Free Web NovelChapter 58: The Goddess’s First Lesson (2)
Cerus had never liked sitting around and listening to people talk when they wanted to teach him something. Most of the time, he would ask them to stop explaining and just show him how it was done.
If someone wanted to teach him how to hunt, Cerus would rather watch them hunt with his own eyes.
If he wanted to learn how to lead a group, he would rather observe his father than sit through a lecture that lasted from sunrise to sunset.
Axan and Ikarus had always been the better listener. Cerus, on the other hand, was not.
In fact, he had never been able to stay in one place for very long.
But for some reason, when Maeve was the one teaching him, he found himself sitting still much more easily than usual.
"You need to remember these numbers first if you want me to continue the lesson," Maeve said, tapping the wooden wall several times with a stick.
Since she didn’t have a blackboard—and was far too broke to buy one from the black market—Maeve had simply turned one of the hut’s wooden walls into a makeshift board, and she used a blue stone she had found near the hut as chalk.
"Can you tell me what this is?" she asked, pointing at one of the numbers.
She was testing him to see whether he had finally memorized them after she had repeated them dozens of times.
"Fi...ve?" Cerus answered uncertainly. It wasn’t really his fault if he was wrong. After all, he had never been the type of person who could easily remember strange symbols like these.
But then he saw Maeve’s eyes lit up. "Yes! Yes! One hundred points for you!" She clapped excitedly and smiled so widely that her cheeks started to hurt. "Cerus is the best!"
The moment he heard those words, Cerus’s eyes brightened. To be honest, he had originally thought Maeve should be teaching Axan instead. Axan was smarter, more patient, and much better at listening than he was.
However, now Cerus was beginning to think this class was actually pretty fun.
"And what number is this?" Maeve asked again. She pointed at another symbol on the wall and looked at him with hopeful eyes, just like a teacher waiting for her student to get the answer right.
For some reason, Cerus suddenly didn’t want to disappoint her.
"Nine?" Cerus replied.
Maeve’s face immediately lit up. "Correct!"
She clapped again, looking far happier than someone should be over a single number.
Cerus couldn’t help feeling a little pleased with himself. Maybe these strange symbols weren’t that difficult after all.
"Good. Since you already remember the numbers, we can move on to the next lesson," Maeve said.
She turned back to the wall and drew two numbers.
1 + 1 = ?
Cerus stared at the symbols. The numbers looked familiar, but the strange cross-shaped mark in the middle certainly did not.
"What is that?" he asked.
"This?" Maeve pointed at the symbol. "This means addition."
"Addition?"
"It means putting things together."
Cerus frowned.
Maeve glanced around the room before picking up two small pebbles from the floor. She placed one pebble on the table, then she placed another beside it. ƒrēewebnovel.com
"How many pebbles are there?" she asked
"Two."
Maeve nodded. "Exactly. I started with one pebble. Then I added another one. One plus one equals two."
Cerus stared at the pebbles. "Oh. I understand now."
Maeve quickly wrote another example.
2 + 3 = ?
This time, she placed two pebbles on the table.
Then she added three more. "How many now?"
Cerus counted them one by one. "One, two, three, four, five."
"That’s right! Two plus three equals five."
Maeve ended up teaching Cerus until the sun was almost setting. Not only did she teach him addition, but she also taught him subtraction and how to count all the way to one hundred.
She wanted to continue, but she knew there was a limit to how much a person could learn in a single day. If someone tried to absorb too much information too quickly, their brain would eventually stop working properly.
Judging by Cerus’s expression, that was exactly what was happening. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
At one point, he stared at his own hand for several seconds as if he had forgotten how many fingers he had.
"Alright, that’s enough for today!" Maeve finally declared. "We can continue the lesson another time. But just so you remember it again, you’re my very first student here, and that’s really special to me."
Cerus froze for a moment. The dizzy feeling in his head seemed to disappear almost instantly. For so long, he had been feeling slightly bitter after learning that Ikarus was the first one to marry Maeve.
But now, he was her first student and for some reason, that made him feel much better.
"And since you worked really hard today, I’m going to give you a reward," Maeve said proudly. But then she realized she hadn’t prepared anything at all.
So, she decided to ask instead. "What would you like as your reward?"
It wasn’t as if she could give him absolutely anything. Still, knowing Cerus, he probably wouldn’t ask for something difficult or impossible for her to get.
Maybe he would ask her to promise that she would marry him after Ikarus or perhaps he would ask for a kiss, something like that.
"Can I..." Cerus cleared his throat several times. For once, he looked unusually nervous, as if he wasn’t sure whether he should say what was on his mind.
Maeve blinked. Did he want to ask her for sex?
"Can I hug you while we sleep?" Cerus finally asked. The words came out so quickly that it almost sounded like he had forced himself to say them before he could change his mind.
He immediately looked away. "Just for one night is enough," he added quietly.
The confident and carefree Cerus who usually laughed at everything was nowhere to be seen.
At that moment, he looked almost shy and somehow, that surprised Maeve far more than if he had asked for a kiss.
