The little girl squealed happily as she rolled around on Gaius’ new clothes, creating wrinkly creases everywhere. Gaius couldn’t blame her — the material was unbelievably comfortable and smooth to the touch, so much so that even he himself wanted to wear it to sleep.

Nakama’s joy was also probably due to the double servings of dinner she got. The two slabs of chicken breast had drawn the eyes of everyone in the canteen, and then even more when Gaius placed his own portion onto her plate.

And then everyone left the canteen in a hurry, cursing the little duo. After covering Nakama’s little ears, Gaius made a mental note to wear the prescribed attire for lecturers from now on, just to see if today’s plethora of cursing would repeat again for lunch and dinner.

Other than the clothes, there were other benefits. As an assistant lecturer for Advanced Combat, Gaius was issued a set of wooden training tools, which he then promptly passed on to Nakama to “play” around with. He was also issued a set of weapons made from fine steel, from a bō to a dagger the length of his forearm.

Which was an average knife, by an adult’s standards.

Finally, he also had the authority to punish any student in Advanced Combat, although, as Senator Alexandre put it, “Beastfolk students would find it a mark of shame if an eleven-year old lecturer wanted to punish them.”

Gaius still was a Harvester though, which placed him in a rather unique position as the only lecturer that doubled as a Harvester. It was an interesting turn of events, at any rate.

“Nakama, that’s enough fooling around,” said Gaius. “Let’s do some knife practice together. Catch!”

The little girl caught the knife.

“Now, look at how I use it, and then try to follow…”

As the sky dimmed, only the silhouettes of two small children could be seen from outside the tent, the larger of the two noticeably more graceful and elegant than the smaller one. The larger shadow would even flicker for entire minutes, replaced by the sounds of air parting as Gaius practiced his footwork. Such results would have been unimaginable on Earth, but this was Orb.

Gaius breathed out heavily as his body reappeared on the spot once again, and the little girl applauded at the seemingly magical performance in which her big brother disappeared and reappeared in random parts of the tent. Such movements were incredibly draining on Gaius’ stamina, but practicing them was the only way he could improve these techniques in the context of Orb.

He even had the feeling that once he improved his footwork to a certain extent, he would even be able to vanish in daylight for a minute or so without the use of mystical powers like qi.

Gaius felt his face for sweat, and after finding out that his body was still relatively dry, he sat down on his bed. His bed sank further when Nakama jumped onto his lap, and he was about to place her to his right when a bell rang.

There was a bell installed outside, near the entrance of the tent, which people would ring when they wanted to visit.

“Come in!” Gaius called out.

A girl with rabbit ears walked in. “Good evening, Lecturer Gaius and Nakama. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Gaius’ cheek twitched slightly. The news had spread quickly, it seemed. “You’re not, erm, Mei…?”

“Mai, sir.” The teenager corrected his words.

Gaius felt a bit odd to be called ‘sir’ by someone older than him, but he took it in stride. “Harvester Mai. You needed something?”

“If it’s not too much of you…I would like to spar with you. I…and everyone else.”

“Everyone else?” Gaius placed the curious Nakama on his bed, where she promptly began to roll around on his lecturer outfit again. He got up and poked his head out of the entrance.

For a moment, he didn’t know what kind of expression he had on his face. He looked at the group of ten people assembled outside, looked back at Mai’s excited eyes, and slapped his forehead.

“Three only, Mai.” Gaius eventually decided on his next course of action. “You, and two others will spar with me in thirty minutes. Decide on the others by then.”

For a moment, Gaius found these words incredibly familiar, as though as he had spoken them before. And indeed, he had. Within the condensed memories of his past life, Gaius could remember a group of enthusiastic trainees come up to him for “advice”, and he had said those words then. Judging by the suppressed smile on her face though, Gaius could tell that trying to sound stern as a little boy probably wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Battlecries and the sounds of knuckle on flesh filled the air for the minutes that followed, and before Gaius knew it, two rather-bruised males and one entirely unscathed Mai was standing before Gaius.

“I don’t suppose the two of you want to go first, do you?” Gaius took in their limping figures, and wondered if Nakama could take them down all by her lonesome right now.

“We’ll leave the honour to Miss Mai,” said one of them shakily. His wings, which were folded up behind his back, looked bedraggled, as though as someone had plucked some feathers out roughly. The other teenager grunted faintly in assent.

“Ok, then. Let’s take this outside.”

The crowd of groaning people outside scattered as the three, Gaius and Nakama walked out of the tent. Mai walked to a spot five metres away from Gaius, and after catching the wooden knife that Gaius tossed to her, she said, “Please advise, lecturer.”

“You can start anytime.”

Mai’s body lowered, and the ground shook slightly a few milliseconds later as she launched herself off the ground and hurtled headlong into Gaius like an arrow. In response, he dropped into a low stance. There was a dull thud as wood met wood, but instead of sliding backwards, Gaius used the ground to directly withstand her arrow-like strike.

There was a moment in which Mai’s body was suspended in mid-air, before she was tossed backwards by Gaius’ counterattack. As she landed unsteadily onto the ground, the air in front of her parted with a howl, and cold wood touched her neck.

“Always have at least one point of contact with the ground, Mai,” said Gaius. “You weren’t matching strengths with me, but rather the ground itself, the moment you were in the air. If I too was in the air, that attack would have been effective, but I’m on the ground.”

“Yes, L-lecturer Gaius.”

“And well, if you want to attack like an arrow, do remember that arrows are meant to be expendable. That is all.”

Her face flushed, to the point that it was visible in the dim light. In that fleeting moment, Gaius could understand why the senator was looking forward to him beating the others up in a formal challenge, especially when Nakama was clapping for him in the background.

Her clapping at the sides was…exhilarating, to say the least.

“Now, as for the two of you…” Gaius took a step towards the two bruised men, and smiled wolfishly.