(West POV)
It's been a couple of months since I accepted the job from Masato and Samiko. I was surprised when I received a letter from them. It had been 11 years since we last met.
Since then, life has been more entertaining from a certain unique cub, Akura Ruo. The daughter of the legendary heroes.
My first impression of her was that she was playful. When I first entered the room where I would be teaching, she was lying there 'lifelessly' while her mother was smiling gently, as if this was a normal occurrence in the Ruo's household.
Which includes the bickering between Ms Ruo and Samiko Ruo. Their bickers amused me very much.
Only after I promised to reward her with meat after each lesson would she sit up very much alive, as if she had never lain down dead.
That's when I knew that she would be very interesting to teach.
Unlike others of her age, she is quite smart. Not at a genius level, but enough to enroll into the same university I went to.
She would often complain about having to learn Common Sense, but dutifully do her coursework.
The only thing that interests her is learning magic. I had expected her to finish learning qi sense in a month, but consider me surprised when it had been 24 days, and she had learned the basics to completion. 6 days before my expected deadline.
So if I were to summarise Akura Ruo, she is very, very unique. Constantly takes naps throughout the day, and I have never once seen her stay awake more than 7 hours, very intriguing.
I wonder if she does have the innate nature to be lazy. She clearly was not born with a unique skill [Sloth], so it isn't that.
What other influence causes her to be like this?
Mr West smiled widely as he stroked his beard.
'Another puzzle to solve, ey?'
He puts together papers of reports about Akura's progress. It explains her strong points and weak points.
'She clearly has a high affinity for the field of magic. I should recommend to her mother to check her affinity, or affinities if she has any.'
He tilts his head.
'Now she has learned the basic qi sense, Samiko should be teaching her how to transform into a human...'
He would've taught her how to do it, but according to Samiko. It cannot be taught through logic; kitsune learns by instinct and emotions on how to transform into a human.
'I guess I should change the Wednesday class to teach her to increase her proficiency in moving her body parts, especially her tail.' West doesn't want his student to be destroying everything because her tail is moving without restraint as a human.
He writes down things he needs to do as a list.
'Speed up the lesson on Friday... Create quiz and board games based on historical figures and timelines... Ah, right, I need to prepare her birthday in 7 months.'
Standing up and stretching.
'I should suggest to her parents to let her travel the world once she grows up'
Checking the time, seeing that it's almost time for him to go and set up his class, today is Common Sense.
'Now I think of it... She would be quite dangerous when she transformed into a human. Mh... I don't want to end up spoiling her and cancel classes because she begs me. Oh well, I'll ask Samiko to teach me about mental protection...'
He steps out of his room.
"Now then, I wonder what entertainment that cub will bring me" He smiled widely.
***
"So you're telling me that Ms Ruo has disappeared?"
He stared with dumbfounded looks at Aki as she nodded.
"The warding system said that her qi signature is still inside our territory"
"But you cannot find her?"
"My apologies, but can you delay the class?"
"..." Mr West started chuckling, and the chuckles grew into laughter.
"Hohohohoho! My time here will never get boring," He smiled widely as he pulled out his wand, which was created by the offspring of Dryad, for his achievement of protecting the environment around the world.
He taps the end of the wand against the table, and a wood bud sprouts out of it, before it starts warping and refining itself until it looks like a compass.
"I remember what her mana signature looked like; this compass will point in her direction unless she is 20km away."
Aki's eyes widened in surprise before bowing in appreciation and taking the compass, before leaving to find her young mistress.
"Mh... I get a hunch that she won't change in the future." He strokes his beard before sitting at his table and writing down on a paper, intending to do homework about common sense.
He grins. 'Whenever you avoid my class, I'll keep making homework and give it to you, Ms Ruo.'
...
..
.
"Hohohohoho!" West is dying of laughter as Akura is currently hanging from Aki's grasp; her look is very deadpanned. Aki has her grip on the back of Akura's neck so as not to injure her.
"That's right, keep laughing at me..." Akura scoffs before attempting to get out, but to no success.
West, with a wide grin, pulled out 2 papers.
"Since you ditched today's class, I decided to be very generous and give you homework, so you can study it."
Akura's expression widened with shock and in desperation at what she just heard.
She clearly thought that nothing would happen if she hid from going to class, but this?!
"NO!" Akura howled in desperation as her sensei smiled even wider.
"Keep ditching classes, and I'll increase the amount of homework you get"
She froze before letting out a soft whimper.
"Fine... I'll keep going to class..."
...
A few months have gone by, there are no classes today because of the holiday "Heroes' Victory", and this means...
"Snuu... Snuu..."
Akura found another comfortable spot to nap in.
"Fuuh... Good thing she doesn't have stealth skills, but she might get one from her system in the future..."
She climbs up the tree with swift, precise movement, not a single branch nicking her clothes.
And there she is, a fluffy white cub nesting in a bird nest. Why a bird nest? During the winter, they migrated to another land, so the nest was empty because Akura discovered it, and the same birds should return in spring.
"Fufu... What is she, a bird or a fox?" She smiled widely before picking Akura up. Akura lets out a soft whine of complaint in her sleep, but after sniffing her mother's scent, she stops complaining and nuzzles adorably in her sleep.
Samiko smiled widely. "Always a handful, my lovable daughter..."
She hopped down, landing without any sound or vibration.
"Your birthday is in 4 months now... Gosh..."
She strokes her cub's fur.
"I remembered when you were so small and adorable... Now you're growing bigger and bigger..."
Walking to the kitchen since it's lunch time.
"I wished you could always stay as my little fluffball... but that's impossible to wish for..."
Stroking Akura's ears, which made Akura let out a soft, contented howl in her sleep.
"I love you, my daughter," She kisses the head of Akura.