Chapter 71：A Daughter Of A Wealthy Family (2/2)

”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.”