Chapter 502:

Poor Lessons

Shift


It was a sort of strange feeling that she had. Her body back in the real world was still that of a teenager, while in the fake world she had become an adult. Conflicting with the mental age that she gained, she was now a child once more. Given that messed up setting for her to be existing, she both should and shouldn’t be in school.

The time that had passed for her and spent in time loops should have put well beyond that need. All of her training on fake science didn’t amount to anything meaningful, even if it did qualify her technically for a few degrees if only in Sumiko’s world. Given reality and the mental age, she should have been beyond the need for any sort of lessons.

Yet she found herself, at an age that she still hadn’t figured out and merely guessed it was somewhere around five to eight, back in a classroom setting once more being grilled on what they seemed to consider the basics. Perhaps the only bright side to any of it was the fact that the era that she currently inhabited had a vastly different concept of what were the basics for education. She suspected that it was also skewed towards the gender, where she currently found herself.

Being different as they were did little to make her feel any better about actually having to go through the lessons. She wasn’t pleased with the nature of them, though she didn’t let that slip out in her expressions. ‘I have to learn and blend in…’ she repeated to herself as she went through the lessons. As much as she found it narrow minded, she knew that this was a thing of the period that she inhabited. She had to play by their rules if she were to be able to make a smooth progression.

Playing by the rules of the world was something that she certainly had pressed upon her. Even if she didn’t like it, fake or not, things were real enough that they had consequences and she had to live with all of the choices that she made until she completed the world. Which meant that she could make her efforts in completing it even harder if she didn’t tow the line.

Arranging flowers and tea ceremonies seemed hardly useful skills for her in this world. She was used to being a warrior and an engineer, this sort of artist mindset didn’t really suit her. From the numerous red marks on her hands and arms from where the instructor, a Miss Munkata (she hadn’t managed to learn her first name yet), corrected her errors.

From just the atmosphere of her father’s presence in the room, Yumi could see that the woman was under a lot of pressure for Yumi to do well. That was at least easy for her to see, even with the extra years that she had, reading people still remained one of her failings. It was something that she relied on Yuki to aid her with, as he seemed to understand people better than her, even if it was often from the mindset of clichés and tropes (he had a surprisingly good accuracy when making his remarks).

Her fingers fumbled around snapping the stem of a flower that Miss Kunkata explained to her, but she had already forgotten. It was a case of dropping less important information that didn’t need to be kept around. She had known a couple of girls her age that had that pressed upon them or maybe wanted to do it, she never did ask them. The work they did certainly was beautiful from what she remembered. Though most of it she couldn’t really understand as there was an art form to it that others seemed to read out of what they did that just flew over Yumi’s head.

“Start over!” snapped the slowly aging woman having somehow managed to hear the snap, even without looking at Yumi. Though that might have been because it had been the fifth time that she did that and the woman was specifically listening for the telltale sound of her mistakes.

Avoiding getting another hit, Yumi quickly removed the flowers from the narrow vase and placed them in the pile next to her of all the failures. “Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter 502 – Poor Lessons

After a long day, despite it still only being mid-afternoon by judging the sun and shadows, Yumi wanted a rest. She had never done such things and they shouldn’t have been so taxing, yet her body couldn’t even be bothered to lift an arm.

Above her was the clear blue sky, soft and calm with hardly any clouds covering the view. It should have been familiar to her, since it didn’t look any different from her memories of the real world, but it still felt a little off. Nothing in her mind could place the feeling of why it was that way.

Yumi really didn’t want to be moving, but there was little in avoiding it when a shadow stretched over her. Her eyes slid over to see who stood next to her. The fatigue apparently had lowered her senses or perhaps being in a child’s body dulled them. “Suzume…” she managed to utter through her dried up mental state.

Thankfully, listening and watching enough, Yumi was able to pick up names so that she didn’t have to be awkward around people that she should know. Suzume, last name unknown still (listening didn’t give everything away), was the same servant that dragged her over to her lessons in the first place. A young servant that apparently had the knack of finding Yumi wherever it was that she happened to be. This was only made more puzzling by the fact that she wasn’t even assigned as her personal servant, someone else was. Who she had oddly not seen yet, though it wasn’t that she wanted one anyway.

“What are you doing, Young Miss? Mika has been trying to find you, she asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

‘Mika? I guess that’s the personal servant?’ she thought having wished that she could keep avoiding the woman. “I wasn’t trying to.”

Dragged away from her rest, her body somehow managed to get moving again, revealing that she wasn’t nearly as exhausted as she thought. Suzume took her through the maze of the mansion, which she still had no clue how to navigate, but she remembered the courtyard with a small pond in it from before, meaning she had come across this way before. It hardly helped her at the moment.

But standing in front of her now was another new face, likely the one that was called Mika, a young girl that looked only to be maybe five years older than her current body. It seemed a little strange to be told that she was her personal servant. The girl looked more like someone that would be her friend more than anything. ‘Having someone this young serve me feels a little awkward…’ The age that Yumi believed herself to be didn’t make the situation any less uncomfortable for her.

Unlike Suzume, she didn’t tie her hair back, maybe because she wasn’t doing cleaning at the moment. But her silky black hair rolled over her shoulders putting symmetric book end like notes to her face as the ends curled inward framing her. Just like the other servants, they looked really well taken care of despite their position in the household. If anything, she looked better than Yumi’s body, which she caught in a mirror once.

Before she could do anything more, the girl hugged on to her quickly with relief in her eyes. “Oh Yoshiko, I’ve been looking for you all day! You weren’t in any of your usual hiding spots!” There was no formality or sense of status, something that surprised Yumi a little given how everyone else treated her. Perhaps she had written her off too soon.

Given her own size, the hug even from someone a little older was more suffocating than she expected. She struggled to find a way out of the girl's arms only to be saved by Suzume, who picked up on the situation. Yumi coughed a little trying to get a breath back inside her after it all was pumped out of her. Once she recovered enough to look back at the girl, she could see obliviousness that explained a lot. ‘I guess at her age, things like rank mean very little…did they select her as my personal servant because of the similar age?’

While Suzume chewed out Mika over her poor manners, they both missed Yumi’s rather pensive and out of character, for Yoshiko, pose as she stood deep in thought. ‘This seems a little strange of a situation to pull. Could she be the one for this world? It’d be a little strange for her to be serving me, but I guess I shouldn’t rule anything out. Though I’m going to need more information before I can feel certain that this is the one. And besides, until I live here longer I won’t know what sort of thing I have to solve. Both Masa and Sumiko’s situations didn’t reveal themselves until I was deep into their worlds… Observation is going to be important…’

Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice when Mika slipped out of Suzume’s lecture and popped up in front of her. “You’ve got a funny face, Yoshiko! Doesn’t she Suzume?”

The point blank high pitched voice snapped Yumi out of her thoughts immediately making herself conscious about what she was doing. ‘When did she get there?!’ While failing to look innocent, she at least managed to dispel the non-child-like expression. She tried to transition into a smile, though it turned out more like a question.

“That’s enough delaying now. Mika, make sure the Young Miss makes afternoon lessons.”

‘More?!’

“Yes, ma’am! Mika will make sure Miss Yoshiko arrives on time!” delivered Mika acting more formal than her nature, coming off more sarcastic than genuine. The girl didn’t seem to understand the difference, which was the only reason she got a pass from Suzume.

The thought of more lessons made Yumi’s spirit crack further. ‘I don’t know how much more I can take of these archaic lessons!’

Troubled by the new handwritten scenario for them, Yuki and Saki had a lot of things to figure out. The first thing that they did was try to find some food, but there was absolutely nothing in the house, shelter (shed? they were still not sure what to call it). Scavenging up something seemed to be their first priority.

Saki stepped out through the opening in the wall that was at best guess a door, even though it looked more like someone gave up building. Given the look of the other homes in the area, it might have been more age than anything. ‘Even Masa’s world looked better than this…’

Dirt packed and grounded up by foot travel was all she could see between houses. If she looked off towards the horizon where the mountains rose up she could find green, but there was none to be found here. While it appeared that their home had the worst condition, it was hardly unique for the area. Holes littered the thatched roofs where no one had spent the time fixing and those that did were clearly poorly repaired. The wood all looked old and ready to split apart.

Even being in a poor part of the town it still surprised her to see the state of things. ‘I figured that they would still spend time to maintain their homes, but it’s like nobody even cares…Why?’

“How’s it look?” Yuki asked, approaching behind her.

“It’s clear that we’re not going to find food around here.”

“Think our parents are out doing that?”

“It’s possible, if we have any.”

“I considered that possibility as well given the state of the house. Feels more like we’re squatting than living.”

“Very likely…”

“Only one way to find out…”

“Yuki?”

He suddenly took in a deep breath and the look in his eyes gave Saki an uncomfortable feeling. Before he even started she knew that she was not going to like it. Even if it might help, she wished that he had picked something different.

“Where’s my mommy?!” he shouted loud enough to clear several houses with impressive volume as he then began to fake cry in the most annoying as possible pitch. If any sort of response was going to happen, making the whole neighborhood upset would achieve it. “I want my mommy!”

“Yuki…” she pleaded to be completely drowned out by his commitment to the role. She just wanted the embarrassment to end as she grabbed on to him hoping squeezing his tiny hands would do something.

Unexpectedly, the response was a flying cooking spoon that hit with perfect accuracy the direct center of his forehead immediately shutting him up out of shock. “Quiet you damn kids! Another word and I’ll see you run out of that crap pile!”

Nursing his bruised forehead, Yuki worked through the pain. “Damn…when did we turn to slapstick comedy?”

“Don’t do that again, Yuki. As much as we can camp, we don’t have the health or powers to make that a realistic possibility in this sort of world.”

“I have a feeling that none of them like us regardless.”

“Then let’s not add to their reasons.”

“Fine, we still need food though.”

Saki looked around at the area again trying to see if there was any better part of the town that they were in. From her height, she could see nothing. They were going to have to explore and learn the area quickly. “I have a feeling that we’re probably going to have to steal it, unless you want to eat trash.”

“Not that hungry yet…let’s find a market and figure out a plan.”

She nodded to him and stepped out in the open. Given that it was their home, she looked back thinking that she had to secure it somehow, but it was a pointless thought. “Our advantage is that we’re older than we look…”

Sota
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Eytha
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