章節 9: Iris
– "... I want to continue." (Iris)
***
"The fifth round. Ready..."
Fweet!
As Angus' whistle sounded, the fifth run officially began.
Iris looked at the people running with him, suddenly the recent image appeared again before his eyes.
Edelina said: "I'm in. I want to see if he's really faster than me."
Hudson said: "Me too."
Jarron and Genista one by one nodded. Maddox even agreed with such a big voice that no one's could compare with his.
Iris clenched his fist, using all his energy to run. The scenes of the two sides of the running track flashed in front of his eyes. The scenes became blurrier and blurrier, then gradually turning into some kind of familiar space.
For that moment, he found himself returning to the old days...
"Get him!"
"Strike him! Hit him!"
"Weakling! Sick! You... Half breed!"
Since Iris could be conscious about things around, he found himself living in a place called the Metis Home.
Metis.
The common noun which was used to call mixed-blood dragons in general.
The noun that might seem normal to some people, but to others it embodied of inferiority, hybridism, and weakness.
Metis Home was an orphanage dedicated to mixed bloods, founded based on the "Metis Policy" issued by Emperor Arthur Nolan of Pacific . Every province in Pacific had at least one Metis Home.
In fact, except for Metis Home, Pacific had almost no other orphanage.
As mentioned, the breeding rate the Dragon races was quite low, the proportion of offspring surviving and successfully breaking eggshells was even worse. Therefore, very few of people of the Dragon races wanting to abandon their beloved child, unless –
They had an unintended accident,
Or, that baby was... a mixed blood.
Previously at the Metis Home, because of the thin physique, the pale color of hair and eyes which were not threatening at all, Iris was often mixed with the crowd, sometimes becoming the bullying subject of the big boys in the orphanage.
Because he could not fight against such big boys, all he could do was running away.
Whenever seeing those boys from afar, he would run away. For the first times, he did not success, then was captured and beaten by all of them.
But he still ran.
Gradually his speed was getting faster and faster, so fast that as long as he wanted, no one could catch up him.
Therefore, after being taken to the base, he wanted to have the best performance, the highest rank, so that he would not become the bullying subject of anyone else.
Finally he did.
He reached the sixth rank of the whole base. A position that was safe enough not to be looked down on and bullied by others.
He was very contented. He thought that was enough.
But today, there was a person assigning an important mission to him, giving him the chance to bring glory to the whole class.
Then that one told him that he could be even better.
Could he?
From dinner time till now, he had asked himself that question countless times, also motivated himself countless times. But after hearing the result of each round, the number of times that he self-motivated became less and less.
And then... at the time he was about to give up, these people told him: They would continue. They wanted to continue.
Although all said that they wanted to know where their limits were, but – just like what Maddox said before, everyone should have rested in their blanket by now.
But they all sacrificed their little rest time, staying here, and joined him in a running contest that did not know when to stop.
All wanted to help him.
"Once the enemy flag appears in your sight, I want you to use all the speed you have, capture it." What Angus told him in the afternoon echoed in his ears again.
Iris gritted his teeth and speeded up.
Faster! Faster! He must be faster than that!...
The fifth run ended when Iris and Edelina crossed the finish line almost at the same time.
In fact, the exact result was: Iris finished first, Edelina finished second, the difference between the two was exactly half a second.
The others – Jarron ranked third, Genista ranked fourth, Hudson ranked fifth, and Maddox ranked last.
All the freshmen were dumbfounded for some seconds. After that, comments and compliments slowly came.
"He... he really did it!"
"Amazing!!!"
"Congrats, Iris! You did it..."
At his place, Neil was also stunned. But instead of the ranking, he was more surprised at the running time. The group's completion time was four seconds shorter than the previous round!
Four seconds! For a sprint, what did four seconds mean?
"What's wrong?" Finding Neil's face was a bit strange, a freshmen approached him and asked.
"Nothing. Leader said that we would do another round."
"Eh? Still continue?"
Neil calmly adjusted the headset. Being with Angus for a period of time, he also learned to maintain a calm face from Angus.
Therefore, when class K had not yet finished their comments and compliments for Iris, they had to witness the sixth round of running race.
The result of the sixth round was, Iris continued ranked first, Edelina finished second, the remaining ranks remained unchanged.
The seventh round, ranks unchanged.
The eighth round, ranks unchanged.
Seeing Angus seem to wanna continue the race, the audience started getting confused again.
If saying that the fifth round had not yet confirmed Iris' true ability, now they would have believed it after eight runs.
The rankings for the past four rounds had not changed, meanwhile the contestant group seemed to be tired, so why Leader Angus still wanted to continue?
But until now, it can be said that all class K was fully aware of one thing: Leader never did nonsense!
So, even though they did not understand, no one spoke up.
All were focusing and waiting.
At this point, Angus stepped in front of the contestants: "Do you know where your limits are?"
The six looked at each other, and then –
Hudson was the first to nod his head.
Until now he officially admitted that, racial superiority was real.
Fire races had great strength, Water races were flexible and resistant, and Lightning races got amazing speed.
He also somewhat understood Angus' intention when he asked them to run several times. The first one or two rounds did not say anything. Everyone needed time to get used to the speed. And when time was enough, racial superiority of each individual really worked out, he found himself no way to pass Jarron and Genista, even though he ranked far above the other two on the rankings.
So that was what Angus meant when he said "The ranking counts points of all categories. If it is only about speed, Iris is faster than you two" at dinner time.
Having got the answer for his long-standing question, Hudson officially left the running track, joined the audience team.
Maddox followed Hudson immediately. He wanted to stop so hard but all those five dragons were so fiercely spirited, making him follow and run near death, hu hu...
Edelina, Jarron, and Genista thought for some seconds and then decided that they would stop to save some energy for the training tomorrow.
Only Iris remained hesitantly standing in the running track.
Angus left his place and walked over to Iris.
The corners of his mouth curved slightly, half laughing half not, asked: "How about you? Know where's your limit?"
"I..."
Iris looked at Angus, confused.
He did not know what he should say.
From the fifth round which was the first time he ranked first, he began to feel unreal.
Everything was like a dream.
He didn't hear what everyone outside said.
The world around him seemed faded, all remaining were the running track, the whistle sound, and him.
The feeling was exactly the same as when he successfully took Class I's flag this afternoon – it took a while to return to normal.
"You what?" Angus raised an eyebrow.
"I... I want to continue."
Iris heard his voice reply like that.
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創作者的想法 
AnneNguyenLe
AnneNguyenLe I temporarily stop this story for some days to attend the fan-fic writing contest. Hopefully we'll get new chapter next week~~~
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