English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicArknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 28
Chapter 28: Centaurea Hesitates
Kawalerielki, Oak Street 2-9. The Blacksteel Worldwide Kazimierz Branch building.
The solemn black structure stood like an unyielding monolith amidst the steel jungle of the city, entirely devoid of the garish neon lights and floating streamers that plagued the rest of the commercial district. Just standing in the shadow of its imposing architecture made Centaurea feel a heavy wave of seriousness wash over her shoulders.
“What kind of civil servant recruitment drive chooses a place like this…”
A strong desire to complain welled up inside her chest. Without realizing it, Centaurea had already begun to shift her internal definition of these recruiters from legitimate employers to outright scammers.
She lowered her gaze to re-confirm the address printed on the crumpled flyer in her hand, then looked back up at the tightly shut, heavily fortified office building. Centaurea swallowed hard, the biting wind of the city chipping away at her wavering resolve.
“Maybe I should just forget it?”
Her current life was far from ideal. She lacked a clear goal, her motivation had long since bled dry, and she spent most of her days drifting in a hazy, exhausting routine. But people were creatures of inertia. Once a person adapted to a certain rhythm of survival, breaking that cycle required a terrifying amount of effort. Centaurea was no exception.
Standing before the intimidating entrance of Blacksteel Worldwide, she suddenly rationalized that being a mediocre competitive knight wasn’t the worst fate in the world. It was certainly better than the lives of the hardened mercenaries inside this building, who could be shipped off to a blood-soaked battlefield at a moment’s notice, risking their lives in some godforsaken foreign land.
They claimed they were recruiting civil servants, not mercenaries. But in a place like this, what was the real difference?
When she had dragged herself home last night, she had scoured the inter-city network for any scrap of information regarding Kjerag. The snowy nation did appear exceptionally quiet and peaceful. The problem was, it seemed to be only quiet and peaceful. Centaurea simply could not imagine what kind of entertainment she would find in a frozen wasteland, aside from watching large horned beasts chew on sparse grass.
The rampant commercialism of Kazimierz might drain her soul and cause endless mental exhaustion, but surely that was better than dying of absolute boredom in the snow.
“I guess I’ll just forget it. At worst, I’ll find a different sponsor and stop being a knight altogether.”
Having talked herself out of it, Centaurea crumpled the job posting into a tight ball, tossed it into a nearby trash receptacle, and turned her back on the Blacksteel building.
“No matches scheduled for today. I’ll drop by the clinic first, then maybe find a quiet coffee shop to kill some time.”
Roughly five minutes after her slender figure disappeared from Oak Street, a crisp, demanding telephone ring echoed through the spacious interior of a high-rise luxury residence overlooking Kawalerielki. The receiver was lazily picked up by a man draped in a tailored Columbian-style suit, the cuff pulling back just enough to reveal an obscenely expensive Victorian timepiece.
“Your little knight, Centaurea, seems to be plotting an exit strategy. She wants to leave the knight order and switch careers.”
A somewhat impatient, cynical voice drifted from the other end of the line.
“How do you plan to handle your property?”
The man answering the phone did not so much as blink. He sank deeper into his leather armchair, taking his time to light a premium cigar imported from a Bolivar plantation. He took a deep, savoring drag and exhaled a thick, solid ring of smoke toward the ceiling, his tone dripping with fake lament.
“That girl is quite pretty. I was planning to keep her around as a pet for a while longer, break her in properly, and then buy out her contract entirely.”
“You really are repulsive. You always love to shatter these children’s knightly dreams, only to play with the empty, puppet-like shells left behind. What exactly is the point of that?”
The caller’s disgust was evident, but he swiftly pivoted back to the business at hand.
“So? Should I arrange for someone to bag her and bring her to your bed?”
“No need. I have no appetite for canaries that actively try to escape their cages.” The man flicked his fingers, knocking a chunk of ash onto a crystal tray, treating a knight’s entire livelihood with the same casual disregard as the burnt tobacco. “Let your Armorless Union handle the cleanup.”
“Wouldn’t it be far more entertaining to trap her in debt through a breach of contract? You could force her to obey your every command just to pay off the interest.”
The man with the cigar paused, his brow furrowing in mild suspicion. “Since when did you suddenly become so meddlesome, Roy?”
A light, airy chuckle filtered through the speaker. “How so? I was merely offering a suggestion tailored to your filthy capitalist mindset. It is nothing important. I am hanging up now.”
With that, the line went dead. Roy did not wait for a response.
He tossed the receiver aside and reached across the table, picking up a freshly developed photograph. It showed Centaurea standing in front of the Blacksteel Worldwide building, clutching the job posting. The angle was a perfect, high-resolution close-up of her side profile. She had been monitored, tracked, and photographed with lethal precision, entirely unaware of the crosshairs resting on her back.
Roy studied the delicate curve of Centaurea’s face, cross-referencing it with the knight registry data her sleazy agent had just forwarded. He pursed his lips, his eyes softening into a look of mock pity.
“Ah. Just another pitiful little knight girl.”
“What is so terrible about being a knight? Kawalerielki is absolutely crawling with spies from the Armorless Union and the Kazimierz General Chamber of Commerce. Before those corporate parasites squeeze every last drop of marrow from your bones, how easy do you honestly think it is to just walk away?”
His partner, Monique, sat nearby, carefully wiping down the sleek curvature of her compound bow. She rolled her eyes at him. “You speak as if you are somehow detached from it all. Like you are not just another exploited dog on a leash.”
Roy shrugged, his posture entirely relaxed. “Yeah, we are dogs too. Which means we have to work overtime tonight. Is my bow clean yet?”
“Clean it yourself. I am not your maid,” Monique replied, her voice cold and unyielding.
Roy flashed a cheeky, utterly shameless grin. “Come on, help a partner out. If my gear isn’t polished, you’ll be the one complaining about my sloppy shooting and poor stamina tonight!”
Monique’s expression instantly darkened into a murderous scowl. In a blur of motion, she raised her bow, drawing the string back and aiming it directly between Roy’s eyes. The killing intent radiating from her suggested she would gladly put an arrow through his skull if he dared to make another crude remark.
Roy immediately threw his hands up, slapping on a conciliatory smile as he leaned away from the weapon. “I meant my archery! I was talking about my archery!”
Monique held the aim for a second longer before lowering the bow with a heavy, exhausted sigh.
Roy was strong. He was arguably stronger than her. But his slippery, infuriatingly casual nature did not match the terrifying reputation of a legendary Lazurite assassin. He spent his days spouting bizarre, inappropriate nonsense from every conceivable angle. She had absolutely no idea where he had picked up such a grating personality.
“We are ruthless, elite killers. Can we not at least attempt to look the part? Try being a bit cold-faced and hard-hearted for once.”
…
“You think I should be a bit colder?”
Sitting in the front passenger seat, Ernst glanced into the rearview mirror, his brow slightly furrowed in genuine confusion as he processed Vina’s suggestion from the back.
Vina leaned forward, her expression earnest. “Because interviewers are usually like that. If you are not a bit colder, if you don’t ask sharper, more aggressive questions, the applicants will think you are easy to manipulate. They won’t feel any pressure, and then it will be incredibly difficult for you to evaluate their… what is the term…”
“Stress resistance?” Aurora prompted quietly from the adjacent seat.
Vina snapped her fingers, nodding firmly. “Exactly. Their stress resistance!”
Ernst nodded slowly, tapping his fingers against his knee.
Vina made a perfectly logical point. Ernst was well aware of standard corporate recruitment tactics. Interviewers loved to conduct stress tests, deliberately firing off tricky, hostile questions designed to corner the applicant. It was a proven method to strip away rehearsed answers and measure a person’s true psychological endurance.
But Ernst had zero intention of using such methods, and his reasoning was incredibly simple.
Given the current state of Kjerag, this entire recruitment drive was practically built on smoke, mirrors, and outright deception. Why on earth would he bother with a stress test here?
The real stress test was Kjerag itself. Once he managed to drag these poor souls back to the frozen mountains, did they really need an artificial test? Lock a modern city dweller in a freezing, isolated valley with absolutely zero nightlife or entertainment for a year and a half. If they didn’t end up in a psychiatric ward by the end of it, they were practically saints.
That was exactly why he needed to recruit in massive, sweeping numbers. When a screw wore out from the sheer misery of the environment, you needed a fresh one ready to replace it.
Still, seeing Vina actively offering suggestions and trying to integrate herself into his operation was a highly positive development. Ernst was never one to withhold praise when it served to build loyalty.
“Very well said,” Ernst replied, his tone warm and approving.
He let a brief silence stretch through the car.
“But it is entirely unnecessary.”
“Why?” Vina asked, tilting her head.
Ernst adjusted his collar, his expression shifting into one of absolute, righteous conviction. “I firmly believe that anyone who makes the decision to leave their home and work in Kjerag possesses a noble character, outstanding abilities, and exceptional psychological fortitude. There is no need for petty tests to prove their worth. Take you, for example. Did I ever subject you to a stress test?”
“No,” Vina murmured, shaking her head. A faint look of being deeply touched crossed her features.
She had initially assumed Ernst was simply inexperienced, fumbling through his first major recruitment drive. She never expected him to hold such a deep philosophy. Was this the legendary mark of a truly great leader? To trust those you hire without reservation, and to refuse to hire those you cannot trust?
It was genuinely admirable.
“Mr. Ernst, we have arrived.”
The driver’s voice broke the quiet atmosphere. Ernst gave a polite nod, waiting for the heavy vehicle to come to a complete halt before pushing his door open and stepping out into the biting Kazimierz air.
The Blacksteel branch, having received strict, top-down instructions from their CEO, Mr. Cliff, had immediately dispatched a reception team to the entrance. After exchanging a round of polite, highly professional greetings, Ernst pulled back his sleeve to check his watch. It was already past one in the afternoon.
The treacherous road conditions of the Terra wilderness were always a massive liability. They had arrived a full four hours behind his original schedule.
He turned his attention to the heavily armored security guard standing steadfastly by the main glass doors. “Hello there. May I ask if anyone came by to apply for the position before we arrived?”
The guard, well aware that this man was a distinguished VIP favored by Mr. Cliff himself, did not dare hide a single detail. He searched his memory and nodded respectfully.
“Yes, sir. There was a young lady who stood out here by the entrance holding one of your recruitment flyers. She lingered for about ten minutes. It was around nine this morning. Eventually, she threw the paper away and left without coming inside.”
Ernst felt a sharp pang of regret. In his eyes, every single person who showed even a fraction of interest in this job was a potential future asset for Kjerag. Letting one slip through his fingers simply because of a delayed convoy was a bitter pill to swallow.
But the girl was gone, and he had no name or face to track down. He could only exhale a soft sigh and accept the loss.
“Thank you for the information. In that case, let us head upstairs and set up. We will be stationed in Kazimierz for three days, and we will conclude today’s interviews promptly at five. After that, we are going out to experience the famous nightlife of the Knight City together!”
Aurora and Vina exchanged wide-eyed glances, their initial delight quickly overshadowed by practical concern. “Isn’t that going to be incredibly expensive?”
Ernst offered a dry, highly amused smile, gesturing with his chin toward the massive Blacksteel Worldwide logo behind him. “Do not worry. The branch is generously footing the entire bill.”
Vina’s eyes lit up, her earlier solemnity vanishing in an instant. “Getting things for free is the absolute best!”
“What do you mean, free?” Ernst corrected her, his tone dripping with mock disapproval. “This is called being incredibly frugal and managing our household finances with strategic brilliance. You should really look for a man like me to marry, understand?”