“Ugh...”

“Master no complaints! Continue reading.”

“Nooo...”

“Master!”

“...”

Maria didn’t like this quest one bit. She thought she had escaped the hell of studying, but now she had to do it while in-game? This was totally ridiculous.

“What kind of game forces you to study? This is BORING!”

Hearing her umpteenth complaint, Lilah only continued to reprimand her.

“Well Master, if you didn’t want to study so much, then why did you even want to learn [Linguistics] then?”

“Because I want to learn magic~”

“...you do know that you have to STUDY to learn magic.” Lilah said with a deadpanned expression.

“Eh?”

“...”

Seeing Lilah’s face, Maria paled and moaned, “Noooo~”

“Less complaining, more reading!” A gruff voice yelled out at the girl.

“Ueh?”

“Hey missy, I’ve got an agreement riding on you! So you better learn these skills or I’ll make you regret it!” Zelundo roared from behind Maria. He was currently writing down on a piece of parchment paper behind a desk with numerous books scattered all over.

It seems like he was researching something, but Maria’s constant complaints had been distracting him.

“If I knew you were like this, I wouldn’t have bothered going out of my way to teach you!”

“Master, look, you’ve caused the old man to be angry at you! So hurry up and learn this [Linguistics] skill!” Lilah quipped.

“Uuuhh...” Maria began whining, but this only further annoyed the old demon.

“Tsk, come here missy! Just what exactly don’t you understand?!”

Maria immediately shot up from her seat and bolted right in front of Zelundo and exclaimed, “EVERYTHING!”

“!”

Zelundo was surprised at her quick response, but his face immediately darkened when he heard it.

“I can see that you’re a Fallen, but how are you this stupid?!”

“Huh? Hey! You can’t call me stupid! If anything, I’m pretty smart in my own right!”

“Hah! Then how come you can’t do the simplest thing like reading?”

Maria was immediately incensed at his insult.

“Hey! It’s not my fault I can’t understand these weird symbols! You didn’t even provide me any basic reference materials for me to learn from! And now you expect me to read a book?!”

“...”

“...Master does have a point there.”

Zelundo only eyed the fuming girl and scoffed, “Well, I’ll only help you just this once!”

He picked up the pile of documents to his right and waved them at Maria. The old demon had been writing since they had entered the office and thoroughly ignored Maria, but it looks like he had a reason.

“I’ve written the basic language materials in these documents.”

“Gimme!” Maria was just about to snatch the documents out of the old demon’s hands but he whisked it away just before she could.

“Wait!”

“What? Don’t you want to fulfill the agreement with Miss Hella quicker? Hurry up and gimme!”

“Tsk, wait a moment, you ungrateful little thing!”

Zelundo walked up in front of Maria and poked her forehead.

*DING* [Zelundo wants to bestow upon you [Basic Language Mastery]. Accept? YES/NO]

*DING* [If you accept, then the quest [Learn How to Read 1] will be canceled]

Maria didn’t care about the second notification and just pressed on the [YES], something that she would soon regret doing.

[Basic Language Mastery (0/100)

Rank: E

Elementary understanding of the common demonic language, able to read basic words and sentences

Upgradeable: Advance Language Mastery E

Requirement: Basic Language Master A]

*DING* [The Quest: [Learn How to Read 1] has been cancelled! No Penalty applied]

“I’m only helping you this once, missy! Once you’ve acquired Basic Language Master A, you’ll be able to fulfill the requirements to BEGIN learning [Linguistics] and [Book Keeping]! Now go, don’t be wasting my time now!”

“Yay!”

After receiving the documents, Maria floated back to her desk happily and sat down. When she turned her attention to the papers that Zelundo gave her, she was able to understand a portion of the information placed only on the first few pages, but as she kept on reading, system notifications rang in her ears and her language proficiency shot up.

[You have read and understood Zelundo’s Basic Language Materials, Proficiency +10]

[You have read and understood Zelundo’s Basic Language Materials, Proficiency +10]

[You have ...Proficiency +10]

[You have ...Proficiency +10]

[You have ...Proficiency +10]

It didn’t take very long until Maria’s [Basic Language Mastery] ranked up.

[Skill Rank Up [Basic Language Mastery] Rank E → D]

[Basic Language Mastery (0/1000)

Rank: D

Understanding of common demonic language, able to read basic words and sentences

Able to read 1-line incantations and write basic language functions

Upgradeable: Advance Language Mastery E

Requirement: Basic Language Mastery A]

“Ohho~ this is easy~”

“Sure it is Master...”

Maria continued reading the papers that Zelundo gave to her and the notification sounds were like music to her ears. When she went through half of the documents that Zelundo handed to her, the notification sounds had stopped, but her skill rank was already at C.

It got harder for Maria to read the documents and she had to go back to the previous pages to reference some of the words she had previously read.

It was easy at the start, but now that she hadn’t properly memorized any of the words she had previously read, it came back to bite her in the later pages of the documents and this very much annoyed her. She continued trying to force her way through, but it only got harder and harder to the point where even she grew amazingly frustrated.

“...Fuck...”

“Master, don’t you dare start using such foul language!”

“...”

Maria rarely ever cursed. She was normally never this angry at something to the point where she would begin swearing.

“I can say whatever I want to say! Ugh...now I have to go back and properly memorize those stinking words...”

“And you said that it was easy...”

“Stop making fun of me~!”

Lilah only snickered in response. Seeing her Master whine and act like a child was always refreshing.

Maria went back to the previous pages and this time, she took her time to actually read and memorize the words. She even asked for some stationery from Zelundo so she could write out the English translation next to the words of the game’s language.

With the help of the [Basic Language Mastery] skill’s correction, she was able to understand the words and write out the English word next to it. This further increased her skill proficiency gain and it made things easier for her.

“Okay...so this means ‘force’...and this is ‘water’...this means ‘fire’ and that is ‘ground’...”

Lilah continued circling around Maria who was fastidiously studying. She had nothing better to do besides observing her master and making sure she wasn’t being distracted by anything, but seeing how serious her master had become, Lilah felt shocked and relieved.

Her master’s earlier outbursts of childish complaints and whining seemed like a lie when she looked at how serious her master was now studying.

Maria didn’t want to bring in her habits from the real world into the game so she never explored the places like the library and whatnot while inside the game. She kept her playing area in the fields where she could let loose and grind some monsters.

Now that she was forced to study even while in the game, her seriousness and devotion to it had taken over and she was fully immersed into studying the materials presented in front of her. She found it fun to do and she very much enjoyed it.

With her mindset like this, she had totally blocked out the numerous system notifications that informed her of her proficiency gains and her skill rank ups.

Zelundo walked over to Maria and observed her progress, thinking that he’d lend a helping hand if she was stuck on something. He was contradicting himself when he told the girl that giving out those documents was going to be the first and last time he helped her, but when he saw the girl being so serious, he couldn’t help but grow curious and take a look at what the girl was doing.

“Oh? She’s already near the end? That was fast...I guess she wasn’t just boasting when she said she was smart!”

Without her knowing it, Maria had already arrived and begun deciphering the last pages of the documents that Zelundo had handed over to her.

When she finished the very last page and fully understood what was written on it, a loud notification snapped her out of her focused mind state.

*DING DING*

[You have finished reading and have completely understood Zelundo’s Basic Language Materials, Skill Rank +1, INT + 10, EXP + 1,000]

*DING*

[Skill Rank Up [Basic Language Mastery] Rank A → S]

[Basic Language Mastery

Rank: S

Complete understanding of common demonic language, able to read 3-line incantations and write language functions and structures

Upgradeable: Advance Language Mastery E

Requirement met: Would you like to Upgrade the Skill? YES/NO]