Humans have this unexplainable desire to see the world burn; a crowd formed around Arthur and the guy who had a nosebleed. He started bellowing at Arthur, who looked at him with an unimpressed stare. He kept throwing profanities at him with a threatening tone. Arthur was ready that the guy would attack him, but some intervened at the last second.
"Enough." The examiner from earlier stepped forward. Her warm appearance from earlier was nowhere to be seen, her eyes as cold as a bottomless frozen lake. "What do you think you two are doing?"
Her tone was far more threatening than the guy from earlier, and he had to stomach done his humiliation and not flare-up. He pointed at Arthur, hand trembling as if he had suffered great injustice from a wild beast.
"This, this person attacked me! For no reason!" His nose was still bleeding, his eyes had tears in them because of the strike to his nose.
"Oh, you're crying? My hand just slipped."
"I'm not crying!"
"Sure, need some tissues? Dos Anyone got some? This guy is a bit sensitive."
"You! I'm not crying!"
The whole scene made a few people snicker, causing another round of bellowing from the guy at the bystanders. The examiner felt a splitting headache at the constant noise and felt she might as well smash his head again for him to shut up.
"Shut up! You," She pointed at Arthur, recognizing him as the calm man from earlier, and asked. "Why did you hit him?" Her tone was more inquisitive than threatening, making Arthur calm his head.
"See this?" Arthur pointed at his clothes, not willing to explain further. He didn't want to look like he was giving excuses, so he made the examiner conjure the rest of the events.
"That's a lie! I didn't do it!" As if a thief caught red-handed, the guy started denying before the examiner asked anything.
It wasn't a matter of what happened anymore, but whom she would hold accountable. She knew the characters of these high-society people, sons, and daughters of heaven with an ego as big as the heavens themselves, making her sound judgment lean on the side of the man with golden-eyes.
However, there was also the matter of whom she 'should' hold accountable. If she wrapped this up with things as they were, she was sure to offend this guy who was squealing like a castrated pig.
He was the son of a known family from another city, his father being the guild-master of a medium-sized guild. The only reason he was here was that she was taking in disciples in the runes path from these examinations she did.
The memory of his constant pursuits of contacting her about his son gave her a headache. He has offered so many resources if she took his son as a disciple, ones she wasn't willing to part with.
Reasoning that he still attacked him nonetheless, despite his reasons, she wanted to give proper punishment to him. She shouted at the bellowing pig to shut up before glaring at Arthur, a stare he didn't like.
"You can't walk around here attacking people. As your examiner, I fail you in your exam." Her words were icy cold, making Arthur's expression turn colder.
"Excuse me," A melodious and crisp voice interrupted Arthur who was about to admonish this self-entitled examiner. It was the girl who has witnessed the whole scene. She stepped in between the three, turning to talk to the examiner.
"I have seen everything, that happened here, I must say it's a bit hasty to declare his failure like this." She paused, turning to Arthur with a smile. "This gentleman here was simply having his meal when he was interrupted and assaulted."
"No one assaulted him!" The pig screamed again.
"I have seen it, many of us did. You attacked him with the tray. Even more, you have provoked him into defending himself using unethical' words."
The vague use of unethical was a bit cheap, as it could be interpreted to many meanings. The examiner, frowning deeply, sighed and gestured for them to stop.
"If that's the case, we'll end this matter here. An eye for an eye, or so they say. If you two want to pass your exam, you need to stop here."
The examiner gave up and turned as if she had just delivered celestial justice. Arthur, unimpressed, stared at her back and engraved her face in his mind for later. He wouldn't do anything against her, but this even gave him the impression he needed.
The guy with a nosebleed left after glaring at Arthur and throwing several threats like a second-rate villain before leaving as well. The crowd dispersed and the girl walked up to him.
"I owe you one, thanks aren't enough," Arthur said, expecting this was what the girl wanted to hear. He was surprised to see her simply chuckle and take something out of her pocket.
"I doubt you have anything that I want," She said as she placed a card on his clothes. The light was emitted from the card and before Arthur realized it, all of his stains were absorbed into the card. His clothes were clean again.
"This, I…" His words stammered at the overwhelming feeling of gratitude. The girl simply smiled and returned the card into her pocket. She started walking away leaving Arthur standing there.
"I guess you're still hungry, no?" The girl turned and smiled.
***
Her name was Emma, the daughter of a wealthy family. That's how she presented herself. If not for her warm attitude, Arthur would have suspected she was boosting. She wasn't, merely stating a fact.
"Why did you intervene, though? I'm sure you offended both the examiner and the pig." Arthur asked.
"The pig? Pfft." Her hand was on her mouth as she laughed, etiquette rarely seen these days. Arthur took notes that this was probably a 'lady' from a noble family.
"I like those who don't take an insult and keep quiet. Not that it's wrong, but bravery wasn't always the smartest move. And in your situation, I must say…" She paused, grinning so brightly that Arthur felt like he needed to close his eyes. "You did more than 'not keeping quiet.' I had to stop myself from laughing out loud at that time."
"Oh," Arthur felt stumped for words, looking for them like one would look for a missing sock. Just like the case with a missing sock, he never found the words.
"Don't feel obliged to return the favor," She read his mind. "I doubt they can do anything against me. I'm from a wealthy family, remember?"
When people said they were from a wealthy family, others would think they were arrogant. Yet, when Emma said it with her nonchalant attitude, it was a refreshing feeling of honesty that was pure of arrogance.
Arthur laughed and nodded; the rest of the conversation was soon taken over by her. She talked and talked, about anything and everything. She didn't gossip about people, but she criticized behaviors. She didn't worship idols, but she admired certain deeds. Within half an hour, Emma talked about so many things that Arthur never thought of before.
"What lies behind the gates? What kind of world is there?" She said with the dreamy eyes Arthur had when he was a kid, but she was unafraid to show them.
The time for their practical test was here. They left the cafeteria and headed the examination hall. When they gathered, Emma sat next to him, drawing more than one stare from everyone. They were then taken to a bigger hall where everyone was given five hours to inscribe a rune. It was a challenging task, but they were given the liberty to choose any rune they wanted.
Arthur had to pretend he was inscribing runes even if he failed to, making it looked like he was doing his best. He was inscribing the Compress rune to draw fewer suspicions. He wanted to be a genius, not a monster.
While they were taking the test, in a different room, the examiner was grading their papers. While she went through them, another runemaster came over.
"Hey Julia, how is this batch? Anyone good enough to be a seeded participant?"
"I have two in this batch, but the rest aren't that good. There's even one who barely wrote anything."
"Really? That's unusual… Where's his paper?" The colleague asked curiously, weirded by the fact that someone was messing around. Without thinking, Julia shuffled the papers until she found the empty one. It wasn't that hard to filter out since it was so unique.
Taking the paper, her colleague started reading through it. To be honest, Julia didn't read it yet. She was so disappointed by him that she threw his paper on the table as soon she looked at it.
"He really wrote nothing. Only…" Her colleague's reaction was similar to his. Julia kept grading the papers when she noticed the unusual quietness. She turned around and found him placing his hands on the table, the paper in front of him.
"What's wrong?"
He didn't answer.
"Hey!" She nudged, making him finally come to his senses.
"Oh, nothing. It's just…" His words made her suspect something was going on. She waited for him patiently to answer, giving him the time to chew on his words.
"I don't remember an examinee identifying all of the runes correctly before."