1.17: On your marks

Graal had welcomed us into the building, where we were welcomed by a man who he claimed was our instructor. He would watch over us and evaluate our ability. Graal tried his best to calm our nerves, but he wasn’t very skilled at it. You see, he’s the type to tell it how it is. The thing that scared us most of all was the fact that only 1/1000 people actually pass the test.

The actual evaluation was divided into 3 sections: the written test, which mostly had basic questions about the 8 continents, as well as some of their more main countries. The second part is an arithmetic’s colloquium. Now this may sound weird at first, but in all actuality a person who wishes to travel the world without being able to quickly calculate prices and change will get scammed to their last coin. Now the third part was what we considered the biggest challenge: the obstacle course.

This specific time trial was well known for it’s rigorous obstacles and low success rates. The reason it was as such was because of the way the ITA works.

If you want a passport, you’re essentially signing up to become an ITA agent. This means you have to not only be capable, but also willing to drop everything you’re doing and head straight to their aid if they request it. Failing to show up gives you a strike, with three strikes officially listing you as a deserter, and you are considered a criminal from then on.

In a way, this was army training, and even though we don’t want to be soldiers, there’s really no other way to explore the world apart from passing the ITA exam. After the instructor explained this to us, we were ushered into the first test room.

***

The written test was pretty easy, but it took a lot of mental energy and time out of us. We were seated and told we had 2 hours to complete it. The questions were extremely banal, to the point where I honestly wondered how anyone could fail this. Still, I remembered Anna’s advice to not underestimate it and slowly started writing.

If you’re wondering, the first 10 questions were along the lines of What countries does _____ border? and carried a small amount of points, with every country you got right giving 1 point.

The second batch of questions was, in my opinion, the hardest part of the whole test. It was an open minded question, with no definitive correct answer. The questions were Write everything you know about _______ (country). This is one of the things I was never really that good at, and Schnell’s handbook didn’t really have many fun facts about the countries he visited. He wrote in a matter of fact/formal style, and in any case there were some countries I’ve never heard of like Raal, Dosithea and Montes. I mostly just wrote random stuff until I realized my answers devolved into random guesses before moving on.

The third batch of questions was the quickest, but also the trickiest. It was a circle the correct question type of thing, but the trick in it was the fact that some questions required you to not circle anything, and some required you to circle everything. It doesn’t sound so bad at first, but when the instructor mentioned changing your mind and circling something else is prohibited I got overly cautious, which cost me some time.

As it turns out, that time I lost in the third batch cost me dearly in the fourth and final one. The final batch wasn’t actually a batch, but rather just a single question. It was a map of Entropa, the continent in which we resided, but all the names of the countries were left out. Obviously, our task was to name them all.

This was quite unlucky, as Entropa by far contains the most amount of countries in the world with the grand total being 15. A serious problem area was the Plural Divide, a part of Entropa that contained 10 small, tightly packed countries bunched up to the right of Trivis Numerica.

Since I had spent way too much time dawdling with the previous questions, I had run out of time before I could recount all the names and locations, so some points were lost there.

All in all, with a total of 100 points and the amount needed to pass being 71, I got a solid 75, whilst Ed managed to rack up 92. Honestly, as much as Ed shoved our point difference in my face, I was just glad we both made it past the first trial.

***

The second test was to be held a couple days from the first one. We were handed a multiplication table from the instructors and were sent home to study up on the material. Of course, this wasn’t really that difficult to grasp, seeing as we had experience with counting money in a short amount of time due to our jobs at Arthur’s.

What really surprised me, though, was Ed’s laid back attitude. I guess getting a good score on the first test made him grow complacent. I made sure to spend at least an hour daily just practicing with Anna, but Ed would always just wave his hand and say I know this stuff already. With each passing day, I was getting more and more accustomed to crunching numbers, and by the time our instructor called, I had managed to reach a speed that was at least 10x faster than it was before.

When we got to the specified place, we saw a line of the same people who had taken the first test with us. Of course, there was less of them, since some people failed it. It was there we learned that there was no real penalty for not passing a round, you’d just be sent back and told to study up so you can retake it.

I was in front of Ed, and when my name was called I entered the room where the instructor was situated. He started off with some seemingly meaningless banter, such as You come here often? How old are you even? Where do you come from? Now these questions sound boring, but I’ve heard them all before during my travels.

These are questions you get asked before you get scammed I thought. The instructor wasn’t just testing my arithmetic’s, but also my common sense. I immediately felt a lot more at ease and proud to call him my instructor. Surely, he knows what kind of people are waiting to scam you as soon as you leave the country.

He seemed intrigued by my ability to dodge shady questions while leading the conversation to safer topics. After some quick number crunching, the colloquium was all but done. That is until he said this:

“Would you ever consider scamming someone if you had no other option?”

This was an open-minded and ambiguous question. There really is no real answer to it. I tried reading his body language to hopefully get some insight on what he wanted me to say, but he quickly got up and turned his back on me.

With no real way to gauge what words he wants to hear come out of my mouth, I chose to just say what I honestly thought.

“We humans are morally ambiguous beings. I’d say that the only defining factors for whether or not scamming is correct would be a person’s subjective morals and their drive to fulfill their desire. To me, I’d hate to do it, but I’d rather scam someone if it means I get to continue my journey.”

He stood there for a while in silence, the air was getting heavy. Did I mess up? I thought as I waited for his response. Just then he motioned his hand in a dismissal gest and calmly told me to leave the room.

I was devastated. And to think I was doing so well, too. Since we only get our results a day later, I have no idea what might happen, but he was so serious that I got shivers. I definitely failed this one.

Waking up in the morning never felt worse. Anna made us breakfast and followed us to the notice board. With fingers crossed I looked up and saw…Lune Grimheart located on the top of the leaderboards.

As we were busy jumping with joy at the prospect, Ed frantically looked at the leaderboard with a panicked expression. But alas, no matter how hard he searched, his name was nowhere to be found. He moped around for a bit as Anna forced him to study up with an I told you so face. He passed on his second try, though, good for him.

***

The third test was gonna be rough. A full blown obstacle course with a strict timer, and to top it all off, all the examinees did it at once. This would surely cause mass confusion, and if you’re unlucky enough there’s a realistic chance you’ll get trampled.

It was even tougher for me, though, as my arms still haven’t healed up 100%, but I won’t tell this to anyone, because Anna will definitely feel responsible, and Graal will probably void my test. Ed and I spent these last few days doing exercises to limber up, we we’re evenly matched even though my injuries slowed my movement a bit.

With the preparations completed, Anna made us an extra hearty breakfast before wishing us luck one last time. She couldn’t follow us and cheer us on this time due to the test restrictions, but she already helped us a ton these past few weeks, so we really didn’t mind and reassured her we’ll make it.

As we made it to the exam grounds, the instructors had us do basic warmups and wished us luck as the referee exclaimed:

“On your marks! Get set! GO!”

Just like that, we ran like a herd of wild animals on a field. Ed and I planned to stay together and help each other, but we quickly got separated by the crowd. We had more or less expected this to happen at some point, but having it happen at the start was definitely unlucky.

First off was a straight path forward that everyone sprinted across. They treat this as a race, but nowhere was it stated that they had to make it past the finish line by a certain time restriction. I instead chose to jog at a leisurely pace until I made it to the next area, hoping the crowd will have dissipated a bit by then, but alas.

The next obstacle was a giant wall with mud underneath just in case someone fell and needed to break their fall. People got stuck on this bit, with some even offering to help others up as long as they get helped back. This was a sight reminiscent of a war.

I slowly made my way up by myself, but just then I felt someone grab onto my leg from down below.

“Stop! Please help me get over! I need to pass this exam and visit my cousin in Vatar! I’ll do anything, just help me get across!” a young lad begged.

I didn’t really care for his offer, but seeing as I had nothing to lose I chose to help him up. As he climbed up, I suddenly slipped.

“Hey! I’m falling here! Mind giving me a hand?”

My pleas were met with indifference by the young lad, he simply turned away and jumped over to the other side. Betrayal wasn’t quite the feeling I felt back then, but I sure did feel like I wasted my energy for naught.

After being the last one to make it past the wall, the next area was a pool of mud with barbed wire over it. The point of the obstacle was to make it under the barbed wire and hopefully not get caught on it. Seeing as I was quite limber from my training, I used this obstacle to get ahead of the competition.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I was getting more and more fired up. There were two more obstacles left, namely swimming across a large body of water, then climbing up a rope to get to the finish line.

Swimming was going smoothly, I was never really that good of a swimmer, but I knew how to stay afloat. The cool water managed to free me of my competitive spirit, so I started dog-paddling my way across, not worrying about speed.

I was wasting more and more energy, but I didn’t feel as if I was moving anywhere. In fact, the other side of the water was getting farther and farther away. Struggling to stay afloat from fatigue, I had finally realized it.

My arms aren’t moving.

This scary revelation led to me slowly going under the water, barely grasping for air using my legs. My arms had sustained injuries, yes, but for them to not move at all was something new. I tried yelling out for help, but to no avail, the water had all but gulped me down.

Just as I was reaching my limit, someone had reached out and grabbed my numb arm. It was Ed, he noticed I wasn’t near the ropes and went back to check on me, and thank goodness he did, since I would have died if he was even a second late.

He swam me across the water and had me cough out the excess water. My throat was very sore, and I couldn’t really talk much, but he figured out my hands couldn’t move from me somehow pointing to them with my chin. Shocked, he knew I couldn’t make it up the ropes anymore.

But I didn’t wanna give up. We made it this far, fought against the odds and made it all the way here in such a short time, only to give up now? Fuck that! I’m climbing that damned rope no matter what! Checking my hands again, I noticed I could barely move my fingers. This meant the reason for my numbness was a mix of fatigue and overexertion and not because of any injury.

This means I could possibly jump start my arms for a short while if I was to purposefully injure them. The adrenaline would give me the strength I needed to climb. Knowing this, I barely managed to mutter my plan to Ed with my sore throat.

“(dislocate… arm… please.)”

“W-what? Grim, you can’t be serious! Your arms will take ages to heal up if I do that! You just got better!”

“(do… it.)”

He looked at my eyes with a worried expression and stood up next to me. We both knew this was gonna hurt me, but it’ll give me back my ability to move for just enough time to get my adrenaline pumping. This way I could at least make it to the finish line and get our passports. After that I’d probably have to wait ages before I make any form of recovery, but I didn’t mind.

“Here goes, clench your teeth…”

*crackle*

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKK!!!!!!! THIS PAIN IS KILLING ME, SHIT!

“AGH, THE OTHER ONE! QUICK!”

I tried my best to keep my composure while he did the same to the other one. At this point my arms looked badly bent and bruised, but I could move them. We made the most of this moment as we ran to the ropes, I screamed the whole way through.

“ED! HELP ME UP, NOW!”

“Got it!”

I used his cupped arms as a stepping stool to jump about half way to the top, but had to rely on my own strength to get over the rest.

………..

………………

With barely any strength left, I had passed the finish line, with Ed following shortly after. The instructor looked at my sorry state and came to apply first aid. He looked at my eyes and simply shook his head.

“So my hunch was right. You don’t seek adventure, boy, it’s freedom you seek. Congratulations, you made it.”

As he said those words, I fell to the floor unconscious. Our passports were to be mailed to us in the coming days, and we had officially become ITA agents.

***

I had woken up in a transport wagon with Ed a couple days later with passport in hand. Where are we? I asked Ed. He wore a vacant expression as he explained to me plainly.

“We just entered Primis, Grim. We’ll be arriving in the Kingdom of Carmen in a couple of days.”

This was certainly good news, but there was still something missing.

“And Anna?”

“…She went back to Arthur, they’ll be travelling a lot in the coming years, making branches of the restaurant all over TN, remember?”

Oh, I see… Something about that statement made me inexplicably sad. I remembered what happened at the exam, and looked down at my arms. Again, bandages.

“Your wounds heal fast, Grim.” Said Ed with a smirk, “We Green Iros really are lucky in that regard.”

I suddenly remembered an old superstition that Green Iros heal faster than the others, but that wasn’t as important now.

“Let’s hope Anna and Arthur make their dream come true. If only they could hear about what we’ve been up to…” he sulked.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Anna, Ed refused to tell me what happened in between me passing out at the end of the exam and waking up in the wagon. I imagine she was mortified after seeing my sorry state, so I guess waiting for me to wake up would be awkward. If we ever get to see her again I’d like to apologize.

Ed’s right though, they have no way of knowing what we’re up to, and sending thousands of letters would be very difficult to pull off regularly. If only there was a way to compile our travel stories all at once and send it that way. As I thought that, I was suddenly reminded of Schnell.

“That’s it! Just like Schnell, we should write a book about our travels! That way they can read about it and know exactly what we’ve been up to!”

Ed had a surprised face upon hearing another one of my crazy ideas, but still agreed to it.

“Great idea, we can go to an inn and take it easy while you catch up to the current events.”

Edward Saint, the one and only person who would go along with my crazy plans no matter what. He is indispensable, someone I’d like to see prosper and be happy. Looking at it now, I’ve never doubted Ed in terms of his ability to make our dream of travelling the world come true, not once. With our next plan of action settled, we headed out to the capital of Primis, Ren.