2. Village of Malachite

Agatha was still shaken by the recent events. She felt like she had performed adequately on the physical and Agatecraft test, but… the fear of the written one still lingered. Her mother had taught her the letters and how to write, but it was only recently that she actually learned how to write for the very examination. Considering her level was 'just learned to write', taking on the written exam had been a daunting task.

"I will have nightmares for weeks…" She said crestfallen with a half-sob.

The poorly dressed girl weakly trod to the caravan that waited for most lowborn children. There was an exception here and there, but most people had more patches of clothing in their attires than years under their belt. A handful even went barefoot, much to her dismay.

Agatha sighed as she rode one of the many stoneshell wagons. They were slow as death itself, but the shelled reptilians were one of the strongest monsters and were capable of carrying the overloaded carts with dozens of impoverished children with ease.

Her stomach churned during the whole journey. And that was a long time as the examination site was pretty far from Malachite. The only defense she had against her lethal anxiety was the perfectly spherical agate in her hands.

She had been made fun of many times when she was younger because she only had a single agate under her name, but as more time went on, the prouder she felt about that single, lone agate as it was the most beautiful one she had, no, anyone had ever seen.

It wasn't that she was jealous of all those children with ten times her agate amount.

Not at all!

"It's a cute one," a girl sitting next to her spoke well over two hours on their journey.

She had short auburn hair and dark green eyes. Whilst nothing was highlightable about her, the seamstress girl couldn't help but admit that she found the freckles the girl boasted underneath her eyes cute. The button nose definitely helped with the cuteness.

"It's a gorgeous one," Agatha corrected.

"Hmm, I dunno, too excessive," the girl expressed her doubt as she swayed her head from side to side with her lips also pushed outwards deep in thought.

"Then let's see yours if you don't think mine is gorgeous!" Agatha said smugly as she knew that it was impossible. Even all the nobles she had found on the statal examination didn't boast agates as beautiful as hers. Not that nobles had outright more gorgeous agates than others. She was a clear example of that.

"Ehrm, I dunno…" The girl shyly tapped on the wagon's floor with her feet and looked away as she blushed.

"Oh, c'mon. You have seen mine, show me yours~" Agatha tapped on the girl's shoulder with a finger as she giggled. "C'mon, c'mon."

It took two full minutes of bullying before the rude girl finally gave up and manifested her agates.

Unsurprisingly, they were uglier than hers. And even more unsurprisingly, it was agates in plural. As Agatha lived in a mining village, it was common for everyone to have consumed an agate even if they were poor. Maybe not a dedicated agate mine, but they popped up from time to time, and because the mine was so far from a main vein, they tended to be of quality so low that they wouldn't sell for that much either way, so the villagers ended up having them if just to boast that they had awakened their agates. And despite all of these handicaps, Agatha had yet to see another person boasting a lone agate like her.

"They are… colorful," Agatha added after a while. The girl's stones were nothing to write home about. They were plainly generic: slightly aquamarine green and tarnished red, six of them, and all of them of average size. And of course, none were round. Just your average potato shape.

"Okay, they are ugly, you don't have to lie…" The girl responded with a pout.

"I mean, they are colorful. That was no lie."

"Oh, I heard how you were boasting about their breathtaking beauty and perfect proportions. My bad~"

Agatha looked at the girl with a dead gaze. The girl looked at her back. Agatha blinked slowly. The girl smiled. Agatha broke out in a short snicker.

"Okay, good one," the seamstress' daughter admitted.

"Really?" The girl said with gleaming eyes.

"Nope, that was a lie," Agatha said with a grin.

"Fractures…" The girl responded not with rejection but with a smile drawn on her visage, and with that, Agatha could tell she actually had a sense of humor. Those were hard to find.

"Agatha of Malachite," the dirty-blond girl offered her hand.

"Paula of Timbergrowth," the auburn girl accepted the handshake with her free hand as she fondled her agates with the other.

That subconscious gesture made Agatha real mad. That was one of the pleasures of life that almost everyone could take part in. Except herself. A girl wanted to fondle her agates from time to time! She conformed and comforted herself by toying with her single one as she did tricks with it.

"Never heard of it," Agatha shrugged.

Paula puffed in annoyance. "Well, at least it has a composite name, unlike your rundown village."

"I'd argue that Malachite is so beautiful that it doesn't need a composite name."

"Really?" The girl from Timbergrowth squinted at her.

"Okay, no. You got me," the blondie from Malachite raised her arms in defeat, much to the annoyance of the passenger to her right. "It is a rundown village. I wouldn't be trying the statal examination if it were that beautiful."

Whilst boys were mandated to take on the statal examination as it also acted as a recruitment effort, girls were only encouraged to do so.

"Truuuuue," Paula chuckled. "Timbergrowth is beautiful, though, and here I am. Beauty only gets the longing for home so far. I just want a big home, warm meals, pretty dresses, and a handsome man who brings the bread home. Maybe a second one that also does the chores."

"Two men?" Her gaze slid downward, then crept back up beneath her brows, sharp and judging.

"I mean, three feels too greedy."

Agatha half-scoffed, half-chuckled at that response. "I'd say that two is more than greedy."

"What can I say? I'm a big woman. One man isn't enough to handle me," she said with utter and complete confidence.

"Right," Agatha replied with cutting dryness. "Well, the examination certainly opens up a lot of doors, but I'd prefer something more…"

"Adventurous?" Paula interjected with a smile.

"I mean, isn't that the romance of a woman?" The seamstress girl added dreamily.

"Nah, it's certainly the two men. In any case, such dreams of adventure are more of a man's romance."

"Are you calling me a man?" Agatha prickled Paula with her finger again.

"Nah, boyish at most. I'm more than satisfied with cute dresses and warm food."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

After that, the conversation died down, and it completely ceased once Paula left the wagon as they reached Timbergrowth, or at least, the nearest village the caravan passed through. As Malachite was still more than a day away, the night soon came. A fact that became even more apparent as the cart only hosted half its original passenger, transitioning it from a furnace to a cold box.

Stoneshells weren't like horses and didn't need to rest much, so they stopped for a couple of hours during the night at a frequented caravanserai. The drivers passed around a bit of cheese and bread for the impoverished passengers to eat, but it wasn't much.

Still, considering that they didn't need to pay for it, no one made a fuss out of it. Some of them were probably used to not having supper, so having a free albeit meager one was an earthsend.

Agatha was so anxious about the recent examination that it took her a whole hour to swallow the stale loaf, her mind constantly elsewhere, but where it should be. By the time the caravan got moving again during the night, most of her fellow passengers were asleep already, but not her.

Sleep completely avoided her.

It had been half a day since the exam, and her fingers still trembled from the written exam; she had absolutely no confidence in her results. She felt like puking. And what made her even more nauseated was the knowledge that the feeling would only start getting worse.

"Why did the examination need to take place today?" She added between soft groans during midnight as she nearly felt her insides spill out.

Which they technically did.

Anxiety was misery enough already, but her body also had to throw salt and lemon juice into the wound. Two stops the caravan made since she started feeling like dying, and not once did she will herself to stand up even as she was pissing herself. She felt that she would collapse into a pile of gore if she did so.

Maybe she already had.

She had been lacking sleep for a handful of days prior to the statal examination – her only chance of making it out of Malachite – and now her mind and body alienated her from her sweet release.

At this point, she feared going to sleep in the event she relieved herself during her unconsciousness.

Six hours.

Six more grueling hours until they reached Malachite. Actual Malachite, and not one of the many pitstop villages that most young passengers had to get down on as that was the closest stop to their homes.

During those painful hours, Agatha played with her lone sapphire – it was an agate, but it felt underwhelming calling it 'agate', and besides, it was cuter that way – to distract herself. The surface of her translucid agate was so perfectly round and smooth that it was addictive to touch. Agatha truly took pride in the perfection of her agate, otherwise she felt she would cry because of her – ahem – its loneliness.

The blond girl was almost dozing off by the time the caravan stopped.

"Malachite! We've arrived at Malachite! Get yar arses off now if it's yar stop or ya'll need to jump down in motion!"

Whilst the driver's notice came out rather aggressive – or rather, it was purposely aggressive – it wasn't that much of a threat. Tripping down whilst jogging was more dangerous. Stoneshell wagons moved that slowly.

With some difficulty, Agatha jumped out of the cart. A gesture which proved to be a bad decision as her legs started wobbling and she almost collapsed to the ground. She couldn't quite point out the reason for her affliction – whether it was the anxiety, the lack of sleep, the nausea from the ride, her bursting kidneys, or her burning crotch – and it mattered not to her, for she could only wish for the sweet release of nature's call, or death.

Both were equally valid in this situation.

Malachite was a small village, but even then, the massive number of five people left the wagons. One of the kids wasn't actually from the village, but it was quite a number for a minor mining outpost either way.

Agatha didn't linger on her fellow test takers as she rushed directly to her house. As it was early noon, her mother was inside stirring a pot, but Agatha didn't give her time to welcome her as she rushed for the outhouse in the garden.

"Ahhhh!" She let out a cry of relief as she collapsed on the throne.

"Everything okay in there?" Her mother questioned with a soft tone.

"Ugh…" The daughter responded with a weak groan. Her body weighed down on her so badly that she couldn't raise her torso and remained in a half-fetal position.

"Did the examination go that badly?" The seamstress asked between giggles.

"Wha- Ouch!" The girl raised her head so hastily that her head collided against the shelf that they had for toiletries.

"Agatha?" Her mother shouted in worry.

"Fine! I'm fine!" She shouted as soon as she heard her mother go for the doorknob. "I just bonked my head. Kinda feeling sick here."

"How bad?" The planks of the outhouse's door groaned as her mother leaned her back on it.

"…Every substance that my body can evacuate has been evacuated," Agatha added after a short silence.

"My, my, you really were unlucky," her mother said softly, but Agatha didn't fail to hear the small giggles the seamstress was making. The girl kicked the outhouse door. "Hey! Don't take it on the poor door!"

"Then don't laugh at my suffering!" The young girl held her face with her palms as her stomach continued growling. She wished that it was only her stomach…

"Want a tea?" She could see her mother's warm smile even through the door between them.

"…yes," Agatha responded weakly.

"Good girl," her mother giggled again before working back into the house.

It took Agatha half an hour before she finished decompressing and went back to meet her.

"So, that was quite a while," Agatha's mother said with a cup of tea in her hands. It was a wooden one; they couldn't afford anything better.

Her mother, Esmeralda, was a gem in this rundown of a village. Her eyes were like Agatha's own sapphires, but her hair was far brighter, true golden instead of the girl's dirty blond. Agatha had been unable to comprehend how such a gorgeous woman was limited to a rundown village in the middle of nowhere. But more egregiously, widow! It was incomprehensible that she was alone, almost sinful. Not that they were religious.

"I may have cried a little," the girl added sheepishly as she sat down on the table and took the cup that had been placed for her. It was still warm.

"So, is it an issue of mortality or mortality?"

"Uh… mom, I'm kinda too beaten to notice the subtleties of language."

"Fairnof," the golden-haired woman shrugged. "Is the problem here the examination here or your cycle?"

"Definitely the latter, the colics are killing me, but I'd be fractured if the stress isn't compounding."

"Ah, yes. Stress, the mortal enemy of natural bloodletting~" Her mother hummed. "Oh well, just drink and relax, my little agate. The examination is over; there's nothing to worry about."

Agatha took a shy sip of the tea, but her mother's words deeply irritated her. "There's a lot to worry about."

"Lemme rephrase that," she said with a finger on her lips as she slightly swayed her head from side to side. "Your worry won't change the results."

The young girl collapsed on the table upon hearing those words.

"…I know…" She responded sluggishly. "But my mind is stupid."

"All minds are stupid," Esmeralda responded with the wisdom only a mother could have. "Yours being slightly more doesn't change anything."

"Hey!" Agatha jumped out of the chair and scowled at her.

"And that's how you fix someone's mood!" Her mother beamed a smile as she pressed her palms together.

Agatha pouted and skulked at being tricked that way.

"Now that you are a bit more brightened up, my little agate, how about you tell me how the examination went?"

"Fine, I guess?" The girl said after sitting down again. "It's not that I can know how good I did."

"The physical and Agatecraft tests are kinda self-reporting, though~" Esmeralda responded musically. "You must have a hint of sorts."

"I guess those went well?"

"Too much guessing, how about some straight facts?"

"Well… the physical test is just a hoax."

"It really is," she answered cuttingly.

Agatha frowned. "Shouldn't you try to encourage me?"

"What?" Her mother took a sip of her drink. "That part of the examination is just for looks. In all my years, I've only heard about a couple of people making it through the examination with those tests alone. It's mostly to separate potential soldiers or lapiloquists beforehand rather than an actual score."

"Well, those went well for your knowledge," Agatha pouted. "As for the Agatecraft tests… I actually think I did well."

"Really?" Esmeralda's eyes shone. "With your little sapphire?"

Agatha's mother knew about the sapphire moniker because she was the one who gave it to her lone agate to make her feel better.

"It really helped having all those wands from Mister Krugger. I landed a perfect score on the precision test, and even on the speed test that I thought would be my worst, I got around half the time than most people."

"Oh, I'm glad to hear that. So what did you do with the damage test?"

"Which one?"

"Both, sillyhead," her mother rolled her eyes.

"As for penetration, it was rather simple with my agate as it gets really fast, but destruction…"

"Ah, it's hard to control your agates, well, agate without being able to use Range with other ones," the seamstress said with a wry smile. "So what did you end up doing?"

"I followed Mr. Krugger's advice and did the same I had done with the speed test, and threw my sapphire at max speed and at the edge of my range I activated Combustion."

"That worked?" Esmeralda frowned. "Shouldn't your sapphire have exploded next to you?"

"I told you; my sapphire moves that fast," Agatha responded with a weak smile. "And whilst I completed the test, I doubt my score was high. It took me several shots to clear all targets, and they were partial destructions at that."

Her agate exploded far more violently than most agates, but it still was a single one. Other test takers could afford to make staged shootings and several of them at the same time. That wasn't an option for her.

"Could be worse," her mother casually added, which prompted a frown from Agatha's side. "What? Some of the children who go there don't know the least thing about Agatecraft, and they still get nice scores from time to time. If you did this well – listen to mom here – it will be more than enough."

"Hmm… I dunno," the girl with the patchwork dress expressed her doubts as she held her cup with both hands and swung her hanging legs back and forth.

Her mother's response was to simply smile. "Anyhow, you should still go and thank Mister Krugger for his help."

"Yes!" Agatha instantly responded with glowing eyes. "Though first I would like to eat..."

"Of course, my little agate," Esmeralda interjected. "There's stew today to celebrate your survival of the examination."

"…and a change of clothes," her daughter softly added.

The seamstress brightly smiled at the cute gestures of her daughter. Then she bonked her with the first utensil her hands grabbed.