on the ground and with the palace floors being constantly polished and cleaned, she would slide a few metres on the ground before jumping back up to do it again. If not for how strong my hair was she probably would have ruined it by now from doing that with her claws.
Mother has withdrawal symptoms from not patting my head. I tried to avoid it for a few weeks once and she got really upset. They made us promise to visit them atleast once a week and I’m pretty sure mother’s reason is because of how silky my hair is at 90% and because she wants to see us at 10%. Sure, she loves us a lot but hair really takes up most of her focus. I guess it’s better than some weird habits like *cough* rolling in syrup *cough* but it’s still weird.
“That was quick” Miss Williams commented as I came into her room. Since teacher’s have two houses in the school, a private living quarters and one that is meant to be a temporary crash place should you have a lot of work the ‘room’ was just a study room that counts as her office. This place is literally just this room, a separate file storage room and bedroom along with a kitchen. It’s nothing fancy compared to what her actual apartment would be like but it is a more public place anyway. Besides she’s not meant to sleep here she just can if she wants to. Take a nap, make yourself a coffee or lunch and do work. Like I said, temporary crash place. From what I heard the teachers apartments are rather fancy since they are expected to stay in them longer than a student who changes year to year. Plus being a teacher needs some perks right?
“Well if I give you the stuff now I can start now, right? It’s more time efficient.” I answered easily as I came to sit opposite her.
“Sure. Anyway write in this book and do a general opinion about the students strengths, weaknesses, recommended training and anything else you think to add. Usually I do this first so I can summarise it all into a training schedule and keep tabs on progress but this time you’ll be doing this first part. Even if I’m having you help me it wouldn’t be very responsible as a teacher to let you write the actual schedule so this is your job. Any questions?” That sounds pretty straight forward.
“I guess the only one’s would be the correct spellings to their names and mana purity levels but the later we can’t check without a lot of permissions, right?” I asked.
“Yep. I’ll tell you the spelling for them as you get to them just ask. Let’s start then” She told me.
First of all I wrote about the little protégé in the group since I knew how to spell her name but after that, I wrote down most of what I had observed about them during the training including who was holding back or over-exerting themselves in what areas and weaknesses in techniques. Perfect memory and my processing speeds meant I didn’t even need to think about it and the only things I avoided where things I shouldn’t have been able to observe.
Overall I probably noticed a lot more than she did and judging by her expression when she read it all she knew that as well but I’m an enigma with a heap of experience and monstrous processing speeds. It’s only to be expected that I would notice more details than her. She was probably going to have a headache designing the schedule with so much information though.
“You probably just made this ten times harder instead of easier. Sigh, I guess I can’t really complain if you’re a freak of nature though since it helps the rest of the class” She said casually.
“You know, if I didn’t agree I’d probably be offended from that remark. Anyway I should be able to write it all into a schedule pretty easily if you want and you can review it afterwards. You won’t be able to get it done by tomorrow otherwise.” I offered.
“Wow, I really feel like a hypocrite after just saying I shouldn’t let you but sure.” She said with a sigh as she opened a really strong alcohol and sculled it. I guess a six year old being better at your job than you is pretty hard, huh?
I spent the next hour compiling two lists of training schedules. One was for the students with them having a lot of notes to remember on them about how to improve themselves and one was for her so she could look over everything easier. If she has information about all of them for both herself and them it will help their improvement rate by a lot.
“I’m finished. This stack is for you and this stack is for them. I assume you’ll want it copied onto a computer as well but for now this should be enough to look over it. I can help you write these again for the next eleven months as well since it is pretty easy for me. I’ve always been a genius to the point that my tutors are scared of me. I overtook them after a few months so it really is one of my best fields and I actually like doing it anyway. I’ve been helping my family with a lot of the official documents as well as designing training schedules for them so I don’t think I’ll make any stupid mistakes.” I told her honestly. I’m not trying to brag, more like I feel responsible. If I did this for the first month only and then the quality drops afterwards it will look bad for her. She realised that pretty easily based off of my tone and body language and smiled.
“You don’t have to help but if you want to go ahead. Even seeing your notes will improve my own skill to a certain extent due to how detailed they are so I can’t really refuse a chance to train my students better. Can you come to watch Amy’s redo though? I’d feel bad if her schedule wasn’t up to everyone else’s standard because she was injured.” She told me honestly. I’m surprised the alcohol didn’t affect her at all considering how strong it was but it’s not really noteworthy.
“Sure. Just tell me when she’s healed and I’ll tag along.” I told her.
I’m not really trying to stay in that annoying graceful mode but I’m still atleast being polite while talking. It’s just us so it’s not like my reputation will take a hit because of it.
After that we talked for a while longer as she went over the schedules and then I left since she said she’d take care of the computer transfer part. By now it was around five thirty so I headed back to the apartment, figuring the others would have found their way back by now.
----
[POV Change]
As the door clicked close I slumped back in my chair. That kid is an absolute monster. My mum used to be totally anal about her note taking before she died so I always thought I had seen the pinnacle of what was possible but what I saw today completely crushed that opinion. She didn’t hesitate for a second while writing in the notebook so I assumed it wouldn’t be very good but when I read it, it was absolutely perfect. Even her handwriting was better than anything I had ever seen.
To do something of that level… if it was even possible for anyone other than her to do I’m not sure I could believe it. To get such an in-depth report on my students I’d probably need months of careful observation and reviewal but she did it at a glance. Is this the extent of natural talent? I’ve always been called a monster with how fast I cultivated but her… no, I admit my utter and total defeat. Based off of the fact that she was holding back at the tests she probably has cultivation talent rivalling mine or eclipsing it and her mental abilities are god-like.
“Not many people know this but I met a god when I went to Earth and we are actually semi-friendly. Overall I’m pretty sure she just wanted to hit on me but I learnt quite a lot of things from that, including the fact that even the gods processing powers where below this child. Appearance, cultivation, talent, mental powers and experience… is this kid a god? I’m really starting to wonder.
Still I kept my suspicions to myself. Naturally I’m not going to go blabbing about how I’m suspicious of my student being a god, I might get kicked out of the school for mental instability. Earlier I was suspicious about whether the she really noticed Suzuka Lia having such talent or not but now I don’t doubt it at all. How can I when her deduction and observation skills are vastly superior to mine? Sigh, it feels really weird to be outmatched by a kid.
“Come in” A voice called out from inside as I knocked on the principles door.
“I came to deliver three permission slips from children’s parents and the forms that go with them that ask for permission to skip out on gym class.” I told her simply. I don’t really like her but I can’t say I hate her either. I just really dislike how she treats people. Her personality if you ignore that point at least isn’t annoying so she’s tolerable.
“Three? That’s a lot for one class. In total that brings it up to 51 students leaving for personal trainers instead or school training. Was the princess one of them?” She asked me.
“Yes. I assume her sisters have done the same if you where asking but Sapphire, the princess and the princess’s servant won’t be attending gym class. They all have permission from the royal family so we couldn’t refuse if we wanted to.” I told her as I handed them over.
“And your personal opinion on this?” She asked.
“The princess and her servant eclipsed the rest of the class within the tests with ease and where obviously holding back as well. How far I am unsure but the training would be ineffective for them anyway in that case. As for sapphire since she isn’t involved in the classes anyway and is more of a bystander for social interactions there is no problem with her missing gym since class is where most of those interactions happen anyway.” I told her easily.
“Hmm, how interesting. Is there anything else of note that you have noticed about them?” She asked me curiously.
“The princess keeps her public image up as expected but after handing me the official notes she stayed to help me with profiling the students from her observations in gym class. Since I was filling these out anyway there was no harm to letting her do it but it turns out she is an absolute monster. As you know my mother had a reputation for having the best note taking skills and observation skills before she died but this child completely eclipses all of her achievements by a large margin. She noticed more with a glance than I could ever hope to notice and she could recall it all perfectly.” I told her honestly. There’s no reason not to since she will realise anyway sooner or later when she hears rumours.
“Can I see?” She asked with a half curious half disbelieving voice. Complying I took the notebook out of my ring and gave it to her to read. After five minutes she looked up with a pale face.
“I used to help my father regularly while looking through documents. With three hundred worlds and many more letters and reports coming in from other sources I have obviously seen a lot of notes. This… I’ve never seen anything like it. Usually, there’s never really a difference between these sorts of things but this is just ridiculous” She told me with her voice obviously betraying her shock.
“I agree. I think many of our staff can benefit from studying her notes and while I believe we should keep who wrote it anonymous I’d like permission to distribute copies to all the teachers. Of course I’d have to ask her and her family first but the children’s progress will improve across the entire school if we can learn from this.” I used to be acknowledged as one of the best at it in the school due to my mother but I am vastly lacking as compared to this.
“Ask them then. I agree that this will help our staff.” She agreed easily and I nodded and turned to leave after grabbing the notebook.
“Oh one last thing. There’s a student she pointed out to me to have a lot of natural talent in my families techniques. As she is of common birth I am planning on taking her on as a personal apprentice. Is that okay with you?” I said as I remembered before leaving.
“Yes that’s fine. It should promote moral in students anyway if someone with your reputation takes on a commoner apprentice.” She dismissed and I left.
As I walked out I began to think about the conversation. Why would she care about moral? She is literally a child abuser and an asshole. My only guess is that she is either being cautious because she heard about how many gods there are or she’s worried about the princess attracting a lot of attention. Both would be legitimate concerns and I have no doubt that it is a bit of both but there’s also the possibility of there being something I don’t know as well. I can’t exactly do much about it either way but it was still worth considering.
I debated not telling her about the princess’s skills but I know that would backfire on me should she ever get a hold of one of the children’s schedules or my notes so I couldn’t do that. Distributing it among the teachers will be of benefit to everyone so it was just another reason to tell her but I still can’t help but feel a bit guilty about informing the principle. It feels like I betrayed the kid even though I know I didn’t. What an odd feeling.
Walking down to one of my good friends office I found her working on schedules just like I should be doing if I didn’t have help so I slumped into the chair opposite her with a sigh.
“What’s up with you? It’s unusual for you to skip work to come mope around here.” She commented absently.
“I met an absolute monster of a child who did it all for me better than I ever could and just got back from the principle. You where the only one I could think of moping to” I told her with a smile.
“Hmm, how interesting. Well you’re pretty lucky since I just happen to be really horny right now so I’ll comfort you for a while but you gotta help me with my work in return, deal?” She asked coyly.
“I’m interested. But it’s only a deal if you’ll let me use the cat ears and tail, okay? I’m feeling like a bad kitty tonight” I growled seductively at her.
“You read my mind, kitty.” She said as she pulled me into a kiss.
Having a casual sex friend at work was the best choice I ever made.
----
[POV Change]
I suddenly got a shiver up my spine that was really unpleasant. Oh well, I was debating whether to go roll in syrup or not anyway so I guess this settles it. Syrup always feels nice so it will get rid of this creepy feeling for me.