After the two went back to their cottages, their luggage arrived. Loter immediately took out his charger and left his spread suitcase alone. He lay beside the outlet, scrolling through and charging his phone.

Around noon, Ramiron woke up. She and Hiroku went to see Yotan for Ramiron's special treatment. Loter, as an unnecessary participant in the trip, could not follow, so he proceeded with his phone scrolling.

A dozen or so minutes later, Loter's door was gently knocked thrice in a row. Dropping his phone, Loter rushed toward it. "Hiro, Ram. You're so quick!" He vigorously slid the door open and saw a girl with orange eyes and a jordy blue kimono.

Before the girl could say anything, Loter started making repeated "Uh" sounds. He remembered Hiroku had taught him a phrase in MU. Hiroku told him to use this phrase whenever he had to talk to someone in Haban. Yet, he just could not recall the syllables.

What is the phrase? What is—Wait! The first part of "what."

"Wha, wha, wha." Loter swapped from repeating "uh" to "wha." He leaned forward slightly while doing faint fist pumps, signaling the girl for help.

Fortunately, the girl got what he meant. She lightly jumped and pointed a finger at Loter. "Ah! Ah! Watachi!"

Yes! "Watachi!" That's the first word of the phrase! Okay, the next one is easy. It is just the word Habanese but read with the accent.

"Habanese, Habanese," Loter said, looking at the girl with anticipation.

"Habanese," the girl repeated the word with a soft and low voice. She turned her eyes to their upper-left corner, clearly pondering.

"Habanese," Loter repeated.

"Ah! Watachi wa Habanese o hanasemasen!" the girl exclaimed and shook the finger she was pointing with.

"Yeah! Yeah!" Loter joined her exulting, bouncing on the floor and clapping hands.

After the cheap excitement died out, the girl sighed with a smile and said, "I can speak English."

Loter's sudden realization just revived his excitement. He had so many questions. "Oh! I didn't know you can, because you are—"

"Wearing a kimono?"

"Yeah."

The girl chuckled.

"How did you learn English?"

"Through my English teacher."

"Do others in Tribe Kayama speak English?"

The girl slightly swayed her head sideways and made a disaffirming sound. She said, "Some do. Some don't."

"Which group is larger?"

"The group that can't speak English." At this point, the girl was no longer exhilarated. She was just explaining the obvious.

"Why?"

"Because most male Kayamas don't learn English. However, I think many of the servants do. They are all highly educated."

"Then, why did you learn English?"

"Well, I can't learn magic, so they just had me learning English to fill my time. Never thought I would be using it." She chuckled.

"Oh, this is the sexist thing, right? Hiroku told me before. Women in Kayama aren't allowed to learn magic. I'm so sorry if that's the case." Loter held his hands together before his chest.

"It's okay, but what does sexist mean? It's a new word for me, and I like to learn new vocabulary."

"It's, it's," Loter scratched his head. Then, a brilliant idea came to his mind. He beckoned the girl into his cottage and dashed to his phone. "I will just translate it to Habanese."

"That's smart." The girl carefully took off her clogs and scurried on the tatami.

After typing the word into the translator, Loter held the screen before the girl. He proudly smiled at his own wit.

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"Sei sabetsu?" the girl read the Habanese off in confusion. "I've never seen this word before. I can guess it is about sex, but I'm not sure," she said in English.

"Oh, I know." Loter quickly typed "sexism" into the web browser and read out the first result, "Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. "

He lowered his phone and looked toward the girl, waiting for a response.

The girl awkwardly giggled, dodged the eye contact for an instant, and said with her hands behind her hips, "I've never heard of the two other big words, too."

"Oh, uh, sexism is basically men making women not do something because they are women."

The girl paused and blinked her eyes twice. Loter returned the favor, and she said, "Like not entering a man's toilet?"

"No, not that type." Loter made the incessant "uh" sound while pondering in his mind. "It's like not allowing women to drive or to choose their own job. Like denying basic human rights?" Loter confused himself. "Hiroku can explain it much better than me."

"What do you mean by not choosing their own job?" the girl asked carefully, not as passionate as moments earlier. There was a clear apprehension in her orange eyes.

"Like, uh. For example, a girl wants to be a journalist but she is forced to do the chore and can't leave the house."

"Does it also include things like not letting women take certain classes?" A genuine unhappiness emerged on her visage. It was not outright sadness or rage. It was just a plain lack of happiness.

"Yeah," Loter directly answered without a doubt.

"Treating women with different rules and standards?"

"Definitely."

"Is this common outside Cho-san Island?"

"Sexism?" Loter took a few seconds to form his words and slowly said, "Legally speaking, sexism is banned in most developed countries—"

The girl paused. She shifted her eyes away for a moment and asked, "So they get to learn magic? No, I mean men's subjects?"

"Yeah, because women and men are equal."

"..."

"..."

"Is my tribe an exception?"

"Yeah, I was surprised girls can't do magic here when Hiroku told me about it."

The girl stayed silent. Her eyes roamed aside, and her shoulders squeezed inward. Loter realized her discomfort and ceased his smile. He asked, "What is wrong? Do you want to sit?"

The girl sat down, putting her shins on the little pillow and sitting on her calves. She threw out a question that was too easy for Loter to answer: "Is sexism bad?"

"Of course it is." Loter sat across the table. He hastily put his buttocks on the other pillow.

"I," the girl said while looking at the table, "I always have a hunch that I should be allowed to learn magic. I'm a genius at magic. I know I am. Now that my hunch is approved, and they are bad for not letting me learn like boys, I just don't know what to feel. I think I should be happy, but I'm not."

"Wait, how do you know you are a genius at magic if you don't even get to learn magic?"

"I learned it secretly." She looked Loter in the eyes with a tiny spark in hers. "Do you want to see?"

"Yeah, but please just demonstrate some peaceful ones. I've seen Kirane doing magic before, and that experience is kind of horrible." Loter chuckled awkwardly, trying to cheer things up.

The girl returned a sweet grin, validating Loter's effort. "I'll show you this one. Fox transform. Kitsune Henka." As the girl pronounced the trick in Habanese, she disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

Loter instinctively sniffed it and coughed lightly. When he looked toward where the girl originally was, he saw an orange juvenile fox lightly treading on the tatami. "Wow." Loter reached an index finger toward the fox. His smile was maximized due to its cuteness and amazement.

The fox tapped its nose to his fingertip. Before Loter could react, the fox jumped up his hand, climbing to his upper arm. Loter initially leaned back a bit intuitively. He then intentionally reached his face forward since he did not know what to do.

The fox went along with it and nuzzled with him. Loter was just clumsily shifting his nose slightly from side to side. His human nose was a bit bigger than the fox's, so he made sure his movement was careful and soft.

All four eyes were closed. Loter did not know why the fox's eyes were closed, but his eyes were closed because he was unused to the situation at first. He opened his eyes and watched the fox before him.

This is why people like to have pets. This fluffy furry critter is so cute!

Eventually, the fox stepped back and jumped off Loter's arm. In a puff of smoke, she turned back into a girl with a kimono. She said, "That one is my favorite spell."

"It's so cool!" Loter complimented her without exclaiming. His excitement was already made soft by the fox form. He asked, "Can you talk in your fox form?"

"No, foxes don't really have the organs to talk like humans, but I could understand you. My brothers and some other cousins never got this right. They always lost their mind and thought they were real foxes. The teacher had to turn them back with his own spell every time."

"Then, you are a natural!" Loter tittered. He extended his arms forward to his sides, like a variety show host showcasing a talented guest.

"Well, I'm quite bad with fighting spells. I never got them right." Blushing, the girl tucked her hair behind her right ear. The smile on her face was unrestrictable. Every time she tried to lessen it, it just widened back to its fullest.

"It's not a problem at all. Those fighting spells are meaningless, anyway. There are people good at fighting everywhere."

"Do you really think so?" The girl's eyes were gleaming in wetness.

"Yeah." No hesitation was in the response.

"Thank you." The girl softly tapped her sleeves on her face to wipe her tears.

Loter just sat there, watching blankly. He felt like he was supposed to do something or say something. Yet, he just could not figure out what exactly he was supposed to be doing at the moment.

Abruptly, the girl stood up and ran out of the cottage in scurry steps.

"Wait." Loter reached out his hand. Yet, only drops of tears were left on his floor.