Solus' Studiousness

Solus, who was sitting by the fire with the other kobolds, carefully watched Roy as he trained. She didn't wish to fall behind her brother, so she decided to begin following the instructions he laid out.

'So first thing first, I need to learn [Mana Manipulation]. After that I need to guide the mana into my chest, then make it into a ball, then spin it.' Walking through the steps in her head, Solus started with what Roy had recommended. She began to activate a skill and feel the flow of mana, then she tried to control how the mana flowed.

...

As the hours passed, Solus was having little luck, occasionally going over to Roy for advice. She refused to give up, unknowingly taking on Roy's unrelenting personality trait.

As the other kobolds were all going to sleep, only Roy, Solus, and Terren were awake. All three of them had a wish to get stronger, though for their own reasons.

Solus, looking over to her brother once again, noticed that he had stood up, smiling widely.

'Seems he succeeded!' Solus thought as she stopped her practice and ran over to him.

"Did- you fi-ni-sh?" Solus asked him excitedly, to which he responded with a happy, "Yes!" with his arms akimbo.

Solus looked up at Roy, who was now taller than her, as he pat her head. Her tail began wagging slightly, she really liked his head pats.

"I'm going to sleep since I exhausted myself today, if you need help wake me up, okay? Also don't stay up too late, you can still train tomorrow." Roy doted on Solus a bit more before he headed off to bed.

Watching his back as he walked over to pick up Inbellis, Solus gave a big smile. After having lost her family in a goblin raid, she was alone and scared. She didn't even know how to talk yet, but the instinctual fear she held while being tied up was scarring.

Luckily the boy who would soon become someone she considered family saved her, taught her how to speak, and helped guide her to get stronger. She may miss her parents, but she didn't remember them much as she was only a few weeks old at the time she was kidnapped.

All she really remembered of that time was her father being stabbed in the back by a giant goblin as he tried saving her. The evil, giant grin was burned into her memory to this day. She didn't know what became of her mother, but after seeing the kobold's conditions in the cave, she had a pretty good idea.

Roy refused to tell her why they were being held and not killed like the others, but she felt like that was a good thing. She didn't want to know what was happening to her old pack.

'It may be selfish, but I don't want to hurt more.' Solus decided to stop for the night and went to cuddle with Roy and Inbellis.

...

The next day, Solus woke up to the sight of Roy snoring, with a big snot bubble on his snout.

"Ha ha ha!" Laughing over the size and the way it grew and shrank with his breathing, Solus decided to play a prank on Roy and use her claw to pop it while it was at its biggest.

*POP*

"WHA-!" Roy screamed as he shot up, fully alert; only to see a kobold rolling on the ground laughing hysterically next to him.

"HA HA HA! You sh-ould have see-n you-r face! Ha ha ha!" Solus continued laughing as Roy looked at her and shook his head in forfeit.

"Ha~ ha~ very funny." Roy said slowly as he stood up and walked to breakfast, placing Inbellis back into its mobile home on the way.

Solus finally calming down, wiped the tears in her eyes and got up to join him.

'Such a grouch in the morning!' She joked as she sat next to him and heated up some of the pre-cooked meat.

Roy told her that cooking all the meat after they butchered it would help preserve it a bit longer, but that it would still spoil fast because they didn't have any preservatives.

Roy always explained things to her in detail so that she could understand easier, but some of the words he taught her were hard to understand even with that.

Especially when it came to his 'original world' she just couldn't grasp the idea in her head.

'Other worlds? Pah~ he must have been joking right? How could there be other whole WORLDS out there? This one is already so big, there isn't even enough room to fit more!' As Roy had yet to teach her any science, she came to her own theories. If Roy could hear them, he would have burst out laughing, but that was from his perspective as someone from 21st century Earth.

'Well even IF it WERE true, it doesn't really change anything. Roy is Roy after all~' Solus took a big bite of her meat kebab and happily chewed while listening to Roy's English lecture for the day.

'I'm getting so much better at speaking, I wonder if Roy is gonna teach me how to write soon? He said that most complex languages will have a written form. It would be cool to learn those... what were they called? Logo...graph? Writing in pictures seems fun after all!' Thinking about finally learning to write, Solus was in her own little world. Noticing this, Roy tried calling out to her.

"So... us... lu... SOLUS!"

"HAH Wha?!" Snapping out of her day dream, Solus looked to Roy who was staring at her confused.

"You always pay attention in class, is something on your mind?" Roy asked with a worried look on his face.

"No, I just wa-nt to learn to wr-ite." Solus said, telling Roy that her language percentage was now at sixty five percent.

"Huh, you really are like a super genius you know... A normal kid learning English would take years! But yeah if you want I can start teaching you the alphabet. After you learn that we can start with spelling.

'Oh. My. Gosh. I can finally start learning to write?! That easy?!' Putting on the puppy dog eyes that she knows makes Roy's heart melt, Solus thanked him.

"Thanks bro-ther!" She then gave him a quick hug and say down at full attention.

*Sigh*

Roy started making a board with indents in the shape of letters out of keratin. Soon after, he started his teachings.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Flutter*

*Bang!*

"Hah... Hah... my... my lieges... the goblins... they have pierced through the first line of defense."

"WHAT! How is that possible?!" The queen roared out, furious at the quick breakthrough.

"The enemy strength was far higher than what was foretold." The messenger quickly spurted out, continuing to take deep breaths.

"It seems the theory that the goblin king evolutionary line has a buff skill reigns true..." The king calmly analysed the situation as he began discussing with his wife.

"Indeed, though the speed of their breakthrough seems to indicate that the enhancement is far higher than we anticipated..." The queen commented back, calming her anger with light magic in order to rationally think.

"Hmm... Was there any change in the tier of the goblin's Mana Hearts?" The king queried the messenger as he looked on impassively.

"No my liege, the reports hold true. Their inherent strength is the difference, it far outclasses their evolutionary limits. It seems that whatever is giving the strength to them is painful as well, as you can visibly see the contortions of pain in their faces as their veins pop. It almost seems as if it made them go berserk!" As the fairy messenger spoke his opinion, he watched the eyes of his king and queen. Myriad emotions ran through their eyes as they came to an agreement wordlessly.

"Go to the projection room and report that a draft is in order. All tier two and three citizens are to join in this war, active immediately." The queen ordered one of their advisers, who gave a horrified look, before running off. A draft was written into the law to only be used in cases of the kingdoms immediate existential threat.

The messenger, who began sweating profusely, wiped his orange hair out of his eyes and looked up. Awaiting dismissal from the room.

"Ah... you may go, but inform your superiors of this. If any goblins make it past the next barricade before the reinforcements arrive, we will personally cast our most powerful magic to stop them."

"Sir... wouldn't that... wipe out an entire portion of the army?!" The messenger was horrified at what was just uttered.

"A mere messenger at tier one dares question royalty? Leave. Now. Before we kill you and send someone else." The queen looked at the messenger in disgust, before sending them away.

"Elena, it seems we will need to personally act in this war." The king said to his wife, as she turned her eyes back to him.

"Indeed, let us prepare our gear and go, if that runaway is also boosted by the trait skill, it would prove nigh unbeatable to the tier three generals."