28 Cultivation

「And there you tightly squeeze it. It is only a small animal, so not much force is needed at all. The opposite even, it will tarnish its value!

Image a small sphere with its speed as your main point to focus on!」

In return to Mile’s advice, Rena earnestly started chanting.

「Oh water, congregate before me! Water Sphere Creation! Freezing! Change your shape to a fang of ice!

Spin, Spin, oh Rotation! And go!!!」

Droplets of water massed together, froze over and crystallized, turning into an icicle before it started rotation and finally blasted off.

It didn’t behave quite like Mile’s, but it wouldn’t be a problem for far away targets.

And the released icicle had splendidly hit and pierced the branch she aimed for.

「I, did it….」

At her success, a smile appeared on Rena’s face.

They couldn’t use fire magic in the forest, and with all the ground being mulch amassing gravel wouldn’t work well either. Rena slowly improved by being forced to use water magic, which wasn’t her strong suit, and thus couldn’t bring out her true strength until she compressed, crystallized, and accelerated the ice bullet. She also got the advice to shift her aim upwards.

Since the the fire magic she always used during training was almost unaffected by gravity, the trajectory of the ice-bullet with it’s high mass was shifted. Mile recognized that Rena hadn’t understood yet that she needed to account for that and correct her aim, so she told her about that and more which led to this result.

By appending her chant, this also had the side effect of leading her to automatically imagine the underlying processes while emitting her thoughts. Having her spin the icicle also served this purpose.

With this, Rena could also dish out a good amount of damage where she couldn’t use her fire magic or on the hunt.

Next to her, Pauline practiced her magic.

Pauline possessed plenty of magic power in the first place, but either because of her personality or because she was clumsy, she had been bad at Attack Magic which needed several steps. Mile wanted her to learn at least one attack for self-defense, but today seemed to be too early.

So Mile taught her a convenient magic instead.

「Oh Water, amass before me! Water Sphere Creation! Dance of droplets, like the flaming passion!」

With that chant, a ball of water appeared before gradually getting hotter.

「It looks like you have gotten the hang of it. With this you shouldn’t have any problem with making hot baths or cooking. Since it uses a lot less magic power than hurling a fireball at a tub of water and you can just use it to make small quantities indoors, to make tea for example, it is going to be useful for a lot of jobs.」

「T-Thank you, Mile-chan!」

「It was nothing. I am going to teach you a lot more from now on!」

Mile didn’t teach them the fundamental way to use thought emission and nanomachines, but changed their chants bit by bit to weave the underlying physical and chemical processes into their magic, evolving it to be more efficient. Always taking care that they advanced just enough that they wouldn’t be able to develop it any further without Mile’s help.

Despite this, their progress was enormous, and Rena as well as Pauline feverently threw themselves into training.

「Um….」

When Mile turned around to the voice calling her, Maevis stood there with a sad expression on her face.

「Um, is there something for me too? Like, a certain-kill skill, or something…」

「Ah~….」

Mile had already thought about what she could do for Maevis, but she hadn’t been graced with a good idea.

(Iai wasn’t suited to western swords, right… and moves like those in Anime and games are out of the question too. If she could use magic there would be something I could do about that, but Maevis can’t use it at all…)

「…Practice swinging?」

「………」

Maevis put both her hands to the ground.

And it wasn’t to use some sort of special skill or something.

「Umm, ah, then I’ll just be your sparring partner! I have no skill whatsoever, but I am confident in my speed and power! If you get used to my speed I am sure you will get able to see through the attacks of other people as well!」

「……really?」

Maevis doubtfully asked.

She was sulking quite a bit.

「Really! Really really! …probably!」

The last word had only been spoken silently in the confines of her own cheeks, but Maevis finally cheered up.

It soon was getting late, and the time for them to return to the capital was getting close.

「We couldn’t earn much today, but it was good day! Thank you Mile!」

「Thank you very much, Mile-chan!」

「It was nothing, aren’t we comrades after all!」

「I’m you comrade too, right? You haven’t forgotten about me, right?」

Maevis was still sulking a little bit.

「Oh, right!」

Mile suddenly raised her voice as though she had just remembered something.

「If we return to the guild with only this much prey, we will get made fun off by the boys, and since that would tick me off, I’m just going to quickly catch something!」

Saying this, Mile took out a pebble from her pocket.

「Ehm, could you please be quiet for a moment…」

Boshu!

Mile then strove off and returned with a Horn Rabbit.

Bishu!

From the top of a tree a large bird fell down.

Bushu!

Pichun!

Boshun!

「Y-You…」

Rena’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.

「Eh? I am only firing pebbles with compressed air? It’s only simple wind magic…」

Of course what she used was only the strength of her finger, not magic.

「W-Well, that’s something that irks me too, but how are you able to find so many animals!?」

「……instinct?」

Maevis and Pauline shrugged at her reply.

And their resolve was written on their faces.

“Let’s just not bother being surprised by Mile anymore.”

In the guild they took out the birds and Horn Rabbits in front of the male students, receiving 24 silver coins to split among the four of them.

「Is this really okay for us to accept?」

「Yes, since we went on this hunt as a party!」

「You….

well, I’ll just thankfully accept this boon right now, and return the favor in the future!」

「Yes, I am waiting for it!」

After distributing 6 silver coins to each of them, they left the guild followed by the boys gazes.

「「「I really want her…..」」」

After this, Mile’s magic lectures to Rena and Pauline were continued.

To prevent others from learning her secrets, Mile forced Rena and Pauline to not say a word about it to others and keeping their practical training constrained to the forest on their free days, while teaching them about chants, the effects of magic, as well as physics and chemistry knowledge, in their room.

In particular Rena’s fire magic got stronger, while Pauline became able to use Attack magic.

In addition, Mile taught Pauline about the structure of the human body, the organs, circulatory and nervous system, and cells in a bid to make her Healing and Recovery Magic more effective.

With their good speed of improvement they missed less and loss often during their hunts, making Mile’s help to earn enough unnecessary.

And they all lived happily everafter…

「Mile~….」

Mile had completely forgotten about Maevis.

Since it wouldn’t be much of a problem for her training with Maevis to be seen, they practised during lunch break or after dinner on the school’s training ground.

「Then I’ll try going at 1.2 times the speed of our fastest schoolmate.」

GanGanGanGanGanGanGanGan!

「Then, next is 1.3 times 」

GanGanGanGanGanGanGanGan!

「Now, 1.4 times」

GanGanGanGanGanGanGanGan!

「Next is….」

「W-Wait! Please wait a sec~~!」

「Eh? Won’t you be able to get used to it if I gradually increase the speed?

I tried using the ninja practice of planting a sapling and jumping over it every day as it grows as a reference though…」

「I don’t know what ninja are but that’s impossible! Impossible I say!」

Since they were short on money, they couldn’t afford to have light burning till deep into the night.

They had to pay for the illumination of their rooms on their own.

But since they couldn’t sleep that early, they continued their conversations while tucked into their beds.

About their training, their classmates, rumors, and a lot more, but since the four of them basically spend most of their time together, seeing and hearing the same things, their conversations soon die down.

Since the only one who could talk about her family and past without a problem was Maevis, they were graced with many stories of how Maevis’ parents doted on their first daughter, episodes of her three brothers with an overblown sister complex, and how she herself wasn’t aware how this was abnormal in the slightest.

(((Uwah….)

The trio had probably become, with exception of Maevis and her family themselves, the best informed people in the world about Maevis’ family.

Regardless of whether they had wanted or not.

Since only listening to Maevis’ stories got boring after a while, Mile started to tell some stories herself.

Mile didn’t talk about herself or her family, but rather told stories that could be a useful reference for magic, but since focusing on that would leave Maevis out in the could, she told a lot of Earth’s myths, historical events, anime or game plots, arranged to fit into this world.

…..they got hooked.

Rena on magical warriors and magical girls.

Pauline on stories about climbing the social ladder.

And Maevis on heroic tales and adventures.

And as Mile had been urged to continue her storytelling, she hadn’t noticed that the other girls had been afflicted with an illness.

Yes, an illness that children around the age of thirteen are said to be afflicted with.

People call that illness “8th-Graders-Syndrome”. (TL: Chuunibyo)