~ 15 ~

484 31 3
                                    

Coming out of the exam hall door, Yu Yan paused on his way to the attention-grabbing stairs. The staircase's sudden appearance made sense if nearly any wall or surface on this building was hypothetically rearrangeable, however, something more curious grabbed his attention from the infrastructural curio.

Having an eidetic memory, Yu Yan had a clear recollection of all the contents of the foyer in their respective order. The lamps, the vases, the cabinets, the tables and chairs...and yet there, on that table top, was a small coffee dispenser-like machine he had never seen before.

Yu Yan approached the table. Although the machine looked like a coffee machine, the upper half didn't resemble one. It was an open solid compartment with only one hole.

What does this thing do? Can I play with this? How can he safely test how this machine is played with?

Thinking about it, Yu Yan took out one of his spare parts—a gear as big as half his palm. He placed it on the compartment. A metallic lid slid down to cover the compartment just as his hand left, and a blue circle appeared on the lid. Slowly, the color blue faded clockwise—it was an analog timer without numbers that didn't even last more than a handful of seconds.

With his fingertips, Yu Yan touched the smooth surface of the machine that began to heat exponentially. He removed his hand and looked under the nozzle where the 'coffee' should come out.

Unexpectedly, instead of something edible, it dispensed a bullet.

Or could it be...this bullet was edible?

He grabbed it, and nearly dropped the hot, dense thing. With a little more caution, he picked the slightly cooler polymer bullet and twirled it around his fingers.

Unlike metallic bullets, polymer ammunition is frangible but more suitable for indoor training as they disintegrate upon impact on hard objects like metal plates and training targets. They also provided faster recovery between shots because of the lower recoil power, which is most suitable to beginners and junior shooters.

It's only at instances like this that Yu Yan recalls that this was only an examination.

Yu Yan traded two of his spare parts for two more bullets. After dispensing the third bullet, the lid on the compartment remained closed. Despite this, Yu Yan was sure that there were other places where bullet dispensers were available.

If his guess was right, then each student had at least three chances to shoot a target, which is proved by the number of maximum bullets one machine dispenses. Since the instruction stated that they must 'hit the target on the 8th ring or higher on an average' to pass, then students are most probably allowed to rob the resources of the other students.

Seeing that more than half of the students left their spare material parts in the exam hall, either there'd be disqualified, or a secondary conflict would arise when they came back to get theirs, or steal from others. Whichever scenario, Yu Yan thought it best to avoid the ground floor and the hall completely.

With this decision, Yu Yan began to sprint to the second floor, jumping over three steps at a time despite his shorter legs—something he would never admit bothered him as a man. The faster he was, the better he can make use of his time advantage. Just as he arrived at the second floor, he felt his scalp go numb and his skin prickle.

A gun was pointed at him.

He could feel the muzzle directed at him. The grip Yu Yan had on his gun involuntarily tightened.

Then, with controlled fast actions, he straightened up and turned around to face his own blind spot.

For a split second, Yu Yan crossed gazes with Fernis, who was aiming a gun directly at him. With minimal movement, the trigger was pulled—

The Ger Is A Part Timer [BL]Where stories live. Discover now