Chapter 66: Ready

Milo dug at the ground.

Dirt crammed beneath his nails as he struggled to lift the patch of grass.

"I don’t think there’s anything in here!"

The shout came from the right, obviously not aimed at him. He snapped his head toward it anyway.

Following the first section of the exam, students had been given twenty minutes’ rest without knowing what kind of task they would face next.

As a result, it had not been much of a rest.

Everyone had kept their bodies tight just in case the engines roared again.

But what roared now were the students’ throats. Milo slammed the ground with his fist and straightened to move on to another stretch.

While he was somewhat proficient at searching through wreckage, he had not in a million years thought he would be ordered to dig up buried omens.

What clues even were there?

"S-Share?" A stutter addressed him from behind. "I’m Tod."

Whoever found the omens would receive a relic consecrated from them for their own use. Some formed teams, and some worked alone.

Ignoring the request, Milo ran to another hill. There was not much time left. Sharing this late was a loser’s move.

He frantically clawed at the slope in the hopes that an omen would shine through the dirt and be his to find, just like the golden gun from Henry’s trip.

"Shit!"

He slammed the ground again, the scratches along his knuckles starting to itch.

A trio of students slid off the hill and rushed past him, omens in each of their hands.

Maybe he should have gone along with a team after all. A Plague relic could secure him a phone if he sold it, or bring him a step closer to acquiring something like Breath Rend if he ate it.

Yet he kept trying.

The instructors surely had not concentrated all of the omens near the center. Even if most were, there was a good chance of some being buried at the edges, free for him alone to take while everyone competed in the middle.

So he jogged past even the farthest groups. The gravel rattled and his feet stung with each landing.

Though looking for unnatural dents in the ground had not proven fruitful, it was the only method he had. Ollie had joined Rosaline and others too quickly. Layla had stuck to her class the whole time, and the Survey students were deducing the locations like no other.

This was frankly not how it was supposed to go.

If each type excelled at its own examination and overshadowed Milo’s performance, he might end up thoroughly average, with the failure of his Studies exam still steering him into some clerk role.

His fingers scratched at something harder than the earth.

On his second excavation at the edge, his palm came up with a gray amber crystal.

He squeezed it tightly.

"Finally..."

Not wasting any more time, he rushed to the third candidate.

Nothing.

Fourth.

Nothing.

Fifth... something hard!

Dirt packed the space beneath his nails to the full as he dug out his second omen.

SCREEEECH!

It was over. The whistle called everyone back.

Students lined up in five parallel rows and, one by one, presented their findings to the instructors.

"...No? You told me it was an even split."

"Yeah, but you only joined before we got the third!"

"Wait, what about me?"

However that ended, there would be one winner and a couple of losers—or a whole group with thoroughly average scores.

It would be quite funny if he managed to climb to the top despite not sticking to the stuffed center.

"Please present your findings."

When his turn came, he showed the omens in his palms.

The instructor nodded and recorded the number. Milo tipped the ambers into the basket and moved on.

"Ah, here you are!" Layla waved. "Out of the queue already?"

"How did you do?"

"I ended up with seven omens myself. What about you?"

"S-Seven...?" His shoulders slumped at the number. "That’s quite a lot..."

"Not really, don’t give me so much credit."

"Much more than me."

"I had help from my class and all."

"Much... more..."

"But we split them evenly." The girl took notice of the dirt underneath his nails and the scratches along his knuckles. "So, how many did you manage?"

Only as she looked to his hands did he look at hers.

"How? How?!" Milo pointed at her soft, completely unbothered palms, every bit as clean as her white coat. "Isn’t that coat cotton? White cotton. How do you even...?"

"A Survey student’s mystery." She pressed a finger over her smirk. "Now, how many did you manage? Or should we worry about washing your hands first?"

After arguing that he was indeed autonomous enough to take care of the dirt, he revealed his score of two omens.

Layla’s brows shot up.

Evidently, she had expected him to find nothing.

"No, that’s not bad at all! You’re Studies, Milo!"

Following her gaze over to the queue, he watched student after student reach the instructors with nothing to tip into the basket. He had to admit, her reassurance logic was spot on.

The Survey examination ended there, and students were allowed to head home to rest and prepare for Field.

Tuesday had challenged them with a sheet of paper. Thursday had brought on a tornado. The trend did not appear particularly bright.

Deciding not to wait for his class to regroup, as he had not been searching with them in the first place, he clung to the pink coils on his way to the capsule.

"We rest and we anticipate," Layla said. "We eat, too."

"Sit on our asses and read about martial arts?"

"Exactly."

With how exhausting the Survey exam had been, no one would dare physically train for Field.

Anyone showing up tired had already lost.

...

On Saturday morning, Milo awoke early.

Not long after, he was kneeling down in the park, observing a bee fly from one violet flower to another.

"...Are those petunias? Hm."

He was not a flower specialist, but they did look quite violet and quite beautiful.

Once the bee had moved on from the flower that struck him as the best, he plucked it by the stem and spun it once between his fingers.

"Hmm..."

His lips pressed together. He had nowhere soft to keep it.

"Hang in there."

Gently, he slid it into a pocket and zipped it away.

"Ugh... this must look so pathetic."

Whether Layla did well or not, Milo was ready to celebrate any score the girl got, with all he could offer her.

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Let Go (Part 1)" ... ⤵︎ [!]