Arknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Glorious Isolation

Ho’olheyak was in a remarkably relaxed mood.

Compared to the other university students crowding the corridor—anxiously fidgeting, biting their nails, and agonizing over their gains and losses while waiting for the third interview notification—her mindset remained perfectly tranquil.

The reason was simple: she wasn’t the least bit worried about being rejected.

Unlike these fresh-faced graduates who had yet to be ground down by the harsh realities of society, Ho’olheyak’s life experience was rich enough to fill a heavy, leather-bound memoir. From the very moment she drew her first breath, she already possessed five hundred years of history. She had inherited a staggering wealth of knowledge accumulated over generations through her Kukulkan bloodline, a veritable mountain of ancestral memories.

Although the price of bearing that mental weight was heavy—occasionally leaving her feeling suffocated beneath the crushing tide of the past—she had to admit it allowed her to handle any mundane situation with effortless grace.

‘I have no choice in the matter,’she mused, a faint, haughty smile playing on her lips.’Who told my mind to carry the glorious history of the Kukulkan clan for over four centuries?’

She proudly crossed her black-stockinged legs. Her perfect figure and relaxed posture projected an invisible, powerful aura of superiority. It pressed down heavily on the surrounding university students, whose eyes still held the clear foolishness and luxurious innocence of youth. Consciously or unconsciously, they all shuffled away, giving Ho’olheyak a wide berth.

Ho’olheyak thoroughly enjoyed this period of glorious isolation. She retrieved a thick volume on Gaulish history from her expensive handbag and began to read, turning the pages with slow, deliberate elegance as if no one else existed in the world. Only the slight, rhythmic tremor of her ear feathers indicated that she was still quietly paying attention, waiting for her name to be called from the interview room nearby.

“Is Ms. Joyce Moore here? Is Ms. Joyce Moore present?”

Finally, the heavy soundproof door opened. A silver-haired girl stepped out from the room that had been prepared for the interviews, holding a clipboard and calling out names in a flat, mechanical tone.

The delicate body of the girl sitting directly opposite Ho’olheyak suddenly seized. With a sickeningly smooth motion, her entire head swiveled a full two hundred and seventy degrees, locking eyes with Centaurea, who was standing at the doorway with a horrified expression. Then, under the silver-haired girl’s stunned gaze, Joyce slowly stood up, rotating her torso to catch up with her head, and replied quietly.

Centaurea inhaled sharply, her breath catching in her throat, adding a tiny spark of heat to the already warming Columbian air—a climate steadily rising in temperature due to the recent reclamation movements and heavy industry expansion.

“Ms. Moore… are you alright?”

Centaurea cautiously examined the slender neck of the girl who had just walked up to her. The only practical knowledge she had retained from her brutal career as a Competition Knight—specifically regarding the arrangement and structural limits of human bones—served its purpose in this highly unexpected situation. A quick visual check confirmed that Joyce showed absolutely no signs of a cervical fracture.

‘Is this also some kind of racial talent?’ Centaurea marveled inwardly, maintaining her deadpan exterior. She had long known that the Feline race possessed superior flexibility and petite frames, giving them a distinct advantage in special service industries. The Perro and Lupo boasted keener senses of smell, naturally excelling in investigative professions like detectives and police work. The Kuranta, built for endurance and speed, often gravitated towards courier and delivery jobs.

But this was the very first time she had witnessed a Liberi demonstrate their racial talent in such a terrifyingly literal manner. It was genuinely astonishing.

“Please, come in.”

Centaurea composed herself, stepping aside to lead Joyce into the office before firmly pulling the door shut behind them.

The moment the latch clicked, the corridor erupted into a suppressed commotion.

“Joyce? It’s actually Joyce!”

“Didn’t she contract Oripathy? Would any decent company really want her?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I bet she just went in there to be chewed out and used as an example. She’ll definitely be the first one rejected. I’ll bet you anything, when she comes out later, she’ll be crying!”

University students lacked practical social experience, but they never lacked experience in cutthroat competition. Every self-proclaimed prodigy standing in this hallway had endured over a decade of grueling academic struggles. Because of that, they were never stingy with their malice, nor did they shy away from tearing down their peers.

“If you ask me, if Joyce actually gets selected, it must be because their boss… oh wait, no, it must be some high-ranking official who took a liking to her face.”

“What else can an Oripathy patient do? If she doesn’t secure a job through dirty means, is she supposed to just starve on the streets? Come on, she used to be a top-ranked student at Trimounts University. You have to understand her desperation, right?”

They began to joke, to imagine, and to self-righteously interpret Joyce’s situation behind the closed door, masking their own insecurities with venom. Seeing this pathetic display, Ho’olheyak sneered softly and shook her head.

‘It’s just sour grapes,’ she thought, turning a page of her book.

It was already winter. Not just in the meteorological sense, but also in the talent market.

Once the golden recruitment periods of September and October had passed, those left languishing in the market were either mediocre talents lacking specific skills, or arrogant fools who possessed some ability but were entirely too ambitious for their own good. Ho’olheyak was absolutely certain that if any one of these gossiping students had been called in first, even without the stigma of Oripathy to use as an excuse, the others would still find creative ways to belittle them.

They didn’t speak out of confidence; they spoke because they were terrified.

They were afraid that the first person to enter would seize the only available opportunity, leaving them—the latecomers—empty-handed. Their sheer lack of real-world experience meant they had no idea how to process this anxiety, so they resorted to slander to comfort one another. They desperately needed to tell themselves that if they lost the position, it wasn’t because they were inadequate, but because the boss had poor judgment and valued something other than pure ability.

Ho’olheyak, however, wasn’t worried in the slightest. She merely smiled faintly, her elegant demeanor completely ignoring the huddled, whispering students, and continued to read her brief history of Gaul.

‘The truly strong don’t need to worry,’she concluded silently.’Opportunities will always come knocking on their own.’

Not long after, the heavy soundproof door clicked open. Joyce’s petite figure emerged, clutching her resume tightly to her chest. Her eyes were slightly red, brimming with an intense emotion that looked dangerously close to spilling over as tears.

The previously noisy corridor instantly fell dead silent. Every pair of eyes locked onto Joyce. No one spoke a word, but the collective, burning gaze of the crowd echoed a single, desperate question: How did it go?

Joyce glanced around at the expectant faces. She lowered her head, seemingly hesitating for a fraction of a second, before finally whispering into the quiet hall.

“I feel… it went well. The interviewers were all very nice people. Just perform normally.”

After offering that gentle advice, she pursed her lips, lowered her gaze, and quickly hurried down the corridor, disappearing around the corner.

Naturally, her hasty departure was immediately interpreted by the crowd as a panicked retreat after a humiliating failure. Her vague, uninformative answer was taken as mere stubbornness—a pathetic attempt to save face in front of her peers.

Cruel, suppressed laughter erupted in the corridor once again. But Centaurea’s sudden reappearance in the doorway instantly froze the amusement, transforming the atmosphere back into rigid seriousness.

“Is Mr. Mira Soren here? Is Mr. Mira Soren present?”

The call was repeated in a bored, entirely indifferent tone. A man of medium build squeezed his way out of the anxious crowd and practically strutted up to Centaurea.

Centaurea merely glanced at him. She said nothing else, acting exactly like a licensed, mechanical receptionist, and simply repeated her script.

“Then come with me.”

Ho’olheyak watched over the top of her book as the man ostentatiously adjusted his tie and smoothed his sleeves, marching into the room with his head held high. She pursed her lips, a momentary, irritating flicker of doubt arising in her mind.

‘Why isn’t it me yet?’But she quickly crushed the thought, dismissing the doubt with practiced ease.’It’s fine. It’s just a matter of order. Perhaps the stack of resumes was placed face down on the table, so they started reading from the bottom of the pile?”With my flawless resume and my proven ability as a senior agent for Maylander, there is absolutely no reason I couldn’t handle a trivial village government interview… right?’

…

Interviewees entered and exited the room one after another. Their expressions painted a vivid spectrum of human emotion—ranging from wild excitement to crushing disappointment, interspersed with overwhelming joy, smug certainty, or bitter regret.

Inside the quiet office, after seeing off the second-to-last interviewee on the list, Ernst looked down at Ho’olheyak’s name printed at the very bottom of the page. He hesitated for a brief moment, tapping his pen against the desk, before closing the folder entirely.

Vina, who was sitting beside him acting as a co-interviewer, leaned forward. She finally voiced the question that had been bothering her for the past hour.

“Ernst, did you intend to hire Ms. Joyce from the very start?”

Ernst shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Not really.”

“Then why did you specifically remind her not to disclose any interview information after she left?” Vina asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Ernst offered a slow, pragmatic shrug. “Because that girl lacks cunning. Or rather, she’s a bit too kind for her own good.”

He reached out and tapped the computer monitor resting on the edge of the table, which was currently displaying a crystal-clear surveillance feed of the corridor outside. “Look at them. Everyone who came in after her, regardless of their background, participated in the malicious gossip about Joyce. They understand the nature of competition perfectly. In a high-stakes situation like this, why would anyone willingly hand over the answers for their direct competitors to use as a reference?”

“But Joyce is different.”

Ernst sighed, reaching up to rub his throbbing temples.

“I explicitly reminded her that she had the right to keep her interview process strictly confidential. Doing so would have naturally placed far more psychological pressure on the subsequent interviewees, making them prone to mistakes and indirectly improving her own final score. But she still spoke.”

“Even though it was just a couple of brief, seemingly insignificant sentences, she still chose to share her experience to ease their nerves. That is exactly why I decided to hire her. Though, certainly not as a secretary.”

Ernst let out another long breath.

Ptilopsis was an upright, genuinely good person, but she was absolutely terrible political material. A technical position or a role in accounting desperately required someone with her rigid sense of responsibility and unwavering justice. But as a personal secretary? It would be a disaster.

After all, she didn’t know how to pretend to be clueless.

As a famous philosopher once noted: feigning ignorance is an innate talent, a terrifying skill that simply cannot be taught.

Ernst still needed to find a more suitable genius—someone who knew exactly when to play the fool.

He shifted his gaze to Centaurea, who was waiting quietly by the door. “Call the last person. That Ho’olheyak.”

Centaurea nodded silently, turning on her heel and reaching for the brass handle.

But the very second she pulled the heavy door open, a dark green silhouette was already standing there, completely blocking the entrance to the interview room.

Ho’olheyak stood frozen on the threshold. Her eyes were welling with unyielding, frustrated tears, her beautiful face etched with a terrifyingly resolute determination. The gaze she directed at Centaurea, and then at the people seated behind the desk, shimmered with the dark, wronged light of someone pushed to the absolute brink.

Her fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles were white. Her perfectly glossed lips parted slightly, emitting a chilling, haunting question that slithered into the room like the persistent obsession of a vengeful spirit.

“Is it my turn?”

I’m not worse than those people, am I? Whether it’s my resume, my abilities, or my vast social experience and network, I can’t possibly be worse than those fresh-faced, naive university students, can I?

She had spent the last hour unabashedly slandering her competitors in her own mind, desperately trying to fill the hollow void left by creeping fear.

Why did everyone else get to go in, but I was left at the very end? I’ve been waiting outside for hours! Did you all conspire against me beforehand? Was this entire interview process actually rigged from the very start?!

She had been wildly speculating, fabricating elaborate conspiracies about the legitimacy of the interviewers just to salvage her crumbling self-confidence and fragile dignity.

I am a senior Maylander agent, for God’s sake! I only came to apply for your little interview just for fun. Do you really think I actually care about the outcome of this pathetic job?!

It was the ultimate, tsundere attitude of sour grapes.

Every single arrogant thought she had directed at the students earlier had completed a perfect, vicious boomerang circuit, crashing violently back into her own mind. It echoed loudly in her skull, proudly proclaiming the cruel miracle of her own hypocrisy.

But Ho’olheyak seemed to selectively ignore her own mental breakdown, completely oblivious to how far she had fallen. She merely locked her eyes onto Ernst, who was seated in the center of the room. Her voice dripped with deep resentment, her eyes oozing a dangerous, silky tension. Her tone was exactly like a long-thirsty, venomous snake flicking its tongue at its absolute favorite prey.

“Is it my turn now… esteemed… Interview… Officer… Sir?”