Silver Spoon Series

Tamee sat back in her comfy chair. One of the perks of becoming a tutorial assistant manager for the Network was the resources she had access to. While she was isolated from most other people for now, she was given access to a huge house with expensive furniture and all the luxury food and drink she could want.

She also was given free reign with all of the information about the world she was overseeing. For this 'Earth', she could read their literature, watch movies, look at recordings that were made before the tutorial officially began (while the Network was still scouting out the planet), and listen to their music. Music existed in the Network, but she had rarely heard anything that she found as engaging as what the Earthlings produced. These days she had something playing all the time as she worked.

As an orange grade being, sleep was something she could go without for days at a time with few issues. However, in her current position, she was on the job constantly. The Network did something that made sleep unnecessary while they were working here, but it had still been an adjustment. With so few people to watch in her zone (and hadn't that been a surprise), she had originally been bored.

She had actually hoped that her one recruit would be killed off early on. She was here for her family, and her world, so the rewards she earned were important, however, with only one candidate for advancing, she had initially thought the 'Alan' person was doomed. She would rather take her minimal reward at the start, rather than sit around watching him flounder before being eliminated in the second or third tier. Sure, she would have earned a bigger reward for her people, but it wouldn't have been that significant an increase, certainly not worth sitting around twiddling her thumbs. The good prizes didn't come until later on.

When she took the time to watch him, though, and then talk to him through a rarely used feature of the tutorial, Tamee had become intrigued. She started spending more time watching what she could of recordings of Alan. The Network had arrived almost a year before the Earth was inducted, so there was a lot for her to watch. She had seen the ugly breakup and then his descent into depression.

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There wasn't too much of his life before that for her to study. The recordings showed him finishing his residency in some place called Japan, and the tail end of a mission to some sandy area where he and his party had been training several villages in how to resist a local leader who was trying to become some kind of warlord. She hadn't seen much actual combat from him, but she had noticed how he had possessed a confidence that could only come from competence, or delusion.

After leaving Japan, his state of mind had taken a fall. His mood soured and his swagger disappeared. During that training he did with his new organization, she was finally able to see how well he performed compared to the other Earthlings. Even emotionally gutted, he was still incredibly talented, he just didn't have that confidence in his own abilities anymore.

This, along with his continued success in the tutorial, had caused her to act more friendly towards him. When she found out about his rare skills, she thanked her ancestors for the potential opportunity that she had been given, and made him an offer. Since then, she hadn't been disappointed. Sure Tamee enjoyed tweaking his ego every now and then, but that was more to keep herself entertained than because he had done anything wrong.

He had managed to win the third tier even though he was facing full parties from the other planets, but after watching his performance in the first two areas, she hadn't thought he would be truly tested until the next tier anyway. Now that he had started giving class stones to the rest of the villagers, she had no doubt that Alan was going to go far in the tutorial. She still wasn't sure he could win the whole thing, a lot would depend on how his fellow Earthlings did in their own zones, but it was actually looking possible that she would be the manager over a tutorial winner. If that should happen, the rewards for her planet would be incredible, and that didn't even account for the connection she hoped to make with him.

She took out some popcorn, access to the inducted planet's food was another perk of her position, and got ready for another movie. She had been watching a series of superhero flicks recently, and the last one had ended in a cliff hanger. She was looking forward to the second half. Alan looked like he was going to be waiting around for a while, but she kept an eye out just in case. It was her job after all.