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Hello everyone, how are you guys doing? I’m Ren, and I’m forging swords every day.

I had a feeling that my skill experience was increasing day after day. I’m sure the level of my blacksmithing skill would rise to level six soon. With such a hunch, I started pondering a lot of things. Soon after I reached level six, I was planning on making a magic sword.

Ah, I want to go to the adventurer guild’s reference room and do a little research on magic swords… As I made my plans for the future, I was having a lunch break with Triela as usual.

Recently, Triela came here at noon every two or three days and talked about various things regarding the recent situation.

It seemed like on the days she came here, all of her party members went to the reference room in the morning to examine the materials and went to collect herbs in the afternoon.

On the other days, they collected herbs from the morning. Unlike before, they didn’t accept the requests to do odd jobs in the town and went to collect the herbs together…

“I feel bad for asking the librarian in the reference room every time we came…”

Right. Since all of the members at Triela’s party came from the same orphanage, they couldn’t read well. That’s why they had to ask the librarian to read the text of the books every time.

However, not only that they came with a large number of people, they had to keep asking for help. For a good-natured girl like Triela, she must be feeling bad for bothering other people continuously.

“…Then should I teach you reading and writing?”
“Eh? Ren, you can read and write!?”
“Yeah. I roughly learned it in the past year.”

Or perhaps I should say that my ability in reading and writing became equal to royalties after I regained the memories of my previous life. As expected from the higher education of modern Japan. Leave the kanji to me~! It’s all easy~!

“…I’m sorry to keep troubling you, Ren. Can you teach me?”
“No problem, please leave it to me.”

Nonetheless, it would be extremely difficult to use paper for studying.

In this world, plant paper was a common item, so everyone could buy papers without trouble. There was even toilet paper. Therefore, it was easy to find the papers normally used for writing documents.

However, the paper quality was relatively delicate. If I had to say it frankly, it was similar to the straw paper used for writing calligraphy. After all, those papers were mostly used by the commoners.

Still, those papers were much more expensive than the ones used in the bathroom. It was hard for me to tell an adventurer who used to be an orphan to buy a lot of papers to study.

Then, she had no choice but to buy the slate chalkboard and slate pencil or something like that, but… although her income had increased, the slate chalkboard was considerably expensive. I also felt kind of awkward to have her buy it on her own, how should I say this… hmm.

Ah, maybe I should just make something appropriate with the materials I have? Yeah, let’s do that.

“Please wait for a while,” I said to Triela and returned to the courtyard from the back door of the workshop.

There were some trees growing on the courtyard. I went to the shadow of a tree and took out the materials from my [Storage] and did a simple [Creation Magic].

I made two small blackboards and a few chalks. It should be fine to substitute the blackboard eraser with an adequate old rag.

The blackboard was relatively easy to make since I only need to paint the coating of the blackboard with suitable paints. I’d like to fix the appearance as well, so I should finish this by putting a wooden frame around the edges. I made the chalks from stones.

For now, I tried writing something as a trial. Yup, it was a normal blackboard.

I returned to Triela and handed her everything.

“Let’s study with this.”
“What is this?”
“Paper is expensive, so I tried to prepare something that can be used many times. You use it like this.”

I used the chalk to write some random characters and wiped them with a rag to erase them.

“Eh, what is this? Amazing. Isn’t this too handy?”
“The text disappears once you graze them. It’s not suited to keep a memo. I think the usability in that type of case is delicate. Even so, I believe this has a lot of uses.”

There were many ways to use this blackboard, such as leaving a message in a room.

“Let’s leave that aside and study for now. Both of us have plans after this, so we can’t take too much time.”
“Ah, right! Then, please take care of me, teacher!”

She called me a teacher!?
…Huh? It feels like I’m being relied on a lot, and somehow… my heart skips a beat.

“Ren?”
“…It’s nothing. Let’s get started.”

After that, our pleasant chat during lunch every three days changed to study time.

That being said, Triela didn’t take long to learn reading and writing. Probably, it passed in a blink of an eye since she desired to improve herself and she also had a good memory.

In our third meeting, she could read the basics normally. She still had a slightly hard time reading katakana, but she wouldn’t have a problem once she focused on studying the kanji for common use later on.

“Triela is a fast learner.”
“No, my life depends on this after all. Not to mention, studying is more interesting than I thought.”

Hmm. I guess now that she said that, studying is one kind of pleasure for poor people.

Anyway.

“Triela, there’s someone who has been watching us for a while…”
“What? Where?”
“She’s hiding over there.”
“Huh? Over there? …Eh, that girl!”

Ah, so it’s really her acquaintance? Rather, I also knew her.

“Hey, Lyco! What are you doing here!? I already told you that you can’t come along!”
“Eh, but Triela has been under her care, right? The director also told us to properly give our thanks when we received a favor. Besides, Triela has been smiling a lot these days. I’m curious!”
“Like I said, she has her own circumstances as well…”

Lycoris, known as Lyco. She was one year younger than us. Long ago, she always followed behind Triela and me here and there with small, quick steps. I guess she’s like someone who we consider as our younger sister?

“That’s the person who lets us eat meals, right? Then I have to say thank you!”
“Ah! Hey, wait! Lyco!”

Oh, she came here.

“Nice to meet you! Thank you for always taking care of Triela! The meal on the other day was delicious! Thank you very much… Eh? No way… Ren?”

Lyco was shorter than me, just like the little girls I had acquaintanced with so far. That’s why she could clearly see my face even when I was wearing a hood.

“It’s been a while, Lyco. You’re still full of energy, eh?”
“No way!! Ren!? Eh, you’re alive… Ehhh!?”
“Yes, I’m alive.”
“Unfair! Triela is unfair! How can you meet up with Ren alone! UNFAIR!”
“Ah… I know she’ll act like this…”

Lyco clung to Triela and hit her flat chest. Well, she was still a lively and noisy kid as usual.

“If you meet Ren, then let me know! If the others know that both of you don’t say anything to them, they’ll definitely get angry too, you know!?”
“Ah, well, you’re right, but… if we tell everyone, Cain will find out, right?”
“Oh… I see, so it’s Cain… Cain is an idiot after all.”
“Yeah, he’s an idiot, isn’t he?”

Both of their view towards Cain might seem awful, but that was also how all of the girls in the orphanage looked at him. By the way, the little kids were also included.

His brain was good, but he wasn’t using it enough. He couldn’t read the mood, and he couldn’t adjust to it as well. Not to mention, he imposed his self-righteous justice to everyone. But he had some kind of charisma that attracted people. That’s why he was popular within the boys. He was also well-known within the girls, but well, not for a good reason. Since he bullied me, some of us even considerably hated him.

But well, what’s even more irritating was that guy had a pretty good face. Something like a handsome naughty boy? Because of that, he was rather popular with the town girls. I absolutely loathed him, though. I wished he would die.

With that, if that idiot Cain became aware of me, he would definitely do something that wasn’t interesting for me. Maybe like forcing me to join the party or make them armors. On top of that, I probably had to use my own materials. Cain was just that unreasonable. But that was also his quality.

“Ren says that she doesn’t want to meet Cain, so Lyco, can you help us?”
“Okay. It can’t be helped since Cain is an idiot.”
“He tormented Ren too much, yet he didn’t think he would get hated. What an idiot.”
“He’s too stupid, isn’t he~?”
“I hope he can just die.”
“As expected from Ren! You sure are unsparing!”

Hahaha. I’ll get shy if you compliment me too much!¹

“By the way, what are you guys doing just now?”
“I taught Triela to read and write.”
“Eh? Did Ren teach Triela? So Triela suddenly could read books these days because Ren taught her!? This is unfair!”
“Hey Lyco, stop it…”
“Unfair! It’s unfair that only Triela can learn! Unfair!!”

Ah, this was her usual pattern.

“Me too! I want to do it too! I will do it! Ren, teach me too!”
“Lyco, Ren has her own circumstances, so don’t say something that unreasonable…”
“Unfair! Me too!! I want to do it too!!”

…As I thought, her usual “I want to do it too!” has begun. But even if she might look like a wilful spoiled child, her intentions were actually different.

Lyco might look like this, but she was a reliable kid. Her “I want to do it too” means that she also wanted to do it because she wanted to help everyone. It wasn’t like she wilfully said that because her friends left her out. Actually, she wouldn’t say anything selfish even if the others left her out while playing. She would obey the order of things and concede to other kids. Because she was such a kid, Triela and I pampered her a lot.

“Lyco, I will get angry if you keep being selfish, okay?”
“But~…”
“I don’t mind. Lyco, let’s study together.”

“Can I!?”
“Hey, Ren!”
“It’s okay, Triela. You know that Lyco only wants to help, right?”
“That’s right, but if I think about Ren’s burden, I…”

“Teaching one or two people won’t be that different.”
“Triela! Ren also said that, so it’s good right? Right?”
“Uhh~ But…?”

“It’s okay. It’s really no problem.”
“Uh… Then it can’t be helped. But we’re not here to play, so do it properly, okay?”
“Yes! I understand! Then, Teacher Ren, please take care of me!”

Teacher Ren!? She called me with such a cute nickname…! Is she an angel!?

“Okay, leave it to me!”

Since it already came to this, I will do my best! Hmph!

1. Silva: Lol Ren…