65. The reward

My eyes wandered on the colored pills, vials, and varied items that lay on the table. The old instructor Claire Li had just beckoned us and waved to the rewards, inviting us to choose one.

“Congratulations! You two are among the first twenty trainees to finish the race,” she had said smilingly. “Please hurry up and make a good choice.”

I had no idea what to take. Since telekinesis used mostly orange crystal particles, an orange pill would be the normal choice. But, according to Azritz, my power also used a significant amount of purple crystal. Standing to my left, Noah was asking the assistant sitting at the table which pill was the most expensive one. That guy… Was he intending to sell it? To my right, Linah was hesitating between a white pill and a purple one. As I watched her bite her upper lip, I remembered her response and our conversation just now…

“Oh, sorry for the water, Lil Witch!” I had said.

“Nah, thanks, it cooled me off.” Her face was dripping. “But, Straw Head, I didn’t know you didn’t like my Cheetah nickname.”

“Eeeh? Don’t get me wrong. I do like Erma. But I like Linah, too. And I’m confused, because I can call you Erma and feel just fine, like it’s no big deal, yet I’m too embarrassed to call you Linah, and I wonder why.”

Before my honest confession, Linah’s lips slightly quivered upward.

“Huh… Embarrassed, you say? Isn’t it rather because it doesn’t feel natural for you to call me Linah?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“… So you’re asking me to help you overcome your embarrassment, I see… You do realize you’re just making the whole thing more embarrassing, don’t you?”

“Am I?!”

At that moment, she did smile for a fraction of a second. She cleared her throat then shook her head.

“Forget it. I mean, your wish is not a wish, since what you’re asking for only depends on yourself. So ask something else. Also, ya know, I prefer that you keep calling me Erma or Lil Witch. We, Zeeta, you and I, are Cheetahs, after all, aren’t we?”

Her words blew my mind. It hadn’t occurred to me that she would think of her nickname as a way of strengthening our ties. And there I had been thinking since Christmas that I should call her by her true name but… exactly what was a true name? The one we felt more attachment to, perhaps? But Linah seemed to value her nicknames as much as her official name, if not more. Somehow, that made me happy.

“I’ll take the white pill,” Linah said, finally making up her mind before the table of rewards. “What about you, Straw Head?”

Snapping back to the present, I looked at her white pill with curiosity.

“Why white? What do you want it for?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“It’s not.”

“… O-Okay. White pills are full of qi. They’re usually less expensive than other kinds of pills but… I can’t really improve my warping any more than I already do, so I’ll just absorb this pill’s qi and make it circulate into my body. You know, to widen my meridians and make them more efficient. It’s a basic technique to improve hardening, balance, and the like. Essential to Peacemakers, but also to Rescuers,” she pointed out with a wink.

So the energy of the pills was meant to be absorbed, huh. I turned to the table. There was only one white pill left. I hesitated. White energy was the base of lifeforce. What if my core mistook it for lifeforce and absorbed it automatically? Would I lose control? Would my core be damaged? I’d rather not test it. As I interested myself in the vials, Linah added:

“Just so you know, those are crystal solutions. They’re of poorer quality.”

“Oh… Thanks for the warning.”

“No prob. Well, I’ll go absorb the pill like the others—Holy Witches,” she then gasped as she looked at the dozen trainees sitting on the grass. I recognized Dragan and Gorka Soulberg, deeply concentrated, as well as Lei and Axel, the dryad, Charles-Ping, Aishah, and… Arkifa? Linah snorted. “That girl finished before us? Hoho…? Not bad. Maybe I should try buying her badge, after all.” Her hands on her hips, she bent over my classmate insisting: “What do you want? Let me see… How about a position in the Sunclaw corps? I could talk to my father. What do you say?”

“Give it up,” Arkifa said quietly, opening her purple eyes. “I already gave my badge to someone else.”

What? Arkifa had given her badge to someone? Odd. I could hardly imagine her following orders, let alone orders given by a stranger. But then… had she been coerced into giving it? Gosh, what about my promise to Ashooka to protect his girlfriend? I clenched my fist. Who…?

“I can still bargain. Who might this profiteer be?” Linah asked.

Arkifa slowly moved a finger to the tall tree-like girl sitting next to her.

“Alysha Piaget from Amazonia.”

The dryad?! My gaze fastened on the greenish, beautiful face of Arkifa’s “boss”; I met her stony eyes and got entranced by them.

“I don’t sell my subordinates.” The dryad’s voice sounded weird, as if engulfed in the murmur of a babbling brook.

Linah held her gaze for a moment, then shrugged and smirked.

“Too bad.”

“Don’t look so alarmed, Armen,” Arkifa commented, amused. “Alysha is from a family of Explorers. And she wants to become one, too. That’s why I decided to follow her. I think it’ll be worth it.”

When she shut her eyes to focus again on absorbing the energy of her pill, I could read, on her face, the satisfaction she felt from her decision. After all, she had just met someone who shared her dream of becoming an Explorer. I grinned under my mask. When Arkifa was dead set on doing something, she wouldn’t let it go. That was a side of her I really liked and respected. I glanced at the dryad, whose attention had gone back to her pill, and wondered what kind of person she was. She’d better not cause trouble for her new subordinate.

Or you’ll arouse the wrath of Ashooka and mine.

After a thoughtful look at the two girls, Linah sat down and swallowed down her pill. I turned my attention back to the table full of rewards. Noah had chosen a cyan pill. Two other trainees passed and chose their pills, then Nina came, used her die, and took the only red pill that was left. She looked up at me with curiosity.

“Aren’t you going to take anything?”

The assistant sitting at the table drummed her fingers impatiently, as if my slowness was beginning to get on her nerves. Ah…

I glanced at the three pills that were left: a yellow one, a green one, and a blue one. Wait, what? They had already taken all the orange ones? Geez… What should I do? If there had been a black pill, I would have taken it for Ray, but there wasn’t any on the table. Maybe the first trainees had already taken them? Or maybe there weren’t any in the first place? As far as I knew, powers based on dark energy were rather uncommon. As for the pills left… They wouldn’t be of any use for Zeeta. I considered asking Nina to lend me her die, but letting luck decide for me so blatantly wasn’t exactly my style.

“Ah… Excuse me. What are those?” I asked the impatient girl in charge.

I waved at the three items at the end of the table. Instead of the assistant’s response, I got a sharp:

“You will never make a good Rescuer if you keep hesitating like that, young man.”

I winced and half turned as the Soft Queen stopped beside me. She was as tall as me, and her eyes looked so cold… She pointed briskly at each item, explaining:

“This is a map of a treasure hidden in this island.”

“What?!” Lei exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “A treasure! I want it!”

“Lei Sunclaw, you already chose a pill. Also, please remember those rewards are not as good as a pill or even a vial: they’re just cheap prices for Indie trainees that came last,” Angela Lasri replied. And she went on: “This is a book about special mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?” Nina murmured, obviously intrigued.

As for Linah, she turned her head to us, vividly interested.

“Mushrooms! What kind of mushrooms, ma’am?”

“I obviously don’t waste my time reading such books.” The instructor pointed at the third and last item. “This is a compass whose needle is attracted by white energy—qi, for instance. Its reach is short, so it’s mainly used by beginners to help make sure they’re cultivating their qi the right way.”

The tone she used to detail it betrayed her utter contempt toward such a cheap junk meant for dumb students. I couldn’t help but feel a keen thrill of sympathy for the compass.

“The treasure…” someone whispered to my ear.

I bolted and turned to Lei.

“Woah, don’t creep up on me like that!”

The Sunclaw smiled innocently, repeating:

“The treasure map. The treasure map. The treasure map. The—”

“I heard you.”

“But you haven’t taken it yet. Repetition is an awesome weapon of tortur—I mean, persuasion. Do you even know how great treasures are? You’ll regret it if you don’t take it, Armwan Zun. Take the treasure map, come on… Take it or leave it, but make up your mind now. Don’t think about it more than you need, man. It’ll be the best adventure ever. And you’ll be able to impress your master,” he added in a whisper. His eyes glinted as he murmured: “The treasure map.”

Was he a demon?! I squinted my eyes in a smiling, annoyed expression.

“Isn’t that psychological abuse or something? I already have my personal bully, thanks,” I said, pointing a thumb toward Noah—the crimson-haired perv was admiring his cyan pill some meters away and didn’t look like he would swallow it any soon. I rolled my eyes. “Also, I know you don’t care, but my name’s Armen Moon,” I added.

Lei blinked then grinned.

“I knew it, but when I call you Armwan, I feel just fine, like it’s no big deal, yet I’m too embarrassed to call you Armen, I wonder why.”

His copycatting caught me off guard. Despite myself, I chuckled.

“You bastard.”

“Now that we’re friends, I’ll let you have fifty percent of the treasure.”

“Why would I even share with you? I’d rather take the compass… or the mushroom book.”

I said that looking at Linah and saw her face light up. I didn’t know she was fond of mushrooms. Well, being from a family of witches, such a hobby was only natural, right? Should I take the book for her, then? I was reaching out to it when I caught glimpse of Oliver Picasso, the boy with the helmet, lowering demoralized eyes to the ground. I stopped dead.

“Oliver? What’s the matter?”

The boy shook his head.

“I-It’s nothing. I just wish I had been faster. I wanted a red pill. My parents say only red pills will be able to help me control my telepathy. Red energy can be used to impose conditions, after all. But… red pills are rare and too expensive. I guess I’ll just have to try harder!”

His big smile quivered but showed determination. Not knowing what to say, I was going to simply encourage him, when, without a warning, Nina stepped forward, took the boy’s hand, and put her red pill in his palm; then she turned and took the mushroom book. Oliver’s jaw dropped.

“W-W-Why?! I can’t accept it! I don’t even know your name!”

Hugging the book, Nina turned her head with an imperceptible, satisfied smile.

“It’s Nina. Nina Clover. Your thoughts were too loud and honest, that’s all. Use it well.”

She walked away with a light step. Did her luck push her to act like that or did she empathize with the poor boy—or did she just prefer the book to the pill? Who knows. Anyway, I was shocked to see that all the pills had disappeared and that the vials were being taken away quickly by the trainees. Suddenly thinking that I would end up with nothing if I continued to space out, I grabbed the compass with my telekinesis and caught it with my hand in a hurry.

I peered at the object. It didn’t look exactly new. Maybe some instructor had used the training to get rid of his old things? There was an inscription around the disk, but I couldn’t read it. As for the needle, it was turning a bit randomly in every direction… except mine.

“Let me see,” Lei said, peeking. “Oh, oh, how interesting. The needle is pointing at me. Ma’am!” he cried out to the Soft Queen that was supervising the arrival of the trainees. “Shouldn’t this compass be pointing at the one who holds it? That’s weird! Is it broken?!” A mischievous gleam shone in Lei’s eyes as he added in a whisper: “That’s what you get for not taking the treasure map, little zombie.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was he trying to reveal I was an undead in front of everyone?!

Feigning innocence, Lei devoted his attention to a huge trainee who had just taken the treasure map. The Soft Queen seemed to be completely ignoring us. Nevertheless… my core was beating faster. I was panicked and seriously annoyed at Lei. Should I punch him? Should I do it? But I was supposed not to touch anyone. I had promised Ray I wouldn’t. Besides, the instructors wouldn’t appreciate.

Still, I was pissed off.

And afraid.

What if someone noticed the weird behavior of the compass? Would they think it was broken? Would it occur to them that I was the problem?

At that instant, I remembered the Cheetah leader’s words: ‘When you think you’ve got no chance to control a difficult situation: run away, my boys.’

Shoving my reward into my pockets, I ran away downhill toward a forest of cactuses.

I just wanted to be alone for a moment. Away from the humans. Away from their lifeforce. Away from my doom.

* * *

“Damned spongy trap,” Sergei Bassala groaned. “To think we’ve got stuck so early in the race. It’s been almost an hour now! How long are we supposed to wait until they help us out?”

“Will they even come,” Zeeta sighed.

His tall teammate grimaced.

“Don’t be like that. We’re trainees, after all.”

“You mean, Indie trainees.”

“Whatever. Indie trainees are not usually anybody either.”

“… Hmm, I am a nobody, though.” Zeeta looked at the blue sky. It was so hot today… He looked around at the cactuses then down at their feet trapped in an earth-colored substance. He wondered how the Straw Head was doing. Linah had surely long reached the goal.

“… Huh…” Sergei scratched his head. “You are a nobody, you say? Really? Oh! Could it be you’re a nobodist ascetic?”

Zeeta cast his teammate a bored glance. What did a nobodist even mean? He shrugged. Sergei smiled.

“Ah! How interesting. I heard nobodists are really good at understanding the mysteries of the world. Their motto is something like ‘because I am Nobody, I am Everything’ or something like that? No, wait, I remember: ‘Nothing exists in the emptiness, so Nothing is the strongest’. Do I remember it right?”

“Huh…”

“Nice! I’ve always wanted to meet a nobodist! I’m a crystal psychist, by the way. I believe that everything we do, everything we think, is due to the crystals that compose us. We’re creatures created and ruled by Crystals, not by thinking gods, but by dead matter. Yeah, I’m a bit of a heretic. My family says I’m a weirdo, but am I really?”

You are, Zeeta thought, and let out casually:

“If everything is determined by the crystals that compose us, shouldn’t it be impossible to change our minds?”

“Crystals are chaotic. You may breathe in crystals and think in a particular way, then breathe in again and change your thoughts.”

“Bullshit. Why accuse the crystals when you can accuse the brain?”

Sergei laughed.

“But brains are made of crystals!”

Zeeta stared at him, amazed. Did he seriously believe that?

“… Ah, is that so. How wonderful.”

“RIGHT?!”

Why on earth did he end up pairing up with such a weirdo? Ah, well, but Armen did say it was fine to be a weirdo. Zeeta rubbed his neck. Maybe he should just tolerate that crystal psychist guy. His way of thinking was kind of fun, too.

“Anyway,” Sergei said. “I can’t believe there were so many traps in this forest. Did they set them up or are they all natural ones? Such an odd place to have a race. Do they think we’ve all been trained like robowarriors? It’s crazy. You think so, too, Leon? Not all the Heroes need to bulk up and sprint like maniacs. Life would be boring if everyone did.”

He sure talked a lot. Zeeta yawned.

“My bet is that our crystal brains made us fall into the trap so we could say: if we losers didn’t lose the race, nobody could have won it either.”

Sergei huffed, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

“As expected of a nobodist! You’ll serve lady Cesarine too, won’t you? That’s nice! I think we’ll get along famously.”

He gave Zeeta a brotherly nudge on the shoulder. That guy…

“Sorry, I’m not interested in making new friends.”

It just slipped out. All things considered, he was not ready to act friendly around strangers. It was too much stress…

“Hahaha!” Zeeta twitched as his teammate burst out laughing. “I should have guessed! You’re really a nobodist, after all! I like you!”

“…!” Geez… Did that Crystal Brain just breathe in a puff of irrational energies or something?

So annoying.