English teacher.

I told her I was a world-renowned professor of English. I thought to myself I had kind of snapped to this as the only thing I might actually be capable of teaching. After all, even if I lived in Japan, I had been born in America. I had a competent mastery of the language.

I could tell, however, that Jessica was not impressed. "English...? Mom-!"

Natsuhi shot her some more daggers with her eyes.

"Mother," Jessica corrected herself, looking frustrated, "I'm not even that bad at English! <Nice to meet you! Where is convenience store?> See?"

"Jessica... that manner of talking of yours is not the only way you are deficient in terms of communication skills," Natsuhi chided her daughter, putting a hand to her forehead with impatience. "Your father is a consummate businessman, fluent in English. That talent allows him to communicate effectively with his trade partners and do business outside of the confines of the small island of Japan. Really, Jessica... speaking proper English is not uncommon among the mainland Japanese at all, these days. I'm sorry, Mr. Player. We've failed to give Jessica a proper education in this area, and now she's falling behind her peers."

I wanted to apologize, too. After all, I had no idea how skilled Ushiromiya Jessica of this time was or wasn't in English. I simply knew she wasn't living up to their expectations academically, and had used that to create this opportunity in my story. I didn't say so, of course. <Miss Natsuhi, I've decided to give your daughter a proper education in the English language.>

Natsuhi smiled back at me, blushing just a bit but looking reassured. I'd expected her to return a response in English, though. Ah... could it be that Natsuhi isn't totally fluent in it herself? Hm... Now I wanted to teach both of them. That would probably be too difficult to try right now, though.

"Mr. Player! No offense, but how can you even be a 'world-renowned' English teacher?" Jessica still looked very unimpressed, now sitting in a chair at her writing desk and leaning back. "Isn't English the kind of thing where you either learn it from birth as a native language, or you just learn enough so you can communicate easily? It doesn't seem like the thing you'd get to be a famous expert in teaching."

"Jessica!" Natsuhi scolded her daughter again. Such a fine lady, coming to my defense for both her daughter's sake and mine time and time again...

Speaking of time, mine was burning away. This game had a different time limit than usual. As always, I could expect to be murdered no later than midnight, but because I'd started earlier than usual, I technically had more time than ever. That was a cold comfort. The fact was that when Battler and the rest of those cousins showed up, it would become very challenging to keep Jessica's attention to myself. I needed to hurry things along and make some progress here. For that reason...