Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Her Ferocity, Unabated

It had been a month since I became Eris’s tutor.

From the moment I began giving her lessons, she wouldn’t listen to me. As soon as it was time for reading, writing, and arithmetic she would vanish. She wouldn’t show her face again until it was time for sword practice.

There were exceptions of course. Magic class was the only one she faithfully paid attention in. The first time she produced a Fireball, she was happy and enthusiastic. She watched as her fire roared, engulfing the curtain, and said, “Someday, I’m going to make fireworks in the sky just like you did.” Of course, I immediately put the flames out and warned her not to use fire magic when I wasn’t around.

Eris beamed at the half-burned curtain, satisfied with herself. She looked like a pyromaniac, but at least she was motivated. I felt assured that she could get through the rest of her curriculum.

…Or so I thought. I later realized my prediction was way off base. Eris refused to listen during reading, writing, and arithmetic lessons. If I tried to admonish her, she would just run away. When I tried to catch her, she would punch me and run off. If I caught up to her, she would come back only to punch me once more then run off again.

I thought she would understand the importance of arithmetic and literacy after we were kidnapped. She must have really hated those subjects.

When I went to Philip with my problem, he simply told me, “Making your student attend your lessons is also part of your job as a home tutor.”

I didn’t disagree. Ghislaine attended my lessons and took them seriously, but she was just an extra. I couldn’t teach her alone. So I had to search for Eris.

Eris wasn’t so easy to find. She had lived here her entire life, while I had only been here a month. There was a huge difference in our familiarity with the terrain, and that went for this hide-and-seek problem as well.

Apparently, other home tutors had struggled with the same issue. Sometimes they would eventually find her, since she might have a wide area to hide in, but it was still limited to the manor. Those that did find her, however, were beaten to a pulp. That was why her first tutor resigned.

One tutor tried to beat her up instead, fighting violence with violence. Eris stole into their room in the dead of night and attacked them with a wooden sword as they slept. Needless to say, they resigned after sustaining injuries that took months to fully recover from.

Ghislaine was the only one who had managed to beat Eris at her own game. I wasn’t confident I could do the same. If finding her meant I was going to be sent to the hospital, I didn’t want to. I wasn’t keen on the idea of discovering her only to be left battered and bruised afterward.

If magic were the only thing she was interested in, why not give up on the other lessons and just focus on that? But Philip insisted that I teach her reading, writing, and arithmetic as well. Teach her as much of those as you teach her magic, he’d said.

“Actually, those are more important than magic,” he told me.

I agreed.

Maybe I needed to have her kidnapped one more time. Children that didn’t learn needed to be punished.

Just as I thought that, I finally found her.

She was in the stables, hidden in a bundle of straw with her belly exposed, resting peacefully.

“Zzz…zzz…”

“She was sound asleep. Her unconscious face was almost like that of an angel. No, I couldn’t be deceived by appearances. She was the devil incarnate. And of course by devil incarnate, I meant the kind that would punch you until you vomited blood.

Even so, I needed to wake her up.

For the moment, I decided to pull down her shirt to cover her stomach, so she wouldn’t catch a cold. Then I started fondling her chest while my inner Wise Old Sage evaluated them.

“Hmm, still an AA cup. But I sense great potential for growth. As you age, you may yet achieve E cup, or even larger. I shall massage you daily to check your progress.This is also part of your training. Hohoho.”

Thank you, Wise Old Sage!

After I had my fill, I called out to her in a quiet voice. “Young Miss, wake up please. Miss Eris, it’s arithmetic funtime!”

She wasn’t waking up. I had no other choice.

Don’t blame me if your panties get taken. It’s your fault for being a bad girl, I thought.

But just as I tried to quietly slip my hands inside her long, loose skirt…

“…!” Eris’s eyes snapped open. Her gaze moved from her legs,where my hands were, gradually up to my face. “Grrr!”

She no longer looked half-asleep.Instead, her teeth were grinding together and her face darkened with anger.

H-here it comes, I realized a moment too late. Her clenched fist came flying at me. My face! I hurriedly crossed my arms in front of me for protection.

“Agh!” The impact hit my stomach instead. Her fist struck deep. I swooned in agony, my knees buckling beneath me.

Well, I didn’t vomit blood, but I did get punched.

“Hmph!” She sniffed once at me, then kicked me. Once she was done, she stepped over my collapsed form and walked right out of the stable.

***

There was nothing I could do. I finally went to Ghislaine for help. The woman who, according to Paul, had muscles for brains. If she talked about why she wanted to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, surely it would resonate with Eris. The girl was sure to listen to whatever Ghislaine had to say.

Or so I naively thought.

At first, Ghislaine told me to figure it out on my own, but when I used water magic to fake tears, she reluctantly agreed. Too easy.

Okay, now show me what you’ve got, I thought.

Ghislaine and I didn’t work on a plan; I just left it up to her. She chose to start during the break period of our magic lesson. 

“A long time ago, I thought I was fine as long as I had a sword… ” 

Unbidden, she began telling Eris about her past. About how her Master accepted her even though she was a bad kid… About her first friends when she became an adventurer…

The lengthy preamble turned out to be a simple story about her and her own personal struggles.

“When I was an adventurer the others did everything for me. The buying and selling of arms and armor, food, supplies, and daily necessities. As well as reading contracts, maps, and signs. After we parted I learned the importance of many things: the weight of a filled canteen, the necessity of getting coals to build a fire, and the inconvenience of being unable to use your left hand when you’re carrying a torch.”

Her party had disbanded seven years ago. They were forced to do so after Paul and Zenith got married and isolated themselves by moving out to the countryside. I had guessed as much; it seemed Paul and Ghislaine really had been in a party together.

“Those of us who remained talked about staying together, but Paul, our hit-and-run-attacker, and Zenith, our group’s only healer, had left. Even if we didn’t disband then, we would have eventually. It was obvious.”

A six-person party.

A warrior, a swordsman, a swordswoman, a magician, a priest, and a thief. That was probably the makeup of their group if I broke it down by occupation. Even though Ghislaine was only a Holy-tier swordswoman at the time, her attack strength would have been pretty high.

Warrior (Unknown Person): Tank

Swordsman (Paul): Secondary tank and DPS

Swordswoman (Ghislaine): DPS

Magician (Unknown Person): DPS

Priest (Zenith): Healer

They sounded like a balanced group.

It seemed like “thief” was a general term for someone who did odd jobs, from picking locks, spotting traps, and constructing a tent, to making deals with merchants. It was a position reserved for someone who could read well, had a sharp mind, and was agile. Most came from merchant families.

“You could at least call them treasure hunters or something,” I said without thinking.

Ghislaine’s nostrils flared. “Thief is fitting for someone who always swiped our money and gambled it away.”

“Didn’t you guys gang up on them when you found out?”

“Nope. They were skilled at gambling, so most of the time they came back with more than they took. They rarely came back with less than half. And they restrained themselves when we didn’t have much coin.”

Or so she said. Still, no matter how much profit they managed make from their gambling, why did everyone let them get away with it? I struggled to comprehend. Not to brag, but gambling was at least one thing I never touched. Although I did spend over 100,000 yen on online games… 

Then again, they had a womanizer like Paul in their party, so they probably weren’t that concerned about the morality of their members. Everyone drew the line somewhere. There were as many rules as there were people.

“What exactly is the difference between a warrior and a swordsman?” I asked curiously. If both professions were part of the vanguard, there didn’t seem to be a reason to distinguish between them.

“If you use a sword and one of the three primary styles, then you are a swordsman. If you use a different style but still use a sword, you are a warrior. If you use one of the styles but don’t use a sword, then you’re also a warrior.”

“Ooh, so that means swordsman is a special title.”

More accurately, it was the three primary sword styles that made their skills special. The technique Ghislaine used when she defeated our kidnappers was quite amazing. I didn’t even catch her unsheathing her sword. She barely moved and their heads just fell off. I found out afterward that the technique was called Sword of Light, a secret technique of the Sword God Style.

“So what about a knight?”

“A knight is a knight. Knights are appointed by the King or liege lords. They are educated in reading and arithmetic. Some among them can even use simple magic. Since many of them are nobles, they’re also full of pride.”

They were probably so educated because they attended school.

“Back then, my father wasn’t a knight yet, was he?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but he called himself a swordsman at the time.”

“How about magic knights or magic warriors? I heard those exist too.”

“There are some people who use offensive magic who call themselves that. You are free to call yourself what you want, no matter your profession.”

“Aha.”

Eris’s eyes lit up as she listened to the conversation. I hoped she wasn’t about to decide to drag either Ghislaine or me out to the closest labyrinth. It made me anxious. That wasn’t the kind of adventure I wanted. Spending each day surrounded by beautiful women? Now that was more like it.

Ah, crap. I was supposed to have Ghislaine talk about the importance of learning to read and write, not this, I lamented internally. I screwed up.

There was one small mercy.

The following day Eris attended all her lessons: reading, writing, and arithmetic. It was all thanks to Ghislaine. After that, any time something happened, Ghislaine would begin recounting her struggles as an adventurer. I got a stomachache each time it happened, but thanks to that, Eris finally understood the importance of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Or maybe her main reason for attending was because she found Ghislaine’s stories so interesting. Either way, a good result for me.

Part of me wished I had thought of doing this at the beginning…but of course, if we hadn’t been kidnapped, she probably would have never listened to me in the first place. Back then, she’d looked at me like I was a worm. So my plan wasn’t pointless.

In any case, things had turned out well.

***

Our first lessons involved teaching Eris the four basic arithmetic operations. Since she had attended school and previously been instructed by tutors, she already knew how to do simple addition.

“Rudeus!” My pupil energetically thrust her hand into the air.

“Yes, Eris?” 

“Why is division necessary?”

She didn’t understand the importance of multiplication and division. On top of that, she was terrible at subtraction. If anything went above single digits, she’d give up.

“Rather than worry about the necessity, just think of it as doing the opposite of multiplication,” I explained.

“I’m asking when I am ever going to use this!”

“Okay, so for example, say you have a hundred silver coins and you have to split them evenly across five people.”

“My last tutor said the same thing!” She slammed her fist against the table. “So why! Do I have to! Split it evenly!” She was quibbling like a defiant child.

To be honest, there was no necessity for it. “Who knows? That’s something you would have to ask those five people. It’s just that if you want to split it evenly, it’s more convenient if you know how to use division.”

“More convenient? So that means I don’t really need to use it, right?!”

“If you don’t want to use it, then no, you don’t have to. Although there is a big difference between not using something and being unable to use something.”

“Ugh…” Asking whether they could do something or not was a good way of shutting up someone with as much pride as Eris, though it did little to solve the root of the problem. She was trying to argue that she didn’t need to learn arithmetic.

In times like these, it was best to look for Ghislaine for help.

“Ghislaine, have you ever had any problems that related to dividing things evenly?”

“Yes. I once lost my food supplies in a labyrinth, so I tried to retrace my way back. But I messed up when I tried to ration my food to last me until I made it out. I went three days without eating or drinking. I thought I was going to die. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I ate some demon feces that I found on the ground, but it tore up my insides. I managed to make it through the stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea, but then I noticed a cluster of…”

The story went on for almost five minutes, making me sick to my stomach. I listened with a sickly tinge to my face. But to Eris, it was a heroic tale. Her eyes were lit up the whole time.

“And that’s why I want to learn division. Continue the lesson.” 

As soon as Ghislaine said that, Eris ceased her quibbling.

The whole Greyrat family seemed to have an affinity for beastpeople, although maybe not as much as Sauros. Eris was clearly attached to Ghislaine. She would always listen quietly when Ghislaine began one of her tales. It was like a little brother clinging to his older sister, eager to imitate her.

“Okay then, let’s do some more boring practice reps today. Bring me these problems once you have them all solved. If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask me.”

With that, things gradually progressed.

***

Ghislaine made for an excellent teacher. She pointed out each of my faults in explicit detail and gave me advice. Paul would tell you which parts you had messed up on, but he wouldn’t tell you how to improve.

Today she gave both Eris and I a sword and made us practice fighting while giving us guidance.

“Remember your attack stance, watch your opponent closely.”

Eris repelled my wooden sword with a dull thunk.

“If you can move faster than your opponent, then read their movements and aim your sword. If you’re slower than they are, then shift your body to avoid the trajectory of their blade.”

Unable to do either, I took a hard smack from Eris’s sword. The impact was strong enough I felt it through the cotton padding of my tanned leather protector.

“Watch the tips of your opponent’s toes and predict their movement!”

I took another blow.

“Rudeus! Stop using your head! Just focus on moving in before your opponent and swinging your sword!”

But focusing requires using my head, so which is it?!

“Eris! Don’t stop your attacks! Your opponent hasn’t surrendered yet!”

“Yes!”

The difference between us was obvious. Eris had the freedom to respond to Ghislaine where I didn’t. That freedom also allowed her to keep smacking me until Ghislaine finally told her to stop. She held nothing back, as though she were releasing all the pent-up anger she felt during our arithmetic lessons.

Dammit.

Within a month, however, I saw a dramatic improvement. I was glad to have a partner like Eris, who had similar abilities as me. Just like in any other field, being around someone of equal skill spurred your own growth.

Though Eris was really a little better than me. But it was nothing like the gap between me and Paul or Ghislaine. At least she was still at a level where I knew what she was doing. If I could understand it, I could learn from it. Like if she beat me using a certain technique, I would become more cautious so it wouldn’t happen again. That sort of thinking was possible when you were on even footing with your opponent.

Paul, on the other hand, was so skilled that it was impossible to counter him. If you couldn’t understand what your opponent was doing, then they would beat you before you had a clue what was happening.

Even receiving guidance from someone more skilled could be difficult because of the fundamental difference in their abilities versus yours. It would just make you doubt what you were doing.

Ghislaine was good at teaching, so she was a different story. However, she would also teach you how to respond to attacks and counter them at the same time, so when you found yourself on the receiving end of one, you would end up hesitating because you were anticipating how to counter.

With Eris as an opponent, however, small tricks or the slightest change in movement brought about an entirely different result. Sometimes something that worked the day before wouldn’t work the following day, or Eris would do something completely different. Sometimes the things I couldn’t do yesterday I could do today, and the same went for my opponent. Because there was almost no gap in our abilities, it worked out. It was those little changes and discoveries that accumulated and fostered growth.

It was good having a rival. Sometimes she got ahead of me, and sometimes I surpassed her. Even if our progress came little by little, we took turns getting ahead of one another, and by the end there were huge improvements. Before we knew it, that progress built up, and we became much stronger.

Still, Eris learned quicker than I did. Even if a lion and a deer trained the same way, it was obvious the lion would become stronger. That was a bitter pill to swallow since I had been training with Paul since I was little.

“Rudeus has a long way to go, huh?!” Eris crossed her arms and looked down at me, collapsed on the ground.

Ghislaine scolded her. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Eris. You have been holding a sword for longer than he has, and you’re older.” Ghislaine only dropped the “Miss” when we were practicing the sword. She said it was necessary.

“I know that! Besides, he has magic!”

“That’s right.”

My magic abilities were the only thing she gave me credit for.

“Though it is strange that he only slows down when he’s being attacked,” Ghislaine noted.

“That’s because it’s scary facing an opponent who’s attacking you for real.”

As soon as I said that, Eris bonked me on the head. “What the heck was that?! How pathetic! That’s why people look down on you!”

“No, he’s simply a magician. And that’s fine.”

As soon as Ghislaine said that, Eris nodded arrogantly. “Oh really? Then I guess I can’t blame him!”

So why did I get punched again?

“Sorry, but I don’t know how to fix your cowering. You’ll have to do it yourself,” Ghislaine said.

“Okay.” Right now, it didn’t matter who my opponent was; I just froze up. I had a long road ahead still. “But I do at least feel like I have gotten a lot stronger since you started teaching me.”

“That’s because Paul is the instinctive type. Doesn’t make for a good teacher.”

The instinctive type! Ah, I guess there were those types in this world too.

“What’s that, ‘instinctive type’?” Eris asked.

“The type of person who can just do things without being able to explain how they learned to do it.”

She pouted when I explained, probably because she was the same type of person. “Is there something wrong with that?” Eris asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer. Since we were in the middle of a lesson, I decided to let Ghislaine pick up the slack. I directed my gaze at her.

“There isn’t. But it doesn’t matter how much talent you have. You won’t get stronger if you don’t use your head, and you won’t be able to teach people well either.”

“Why won’t you be able to teach people well?”

“Because you don’t even understand what you’re doing. Besides, if you can’t understand the entirety of it, then you won’t be able to improve.”

It seemed, to a Sword King like Ghislaine, that the key to reaching an advanced skill level was being able to apply the basics in practice. If you mastered the essentials, you would be able to use them in any given situation. Only then would you be considered a Holy-tier swordsman.

But more important were diligent work and talent.

Of course, in the end, it all comes down to talent, I thought.

“I used to be the instinctive type as well, but once I started using my head and thinking logically, I became King-tier,” Ghislaine said.

“That’s amazing.” I was honestly impressed. She changed her ways so she could succeed. That was incredible.

“You’re a Saint-tier water magician yourself, Rudeus.”

“I’m the instinctive type as well. But magic is different from swordplay. You can do anything as long as you have enough magical power,” I said.

“Hm. If you say so… But either way, the basics are important, you understand?” Ghislaine pressed on.

“I understand. In this case, however, it was because my teacher was so good at what she did that I achieved Saint-tier.”

But now that we were talking about the importance of the basics, I had focused purely on performing magic without chanting spells. What did it mean to lack in the basics of magic? Roxy’s lessons had focused less on mastering the basics than on progression. Maybe she, being a prodigy herself, didn’t worry as much about the foundations.

Hmm.

“Well I’m not worried about becoming that strong, so it has nothing to do with me!” Eris proudly declared as I was lost in thought.

I smiled wryly at her words. As a junior high student in my previous life, I’d said something similar. “It’s not like I’m trying to be number one,” I would say, excusing my lack of effort.

I was about to reprimand her for her attitude, but she continued. “But I will do my best to be as good as the two of you!”

So much for that. She had a goal. She was different from my past self.

***

We had free time after our morning lessons and afternoon sword practice. Today, I was headed toward the library. Ghislaine and Eris both possessed magical textbooks, so I thought there might be a grimoire there. I had a maid with dog ears guide me, since I didn’t know the way.

“Ah!”

We passed by Hilda, Philip’s wife. She had the same deep crimson hair as Eris, with an ample bosom. I expected Eris would take after her as she grew older. I had been introduced to her, but the two of us had little contact. Uh, let’s see, I think I’m supposed to put one hand on my chest…

“My lady, it seems today is my lucky…”

“Tch,” she clicked her tongue at me and ignored my greeting.

I stood there frozen, my hand still pressed to my chest.

“Lord Rudeus…”

“No, it’s fine,” I said, raising a hand to cut off the maid’s attempt to soothe me. It was a bit of a shock though. Did she hate me? I didn’t think I had done anything wrong.

Come to think of it, she didn’t have any other children besides Eris, did she? No, let’s not ask that question. If I did, I felt like someone even worse than Eris would appear and increase my workload three- or fourfold. That was a possibility best left unconsidered.

When I arrived at the library, Philip was there.

“Oh, you’re interested in the library, are you?” Philip had an excited twinkle in his eye. 

Excited about what? I wondered.

“Yes, a bit.”

“Then you should take your time looking around.”

I took him up on that and perused the library. Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I was looking for. I was hoping to get a grimoire like Roxy had, but all I found were expensive volumes that couldn’t be taken out of the library. It seemed there were only a limited amount of grimoires in the world, and people didn’t leave them lying around.

Guess I couldn’t be so lucky. In the end I got some books about the history of this world. I could at least study those when I was free.

***

At the end of each day, I spent time in my room preparing for the next day’s lessons. Most of that entailed creating practice sheets for reading, writing, and arithmetic. Finally, I would review my magical textbook.

There was no class curriculum. I kept the pace easy so I wouldn’t run out of things to teach over five years. My main principle was repetitive practice to make sure Eris and Ghislaine fully understood the material. I did the same thing when I taught Sylphie.

Reviewing magic was important too. I didn’t normally chant spells to perform magic, so I would often forget the words. The only spells I had truly memorized were those for healing and basic poison magic. I never thought to bother memorizing offensive spells.

This magic textbook was the same one I had back home. Eris and Ghislaine also had their own copies. It was first published almost a thousand years ago and was a bestseller with numerous reprints. Before it existed, you had to find a master to teach you magic. Most of them only knew the basics of each school, so many people became students only to learn next to nothing.

Though the book was now considered a bestseller, there weren’t very many copies made at the time it was written. Even with enough copies for it to circulate well, those without an interest in magic would have simply ignored it. It wasn’t until 500 years later that it finally started being distributed en masse.

Suddenly, anyone could get their hands on a magical textbook cheaply, so the number of magicians increased greatly. It wasn’t as though the world suddenly boomed with magicians, but in the Kingdom of Asura at least, magic became a part of the curriculum for many noble families.

Still, why did the number of magical textbooks suddenly increase? As I wondered, I looked at the back of the book. Printed there was the line: Published by Ranoa University of Magic. Aha, what a clever marketing scheme.

In this way, my days as a tutor passed in the blink of an eye.

***

NAME: Eris B. Greyrat

OCCUPATION: Granddaughter of Fittoa’s liege lord

PERSONALITY: Fierce

DOESN’T: Mind listening to what people have to say

READING/WRITING: Can write the names of her family members

ARITHMETIC: Subtraction skills are unreliable

MAGIC: Figures she’ll try her best at it

FENCING: Sword God Style – Beginner-tier

ETIQUETTE: Can do a normal greeting

PEOPLE SHE LIKES: Grandfather, Ghislaine