The Good Teacher

Guy and Kano returned in the afternoon, following a filling lunch, in high spirits. Guy moved the prepared clay and a few other resources to his set up teaching area and called Kano to take a seat. Kano felt a little apprehensive in facing the blackboard once again, he never had any positive memories associated with it after all.

"Alright, Kano. It's time we got down to business! I wanted to talk to you about the problem you're facing in your studies," Guy began.

"After discussing with your previous tutor, as well as through my own observations, I was able to determine that you have a learning disability known as dyslexia."

Kano tilted his head in confusion. "Dyslexia?"

"Yes. It isn't a rare problem, a lot of children suffer from it. Basically, it makes it harder for you to do certain things that other kids your age find easy. You should already have some idea of what I'm talking about."

Kano nodded sorrowfully.

Guy smiled and continued, "Although that is the case, it doesn't mean that we cannot do anything to remedy the situation. You were born with it and, for better or worse, you have to live with it. I believe that every child must have equal opportunities in life. You were just dealt a different hand, and it is my job to help you get to a point where you can match up with others."

Guy then wore a serious expression and pointed out, "All of that is just my intention. I am prepared to go through this process and help you out. However, it still depends on whether you are willing to take the step forward with me. So, are you willing?"

Kano bit his lips and lowered his head. He was feeling conflicted in trying to answer that question. It wasn't that Kano was unwilling to work with Teacher Larks. If anything, he was extremely enthusiastic. If what Teacher Larks said was true, then there was a way out for Kano from his current misery. But that was also what held him back from affirming the decision

'What if it doesn't work out? What if I'm just stupid, and all the work Teacher Larks puts in goes to waste?' That was a question plaguing Kano's sensitive heart.

Of course, Guy could glean all of this from Kano's expressions. This wasn't his first rodeo; he had worked with many kids just like Kano in his past life. Even the most mischievous of kids wanted to succeed in life. They just acted out because they were lacking attention, or were trying to cover up their insecurities with a tough facade.

​ "I can promise you that I can help you succeed. You aren't the first kids that I've worked with that suffers from dyslexia," Guy said soothingly.

Hearing that guarantee improved Kano's impression.

"O-Okay, I am willing!" Kano said in a low yet resolute tone. Guy smiled and clapped his hand in elation. "Wonderful!"

And with that, Guy walked up to one of the containers with the prepared clay and brought it close to Kano's desk.

"Alright! One of the problems you're facing is understanding what the letters of the language mean and sound like. It is easy to draw them from memory, but do you truly understand their significance?" Guy asked rhetorically.

He pulled out a clump of clay and started kneading it between his hands. "Thus, we will begin by going through the basic alphabets, once again. But this time, I want you to focus on what each letter sounds like, and what it looks like. Okay?"

Guy then place the clump in Kano's hands and walked up to the chalkboard. He raised the writing utensil and inscribed the first letter in upper and lower case with large font size.

"Aa. This letter has the sound 'Aa'. I want you to repeat after me, Aa," Guy said.

Kano answered with a low mutter, "Aa..."

"I can't hear you! Aa!"

"Aa..."

"Again, Aa!"

Kano took a deep breath and exclaimed, "Aa!"

"Awesome! Now I want you to make this letter using the clay in your hand. Make sure it is large enough for you to see it from a short distance."

Kano nodded with seriousness and got busy with the soft clay. His hands worked the substance familiarly. He first rolled it between his open palms to elongate it. He then twisted and shaped the snaking clay into the upper case form of the letter within the minute.

"I want you to pronounce the letter's sound when you finish making it."

"Aa!" Kano said as he smoothened the joints.

"Now I also want you to inscribe an arrow on the letter to show which direction it must be read and draw," Guy instructed, to which Kano readily complied.

The two then moved on to the lower case form, which was finished with equal ease.

"The next letter we will study is 'Buh'."

"Buh!"

"Great! We will now do the same."

The duo continued their lesson into the early evening. Guy slowly took Kano through the individual letters and their sounds while repeating them loudly. In between, Guy would interrupt Kano and ask him what a letter he had made previously sounded like. As expected, Kano managed to answer all the questions, albeit after a long pause to recollect the answer. Guy didn't sweat Kano over that, he knew that the results were never immediate. He had to be patient and proceed one step at a time. As the sun began to set, Kano managed to complete the alphabets in their entirety. Guy sent the kid back after that and got down to his own work. He had a huge surprise planned out for Kano, the next day!

____

The following morning, when Kano arrived at the class, he saw the letter's he had made the day before, yet they were a little different. Unlike yesterday, they seemed to have hardened greatly and had a significantly different feel to them. On top of that, there was also an intricate, circular design drawn on all of them that Kano had never seen before. He was immediately attracted to the drawings, they appealed to his sense of aesthetics.

"You're here early," Guy said with a smile as he walked over.

"After you left, I treated your models and added something special to them. I think you're going to like it!"

Guy went over to Kano and took the letter the boy was holding in his hands.

"What sound does this letter have?" Guy asked.

Kano scratched his head and struggled to recollect the sound. After half a minute, the boy lowered his head dejectedly and said, "Sorry, Teacher... I forgot."

Guy patted the boy's head and said, "Watch."

He placed the letter in Kano's hand and then channelled some mana into the spell circle he'd drawn on the letter. Right on queue, the circle lit up and a sound echoed in the duo's heads, "Tuh."

Kano's eyes widened in excitement, "Wow!"

"Voice transmission through magic," Guy stated. Recently, Guy had stumbled upon a certain application of magic that he had seen many times in Eastern Fantasy web novels in his past life. The ability to transmit your voice directly to other people, without having to open your mouth - purely through magic. As expected, the ability existed in this world as well! The limit to voice transmission depended on the mage's mana domain, that is, you could only transmit your voice to people that were within your domain and were open to your mana signature.

The transmission ability was technically classified as a cantrip, so Guy found some difficulty in emulating it as a spell circle. It was analogous to overcomplicating the process of walking. Yet he was able to accomplish it nonetheless. Guy achieved it by equating voice transmission to how standard radio worked back on Earth. He figured out a way to convolute mental signals corresponding to voice, into mana. It involved another session of heavy research to accomplish it though, but Guy wasn't the least bit disappointed. This was because using his discovery, he was able to store his voice transmission inside the spell circle, and could have it activate anytime just by channelling an infinitesimally small quantity of mana.

Guy reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a moderately sized mana crystal he had saved up.

"Each of the letters here has this spell circle drawn on them. To activate it, you need to channel some mana into it. Since you aren't a mage, it will be hard for you to activate it using your own capacity. Therefore, you will need to use this mana crystal. I am going to show you how to activate it now."

Guy then spent the first half of the day training Kano to sense his internal mana and send a short signal to the spell circles. Once he did that, the mana crystal would take over and handle the rest. Although it was Kano's first time, the boy was quick to grasp the nuances of basic mana control. Unlike literature, the boy was a natural in controlling his inherent mana, which came as a huge surprise for Guy.

After that, Guy took out an illustrated children's book he had printed out the previous night and handed it to Kano.

"This book contains many short stories. I want you to try and read the very first one by tomorrow afternoon. You are allowed to use the letters you made to help you out if you don't know how to pronounce them. Tomorrow, I will ask you questions about details in the story to see how much you understood it. Okay?"

Kano nodded and excitedly flipped open the book to begin reading.

While the boy was doing that, Guy seamlessly escaped into the RoK and was greeted with the sight of Mast picking up the scattered kindergarten and pre-school level books.

'It's great that I was finally able to use those. They were just burning a hole in the RoK.'

(At the very least you could have returned them to the shelf after you were done with them,) Mast grumbled as he bent over.

(Oh, by the way,) he said. (The RoK has recognised that you've earned a second student.)

'Really?' Guy asked in surprise. 'Is it Kano?'

(That appears to be the case. Congratulations! Three more before the next section opens up,) Mast added with a monotonous tone and resumed his cleaning.

Guy helped him out a little bit and exited the RoK. Till sunset, Guy continued helping Kano understand the text and explaining the meaning of words he had never heard before.

Thankfully, the common language spoken in this world was unlike English in its complexity. Each letter had a specific and constant sound. And if a letter was used in a word, it was always pronounced.

Silent letters, special vowel combinations, special consonant combinations, and so on, didn't exist in the common tongue. This made teaching literature to Kano infinitely easy.

In fact, as an educator, Guy despised his mother tongue, English, as it made his time teaching kids with learning disabilities immensely difficult. However, mastering the skill in "hard mode" made it much easier for Guy to adapt to teaching different languages to similarly afflicted kids, such as Kano.