By the seats of the amphitheater of the school plaza, exam applicants stood around in standby while the presenters and school staff arrange their presentation on stage, announcing the official start of the exam. I would’ve been happily entertaining Sara alongside Rom, who seemed to have at least formed an acquaintanceship with Rina already.
As expected of the school’s upcoming protagonist.
Well, I would’ve been chatting with them…..if only this kid in front of me wasn’t such a piece of rubbish.
“Hah? Watcha looking at me for like that?! You pickin a fight?”, said the kid with a crop cut, wearing a shirt and pants, he stared at me as menacingly as a ten year old bully from elementary was. Beside me, Sara, who noticed this kid who bumped in me for the second time today, looked like she was about to mangle the kid for being such a prick in picking a fight with me even though he was the one who bumped into me, and probably a lot more.
I looked at her with a shake for a head, signalling that he wasn’t worth the trouble, “Elis-sama, this insolent kid bumped into you and wants you to apologize, I can’t let this pass.”, she said, clearly different from her usual competitive yet friendly self. Now, she looked a tad bit more like a trained maid. I shook my head once more time with a sigh,
“Step down, Sara, understand that we’re in public.”, I said, noting the stares directed at the commotion this kid was causing,
“Hey, don’t you ignore me, just cause you’re some noble you think you can do whatever ya want?! Get off your high horse!”, the kid shouted accusingly, trying to reach a hand out to grab my shoulder, Sara, upon seeing this reaction, tried to move to defend me, who simply looked at him as if he was a bug, which, he was.
But the person who stood up to me was suprisingly not who I expected,
“I suggest you stop whatever you’re about to do.”, a cold voice, cut the tension between us, at the side was Rina, accompanied by Rom who simply smiled in sympathy to me.
“Huh? Who da heck are you? Ya think you can just order me however you want?”, the kid retorted to Rina who had a really disgusted look on her face. How relatable.
“I don’t know what kind of idiot you are to stir up trouble during a test, but that aside, you really plan on laying a hand on the child of Eines?”, Rina asked coldly to the boy who simply stared at her, unable to process what she just said. At the drop of my family name, everyone watching the scene bursted in murmurs,
“What…..?”, the boy asked in disbelief.
Rina sighed again in annoyance, “Are you a different kind of stupid? The person you’re trying to tangle with is the first son of the Eines family. If you can even begin to comprehend how deep of a mess you’re in, then scram.”, Rina said harshly, without hesitation.
Wow.
At the end of her sentence, the kids beside me started whispering between themselves once more, calling the kid who bumped into me names and dumb for even messing with me, even to the point of giving him stares of disapproval. He simply looked around with a complex expression of anxiety and realization, until he slumped his head before slightly retreating out of sight, until the people around started scattering while giving me curious looks before leaving, once everything calmed down to an extent, Rina, with her arms crossed approached me with a rather embarrassed expression, covertly hidden in the classic “I don’t care” face of a Tsundere.
“Hmph, I didn’t help you because I wanted to, this guy over here just wouldn’t shut up about stepping in, besides, I respect Miss Anastasia a lot as a mage in training.”, she said, a bit shy yet harsh expression as she pointed at Rom who gave a satisfied smile beside her.
“So which is it?”, Rom asked jokingly, while Rina gave him an annoyed stare, “Shut it you, the only reason why I’m talking to you is because you’re so annoying and wouldn’t stop bothering me.”, Rina said, not reserving a bit of compassion, revealing a bit of cruelty within her usually withdrawn self.
“Right right……”, Rom said, a bit disappointed at his treatment. Beside me, Sara bowed lightly in gratitude, “Thank you, Miss Rina, If you didn’t step in, I would’ve broken his arm.”, Sara said nonchalantly.
Yikes, is that what maids are trained to do?
“R-right, you maids are a scary bunch aren’t you…..?”, Rina said, a bit uncomfortable with Sara, who went from gentle to violent faster than the bread in school run out during fridays…..
“Ahaha…. anyways, at least we won’t see him for a bit won’t we?”, Rom said, with a bit of relief in his voice.
“I’m….not sure.”, I said, feeling something was off with how the boy a while ago acted. Those kinds of kids usually have weird circumstances surrounding them.
“What do you mean?”, Rina asked, a bit curious as to what I said, I sighed in self doubt.
“I don’t actually know, the way he looked at me before….. no, never mind, it must be my imagination.”, I said, resigning myself to the benefit of ignorance and just pushing the feeling in the back of my mind.
“Uh huh….. well, if he does try to pull anything funny, Maidy over here will be there anyway.”, Rina said, giving Sara a questionable name, Sara simply smiled before responding.
“Don’t worry, I’m a professional maid after all!”, Sara said, taking pride in her job.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Goooood Morning, everyone!”, said the fanboy proctor heartily, standing on the center of the amphitheater, opposite him were the applicants, including me and my acquaintances, the children all busily chatted amongst themselves, seeing as they were only well mannered individuals at best. I’m not sure why, but children here are raised in a manner that makes them more mature than children in Earth. Is it the technology difference or the cultural difference? I’m not sure, but what I do know is, that these two take the cake for being mature.
I looked over to my side, seeing Sara innocently play around and twiddle with her fingers- no, not her.
I looked even further to her left, seeing Rom patiently hold the sword he borrowed from the proctors before the assembly started and Rina calmly reading a book on magic principles, made me astounded how patient and mature these two were. Apparently, Rina was the third daughter of a lesser family of nobles, while Rom was the first son of a commoner family, which really doesn’t explain their level of maturity. As i dwindled on the enigma that were the two, the proctor continued his speech.
“As I’m sure everyone knows already, our exam today will only be about your field and combat planning capabilities, that’s why we’ve planned an interesting game for all of you that will end up deciding the majority of your points for judging.”, announced the proctor, garnering the attention of all the applicants, meanwhile, other proctors brought out a wheel tray containing boxes, which were distributed amongst the applicants, inside the box was
a bracelet, dangling from the bracelet was a faded red stone in the shape of a rough sphere that had a great level of opacity, on the center was writing that I could vaguely recognize, the writing for magic, runes. Upon receiving ours, Rina let out a sound of impression, “This is a Yura stone… although what’s the rune inscribed on it?”, she asked, a bit captivated by the bracelet given to us.
“It’s the rune for location. Which means……”, I muttered, while Rom nodded, “The stones ar used for long rang communication, right? Given the transparency and size of the Stone which is usually used for communication, it’s only for tracking us?”, asked Rom. I was a bit surprised, I didn’t expect them to know that. Hm, Shouldn’t have expected less.
“Yeah, hey Sara, any hints on what we’re going to do?”, I asked, looking at Sara who looked at me with a deadpan smile, but seeing her eyes weren’t focused, I knew what was going next.
“Yes.”, she said plainly, I narrowed my eyes before sighing,
“What were we just talking about?”, I asked, while Sara’s facial expression didn’t change,
“Yes.”, she said plainly.
I shouldn’t have expected less.
After the distribution of the bracelets was over, the proctors proceeded to leave, leaving only Sir fanboy on stage, never really got his name, so I’ll just keep calling him that.
“All of you have just received our standard Yura stones for tracking, a bit of trivia here, but the Yura stone, at its purest form is used for communication but can only be used by royalty, but we managed to get special permission to dilute the stone and inscribed it with a rune formula so that we know the exact location of the people wearing them.”, he explained, with a bit of trivia. As the light chatters continued, the fanboy nodded before continuing.
“Knowing that, these magic tools will be vital in securing your safety in the your exam, which I will now announce….”, he paused, for a bit, attempting to build some tension before continuing, “Each of you will be tasked to find specific jewels we have hidden throughout the campus-”, he said while another proctor brought out another wheel tray with three jewels and left it in front of the proctor emcee,
“These jewels you see before you will be the ones scattered randomly throughout the campus grounds, and each of them will be worth a set amount of points.”, he said before picking up a red stone, just like the stone in our bracelets, “These Yura stones will be worth 1 point for each you collect,”, he said before putting it down and reaching out to another stone with a yellow tint in it.
“This Aran rock will be worth two points but are even more rare than the red Yura stones.”, he said before putting down the Aran rock and picking up the final rock which gave a translucent shine, at the sight of the stone, I realized it immediately.
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“And lastly, this Shadowblight stone, it’ll be worth three points each, there won’t be much around the campus and given it’s translucent, finding it in daylight is hard, since it only gives off a bright purple shine during the night, but given the timeframe of our exam……”, he said with an amused grin, which also appeared on my face, as I looked upwards where the sun gave off an orange light, just like a sunset,
Given the three hours of daylight in the world, the very last minutes of the exam will be under the night sky, meaning…..
“So, it’ll be clutch points, interesting…….”, Rom said, clearly intrigued at the mechanics of this applicant exam.
“Does that mean everyone here will be scrambling at the very last stage of the exam?”, asked Sara, who tried to figure what the proctor was implying. I nodded silently as I listened intently.
“But everyone, those three aren’t all the jewels you’d find in campus, there is one more type of stone we’ve hidden in campus., finding it will automatically give the person that finds it an automatic pass.”, he said, dropping a reward too good to pass up on, at that moment, everyone in the stage bursted into murmurs,
“Hey, that sounds neat……”, murmured one.
“Heck yeah, that’s too good to pass up on.”, another said, as the crowd continued, the proctor grinned before speaking once more.
“Indeed, finding that single stone in campus will be like stopping a dragon from devouring the sun, that’s why do try to rack all of your brains. But do remember that only one person will get the automatic pass if you do find it.”, said the proctor, seemingly acting strange.
Between the murmurs and chatters of the crowd, hearing that they could automatically pass, I sighed, Sara looked at me a bit confused showed in her face,
“Do we plan on playing it safe?”, Sara said, a bit conflicted. I shook my head before giving an amused grin.
“No. He already dropped a mega hint.”, I said, feeling the thrill about how convoluted they planned on making this event. “E-eh?! B-but didn’t he say it was random?”, asked Sara, stating the obvious…...for a kid at least.
“Was the insta-pass stone among the three stones in the tray?”, I asked, immediately, Sara opened her eyes wide in surprise. She probably remembered the statement the fanboy proctor dropped a while ago,
““These jewels you see before you will be the ones scattered randomly throughout the campus grounds, and each of them will be worth a set amount of points.”
Sara gulped before speaking, “S-so….. they put the stone somewhere intentional?”, she asked.
“Yep.”, I said before rubbing my temple from thinking about everything in this exam,
“Elis, I think we should still aim to play this safe, even if we had a clue, everyone will be working together to grab points, they didn’t say it wasn’t allowed.”, Sara pointed out. A fair point to make, if it weren’t for the fact that these were still kids in the end.
“They won’t work together. I believe they planned to, but given the rules and conditions they just layed out, favoring a clutch competition where the last part will be the easiest to score points in, it’ll be harder for people to trust each other. Only the ones playing it calmly and analytically would bother teaming. Add the bait of the insta-pass and you have a bunch of kids who distrust each other.”, I said, while the proctor gave out the nitty gritty rules and regulations of the exam.
“I…..see. So we’re going to amass points and keep it among the four of us?”, asked Sara.
“That would’ve been the plan if I didn’t figure out where they were hiding the insta-pass stone, if I figure out how to solve something, It feels really good actually solving and getting the result, right you two?”, I said, looking at Rina and Rom who both looked at us in expectantly.
“Heh, so it’s a competition?”, Rom asked, who seemed to be getting fired up, with that grin on his face.
“Hmph. Very well, we pretty much have a clue on where this is anyway.”, Rina said, with a smug smile on her face as she closed her book, seemingly getting excited in her own way.
“A two on two it is.”, I said, with a weird kind of thrill, feeling on par with the genius kids, even if mentally, I was 27 years old.
“Challenge accepted. Get ready to lose.”, Rina said smugly. Beside me, Sara gulped.
“E-er, Elis, w-w-what’s going to happen? S-shouldn’t we all just work together?”, asked Sara, fluster showing on her face as she shakily tried to wave her hands.
“No fun in that. Look, nothing makes everything more fun than competitions, you gotta enjoy life while it’s still young, yeah?”, I said, feeling as if I was back in my middle school days.
How ironic.
Sara looked at me in a pause before smiling,
“Your wish is my command, boss. I’ll follow you to the end!”, she said with a smile, befitting not a maid, but a friend. And as the four of us shared a moment, the proctor raised a finger pointing up, finishing up his speech.
“That’s it for all the details, and since you all have been prepared, our exam will start immediately. The official Aria Preparatory Academy exam will start now!”, he shouted as a loud bang, signalling the start of the exam rang throughout the amphitheater.
And thus started the game that me and three, and only the three shared.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Sara, back me up!”, I shouted, while running up against a kid who reached out his hand towards the yellow stone by the edge of the table inside of a classroom with a bunch of tables stacked at the side,
“Alright, I got you!”, Sara shouted behind me, as a light torrent of water splashed on the feet of the poor boy whose career I was about to end. Darn, those foreign memes Kanon spammed me rubbed off…..
Anyways, I threw my wooden knife, which I chose was given to me at the start of the orientation, at the timid looking kid who just wanted to pass. Being the kid that he looked like, he tried dodging the knife only to forget water had just splashed on his feet, and when he tried to move, he ended up faceplanting.
“Nothing personal!”, I said as I swiped the yellow stone off the table, I looked to the right where I saw Sara catch up to me as she walked through the puddle she created as it dissolved, probably because she didn’t put much mana to maintain it. Everything here is give and take after all, including magic.
“So this makes our 5th Aran rock right….? Sheesh, this should be enough, only if we could steal from other players.”, she said with the click of her tongue in annoyance. I shuddered.
“Yikes, you really do get scary. At any rate, yeah, this should be enough.”, I said, paying attention to the kid on the floor. I sighed.
“Alright, you know where we’re going next right?”, I looked at Sara who nodded confidently.
“Good. Hey kid over there, no one’s explored the backside of this building yet, go knock yourself out.”, I called over to the boy lying on the floor. He groaned slightly, couldn’t make out what he said but me and Sara just left him alone in preparation for our, hopefully, last battle, but before leaving, an uncomfortable feeling ran up my spine, as if I was being watched from somewhere……. Ah screw it, probably just my imagination.
After walking through the forest with a campus map, alongside Sara who gulped as the sight of a distant and lonely church in the middle of the woods,
“So this is the shrine dedicated to Stesia.”, I muttered while putting away the map. The building looked rarely used, shaped like a normal building with a triangle shaped roof, the leaves swayed in the air quietly while the crimson sun shone through the trees. It had been roughly 20 minutes since the exam started and me and Sara had decided to gather enough stones for one person and headed straight here for the insta-pass stone, which me and the two geniuses fought for.
“Are you sure it’s here……?”, asked Sara, a bit hesitant to approach the forlorn looking shrine. I paused as I approached the place.
“Stesia was the Goddess responsible for leading the other gods and goddesses into stopping the dragon from devouring the sun, at least that’s what the fairy tail said. The fanboy mentioned it, without any reason to, except if he was dropping a hint.”, I said, acting on my instinct and logic at the same time. And it seems I was right, From the depths of the shrine, I saw a silhouette dragging two more silhouettes outside, it was Rina.
She came out of the shrine with an expectant smile, dragging two other kids she put into sleep, presumably of her own magic.
“Oh, you’re finally here, don’t mind me, I was just silencing any possible interruptions, honestly, I wanted to see what the son of Eines was like, but it seems like maidy over there is the one who wants to tangle with me.”, she said as she put the two kids and laid them over the outer wall of the shrine.
She stood up and looked at Sara beside me who was raring to go, I looked at her in absolute faith and gave raised my fist in front of her, she looked at it with a face of confusion,
“It’s called a fist bump, it’s a sign of good luck.”, I said as I gave Sara a wink.
She slowly smiled before awkwardly bumping her fist into mine, “You better not lose.”, she said teasingly.
I chuckled before walking up and past Rina who didn’t bother stopping me as I went inside, knowing my real opponent was waiting inside,
As I walked inside, Rom waited for me, sitting on the platform where the pedestal with statue of Stesia was placed, I looked over the interior of the shrine, the small chapel was smaller than expected and could only fit 6 wooden benches along the aisle which led the the back where Rom and the statue waited.
His blonde hair reflected the orange sunlight as I heard the sounds of a magic duel behind me. He stood up and bowed lightly in respect,
“I’m glad we could have a competition like this. You see, I’ve never really seen eye to eye with the other kids my age, and they probably didn’t see eye to eye with me either. But you were a lot different, behind your eyes, I could see something different akin to hope yet regret. That’s why I wanted to see what kind of person you really are and what kind of experiences you’ve had. Rina probably felt the same because she only talked to me because I brought the topic of you up.”, Rom said, with a hopeful look. The words he let out definitely did not befit a child. Something deeper spoke to me about him and Rina, it was as if……. no, it couldn’t be. Right?
I sighed as I looked at him, “Unfortunately, I’m less interesting than you think, I just think a bit different compared to the others, in the end I’m just a fool who wanted a second try.”, I said, not even processing the conversation I had with this person as it went by.
“Hm, is that how it is? You really are interesting huh. Well, Rina and Sara are probably out there tangling it out so let’s just drop the conversation here yeah?”, he said as he raised up his wooden sword against me.
“Hah! You’re right, in the end it’s just a competition yeah?”, I said, amused at how our little contest ended up in an pseudo existential conversation. I drew up my wooden knives, facing the bo- no, person in front of me. Silence and focus covering the both of us.
3…..
He took up his stance.
2…..
I gripped my knives.
and 1.
The window shattered.
Shards of glass flew everywhere as I saw a figure ran up to me through the window from the side, and before I knew it, I was already on the floor, looking on top of me was a figure who had a grip on the collar of my shirt, before even beginning to wonder what had happened, a shock of pain ran throughout my face, it was then that I realized that I was hit.
“Damn you, damn you, damn you!”, shouted the boy who I recognized with the crop cut hair, he withdrew his right fist which which he had used to punch me, pain ran out through my body as he brought his fist down again on my defenseless face.
“It’s all your family’s fault! DAMN YOU!”, he shouted before hitting me again at full force, hatred shone in his eyes as the veins on his face showed, revealing his stress before punching me furiously.
Pain rang throughout my whole face as the guy relentlessly tried smashing my face in rage, it hurt. It hurt. It hurt. Every blow he shoved that focused only on my face released a shock of pain that rang throughout all my body.
. At that point, I had already been in too much pain to shove him away, but more importantly at what he had just said.
“Oi, what are you doing?!”, shouted Rom in both confusion and anger at the sudden assault of the kid that Rina shamed in front of a crowd earlier.
I vaguely heard footsteps from the outside as the pain got even worse, I could feel blood trickling down my noise and every second of keeping my eye open made me feel as if someone was injecting my eyelid all together. To my side, I saw the floor and a bunch of footsteps approach me from Rom, Rina and Sara.
“Elis?!”, shouted Sara who tried to raise her hand, channeling mana into magic, ready to impale the kid on top of me with icicles. At that sight, I shouted,
“All of you, stand down! ”, I shouted in both anger and frustration, not at my current situation as to what this kid was beating me up about.
“Elis, I-”, Sara retorted in confusion as to why I was stopping her.
“That’s an order, stand down!”, I shouted even louder, immediately stopping the three who tried to help me.
Shouting felt like someone was tearing me up from the inside, but I didn’t care, I had to know why this kid mentioned my family, I looked at him and his hate filled eyes, with only the desire to see me suffer.
“Oi, what the hell did you just say about my family.”, I said to him whose eyes seemed to spark even more in anger and frustration.
“Don’tcha play dumb, we know about that scum of a paladin! If it weren’t for him….. If it weren’t for him…..!”, he shouted while his fists trembled in frustration and indignation.
I looked at him once more, seeing the kind of reaction this kid had, I was filled with confusion, but most importantly, a sense of duty.
“What did my father do?”, I asked, no- not asked, interrogated. I looked at him in the eye, forcing him to tell me what I wanted to know, ignoring the pain that screamed all throughout my body.
“You’re father treated my family like garbage! Don’t think we’ll forget, don’t ya dare think we'll forget! Just because you’re some elite family, don’t ya think that we would forget everything my family had experienced! Not only for us, but for the families you used as slaves and threw away, I’LL KILL YOU!”, shouted the boy, completely losing his mind before raising both his fists,
“STOP!”, shouted Sara and Rina as Rom tried to intervene between this kid’s fury and my face. I knew he wouldn’t make it, knowing that, I braced myself for the worst as he brought down his fists.
“AAAHH-”, he shouted in anger as he brought down his two arms, I closed my eyes in reflex at the blow that probably would have knocked me out.
But…..it didn’’t.
I slowly opened my eyes to hear a body hit the floor beside me, I glanced over to the boy who was consumed by insanity, only to see him lying on the floor. But what struck me the most wasn’t the fact that he stopped, it was the fact that he was dead.
An ominous black dart protruded from his neck, from where a few veins inflated, cleanly killing the boy as a purple substance leaked from his mortal wound.
Somehow, a voice of disbelief was able to come out from my mouth which I thought was already paralyzed from pain and fear.
“What……?”, I looked over to the entrance of the shrine where I saw her. Like an angel of death, she appeared there with clean white hair, wearing a night black dress which reflected the purple and blue moonlight and holding a black crossbow in her right hand, she looked at the four of us, devoid of any emotion. Yet behind her eyes which stared at mine, I learned what it felt like to be prey. And at that moment, I, Rom, Rina and Sara knew, that we were all being hunted.