Magic studies are split into two categories, ‘classroom studies’ and ‘practical studies’. To be a great sorcerer, you can’t neglect either, but Ririi isn’t showing a lot of interest in the former. Well, I don’t know if any kid her age is ever going to declare ‘I love studying!’.
I get how she feels, because I never grew to like it.
“Today~ Ririh played~ with Beary~…”
Ririi is sitting on the sofa, writing in her picture diary. I guess it’s her homework… Or rather, daily work. I don’t remember doing that, but few things are as unreliable as my memory. I’ll ask Sieglinde later.
“Lemme see…?”
I take a peek from behind the sofa, and in the paper that’s split evenly between space to write and space to draw, I see a blue monster and a brown monster together pulling a weird pose. Is that… Ririi and Beary? It looks like Ririi has no idea how to draw at this point.
“Done…”
She says as she looks at the picture diary with a satisfied look on her face. Looking at the side of her face, I see what feels like a painter, but what she actually drew looks like weird monsters.
What it says underneath, ‘Ririh’s played with Beary’, is impactful too.
“And now… A break.”
She has more homework, but it doesn’t look like she wants to do it. She pushes it to a corner of the table, lies down on the sofa, and closes her eyes. She’s probably tired because she’s been in the backyard playing with Beary ever since she came home.
“What do first year students even do?”
I take a piece of paper that’s part of her homework, and I’m hit with nostalgia. It almost brings me to tears.
“What color are magic circles of fire magic?”
“What are magic circles for?”
I can answer these questions without even thinking about them, but I remember struggling a lot at the time. I started taking studying more seriously when I became an intermediate student, but I was a complete idiot until then.
I didn’t pay attention to classes either, so from that point of view, I’m glad Ririi and I aren’t blood related. If she took after me, she’d be hopeless in that area.
“…What are you looking at?”
Someone suddenly asks from behind me. That said, I’m not surprised, because I sensed her coming in. I turn around, and see Sieglinde looking at the piece of paper with a curious expression.
“Ririi’s homework. Sorry, but I’m leaving the studying stuff to you.”
“Got it…”
I give her the piece of paper, and she looks at it with a serious expression. I don’t think the difficulty of the homework matches her seriousness.
◆
“Firstly, magic circles can be divided into sections depending on their meaning. Furthermore, you can describe them in specific sections depending on their uses. For example, if you want to increase the speed of magic, it is possible to reach otherwise unreachable speeds by layering magic circles that describe only acceleration. Are you with me so far?”
“????”
“I see. Then next, the content of magic circles. Let’s go through the sections one by one based on those characteristics. What I’m about to tell you is written in detail in the magic book I brought, ‘introduction to composition of magic circles’, starting from page 364, so I think you will understand better if you look at it. Let’s start with the elemental sections…”
“????????”
…I want to go back in time to when I decided to let Sieglinde be a teacher, and tell myself ‘you’re terrible at picking people’.
“Sieglinde, wait. There’s smoke coming out of Ririi’s head. Even I don’t know what you’re on about.”
Ririi’s head is on the stupidly thick magic book Sieglinde brought, and her eyes are spinning. She’s shocked from suddenly being bombarded with the densest topic of magic education.
I feel like I’m going insane just listening to it. I really am firmly on the practical side of things.
“Magic… Is hard…”
“It’s all right Ririi. She’s just weird, so you can become a fine sorcerer even if you don’t remember this stuff.”
“What are you talking about? Knowledge is power. Results vary a lot depending on whether or not you understand composition.”
“Maybe, but there’s a limit too. Teach her while following this.”
I push her thick magic book aside, and hand her Ririi’s textbook instead.
She leafs through it and mumbles that it lacks information. Well of course, it’s a first year textbook.
“Daddy, Ririh wants to play.”
“You can play when you finish your homework.”
“Puh…”
She inflates her cheeks and falls on the table.
…Maybe it was a little early for her to start school. I don’t know her age, but judging by the difference between her physique and all the other kids’, they don’t look the same age. Maybe we should’ve taken it easy in Zenith for another year…
As I consider that, Sieglinde raises her head from the textbook with a face full of confidence.
“I understand what I need to teach you. Ririi, let’s start again and have fun studying.”
“Fun?”
“Yes, I’m sure it will be fun.”
Ririi takes the bait, and moves next to Sieglinde to look at the textbook.
When they’re sitting side-by-side like this, they kind of look a bit like mother and daughter. I need to work harder to make that a reality.
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Thanks for the chapter Hidamarisou! He’s working hard in all the wrong places haha.