“(Hmm, this is going to be rather interesting to say the least. Miss Roosevelt was talking to this girl but to be perfectly honest, I don’t see anything special about her. Maybe she’s just a friend of her- Nah, impossible. That demon has no friends at all. Maybe just a new toy for her to play around with. Poor girl, but the moment you decided to interact with Miss Roosevelt, you had it coming.)

  And so, with the papers and the pen in both of her tender hands, she starts to do some math on them before she does anything else. Choose this place here, spend X amount there, hire these people, more expenses here, more expenses there, buy this furniture for this, buy that for that, add even more expenses, choose the best item to sell according to its value and so on, expenses, expenses and expenses. After the seven days, Kiana ends with roughly 20k gold in the bank and with a profit of around 1k gold.

  “(Oh... This is way too little… Is this even possible? How am I supposed to have a profit and end up with 100k gold in the bank?)

  Although her poor brain is basically fried from all the thinking she did, the results she got are not bad at all for someone that has no experience in this field. However, her math is wrong. Once again it seems the goddess of luck really likes her, in reality if she did her math correctly, she still ended up with a profit and with gold in the bank, just quite a bit more than what she got. She would end up with 53k gold in the bank and with a profit of 34k gold. As you can see, quite the difference but it seems she somehow mistook a plus for a subtraction, completely changing the value at the end. If the previous results were good for a first time, then this is straight out from a prodigy I would say, she even did better than most of them.

  “(Now what? I asked for the papers so that I could try to do something without actually doing it, I still have to actually input anything into this thingy. Though I have failed already, is it even worth trying? Should I just wait for the 15 minutes to pass and fail automatically?)

  While time is doing its thing, passing, Kiana keeps on thinking about what she can do. Things sure seem dire, but she decides to think about something else, a new way of solving it, what can she improve, what steps does she need to take, what is the best order of the steps to make the most and so on. She told Myra that she will give it a shot but that does not mean that she won’t try her hardest. The description says that each player will start with 100k gold, yes, each player. At the same time, he never mentioned that a single lone player could only give it a shot at a time, in fact he did mention in the plural when he said that “The first ones”, this easily means that more than one player can try this and even win it in one go. Thinking back to what he said, Kiana reaches this conclusion that, by herself it is impossible to complete but with two people at the same time, it’s possible.

  “Uhm, I’m sorry but I don’t think it is possible to do this all by myself, at least I can’t do it and even those who were before me.”

  She has a serious look on her face as she admits this. Her golden eyes are sharp but filled with confidence, her tone of voice is firm but a bit cold, giving her words strength behind them. While the students there take this as an opportunity to shame her, make fun of her, the merchant teacher, however, his eyes widen a little bit thanks to this, he never expected for anyone to just admit this, let alone for Kiana to be the one. To him, this petite girl might have reached the correct conclusion.

  Rude Student- Hahaha! Of course, she couldn’t do it, after all, neither couldn’t I! Never in a million years someone that looks like her would be able to be as great as us!

  Cocky Student- Yeah! Just because you have a pretty face that does not mean you’re smart! Just go back to where you came from and stop making the Academy look bad!

  Extremely Arrogant Female Student- Pretty face? Are you blind, or are you blind? Do you need glasses or what?

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  Of course, someone that looks like a troll would say something like that. Ha! You wish you had even 1% of Kiana beauty! Her pale skin, her gorgeous golden eyes, her mesmerizing soft platinum-pink hair, everything about her scream’s true beauty and yet, this ogre is saying something like this. What a bunch of idiots, all of them, they have failed and yet, they still are making fun of our Kiana. These simpletons were far too occupied in trying to show off to Myra that teamwork was never an option. To them, it’s more important to show to her just how “great” they are rather than actually completing the damn test.

  Merchant Teacher- What is in your mind then? Are you quitting? Or have you figured out something?

  Kiana- I don’t want to quit but just as I said, I can’t win myself. Here it says that each player will start with 100k gold, but it never says that only one person at a time can take the test. I want to take the test with someone else, that way I think we can solve this. Although… I don’t think I can do this even if it is allowed, after all, they all have failed, leaving me all by myself.

  With the same look on her face, she says all of this, though, there is a bit of pity on her eyes as she faces the students. However, this pity is misused as this makes them quite angry. Some even shout profanities at her, throw insults at her and so on. Although the merchant teacher is doing his best to keep his poker face, it’s quite hard for him to do so, Kiana did in fact reach the correct conclusion leaving him shocked and speechless.

  Merchant Teacher- (Impossible! How did she figure it out!? There are two solutions for this, the first one and the most evident is to actually meet the conditions however only those with extreme experience on the field can actually achieve, otherwise they will fail miserably. The other possibility is just as she said, but year after year, I’ve noticed the students that try to apply for my class have quite the flaw, one that in this field of work is a death sentence. They refuse to work together, especially if the person next to them is “beneath” them. That’s why I’ve never said that, it’s not allowed to solve this in teams. Unbelievable! Hahaha! She might actually be something else after all!)

  Clap!

  While he is amazed at our Kiana realization, a soft, dry but cold clap is heard behind all of them.

  Clap!

  The sound travels through the area, easily and without any resistance at all, entering the ears of those who are here.

  Clap!

  The students are confused for brief moments after all, who could be doing this? And that is when the realization who might be, comes crashing down on their feeble minds.

  “Excellent Miss Kiana, I knew you could do it. Don’t worry about it, I will personally be your partner. Not only you were the only one who thought about this, and that alone allowed you this privilege, all the other candidates have already failed, rendering them beyond useless.”

  Merchant Teacher- Oh my! If it isn’t Miss Roosevelt! Good to see you here again, for a few moments I thought you had lost interest in this, especially after the disappointment of this year's batch of candidates. However, are you sure about this? By yourself you could easily solve this, won’t you think your help is a tad bit unfair? Although, she’s the only candidate left…

  He says all of this with a smirk on his face, he’s loud and unreasonable so, almost as if he’s teasing those who have failed, trying to get a reaction from them.

  Cocky Student- Ye-Yeah! That’s not fair at all! Miss Roosevelt could easily conquer the word if she wanted to! If this simple village girl has her help of course she will solve it!

  Rude Student- I agree with him! This is so unbelievably unfair! I gave everything that I had, and yet this one... This one got the privilege to work with you!

  Extremely Arrogant Female Student- I want to work with her too! I want to be by her side! I want to smell her fragrant perfume, touch the things that are privileged enough to be bestowed by her touch. Ah! I want to be by Miss Roosevelt's side!

  Merchant Teacher- Alright, alright, that’s enough, just quiet down! You had your chance and you lost it, so shut it! They still have to complete the test, don’t disturb them with your weird fantasies.

  He’s loud as you can expect, but his tone of voice is quite aggressive, quieting down the students with it. He also has a serious look on his face, his eyes however are filled with disgust as he says this to them. They sure got on his bad side, nothing that they didn’t deserve however.