Chapter 17 - Education

Chapter 17 - Education

A pair of calculating eyes scanned the tree line bordering the western edge of Ytval Village.

Below, the fertile fields stretched out like an open canvas, filled with vibrant green sapling wheat that rustled gently under the crisp morning breeze. Weathered wooden fences carved out a loose boundary along the dirt path, and quaint farmhouses stood scattered far from one another, isolated and oblivious.

High above the canopy, two men wrapped tightly in tattered black cloth crouched in the shadows of the dense oak foliage. Hung around their necks were identical golden amulets—artifacts crafted with concealment runes to mask their mana signatures and blur their silhouettes into the surrounding leaves.

The man on the higher branch adjusted the brass telescope pressed against his eye, slowly sweeping his lens across the quiet homesteads.

"It appears we've hit the jackpot," he rasped softly, a yellow-toothed grin tugging at the edge of his face mask.

"That is for sure," replied his accomplice from a lower branch, resting a gloved hand against his hip. His eyes remained fixed on the peaceful pastures below. "Look at the distance between those houses, and the land in this village... It's like they're begging to be raided." he laughed.

"I know, right?" the man from above smiled. "I bet they have plenty of goods for us to harvest."

They were referring to women and children. And in a tranquil backwater like Ytval, the harvest promised to be simple.

"Let's go back and tell the boss; I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear about this," the man from the lower branch said. The other guy nodded as they both jumped into the shadows and walked away.

***

Education.

A week had passed since Thorskil's lesson, and somehow, our new routine had already begun to feel normal.

Now, my mother had taken it entirely upon herself to handle our primary homeschooling. Despite her deeply imposing appearance, featuring biceps big for a female human, capable of hoisting a massive oak barrel with a single hand or casually tossing sacks of potatoes, she was remarkably intellectual when it came to classical literature and just general knowledge overall, well, except for magic.

Right now, she stood at the front of our modest little study room, chalk in one hand, tapping it thoughtfully against her chin as she faced the blackboard. She wore her usual apron, smudged slightly from breakfast duty, and her golden hair was tied up into a messy bun, already showing signs of battle fatigue from wrangling two restless kids into sitting still.

"Alright," Reyna said with a smile that had far too much energy for this early in the day. "Today, we're doing arithmetic, again. Because certain people," she glanced meaningfully at Lyra, "think subtraction is a kind of sword move."

"It sounds like one!" Lyra protested.

"Subtraction: a deadly combat maneuver designed to permanently remove a singular enemy from the active battlefield," I added dramatically, impersonating a deep-voiced man. I mimicked a sweeping horizontal swing through the empty space. Lyra immediately laughed at the display.

"HAHAHA!" she exclaimed to me, "Right?!"

We sat side by side at our sturdy wooden table, with our handwritten primary textbooks open in front of us. These were custom-bound volumes that Mom kept locked away in her room—something I hadn't noticed when I first entered the study room. When I asked her about them, she simply waved her hand and told me not to worry; she was just 'hiding the advanced math books' to keep them from collecting dust in the main parlor.

She had even gone out of her way to annotate the pages herself, filling the large margins with personal notes, mathematical shortcuts, and corrections. I found the additions charming and deeply affectionate, even if her hurried, cursive handwriting occasionally devolved into an illegible mess that a cryptographer had to decipher.

Now, on my table, I learned about the abacus—a calculating tool I faintly remembered from elementary school history classes. It felt irrelevant back then, but it was worth noting now. Mother called it by a different name in this world, a 'counting frame,' but I recognized the basic design immediately. It was, without a doubt, an abacus.

Lyra, meanwhile, was currently sliding the wooden beads back and forth without a thought in her little head. Watching her treat a mathematical tool like a simple noise-making rattle was both hilarious and endearingly adorable.

"Focus, both of you," Reyna said, tapping the chalk against the board. "Now, let us test what you've learned so far. What's five minus two?"

"Three," I answered instantly, not needing a single second to calculate, let alone touch the abacus resting in front of me.

Lyra scratched her head, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she aggressively pushed a cluster of beads around the frame.

"Uh... give me a minute..."

Mom let out a tired sigh. "Lyra."

"Huh?" Lyra snapped out of her trance, looking up with wide eyes. "Oh! Uh... two?"

"Use your counting frame properly," Reyna pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay..." She furiously rattled the wooden beads left and right, pretending to analyze them with intense scrutiny. "Four?"

"How did you even get that—" Reyna groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose before stepping around the table. She pulled up a stool beside Lyra, patiently resetting the beads to demonstrate the fundamentals once more.

I shifted in my seat, turning my gaze toward the open window beside me. Resting my cheek against my open palm, I looked past the sill toward the misty, jagged peaks of the distant mountains.

I really am ridiculously lucky to have been reborn into this household... I thought to myself, letting my mind drift. I mean... just imagine, what were the actual odds?

To be fathered by a legendary Sword God, mothered by a brilliant, battle-hardened barbarian woman, and to have a peaceful, fertile farm to call home? In a pseudo-medieval era where infant mortality rates were typically high due to primitive medicine and poor sanitation, simply surviving my first year was a miracle in and of itself.

I tilted my head to look up at the endless blue expanse of the morning sky.

Honestly, I was grateful to whatever divine entity had deposited my soul in this body. My previous life had been stifling and isolated, especially towards my own race. I'd barely interacted with anyone other than my parents.

In a world where humanity was largely ignored, despised, or possibly even hunted, you would expect a person's demise to be devoured by a wandering demon, incinerated by a dragon's breath, or crushed under the boot of the police. (That was a joke.) But no. I was not killed by a monster, but I was killed by my own kind—a group of human terrorists wielding cold steel firearms.

Regardless of how it ended before... I am blessed now.

I pulled my gaze away from the clouds, watching the warmth of my mother leaning over my sister's shoulders, gently guiding her clumsy hand across the abacus.

I just really hope my old parents... my real parents... are doing okay without me.

"Okay... do you get it now?" Reyna asked Lyra, raising her eyebrow.

"Y-yeah.. I think so."

Reyna nodded and moved to the front of the board. "Okay, moving on to the next one," Reyna said, scribbling a new equation on the dark slate.

Personally, I enjoyed mathematics. Clean numbers made perfect sense in my modern mind. Unlike unpredictable humans, numerical values adhered to strict rules of cause and effect, as well as logical progression. If only the other variables in this fantasy world were as simple. That same appreciation for mathematical logic motivated me to pursue organic chemistry in my previous life.

Before I could answer, Lyra blurted, "Depends! Is four retreating, or being defeated?"

I groaned softly, burying my face directly into the open pages of my textbook. It was going to be a really long lesson, but I didn't really mind.

***

--Thorskil--

I peeked through the study room door. I observed Lyra and Kyro now interacting, and they were chatting and communicating comfortably.

A sense of pride and warmth rose within my chest as I saw my lecture have an impact on their relationship. I smiled. I gently closed the door silently so that none of them noticed. I went downstairs and went to the front yard to tend some flowers because Reyna was too busy teaching the kids, so I figured I'd finish her chores for her. That was the least I could do for my beautiful wife.

***

After an hour filled with fine white chalk dust, exaggerated artistic sighs from Lyra, and Reyna's incredibly patient explanations, the morning lecture finally reached a natural intermission.

Our mother stood up straight, stretching her muscular arms high overhead until a faint, satisfying pop resonated from her shoulders, before clapping her hands together once.

"Alright," she said, her voice carrying the distinct flavor of relief that only a parent-turned-teacher could muster. "The individual assignments are written on the board. The two of you have exactly thirty minutes to complete them. Do not make me walk back up these stairs to check on your progress every five minutes."

Lyra groaned, her forehead touching the table.

"Can't we please take a break?"

"You have already taken three micro-breaks, young lady," Reyna replied without missing a single beat, already moving swiftly toward the exit. "Now, I have a massive basket of potatoes to scrub and a mountain of laundry that needs to be beaten into submission. I expect both of your assignment pages to be filled by the time I return. Got it?"

"Ughh.." Lyra groaned.

With that final warning, she vanished through the doorway and headed downstairs. Somehow, my mother could effortlessly execute a full upper-body workout while simultaneously preparing a multi-course lunch and singing a traditional lullaby from the northern highlands. She was multitasking incarnate.

I leaned casually back in my chair, turning my head to glance over at my sister.

Lyra was currently hunched forward over the table; I guess the best way to describe it was like a reinforced soldier taking cover in a frontline trench. Her charcoal pencil was violently pushed upright into the soft grain of the wood, and her left leg bounced in a rapid, anxious rhythm against the floorboards. Her sky-blue eyebrows were furrowed so tightly they almost met, her lips slightly parted in concentration as she stared blankly at the mathematical problem written before her.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Her index finger drummed against the table. In stark contrast, I had easily finished my entire sheet of assignments several minutes ago.

Lyra, meanwhile, was drowning.

Poor her, I thought, letting out a sigh. For a long while, I chose to say nothing, content to watch her struggle and learn on her own. But as the minutes ticked continuously away, my internal empathy meter began to spike rapidly.

"You know," I said casually, resting my chin comfortably in my open palm, "you are technically supposed to write the answers onto the paper, not repeatedly stab the furniture."

She snapped her head toward me, glaring with pure heat, though her cheeks puffed out slightly in deep embarrassment.

"I-I was thinking."

"Is that what that sound was? I thought a woodpecker got inside."

Her pencil wobbled in place as she finally pulled the tip free from the paper, a cloud of frustration settling over her face. With a defeated sigh, she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

"I'm just... not good with numbers, alright?"

I hummed thoughtfully. "Want some help?"

She hesitated instantly, her lower lip tightening. I could see the fierce pride flashing within her golden eyes.

"...Fine," she muttered under her breath, the words spoken so quietly they were almost lost to the wind. She also looked quite annoyed.

I scooted my wooden chair directly beside hers, doing my absolute best to repress a smug grin. Lyra could effortlessly hoist a massive hay bale and hurl it across the farmyard without breaking a single sweat, but basic mathematics? Math was her mortal enemy.

I leaned over to take a look.

"Okay, uh..." I tapped the page lightly. "You're not really subtracting here. You're just placing the numbers side by side, like you're trying to make them sit next to each other."

She blinked in confusion, tilting her head. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"You see this part?" I pointed. "Instead of taking one number away from the other, you're kind of... pairing them up. Like you're hoping they become best friends instead of canceling each other out."

Lyra stared at the paper, frowning at it like it had betrayed her.

"Ohhh," she said slowly, scratching her head.

"Yup. Let me show you a trick that might help."

I gently took the pencil from her grip and sketched out a fresh example. Then, I carefully talked her through the sequential steps, breaking down the abstract concepts the exact way I always wished my primary school teachers had done for me. To my surprise, she didn't complain once.. She was really listening.

"...That makes more sense," she mumbled after a moment, her brow smoothing. "I think I get it now."

A strange warmth bloomed deep in my chest. Helping her wrap her head around something that came naturally to me felt entirely new, but it was a genuinely good feeling. Plus, there was something hilarious about watching a girl who could easily slam me into the dirt get completely tripped up by single-digit subtraction.

A few minutes later, Mom came back to check on us.

I had already returned to my side of the table, casually read through pages of Source of Power while stealing covert glances at my sister. Lyra was still fiercely hunched over her assignment sheet, her pencil gripped tightly in her fist, her eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration.

A triumphant smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and the tip of her tongue peeked out—a universal thinking face. She was so absorbed in her numbers that she didn't even notice Mom enter the study room. Mom stopped a few steps away, arms crossed loosely, a faint smile on her lips as she watched us. I looked up at the sound of her footsteps, but Lyra didn't so much as flinch.

"So," Mom hummed, wandering over with the gentle, teasing voice she saved for when she was actually impressed. "How are my two star pupils doing?"

Lyra jolted with a sharp gasp, completely startled. Her charcoal pencil slipped from her fingers and rolled right off the edge of the table.

"I—! I wasn't slacking off, I swear!" she blurted.

I snorted, doing a poor job of hiding my grin. "No one said you were."

Mom laughed, bending down to catch the runaway pencil. "Relax, sweetheart. You looked like a hawk watching a mouse."

"I was trying really hard," Lyra huffed, quickly snatching the pencil back from Mom's hand. "I honestly think I managed to get every single one of them correct this time."

"Oh?" Reyna remarked, her genuine curiosity instantly piqued. "Mind if I take a quick look at the results?"

Lyra handed over the paper with something resembling pride. Her chin lifted slightly. "Check it out. I think I even did that long one without counting on my fingers."

Reyna accepted the paper, scanning the written text once, and blinked. She paused, then blinked a second time. Then, she cleared her throat.

"Well," she said, choosing her words carefully, "you definitely wrote down numbers. That's... progress, I guess."

I leaned over to peek at the page, and my stomach instantly dropped. Every single answer was spectacularly wrong. They weren't even close; they were astronomically off.

How did you even come up with these..? I mentally face-palmed.

I turned to Lyra. You're not real. No fucking way. Am I dreaming?

Reyna offered a sympathetic, pained wince. "Sweetheart... two plus six does not equal twenty-six."

Lyra’s expression crumbled, looking completely betrayed. "But... but Kyro told me to!"

"Hey, wait a minute!" I yelled, throwing up my hands in defense. "I told you to add the top and bottom values together! You literally just jammed the numbers next to each other like some kind of crazy math soup!"

She groaned and dropped her head to the table with a soft bonk. "B-but, I tried so hard..."

I watched her, a tiny guilt formed within my chest.

Crap... I do feel bad.

She groaned, dropping her head flat onto the table with a dull bonk .

"I tried so hard..."

I reached my arm across the gap, gently placing a comforting hand onto her slumped shoulder. "Hey, it's alright, Lyra. You are getting better at this! I promise you will get it right next time, okay?"

Without a single word of warning, her right hand shot upward like a blinding blur. Her fingers instantly locked around my wrist with the force of a hydraulic vice.

"I- uh.. Lyra?"

"You are the exact reason I got the answers wrong!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Wh—! J-just hold on a min—WOAH!"

I flew directly out of the wide-open second-story window with a loud, startled squawk.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Miraculously, Thorskil just so happened to be casually walking past the side of the house at that exact millisecond, cradling a large woven basket filled with iron farming tools. He calmly looked upward toward the sky, tracked my falling trajectory, and perfectly caught my body mid-air, absorbing the kinetic impact seamlessly into his open arms.

"Whoa there!" he was surprised.

"Oof!" I let out a sharp gasp the moment my body made contact with his chest. I looked up into his face, my eyes wide. "D-dad!"

His gaze locked onto me, his mind clearly wondering what anomaly had caused his son to rain from the sky, before his eyes traced the trajectory back up to the open second-story windowsill.

He let out a tired sigh and turned slowly towards me.

"Did Lyra do this?"

I opened my mouth, but before I could answer, Reyna's voice yelled from the second floor.

"LYRAAAA!"

[End]