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ArabicArknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 38
Chapter 38: What Exactly Do You Do Here?
“Is this what a real recruitment site looks like?”
Vina leaned against the railing, her golden eyes scanning the chaotic sea of bodies below. The small venue was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, a suffocating mass of nervous energy, cheap cologne, and the incessant rustle of freshly printed resumes.
Watching so many people desperately vying for a handful of scarce positions—faces flushed red with anxiety and fierce competition—was an entirely novel experience for her.
Didn’t getting a job just mean walking up and asking for one? Or, failing that, taking it by force?
Years of surviving the unforgiving streets of Londinium had taught her the brutal reality of Victoria’s lower class. Beneath the glittering facade of peace and aristocratic prosperity lay a vicious underworld of gang struggles and bloody skirmishes. Under those ruthless social rules, as long as you could throw a punch, possessed a spine, and were willing to bleed, securing a hot meal wasn’t terribly difficult.
And as an Aslan, Vina had never lacked courage.
Her life had been down and out, certainly, but it had never been reduced to this kind of bureaucratic desperation. Yet, despite having experienced the absolute zenith of royalty and the gritty rock-bottom of the slums, she realized she still only possessed a fractured understanding of how ordinary citizens actually lived.
Listening to her quiet exclamation, Ernest simply shook his head, leaning back in his chair with a relaxed posture.
“This is nothing,” he said, his tone dry. “I’ve seen far worse.”
“Worse than this?” Platinum turned her head. Even with her extensive, bloody work experience in the Armorless Union, the sheer volume of desperate corporate drones below seemed excessive. A flicker of genuine interest crossed her usually stoic features.
Ernest nodded. “I once witnessed a competition where tens of thousands of people in a single city fought tooth and nail for a dozen—sometimes just one or two—open positions. It was an absolute bloodbath. A true case of thousands of soldiers trying to cross a single-plank bridge.”
“How is that mathematically possible? What nation could sustain such a situation?” Aurora asked, her brow furrowing in disbelief.
After graduating, the Ursus girl had received several lucrative offers from Columbian tech firms. Cryo-engineering was a highly specialized, punishing field, and very few possessed the patience or the Originium Arts talent to pursue a doctorate in it.
Although she had ultimately returned to Kjerag to work alongside Ernest, her internships had given her a solid grasp of the modern job market. At least in a hyper-capitalist hub like Columbia, a scenario where tens of thousands of applicants fought for a single offer was statistically absurd.
Not to mention, the population of a standard Nomadic City typically hovered between several hundred thousand to a million at most. If tens of thousands of able-bodied citizens abandoned their posts to fight over a single desk job, wouldn’t the entire local economy and social order instantly collapse?
Ernest merely glanced at her, offering a faint, mysterious smile, and chose not to explain.
Unless someone had actually lived on Earth, how could they possibly comprehend a static city capable of housing tens of millions of people? Even if hundreds of thousands of them rushed to take the civil service exams, arrogant corporate overlords could still look their exhausted workers in the eye and sneer, ‘If you don’t want the job, a thousand others do. The only thing we aren’t lacking is people.’
His mind drifted back to the day he discovered he had passed his own civil service exam. Even though he had long since crossed over into Terra, the phantom rush of that absolute triumph still warmed his chest.
Wait a minute…
Why not find an opportunity to write about Earth, packaging it as a series of sci-fi novels? Would it sell?
The thought struck Ernest like a bolt of lightning, the spark quickly igniting into a raging inferno of capitalist ambition.
It was entirely feasible. More, it was a goldmine.
Ernest had read extensively in his past life. If he were to manifest Earth’s rich history and literature as ‘speculative fiction’ in this world, it would be a brilliant, untraceable form of nostalgia.
Once the framework was established and the profits started rolling in, he could even set up a dedicated publishing house to mass-produce the classics of his previous life!
After all, wasn’t all literature just a form of elevated borrowing? Liberal arts students in this world might operate under different physical laws and rely on Originium technology, but the sacred, magical path of literary plagiarism remained universally applicable!
Visions of massive stacks of LMD and pristine gold vouchers fluttering down from the sky filled his mind. Ernest’s lips curled into a deeply satisfied, slightly unhinged smile, practically borrowing joy from his own wealthy future.
“What is the boss laughing about?” Platinum whispered, leaning slightly toward Aurora.
Aurora shook her head, her expression deadpan. “The boss gets like this sometimes. He is probably thinking about something highly profitable.”
“Don’t we need to actually do something?” Vina interrupted, crossing her arms. “I feel entirely useless just sitting up here.”
She was itching for action, eager to march down there and personally interrogate those university students in their stiff suits and ties, clutching their flimsy resumes like shields.
However, Magnus Bank had completely taken over the logistics of this recruitment drive. Their entrusted headhunting firm had dispatched professional HR representatives, setting up simple interview stations behind small square tables at the end of the winding applicant queues.
These professionals were responsible for filtering out the candidates who failed to meet the baseline requirements, submitting the surviving resumes for secondary review and background checks, and finally presenting the elite few to Ernest and his team.
In theory, Ernest’s small crew only needed to handle the final round of interviews and sign off on the hires. It drastically reduced their workload and gave the operation a veneer of corporate legitimacy. Yet, this hands-off approach carried a rather massive hidden flaw.
Ernest hadn’t actually provided them with any hiring standards.
The headhunting company currently considered this the most agonizing assignment they had ever accepted. A public recruitment drive for ‘government civil servants’was already a bizarre concept in Kjerag, but the directive of’the more the better, no specific requirements’ was downright maddening. If Magnus Bank hadn’t paid such an exorbitant fee upfront, the headhunters would have seriously suspected they were funneling bodies into an overseas organ-harvesting syndicate.
But since the LMD cleared, they kept their mouths shut. Fraud? What fraud? This was simply a advanced wealth redistribution strategy, perfectly adapted to the new business models of the modern era!
Vina knew that an amateur interfering with industry professionals was a major taboo, so despite her eagerness, she held her ground, waiting for Ernest’s explicit approval.
Ernest, however, couldn’t care less about HR etiquette. He was currently busy debating whether his debut Earth series should open with Pangu splitting the heavens or the birth of Jesus.
Hearing Vina’s complaint, he waved a hand dismissively.
“Go ahead and take a walk. If you spot anyone who looks useful, just grab a copy of their resume and bring them over. It’s no trouble at all.”
He spoke with the carefree, brazen attitude of a man proudly declaring himself a barbarian crashing the gates.
“As for whether it breaks their little rules, don’t worry about it. We’re running a makeshift operation anyway. What rules are there to break?”
As the old saying went: having no demands was the most terrifying demand of all. The headhunting company was already suffering a collective migraine, so Ernest naturally felt obligated to increase the intensity and give them a full-blown aneurysm. After all, he wasn’t the one paying their hourly rate.
Vina, deeply familiar with Ernest’s complete lack of morality toward strangers and his generous tolerance toward his own people, nodded in approval. Straightening her spine, she adjusted the shiny ‘Kjerag Government Foreign Minister’ badge pinned above her chest and strode confidently down into the chaotic recruitment pit.
What kind of people would actually apply to work for our government?
She scanned the crowd with anticipation, her golden eyes immediately locking onto a target that stood out like a sore thumb.
It was a towering Liberi man. Even tailored under a crisp black suit, his absurdly strong, bulging muscles threatened to tear through the fabric with every breath.
Vina took a steadying breath, marched right up to him, and asked, “Hello, sir. Are you here for the job fair?”
The massive Liberi man slowly blinked. He looked at the seemingly endless, agonizing line of applicants ahead of them, then looked down at the crumpled resume in his massive hand. Finally, he shifted his gaze back to Vina, his deadpan expression screaming:
What else would I be doing here?