When the three kids sat before Katherine at the dining table, both of the girls were already chatting with their mom.
Meanwhile, Alex was just eating his bowl of noodles, sitting in silence with his backpack next to him.
"Alex, what's wrong?" Sophia asked curiously, noticing that his eyes seemed a little zoned out.
"I'm just thinking about what we're going to learn in class today... What were you guys talking about again?"
"We were just talking about what we are going to do for the weekend. Where do you want to go?"
As Katherine answered back to Alex, her face looked completely normal, as if what had happened earlier had been a dream.
"I'm just going to stay at home and read the textbook... I want to catch up with everyone else first."
"Come on, Alex, other people had only been to school for a month. You're practically ahead of everyone now at this point."
Despite Sophia's argument, Alex still shook his head before resuming his bowls of noodles.
"I need to spend more effort than everyone else. I can't let this go to waste."
"Whatever... Mom, can we go to explore the capital again? I want to the west side of the capital this time!"
"No, I want to go to the east side! Camille just told me about an insanely good restaurant located there."
Seeing Sophia and Mary arguing back and forth, Katherine started tapping on the table, causing both of them to fall into silence.
"We'll decide when the weekend arrives. Now eat your breakfast before you're late for school."
---
The next few days of school flew right past as all three of the kids quickly caught up to their peers, at least in the textbook department.
The three basic spells of fireball, water barrier, and wind blade were practically drilled into their mind.
However, just before the weekend could arrive, Amelia decided to do one last mana test.
Everyone was taking turns right outside the school's empty field, casting the three basic spells until they ran out of mana.
Sophia and Mary were on par with the rest of the class, even slightly passing some of them despite most of them having a head start.
Meanwhile, Alex was placed dead last out of twenty students in the class. Almost all of his classmates were a little shocked, especially after seeing his sister's result.
Amelia only patted him on the back, letting him sit back down as the class resumed until the evening came.
As the three headed back home in silence, both girls could feel Alex's emotions were completely different from usual.
It was almost a hidden shame, anger, disappointment. Just frustrations that he kept to himself.
Still, they didn't really know how to comfort him, fearing that anything they said might hurt him even more.
"Alex, what's wrong?" Katherine asked, noticing Alex's grumpy face as she opened the door for the three.
"Nothing."
"Come on, don't lie to mommy——"
Before Katherine could reach Alex for a hug, he quickly ran towards the bedroom before locking the door.
"Sophia, what happened in class today?"
"Um, Mrs.Amelia did a mana test, and Alex, he... he didn't have a good score."
Seeing Sophia looking a little nervous, Katherine turned over to Mary, who couldn't even look back at her.
"Brother was placed last in front of the class..." Mary whispered as she started swirling her hair.
"How dare she... You two sit in the living room here for a second, okay? I'll go talk to Alex."
As the two girls sat down on the sofa with their backpacks, Katherine headed over to the kid's bedroom.
"Alex, can you open the door, please?"
After a short silence, the door slowly opened.
"Hey, Mom... Sorry for making you worried. I'm fine now." Alex replied as he walked out of the bedroom.
The grumpy mood from earlier had completely disappeared from his face as he looked to be completely normal.
"Are you sure, Alex?"
Katherine started circling Alex as if she was trying to find some sort of hidden emotion inside him.
"I'm fine, Mom... I was just a little upset earlier. But I had gotten over it now."
Seeing Alex heading over to the sofa and taking one of the books out to read in silence, Katherine could tell he was lying.
However, she didn't poke through his bubble, opting to signal the two girls to head back to their bedroom while she let him have some alone time.
---
When nighttime arrived, all three of the kids sat down at the table, waiting for Katherine to bring out the food.
"Alex, you feel better now?" Sophia quietly asked.
"I'm fine now... Sorry for the silence earlier. I shouldn't have put my emotion on you guys."
"Don't worry about it. We don't mind that at all." Sophia replied first.
"Yeah, the silence was nice once in a while. It's just a little scary if brother overdoes it," Mary replied next.
Alex didn't say anything back, except for a smile, as Katherine finally brought out the dinner for the night.
"Ta-da, freshly made rice and steak. Here's yours, and here's yours. Careful, it's still a little hot."
As Katherine put the plate before them one by one, all three of the kids were a little stunned by how good they looked.
"Come on, try it. I spent the past few days on this."
All three of the kids hesitated for a second as bad memories of Katherine's cooking flooded inside their heads.
They knew the better the food looked, the worse it tasted.
Still, they couldn't hurt their mom's feelings as they slowly picked up their knife to cut a small piece before picking it up with their fork.
"Hm... It's so good!"
Mary's eyes were wide open as she barely needed to chew the steak before swallowing it down.
"Mom, you really cooked this to perfection." Alex complimented as he couldn't believe how good it tasted either.
"Even the rice is on point..." Sophia murmured as she started chugging down as much as possible.
"Thank you, thank you. If you guys like it, I'll cook it again tomorrow."
Katherine thanked the three before sitting down in her seat and began eating the food she had cooked.
"Wow... It really does taste a lot better than before." Katherine murmured as she looked down at the food she just cooked.
"Told you!"
All three of them replied at the same time as the atmosphere had finally changed back to normal.
---
After eating dinner, the four of them took a shower together before the three kids meditated in the living room.
As usual, Alex was the first one out, with Mary and Sophia coming out much later than him.
But still, he could feel he was slowly catching up as Katherine handed each of them a cup of milk.
With their homework out of the way, the three kids headed back to their shared bedroom. Meanwhile, Katherine headed back to her own room, lying down in the bed all alone.
"Why does Alex feel so mature?" Katherine thought to herself as she thought back to Alex's face earlier.
He had recovered his attitude completely, even though she expected him to be lashing out in frustration.
At least, that's how she imagined Sophia or Mary would act if they were publicly humiliated in front of the entire class.
"I need to get back at her for this. How dare she put my son through this when she knows Alex's mana issue?"
As Katherine turned to the side several times, her mind became increasingly fixated on getting payback for Alex.
"Why would she show everyone's progress in front of each other? Is she trying to motivate Alex to try even harder?"
Despite trying to excuse Amelia's behavior, her mind quickly remembered that Amelia was the one who had helped Alex gain the ability to have mana in the first place.
"Whatever, I need to stop thinking about this. Alex himself had already gotten over this."
Feeling a little hot, Katherine headed over to the door before keeping it open.
"Much better..." Katherine murmured as the cold breeze blew into the room.
As she lay back on the bed, she only lifted the blanket slightly, just enough to cover her belly. But before she closed her eyes, the sword that was hanging on the wall caught her attention.
"What would Paul do if he was still alive? Would he approve of me just letting Alex get over it himself?"
Memories of the past flooded inside her mind before her face suddenly started to blush a little.
"I haven't done it for so long, hasn't it?"
Feeling the urge, Katherine's hands slowly reached underneath her clothes, moaning a little from every gesture.
---
"Hey Sophia, are you asleep?" Mary suddenly whispered, just as all three of them had been in bed for a while.
"No... What's wrong?"
As Sophia sat back up from the bed and looked over, Mary made a cup with her hand and pointed it to her mouth.
"Let's go."
As the two got up from bed and headed out of the room to get some water, Alex was now all alone in the bedroom.
His eyes were closed, but his mind was still active as he thought back to the way he had acted today.
"When did I become so expressive? Is it because of my hormones? And why did I put my frustration onto other people?"
Alex wondered as he considered all the possible reasons for his behavior after class.
He knew Amelia was trying to make him feel angry to boost his determination to work even harder.
Yet, he couldn't control his emotions, unable to calmly reflect on and accept whatever was thrown at him.