Chapter 45: A Clock and a Beast
Chapter 45: A Clock and a Beast
Then it was Glitch.
The little black lizard walked into the lane with a bandaged leg and no fanfare, immediately following the candidate who had gone five-for-five.
The spectators’ reaction was audible.
"That’s the Iron-quality one, right?"
"Is his leg injured?"
"They’re sending him in after the Falcon? That’s just cruel."
Iron quality. Grey Rock Lizard. Registered, stamped, and filed.
The most disappointing beast in Shelter 7 was limping into a national examination.
Jin stepped into the observation booth.
The door sealed behind him.
The barrier activated.
And the world went silent.
He had known it was coming. He hadn’t known how it would feel.
The glass became a flat gray wall from Glitch’s side. No Jin. No face. No hands.
Jin could see him perfectly.
Glitch couldn’t see anything.
Four days in the wasteland. Every fight, every crossing, every frightened decision—and not once had Jin been unable to communicate with him.
His voice. His hands. The tail-tap signals they had created together.
All of it was gone.
There was only the contract link.
That thin, dumb little wire.
Inside the lane, Glitch turned in a slow circle, searching for a face he couldn’t find.
Then he stopped.
His head rose. His body became perfectly still.
Waiting.
He wasn’t panicking. He simply waited with complete, unembarrassed certainty that Jin was still there and would tell him what to do.
Something inside Jin’s chest tightened.
Yeah, he sent through the link. I’m here.
Glitch’s tail flicked once.
TIMER: 10:00
Jin didn’t drive him.
He had learned that from watching a bird three minutes ago, and he wasn’t proud enough to pretend otherwise.
Left route.
Glitch went left.
Jin didn’t tell him how. Glitch selected his own footing down the broken slope, favoring his injured leg and choosing an angle Jin wouldn’t have considered.
The first marker stood in the open.
Easy. A gift designed to make candidates feel good before the puzzle box started biting.
MARKER: 1/5
The second was uglier.
Two barrier walls moved across a narrow corridor, out of phase with one another, opening and closing a gap that appeared to have no predictable rhythm.
Half the candidates would try to sprint through and eat a wall.
Jin raised his phone and activated Data Appraisal.
Not on Glitch.
On the walls.
Mass. Motion. Cycle.
His C-Rank talent processed the movement for four seconds and produced an answer. The pattern wasn’t random. It repeated every eleven seconds, with an opening at the end of each cycle just wide enough for something small.
Wait.
Glitch waited.
The walls slid.
Closed.
Slid again.
Now.
Glitch passed through the gap with a hand’s width to spare.
The barrier boomed shut behind his tail.
MARKER: 2/5
Inside the observation gallery, one of the scorers made a small note.
The third marker had an academy-controlled scavenger beast waiting beside it—a mangy creature consisting mostly of teeth, noise, and bad intentions.
It was there for one purpose: to make a tired teenager start a fight they didn’t need.
Jin studied the terrain instead.
Broken ground to the right. A blind corner. The beast’s restricted pursuit radius became obvious once someone actually bothered to look for it.
Ignore it. Right side. Take the marker.
Glitch stopped.
The scavenger beast hissed at him.
Jin felt Glitch’s response rise through their link—hot, immediate, and deeply personal.
Glitch’s entire body turned toward it.
No.
Glitch remained where he was.
Leave it. It isn’t worth points.
A long pause followed.
Then Glitch turned and followed the broken ground around the blind corner. He claimed the third marker without brushing against the scavenger beast.
His tail lashed in slow, furious arcs the entire way, communicating with perfect clarity:
This is cowardice. I am humiliated. You have shamed my house.
Jin placed a hand over his mouth.
MARKER: 3/5
In the observation gallery, the veteran examiner leaned forward.
"Three markers," he said. "Not one fight."
"Iron quality," the scorer beside him said. "With an injured leg."
"Mm."
The veteran didn’t look away.
The terrain shifted at the six-minute mark.
The floor of the next section separated and rose, becoming a field of unstable stone platforms suspended above a shallow containment pit. The platforms drifted slowly before settling into new positions.
The fourth marker glittered on the opposite side.
The direct path required four long jumps.
Jin looked at it for exactly as long as it took to hate it.
Four jumps.
Four hard landings on that leg.
The medic’s warning remained in his mind.
He won’t tell you when it hurts.
TIMER: 03:41
The clock was right there, ticking and screaming at him to take the faster path like every instinct in every candidate in the building.
Jin selected the outer edge.
It was longer. Much longer.
A rim of settled stone followed the pit’s boundary, ugly and slow, with only one small jump at the end. It would cost him most of the remaining time.
Outer edge. Slow. Your pace.
Glitch moved.
People watching from the rail began talking.
"What’s he doing?"
"He isn’t going to make it."
"He gave up."
Glitch followed the rim, careful and patient, selecting every step. He eventually reached the final platform and crouched for the small jump.
His injured leg trembled.
It was a tiny movement.
Nobody at the rail noticed.
Jin saw it before the tremor had even finished.
STOP.
Glitch stopped instantly.
He froze in the middle of his crouch, one breath away from jumping.
TIMER: 02:58
And they burned it.
Both of them remained still while the clock consumed their score—a boy inside a booth and a lizard resting on a stone.
The other candidates had already written them off.
"He’s done."
"Not enough time."
"That’s what Iron quality gets you."
Inside the gallery, the veteran examiner spoke quietly.
"He spent his time first."
The scorer looked up. "Sir?"
"He had a clock and a beast, and he decided which one to spend." The veteran’s jaw tightened. "He surrendered the time before the animal had to surrender its leg."
He tapped his evaluation pad.
"Most candidates do it the other way around. That’s how you get a beast that doesn’t come home."
Inside the arena, Glitch rose.
He carefully set his injured leg.
Then he made the jump—one small, clean, completely unheroic hop.
MARKER: 4/5
TIMER: 01:31
Jin exhaled.
Four markers. Beast intact.
That was a score. A real, solid, boring score that might get him into a school with food and keep Elsa from chewing her nails down to nothing.
Good. Come back. We’re done.
The wall behind the fourth marker opened.
It didn’t grind or tremble. It simply separated, smooth and deliberate, revealing a dark circular chamber beyond.
The fifth marker glowed on a plinth at the opposite end.
Something stood in front of it.
The creature stepped into the light on four heavily muscled legs. It was an academy-controlled combat beast, twice Glitch’s size and trained to block, pursue, and overpower whatever entered its chamber.
Not a wild monster.
Not unbeatable.
Just faster and stronger than an injured Glitch by a margin that mattered.
A warning appeared across the glass of Jin’s booth.
FINAL MARKER AVAILABLE
OPTIONAL COMBAT OBJECTIVE
TIME REMAINING: 01:27
Optional.
The arena had even labeled it.
For the first time all day, the puzzle box was being honest with him.
You don’t need to do this. Nobody is forcing you. Walk away with your four.
Glitch didn’t move toward the chamber.
He turned around.
He looked back through the gray barrier—toward a wall, toward nothing, toward a face he couldn’t possibly see.
Then he waited.
Jin felt the question rise through their link.
It wasn’t a demand. Glitch would walk away if Jin told him to. He had already proven that three markers earlier.
It was a request from a small dragon who had spent the entire trial hearing no.
No, don’t fight.
No, ignore it.
No, leave it.
No, it isn’t worth the risk.
Glitch had swallowed every order.
Now he wanted only one thing.
Just this one?
Please?
Jin studied the chamber.
He examined the ceiling supports, the narrow entrance through which the beast would have to charge, the position of the marker’s plinth, the loose debris scattered across the floor, and the way the large creature’s body was built to accelerate in a straight line but turn like a freight train.
To everyone watching, it was a fight.
A bad one.
A small, injured lizard against a much stronger opponent with eighty-seven seconds remaining.
To Jin, it was a boss room.
And whoever had designed it had left the ceiling supports right there.
Jin leaned closer to the glass.
Eighty-six seconds. An injured beast. A stronger opponent. No restart button.
Terrible odds.
Fortunately, terrible odds had never stopped a gamer from abusing bad level design.