Truelip was dumbfounded by the request she just received.

“Let me first ask why choose me?”

“Because yesterday you were cool and you shoot spells and were teleporting all over the place and froze everything and it looked like fun!” Tiara said rapidly in one full breath constantly smiling wide and doing over exaggerated hand motions to go along with it.

“…Why learn magic, to begin with…?”

“Because I think it is quite useful and very diverse!”

“Okay then.” After a brief pause the blond accepted the request which left Elliot and Cathy stare dumbfounded at her, before the girl finally spoke up.

“You’re gonna accept just like that…?”

“Of course. She has an actual reason to learn it, besides right now she is pretty useless.”

They thought that Tiara would be disheartened when she heard that but instead, she simply responded with “Exactly!” and nodding confidently. That didn’t really make them any more confident about this.

“So then do you at least know the different kinds of magic?”

Tiara stared blankly at her which gave Truelip the answer she was looking for. She started off her sentence sounding uncharacteristically uncertain and doubtful. “Well… the way I know it at least, which is based on my knowledge of this world is that there are four types of magic.” Hearing this sparked Catharine’s interest immediately and the girl also started listening intently.

“Firstly there is the Archaic magic which encompasses all types of magic you would know from other worlds, so like even though some of them are vastly different from each other it groups them as inferior to the rest. After that is Universal magic which is used by the Universals you should have heard of countless times by now - it focuses on efficiency. Then there’s Primordial magic which is used by Primordials which are one of the first souls in existence and their magic relies on the very specific characteristics of their soul so that’s not something you can really learn. Last, there’s Sorcery which is wielded by Gods and Devils using other’s souls - one by using the power from those who believe in them while the second by stealing it from others.

She waited a moment to see whether they’re still following her before he continued.

“The last type is also known as Ancient magic but as you could guess, having three major magic types all essentially meaning old was kind of confusing so some opted to calling it Sorcery instead. Any questions thus far?”

“I’ve never heard a magic classification specific to this world before…” Said Catherine still in awe from the new information.”

“I guess. Though as you can probably guess from those you can only realistically learn the first one so I guess my classification wasn’t really useful in that regard…” Truelip said with a slightly disappointed face.

“No, no, that was great! I’m sure that info will be useful someday!” Tiara replied enthusiastically.

Can we not set off any flags here, please…?

Elliot pleaded to himself but knew it was already too late now.

“All that said I think you should first learn basic magic before I start teaching you anything. Of course, I’ll help guide in a direction to something that would be suited to you, but if I’m going to be teaching basics I’d rather do it to a group of people to save time, instead of doing it over and over again.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! Maybe you can go teach in one of the Guilds!” this time Cathy responded enthusiastically.

Elliot felt kind of happy being surrounded by so many positive and confident people. It eased him into the world he had found himself in. Also, it just dawned on him that he was currently surrounded by three girls which instantly made him go on edge as he started worrying that they or someone watching might get a wrong idea and his not missed peace was quickly replaced with anxiety. Only Truelip noticed his sudden change, but choose to ignore it and continued the topic as she put a hand under her chin and hold up her elbow with the other.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right I didn’t think about that. I probably should start teaching again.”

It is true that she still had a mission to do, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to spare a few hours or a day in her week to help others better themselves or so she thought about it.

“Wait, you were a teacher?!” Elliot quickly asked both because he was surprised and curious, but also because he wanted to distract himself from the embarrassing thought he was having.

“Yeah, I taught before at the towns warrior and magic guild, though I assume you already knew that.” The blond said as she looked at a nodding Cathy.

“It was written in your info when I was checking your registration!” she then also put a hand on her chin but looked down, furrowing her brows. “Though I didn’t think about how your special ability basically lets you teach anyway. I mean I’m sure they’re still gonna test you because almost no one is knowledgeable like that so early on, but I’m sure you’ll pass with flying colors!” She finished off smiling big again.

“Thanks.”

Oh, she meant in this world… - The boy thought to himself

“What special ability?” Tiara suddenly asked confused.

“Oh, basically I can remember my past life so I start off at max level.”

“Wow, that’s so awesome!”

“Meh, not really. All it really does is just save me some time. I could have eventually gotten there anyway. Others have a lot more interesting and useful abilities than me.”

“Oh, too bad… But it’s still better than nothing, right?!”

The overwhelming positivity had begun to start slightly suffocating Elliot as he just wasn’t used to it, but it also changed the way he viewed her passive. He thought she was very lucky to have such a strong ability, but the way she looks at it, it’s basically worthless

…I guess perspective matters…

“I guess. By the way now that I think about it if you two go to the Guilds basic classes it would be quite good for you. I might actually go there to personally teach you two if you’re up for that?”

“Okay!” Tiara replied instantly while jumping from her spot as some turned around to give them gazes.

Elliot was of course surprised by the sudden reaction and then timidly came under the pressure of the expecting look of Truelip and the overly ecstatic one of Tiara.

“O-okay…”

Though he was going to agree anyway he still felt pressured to do so.

“That’s wonderful then! By the way, where are you going to be staying Tiara?” Catharine asked

“Oh… I hadn’t thought about that… usually, I just slept in the alleys…”

“Do you want to sleep in my house then?”

Everyone looked at Truelip as they did not expect that from her.

“S-sure! If it’s not a problem for you!” Tiara's response was brimming with joy.

“No problem. It’s also on the way from the Adventurer’s to the Mage’s Guild so I guess that works out perfectly too.”

“H-hey…! Why didn’t you let me sleep-“ As Eliot was voicing his thought he realised how bad and perverted what he was saying sounded and quickly tried to fix it “-in a room too!” He thought he managed to salvage it, but still was too stressed over the mess up and continued his attempts anyway. “I had to spend countless nights on barely any sleep because of my training!” He said confidently for a change as he thought that he made a good argument and that there was no way to confuse that to have some underlying motives so he felt pretty proud with himself.

“Well for starters she had been sleeping in alleyways all alone until now while you were given both a job and training to be able to get a better job later down the line.”

Tiara quickly interrupted the blond as she shyly rubbed her hands between her thighs, blushing and smiling interjecting her thought “Actually I was with Dryan at first…”

Everyone stared at her a few seconds after which Truelip simply continued what she was saying, ignoring her comment. “Not to mention that it’s even tougher for mages since magic takes a lot longer to learn so they would have started teaching her the same physical training they did to you, which is basically worthless to her, but is the only way for her to buy food and a roof until she actually learns magic.”

“Yes, exactly!” This time Cathy interrupted her. “It is a lot harder for mages and I also think that it would be best if you took her in! I’ll go sort out the details with the Guild later about that.”

“Thank you two!” Tiara said slightly emotional.

“No problem!” replied the purple haired girl while Truelip simply nodded.

Elliot felt really bad about what he had just said and how he was so confident about it. Though it seemed like they had already forgotten about it, that only made him regret it even more, but stayed quiet about that and tried to not let it show.

“That said and done, would you want me to help you with your submissions to the guilds then?” Cathy asked as she picked up her clipboard and her professional demeanor became immediately apparent again.

“Yash please!”

“I-I would like that…thank you.”

“Okay!” Were the responses she got from the future students and then she looked at Truelip expectantly.

“Sorry, I’ll go do it myself. I don’t want to bother you.”

“That’s okay too! And you won’t bother me but I understand if you do not wish too. Oh and I almost forgot! Before I leave, congratulations on being promoted to an experienced adventurer!”

And empty “Thanks.” was given in response.

“Wait you weren’t already that rank?!” Elliot asked surprised before continuing. “I thought only those are allowed to patrol at night?”

Instead of Truelip though, Catharine replied instead. “It’s true that it’s usually like that but they made an exception for her. They were originally planning of promoting the entire group, that she went to hunt the orcs with to intermediate but everyone except her refused the promotion and all claimed that she had done all the work instead and that only she needs to be promoted.

Sadly, they can’t promote one person just from the witnesses of her teammates because that way everyone would just say a different person did all the work each time until all of them are higher rank than they should be and that defeats the entire purpose of the rank system to begin with as it’s a form to measure the skills of an adventurer at a glance and use that to decide whether you wish to work with them or not.

So instead they promoted her to intermediate instead but allowed her to patrol at night anyway. They probably thought that she’s a fake and would get scared the moment she actually had to prove her skills, but of course, our little Truelip here probably made them all look dumbfounded when they were listening to the guard’s report.” Cathy covered her mouth and as she giggled cutely at the end of her sentence.

“I see…” Elliot replied quietly after listening to that lecture.

I guess the rank system takes a lot of things into account…

“Oh by the way one last thing before I leave.” Cathy quickly turned to Truelip again before continuing. “I heard from the report that you were able to identify the orb that one of the cul-tists was about to use. Can you tell me how you managed that?”

The sudden pause caught their attention, but neither Elliot nor Tiara knew why she did, though the mention of cultists itself gave the red-haired boy goosebumps so he can see why she would also feel uneasy talking about it.

“Magic sense.”

Tiara at this point fully expected that response and was kind of getting sick of it.

“But that would require really advanced magic sense and even then to be able to grasp parts of what it does before you’re done analyzing it…” Cathy continued with her own detailed analysis.

“Well for starters my level is max plus I’m a sprite so I have a natural understanding of magic and also sprites have natural magic sense so that combined with the extra stats from my levels means that mine would be a rank higher than those who would be the same level as me.”

“Ah, that makes!” Cathy responded instantly hitting her fist gently on her clipboard as if she just came to a realisation.

Followed by a dry “Yeah.”

Surprisingly Elliot weakly raised his hand all of a sudden and asked slightly confused. “Wait, so you’re a sprite…?”

“You didn’t know?”

Truelip’s response was like a hot javelin piercing through his chest so he tried to not show his embarrassment to much. Thankfully for him, Tiara’s next question eased his pain a bit.

“Wait, what?! But you don’t look at all like a sprite?”

“I guess.”

Catharine interrupted them, showing off her professional side again. “Well, sprites are just nature spirits and don’t really have a form… in most cultures, it’s thought that after a young spirit lives for long enough they start learning and eventually form a consciousness and decide to take on a physical form. Since they’re not really biological, but more of a magical species they don’t really have a given form so they use the knowledge they’ve gained from observation and take on the form of whatever creatures they’ve learned from, sometimes a mix of them.

It’s why some spirits take on animal forms while others like sprites are more humanoid. In fact, sprites are a subrace specifically born when a spirit stays near a civilization. Usually, they look like elves since they’re more of a nature-based race and wouldn’t harm anything to do with nature, especially if it’s spirits, but sometimes they look like humans too, especially if they’ve stayed around druids or shamans.”

“I see… So then you were also once a small spirit…?” Elliot asks nervously Truelip as he isn’t sure whether this is a sensitive topic for her. Of course, after he asked her he also realised that it could be especially sensitive since it's connected to how she got her current body which might remind her that they’re basically dead.

“Not all people who die get the same body as their previous life. Instead, they get one that represents the state of their soul. For example, if someone was super energetic and felt like a child they would look younger while if someone was acknowledged as a sage and felt more elderly and mature they would have an older body. For example, I was actually ‘human’ in my past life.” Truelip put rather weird emphasize on the word human and it caught Cathy’s interest.

“What do you mean by 'human'?~”

“Well, I don’t know if my definition of human is the same as yours.

“Ah, fair point!”

“Ooooh, so does that mean that Elliot could actually be an old perve that secretly is trying to get close to us to use us?!” Tiara said cheerfully while wide-grinned the entire time, as she kept talking faster and faster the more she went on, not being able to catch her breath from the excitement of finishing her sentence.

After hearing that everyone just looked at Elliot expectantly, the black haired girl still grinning innocently with excitement, Truelip, with no difference in her usual uninterested look, which gave him the impression as if she wouldn’t be surprised if he really was one and then Cathy whose expression hurt him the most as she actually looked at him slightly worried and uncomfortable.

“N-no!”

“How can you prove it?~” Tiara continued her teasing as she slightly stuck the tip of her tongue out.

“I mean we don’t know how many lives we’ve had so we’ve all probably been old perves at least one.” Everyone just stared at Truelip with surprise after hearing her words and she wasted no time in continuing to talk. “Wait, I probably shouldn’t have used your phrase word by word. I meant we’ve all probably been old at least once. It’s not wrong really to like those who are young when you yourself are young. It’s like if you drank a potion of eternal youth and became young again. It’s not like you wouldn’t start dating young people again, right?”

Despite her initial mess up everyone actually agreed with what she had to say shortly followed by Tiara bursting into laughter from the initial poor word choice and soon after the other two started laughing slightly too, but it was evident on their faces that they felt bad about laughing, but continued so anyway.

“I-hehe-I’m sorry!” the purple haired girl tried to say, but her laughter was preventing her from.

Elliot, on the other hand, was laughing a lot more, but nowhere near as much as Tiara, but he decided to enjoy the moment while it lasted as he knew he already messed up and he can apologise after the fact.

Truelip just looked at the three laughing idiots in front of her with a bored expression before she suddenly pouted, put the outer side of her hands on her hips, turned her head up and to the side and closed her eyes.

“Hmph. If I laughed every time you idiots messed up I would have suffocated Before I even learned your names. Not that I really need to breath as a sprite.”

The mix of her serious demeanor and the mocking tone plus the mess up at the end only made them burst out laughing again, this time more uncontrollably so they had to grab their stomach from the slight pain caused by their uncontrolled laughter.

They thought Truelip would actually get pissed at them but instead of that she looked back towards them and smiled cheerfully. The unexpected reaction surprised them, to the extent of making Cathy raise an eyebrow while the same smile made Elliot’s heart suddenly stop as the sudden difference had done a complete makeover on her beauty and while before he could compare her to a Goddess now he simply didn’t even know what emotion could express his thought. The shock was so great that even Tiara couldn’t hold back her reaction.

“So pretty…”

“I guess even you can smile from time to time.” Catharine said teasingly while covering up her giggles again with her hand.

“How dare you!” Truelip responded quickly lifting her head and closing her eyes as she switched to an, obviously fake even to Elliot, insulted expression.

The purple haired girl let out another laugh before she finally attempted to get herself on track again.

“Ah, it was talking to you guys, but I should probably go grab the paperwork for your submissions to the classes then otherwise we’ll never get anything done here and I won’t get paid for slacking off! Later!~” And with that, she waved at them with her hand as she left to go to her safe haven - her desk.

“Okay, see you later!” Tiara was basically yelling in the Guild as she waved her hands high above her head to the now departed Cathy.

“Okay, then I guess we should also go. I should probably buy lunch before I start my patrol with Elliot. Tiara do you want to come with us? My house is on the way so I can take you there.” Truelip also tried to get them back on track.

Tiara, of course, did not hesitate with her answer in the slightest. “Sure!”