The morning started like any other. Shuuko woke up and got dressed for today in her typical long brown skirt and beige button-down shirt. She laced up her plain leather knee-high boots, tied her long black hair back into a single ponytail, and washed her face. Breakfast consisted of an egg from the communal coop her housing complex utilized, as well as an onion and green pepper one of her students had given her yesterday. She was also given a fruit, but it had completely changed colors over night and was extremely unappetizing in texture by time she peeled it. Apparently that fruit rots quickly. Shuuko may be a teacher, but she wasn’t above learning something new every day. She’d know better next time.

She walked to work as always, being greeted warmly by the various men she passed and subtly ignored by most women as well as any married men out with their spouses. Externally, she kept up her smile and stayed positive and exuded warmth. Internally she couldn’t help but be a little depressed. She was attractive, yes. At least, by the standards of someone that grew up in extreme poverty and spent most of her childhood malnourished. Her large red eyes and small nose gave her a somewhat childish appearance of someone that was constantly surprised. She had grown up thin, but by time she reached adulthood she had procured a sustainable income through teaching and was able to keep food on her table. The end result was that she filled out in two places. Men apparently appreciated it. Their wives did not. The attention wasn’t wanted, either way.

There are lots of knights out and about today…

Shuuko thought it strange there was such a martial presence, given that they didn’t even seem to be guarding anything… they were just passing out little booklets from a cart. Figuring it was recruitment fliers for joining the Knights or Wardens, Shuuko walked by without garnering attention. She had bad experiences with knights anyway, so it was best to stay away from their gaze. Though, she couldn’t help but notice how strange it was that the recruitment fliers weren’t just being given to young men and women, but also small children and the elderly. In fact, everyone that came to the cart got the book.

When the bell tolled, she realized she must have woken later this morning than she intended to and rushed to the orphanage for work. She stepped into her classroom, which was just the dining room of the orphanage, and set down her bag on the far end of the long table. There were far more children than seats due to… reasons. Pushing the thought aside, Shuuko pepped herself up and started her lessons on basic arithmetic and reading. Unfortunately, there were no materials other than a few old books for her to pass out, so the children just had to do their best with listening to her and occasionally getting to look at one of the books.

Shuuko felt helpless. There were way too many children and nowhere near enough resources to give them even a basic education. Even her own upbringing was better, since she learned well enough to become a teacher. Though, back then there was one book for every two students, not one for every ten. Looking out at the class, she noticed several children in a corner looking over a pair of those booklets she saw the knights handing out.

Ugh… those kids are barely seven. Don’t be so quick to send our cherished youth off to die, ‘Grand Duchess’.

The lesson finished and Shuuko received her payment from the director. It was barely enough to pay for her housing, but since she also tended to receive ‘donations’ of food from both her students and from random people she met in the market, she didn’t mind so much. She still got to eat, after all.

The next morning, the knights were back with another full cart load of those booklets, but again Shuuko avoided them. There was an even larger crowd this time, and she even recognized a few of her students in the mass of people.

Heh, maybe I should get like twenty of them and use them to teach reading…

Shuuko thought with irony. Obviously, she couldn’t use such a widespread and readily available resource like that if the end result was all of her students romanticize becoming Wardens. Most would die in the wilderness fighting monsters. Or perhaps worse… they may become knights and subjugate the next generation’s orphans. Shuuko thought of her best friend, wondering if the Wardens had already gotten her killed. Fighting back a sudden wave of emotion, she bent her head down and rushed to the orphanage to have her next lesson.

Even more children were crowded around the booklets. In fact, it seemed only half the class was paying attention to her. The other half was standing in the back of the room, turned to each other and whispering excitedly. Even the children seated at the table would sometimes look over longingly at the back of the room.

Just what is going on!?

The next morning, she passed two groups of knights with carts instead of the one from the previous two days.

Why are they so aggressively recruiting?! Is there a horde of monsters coming or something?

Feeling she couldn’t keep her head in the sand any longer, she got in line and came upon the carts. Strangely, the knights looked haggard instead of imposing. They didn’t speak with authority, they just tiredly handed a booklet out to the next person that walked up and reached back in to grab another.

Just how much work had those knights been put through lately to get them into that condition?! Do they slay all night and then recruit all day?

Shuuko took her booklet and rushed away towards the orphanage once again. She stood in line longer than she expected, so she just dumped it in her bag without looking and went on her way. Class today was a farce. None of the kids were listening. In fact, it seemed that if Shuuko wasn’t directly interacting with one of the children right in front of her, they didn’t even look at her. She had never encountered this situation before. With a word from her, the child could be denied their ration for the afternoon. Attending class and learning to use letters and numbers was literally their job, so as their boss Shuuko could inform the director they were too lazy to receive payment for the day… as if Shuuko would ever do that.

Once again, she felt helpless. The only way to have a successful life out of the orphanage was either through the armed forces or getting a position as an apprentice. Well… or they could have a good aptitude and get a government scholarship for cultivating their powers. Shuuko was an ‘activator’ so… no scholarship for her. At any rate, the kids weren’t interested in her lesson, and Shuuko wasn’t interested in screaming at them and refusing to feed them, so she just stood up and walked to the back of the room. She might feel helpless, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also feel righteously indignant.

“What have you got there, guys?” She asked sweetly as she loomed over the group of ten-year-olds ignoring her lessons. They turned and looked at her like they got caught stealing from a wagon, and immediately stood at attention, hiding the booklet behind their backs. They knew in their hearts that Teacher Shuuko would never tell on them and have them go hungry for the day… but in their minds they knew she could.

“Seriously kids, just what is so interesting about that recruitment flier hmm? I’ve been watching you guys obsess over it for three days now. Do you really want to take up a sword and die fighting monsters in the woods? If that’s the case, why are you even here? Some of the children present actually want to learn so they can hopefully get an occupation before their gracing period ends at fourteen. Is that what you want? To be unprepared for working when you are tossed out into the world, and then be forced to beg your way into the Guard? No merchant will accept an apprentice that can’t do arithmetic or read. No craftsman will teach you their craft if you aren’t even capable of using a scale for weighing materials. If you think you can learn it quickly on the job, you’re right! You could, assuming that you get hired in the first place. As you all know, the past year has been hard. Many of you were living in a village just six months ago, but now the village is gone. A lot of villages are gone. This means that there are more children looking for work than there are adults hiring. You cannot be lazy in a competitive work force!”

Shuuko ended her rather inappropriate tirade thinking of her friend again. She lost her family to monsters a few years back and never bothered to study anything other than how to stab things better. Now her career was set. Either she would kill all the monsters… or she would die trying.

Ah Neria… I hope you’re still safe.

“Teacher… Teacher Shuuko? This isn’t for the knights or wardens or whatever… it’s the rules for a game the Lord invented. We’re all reading about it because we heard that a month from now there would be a public exhibition for the game, but only four people would get to play it… we wanted to get picked so we were trying to make sense of it.” The boy in question held out the booklet to her with shame, so she took it and took her first proper look at it.

“The game is called ‘Blades and Battles’, and it is a… table top role-playing game? What does that even mean?”

“We don’t know, but because of Teacher Shuuko’s lessons, we were able to make sense of some of it…”

Shuuko went silent as she went over the description.

“Blades and Battles (name will most certainly change in the future) is a table top role-playing game set in a parallel world to our own. A team of two to six ‘players’ will control their ‘avatars’ to adventure within the world, while another person creates the story they play within. Utilizing dice rolls, random chance is simulated as your avatars will fight monsters, explore ruins, and solve mysteries as they ‘level up’ from experience gained and grown even stronger.”

Shuuko read the remainder of the page, then started on the next one, then the next one… After nearly twenty minutes of standing and silently reading, she finally spoke to the surrounding group of worried children.

“So let me get this straight… you were ignoring my lessons on how to read and do arithmetic…” the children flinched at her words, “… so that you could learn about a reading and arithmetic game?”

“Alright, class is dismissed. I’ll see everyone here tomorrow, right? Be prepared to pay ‘close’ attention to everything I say, do you understand children?” Shuuko smiled at them and they all shivered slightly. She handed the boy back his booklet, which he took with obvious relief. Shuuko stood quietly in the classroom for another few minutes, lost in thought. Focusing back on reality, she got her payment for lessons as usual and headed back out into the town. She returned home and spent the rest of the evening reading and comprehending.

The morning started like any other. Shuuko woke up and got dressed for today in her typical long brown skirt and beige button-down shirt. She laced up her plain leather knee-high boots, tied her hair back into a single ponytail, and washed her face. Breakfast consisted of an egg from the communal coop her housing complex utilized, as well as a potato she was gifted by an elderly market stall merchant.

She walked to work as always, being greeted warmly by the various men she passed and subtly ignored by most women as well as any married men out with their spouses. She refused to let it bother her, even though it secretly did anyway. Mustering all the courage she could, Shuuko did something she never once did in the past. She waited in a short line at a cart attended to by Knights of the Duchy, calmly greeted the downright exhausted looking guards, and proceeded to ask a favor. The favor was simple… she didn’t want another booklet. Shuuko wanted thirty.