Creating it with wood might be ideal, but that'd be too time consuming, so I molded something that was good enough out of clay.
Which meant that we wouldn't get to play with it for a little while, since rushing clay could make it crack or even explode.
In the meantime, I taught her a few that only required hands, and stuff like that.
She was really bad at the one where you have to get the other person to look in the same direction you're pointing. She looked without fail no matter how easy I went on her, and always telegraphed the direction she was going to point in.
Well, I had most of my herd instincts beaten out of me by the countless deaths I've forgotten, so I was unusually good at games like that one, but it made me realize...
'She's going easy on me... even though she's bad at it...'
She wanted me to win every single time, even though she probably would struggle to beat me anyway, even if she went all out...
"(It's okay if you win. If you do, I'll get you something tasty later.)"
But that didn't work. If anything, it seemed to persuade her to lose even more.
It was a really difficult puzzle.
***
In addition to the wide variety of Terran plants I'd acquired, I was also researching dungeon plants.
Unfortunately, most aren't edible or otherwise directly useful to Terrans, except as rudimentary poisons, so there wasn't a whole lot I could find.
The biggest issue was that most dungeon plants couldn't grow on Terra.
But dungeons have more mana than Terra, so occasionally, a dungeon has a plant that has some magical properties, similar to mana cores.
A few dungeons were basically just farmlands, acting as slow but reliable factories for mana production. Usually, native plants found to gather mana were used, but there was one plant that was easy to grow in any high mana environment.
Aglaophotis.
It required someone with a rare Gardening Skill to grow on Terra, due to its reliance on mana, but its other unique property was its ability to grow in almost any mana-saturated dungeon, as if it had its own built-in Skill for growing.
Only almost.
Another oddly common plant was moly, which had similar properties, needing mana but being able to grow almost anywhere. They were even both flowers, but whereas aglaophotis gathered mana, moly seemed to do the opposite, making it useful but less widespread.
Both were available to adventurer guilds, so I could try to buy some seeds through the Azure Dragons.
Finally, haoma was a plant that once was exported from Naraka. Since I knew someone from Naraka, I could try to buy some seeds.
There were a few more I was interested in, but they were in dungeons that were too dangerous for me to visit.
In any case, I decided to send messages to Van and Zaitenmodi, even though the latter hadn't yet responded to my earlier greeting.
And to Zaitenmodi...
Of course, it might take weeks for the dungeon boss of Naraka to respond. He was supposedly a king, or something like that.
But Van responded pretty quickly.
'I don't think either would want to go to a picnic though...'
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But as rough as it'd be for Lilac to be around so many people, presuming the coming tournament was as popular as their last one, it might be good exposure therapy for her.
Plus, that was more that a few days away, so I could teach her a few boardgames first.
If she liked any of them, we could bring the board and play.
***
Once the board was dry, I taught Lilac a few games that could be played with it.
The board had small, regular pits forming a grid, although some spaces on the grid didn't have any pits.
Depending on the game, those spaces might serve as barriers to create tactical choke points, free spaces connecting the pits around them, or even boundary markers between wholly separate sections of the game.
Somehow, I convinced her to actually try instead of just letting me win.
"(The point of these games isn't to win, but to improve. Ancient scholars and generals played them in hopes they would be able to use their mastery over the game in other ways. Eventually, children were taught how to play for the same goal.)"
Of course, I had no clue how time worked across the different worlds I'd been reincarnated in, so they were ancient to me specifically.
I got the impression she liked these boardgames more than the other, more physical kids' games I taught her earlier. I couldn't explain why though. She seemed as shy and anxious as ever.
Perhaps it was even just my imagination, since this was the first time she actually started trying to beat me.
So I rewarded her with another pat on the head for trying so hard.
I didn't really understand why she liked me doing that so much.
Of course, I knew intellectually that all sorts of creatures respond positively to touch, and children in particular benefited from it for their development. So I didn't really oppose doing it.
'Though, if she can't age, is her development a factor anyway?'
But even if it wasn't, it was still important to reward her growth.
Savi watched us play, even taking notes, so I got a clever idea, and convinced the two to play against each other.
They were curiously evenly matched.
I wasn't sure if it was impressive that Lilac was contending with Savi, who was supposedly a prodigious genius... or if it was impressive that Savi was contending with Lilac, who was apparently an immortal and possibly thousands of years old.
Either way, they seemed to enjoy the games I'd shown them both.
'Maybe I should make a second board.'
***
I expected it to take longer to receive a response from Zaitenmodi, but he actually replied the day before the tournament.
Him visiting again sounded like a whole lot of trouble, but it wasn't like I could stop him.
Nevertheless, I didn't want to offer a promise I couldn't keep.
Even though he responded quicker than I'd expected, it'd still likely be another few days before I'd get his next message, assuming there would be one.
I still wasn't sure why he was interested in me in the first place, but it seemed awfully likely that a demon king should be too busy to reply to every single message I sent him.
***
The demon king known as Zaitenmodi sat bored in his personal chambers.
He'd received a message from the small dungeon boss who looked at him without fear... but that had been a couple days ago.
"Perhaps I should conquer Terra," he griped to his personal attendant.
"Whatever for, your imperial majesty?"
"These delays in communication are much too slow. We could move the palace to Terra."
"There are ways to speed that up without a full invasion... and even your imperial majesty would find it difficult to muster support from the celestial houses to go to war over something so trivial, especially as Terra has next to no ambient mana."
This back and forth wasn't uncommon between the two.
If the demon king really had wished to invade Terra, he would have simply done so. He was on the level of a living calamity, his whims capable of shaking the whole of Naraka to its very core.
Even the so-called celestial houses continued to exist simply because he allowed them to. Of course, they had survived countless trials with their own strength, but his wrath was not one of them.
But he was certain that girl, who had fearlessly told him to cause less trouble, would be upset if he did start a war with Terra.
Even if he decided not to care about that, and start one just to see how she'd react, he ran the risk of getting her directly involved. The fact she was wearing Terran clothing and eating Terran food implied that she was dependent upon them.
"Ah... what a shame... but if there remain ways to make it faster, why haven't you done so?"
"I believe your imperial majesty was yet undecided about them, wishing not to reveal how bored you often are to such an earnest and hardworking child."
"Hah..."
It seemed foolish.
How would him merely improving his logistics reveal such a thing?
Yet even the memory of that girl's calm demeanor and almost piercing gaze warned him that she could easily see through any half-hearted deception. No, that she would likely even see through deceptions that weren't there.
That she might come to the conclusion he was just bored, even if the truth was far removed from that.
"How troublesome," he continued griping.
***
Savi, Lilac, and I arrived at the portal after the usual two hour hike, in order to attend the guild's tournament event. Unlike the usual times I met with guild members there, the tournament started in the morning.
Not that we were participating, but Lilac wanted to come with me, and that apparently settled it for Savi too.
Van looked apologetic as we arrived. "Hey, kiddo. Sorry for making you walk all this way."
"Did you get the seeds?" I asked, slightly worried that he was about to tell me he wasn't able to after all.
But he nodded. "Yeah, not a lot, but it should be enough for a garden. I can give them to you now or after the tournament ends for the day."
"Now is fine," I answered, before puzzling over that last part. "For the day?"
"Rushing the event in a single day every month is a bit excessive, so instead, we're doing a two day tournament. Today's the preliminaries, and tomorrow's the main event. Even though it's a Skill-less tournament, you're free to sign up too. I'd personally even recommend it, since you might even gain a Skill."
"Is that common?"
"Hmm... usually not in Skill-less tournaments. I think it's because most people competing aren't ready for their own Skill yet, so competing with them isn't usually enough to push you toward earning yours... but it does happen."