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Olivia sits down at her desks, and I bring my own chair from my desk and place it next to hers.

“First let’s look at this.”

I take out a sheet of paper and place it atop the desk.

“What’s this?”
“I’ve drawn out the main bullet points of magic fundamentals.”

I didn’t feel good writing annotations directly onto her textbook, so instead I wrote everything out on separate pieces of paper. It was a lot of work but I had no choice.

“I’ll explain this together with the textbook, but you should write down your own notes. I’ll quiz you when we’re done to make sure you remember everything. Then we can review everything you got wrong, and I’ll quiz you again. We’ll do that as many times as it takes for you to remember. Repetition and memorization are essential when studying fundamentals after all.”

“Alright.”

The quizzes were obviously prepared by me as well.

“Let’s begin then.”

That way Olivia’s supplementary lessons started.

“56 points.”
“Eugh…”

The first quiz’s results are far from ideal.

“We’ve just started, so don’t worry about it. Let’s review everything you missed, I’ll also explain again if you want.”

“That’s 42 points.”
“H-huh?”

She got more things wrong than the first time around. Did I explain things badly?

“Let me try explaining it with easier terms this time.”

“24 points.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Let’s take a quick break. I’ll prepare some tea.”

“16…”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Three…points…”

We were both exhausted, so I think we should stop the class now. Ahh, I’ll need to work harder tomorrow so it’s easier to understand.

The day after Natalia’s first supplementary lesson, Olivia and Amy were talking about it during their lunch break.

“Wait, so your score kept getting lower each time?”
“Yeah.”
“And this is the study material Natalia prepared for you?”

Amy took a glance at the piece of paper Olivia gave her.

“Woah, all of this looks so easy.”

The academy textbook was mainly pure text, except for schematics of magic circles. Natalia’s writing combined many diagrams when something was hard to explain with words alone, and important keywords were underlined or highlighted, it was hard to believe both explained the same concepts.

Natalia had used the textbooks from her past life as reference, but Olivia and Amy had no way of knowing that.

“How did you struggle so much with this? I know you’re terrible at studying, but when you came back from studying with your mom you could at least pass most tests.”
“It’s just that Natalia is sitting so close, and she looks so cool, I always get distracted looking at her and forget to listen to what she’s saying.”
“She didn’t get mad at you?”
“She did, many times. But she’s still beautiful even when she’s angry.”
“You need help.”

A silly smile took over Olivia’s lips as she reminisced about her lesson with Natalia, and Amy could only sigh.

“What are you going to do about your issues though? At this rate you’ll get kicked out of classroom A any day now.”

Amy was right. Olivia was slowly getting closer to the cut off for classroom A, and could get demoted very soon. It was not necessarily the biggest problem, but it could cast a shadow over Ophelia’s reputation, and Olivia’s chances at achieving her future goals.

“Well, you should get used to being calm around Natalia, or you’ll need to ask someone else to tutor you then.”
“I don’t think I can get used to that any time soon. I was so happy I felt like my heart was about to burst when she patted my head yesterday.”

Olivia had done her best to not make it obvious, but such displays of affection were extremely stimulating for a girl her age. But she also refused to avoid or stop that type of contact, simply because the heart of a maiden can be a complicated thing.

“It might hinder your daily life if you don’t get used to it though. I think I have a solution, so I’ll see if I can arrange that.”
“Mm, alright, thanks.”

Olivia hugging Natalia when they saw each other after being away for a long time had actually been Amy’s suggestion. But it did not have much of an effect since Natalia saw Olivia as her mistress’ daughter, or just a little sister.

“But anyway, I guess your only option is to find someone else to teach you then?”

“Mmm…I don’t really know anyone well enough to ask them, and everyone sees me as a rival because of the duels from before.”

“I guess they would rather see you fail for once then. But someone from classroom A has to teach you or it won’t really help you.”

The majority of the students in classroom A came from noble families and had already learned some magic. While this did not apply to all of them, most of them had a strong rivalry against Olivia since she had shown so much strength in the duels.

There were even older students from grades above hers that had noticed her, but she did not know that.

“Say, you can understand what all this means on the paper, right? Why don’t you teach me then.”

“I mean, sure, I understand everything Natalia wrote down here, but eventually we’ll be studying completely different stuff and I won’t be of any help.”

Amy was right, the school year had barely started, so most classes were covering similar subjects just to verify the students were in their appropriate classrooms, but eventually the topics would diverge and Amy would be learning completely different stuff. When that happened, Amy would be unable to help Olivia much, since they were in different classrooms.

“You really don’t know anyone in classroom A that doesn’t see you as an enemy and is nice enough to teach you?”
“That sounds too convenient to be-”
“E-Excuse me.”

Olivia answered Amy with a dejected tone, but then turned around hearing a voice call to her. Christina Barnhard, one of her opponents in the duel two days before, was standing there.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but could you spare a minute?”
“Ah, sure. We can talk.”

The two girls looked at the unexpected visitor with round eyes, and decided to listen to what Christina had to say.

“I’m truly sorry for causing so much trouble the other day.”

She bowed deeply after saying that.
While it was true that social status and nobility was ignored inside the academy, she was still the daughter of a viscount. It was really rare to see someone of her status bow like that to a commoner, even within the confines of the school.

“Ah, right, I don’t really mind though. Mathias already apologized too, so uhh…Christina, was it? Don’t worry about it.”
“But I won’t feel comfortable with myself if I just ignore it, so let me make it up somehow. Please tell me if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Olivia and Amy looked at each other hearing that unexpected offer. And then they shouted at the same time.

“”There is someone convenient like that!!””

I spent the day wondering how to improve my lessons, though I still can’t understand what went wrong.

I’m sure I can understand the theory in the textbooks properly, but I have no way to verify my knowledge since I can’t use the basic spells, so all I can do is rely on intuition. I really can’t think of a solution, there’s no clear way out.

All I can do is to cover a less broad topic, and try to find even easier words to communicate. Though I’ve softened and simplified the words so much already that I can hardly think of more synonyms.

I guess I just have to wait for Olivia to come back.

“I’m back Natalia.”
“Welcome home, Young Lady.”

Olivia returned as soon as her classes were over. Let’s not waste any time and begin today’s lesson then.

“Oh right, Christina offered to teach me. I’m going to the other dorm building where she lives.”
“Huh?”

She says that, and before I can answer she leaves again.

Christina? That was the squirrel girl I fought during the duel, right? How come she’s going to teach Olivia now?

Just what happened between them? Did I just waste all my time preparing for today’s lessons? Am I so weak that I’m not even good enough to teach her then?

I struggled to accept the situation, while at the same time my identity keeps fading away, I feel like I’m no longer needed.