The little mutt Maeve couldn't read at all.
Sitting beside Ryan, she scratched at her ears in frustration. "What does all this mean? Mira, can you teach me to read? I can't understand it..."
"You can't even read, so why are you butting in? Take this bread and go." Ryan stuffed the half-eaten piece of black bread into Maeve's mouth, and she promptly slunk off.
Mira walked into the study, looked at Maeve gnawing bread at the door, and pushed her out by the rear, muttering, "My mom doesn't let us eat in the study — crumbs attract mice and bugs..."
"Huh? Is that so? Weren't you just eating something yourself?" Maeve raised a brow.
Mira pushed her rear again. "Nonsense, I finished eating before I came in."
Maeve went out reluctantly, wandered aimlessly around Mira's room with her bread, and finally just lay down on the carpet.
Ryan pulled a book off the shelf at random, ran his hand over the rough, stiff parchment, and flipped to a page.
Though the System was translating the text in real time, the dense, tiny characters still gave Ryan a headache to look at.
"Can I learn this Fireball spell?" Ryan crouched before Mira with the book and pointed at the incantation.
"You can. My mom says it's the simplest beginner magic — someone with decent talent could learn it in a month."
Ryan gave the little girl a gentle hug. "And you, Mira? Have you learned Fireball?"
"A little bit." As she spoke, Mira's ears drooped; she seemed to recall something unpleasant. "Yesterday those bad guys — I tried to hit them with Fireball, but they hit me instead..."
Poor child.
Ryan reached out and stroked her head.
"Could you show me?"
"Mm... not in the study. Big brother Ryan, come with me." Mira grabbed Ryan's pants and led him to a ladder.
One after the other, they climbed up to the tavern's rooftop.
The street before the tavern was in full view, and from here you could even see the distant city gate, with none of the pungent stench of dung in the air.
With a railing added, it really would be a fine place to rest.
"Be careful not to fall." Worried Mira might lose her footing, Ryan bent down and picked her up, then stood on a relatively safer spot. "All right, give it a demonstration. Fire it somewhere empty — don't set any houses alight."
Mira nodded, then raised her hand to the sky at about forty-five degrees.
She suddenly chanted a long, rattling incantation, and then half her arm was gradually surrounded by some intricate-looking red magic circles.
The incantation was far too long; using it to ambush someone was simply impractical.
The men who'd kidnapped Mira, seeing her rattling off an incantation, slapping her was only to be expected...
While Ryan's mind wandered, a fist-sized fireball shot from the circle, flew straight into the distance, and finally vanished without a trace.
Ryan gazed into the distance and remarked, "That's far... it won't set the thickets outside the city on fire, will it?"
At that, he and Mira looked at each other; clearly the child wasn't sure either.
"Never mind... it should be fine. Let's go down." Ryan sent Mira down first, then went down himself.
He didn't know how powerful Mira's Fireball was, but it sure flew far.
Back in the study, Ryan saw Ellie leafing through a magic book. He asked offhandedly, "Can you read?"
Ellie nodded gently, then closed the book and stood dutifully to the side.
The Fireball incantation was awkward and clumsy, just a string of unrelated letters and words; Ryan couldn't grasp its meaning at all, and after reading it several times still couldn't memorize it.
He flipped a few pages further and found that the higher the magic's level, the more complex the incantation; one spell called Flaming Meteor Shower had an incantation a full page long.
Run into bandits out in the wilds and you'd probably be chopped into mincemeat before you'd even finished chanting.
"Ellie, can you teach me killing magic? These incantations are too much of a hassle."
"Before you can learn killing magic, you first have to memorize the incantation." Ellie looked at Ryan expressionlessly. "Killing magic is a simplified version, but it still requires memorizing an incantation."
Ryan sighed.
Memorizing was what he was worst at; all through middle and high school his English scores hovered in the single digits, and in college he failed and retook exams year after year.
Ryan focused his attention, raised his hand, and chanted the incantation, but after a good while nothing happened.
Mira laughed happily. "Big brother Ryan's a dummy, you said the incantation wrong. You have to memorize it carefully."
"It's too hard. Let me memorize it again." Ryan picked the book back up and earnestly recited the incantation.
Seeing him truly clueless, Ellie spoke up, a rare thing. "Don't focus on the incantation. Getting it a little wrong doesn't matter. The most important thing is to imagine a fireball in your hand."
"Right, my mom told me the same thing, but it's easier said than done — actually learning it isn't simple at all."
So imagination was the key.
Rank beginner though Ryan was, letting his mind run wild was his specialty.
Busty big sisters! Golden-haired beauties! Bratty white-haired vixens!
"Master, what are you grinning about?" Maeve walked into the study, studying Ryan with a puzzled face. "Why do you look like a villain?"
"Talk nonsense again and I'll touch your ears tonight."
Hearing this, Maeve promptly covered her ears and fled.
Ryan gathered himself and began chanting the incantation again.
He pictured a round fireball in his mind, then felt a warm current surging back and forth through his arm.
Very hot...
Crimson magic circles appeared one by one along his arm, and a pale-yellow fireball formed in his palm, the heat stinging it slightly.
He felt a strange urge to release the fireball and burn everything nearby to ash.
Mira was dumbstruck; she hadn't expected Ryan to learn Fireball so fast. "Wa-wait! Don't cast a fireball in here! Big brother Ryan, put it out, quick!"
Before he could act, Ellie tossed over a water ball that doused the fireball outright.
She really was dependable; from the moment Ryan began chanting, she'd been watching intently, afraid something might go wrong.
Once Mira recovered, she hugged Ryan tightly. "Big brother, you learned it so fast! It took me months to learn Fireball, and you got it after one look..."
Evelyn came at the sound, first glancing at Mira, then settling her gaze on Ryan. "What's going on? I could hear you all shouting from downstairs."
A faint smoky scent clung to her.
Mira clutched Ryan's clothes and mumbled excitedly, "Mom! Big brother Ryan learned magic after one look. When I grow up, can I be with him?"