Managing an orphanage in another world

"Umm, I've had a lot of practice."

"Yeah, trust her. She's had a lot of practice."

Thea made an annoyed face.

"Haha."

Janna made an awkward laugh. That day, the dinner was made by chef Janna. She made a large batch of honey and soy-glazed salmon. Everyone loved it.

After the dinner, Thea was in the room with Leaf as she was falling asleep. Thea made it a habit of putting the little kids to bed. Normally, she goes to Nem's room first then Leaf's as Nem falls asleep very fast. But that job was given to Janna today.

"Unnie, you ate a lot during dinner."

"It wasn't that much more than what I normally eat."

"No. You ate a whole lot more than what you normally eat."

Leaf was surprised during dinner to find how much Thea was eating. It was at least four times as much as what she normally eats.

"You're gonna get fat if you eat that much."

"I won't get fat. Worry about yourself. Weren't you the one who asked for seconds first?"

Leaf's face flushed.

"It's just Janna Unnie's food was really tasty."

"I know right?"

"Did she go to a...food school?"

"Haha. It's called a culinary school. And no, she didn't."

"So she learned by herself?"

"Well, I helped her."

"If you taught her, then why isn't your food as tasty?"

"Ouch."

"No, I didn't mean that your food isn't tasty."

"It's okay. Instead of helping her, it's more accurate to say that she tortured me."

"What?"

"Since the first time we met...she would bring me dishes everyday."

"So you ate her tasty food?"

"...It wasn't tasty at first...."

"Oh."

Leaf realized.

"Then one day she just started to cook in my house. So all my meals were handled by her. It was hell."

"I'm sorry, Unnie. Why didn't you just tell her to stop cooking?"

"I couldn't do that. Janna wanted to be good at cooking so bad."

Thea had the mind of an adult at the time, so she couldn't tell a young child like Janna to stop cooking. Especially since Janna had so much passion for cooking. So she just went along with it.

"Thankfully, it only took a few months for her food to become edible. It was bland but at least it was edible."

"So that's why she's so good at cooking. I'm happy that I get to eat her food."

"Alright, Leaf. You should go to sleep now. Sweet dreams."

Thea rubbed Leaf's head. Thea left and went to the living room.

"Thea."

Janna was sitting there and waiting. Thea sat next to her.

"Did Nem and Gwyn go to sleep?"

"They fell asleep in seconds."

"They really like you, Janna."

"How about Leaf?"

"She loves your cooking."

"Haha."

"So how long are you staying?"

"...I don't know."

"I guarantee that if you don't have a date to leave by then you'll get stuck here with me and the children."

"Isn't that what you hope to happen?"

"I do. But I won't stop you from achieving your dream."

"I..."

Janna stopped talking.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just that I'm not sure what to do."

"How so?"

Thea listened closely to Janna.

"I wanted to be a knight to the king or someone like that. But now I'm not sure."

"What changed that?"

"In my time at Idavoll, I saw how the royalty there was. They were nothing like my family."

"Didn't I tell you that before?"

"I know you did. But I didn't want to believe you."

"So after learning the true faces of royalty, you don't want to be a knight anymore?"

"No, don't get me wrong. I still want to be a knight. Just not for royals."

"Why not just go back to your own kingdom?"

Janna's family, the Everlotte family is from a small kingdom to the west. The aptly named Everlotte Kingdom is sandwiched between the Sol Empire, Zatiax and the west's powerhouse, the Rocker Empire. It was just below the Iselia Kingdom where most of the refugees in the area of the orphanage are from.

"I can't do that. They wanted me to become the empress. But I just want to be a knight."

"So many troubles. How is your family doing these days by the way?"

"It's actually not that good."

"What happened?"

"A lot is happening. There's a revolt against my family's ruling the kingdom."

"What? But your family are good people, they always think of the people."

"Thanks, but that's not what the people think."

"I don't understand, the people of your kingdom love the king and queen."

"I don't know either, but the public wants my father and mother to resign and the family to leave the kingdom."

"That's serious. Shouldn't you go help them?"

"It's okay. Don't forget that my family is a bunch of strong freaks."

"Right..."

"I got a letter from them saying I shouldn't come help. They'll deal with it themselves."

"I hope so."

"Another thing, Thea."

"Yeah?"

"The seal is loosening."

"The seal?...oh, that seal."

Thea took a moment to remember

"So it's about time?"

"No, no. I think it's still months away. I'm just reminding you. More importantly, about Leaf..."

"What about her?"

Janna suddenly talking about Leaf had Thea worried.

"Do you plan to send her to the academy?"

"No, I don't?"

Thea was puzzled by Janna's question. By the academy, Janna meant the best academy is the whole world where they both graduated from.

"Argh, you didn't even realize."

"Realize what?"

Thea was taken aback as Janna got a bit angry.

"That girl has talent."

"She does?"

"Don't you feel it?"

"I know Leaf is hard-working and diligent..."

"Not that!"

Janna made a chop at Thea's head.

"Ouch."

"Leaf has talent as a mage. If she goes to the academy, she'll easily be a top student."

"Really?"

Thea had never felt such a thing from Leaf.

"Yes. To you, everyone else must have trash as their talents. Imagine if I wasn't here, Leaf's talent would be wasted."

"Don't say that. It's not my fault I can't properly judge other's mana."

"That's true."

Thea only had herself to compare the quality or talent of mana with. Imagine you're in a tree growing competition. You have a big and beautiful oak tree while the others have seeds and sprouts. Of course you would win. That's how Thea is all the time.

Her mana also interferes with differentiating the qualities of other's mana.

"Why can't I teach Leaf myself?"

Thea asked.

"As the top student, I think I'm more than qualified."

Thea put her hand on her chest and proudly declared.

"Stop kidding yourself. You know you were only top student because the others forfeited all the time. You would be a bottom student these days."

"What do you mean?"

"The academy used to be based on your battle prowess right?"

"Yeah, that was the case."

"Well, since we graduated it's changed. It's now mostly dependent on your academic ability. So you would fail with your habit of sleeping during the class."

"Oh....at least I was top student during my time."

"Haha."

"I'll talk to Leaf about it."

"You should make something for her to protect herself with. I never really liked that headmaster of ours."

"I know. I think he secretly hated me."

Thea thought for a bit.

"By the way, wanna see something cool?"

"Don't tell me you're gonna throw a snowball at my face like in the past."

"Don't speak lies, I never threw snowballs at you...I hurled them."

"You!"

Thea made a terrible joke.

"Wait, wait. I really have some things to show you though."

Thea went into her workshop and picked up her magic bag.

"Look at this."

First, Thea took out a purple ring.

"A ring? Did you get married?"

"No, why would you think that?"

"To think you didn't even invite me..."

Janna was acting like she had been betrayed.

"...Stop it..."

Thea didn't like it.

"Try it on."

Janna, now back to normal, put on the ring.

"I don't feel anything."

"Try thinking of someplace and put your mana into the ring."

"Nothing happened."

"Ah, my bad. It has to be some place you can actually see."

Janna did exactly that. She thought of the front door. And poof, she was at the front door. And immediately she started to fall because her sitting posture stayed the same. But she quickly spread her legs and weight around to stand on her legs. Almost naturally.

"Did I just...teleport?"

Janna was shocked.

"That's crazy, Thea. You finally did it."

"Sadly, I didn't make that."

"Oh, here I thought your teleportation experiments finally had results."

"My experiments are not useless ok?"

Janna knew it was the fact that Thea's experiments of the past decade on teleportation had been useless. There had not been any progress.

"So did you find out how this ring works?"

"I found some mechanics behind it."

"So what are they?"

"You see the stone?"

"I remember you saying that the material used for magic artifacts is really important."

"I said it's the key to making anything possible. The stone used in this ring is a rare material that I'll get soon. Then my real experiment will begin."

"Oh, you must be so excited!"

"YES! I AM!"

Thea voiced her excitement through a high pitched voice. It was really cute.

"Well, good luck on your research."

Janna was also excited for Thea.

"That's not the only thing."

Thea stopped shaking around and made a smirk.

"W-what is it?"

"Don't get too excited with what I show you now, Janna."

"What is it?"

Janna was very interested and anticipating for Thea to take out the thing. To which, Thea put her hand in her bag again.

"Why are you moving your mana?"

Janna could feel Thea's mana moving. Something that no one in the town has been able to see. Not even Sophily, who is a high-class espionage expert.

"For this!"

Thea took out a sword from the magic bag.

"Wha-"

Janna's eyes were sparkling as Thea took out the sword. Literal stars in her eyes.

"That's not-?!"

Janna was questioning if what she was seeing was real.

"Yep, it's the real deal."

Thea nodded her head. The reason Thea had taken the holy sword was not only because she wanted to study it. The bigger reason was that Janna was a sword enthusiast.

"C-can I hold it?"

Janna asked.

"Feel free to."

Thea put down the holy sword on the floor. She stabbed it into the wooden floor.

"Try to pick it up."

Janna cautiously put her hands around the hilt of the holy sword.

"HAA!"

Using all her strength, Janna gave the holy sword a lift. Or at least tried to. The holy sword didn't budge one bit. So Janna stopped.

"How did YOU pick it up?"

Janna questioned Thea.

"That's because I'm the hero and you're not."

Thea claimed.

"I don't believe that for a second."

"Why do you doubt me?"

"The hero is someone whose only goal is to help as many people as they can. There is no way you, Miss it's-not-my-duty-to-save-everyone, are the hero."

"Ok ok, I get it. There's no need to say all that."

"So is there some kind of trick?"

"No, for some reason if I put my mana into the sword, I can lift it."

"You don't know why?"

"No clue. My mana doesn't even have the holy element."

In this world, a person's mana can have different elements. Most people have a primary and secondary element. The elements decide what magic one can use. Though it is possible to give new element to your mana, it is extremely hard.

The primary element of Thea's mana is fire. And secondary is water. She doesn't have any other element.

So how could Thea use wind magic to fly around? Well, that's because she didn't. Mages can use their mana to directly move the elements around them. Though it requires significantly more mana.

"So I can't move it then."

"Well, I could do this."

Thea put her hand on Janna's shoulder. And her mana flowed through Janna to her hand. And the sword that was stuck in the ground finally got lifted.

"Wow."

Janna had fun swinging the sword around. As a sword user, her sword swings were very steady. And they showed a good understanding of sword paths.

"Ok, Thea. We can stop now."

Janna handed back the sword to Thea who put it back into the magic bag.

"Ow."

Janna made an exclaim of pain. Her other hand was on the arm that Thea passed her mana through.

"Sorry, I'm still not good with that."

Thea gave Janna an apologetic look. Thea's mana caused some of damage to Janna's muscles as it passed through. This was because Thea didn't have much control to her mana. So when it passed through, it would be like tiny hammers striking at random points.

"It's fine, it'll be healed by morning."

----

Next day, in the morning. Su came to do her usual gardening work.

"Oh, are you training?"

Today, she was greeted by something new.

"Yeah, we didn't get to talk yesterday. I'm Janna."

"Hi, Janna. My name is Su. I was hired by Miss Thea to work on the garden."

"Miss Thea?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you call her Miss Thea? We're around the same age, so just call her Thea."

"I can't do that. She's my employer, so I have to show her my respect."

"She probably doesn't like it, you know?"

"She also said that, but I won't budge on this."

Su made a stern face and shook her head.

"If Thea let you continue, then it's fine I guess."

"Exactly."

"Oh, by the way, is it fine if I train here?"

"It's fine for me if you train here. Just don't swing at my precious plants."

"Don't worry, I would never do that."

"I'll make a space for you where you can train, will that be fine?"

"That would be perfect, thank you."

"No problem."

Su left Janna to train as she went to take care of the plants. When she looked over the plants before picking up the watering can. She noticed something.

"What?!"

There was a surprise.

"How did this happen?"

There was a sapling reaching to the height of Su's knee. It had red leaves. It was a special elven tree. It would grow into having various colors. It was a tree that was great for mages. But it was hard to grow.

She had planted it in the middle of the garden. People could gather around it and enjoy themselves. Kids could play and adults could sit down and chat around it.

"It's supposed to takes weeks still."

What was surprising to Su was that this tree should not exist. At least not yet. It was too early for it to show signs of growth.

'I'll inform Miss Thea about this. Wait, what's this?'

That was when Su noticed something. On the ground where the sapling was planted, there were small colorful things. She was too surprised by the sapling earlier to have noticed.

"Fairy flowers?"

It was small flowers the size of a finger nail. And there were a few in number. Though Su had never seen them before, she could tell that these were fairy flowers.

"Is there a fairy around?"

Fairies are a special creature born from nature itself. They are powerful and only a dozen or so exist. One such fairy lives in the elves' most cherished Island of Mysterious Plants. So the elves have a very accurate description of fairies. The fairies leave behind flowers the size of finger nails when they use their unique magic.

These flowers are translucent and colorful. Have a very sweet and charming smell to them. What Su found at the bottom of the tree sapling were exactly as described by her mother.

"This is amazing!"

Su was delighted to find out about this. Fairies tended to stick around in one place. Slowly transforming that place into a paradise for nature lovers.

For the next few days, Su would try to catch the fairy in action. She would hide somewhere around the garden. Even going the whole night without sleeping. But every time, she would fall asleep just as the fairy would come.

And everyday, Janna would come out to train her sword and find the sleeping elf.

"Why do you keep falling asleep in the garden?"

"It's nothing."

"I can see you're dedicated to your work. But please sleep on a bed."

"Yes, I'll keep that in mind."

Su had no choice but to listen to Janna's request. She would let the fairy do her own work without ever meeting Su.

It made Su sad that she didn't get to see the fairy but there was nothing that she could do.

----

A week after Janna became the chef at Thea's the Guiding Star Orphanage. In the morning just before the sun rose, Leaf woke up.

For some reason, she wasn't feeling sleepy. So she went for a walk outside in the garden.

As she was walking, she heard a little humming. Looking around, she saw a small light floating around the garden. Going from one plant to the next.

And the light was humming a happy tone.

Leaf approached the light. Her steps were light and slow. As she got closer, she could hear the humming more clearly. It was a high pitched humming.

"Hello."

Leaf said. The response she got was a high pitched scream. After which the small light figure fell onto the ground and slowly flickered out.