Pengpeng had wanted it from the start—the thought beat like a drum in a winter cave. If this ice-cold beauty of unfathomable strength could watch the kids while she was away, the next few days would be safer than a house under fresh snow. That was the best outcome—except for one splinter under the skin. Asking would pile trouble on Mira like wet leaves on a fire, and Pengpeng had no proper gift to repay her when the smoke cleared.

She knew she had no right to ask favors of the Nacha Tribe’s benefactor; the knowledge sat heavy like rain-soaked wool. After twisting herself in knots, she pressed the thought flat like paper and knocked on the courtyard gate. She only asked, soft as moss, if Mira could come buy household goods with her. She didn’t dare mention babysitting, much less beg her to indulge the pups’ outrageous demands.

Yet the ice-cold beauty acted as if she’d forgotten her own “don’t disturb me” line, the way frost forgets last night at dawn. She not only offered to watch the children, she said she’d substitute in class, cutting through the kids’ jealous racket like a clean blade through reeds.

But how could that stand? Pengpeng had sworn not to trouble the guest for even a lifted finger; the promise clung like burrs. Her first instinct was to wave it off, head shaking like a willow in wind. Mira, however, laid out the benefits with the calm of a pond counting ripples.

Without Pengpeng guarding the door, the kids would circle Mira’s yard all day like moths around a lantern; peace would shatter like thin ice. She was already teaching Anta and Copato; teaching two or a whole flock meant the same sky, just more birds. Anta would also get real practice, rain on sprouts that needed it.

Point by point, slow as tea cooling, Mira explained. Pengpeng’s instinctive politeness shrank like a snail in light, and she found herself nodding, guilty as a child with sticky fingers, because the logic rang true as a bell.

Everything slid into place so smoothly it felt like a dream rolling over fresh snow, eerie in its rightness. Even so, all she could do—apology warming her face like rising steam—was bow deep as a rice stalk and call out, “I’ll be in your care for the next few days,” sealing the plan like wax.

“No need for honorifics. Just call me by my name.” Mira’s tone was water-plain, a lake without wind, yet the far-off chill had drifted closer, like a mountain seen through thinning mist.

Was it empathy from a similar background, two reeds bent by the same river? Or simply boredom, a cat batting a ribbon for the sake of motion?

Pengpeng could only guess at the shift, tracing possibilities like frost on a window. No matter the reason, it was good wind for everyone in the orphanage, and it let her exhale a breath she’d been holding like a stone in her chest. Her leaving still pressed at her heart like low clouds, but less so now—relative, like shade at noon.

With Mira on watch, peace felt within reach, a lantern lit in fog. And yet a new worry budded like weed—would the little ones cause Mira extra trouble? Before she left, she lined the kids up and went over everything, point by point, like beads on a string. Don’t bother Mira. Obey the new substitute. Listen, listen, and listen again.

She knew them too well; that knowledge was a mirror in rain. As she feared, by the next morning at first light, they’d forgotten everything as if wind had blown the slate clean.

“I’m not convinced! You’re underestimating us! We want to learn how to pull fire butterflies from the air too!”

In the crowded orphanage square, a Nacha boy who looked the oldest popped up from the ground like a springing hare. His ears—tall by a dozen centimeters—shot upright like twin blades, and he shouted at the new teacher on the platform without a drop of courtesy.

“We don’t want sword swings and horse stances! Ice Witch, you’re playing favorites!”

“Tigalin, how can you badmouth Teacher Mira!” Another young voice rang out like a bell in rain. Copato bristled, hair and tail puffing like a cat, and pointed at him. He flushed red for a blink, then forced a righteous look back on, a mask set like clay.

“‘Teacher Mira’—that sounds sweet, huh? She taught you some cool spell and you sold out that fast, traitor!” He swung back to glare at Mira, sparks in his beast-bright eyes. “Physical training, my foot. You never planned to teach us for real!”

“Too much! Tigalin, you—”

“Sit down, Copato.”

Mira on the platform cut her off with a tone light as falling ash. Copato had already rolled up her sleeves, cheeks pink and ready to scrap, but at those words she swallowed the heat, puffed her cheeks like a pouting sparrow, and sat.

“I’m teaching Copato magic first because her body hasn’t recovered yet,” Mira said, voice level as a straight path. “She’s not fit for work that eats strength. Once the Scarlet Blood Pills finish conditioning her, she’ll train the same physical basics as you.”

“Ha? We’re Nacha. Our bodies are stronger than you humans by a ridge and a river. What’s the point of that?” Tigalin’s protest rose like steam from wet stone. The nearby kids took the cue and hooted around him, a flock of sparrows kicked up into flight. Copato half stood again, tail lashing like a whip, but a small hand caught hers first.

Anta held her, gave a tiny shake like a leaf saying hush. Her lips shaped, “Leave it to the teacher.”

Copato frowned, eyes hot as coals—how could they stomach insults to their people, even in play?

Mira didn’t change with the wind. She kept the same unruffled face, sky after rain, and spoke.

“If that’s how you feel, then take a bout with me.”

“Huh?”

At that, Tigalin’s mouth fell open like a door in gusty wind. It took him a moment to catch up. “Ice Witch, you’re using your age to bully us! You know all those flashy spells. That’s not fair—yikes!”

He didn’t finish. Mira’s hand touched the rapier at her hip, a moon-slice flash ran cold across his eyes, and he yelped, dropping into a hasty crouch with arms over his head like a turtle hiding in its shell. After a long breath, he peeked up.

The new teacher stood where she’d been, rapier in hand, face like still water—no anger, no heat. At her feet, the ground wore a single cut, clean and smooth as butter parted by a taut string.

“No magic,” she said, sliding the blade home with a sound like a quiet stream. “I won’t move my feet. I’ll stand right here. Five minutes. Pick any weapon you want. If you touch this line in time, I’ll teach you any spell you like. How about it?”

Tigalin swallowed; the sound clicked like a pebble in a gourd. He took half a minute to let the meaning sink in like dye in cloth. Then he puffed himself up and forced courage to bloom. “D-don’t look down on me! I’m not scared!”

Because of Mira’s sensitive identity, Pengpeng had told the pups only that she was an honored guest of the Nacha; that secret rested like a hidden ember. She hadn’t said Mira was part of the party that slew Soul Devourer Sormaidon, whose name still rolled like thunder over the plains. That kept loose mouths shut, a lid on a boiling pot, but it twisted their picture of Mira. They took her for a human spellblade. Nothing more.

A spellblade—what the Nacha call those who weave magic into swordplay. They’re usually stronger than Nacha who only harden the body with mana, a storm over steady rain. But studying magic eats time like fire eats wood, time that can’t feed the muscle furnace. Most spellblades can’t match the pure physical school in raw body, especially with magic banned. That’s assuming equal race, scale balanced on the same fulcrum—which it wasn’t. That gap was the wind in Tigalin’s back, the reason his shout had teeth.

She was human. She’d tied her own hands: no magic, no steps. Even as a grown-up, how could she stop a proud Nacha warrior—even if not yet of age—from touching a line on the dirt? Under his friends’ cheers, a hot tide lifting him, Tigalin felt his doubts melt like frost. The last glint of fear vanished from his eyes.

He hunched, a runner coiling like a spring, his fluffy tail arched like a banner in brisk wind. That swelling confidence made him bold; he didn’t even pick a weapon. When his friends parted like grass before a boar, he sprinted straight at Mira.

To be fair, his earlier brag wasn’t empty air; the truth shone like sun through cloud. The Nacha body was a god-gifted frame, far past the human norm; even as a child, his burst felt like thunder underfoot.

Mira watched him chew the distance in seconds, and a ripple passed through her emerald eyes like wind on a lake.

It wasn’t shock at Nacha talent. It was something older, a shadow on snow.

His ears, whipped by the wind, tugged open a door to that night; the hinge groaned in her chest. She had seen Varie and that beanpole fight like wolves under moonlight. But this—someone from the Nacha charging straight at her with open hostility—was a different taste, a raw salt. It pulled a thin veil over her sight, a slip of phantom silk.

Deep yellow beast-eyes. A jagged scar running from the right corner of a mouth up the cheek like lightning frozen on skin. Grey triangular ears matted in her mother’s blood, a stain like rust in rain.

For a heartbeat, the scene in her gaze belonged to another time, another field. She stood where she was, unmoving as a stake in frozen ground.

Why did Teacher Mira freeze? Copato’s cat tail curled into a tight ring behind her, her fingers squeezing Anta’s hand until the knuckles went pale as bone. Anta’s breath hitched, a string pulled taut. Tigalin saw only an opening; he grinned like a fox, soaked in his friends’ cheers, and quickened, boots drumming like hooves. His fingers reached for the line—

“Heart’s noisy. Base unsteady. Again.”

“Uwaaah!”

The kids’ cheers snapped off with Tigalin’s cry, like a candle pinched out. In the last half-second Mira’s hand settled on her hilt, lazy as a leaf falling. Her scabbard tapped Tigalin’s right waist, a dragonfly touch on water. He yowled, left foot tripping right, balance spilling like grain from a torn sack. He ate dirt hard, skidding five meters, toes skimming air the whole way. He didn’t brush the line.

What just happened? Question marks sprang like dandelions in every head, Tigalin’s most of all. Before thoughts could seed, the ice-calm voice came from behind, cool as night wind.

“Up. Again.”

Tigalin bounced up with a jump born of fear, a frog fleeing a shadow. He realized she’d meant what she’d said. She hadn’t cast a single spell. Her feet hadn’t left their patch of earth, nailed like pegs.

“Five minutes aren’t over. Or do you want to give up?”

Red flooded his face, hot as a forge. He pumped a fist, ignored the dirt on his cheeks like a child snubbing a scolding, and pointed at her. “Don’t act smug! T-that was luck, I just tripped myself!”

The shout had the same volume, but less iron. Even a few paces away, he didn’t sprint this time. He crept in, cautious as a cat toward a bath, step by careful step. When only a hop stretched between him and the line, he burst forward, sprang up, and spread in the air like a crow with showy wings. He meant to sail past her and stamp the line behind.

“Center too high. Bad power. Again.”

“Urgh!”

Thwack—the sound of a palm on air and a body on dirt came as a pair, like thunder and echo. Mira didn’t even use the scabbard this time. Her hand met him midair, changed his line like a wind turning a leaf. He missed the line, spun, and crashed back to the same patch five meters away, as if fate had fastened a string to his belt.

Damn it, she’s toying with me! When had a Nacha boy like him eaten this much mud? Pride flared like brushfire. Tigalin sprang up and charged the line again, jaw set like stone. But—

“Arm swing too wide. Eyes front. Again.”

“Pff—ha!”

“Right shoulder tilts. Again.”

“Ough—”

“Now the left tilts. Again.”

“Hff—hff—aaah!”

“Footwork’s scattered. Again. Tip: you can pick a weapon.”

“Oh yeah, tha—wait, why would I thank—urk!”

Mira’s “Again” stayed even as a metronome, rain pattering steady on eaves. Tigalin’s yelps came in every flavor, a mismatched string of firecrackers. The other kids stared, eyes round as moons. Only Anta, who knew this would happen, shook her head once, a reed bowing to wind, and looked away, as if she couldn’t bear to watch him flail in a struggle that had no path forward.

Turns out grabbing a weapon didn’t change Tigalin’s fate; he kept eating dirt like a mutt worrying the mud.

Even when frustration boiled like a storm kettle and he dropped all restraint, he hacked that greatsword wild with strength meant to maim.

Mira just stood in place like a winter pine, her blade never leaving the scabbard, meeting each strike and unthreading it.

Every touch sent Tigalin tumbling back five meters, a dry leaf swept off the path by a sudden gust.

She waited, calm as a still pond, for his next charge, until the pocket watch in her coat chimed sharp and clear.

“Time’s up. You lost.”

“D-damn it—aaah!”

He dropped to his knees, unwilling as a storm-stalled hawk, and punched the orphanage dirt; a deep handprint bloomed and the yard shuddered.

“Why?! You weren’t even using force…!”

“Because you’ve got brute power but rotten basics; your center wobbles like a crooked axle, so a light tap makes you spill yourself.”

“What?!”

He struck the ground again, anger pounding like a drum, and his eyes filmed with mist like rain beading on stone.

But as he fought the tears like plugging a leak, a hand appeared—the same hand that had tossed him like old dough.

“So, do you want to grow strong?”

Tigalin jerked his head up, shock flaring like a match, and saw Mira; up close, her face wasn’t ice, but a stern, weighing gaze.

It felt like a mountain weighing a seed, asking if he was truly a man of the Nacha Tribe.

After a beat, he clenched his teeth, took her hand, rose on borrowed strength, and bowed deep like bending to an old tree.

“Teacher Mira! What should I do?!”

“Practice your sword swings, and your horse stance.”

“Yes!”

Tigalin saluted and took two crisp march steps, then froze like a statue mid-stride.

“Teacher Mira!”

He wore the look of a boy who’d been played, but Mira returned to the chalkboard and started writing the next days’ lesson schedule.

“I’m not joking; these are foundation stones, and without them, everything else collapses like a roof in rain.”

Her chalk kept whispering, and the looks on her were clearer now, the old doubt lifting like fog at sunrise.

“Of course, you can challenge me anytime; the terms don’t change—touch that chalk line, and I’ll teach whatever magic you want. But since you lost today, future challenges come with one more stone in your pack.”

Mira’s gaze slid to Anta, and his hair stood like a bristling cat; a bad premonition crawled cold along his spine.

“Only someone who can beat your senior, Anta, earns the right to cross my gate and challenge me.”