The Crown's Seduction
Chapter 287: Exam

Chapter 287: Exam

Corvus City, Kingdom of Valcrez

Laura held her breath as she walked up to the building where the Civil Service Exams were going to be held. Despite everything that she said about her confidence in passing or even taking the exams, a part of her still felt a bit of anxiety of somehow failing the exams themselves. After all, nothing was certain in life, and for all she knew, the days of studying she did might not even show up in the exams at all.

"And all done in a single day too," she mumbled to herself as she prepared herself for the task at hand. "Five levels... five exams to ace..."

Mathematics, Laws, Ethics, Accounting, and Urban Planning. These were the five subjects that she had to study before taking the exams. Each level constituted a single subject, and each exam was different from the other, making sure that only the best of the best would be able to pass, let alone ace the exams.

Nodding to herself, Laura stepped foot in the building, her courage rising as she made her way to her assigned rooms. The first would be Mathematics, and she was sure as hell that she’d be able to pass that exam with flying colors.

’Nothing but a bit of number crunching to start the day,’ she inwardly chuckled to herself. ’It’s practically the same with Accounting, so those two exams would be easy.’

The moment she entered her designated room, she sat down on her chair and flipped the stack of papers that was face down in front of her. Immediately, she couldn’t help but smirk as she realized that The Mathematics test was just what she expected.

With a confident grin, she grabbed her quill and began filling out the questions, numbers flying through her head as she solved one problem after another. Before she even knew it, she was done before the allotted one hour for the exam was even over.

’Easy enough,’ Laura smugly thought to herself as she relaxed. ’That’s one test down. Onto the Laws part of the exams...’

An hour passed, and Laura found herself being called into another room for the next test. It would seem that this wouldn’t be a written one. Instead, she was made to look at a known case from Valcrez’s history books and asked if the sentence was just.

"Well?" her proctor asked her just as she finished reading.

"It is just," Laura smirked as she replied. "Article three of the constitution suggests that officials are not exempted from conducting community service. There is no correlation to him already doing his duty to the kingdom and him having to serve his punishment."

She let out another chuckle to herself as she saw the glint in her proctor’s eyes. She was sure that any other person wouldn’t have been able to prepare themselves for such a tricky exam. But fortunately for her, she read the exact same case during her studies. It just so happened to be the one chosen for her for some reason.

"Very well. You pass," her proctor smiled at her. "Proceed to the next area."

Laura gave the proctor a curt bow before doing exactly as she was asked. A few hours have passed now, and she was only halfway through the entire battery of exams being asked of her.

"Ethics," she hummed just as she entered the door. "Wonder what’s in store for me here?"

Arriving at her destination, she didn’t think that Ethics would make for a difficult exam. After all, being a good person was just easy for her, and she didn’t think that an exam for morals should even be that hard.

Unfortunately for her, that was far from the case.

"Participant, you are tasked to allocate limited water to these parties," the proctor tasked her. "What will you do?"

Laura blinked as she stared at the problem. She was being tasked to distribute two villages’ worth of water to five thirsty villages. Each village had its own demographic and geography, and each of them came from a different status quo and spending power.

Blinking, Laura stared at the problem before shrugging. "I’ll give the water to the two farming villages. They feed the entire area, and they need to do what they have to do to keep that going."

"What about the other three villages?"

"There’s a small river running across the latter two," she replied. "I would just redirect some of it to the third village. It might run the risk of drying out the river, but at least they won’t go thirsty before the rainy season."

"Good call," the proctor hummed in approval. "Move on to the next level."

Laura blinked at the response. She didn’t know if she passed or not, but she could only assume that things went well as she made her way to the Accounting exam. Sure enough, it was practically the same as the first subject, only she had to actually balance a hilariously unorganized checkbook. Nothing too fancy, but based on what she went through so far, any other examinee would be tired enough to let a few errors slip by.

Not her though, and she easily passed her work before making her way to her last exam.

"Onto the last one," she told herself as she made her way to the Urban Planning exam. "Hopefully, this won’t be too hard..."

To her surprise, it was somehow harder than the Ethics exam in that she had to make an entire city from scratch with nothing but the geography given to her.

"Begin."

At the proctor’s signal, Laura picked up her quill and began drawing her plans. It wasn’t going to be anything fancy, but she at least made sure that every city district and road had some sense in it. Avoiding any sort of symmetry, she called upon her memories of Ebodia’s capital, taking note of how people tended to move and gather depending on the resources before finally submitting her work.

"Excellent," her proctor nodded as he took her plans away. "You are free to go."

"E-Eh?" Laura blinked. "When will I know if I passed."

"As soon as we’re finished checking them all," the proctor scoffed. "Now go. It’s not allowed to loiter in this building."

Turning around, Laura could only let out a sigh as she left the exam building. A part of her knew that she did her best in the exams. She could only hope that it would be enough for her to reach her goals.