The next day, after finishing breakfast and washing up, Roxy put on a bright expression, walked out of the house with a sunny smile.
She had planned to use the best state she could muster to enter the inner world of her new disciple, who had suffered so much bullying... but then she saw it.
Beside her new disciple, at the edge of the golden wheat field, stood none other than her old disciple, Ash. The two of them were having a great time playing together.
But upon closer inspection... rather than the two of them enjoying themselves together, it was more like Ash was having fun with her new disciple all by himself.
Ash held a book in one hand, while with the other, he gently poked and spun Sylphie as though she were a spinning top. Sylphie made some meaningless "ahh-woo-woo" sounds as her body kept spinning around in place. She looked rather pitiful.
"Ash? Why are you here? And, stop bullying Sylphie!"
The sight of an old disciple bullying a new one immediately sent Roxy rushing forward. With her small body, she bumped Ash aside and angrily raised her head to condemn his misdeeds.
"Wait, you misunderstood," Ash calmly raised a hand and placed it on her head, speaking reasonably, "Didn't you say you'd listen to my explanation? Why are you being so impulsive?"
"Ah, sorry... I lost my head for a moment. Cough! Does it hurt? I'll rub it for you."
Roxy froze for a moment before instinctively remembering what had happened yesterday. An embarrassed expression immediately appeared on her face. She hurriedly reached out with her little hand and gently rubbed Ash's stomach where she had bumped into him, a little guilty. Only then did she ask curiously, with an inquisitive look, "Were you actually playing some kind of game?"
"No. She happened to be free, so she came over and said she wanted to play with me, and then I played with her? Hmm! I mean, I just unconsciously spun her around a little?"
"H-huh?", Roxy's eyes widened as she tilted her head at a dramatic angle, unable to understand what he meant for a moment.
"Simply put, I didn't consciously intend to bully her. I was just playing around with a child."
"Then in the usual sense, that's bullying, isn't it? Sylphie wanted to play with you, not have you play with her! And you, honestly~"
At first, Roxy didn't quite process it, but the moment she understood what had happened, she became even angrier than before and immediately launched into a lecture.
After quite some time, Roxy finally grew a little tired of talking. Ash silently listened beside her without offering much of a rebuttal, simply letting her continue.
After Roxy had spoken until she was panting and stopped to catch her breath for a while, she crossed her arms, an expression of restrained frustration and a headache on her face, and let out a long sigh.
"Ash, why are you here? And so early in the morning. You didn't go home yesterday, did you?"
"I was just a little curious about how you planned to teach this child."
Ash answered unhurriedly while casually stroking the head of the girl sitting on his leg.
The girl had just been spun around by him until she was dizzy. She couldn't stand steadily at the moment and had accidentally ended up lying against his leg.
"That has nothing to do with you, does it?"
"Indeed. I'm just interested. Don't worry about it."
"How could I not worry about it? Speaking of which, I've wanted to say this for a while. Could you stop stroking Sylphie's head the entire time you're talking to me? And also," Roxy stared closely at Ash, the suspicion in her eyes impossible to hide, "You didn't deliberately spin this child until she was dizzy so that she'd throw herself into your arms, did you?"
"What are you talking about? Do I look like that kind of person?"
"Don't look at me with that strange look," Ash helplessly raised his head and glanced at Roxy before lowering it again to continue stroking Sylphie's head. He then smiled at the little girl, who was nervously looking up at him, and said, "Don't worry. I'm just a gentle senior disciple. I saw that you were all dizzy and was simply taking care of my junior."
"That sounds nice, but weren't you the one who spun her around until she got dizzy?"
"Don't worry about the details. Your responsibility is to teach this child. Why are you still talking to me?"
"I don't want to hear that from you!", Although that was what Roxy said, and her tone was full of displeasure, she had no intention of neglecting her duties and taking her salary for nothing.
After all, although Sylphie's family was somewhat better off financially than Ash's and didn't have any outrageous debts, Sylphie's father, Laws, was merely a retired adventurer.
His profession was archer. He occasionally stood guard at a tower on the edge of the forest, earning a small subsidy, and made a living by hunting in his spare time. His family's financial situation was passable, but they could hardly be called wealthy.
However, her teaching had to start from the very basics. After all, compared to Ash's situation, Sylphie was completely an ordinary child. She had never been exposed to magic before, and besides...
"At the beginning, I have to let her study a little and then test whether she has magic power. Only after that can I decide whether to continue teaching her. An ordinary child should be able to get the results in about a week," As she spoke, apparently explaining her teaching methods to Ash, who was curious about them, Roxy took a basic magic textbook for teaching out of her bag.
But at that moment, Ash suddenly spoke, "You can actually skip that step, because this child has magic power, and it's much higher than an average child's."
"?", Roxy looked at Ash in surprise, as if she couldn't understand why he had reached that conclusion.
"Uh... Yeah. Actually, I have Magic Eyes that let me directly see magic power."
"Really? This is the first time I've heard you mention it."
Although it was only the most ordinary type of Magic Eyes, they appeared in only about one person out of ten thousand. Roxy couldn't help looking envious.
This made it difficult for Ash to explain that back where he came from, basically any mage could see the flow of power, while demons had an innate talent in this area. Otherwise, Frieren wouldn't have needed to spend so many years training herself to suppress her magic power.
After showing a little envy, Roxy couldn't help asking curiously, "Then how big is the difference between this child's magic power and mine? What would you say her talent is like?"
"Right now, you have more magic power. But she's still young. Once she naturally grows to adulthood and her magic power settles, it'll definitely be greater than yours, right?"
"I-is that so? Then that's really," Before Roxy could finish speaking, she silently turned around and crouched on the ground with a dejected look, even reaching out to draw circles on the ground as she muttered, "In the end, both my disciples have better talent than me... Haha, is that so? Is my talent actually terrible? Ha!"
"Well, well... You've lived longer, after all, and you're already that many years ahead. There probably isn't much chance of this child catching up to you... Probably."
Of course, he was talking about combat ability. After all, he had heard that magic power in this world was fixed from birth: however much you were born with was how much you had, and it couldn't be increased after growing up. So while comforting her, he also casually stroked Roxy's head.
Roxy didn't feel comforted at all. She couldn't even be bothered to complain about him stroking her again. But in front of her new disciple, she quickly slapped Ash's hand away and stood up, looking toward the child nearby who had remained timid and barely moved.
She first gave Ash a warning look, signaling for him not to interfere with her teaching again. Then she gathered herself, put a faint smile on her face, and walked over to Sylphie.
Although Sylphie had just been "bullied" by Ash, she still instinctively hid behind him.
Roxy gently extended a hand toward her.
With patient effort, little by little, she guided the child out from behind Ash and began formal magic lessons.
Throughout the entire process, Ash really didn't interfere again. He simply sat off to the side reading his book, quietly staying there.
———
Over the following month, Ash would come over from time to time to take a look at how things were going.
To keep Roxy from mercilessly kicking him out every time he appeared, he would occasionally thoughtfully bring some small gifts, using them to ease any awkwardness that might arise.
After a few drinking sessions, he had already become like brothers with Sylphie's half-elf father, leaving Roxy with absolutely no grounds to drive him away.
During that month, Ash noticed a rather unusual phenomenon thanks to his keen perception.
When Sylphie stopped her magic training and was simply studying knowledge, the growth of the magic power inside her body was noticeably different from when she was undergoing magic training.
More precisely, if Sylphie underwent systematic magic training until she was exhausted and then recovered, the rate at which her magic power increased would become noticeably faster compared with the rate of growth when her body was simply in its natural state.
Of course, the "noticeable" difference here was only noticeable relative to the normal growth and development of the body.
Without paying close attention, it would easily go unnoticed.
[🎉 Shoutout to Leisercom and Mozart111 for joining p@treon. Consider joining to keep the stories going. Thank you very much.🤗]