Arknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 51

Chapter 51: He’s Also a Mechanophile!

Kjerag, Turicum.

The crisp mountain wind swept across the stone plaza in front of the Government Office Building. Ernst gestured warmly, guiding the newly awakened Kent Windermere and his young daughter Delphine through the formal introduction of the Kjerag Government’s core leadership team.

He pointed toward the Kukulkan beauty draped in a pristine Columbia-style trench coat. A gentle, perfectly measured smile rested on her lips. “This is my personal secretary, Ms. Ho’olheyak.”

“Ms. Ho’olheyak. A pleasure.” Kent extended a hand, his grip firm and practiced. “Columbian?”

Ho’olheyak’s smile curved a fraction of an inch higher. “I stand in Kjerag, so I am a citizen of Kjerag.”

Kent masked his surprise with a polite nod. To hear such an impeccably diplomatic, adaptable answer regarding nationality in this remote snowy frontier earned his immediate respect.

Delphine, however, peered up from behind her father’s heavy coat. “This auntie’s smile looks like it’s hiding something scary, but it’s pretty!”

Being complimented by a child was a rare novelty. Ho’olheyak reached down, gently patting little Delphine’s head. Dropping her usual guarded mystique, she offered the girl a wide, entirely genuine smile from the bottom of her heart. “Is that so?”

Delphine flinched violently and scrambled behind Kent’s leg.

The Kukulkan’s shoulders slumped. She withdrew the smile, retreating to Ernst’s side looking entirely deflated.

“What’s wrong?” Ernst asked, highly amused. “Hurt your pride?”

“My genuine smile actually terrified a child.”

“If you smile without holding back, there really aren’t many people on this earth who can handle it.”

Ho’olheyak tilted her head, her golden eyes locking onto his. “What about you?”

Ernst paused. Adhering strictly to the principle of not inflicting secondary emotional damage, he gave a slow nod. “I actually think it’s fine. Quite distinctive.”

Without missing a beat, Ho’olheyak looped her arms around Ernst’s elbow, pulling it snugly against the soft swell of her chest. She leaned in close, flashing that perfectly calculated, standard smile. “Then I’ll just have to smile for you.”

“Cough, cough!” Aurora stood a few paces away, her face burning red as she glared at the display. “There are children present!”

Ernst smugly extracted his arm from the Kukulkan’s plush grip and cleared his throat. “Moving on. This is my Minister of Engineering, Aurora. She oversees all of Kjerag’s infrastructure and construction.”

Kent offered a gracious nod, never one to skimp on diplomatic praise. “Minister of Engineering. A heavy responsibility for one so young. Miss Aurora is truly accomplished! I imagine the grand train inauguration ceremony I am attending owes much to your tireless efforts.”

Aurora had just reached out to shake his hand. Her polite smile instantly froze. “Ah… I actually wasn’t involved in that project at all.”

Kent chuckled, smoothly covering the awkward misstep. “No matter, no matter! The older generation of engineers certainly deserves their grand curtain call, but the future of this land undoubtedly belongs to brilliant young minds like yours.”

Aurora’s expression softened. She ducked her head, a shy earnestness in her eyes. “I will do my best.”

Delphine bobbed her head in agreement, tugging on Kent’s sleeve. “Sister Aurora is super amazing! She must have built a ton of food factories!”

Kent glanced at the young Ursa. His previous flattery had missed the mark, so this was the perfect chance to recover. He looked down at his daughter with an encouraging smile. “Oh? What makes you say that, Delphine?”

“Because Mama told me!” Delphine announced proudly. “Every time Papa goes out to talk with those female representatives and noble aunties, Mama makes the exact same face Sister Aurora is making right now! I asked her why, and she said she was running a vinegar factory because she was so sour and jealous!”

Silence descended upon the plaza. Kent and Aurora stood completely paralyzed, their expressions hardening as if cast in plaster.

A long moment passed. Both of them simultaneously dropped their smiles, their faces flushing crimson as they turned and walked toward the next person, desperately pretending nothing had happened.

As they walked, Kent hissed down at his daughter. “Next time you see your mother make that face, you tell me immediately. The peace of our household depends on you!”

Aurora waved her hands frantically, her face practically steaming. “Mr. Windermere, that’s a misunderstanding, I don’t have those kinds of thoughts…”

Ho’olheyak immediately leaned in, her tone dripping with mock thoughtfulness. “Of course. Children just say whatever comes to mind, right? How could Miss Aurora possibly harbor any improper, jealous thoughts about the boss?”

Aurora shot the Kukulkan a lethal glare before turning her head away, her voice dropping to a mortified whisper. “I don’t.”

By ‘don’t’, did she mean she didn’t have improper thoughts, or that she didn’t not have them?

Ernst patted his secretary’s shoulder, silently warning the snake to stop corrupting his innocent engineer with her endless stream of suggestive nonsense. Aurora was a pure, dedicated college student who had returned to this freezing backwater solely for the revitalization of the Kjerag people.

‘Think bigger,’Ernst mentally chided the Kukulkan.’Can the grand, noble ideal of ensuring every household in Kjerag has a small heater be tarnished by such petty romance?’

Ho’olheyak playfully stuck out her tongue, signaling a temporary truce.

Ernst gestured to the next figure in line. “This is our Minister of Finance and Chief Scientific Advisor, Joyce Moore. She is a woman of few words.”

Joyce’s ear-feathers gave a minute twitch, as if her processing unit had just rebooted. She offered a slow, measured nod.

Seeing no hand extended, Kent kept his own at his side, offering his standard diplomatic praise instead. “Ms. Joyce appears quite young, yet she exudes a careful, calculating aura. The position of Finance Minister is the lifeblood of any nation. Prime Minister Ernst truly has a keen eye for exceptional talent.”

Ernst nodded in agreement. Out of everyone here, he found Ptilopsis to be the most reliable. Sure, her severe Oripathy made her chronically sleepy and her speech patterns resembled a malfunctioning terminal, but those were minor quirks. The important thing was her terrifying competence.

The chaotic mountain of account books Ernst had dumped on Ho’olheyak to deliver had been processed, calculated, and bound into a flawless official financial report in just thirty-six hours. That level of efficiency was nothing short of pulling an SSR unit from a standard recruitment bag.

Ernst shot Joyce a subtle thumbs-up. Ptilopsis responded with a faint, almost pixelated smile.

Moving past the Liberi, Ernst approached the final minister-level figure in his cabinet. “And this is my Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vina Victoria. She hails from Victoria as well.”

Kent looked at the young Aslan before him. He had been about to offer another practiced compliment, but the moment his eyes locked onto her facial features, his brow furrowed sharply.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kent,” Vina said. Her Victorian was perfectly standard, yet despite her deliberate suppression, the heavy, unmistakable grit of an old Londinium accent bled through the syllables.

Kent fell silent. He studied her for a long moment before finally extending his hand. “Hello, Ms. Vina.” He paused, his voice dropping a fraction of a tone. “Are you from Londinium?”

Vina’s posture stiffened. For a split second, she looked as though she might recoil, but feeling Ernst standing steadfastly beside her, she set her jaw. “Yes. My hometown is Londinium.”

“Have you considered returning for a visit?” Kent asked, his tone deceptively casual. “Londinium has changed quite a bit. If you haven’t been back in a long time, you might find a few surprises waiting for you.”

Vina shook her head, her gaze unyielding. “There is no need. I love Kjerag, and I am very satisfied with my life here.”

“I see.” Kent nodded slowly, retracting his hand with a polite smile.

Beside him, little Delphine looked back down the line of ministers they had just greeted. She tugged hard on Kent’s hand, leaning in to whisper loudly. “Dad, why is his government completely full of pretty ladies?”

Kent sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air. The realization hit him like a physical blow.

‘By the heavens, she’s right.’ How did Ernst’s entire cabinet consist exclusively of young, exceptionally beautiful women? Even under the guise of balancing work and aesthetics, wasn’t this crossing a line?

If he left Delphine here in Kjerag, would she end up corrupted from the inside out? Slaaneshi degeneracy was like a creeping plague, a wild beast threatening the physical and mental purity of young girls!

Just as Kent began to seriously doubt the wisdom of his political decisions, a silver-haired Kuranta approached from across the plaza. Centaurea held a thick stack of banknotes in her hands. She walked straight up to Ernst, her expression flat as she delivered the bad news.

“Boss. This is the refund money from Karlan Trade.”

“Karlan Trade?” Ernst blinked, his mind struggling to process the sudden shift in topics. “They don’t owe me any money, do they?”

Centaurea mentally reviewed the exact phrasing used by the Karlan messenger, Courier. “It is a refund. They said something along the lines of: ‘Due to a catastrophic transport error, the Originium small heater you ordered, along with the pack beast and the transport sled, tumbled off a cliff and sustained critical damage. Recovery is estimated to be impossible, so we are refunding your purchase in full.’ Yes, that was the gist of it.”

The moment the words left her mouth, the color drained from Ernst’s face. He looked utterly devastated, staring at the banknotes as if he had just been struck by a terminal diagnosis.

Kjerag’s external procurement relied entirely on Karlan Trade’s logistics network. The company would never open an international trade route just to fetch a single small heater for him. The only reason they had managed to secure one from Victoria this time was because Duke Windermere had accepted the diplomatic invitation, giving the reception team an excuse to make an extra supply run.

And now it was broken?

Rolled off a cliff?! Who did this?!

‘If I don’t drag the culprit back here, subject them to the Holy Stone Judgement, string them up on Mount Matterhorn, and let the Beastbirds peck out their internal organs, I am not the Prime Minister!’ Ernst mentally roared, his heart bleeding for his lost appliance.

Watching the sheer, unadulterated fury radiating from Ernst’s soul, Kent hesitated. He wisely decided to keep his mouth shut about the fact that he had definitely seen that exact small heater.

Let that little heater, having completed its glorious, violent mission, rest in pieces at the bottom of the ravine alongside that frozen Gray Hat assassin.

But seeing Ernst’s dramatic grief over a piece of machinery, Kent finally let out a long sigh of relief.

Leaving Delphine here probably wouldn’t be an issue after all. This Prime Minister Ernst clearly shared the exact same fanatical obsession as he did.

He was also a hardcore mechanophile!

[Rhodes’s Note: Slaaneshi degeneracy is a reference to Slaanesh, the Chaos God of excess, pleasure, and decadence from the Warhammer 40k universe. The author frequently uses Warhammer terminology to describe Kent’s dramatic internal monologues.]