Mother of Learning 2 - Outside World

by nobody103

  Was she… crying?

  "How can you be so good at everything!?" she half-shouted at him, pushing him away. "You're good enough at alchemy that Kael praises you. You create golems in your free time. You're so good at divinations that adult professionals accused me of lying when I told them how good at finding monster nests you are. And you're apparently good enough at combat magic that they're letting you teach your own group!"

  "That's not-" Zorian tried to explain.

  "Don't try to lie to me!" she snapped at him. "I know you're a better combat mage than me. You try to hide it, but I can tell. I'm not stupid!"

  "I never claimed you are," Zorian assured her.

  She ignored him.

  "I worked on this for years," she cried. "I'm two years older than you and I worked so hard! Every day, every weekend, every moment I could spare. I made sure to focus; not spread myself too thin. I live for this. And then I find out that not only are you better than me in the one thing I focused on, you also have time for all these other things too! How!? How are you so much better than me? What am I doing wrong!?"

  "Nothing!" Zorian hastily assured her. "You're honestly pretty damn awesome, Taiven, and the only reason I got even close to your level is because I'm a dirty cheater who cheats."

  "Then show me how to cheat, too, damn it!" she shouted.

  Before he could say anything in response to that, she… wrapped him into a hug and started sobbing into his shoulder. He awkwardly returned her hug after a few seconds, desperately trying to think of a way to handle this situation.

  He couldn't think of anything at the moment. In light of that, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that Taiven didn't look like she would stop crying any time soon.

  Chapter 44

  A Show of Trust

  The idea that someone might connect all the dots and realize his abilities were way too developed for his age was not a foreign idea for Zorian. He tried to make sure that the abilities he showed to any one person or group were firmly within the realm of possible, but he always knew that a sufficiently curious and dedicated individual could track down enough clues to realize something didn't quite add up. There was no solution to this, as far as he could tell – not unless he wanted to spend most of his time performing an incredibly elaborate and boring act. Something which he wasn't sure he was capable of, and which probably wouldn't be too good for his sanity. Ultimately, he decided that the whole thing was largely a non-issue. As long as he wasn't caught doing something illegal, he could simply tell such amateur detectives to get lost. Well, he'd probably be more formal and courteous about it than that, but that was what it all boiled down to in the end.

  He was even aware that it might be Taiven who caught on to him. In many ways, she was in an ideal position to do so. She was probably the only person who actually had a solid idea of what was normal for him and what wasn't , and was thus far more likely to realize just how abnormal and sudden his current skill growth was. He had been interacting with her pretty heavily lately, giving her lots of material to work with. And lastly, they'd known each other from before. They were… friends. She would feel entitled to an explanation of some sort, and would be a lot less hesitant about confronting him than someone else might be.

  And yet, despite all of that, Taiven still managed to completely blindside him in the end. He expected her reaction to be a lot of things, but never did he imagine she would break down into tears. It was just so unlike her. Yes, she was a very emotional girl, but she was also the sort to keep going forward and never let anything get to her.

  He glanced to the left, where she was sitting on the bed beside him. She was a mess. She had stopped crying for a while now, but after-effects were still very visible – red face, runny nose, the standard stuff. Still, her emotions had leveled off in the past few minutes, so maybe she was ready to talk now?

  "Feeling better?" he asked.

  She lightly punched him in the shoulder as a response.

  Yes, definitely feeling better.

  "This sucks," she complained. "I came here all fired up, ready to get some answers, and in the end we didn't even have a proper fight. I just made a fool of myself. Why couldn't you have been more angry and defensive and… Zorian-like?"

  "Err, sorry?" he said, mildly confused. He was tempted to ask just how she defined 'Zorian-like' but decided it would be best if that remained a mystery for now. "To be fair, you weren't behaving very Taiven-like either."

  "I guess," she conceded. "Tell me something. Have you always been this talented? Have you been lying to me this whole time?"

  "No," he answered simply.

  She scrutinized him for a moment, watching for any sign of uncertainty and shiftiness in his eyes and posture, before sighing heavily.

  "Figures," she said. "I thought as much. You'd have to be very dedicated to keep up the act for so long, and I can't think of a reason why you'd bother. Still nice to hear it from your own mouth, though. Except… that only leaves one option on the table. That you overtook me in everything, including my specialty, in the few short months since we last saw each other. That…"

  "You're wrong," Zorian said, shaking his head. "I did not overtake you. I am confident that if we fought, you'd be victorious nine times out of ten. You're still better than me."

  If he didn't just use mind magic to incapacitate her right from the start. Or ambush her. Or cover the battlefield in enough explosives to level a building. But he was pretty sure Taiven wouldn't count those as 'real' victories anyway, and aside from that, his point still stood.

  "It doesn't matter," she huffed. "With the kind of ridiculous growth you're displaying, you'll close that gap in a handful of weeks and then leave me in the dust. And you'll have all that other stuff you're tinkering with too. Am I wrong?"

  "Sort of," he said. She gave him an annoyed look so he immediately clarified. "It's complex. There is no way I'll be able to close the gap between us 'in a handful of weeks', as you said. But time flows differently for me than it does for you, so I'll get a lot more than that."

  "What? What the hell are you saying?" she asked, giving him an incredulous look.

  "We'll come back to that later. Before I say more on the topic, I want to know what got you so upset about this," he said calmly.

  "Say what? Zorian, you can't say something like that and just go 'but we'll talk about that later'. This… this demands immediate clarification! This will be bugging me in the back of my head until I get an answer!" she complained.

  "I know," Zorian said, smiling widely. "That's why I'm not explaining anything until you tell me what's going on."

  She glared at him. He only smiled wider.

  "You're evil," she told him, looking away. "Besides, I already told you what's bothering me and I'm pretty sure you heard me just fine. Everything I've done, all the skills I've spent my life honing… if you can surpass it all so easily, then what the hell have I been doing all my life? I don't know what kind of cheat you used, and it honestly doesn't matter because it shouldn't have been enough! I'm good at this and I live for this, you can't just decide one day to pursue the same field as me and then catch up to me in less than three months… while not even focusing on it properly! The only way that could be possible is… is if I were never really that good to begin with…"

  "Oh come on," Zorian protested, quickly wrapping Taiven into another hug to forestall a second round of crying he could feel welling up inside of her. "That's so totally ridiculous. Why would you doubt yourself like that? How does me being better erase your own accomplishments?"

  "Accomplishments?" she asked incredulously, pushing him away. "What accomplishments? I work as a freaking teacher's assistant, Zorian. For a non-magical class no less! Do you honestly think that's what I hoped for when I graduated?"

  He winced. So Taiven wasn't as sanguine about that 'temporary setback' as she pretended to be… In retrospect, he shouldn't be so surprised by that – while failing to secure herself a mentor immediately after graduation
was by no means the end of the world, it was bound to be a severe blow to her confidence. Still…

  "Taiven, aren't your parents both battlemages?" Zorian asked. "How come they haven't pulled some of their connections to find you a mentor, or even just a better job?"

  "Oh, my parents would love to find me a mentor," Taiven scoffed. "In fact, they already have someone in mind! He's one of their old friends who's long left the exciting parts of the business behind him when he lost his leg to a rock worm. He's all about being cautious and minimizing risks, and he never does anything more challenging than routine pest extermination. Of course, that's precisely why my parents want me to learn from him. If they had it their way, I'd be hunting mutated rats until I was thirty or something."

  "Ah…" said Zorian awkwardly. He seemed to have walked straight into a touchy subject there.

  "Yeah," Taiven said. "I love my parents, and I know they just want to keep me safe, but we just don't see eye to eye there."

  "Okay, sorry to bring that up then. But really, if the reason you're so upset is that you think you're some kind of failure, well… you can rest easy. You're an awesome combat mage. As awesome as you ever were, and nothing I do can change that."

  "I'm… not sure I really believe that," Taiven sighed. "I couldn't find a mentor. The team I made wasn't going anywhere until I recruited you in it. Meanwhile, my parents keep insisting I'm not ready and that it's good thing I've had such a slow start of my career. It's nice to hear some encouragement, but it rings a little hollow considering… you know."

  "Taiven, I'm not so good because you're secretly bad and nobody bothered to clue you in until now," Zorian said. "I'm so good because I had more than four years to hone my skills since we last saw each other."

  Taiven looked at him like he had grown a second head.

  "That's right – I'm actually older than you now," Zorian said. "With that in mind, it is actually pretty amazing that I am still not capable of casually sweeping you aside in a fight. Sure, I could kill you instantly from an ambush, but if we clashed head to head in a battle of pure spellwork, I would have to use every trick at my disposal and still wouldn't be guaranteed a win. That is why I keep insisting you're awesome."

  "I don't understand," she said. "You don't sound like you're joking, but that's what this looks like to me. How can you be older than me? That's not how age works, Zorian."

  "Ah, did you already forget what I told you earlier?" Zorian asked, amused. "About how time flows differently for me than it does for you? I seem to remember you said it would keep bugging you until you get an answer…"

  "Look, you know I'm not one for riddles and intellectual maneuvering," Taiven said crankily. "Why don't you just tell me what's happening here, okay?"

  Sure, why not.

  "I've lived through this month before," he said. "Many, many times. Every time I die, or on the night of the summer festival if I don't, my soul gets wrenched back in time to the start of the month. It's an endless loop that sees me getting stronger and more capable with each passing restart. Since you don't retain your memories across restarts, my growth appears abrupt and inexplicable to you, but it's really nothing more than your typical gradual improvement. Believe it or not, you're the one that taught me a fair deal of that combat magic you're so jealous of."

  "Shut up. I'm not jealous!" she protested.

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Out of all of that, that's what you chose to focus on?"

  "Yeah, well, at least that one has an easy response," she said. "What the hell am I supposed to say about the rest? Sure, it would explain your skills perfectly, but it's just so…"

  "Crazy?" Zorian offered.

  "Yes," she agreed. "And also terrifying. You're basically saying I'll get killed in a few weeks and replaced with a one month younger version of me. And that this isn't the first time this happened, it's just that I don't remember any of it. That's like something out of a horror story!"

  "I prefer to think of it as just memory loss rather than death," Zorian said. "You're still you, you just lose a couple of weeks of your life."

  "Repeatedly," she added.

  "Repeatedly," Zorian confirmed. "I'm not saying it isn't terrifying, just that I don't think it's equivalent to death. Admittedly, I'm a little biased here – if I thought that the time loop murdered millions of people at the end of every restart, I'd have probably gone insane from stress a long time ago."

  "Ah," she winced. "Sorry, I guess I'm still thinking of this as some kind of hypothetical scenario instead of something that's actually happening. Still, assuming you're not just pulling my leg here – and I swear to heavens, Zorian, if you are pulling my leg I'll glue your mouth shut with that really nasty gunk they use on dangerous prisoners – that's still pretty messed up. And also very unfair. Why are you the only person to remember anything?"

  "I'm not," he said. "There are at least two other people looping with me, possibly more. One of them wants to destroy Cyoria."

  She stared at him for a second before getting up from her position. For a moment he thought he had gone into too much detail too fast, and that she was going to walk through the door, but instead she started looking through his drawers, searching for something. He thought about telling her off for rooting through his stuff like that, but decided to wait and see what she was up to.

  She eventually found an empty notebook and a working pen in one of the drawers, appropriated one of the larger and thicker books in his room and then reclaimed her seat on the bed.

  She opened the notebook on her lap, the heavy book she took serving as an improvised table, and quickly scribbled something down on top of the page.

  Huh, he'd never thought of Taiven as someone to take notes like that.

  "There, I'm ready," she said. "Why don't you start from the beginning this time…"

  ✦ ✧ ✦

  In the end, he wasn't sure whether he had convinced her what he was saying was true or not. She took a lot of notes, asked even more questions, and then just left after telling him she has to think about things.

  A far better outcome than he had expected to get, honestly. He really hoped she would overcome her disbelief and accept his story. It would be nice to have someone other than Kael to talk to about time loop related things. Not that there was anything wrong with the morlock boy, far from it, but sometimes he really wished he could get a second opinion about stuff.

  Of course, it would hardly be him if that little bit of hope that came his way wasn't soon balanced out by something or someone popping up to complicate things. In this case, that someone was Xvim. When he arrived at his office the next day for their weekly mentoring session, he was informed that 'his' training group had been noticed and that Xvim was not happy at all that such an amateur had delusions about being fit for a teacher. In order to make him fit for a teacher, Xvim decided to step up their schedule – they now met three days a week instead of the usual one.

  He really hated that man.

  ✦ ✧ ✦

  His talk with Raynie was going well, in his opinion. If nothing else, she was a lot more relaxed than she had been in the previous restart – she'd even ordered a glass of wine to go with her meal. Of course, he wasn't actually learning anything new from her, since she was telling him the same things she had told him the last time they'd done this, but that was to be expected. He couldn't exactly continue on where they last left off without explaining where he got that information, and he didn't feel like making something up. The week had been stressful enough, he was fine with just going with the flow like this.

  "You know," Raynie said, taking a small sip from her glass, "I'm getting the feeling that you already know most of what I'm telling you."

  Oops. It seemed Raynie was a bit more perceptive than he gave her credit for. He didn't think he was being particularly careless, so maybe she was just that good. Probably for the best that he'd never tried to lie to her, then.

  "Sort of," he admitted.

  "Why did you ask me somet
hing you already know the answer to, then?" she asked.

  "So I can compare it with what I already know and see whether you were feeding me a bunch of lies or not," he said.

  She snorted derisively. "I think you've confused me with one of your cat shifter friends. Don't you think it's kind of rude to assume the worst of people like that?"

  "So you're saying your visit to our training group the other day wasn't about you testing me to see what I would do?" he asked with a smile.

  "Ugh. It was so obvious, huh?" Raynie sighed. "Well, it wasn't just that… but yes, I wanted to see how you would treat me."

  "And?" he asked curiously. "What's the verdict?"

  "It's good," she said. "You didn't lash out at me for being so clearly underpowered compared to you and your buddies, but you also didn't drop everything to spend the entire meeting hovering around me, trying to 'help'. A fair treatment. I respect that. I don't want special privileges."

  "So you intend to keep coming, then?"

  "Yes. As I said, seeing your reaction was just a part of it. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to get better."

  There was a brief silence as Raynie seemed to considering something.

  "So, Zorian? I'm curious about something," she eventually said. "What is it that drives you to try so hard? I mean, you're near the top of the class at every subject, and you seem to be good enough for a fourth-year when it comes to combat magic. That had to have taken quite a lot of work. What are you trying to accomplish?"

  Hum. What an interesting question. His reason for pushing himself at so many magical skills was, of course, that he very much needed them to survive… but that wasn't true for all of them. Some of them he pursued for personal reasons, because he had an interest in the field. The funny thing was, he no longer had any idea what he wanted to actually do with his life once he was out of the time loop. Most of the career paths he had been eyeing before he got stuck in the time loop no longer appealed to him. They were too modest and routine for someone of his current skills, and he would only get more capable as time passed.