.
.
Rudy was nervous.
Even though he had been rather confident that he could pass the 2nd Procurement Division's examination with flying colours, he couldn't help but to get nervous now that he's closing in on the admin cabin.
"Whoa, I really can't wrap my head around the fact that you chose the 2nd Division Rud!"
A different friend from last time suddenly commented.
"Haha, yeah, just trying to learn more before readying myself for the 4th." He replied politely.
"I knew it, talented people are different!"
Being one of the strongest trainees and a through-and-through good guy in the others' eyes, Rudy was the rather sociable type and had many friends here and there.
Even here, where he's going to take the 2nd Division exam, he had realized that the other trainees in his generation that would also be taking the same exam were all his friends that he had communicated with at one time or another.
Including him, the numbers amounted to 8 people altogether.
'The Procurements exam allowed us to borrow any equipment from the 2nd Division's storage facility... But if I can complete the test using just the standard ones given for the 4th Division's exam, maybe I could convince father to help me transfer!'
Although he'd said that he's here to learn, Rudy still hadn't given up hope on the direct transfer to the 4th Conquest Division. Which he'd planned on requesting his father for upon achieving outstanding enough result in this exam.
But just as he and his group of friends were about to reach and enter the administration cabin's entrance, they were suddenly blocked off by one of the 2nd Division Rangers inside.
"Sorry kids, the briefing is on hold until we're finished, please wait out here for a while!"
*murmurs* *murmurs*
Hearing this announcement, the batch of trainees started talking and whispering with each other, trying to guess the reason for the delayed exam. Rudy who saw the scene of his friend gossiping around behind him felt speechless.
'Couldn't you guys just ask the Ranger here for the reason.'
Not wanting to busy himself with advice, he looked towards the Ranger who had announced the delay and asked,
"Is there any problems sir? Will it be delayed until noon?"
"No, not a problem. Just that the people inside were viewing the content of the test on the monitor currently, so we can't really let you in at this moment. Won't be long though, I think it's about to end."
"Wait here a bit, you hear?" The Ranger warned them once more before also going back in and closing the large cabin gate on his way.
*SLAM*
'Viewing the content? Are they discussing any rule change?' Rudy felt somewhat restless, he thought that them viewing the content of the test meant that they were discussing if there should be any changes.
'I hope they don't change the basic equipment rules, otherwise it might mess with my...'
.
.
"You've hold them off?" One staff asked.
"Yeah, I told them that we're currently viewing the test content on the monitor." The Ranger who had blocked off the batch of trainees outside replied.
"Okay." The staff nodded in response.
"But man, instigating a dispute... Talk about high-profile!"
"Yeah, I wanted to ask though, wouldn't this affect the animals community in the area in some way?" Another Ranger raised the question to the staff.
"No, I've checked. The last scuffle that these two species had was around a year ago in the record. So at least his action this time shouldn't cause anything major to the environment." He shook his head and turned to Scarface at the side.
*nod*
"I'm guessing he also knew this since the records are all accessible through the tablet... He's considerate enough towards our jobs at least, so far his actions hadn't caused any lasting damage to the environment." Scarface replied.
"But isn't this still against our way of practice in the end? He IS riling up the locals with his act, one wrong move and it'll go way beyond his control."
"It is risky. But whether or not this goes against our code..." Scarface paused for a bit, "Well, let's just say that preserving the environment doesn't simply mean completely letting nature take its course."
"?" The staff showed a confused look at the chief.
"What, you don't know?" Fortunately, one Ranger amongst the crowd who stood rather close to him cleared his confusion,
"2-star rank or higher officers are sometimes commissioned to handle the overpopulation of certain species in the area..." He explained.
"And if the overpopulation is happening to the apex predators within, then our usual way of handling it is also to do the same thing he's currently doing. It's efficient after all."
*gulp*
The staff was truly surprised, he had never been on the job of handling commissions and duties for Rangers before, so his knowledge on that field was still quite lacking.
"Shush, continue watching, he's about to make his move I think..." Scarface quickly drew the two's attention back to the monitor.
.
Inside the screen, Claude who had been hiding and watching the brawl between the two species all this time, began to take a stance when he saw that the smilodon and some of the dire wolves started getting tired and turning sluggish in their movements.
He pulled out one of the shock spear on his back and waited with its tip pointed forward.
Shortly after, one of the dire wolves was clutched at the neck and thrown back by the biting jaw of the smilodon, hitting the tree beside Claude.
Without any hesitation, Claude grasped this chance as he rushed up a step and thrust the vibrating tip of his spear into the wolf's open wound on its neck.
*STAB*
The natural bodily reaction of the wolf as it was stabbed showed that Claude hadn't used the electric shock of the spear in that instance. And although there's a little resistance at the end, the thrusting spear still managed to pierce through the beast to come out on the other side of the wolf's neck.
*splat*
As if feeling the expected feedback, the Claude on the screen pulled out his spear just as quickly and move on to circle the periphery of the scuffle to find another well-positioned hiding place.
The leftover corpse of his hunt was left in place, with none of his other comrades in the pack noticing that it had been ambushed and killed in one swift strike.
.
The next time Claude made his move was when he was positioned behind the smilodon's back.
At this time, both sides had already been rather heavily injured with scratches and bite marks visible all across their bodies and furs. The smilodon particularly was even trying hard just to stand up.
The result of being ganged up by a group of beasts lesser than him.
This time, Claude hadn't waited for his prey to reach his range. When he saw that the wolves were about to launch their next round of attacks, he matched his timing with them and threw his other spear like a javelin towards the open wound of the pushed back smilodon.
Helped by the momentum of the pushing wolves, the force of the spear was just enough to lodged itself onto the smilodon's body, though it didn't succeed in going all the way through.
The distance between Claude and the smilodon was very close, so actually, the strength of the thrown spear hadn't decreased by much.
It just showed how much tougher the body of a full fledged Grade-1 beast was.
Not wanting to waste his sacrificed stealth at this point, Claude jumped out off the bushes immediately after and aimed his kick towards the butt of the thrown spear to lodge it further inside the smilodon's body.
*CRUNCH*
As the kick went through, he could hear a loud crunch of what was presumably a broken ribcage resounded from within the body.
*GRAAAWWR*
It roared with pain and anger from the ambush and tried to turn around to attack the perpetrator. Unfortunately, Claude was faster in twisting a certain section of the lodged shock spear with his left hand.
*BZZZZT*
The over 5000 volts of electricity was released in time. Causing the already severely injured giant cat in front of him to twitch and get jolted all around for more than a second.
When he pulled the spear out, what's left of the smilodon was just its lifeless wounded body lying on the ground.
*ssshhhh*
The after sound of a searing flesh echoed outwardly.
Throughout all this, the dire wolves who had been attacking relentlessly had all taken a step back, cautiously assessing the situation. Not wanting to charge in recklessly.
On the screen, After making sure that the smilodon was truly dead, Claude stood up straight in front of the group of wolves that only had four of its members left with his spear stabbed to the ground.
Both sides stood still staring at each other for a couple seconds before the wolves turned around and left in a hurry one-by-one.
.
"Intimidation?" Rita guessed what that moment was.
"Yes. And they're right to retreat... I don't think he would lose against four half-dead dire wolves." Rex nodded in agreement with her.
"Did you see all those moves...? His combat senses are at a perverse level." She was imagining herself in his situation as she said this.
"From evasion technique and footwork, to the precision of his attacks and timing... Even I can't pull all those feats single-handedly." Rex readily admitted that his skills in combat might not be as good as Claude.
"...How would you have done it?"
"Me? I'd probably just overpower the smilodon in a fight before collecting the rest of the materials one-by-one. The completion time should roughly be similar to this." He answered.
"Right? Me too. But that's only because the both of us are already a long way from being accustomed with our Bio-Contact power..."
"..."
.
Scarface looked at the scene with awe as well. But unlike the very combat-oriented members of the 4th Division, he was more occupied with the recording's time stamp on the lower-right part of the screen.
[04:49:16 PM]
It showed that the time was around five o'clock yesterday afternoon.
'He had already completed all of the materials in the hunting list except for the forest boar ones yesterday... Roughly 25 hours since he started the test after reaching the designated area.'
'25 hours!'
The fastest time ever recorded for the Procurements test was 53 hours, and that was done by a team.
Scarface quickly calmed his nerves before thinking too far ahead,
'Right, he hasn't reached here yet so that means he still hasn't finished, and right now we're already close to 41 hours since his test started.'
"Chief, don't you think it's weird?" The staff beside him asked again.
"Hm? What is?"
"With the result of that battle, he already collected all the hardest materials to collect. How's he still not back yet right now?"
*whispers* *whispers*
The crowded audience were also talking and chatting about either the last battle or why Claude hadn't yet returned by now.
"...Hm, fast forward the recordings again!" Scarface ordered the staff.
"Right!"
.
.
Actually,
The person in question, Claude, was already walking back to Sector-07 and just reached the vicinity of the fence.
He was carrying a giant and heavy-looking gunny sack filled with all kinds of materials and ingredients for the test.
He greeted the guard, which apparently wasn't Gill, and continued forward as he pondered,
'I miscalculated too much in my plan...' He felt frustrated.
'The territorial dispute caused so much more damage than I'd expect a group of 10 animals could cause. By the end of it, although I managed to get the intact 5 pounds of pelt, the skins were full of blemishes and some light charrings because of the fights and the electric burns.'
*sigh*
'And the dismantling was another thing! I thought I could manage with my rudimentary knowledge of it, but it turns out the animals' skins were far too hard for any delicate works to be done... I ended up needing to activate the heat blade and that further damages the cut edges of the skins and bones.'
Claude felt frustrated. In the end, after hunting some common forest boars, he had to spend the rest of the day learning the dismantling technique for these New Era beasts through the tablet to preserve what's left of his amateur works.
'But damn, this tablet even has instructional articles and how-tos. It's like browsing the internet.'
By the end of it, the day had already turned to night again and he didn't wish to go back to Sector-07 in the night, no matter how safe the route that had been briefed to him was.
'No matter, in the end I should be able to pass anyway... And plus, my priority was to finish this before the trainees started theirs.'
Claude kept on walking until he saw the front of the 2nd Division administration cabin in his eyes.
"Oh."
Unexpectedly, he saw someone he didn't expect to meet standing amongst a group of other young people, all of them waiting in front of the closed cabin.
"Hmm."
He slowly approached the group to inquire.
"Good morning." He greeted politely.
Hearing the words directed at them, most of the trainees turned their heads and greeted Claude back, assuming him to be a 2nd Division Ranger that just got back from a mission.
Only Rudy who recognized Claude right away was silent as he confusedly saw his dirty and rather ragged appearance while carrying a variety of Rangers equipment.
"Eh, mister... Claude is it? You're the new citizen that Odette guide from the other day right?" He decided to confirm his memory.
"That's right, and you're Rudy correct?" He asked smilingly.
Rudy nodded in response before moving on to his next question, "That get up, are you... A ranger already? Eh, but Odette said that you lived in the Trainee District?"
"Nope, I'm just finished with my exam."
"Exam... Wait, the 2nd Division exam??"
"Yes."
"But... The last time we met was the day before yesterday..."
"I went for the test the afternoon of that same day."
Rudy was now stunned silent with widened eyes and mouth in surprise.
"Afternoon... But then-- It hasn't even been a full 2 days since then!"
"Yes, I took the exam earlier to avoid being on at the same time with you guys after all, less competitive pressure you know?"
"..."
Seeing that Rudy looked like he wasn't in any condition to respond, Claude turned his head towards another trainee and asked,
"By the way, do you happen to know why the administration cabin is closed?"
"Y-yes it's... Because they're currently reviewing our exam content..." However, Rudy's friend also happened to catch their conversation and was therefore similarly shakened by Claude's result.
"Oh! Alright, then they should be fine with me entering right?" Claude nodded in understanding before finally saying good bye to their group.
"Thanks, good luck on your exam."
"..."
.
*BAM*
Within the cabin, Scarface was pulling some paper documents with Claude's file on it as he stamped it across with a label.
[PASS]
At the same time, the digital file of Claude's information was also updated automatically on his screen:
[
Claude, 2nd Division Ranger, unranked officer.
Bio-Contact: Uninitiated
Merits:
-Record breaker in 'Time' for 2nd Division examination program. [40hr.12m.06s] (as recorded on the person's time stamp from entering to leaving the designated area.)
...
]