Gremlins and Grades

The gremlins stared at the nervous Daren. He had never seen so many gremlins at once. How many did this colony have?! Why were they living in the basement of a residence hall?! These creatures were still magic beasts. A bag of cookies and a green fluffball were suddenly stuffed into his hands.

"You pay gremlins in sweets. Don't give them too many though or they'll go crazy. Stay calm yet firm with them otherwise they won't listen. They're crafty, arrogant little jerks. Magic might freak them out, but I'm not really sure because I don't use it around them a lot. Try feeding Matcha, this little cutie here."

Daren looked down at the little fluffball. With large teary eyes and drooping ears, it looked cute, docile and adorable. It mewed pitifully and gently tugged on his sleeve. Daren opened the bag and took out a cookie.

Matcha nibbled on it with delight. When she finished, Daren happily handed her another. It was like giving treats to a puppy. You just couldn't stop yourself.

"Don't get distracted! Look at your feet!"

When Daren looked down, he nearly jumped in fright. A swarm of unblinking eyes surrounded him. They intensely stared at the bag in his hands. A chill crept up his back. He didn't notice when they got so close.

"Oh – okay. That's enough for Matcha. Now it's time for others to have their own cookies."

Matcha strongly gripped his arm.

(n>o<n) -- No! More cookie! Give more! --

Flustered, Daren took his eyes off of the gremlins below and tried to shake Matcha off. A fatal mistake. Sensing an opening, the gremlins pounced all at once.

*\(>A<)/* -- COOKIES! --

Daren toppled over underneath the avalanche of fluff. The bag was ripped from his hand and he felt tiny paws searching for more cookies all over his body. Some of those little jerks even bit him!

Aayla took out her secret weapon.

"WHO WANTS CAKE?!"

The gremlins froze and looked at her in awe. Aayla hurled the cake towards the opposite wall. The gremlins frantically scampered after it like sharks smelling blood.

/(OoO)\ -- NO! NOT THE CAKE CAKE! --

\ (> o < #)/ -- Paws off! That's MINE! --

The gremlins swarmed the cake. Shrieks and growls emerged from the inner depths of the enormous fluffball. Aayla grabbed Daren and pulled him out of the room. She pulled off a straggler still chewing on his pants and threw it inside. The door shut with a slam.

Aayla scratched her head as she looked down at the slightly traumatized Daren. Maybe she should have given a longer briefing before letting him get some practical experience.

Daren continued going down into the basement during his free time. The first few days were rough. His was labelled a pushover by the gremlins during their first encounter. This label was hard to remove. However, dealing with the gremlins in the basement was much easier than dealing with his new 'friends' above.

After he got fed up with them one day, he headed down into the basement to practice. Apparently, the gremlins loved watching him practice the flashier spells. They were mesmerized like people watching fireworks. They clapped and cheered even if Daren messed up.

As the Forolan heir, everything he did was either 'natural' if he exceeded expectations or 'disappointing' if he did not. It had been a very long time since someone was genuinely impressed and encouraged him no matter what happened. He actually began to enjoy practicing again.

The conservative students were upset that Daren spent so much time in the basement just as they started to befriend him, but what could they do? He was working. Now that someone else aside from Aayla could handle the gremlins, the staff wouldn't let anyone interfere with his work.

With her newfound free time, Aayla managed to crack another section of the journal. This section focused on 'derivatives'. The main elements were earth, air, fire, water and energy. Derivatives were secondary elements created from a pure main element, like lighting and ice.

She had no compatibility with lightning magic at all. The best that she could do was create static electricity to barely zap someone. Ice element spells were a bit better. All of her drinks would now be cool if she so desired.

Aayla was very disappointed. Lightning was one of the best OP-main-protagonist-level elements. Ice would be an excellent element to specialize in to keep herself safe up in the northern wilderness. There was no use crying over what she didn't have.

After she set aside her magic practice for a while, she noticed that the atmosphere around campus was unusual again. Many of the new teachers gave off strange vibes, and students kept getting into fights. The first exam results shouldn't have been that bad, right?

The exam results were released two and a half weeks after the exams were finished. Aayla spent that entire time worrying about her results. She hadn't studied nearly as much as she wanted to, and she missed two weeks of classes. Finally, the envelope was slipped into her mailbox.

The history exam had a score of … 'A'.

The geography exam had a score of … 'A'.

The magical beast exam had a score of … 'S'.

The linguistics exam had a score of … 'A'.

Aayla lost her breath for a completely new reason. These grades were too good. An 'S' was the highest possible score, like an 'A+' on Terra. The fine print said that the professors curved the grades for this exam, but Aayla didn't care. An 'S' was an 'S'. She had to beat the other students to get that grade.

As her joy wore off, Aayla realized that something was strange. Even with the curve, her best scores should have been a low 'B' at most. Why were her grades so high? Were the other students' scores just that much worse than hers?

The history, geography and magical beast exams were basically all memorization based. Usually, the students on Tellus did well in those types of exams. They were even more familiar than Aayla with those subjects just by living this world for decades!

To make sure that nothing strange was going on, Aayla decided to pay a visit to Ramona. However, when Aayla stopped by Ramona's office, she was gone. The secretary said that she was working on 'emergency official business'.

The deputy headmaster had left without a word. When did Ramona leave? Aayla never noticed at all. Feeling nervous, Aayla returned back to the residence hall. There was someone who might know what was going on.

As she pushed open the medical ward, she heard groans of pain coming from one of the rooms. Aayla knocked on the door.

"Is everything all right in there? I'm Aayla Glowery, the head resident advisor."

The door suddenly opened, smacking Aayla right in her face. She quickly stepped back and put her hand on her now bloody nose. Nurse Rousse stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.

"Ow! That really hurt."

"There you are. One moment."

Nurse Rousse placed her hand over Aayla's nose. After glowing for a few seconds, her nose stopped bleeding and the pain disappeared.

"What can I help you with? Did that idiot get someone else hurt with his idiocy?"

"Which idiot?"

The medical officer pointed towards the room of the patient that he had just treated.

"The idiot was practicing alchemy in his room. He burned himself pretty badly, but he should be fine by tomorrow morning."

"Burned? Wait, he didn't burn down his room did he?!"

"Almost. Dormi's taking care of it, and the roommate is staying in another room tonight."

"That's good! Wait what was I coming here for? Oh, right have you seen Ramona around?"

A strange look briefly flickered on Nurse Rousse's face.

"Not really. Things have been really busy with the newest additions to our school and wrapping up the final tasks for the exams and the training exercise. She'll turn up eventually. Did you need something?"

"Well, I just had a question about my grades."

Aayla handed over her exam scores. Nurse Rousse actually looked a bit impressed for once.

"Are they too low or something? These are great though."

"No. I think they're too high."

Nurse Rousse placed a hand on Aayla's forehead.

"Hmm… There's no fever. Maybe she hit her head on that trip Ramona dragged her on? Or maybe brain damage from frostbite or lack of air?"

"Hey! I'm fine! It's just I missed two weeks of classes and didn't do as much studying as last semester. They didn't mess up my grades, right?"

"It should be fine. You were dragged on that fourth-year trip as a worker, right? The university probably gave you some credit for that. It was a fourth-year level trip, and you had no time to prepare. You also get an extra boost from the curve. The learning environment this semester has been trash, so the university compensated students for that. There's nothing to worry about."