"Alas."

"...Aside from 'become a teacher and perfect the I'm-so-disappointed-in-you look' but I've never had the patience for that one."

"Not all teachers can do that."

"Oh, no, that was specifically referring to my sister."

"She's a teacher? When she's at home?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Teaching what?"

"Languages."

"Makes sense. Do a business, putting 'em in all of an instant."

"Mostly she teaches them the long way around, since 'how to learn a language' is also a valuable life skill. And because it makes it easier to deal with arbitrary education laws. But she's good at teaching them the long way around."

"Seems like a waste of everyone's time, but I've been told I'm too fond of efficiency."

"I don't disagree, necessarily, but I'm inclined to blame the arbitrary education laws."

"Yeah, those must be irritating. I remember not being allowed to quit school till I was eighteen, that sucked."

"I mean, in most situations it's better to stay in school longer...although I might be biased. I'm probably biased."

"Well, yes, but even if the relevant parties would have made an exception for me my reasons were temporarily private in nature. I did a ballpark estimate once of how many people went to Limbo instead of a daeva world, and how many people died who angels would've saved, and a little back-of-the-envelope about the sheer quality-of-life-improving power of daeva-added economics and - if I'd just been able to skip that one half a semester of school, if I hadn't had to wait until the summer to finish learning and hammering out my plan -"

"I'm sorry," she murmurs sympathetically.

"Hey, it wasn't me mostly who suffered for it, that didn't happen until I got murdered."

"None of the other people are here to be offered condolences."

"This is true."

"Anyway, once my anchor gets mailed to Limbo, I'm sure we can make it a much less regrettable place to live."

"I'm looking forward to that!"

A thought occurs to her. "...Do little kids just...not ever age after they die? Or do they grow up there?"

"They grow up! Just fine. Kid summoners too."

"Oh, good."

"And fortunately new arrivals tend to arrive near other people, so they have a decent shot of finding caretakers."