"Woah!" Emma cried out, nearly getting out of her seat to clap. That had been an incredibly short but entertaining duel in her opinion. "That was amazing, right?" she asked Lory.
"Amazing!" Lory answered, repeating her words.
Emma nodded. "Wow. I thought it was going to drag on forever and then the snake just… I did not see that coming at all," she said.
"Is this your first time watching beasts fight or what?" a voice called to her from behind. Emma turned around and met the sapphire blue eyes of a girl with curly brown hair and some freckles on her face.
She was a little chubby, but nowhere near fat. And from what Emma could see, she was right around 14 or 15 years old.
"I've seen beasts fight before," Emma said. "Come on," the girl said. "No one who has seen beasts fight would be this excited about a single battle between a Firestamped Octopur and a Brightlord Snake. One would know that the snake was going to win from the start."
Emma looked at the girl with not a very favorable expression. "I've seen a lot of beasts fight in my life," she answered. "Just not in this place. These beasts specifically I have never seen fight."
"Ah," the girl nodded. "Understandable. My bad. I've been studying beasts for 2 years now and I forget not all know about them."
"No, they don't," Emma said. Now that she was looking at the girl carefully, she was holding a pen and notebook to herself, that blended in the blue and white pattern of her dress.
"You like beasts?" Emma asked.
"Yes, but I'm not a fanatic if that is what you mean," the girl said. "I'm just studying so I can be accepted into the Star Beast Institute."
Emma looked at the girl, her mind thinking of a million things until she came to a conclusion a fraction of a second later. "You need to know about the beasts to enter the Star Beast Institute?" she asked.
"Dear," the girl said. "It's an institute with the words BEAST in it. What do you think?"
"Hmm?" Emma thought to herself. "Good to know. Thank you. I was planning on learning more about the entrance exam tomorrow, but this helps."
The girl looked at Emma with a suspicious look on her face. "You want to enter the Star Beast Institute?" she asked.
"Yes," Emma said. "That is why I came here to this city in the first place. To take part in the institute. I can't believe they didn't tell us we would need knowledge of beasts to enter."
"They don't announce it, but if you go read up what they teach and what the previous entrance tests have been, it becomes pretty evident that it is necessary," the girl said.
"I see," Emma said. "Thank you for telling me." She extended her arm with a smile. "My name is Emma. May I ask what your name is?"
The girl looked at her for a few seconds before shaking her hand. "Betty," she said. "Word of advice, Emma. Give up. Go for next year."
"I'm not quitting," Emma said.
"You didn't even know that a Brightlord Snake had a Natural Light Conduit in the form of its fangs and was surprised by the attack. This sort of knowledge is considered basic, even among just the entrants."
"I'm telling this for your own good," the girl said. "They consider anyone who fails in previous year's tests to not be worth it and deduct your mark from the start. I can tell that you are not ready for this test and will most likely have to take it next year. So you need to—"
Emma gestured for the girl to stop talking. "Thank you, Betty, but I'm good. If I fail, I'll just go to another school. There are hundreds on this continent. Besides, I won't fail. I can promise you that."
Betty looked at Emma for a bit, her temper rising slowly at the fact that Emma didn't believe her. In the end, she could only let that temper go with a sigh as she closed her notebook and stood.
"You seem determined so I won't stop you," she said. "Good luck. You'll need it."
"Okay," Emma said and watched the girl leave. "See you at the institute Betty."
The girl stopped one last time to look back at Emma, then shook her head and walked up the stairs, leaving the arena.
Emma turned back and sat on her seat. "Okay?" Lory asked.
"I'm okay," Emma said. "That was a rude girl, wasn't she?" Lory looked puzzled as to what she meant but nodded his head nonetheless to agree with her.
"That doesn't matter though I guess," Emma said. "She does have a good heart in there anyway. She helped me in the end."
"Who did?" Ning asked.
"Just a girl," Emma answered. "What took you so— " Her words paused in her mouth when she saw her father. Ning stood there, holding 3 boxes of fries, some strips of chicken, a sandwich of some sort, and some drinks provided in steel cups, meant to be handed back.
"What are you doing?" Emma asked, shocked to see her father with so much food. "We just ate."
"I know," Ning said. "But I couldn't stop myself after seeing such good food. I wanted to try what they had."
"Still, this is too much," Emma said.
"No it's not," Ning said as he fed a potato chip to Lory. "It's barely any if you ask me. The two of us can chow this food down in no time. And your body constitution won't let you get bloated either."
Emma sighed. "I suppose," she said, grabbing a box of chips herself and eating one before feeding another to Lory. "Still, you were quite late."
"Oh, that's because I went to bet on the matches for the next hour," Ning said. "I've bet it all on the underdogs, so if even one of them wins, we'll hit it big."
