I Want To Go Home - 14

Professor Mum

The room was fairly small, about as big as the bedroom I’d had in my parent’s place. And that was ignoring the ceiling that was too low for me to stand in, and had me sitting on a small chair in one corner. Yet, despite the claustrophobic sizing of it, the room was now filled with about two dozen mages all watching me intently. Most were older looking that Uké’el (who was the closest thing to a familiar face in the room), with Dwarves and Halflings seeming the two most common groups. There were some taller folks, mostly Elves or Humans. As well as an aging Elf in a sort of wheelchair near the front.

They’d asked me about who I was, which had led to questions about where I was from. Which had then led to questions about what the Earth was like that didn’t seem overly relevant to me, but they all showed such enthusiasm about finding out that I had found myself answering. The professors seemed quite alarmed about the idea of a world without magic (that I knew of), and even more alarmed by the fact there were only humans where I was from. That had prompted whispers about how everyone was ultimately descended from Elves here, and all I had been able to offer was vague knowledge that there’d been Neanderthals and such back on Earth, but all the others died out. I wasn’t sure if that helped or not…

“And the gods offered you no magical training?” a halfling asked, looking up at me with concern and getting the conversation back on topic.

They really were pretty adorable looking up close (very pinchable cheeks), though I still wondered at how feminine all of them seemed to be. Were there not any male Halflings? Maybe the men just couldn’t be mages?

“They didn’t give me much of anything. Just kind of tossed me into a battle… They only told me where to go to train in sword fighting after I lost a fight with Nemza and nearly got killed,” I replied. “And then they didn’t do anything to help me get there or to convince the man to train me.”

“That does sound like the gods,” a figure who seemed to be a living skeleton muttered. (Based on the proportions, I guessed them to be a Dwarf, but I really couldn’t say.)

“Tell me about it,” Uké’el grumbled, crossing her arms and leaning against a wall.

“But, if you’re really Vazehr… the old legends say she was the most reasonable of the gods,” another halfling said. “We should train her.”

“If we can even trust her…” a Dwarf muttered.

“She’s already got most of us professors in this room… if her intentions were dark this would be the perfect chance to strike,” another Dwarf countered. “So… I agree with my husband. We should train her.”

I blinked, looking between the bearded and muscular dwarf and the delicate and cute Halfling. Was the Halfling the ‘husband’? Were they trans then? Or… um… butch enough to use the term ‘husband’? Or had I made a mistake in following the conversation?.

“Well, that looks like further proof she’s telling the truth to me,” Uké’el said with a slight smirk. “Looks like she’s got Dwarven dimorphism backwards.”

“Pardon?” I managed.

“You really are from a world with only humans,” the husband ‘halfling’ said. “The fact is that, unlike humans and some of the other races, Dwarven women are larger than the men. Strong and muscular, with wide hips that are good for carrying babies.”

“Of course, you’re travelling with a half Gnoll, so it was probably more the difference in facial hair that threw you off?” the wife said. “That’s honestly just an arbitrary thing, though. For Elves neither sex grows any. Humans went one way. Dwarves another. In several races both sexes do.”

“Oh… oh gosh… I feel terrible about having gotten everyone so wrong… I mean, I’d heard about the idea of Dwarven women having beards in fantasy writing, but the idea of Dwarven men not…” I stammered.

“What do you mean by ‘fantasy writing’?” another figure asked, leaning forward.

Looking at him, I realised that, while he was about the height of the Dwarven women, he looked quite human. More specifically, he looked to be someone with dwarfism of some sort… but I had no idea what the term for a person like that would be in a world that also had fantasy dwarves.

“Umm… well, there’s novels and games and things that build on the idea of worlds similar to this one?” I explained to him. “I… I suppose it’s possible I might not be the only one to have been reborn on Earth after living here? In, um… Haquaria, right?”

The others nodded, discussing something amongst themselves, before conveying to me that it made sense to them. Then they went back to discussing other matters, this time the question of who would take over teaching me. It was obvious to all of them that I held a great depth of mana in my spirit, being a goddess and all that. However, it was also clear that I had less idea about how magic actually worked than the youngest and most naive of students they might receive.

I pointed out I’d picked up a little bit about how Aara’s magic worked, but they waved that off. Apparently druidic magic was different from magic one cast from one’s own mana. It was purely drawing on the magic of the world, similar to a cleric drawing upon a god’s magic. While my magic was divine, they were all quite certain as the deity sending it forth the actual mechanics on my end would be more similar to the magic used by mages.

After a few minutes, they’d rules out the alchemists, healers, necromancers, and diviners as not being sufficiently relevant to my needs in combat casting. I wasn’t sure how much healing magic should really be ruled out, but they assured me that I could learn combat healing on the side. What I didn’t need to know was how to treat long term illnesses and the like, explaining that was the bulk of what a professor of healing worked in.

I supposed that made sense, trauma medicine like a combat medic studied was only a small part of what a doctor would learn after all.

Instead it mostly came down to a debate between summoners and evocationers. In the end the latter was ruled more useful for my needs, and, after another round of debate, I found a somewhat reluctant Uké’el nudged forward.

“You have the most experience with the divine after all, dear Khair,” a Dwarven woman said.

“That didn’t exactly go well, though, now did it?” Uké’el protested as others joined the process of pushing her towards me.

“On the contrary, Khair, it went swimmingly. You have a lovely son as a result, don’t you?” the skeleton from before replied. (I got the impression they’d have been grinning obnoxiously if they’d had facial expressions.)

Uké’el shot them a glare that I was pretty sure would have been deadly if the other party wasn’t already undead, but she relented and shooed the rest out to have some time alone with her student.

Once the other professors had filed out, I felt myself wondering about the obvious question left in the air. I didn’t quite feel ready to ask it, but it seemed the curiosity was visible on my face.

“The God of War. Jolerk,” she said. “He… it wasn’t really a romance. The war hadn’t started yet, but the gods clearly knew something was coming. Their oracles had warned them of coming chaos. So, Jolerk wanted a son. A champion in the mortal realm, just in case things went poorly. And he chose me.”

I nodded.

“Of course, what he didn’t explain while we were dating was that birthing a demigod was too much for a human. An Elf could have managed… a Dwarf probably would have been fine as well. But a Human? It burned my life force,” Uké’el explained, leaning against the wall. “It wasn’t to be a quick death, my health would grow slowly worse, letting me live long enough that Kel, my son, would remember me. And remember losing me.”

“That—couldn’t a god have helped with that?” I asked.

Uké’el let out a tired sigh. “Yes. But Jolerk said a hero, like a sword, needed to be hardened. He promised my next life would be a good one, but nothing more… so I moved here, to Tenzo. One of the few reputable magical academies with a proper necromancy department. I sought treatment to escape death, to have time to be a proper mother to my dear Kel.”

“I… that…” was about the best I could mutter, feeling filled with horror at what I had just learned.

“Teaching Kel to use his own abilities has likely prepared me to teach you, but… I also wanted you to understand why I may turn short with you. I suppose it is no direct fault of yours. You didn’t ask to be one of the gods… but you will forgive me if I am not yet fully prepared to accept you are cut from a totally different cloth.”

I couldn’t manage much more than a nod, before she led me out into the halls of the old Dwarven town. A rabbit-like being (their voice sounded masculine, but I’d learned from Dwarves I should probably wait to be taught before assuming) led us down some further tunnels, until we reached what had to have once been a storage room.

Aara and Sukura were both in there, the latter laying down on a bedroll. Sukura was clearly thrilled to have a chance to stretch out properly, after being hunched up in these low ceilinged tunnels.

“You’ll be staying with them,” Uké’el explained. “It’s getting late, so you’ll probably want to go to sleep now.

“W—what about dinner?” Aara asked.

“There isn’t any,” Uké’el replied. “We’re under siege. We have one meal a day of Dwarven mushrooms. They contain everything you need to function… for a few months, at least.”

“O-oh,” Aara said softly.

Sukura nodded, even if her stomach chose that moment to growl.

“Maybe if the Vazehr here is a quick student we’ll break the siege before the food runs out,” Uké’el said, though her tone sounded softer and more genuine than one may have thought from the words of her statement.

It was clear she was running on only vapours of hope at this point. The rest of the encampment didn’t seem much better.

“I… I don’t need sleep,” I said. “Or food…”

“You don’t? Good. Then we’ll start your training immediately,” she said, dragging me off as best as she could while we both had to stoop through the tunnels.

Eventually I was shoved into a small and empty room that seemed on the edge of the underground settlement. She told me to wait, leaving to get some books. I nodded, and, with nothing better to do, decided to see if I could manage to glow. The other deities had seemed to when I met them, and that seemed useful to do in these poorly lit tunnels.

I wasn’t quite sure if my efforts were working when the door opened again a few minutes later. I had expected Uké’el to enter, but, instead, it was a young boy. About ten or eleven. He had dark hair, tied up in a bun, and piercingly blue eyes with an almost hollow look about them.

“Are you the goddess?” he asked.

I gave a small nod. “It’s what they’ve told me. I only half believe it sometimes, though.”

The boy nodded. “Do you think it’s scary too?”

“Do—ah, you’re Kel, aren’t you?”

He nodded again. “I’m supposed to be a fighter. A warrior… even just being born I almost killed my mum. I don’t want to have to do more killing.”

Trying my best to put on a smile, I hunted for something reassuring to tell him. “Your mum is still here, though. She’s smart. I’ll bet you’re smart too. You can figure out how to be the person you want to be.”

“Kel!? Kel, what are you doing here?” I heard Uké’el call out from the tunnels.

The boy turned towards his mother. “I just wanted to talk to her. You said she seemed nicer than the others, and I wanted to know I could be a good person when I grow up too.”

Uké’el stepped into view, any anger having evaporated in her eyes. She was now looking at her son with a soft kindness. “I understand, sweety, but… we still don’t actually know her. It’s best you let me get to know her first, so I’ll know if she’s a good influence, alright?”

The boy gave a sort of reluctant nod, before turning back my way. “If you’re not nice to my mum… I’ll… I’ll…”

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’m going to do my very best to be a good student.”

My greater worry, though, was about Uké’el running me over the coals to train me. Once she’d dismissed Kel there was a fire in her eyes that left me certain I was getting the intensive version of a bootcamp.

I hoped I would be able to keep up.