Chapter 135: Education Is the Foundation of a Family
“About teachers…”
Armand muttered as if he were in a bit of a dilemma.
As everyone knows, Armand didn’t care for all the complicated rules and formalities, so he didn’t have a good relationship with the nobles. In fact, his reputation among noble men and women was completely ruined.
Armand himself didn’t really care about that. He believed he wouldn’t be involved with those strict nobles again anyway, so he just did whatever he wanted, offending most of them in the process. Even the ones he didn’t directly offend started disliking him because their daughters showed interest in him. Naturally, those “future fathers-in-law” came to see him as a big headache.
That’s why finding a teacher was a problem.
If we’re talking about the best education, noble tutors and the Royal Academy would be the top choices. If he wanted Rachel to get the best learning experience, he’d have to send her there. But…
With a reputation like his, there’s no way Armand could get Rachel in using his name.
“Hmm… a teacher…” Armand looked troubled, then said, “How about… I teach you instead?”
“Huh?” Rachel was surprised by the unexpected answer. “You… you’ll teach me?”
“Yeah. I may not know much about other subjects, but I could probably be a decent gym teacher.”
“...P.E.?”
Rachel had never done physical training in her life, so she naturally felt a bit uncomfortable. The whole point of alchemy was to make life easier, and easier meant you could be lazy. As an alchemist, Rachel had no reason to sweat buckets doing exercise. That would totally ruin her image. An alchemist should be calm and cool, not sweaty and punching things!
“So… you don’t like it, huh.”
Armand noticed her silence and sighed. Still, he understood. Even the knights he trained didn’t like their intense drills. And Rachel, with her skinny arms and legs, didn’t look like she could run a few kilometers in one go anyway. He decided not to push her.
“It’s just… it sounds tiring.” Rachel pouted and mumbled in her own defense.
“It’s not that bad. Training is step-by-step. When I was a kid, my father trained with me. It wasn’t hard at first, it started easy. Later, it got more intense, but by then, I was used to it.”
—Wait, you have a dad?
That was Rachel’s first thought, and she was lucky she didn’t say it out loud.
“…Why do your eyes look like they’re asking, ‘You actually have a dad?’…”
But even though she didn’t speak, her curious eyes gave her away.
...Ugh, was it that obvious?
She just looked at him quickly, that’s all…
Rachel guiltily looked away again, quietly turning her head back.
“Sigh… Don’t give that look to other people when you’re outside, okay?”
But instead of scolding her like she expected, Armand’s voice was surprisingly gentle.
“Now that I think about it, it’s really been a long time since I last saw him. It must be more than ten years by now.”
Rachel didn’t say anything. She just quietly listened to Armand sigh.
Even someone with no emotional intelligence could tell what Armand really meant, so it would be rude to say anything that might poke at his pain.
“They always say parents are a child’s best teacher. So when you mentioned a teacher, my first thought was that I should be the one to teach you.”
As he spoke, Armand gently held Rachel’s small, soft hand. The smooth skin of her little hand stood out sharply against the rough calluses on his own. Evelia’s hands had felt the same before, pale and delicate, like a young girl’s. Remembering that, Armand couldn’t help but feel that someone like him, so rough and clumsy, didn’t really match someone like her.
“I take after my father. Since I was little, I loved swords and weapons. I never liked reading poems or studying those fancy, complicated texts. And my mother? She was really protective. Back then, if I ever had a problem with a teacher, she’d go straight up to them and argue without holding back.”
“A-Argue?” Rachel was surprised. She didn’t expect Armand’s mother to have that kind of personality.
“Yeah. Can you imagine it? A tall woman with red hair in a white dress, stomping over in high heels and pointing at some old hunchbacked teacher, lecturing him to his face. That old guy was so mad his beard practically curled up! Later he went to complain to my dad. At the time, my dad was on the training grounds and just pretended to swing his sword right in front of the guy’s nose. He scared that stubborn old man so much he ran away. I still remember it clearly even now.”
There was deep nostalgia in Armand’s voice. He held Rachel’s small hand the same way his father used to hold his when he was young. Even though it had been over ten years, maybe even close to twenty, he still remembered those moments when his parents stood up for him in full detail.
That’s why even now, Armand was the kind of person who fiercely protected those under his care, just like his parents once protected him. He wouldn’t allow anyone to bully them, not even a little.
Of course, now that he was older and had gone through more in life, he had learned to be more tactful. He wouldn’t just charge in and yell at people anymore. Instead, he’d find ways to quietly annoy them, especially the second prince. Armand couldn’t stand that guy. But because of the prince’s high rank, he couldn’t do anything too bold. So he just relied on his “big, loud, uncultured knight” image to get under his skin whenever he could.
Rachel listened to Armand’s story and couldn’t help but feel a bit emotional too.
Armand’s parents had passed away long ago. And even though Rachel was technically over a hundred years old now, she had also lost her parents a long time ago. After all, not everyone was suited for alchemy’s body-switching methods, and not everyone could accept the consequences.
Jokingly speaking, between Evelia, Armand, and Rachel, not one of them used their real names, and none of them had a complete set of parents anymore.
And yet… here they were, trying to form a “family.”
None of the three really knew how to play their roles.
As Armand held Rachel in his arms, he couldn’t help but think back to his own childhood. No matter what, at least his parents had given him a complete and warm upbringing. That’s what helped him grow into the person he was, instead of turning out like Evelia, who shut herself off from the world.
But of course, there was still a lot more to do.
“Whew—cough cough. Okay, okay, enough about the past,” Armand said, taking a deep breath. Even summer nights could have a bit of a chill, and the cold air made him cough a little. “Back to the topic of teachers, here’s the plan. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to someone who’s experienced in this kind of thing and leave it to him. I promise you’ll be satisfied, little one.”
“…Is that person reliable?”
After being suddenly thrown into Evelia’s arms earlier, Rachel was starting to think Armand was a pretty unreliable person.
“Of course!” Armand gave her a big thumbs-up. “Don’t worry about a thing!”
“…Alright then.”
At this point, Rachel didn’t have anything else to say. She could only nod and go along with him.
Let’s hope the person really is reliable…