[Sylphiette Pov]
"Is that enough?" I lowered my hands and looked at the fields I'd been watering. Compared to their slightly dry appearance a few minutes ago, I considered this a job well done.
"Sounds great, Sylphiette! Thank you for your help. You're a cutie!" Mr. Peters gave me a slight bow.
"No problem, Mr. Peters. It's what my master always did." The mention of Roxy left a melancholy feeling in my throat, but I reassured her.
There was no reason to be sad about something like that. After all, I'd see her again...
"Just make sure you give the money to Dad." I hope I didn't sound too demanding.
"Of course." Contrary to what I thought, Mr. Peters didn't seem fazed by the mention of payment. On the contrary, he seemed pleased with his fields as he surveyed them. "You magicians always produce the best crops!" I smiled at this as I nodded.
"Well, I'm sure you have somewhere else you should be, miss. Don't let a sad old man like me hold you back." With a shoo-in, I waved goodbye to the man and headed toward my next destination.
It's been a month since Rudy left town.
Since his "farewell," I've been helping out around town as Roxy ever since.
It was rewarding to help people like this.
Not so long ago, I was harassed daily about my hair.
Now, I helped people make a living and made money from it.
Of course, I made sure it all went to my parents.
I never left town, so I didn't need money. I couldn't use it anyway, and it wasn't like I wanted anything.
I already had everything I've always had.
I continued walking as I made my way through the fields.
Everyone was busy with work, but they would see me and wave at me from time to time.
"Thanks for last week, Sylphiette!" It was Mrs. Peters.
It made sense to see her by her house at that time of day. "No problem!" I called out to her as I continued walking.
Buena was at peace now.
No one was hungry, and everyone seemed happy. It was nice.
The only thing missing was Rudy and Roxy being here.
I still had a lot of things to do before that. So that would have to wait.
"Good afternoon, Sylphie! Helping the villagers again?" By the time I got to the house, the man in the front yard had already spotted me.
"Just like always, Mr. Paul!" Rudy's father was out in front of his house, training, of course, as usual.
"You know a kid your age doesn't need to do all that, right?"
"Rudy would do the same if he were here, so I'm just covering for him." Helping people made me feel good. It was like they needed me, and that made me feel better.
Besides, I didn't have any other friends to talk to or play with.
"My father also lets me go out without doing chores as long as I help the village."
Paul gave me a big smile when I finished speaking.
"You're a naughty little girl, aren't you?" He turned his head to look back at the house, almost as if telling me I could come in.
"Zenith's inside if you need to talk to her, but if you want to play with Norn right now, she's asleep." He put his thumb to his chin for a second, but he must have dismissed any thoughts he had as he kicked me out.
"Just make sure you act like a little girl once in a while. You're going to worry your parents a lot." I assumed he included Rudy in that comment.
I walked up to the house and opened the front door.
Unlike the many times I'd visited Greyrat's house, this time they weren't preparing dinner.
Instead, Zenith was sitting in the house's small living room, watching Norn sleep. However, I didn't see Miss Lilia anywhere. She must have been out shopping for supplies or something.
I approached the woman as she turned at the sound of my footsteps.
"Oh, Sylphie? It's good to see you. Are you still around helping out in the village?" Zenith asked softly, standing up and approaching me.
The woman always seemed radiant to me. Even now, she was smiling. The only time I'd seen her without a smile was when Rudy left for Roa, but I cried that day too.
"Yes. I came to get the notes Rudy left me." With a gentle nod from the woman, she spoke.
"You may go up. I haven't touched anything, so you should know where everything is."
"Thank you, Lady Zenith."
"No need to add the 'lady', Sylphie. It makes me look old." The woman looked at me with a serious face as she scratched her cheek.
"You're no older than my mother, Lady Zenith." The woman didn't seem any happier to hear that.
Was it because my parents were older than her?
Since the day wasn't getting too long and I still had some responsibilities at home, I decided to go up and get the things I needed.
Unlike the rest of the house, her room hadn't been touched since his departure.
Why? I didn't know. Nor did I ask.
I felt I was already overstepping my bounds by going to her house every day and taking my study materials.
"Mr. Paul and Mrs. Zenith are still being kind to me. I didn't mean to betray that kindness," I muttered to myself.
The notes in question were on his desk.
Next to them was the book we always studied.
Although, in Rudy's case, most of the time, he simply showed me its contents.
Looking at the pile of papers was still strange. They were perfectly organized.
A small binding held them together. Normally, people would be surprised to find something like that. After all, it was a book, and books weren't cheap.
But I knew it wasn't a book anyone else had. The handwriting was unmistakably Rudy's.
The same one I studied to learn how to write and read. Which meant it was made for me. Just thinking about it made me blush deeply.
The words he said that day were still in my head.
"Eight years from now..." No matter what I did, I couldn't get them out of my head. No matter how hard I tried not to think about it, It always came back to that day.
Rudy was coming back, but that would still be three years away...
We could kill time going on adventures. We'd become renowned adventurers, and eventually we'd reunite with Roxy, and the three of us would go from dungeon to dungeon, becoming more famous. And then, when we turned fifteen... then we could settle down somewhere and...
"Kyaaa!" I couldn't help but let out a squeal of excitement as I felt my whole body heat up at the mere thought.
"Maybe I should relax a little..." I still had plenty of time to think about it. "My father has been telling me to take life more calmly... So I should." With the notes and the book under my arm, I left the Greyrat house.
I still have no idea what most of this means.
I often found myself trying to decipher the information in the notes confusing.
Any information I thought I knew about magic from my studies seemed almost useless for understanding Rudeus's writings.
At first, I got a headache just thinking about it, and I decided to consult the magic book... That didn't improve.
For some reason, Rudy went through the entire book and scribbled over most of it, saying it was "wrong."
Meanwhile, he filled in the margins with corrections.
No one knew what he meant by these corrections, but over the past month, I think I've started to understand what he meant.
For example, one page in the book discussed mana capacity and how it depended solely on birth; needless to say, he corrected that entire page.
To the page on casting styles, he added chantless spellcasting.
Of course, those were things I knew from my training.
What intrigued me most was the content of the notes he left me.
To be honest, anything I read could land me in jail somewhere, mainly because of the topics it covered.
There were several mentions of taboo subjects, like teleportation, but he only delved into them a little.
Then, he added notes about divine magic and how it was created during the Laplace War, but again, he didn't delve too deeply into the subject.
At first, I wanted to think Rudy was simply brilliant, but some things didn't add up.
It sounded strange, but I was starting to believe my friend was a miko.
It wouldn't be far-fetched. He was intelligent and knew exactly what to do in any situation. Mikos seemed to have all sorts of abilities, according to what Roxy had told me.
So it wasn't that Rudeus couldn't be one.
But for some reason, I couldn't believe it either.
All I knew about my friend was that he was smart, caring, handsome... and that he was going through things I didn't know about, and that the boy himself wouldn't let me know.
So I could only read his notes and try to learn as much as I could.
Which was still a monumental task.
There was too much information to finish in a short amount of time.
So instead, I was going to have to take it slow, like when I started learning with Roxy.
At least it was fun. That was the best thing about doing this kind of thing.
Rudy left some things to help me, so at least he didn't leave me with nothing.
"I wish he'd left some explanations for some of this stuff." The notes didn't tell you exactly what you could do to make the process easier.
They just told you things, but I guess he jotted everything down relatively quickly, so I wasn't going to get mad at him... Not that I was going to get mad at him for anything else, actually, but that's beside the point.
Making my way through it all wasn't going to be easy or quick, but it almost felt like he was testing me or something, and it wasn't like I could just leave the gifts he left me unstudied.
"But what happens when I learn all this?" The idea made me very uncomfortable. I knew I could finish all this in less than a year if I rushed it, which I wouldn't, but it would still leave me with too much time to do nothing
"So, should I finally start sword training?" The question left me a little puzzled and quite uncomfortable.
I had never considered the idea of sword training until my graduation, when I mentioned it to Roxy.
That was when the idea started to grow in my head. I wanted to become someone who could help Rudeus, and no matter how I looked at it, he didn't need help from someone like me with magic.
So the only other option left was to take up a sword.
Not that there weren't other ways to help him, but I'd figure them out later. Besides, learning to use a sword was always useful for self-defense.
A mage knight. Or a swordsman. Whatever the terminology was. I asked Mr. Paul about it once, but his explanation confused me even more.
"Even if I wanted to start, I don't know where... I don't have anyone who could teach me." That was the other problem with that idea.
Sure, I could always ask Mr. Paul to teach me, but he'd already taught Rudy almost everything he knew, and now he was learning from a master swordswoman.
"If I asked Mr. Paul, I'd fall behind Rudy again. Just like always..."
No matter how I looked at it, my only solution was to find someone more skilled than Mr. Paul... in Buena.
So I was basically screwed.
Still, I couldn't let that stop me.
"I'll deal with the teacher part later. For now, I should focus on everything else I have in front of me." I'll deal with the sword another time." I had enough on my plate.
Helping the village, visiting the Greyrats, and continuing my magical training; I felt like I might burn out if I added anything else.
"Is this how Rudy felt every time he did all those things?" When we were younger, he seemed to live twice as fast as everyone else.
Was everything as hectic for him as it was for me? No, it was probably even worse. Even now, I don't mind everything he did.
It was fun, but maybe that was because he had a reason to do it.
I wanted to be ready when Rudeus returned. "I'll be here, Rudy, when you get back..." I let the air wash over my words, but I still couldn't stop myself from rolling around in the grass in embarrassment.