Wheeze was the archetypal example of a schadenfreude-loving personality. There weren’t many things that delighted it more than making its victims suffer.
To its disappointment though, Cillin was only here to investigate the site, write up a report, and submit it to the team.
The setup of the exam venue was a joint contribution by the exam instructors. Everyone would submit their reports, and the general person-in-charge would select the suitable suggestions and make the necessary arrangements later. It was why no one knew if their idea would be adopted, or which exam it would be used in if it was adopted.
On a related note, not every exam instructor had to submit a recommendation report. It just so happened that Cillin was one of the instructors who was given the assignment. He planned to finish the report and submit it during the next meeting.
This was a simple task for experienced exam instructors. All they needed to do was to refer to their previous recommendation reports and adjust the details accordingly. Unfortunately, Cillin did not have the luxury of experience, so he had to spend more time and energy than his fellow exam instructors to complete the assignment. For example, he had to set foot on the site itself and collect data on its weather, humidity, air pressure, species, geography and so on.
Although that data had already been shared on the exam instructor’s platform, Cillin would rather cut his teeth than diminish the experience for convenience.
The morning of the next day, Cillin returned to the hostel and discovered that it was now packed with people. When he entered his unit, he saw four people eating breakfast and trading gossip around the dining table. They paused to examine Cillin for a brief moment when he stepped through the door. Cillin recognized one of them as the alien who fought a duel on the training ground yesterday. The rest were unfamiliar faces, but they were another alien and two standard humans.
“Good morning, my friend. You were away the whole night, weren’t you? Was it a girl? Not bad at all!” One of they greeted Cillin smilingly.
“I was busy with something,” Cillin replied while dropping a bag of food on the table and unwrapping it to share it with everyone. “Feel free. I’ve already eaten breakfast earlier.”
“Oh, it’s piping hot! Awesome!” A different guy grabbed a pastry and chowed down immediately. He wasn’t bothered by the temperature in the slightest.
They briefly introduced themselves to one another. As it turned out, the two standard humans were of noble status, although they were no upper nobles. It was probably one of the reasons why they weren’t nearly as arrogant or specist as many of the nobles he met.
When Cillin introduced himself, one of them said jokingly, “Hey, you share the same name as the founder of Return! Good for you!”
There were, in fact, a not insignificant amount of people who were called Cillin across the entire Mist Bodhisattva Empire, not to mention that most people had never seen him before. Moreover, many people believed that the founder of Return was an upper noble, so no one here actually thought that Cillin was the real deal. There was also the fact that people tended to pay far more attention to something popular than the person behind said popularity. There were far, far more people who knew about Return but not Cillin.
It was at this moment the sound of a sliding zipper caught everyone’s attention. Wheeze poked its head out of Cillin’s backpack and surveyed the area for a second before leaping onto the table. Tail high, it nabbed a pastry from the plastic bag before leaping onto Cillin’s shoulder and nibbling away at its food. It just woke up from sleep, and it was feeling hungry.
“You have a cat?”
“You brought a pet to the test?”
All four men stared at Cillin in disbelief. This was a chance of a lifetime they were contending with, so they could not imagine anyone—except maybe an extremely attentive woman—bringing a pet with them and splitting their attention. That said, there was no rule that forbade a candidate from bringing their pets, so it was probably fine… right?
Cillin shot Wheeze a glance before replying, “Believe it or not, this fellow’s not as difficult to raise as you think.”
“I can see that. At the very least, it’s not a picky eater,” one guy commented believing that that was what Cillin was referring to.
Seeing no need to clarify the truth, Cillin took his leave and returned to his room. After setting down his backpack on the table, he opened another bag of food for Wheeze to bury its face in before heading to the shower. His clothes were pretty dusty because he had worked at the site for the entire night.
When Cillin emerged from his room once more, he discovered that his roommates had finished eating their breakfast and cleaning up everything. However, they were still seated around the dining table as if they were waiting for him.
“What’s wrong?” Cillin asked.
“Chuck has a date with his fellow shooters at the shooting range, and the three of us are planning to follow and cheer for him. Do you want to come with us?”
Chuck was a standard human. He had a powerful physique, and his reaction speed was superb. His only weakness seemed to be his shy personality, but that was fine, because he transformed into a completely different person when he had a gun in hand. Literally.
This guy has DID, Cillin thought to himself. It wasn’t necessarily a bad trait for a shooter to have though.
“Sure. Give me half a minute,” Cillin responded while returning to his room to put on a new set of clothes.
“No need to rush. There’s still half an hour before the appointed time,” Harvin said in a careless tone. He was the alien who had fought on the open-air training ground.
Wheeze would not be following Cillin this time. It was because it had a “strategy” to discuss with King Kong and the others. He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit of trepidation—whatever the hell they were cooking could not be good—but first, he wasn’t the target of their ire, and second, he saw no reason to interfere in their business. Even the general person-in-charge didn’t bother to control them, so why would he?
The shooting competition would not be taking place at the open-air training ground. There was a separate, large-sized indoor shooting range within the hostel area.
Chuck had reserved a spot at the shooting range the day before for the competition. At least a dozen or so people—they were all people who had chosen shooting for their third test—would be competing in it.
Many of the examinees with noble background had chosen to wear their family badge on their chest to show off their superior status. Only a handful of nobles had opted to keep a low profile, such as the girl who was sitting on a tall stool next to the shooting range.
“Cillin, look! Yvonne is looking at you!” Harvin bumped Cillin with his elbow and said softly.
Although Yvonne wasn’t wearing a badge, it didn’t take long for word about her identity to get out at all. She was the daughter of one of the military giants of the empire, the Nuhatch Family.
If she was just your generic noble, then whatever. A lot of generic nobles were attending the test after all. However, the Nuhatch Family was highly prestigious even among the upper nobility. She could’ve entered AF3 directly if she wanted to, especially since she was at the right age. To many people’s puzzlement though, she had chosen not to take the shortcut and go through the test like most others. It was because she was hoping to join AF2 or AF1.
Most people would choose the safer option, but Yvonne wasn’t just ambitious, her shooting skills were actually good enough to aim for AF2 or AF1. A lot of examinees had found that out with their own bodies. As a result, it was unsurprising that Yvonne wasn’t participating in today’s competition. Her presence would’ve singlehandedly destroyed the spirit of the competition. Some examinees might choose to throw the game either to hide their strength or curry favor with Yvonne. Some might choose to go all out, but there was a chance the action might piss off the young miss and make their life a living hell even if they did manage to enter the affiliated schools. One way or another, it would’ve been a killjoy for everyone.
Unbeknownst to everyone, Yvonne couldn’t care less what most people thought and would’ve joined the competition if her family hadn’t given her a stern warning a while ago. Yesterday, her attempts to investigate Cillin had resulted in her dad scolding her ears off over the phone. Not only did he warn her repeatedly not to cause trouble, he even threatened to throw her into the military for two years if she continued to act as she pleased.
Yvonne would not have been allowed to participate in the selection test if it wasn’t for her grandfather’s support. It was because most of her peers—noble children who were born in a military family such as her older cousin Tousen, Bryce and more—had skipped the selection test to join AF3 directly. After the old general heard of the incident regarding Teita of the Yurong Family though, he changed his mind and began encouraging all of his grandchildren to participate in the selection test. He wanted them to prove to the world that the future generation of the Nuhatch Family was the real deal as well.
Despite her reluctance, Yvonne ultimately chose to heed her father’s warning after weighing the pros and cons. That was why she just stared at Cillin instead of speaking with him. Just like many others, Yvonne only knew about Return but not about its founder. She also didn’t recognize Cillin because wasn’t interested in the matter of academics. Perhaps she would know who he really was if she had paid attention to that AF3 whatchamacallit ranking, but then again, maybe not. After all, her older cousin, Tousen had been pretty famous in AF3 back in his days. It was hardly a special achievement.
However, just because she couldn’t challenge Cillin to a duel doesn’t mean that she couldn’t stare at him until he exposed his own secrets. She wanted to know very much what was so special about this man, and why her father had warned her to stay out of his way again and again.