HEY GUYS I'm finally alive again! And this time I've actually prewritten a bunch of chapters that I'm going to spam you guys with! Please enjoy!
Chapter 8
Upon the realization that Renata did not know the language requirements of the Varia, Paolo had thrown a fit.
"How did you even get in without at least knowing about the 7 language requirement?!"
Renata laughed, leaning back on her hands as the two sat in the infirmary. Since the discovery of his Sun flame, Paolo found himself regularly assigned to medical duty after training hours due to understaffing on the part of the Recruitment Division.
He glanced at the only other Sun flame in the ward, a stooped little fellow with eyes glued to his smartphone. There had been a surprisingly prominent lack of Suns among this year's recruits, as noted by Brioschi.
"It happens sometimes," he'd shrugged, "one year it was all Lightning flames. You could probably guess how that went."
The majority of recruits were, as expected, Storm flames. Lightning followed, then came Rain, and Cloud. There was only one Mist (who turned out to be none other than Alfonso, much to Paolo's amusement) which wasn't that unusual since illusionists were hard to come by these days.
The dark-haired youth shook his head and slammed his hands down on the cheap wood desk. He was getting off-track again.
"Anyways, this is absolutely unacceptable ."
Renata pursed her lips into a small 'o' and blinked silently.
"Here, let's make a deal. I will give you language lessons if you help me train so that I can catch up to everyone else while we're running laps."
Paolo stared down at her solemnly and held out a hand. While it was true that his body was now well-adjusted to the rigor of their training programme, he had yet to catch up to his peers in terms of raw physical ability.
Renata grinned, grasping his hand in a bone-crushing shake.
"Deal!"
.
.
.
And thus, the language lessons began.
"So, let's begin with what languages you already know."
Paolo stabbed a forkful of cafeteria eggs, glancing across the table at his friend. Renata downed the remains of her orange juice.
"Besides Italian, my zio taught me Spanish while growing up. Let's see, uh…we also learned some English back in school ."
She made a face as she bit out the last word as if forcing down a terrible poison of some sort. Paolo raised an eyebrow, but refrained from commenting.
"Well, in that case we can begin with Portuguese, which is going to be significantly easier for you since you're already fluent in Spanish. Of course, we're going to have to add on French after that, and maybe some Asiatic languages too."
Rena began to nod cautiously, then suddenly shook her head in disbelief.
"Wait a minute, seven languages?!"
Paolo sighed.
"Were you paying any attention to what I said before?"
.
.
.
Training didn't leave nearly enough time for actual language lessons, however. So they improvised. This meant spontaneous English vocabulary quizzes during the 500 laps around Varia grounds, and poring over French flashcards in the dining hall. Renata garbled out translations as Paolo grilled her in Japanese, while they took turns holding the other's feet doing crunches.
"'メアリーは六羊を持っていました' in Italiano? " (1)
"Maria aveva sei pecore." (2)
"English?"
"Mary has six sheep."
"Très bien, mon ami." (3)
Paolo smirked down at his companion. Renata grinned up.
"Switch!"
He groaned, before reluctantly lowering onto his back as she firmly pressed down his feet.
"Don't think this means we're stopping your lessons here though!"
Paolo mustered a glare as he began the curl-ups. The taller youth breathed out a laugh.
"Your lung capacity is getting better, Paolo. Think you can still keep it up after half an hour?"
" Você a manter sua boca fechada!" (4)
" Sabes que me amas~" (5)
In another half month or so, Renata had a decent grasp on the majority of these languages. She was still far from being fluent, but knew enough to understand and speak semi-conversationally.
And thus, their days in training passed in that manner. But it was not to be so for long.
(1) Japanese + Italian [it might seem arbitrary for me to add in Japanese but it's going to be important later on when we get to the Ring Battles arc]
(2) Italian
(3) French
(4) Portuguese
(5) Spanish
I used Google Translate for all of these, so please feel free to correct any mistakes I've made (which I'm sure are plenty lol)
