With a small amount of anxiety in me I asked "What will they teach me there?"

"What every person needs to learn, dear" answered gran. "Things like math and science. You will learn the intricacies of common there as well." She waited for

the sufficiently convincing words to appear in her mind as she sat on a cushion, eating sandwich. "Think of how you learn about magic. Besides practicing the

casting of a spell you also learn how it works, right? In school, you learn the process behind certain subjects. I already gave some examples as to which

subjects you'll be studying."

"That sounds boring."

"That is only because you haven't experienced the real versions of these things" she explained. "Right now, to you, math is nothing more than adding some

numbers together. You take a three, you take a two and as you add them together you get five. When there are too many numbers you ask for help from am adult.

That is not how I know math." She took one final bite of her sandwich and got herself ready to enthusiastically elucidate as to why she adored math.

"You've seen the processors we projectors use, right? In addition to transcribing pieces of information from very far away into paper, they can also calculate

at high speeds. They can do that because they're built to be faster than humans. If a human tries to add, as an example, nine thousand nine hundred and

ninety-nine and another nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine together by brute force, it might take them a few seconds whereas a computer can find

out the result in fraction of that time. But what is truly fascinating about math to me is that it is intuitive, despite it being somewhat difficult to

grasp." Saying all of this with haste and great excitement left her a bit short of breath, so she breathed in deeply. After grabbing a pen and paper from a

nearby desk she continued.

"If we were to return to the adding two numbers example, there is a quicker and more sensible way of calculating that as well. You can think of nine thousand

nine hundred and ninety-nine as a number one step below ten thousand," she wrote 10000 - 1 on the paper as she finished her sentence. "If you add two of these

one minus a thousands together," she wrote another 10000 - 1 and placed a plus sign in between them, "you see that this equation is just twenty thousand minus

one written differently. I know this because a minus or a plus can be written anywhere in an equation and because you can bunch up minuses and pluses

together. Knowing that doubling ten thousand results in twenty thousand comes later." She remembered to draw breath this time. "I know that subtracting two

from number with a bunch of zeroes at the end of it will give me a result with an eight at the end, and I reach nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety

eight by jumping from on conclusion to another" she said while glanced at me. Her smile served as a sweet pleasantry. "Doing acrobatics with knowledge like

this gets really fast after a while. Because we have assigned the job of brute force mathematics to the computers, what is left for humans is finding clever

solutions like this one to achieve greater ends. It is quite like a puzzle." I snuggled up to her. "I understand" I said.

"Do you really?" she asked.

"No."

She chuckled lightly. "Then there operations you haven't even seen yet," continuing to exposit her love for math, she drew many other symbols that I was

unfamiliar to. I heard "Topology, my eternal love how could I forget you?" before she began illustrating a truly odd object. It resembled a vase, only it

had a weird pipe at the bottom that turned around and intersected itself. That pipe then connected to the only mouth of the object. "I really love this

trinket, it's called the Jaono's bottle." Firdevie's mouth told me of math, but her sparkling eyes spoke of a woman who had waited her whole life to tell

someone these things. "It only has one side, so its inside is also its outside! How fascinating is that?" she said.

"This is cool stuff. Is this what they teach at school?" I asked.

"They give you the basic tools you need to understand more complicated things. If you are still interested in this subject afterwards, their lessons will

come in quite handy."

"I get it" I said. "I feel sleepy."

"Of course you will, you attacked Nacian's stew like you were starving."

"Mmm" I responded drowsily. My mind slowly sank into a nice dream about milk filled bottles that intercepted each other as gran was caressing my face.

All was well. School in contrast was a fountain of issues.

The distance between my school and the commune wasn't a problem, since Hearrain could easily transport me and Eirrír to a far away location and back with

ease. But unless we were to hide the manner of our teleportation, it was possible for many people to ask questions about our places of residence. It wasn't

possible to keep such a major lie going for too long. We picked an inconspicuous alley to appear at. It was only about five minutes away from the building.

That was only the beginning of our troubles.

It was the first day of school. There I was, sitting with an orderly demeanour in the frontmost seat. A clock was affixed to the wall, and the jittery

sounds of its inner mana-mechanism manufactured great tension as I was anticipating the teacher's entrance into the room. The age-appropriate chatter of the

children behind me didn't escape my ears. "I'm bored", "Where's the teacher", "Let's play Hopperscotch after this", "my dad is an engineer". An energetic

girl had agreed to sit next to me. Her name was Eorðberge. She didn't want to do much with me. When I decided that staring at the front door

had gotten boring enough, peering at the elegant wafers of light piercing the windows became my solution. The sun was at its most magnificent position in

the sky. Drawing, outlining shadows, and overall providing me with inner solace from the ticking mechanism on the wall the beams of white were truly

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graceful. I then immediately took notice of a door opening in the corner of the room. I turned to look at the stranger. Even though he was already within my line of

sight, his harrowing roar made me jump with fear.

"QUIET!"

The scream had successfully drenched the class in silence. I keenly took note of his red face and overly-serious attire as he was making his way towards

the teachers' table. There was an unceasing aura of spite around him as if he hated the world, and the world hated him back. Standing behind his desk he

told us:

"I am Hedley Hawke, your primary school teacher. I will be your teacher for the rest of your stay in Leofflæds Leorninghús of Drýmen." The words were

sliding off his tongue as if they were a poison that he was trying to cleanse himself of. "Before we begin with our lesson, I'd like to establish a few

rules. Firstly, you're not allowed to talk while class is in session unless I give you permission to do so. You can ask for permission by raising your hand,

but I cannot promise that I will give it to you. Secondly, you must give all of your attention to me and the board while I'm teaching. Thirdly..." and my

mind had already slipped elsewhere during his recitation.

I wondered if he was ever going to ask about our names. "Maybe he just forgot, he seems like a busy man" I thought to myself. He didn't seem like a

particularly considerate human being, so it was possible that he was just that much of a jerk. Soon enough, posturing by the window with a refined stance, a

magpie made itself known to me. Staring inside the room behind a backdrop of pine tress and sunlight subdued by the clouds, it was significantly more

entertaining to observe than the noise machine churning itself in front of me.

"Young girl!" I heard the man call out. No response. Turning my head towards the teacher I expected him to be looking at Eorðberge or some other person in

the room.

He was staring right through my soul. My skin crawled.

"Yes?" I answered cautiously.

"Did you not hear the second rule? Are you acting up already?" he spat with extraordinary speed.

"I am sorry."

"Sir!" he corrected. "You shall call me sir whenever you can. What a petty child you are, not even respecting your elders" said the dung heap of a human.

"Sorry, sir." Feeling like a full on aggression was too much for this moment, I held myself back.

"Why do you not respond when called to?" it asked daringly.

"You said 'young girl' but am a boy" I said. It mockingly examined me. "Well you certainly dress like one. Your hair is quite short as well. Then I suppose

anyone can become anything nowadays. If that's the case, then I'm a sewer drain!" Faint laughter made its way to me from around the room. Eorðberge did not

contribute to this.

"Well it doesn't matter. I've played much worse games" it told me. "I will refer to you as a boy from this point forward" said it that sneers. "Now, we

shall begin our first lesson. If anyone else refused to listen while I was laying out the classroom rules, then you should know that the punishment for

disobedience is a warning. If you don't comply once, you will be warned. If you do not obey a second time, you will receive a ruler to your hand. Do it a

third time and you will be sent to the principal's office. Understood?" I replied "Yes", with an overwhelming sense of disgust.

What followed was a lesson that was about thirty-five minutes long, but felt like it dragged on for hours. This spiteful lump of malignancy that we called

our "teacher" was truly undeserving of its title. Rattling off numbers and concepts unceremoniously, it wasn't ashamed to show its clear disinterest in

almost everything that he was talking about. It wouldn't even stop to ask us if we had gotten what he was talking about. I was able to discern the meaning

of his words thanks to prior knowledge I had gained from Firdevie herself, but it was obvious to me that most of the people in the class with me had not

been helped the same way. "Ineffective" would be an understatement for this waste of skin's method of tutoring. Occasionally the revolting sack of meat would

find it within itself to ask us a question in the form of a mathematical problem. When asked if anyone wanted to come to the board to answer these

questions, no one would raise their hands except for I and Eorðberge.

"Come then... boy" it said hesitantly. I walked up to the board and grabbed a piece of chalk from its hand. As I was finishing my solution it brashly

asserted that "at least the little imp was useful for something." Regretting what I had just done I gave it the piece of chalk back and went to

sit down on my chair.

The school bell (briefly) liberated us from this small demonstration of the experiences it was possible to have in Crázap Banasc. "You have a ten-minute

break" he said. "Spend it well."

Getting out of the classroom I was delighted to encounter Eirrír looking for me in the hallway. I waved at him and followed him into the front garden as we

talked to each other. "Our teacher sucks" I lamented. "He's dull. I don't even remember his name."

"Our teacher is alright" said Eirrír. "Listening to her wasn't too bad. She talked about your teacher. His name is Hedley."

"Thank you" I said.

There were many things to despise about our school, but its hauntingly beautiful garden wasn't one of those things. An abundance of birds had taken their

spots atop the slowly withering autumn trees. A delightful song melody they sang, which bequeathed the entire locale a delightful air. Excessively

flamboyant bushes and vines of all shapes and sizes were allowed to remain where they had chosen to grow, and so were in the business of fulfilling their

aesthetic roles. An opus, the nearest star, which the Earth was turning around hung above all of this.

My friend guided me through the place as we walked on the floor covered with auburn leaves. Just as we were about to sit down, a coarse voice howled at us

from behind.

"Hey, wait!"

We turned to face the sound. Three boys were approaching us, each with mannerisms that were indicative of their baleful nature. When they got close enough

the one in the center, who happened to be the burliest among them, asked me "You're new here, aren't you?"

Apprehensively, I answered with a subdued "Y-yes?"

"We don't like newies in this garden. Leave." Upon hearing this, I responded with a resounding "No".

Having already turned his head towards one of his fellow thugs, he nodded in my direction. The miscreant the immediately grabbed me. I was not strong

to break his grip. Eirrír tried to free me, but the other bastard pinned him to the ground before he could do anything. Fearfully I took one last look at

the large beast before he landed his punch in my face.

Immense pain.

I tried to get my bearings straight.

"ŞİNTMEACH!"

A blinding flash of light accompanied by a horrifyingly loud boom sent me fully into a shock. Eirrír's spell had sent his captor flying into the air. When

he landed, the fire that was enveloping his body was made itself apparent. In awe of the power, my assailant and his co-conspirator could do naught but

run away. I fell to the floor as the one that was holding me let go. With their escape, Eirrír quickly came to my aid.

"We should tell someone! Your nose is bleeding!"

All I could do was cry as the aflame body of a bully stood not to far from me, barely able to breathe.