yemalu

It was the first period of the day and instead of being in class, I\'m currently wandering through the corridors of the school.

The reason I\'m not in class was because the teacher was basically reviewing the basic spells that I already knew which I suspect that the other classes would be doing this week as well. It was just meant to make sure we retained the knowledge we had gained the last semester before the teachers would go on with the next part of our lessons.

I keep forgetting that my classmates were basically still children so of course the classes were treating us as such.

That\'s why I had invoked my rights as a special class student and skipped the class to do my own research for the duration of that class. I\'ll at least still show my face for the other classes to see if they were indeed just going to review the basics before deciding if I should skip them later.

My destination right now was the school library where I would search up some books related to Pyromancy and see if there\'s anything new I could learn from them.

Since classes were still in session, I was pretty much the only one walking down the empty corridors past the classes that were still in session.

At one particular class, I heard something that made me stop in my tracks.

"So how do you know big sister Aster, Delmare?"

"Ummm… It\'s a pretty long story actually… I\'m not sure if I can tell it all in one sitting…"

"Are you really a Mermaid?"

"Ummm… Yes."

"That\'s so cool~ I\'ve never got the chance to meet one before!"

Ah, so this is Delmare\'s class. And yes, we did tell her to claim that she\'s a Mermaid instead of a Siren since that might bring complications if others knew.

No, it\'s not that Sirens are discriminated against… Ok, maybe a little, but not for those reasons.

I\'ve learned that for Sirens who have not chosen the life of piracy, they were almost always singers and people would flock to listen to their music. Not sure what\'s stopping the Sirens from using their magic to charm their audience and if there was a law against that, but the point is that a Siren\'s song is something people really want to listen to even at the risk of their well being apparently…

But then when people start going crazy… The Siren will get the blame for it even if the cause isn\'t their singing.

So it\'s safe to say that in order to avoid having all these potential problems, it\'s better to just eliminate any possibility of it by just telling people she\'s a Mermaid instead of a Siren.

I feel a little sorry for Delmare since her dream was to sing for everyone to hear, but not using her \'real voice\', which involved using her magic, was something she was unwilling to do.

I decided to peek into the class to see what kind of lessons she was having via the window at the side of the class.

I spotted Delmare easily enough since she\'s the only one with a fish tail while also being surrounded by several people.

Judging by the contents that were scribbled on the board, it seems to be a basic mathematics class which I was confused as to why Delmare was attending since she already knows basic maths.

My guess would be that she was placed here to gauge her capabilities first before they decide if she should be moved to more advanced classes.

The class was given free time to solve some basic problems written on the board but even I could tell that the questions were made intentionally easy so that the class could have time to get to know Delmare.

And judging by the number of people gathered around her, it was working pretty well.

I was afraid that Delmare would be overwhelmed by the number of people crowding around her but she seemed more shy than distressed.

"How close are you to big sister Aster?" The girl in front of her asked.

Delmare blushed, "I… I believe we are quite close…"

No doubt she was thinking about our sexual relationship when she said that. At this point, I\'m not even sure if it\'s immoral to tell that to children or not in this World.

Another girl to Delmare\'s left let out a sigh, "Ah, I wish I was close to big sister Aster as well… If only I could be good enough to challenge one of the special class students…"

The girl next to her also groaned "Why doesn\'t big sister Aster take any of the basic classes… She\'s the same age as us yet all the classes she takes are either skills or magic classes…"

Delmare tilted her head at them, "Eh? How do you know what classes she takes? She never told me that…"

The group of girls looked at one another before giggling amongst themselves.

One of them slid a note to Delmare and gave her a toothy grin, "You should join it~ We share a lot of things there so I think you would fit right in. Even sister Odeta is there!"

Delmare looked down at the note before her face lit up, "Oh! You have these too? I\'ll definitely go!"

Err… I wonder what that is about?

Well, I\'m not about to go pry into either Delmare\'s or Odeta\'s school lives anyway. If they want to tell me about it, I\'m sure they would share it with me when they get the chance.

Now that my curiosity was sated, I continued on my way towards the library, somehow managing to get past the classes without anyone noticing.

I\'m glad that she\'s fitting in at least.

Just as the doors to the library came into view, the doors suddenly swung outwards and a male Mahun walked out.

Oh, it\'s the student council president, Daniel.

He noticed me and waved at me, "Hello Aster. I see you\'re exercising your special class student privileges. Review week is really pointless for you, isn\'t it? Are you doing some self study in the library?"

I\'m not surprised he managed to guess what I was doing since he must have experience this as a special class student himself.

I waved back, "Hello President Daniel, yes I am."

"Oh please, just call me Daniel. \'President Daniel\' is such a mouthful. What subjects are you looking to study on?"

"I was just going to look through some books on Pyromancy since the class is just reviewing the basics right now. Hopefully I can get it up to tier… Umm… I mean Orange tier by the end of this year."

I almost forgot the people here don\'t call the skills name by numbers and they have specific titles for each tier of proficiency.

He nodded at me, "That\'s really ambitious of you. Then again, I suppose you are Aster after all."

"Eh? What do you mean by that?" I asked, a little worried that he might know about my real family relations.

Daniel raised an eyebrow at me, "Hmm? Are you not aware of your own reputation in school?"

"Not really… I\'m not really one to pay attention to gossip…" I lied.

Of course I would care about gossip! Who doesn\'t? Listening to other people\'s problems is interesting! I\'m more concerned about how I managed to miss such information about myself?!

Daniel\'s a senior in this school and even he knows gossip about me! Unless the Student Council here has some secret information network that helps them gather such information, then the only reason he would know is that it should be pretty significant information!

The Student Council president chuckled, "Well, I feel like some of the things are inappropriate for me to say, but you pretty much stole everyone\'s attention with your challenge, you know? Right now, I do not believe there is anyone at all who can even boast about being able to cast more than five different types of magic in this school, much less eight. What\'s more, you\'re also skilled in close combat and even alchemy if I heard right? That\'s definitely extraordinary."

I guess I shouldn\'t tell him that the number of magic I can cast has gone up by one after I learned Somatomancy from Mary…

There\'s unfortunately no classes that teach that magic here since it\'s seen as a rather advanced type of magic. Guess if I want a teacher to guide me, it\'ll still have to be Mary or I\'ll need to wait until I\'m a student at the main Aerialla Academy to learn more about it.

Putting my future plans aside…

"Umm… I didn\'t think anyone would pay attention to me that much…" I admitted.

"Hmm… Seems like you really didn\'t know about this huh?"

"I really didn\'t… I thought I would be forgotten after a few weeks since I don\'t think I did anything to stand out after that either…"

I knew there would be some surprise over it but I thought they would eventually just forget about it since it\'s none of their business anyway.

Daniel actually gave me a look like he was asking me if I was serious, "Are you aware that there\'s some students that are actually working to be able to challenge you?"

"Eh? They\'re trying to learn eight different kinds of magic too?"

"That\'s right. And I know what you\'re thinking, it\'s definitely impossible for them to be able to do it this year, but you know that the challenge carries on until you graduate right? So they have until graduation to be able to do it."

"But… That\'s also assuming I stay stagnant, right? They would have started later than I have and by the time they reach the proficiency I\'m at now, I\'d have surpassed them by a lot…"

Daniel chuckled, "Ahahaha! Sometimes it\'s really hard to remember that you are still twelve, Aster. I think I can safely say that most of your classmates don\'t think that far ahead at this point in time. Plus, I wouldn\'t even blame you if you got complacent and did nothing to improve either. It\'s the curse of being a genius, some might say. Anyway, I shall not hold you back from your studies any longer. You\'ll find the Pyromancy books in the second row of bookshelves from the door. Have a good day."

I waved to him as he left, leaving me alone to carry on with my self studies.

To think there\'s actually people trying to challenge me… These people are crazy…

And that curse of being a genius? I wouldn\'t say I was a genius since I have my cheats from being an Off-Worlder… I\'m just doing all this because it\'s magic!

Oh well… That just means I can\'t slack off either! To the library!