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His First Pupil
初めての生徒
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. —Neil Armstrong
"Welcome, back. Mentor."
Her face full of smiles, Ai ran over to me when I landed at the forest's entrance.
"I'm back. But Ai, you shouldn't leave the forest."
"You didn't say that she couldn't greet you. And besides, she's still barely in the forest, it's alright."
Nina popped up from behind Ai, sighing.
This world was filled with dangerous animals.
Although there weren't many fierce beasts like the Armored Bear, there are many animals that could be dangerous to a young girl like Ai in both the forest and the grasslands outside of it.
They'd be able to stay out of danger so long as they're in the forest because of what Nina can do, but I get worried when they're at the forest's boundary like right now. But although I get worried—
"Mentor... did I, do bad...?"
"No, you did well. Thank you for coming to greet me."
I just couldn't find it in me to berate Ai after seeing her get so dejected like that and forgave her.
... Which caused her face to light up into a smile as she clung to my muzzle.
"What was this kind of thing called again... a [Doting Dummy]?"
Nina snorted as she poked fun at me.
I only said that term one time... good job on remembering.
What she spoke with and what I've been teaching Ai wasn't Elvish, but Japanese.
I was a bit troubled over which language I wanted to teach Ai.
If I went with Japanese, I'd have to teach it to Nina as well.
But I decided on teaching her Japanese even after taking the disadvantages into consideration.
I mean, there is a remarkable difference in the amount of vocabulary between Elvish and Japanese.
Elvish uses simple ways to express things and is staggeringly restrictive for more complex matters.
For example, there isn't a word that means [Word]. There aren't even any other languages, after all. It has neither [Magic] nor [Academy] and even lacks words for [Elf] and [Human].
I wouldn't be able to run an academy with that many limitations.
I'd just been substituting Japanese words into Elvish for words it didn't have, but I felt that it would be faster to just have her to learn Japanese itself.
