6. Special Summon

Agatha spent the next days of her life like a fidgety mess. Her mother had been completely wrong; she felt even worse as time went on. The pre-examination jitters paled in comparison to the dreadful wait of having to receive the statal examination scores.

"Ouch!" The girl yelped in pain as she stabbed herself with a needle.

"Oh, Agatha. This is unlike you," Esmeralda sighed and grabbed a clean cloth. "I understand that you are nervous, but this is the third time today alone. You are going to become a pincushion by the time you get the scores!"

"But Mooom, I can't help it!" Agatha responded after having sucked her wound clean.

"I know, I know," her mother grabbed the wounded finger, summoned one of her agates, and lit it up. The small green agate shone and heated up for an instant, slightly burning Agatha's finger and prompting a screech from her, but once the seamstress was done, she tied the thin strip of fabric around the cauterized finger. "But you can still choose your own pace. If you go slowly, you will still be productive and not hurt yourself."

"That wouldn't be very efficient."

"I'm inclined to say a living daughter is more efficient than a tetanus-ridden corpse."

"Oh, a single stab won't kill me."

"I've seen the mildest of wounds ramp up into the most lethal of afflictions. You can never be so sure."

"Yeah, but now my finger itches. All my fingers, actually. Isn't there a command to make agates heal you?"

"Agatecraft doesn't work like that, you silly goose," her mother scoffed as she went back to working on the blanket in her hands. "There are… some things, but nothing as straight as healing. Maybe temporal mending, a critical fix for someone at death's door, but certainly not anything to use for trivialities."

"And how do you know that?" The daughter questioned her smugly. Her answer was an agate straight to the forehead. "Hey!" She shouted and rubbed the spot where the agate had hit her.

"You are too behind on work to be losing time speaking," the seamstress replied half-sternly. "Not only were you three days away, but now you are skulking and lazing around."

"I feel like this is an unfair comparison. The statal examination is mandatory…" Agatha pouted.

"Work is work," Esmeralda didn't move her gaze away from her tailoring. "If you don't want to go to bed with an empty stomach, you ought to throw away that anxiety and focus that excess energy back to work."

Agatha's hands stopped moving as her mother finished speaking. "I'm not acting like this because I want, you know?" The girl shouted and dropped her own embroidery as she rushed for the door.

"Wait, Agatha!" She didn't stop. "Agatha!" The door shut closed violently.

The seamstress now found herself alone in the home.

"I…" Esmeralda whispered to herself. "This is harder than I thought it would be…"

As the seamstress failed to trail behind her daughter and continued with her work, Agatha found herself aiming for the forest surrounding the village. Whilst trees could pose severe defense threats, particularly against monster attacks, Malachite was a village so small that it practically didn't matter. And beyond the fact that the local mine had completely been scourged clean out of agates – good ones, at least – the chance of any monster showing around that wasn't a stoneshell or the occasional shalesnapper was close to zero.

Still, as emotional and distraught as Agatha may be, she had a functioning brain. Though she was at the sweet age of fifteen, she had found out that it was a rarity, as most people seemed to lack a brain, let alone a functioning one.

The girl didn't go deep into the forest, and since Mister Krugger still had her agate, she didn't want to pester him because it had been recalled. Because she wasn't wearing her fancy dress – if it could be called that – or a skirt, Agatha decided to climb up a sturdy olive tree. There weren't many around here, so it was enough of an oddity to call for her attention.

It certainly made for a better litter than the branches of a birch, that was for sure.

Without her little sapphire to toy with, Agatha soon found herself bored. These last days, even prior to the examination, had been filled with work. If it wasn't studying, it was doing chores. If it wasn't doing chores, it was helping her mother with embroidery. And if it wasn't that… her mind would just betray her and tell her how she was useless, a waste of air, and that she had failed the exam.

Agatha cradled her legs as she felt that pressure on her heart and throat continue to grow unimpeded. The only comfort she found was that of the soothing summer breeze that announced the coming autumn and the soft, warming light of the sun. She dared to peer upwards for a moment as a crown of light met her.

The sun was truly the most royal of all the stars.

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The young seamstress almost cherished this loneliness. The village was far too active for her, and she had never managed to actually make friends as all the kids had bullied her since she was little for her sole agate. Of course, this issue had long been resolved after she had managed to defeat all of them in a slingshot shootout, but the scars remained there. She couldn't be friends with people who had been torturing her for so long. And home… home now felt oppressive. Her mother was warm, but sometimes she burned too. Maybe it would have been manageable before; IT had been manageable before, but now with all these feelings of hate, it was too hard for her to overcome.

She could deal with hate from others; that kind was always the easiest to resolve. But towards herself… that was a flame that burned constantly.

As she felt herself turning into ashes, a cry broke her out of her thoughts. At first, she thought it was an attack – it wouldn't be the first time – but as the voices were few and that of excitement…

The time had come.

Agatha jumped out of the olive on both of her feet and sprinted like a madwoman, regardless of how bad that fall had been for her knees. Anxiety was a thing of the past; it was now substituted with expectation. Her previously sluggish body became a well-oiled machine as she ran faster than her heart allowed her to. Before she noticed, she found herself out of the woods and back in the village.

There hadn't been many people outside when she left, yet now all the village of Malachite seemed to have gathered as they surrounded a series of carts. Considering there were many children of her age with letters on their hands, it was clear what the caravan meant.

"I guess you are Agatha?" A man from the caravan with a sack in his hand talked to her.

"I… yes? How did you know?"

"There's only a single unclaimed letter left for this village. Considering how hard you are panting… well, it ain't taking the most polished agate in the pyxis to deduce that." The man took a letter out of the sack. "You were lucky you showed up, otherwise, we would have gone away with the letter."

"R-really?" Agatha asked weakly with her hands pressed against her chest.

"Nah!" The courier broke into a chuckle. "The stoneshells need to rest, and even then, we always leave unrequited mail with the chief of the village."

"Oh, thank the earth…" The girl added softly with hints of water on the corner of her eyes. She felt as if her legs were about to give up with how much they trembled.

"Here," he pushed the letter on her. "I kinda want to get going already."

Shyly, Agatha took on the letter. "Didn't the stoneshells have to rest?"

"Bah, they never tire anyway." And with that, the man got aboard the cart, and a moment later the caravan started moving.

The crowd quickly dissipated after that, yet Agatha still found herself anchored in place. She didn't need to look at the remittent to know what the letter was about, and yet… she found herself unable to open it.

All her life, she wanted to prove to everyone that even with a single agate she could shine brighter than anyone, but now that the moment to know if that was the case was at hand, she felt an impervious need to puke.

"Get inside, will you?" It was her mother's voice that spoke. Agatha hadn't noticed her coming, but she didn't refuse her help as she guided her back home.

Mother and daughter sat at the table, the girl still gripping the letter as if her life depended on it. Which, in a way, it did.

"So, when are you going to open it?" Esmeralda said with a bored expression as she supported her head on the knuckles of her hand.

Such an uninterested tone should have sounded hostile – this was the future of her daughter they were talking about – yet Agatha found herself comforted by that indifference. Not caring was the best way to deal with anxiety, after all. The girl wondered if her mother did it because of that, but either way, she mustered enough courage to open the letter.

Dear Agatha of Malachite, it read. We are referring to you from the National Committee of Education to talk about your results in this year's statal examination. Underneath this letter, you will find your scores and classifications compared to the local examinees, but in your case, there is something that needs to be addressed beforehand. The quality of your agates, one of far superior quality above the norm at the measly First Stratum, has called the attention of one of the researchers at the Skyscraper…

She almost fainted upon reading that word.

"Hey, hey!" Her mother beat some sense into her. Literally.

"Ugh?" Agatha's vision unblurred as she caressed her reddened cheeks. Oh, I did faint.

"Read it aloud from the beginning," the seamstress commanded, and she obeyed.

"…the attention of one of the researchers at the S-Skyscraper Academy…" Even though she had already read this part, her voice couldn't stop trembling when she reached it again, and she was forced to stop.

"Deep breaths, Agatha." The girl did as her mother told her.

It took her three repetitions of three inhalations before she found herself capable of continuing.

"…at the Skyscraper Academy, regardless of your score on the examination. Therefore, you have been offered a special summon. A special summon is a type of request equivalent to a full scholarship." She couldn't even believe what she was reading. "It must be noted that, unlike actual scholarships or entries with a valid score, special summons are granted only a single year of probation, and if they were to fail to keep up with peers, they are to be dismissed before the next year. You can dismiss this special summon, but we heavily…" Her mother frowned at her. "It's underlined, see it for yourself!"

Esmeralda sighed and gestured with her hand as if to say "Continue."

"But we heavily discourage doing so. Special summons are one of a kind, and you will not receive another one. Nor do other committees take on lightly those examinees who have dismissed special summons. This will be all. Have a nice student life, the National Committee of Education."

Agatha's hands and lower jaw continued to tremble even though she had already finished reading the letter.

"I don't like it," her mother cut through the silence.

"You don't like what?" The daughter professed her confusion.

"You are being threatened," the gorgeously blond seamstress said as a matter of fact.

"Threatened? Where?" Agatha tilted her head in confusion.

"Here," Esmeralda pointed at the letter. "Nor do other committees take on lightly those examinees who have dismissed special summons. They are threatening you to not allow you into other academies if you refuse the summon."

"And?" The girl laughed from her gut. "I got accepted, Mom! I got accepted into the greatest academy in the country!"

"The greatest military academy of the country," her mother sternly corrected her.

"Potato, potahto," Agatha dismissed her and stood up on her chair. "I did it! I got into the Skyscraper Academy!"

The girl with dirty blond hair wearing rags and from a poor mining village was so excited that nothing could bring her down from her high. Not her mother! Not her rather middling scores! Not gravity!

Crash.

Okay, maybe gravity.