Yuki Kurotsuki.
Lin Ye could feel a migraine coming by just looking at the name on this resume that he was holding.
Luckily for Lin Ye, he was wearing his Doctor's helmet, hiding his expression from anyone.
He was now in a room and sat quietly as he read through the resume. In front of him were a table and a single chair. That was where he was going to interview new recruits that wanted to join Rhodes Island. While he was waiting for anyone to walk in to start the interview, he got bored and read some of the resumes in front of him.
Orchid arranged them so that he knew the turn of each person he needed to talk to. And the first one was the one that he was reading at the moment.
From what he was reading alone, Yuki was way overqualified to join them.
Yuki Kurotsuki.
[Basic File]
Code Name: Snow
Gender: Female
Combat Experience:7 years
Place of Birth: Higashi
Date of Birth: Jan. 20
Race: Oni
Height:171cm
Infection Status: Uninfected, confirmed by medical examination.
[Physical Exam]
Physical Strength: Standard
Mobility: Excellent
Physical Resilience: Standard
Tactical Acumen: Standard
Combat Skill: Excellent
Originium Arts Assimilation: Excellent
[Profile]
Snow, the self-described Wandering Oni Warrior, has no background beyond what she has revealed about herself. She said that her history was unimportant when pressed for further information. She refused to respond, thus there is no information about her history. Her document's worth is fairly restricted because it only contains the names of people she has to meet aboard the Landship. Although her name does imply that she is a superb operator, it may be something we need to take into account.
[Clinical Analysis]
Imaging tests reveal clear, normal outlines of internal organs, and no abnormal shadows have been detected. Originium granules have not been detected in the circulatory system and there is no sign of infection. At this time, this Operator is believed to be non-infected.
[Cell-Originium Assimilation] 0%
Operator Snow showed no symptoms of Oripathy.
[Blood Originium-Crystal Density] 0.12u/L
Operator Snow rarely comes into contact with Originium.
Lin Ye's brow twitched when he read her profile. He had a guess on whose name she told them.
And what was with the code name?!
As he was about to sigh at how tiring this might all be, the door of the room opened up. Lin Ye looked up from the resume to see a familiar face standing in front of him.
The beautiful woman standing in front of him had a thin frame and was slightly taller than most women that he knew. Maybe taller than Skadi even. Her long, black hair fell to her waist, covering her shoulders, and she has a light complexion. On her head was the iconic pair of horns that her race was known for. Her huge, piercing golden eyes were her most outstanding feature as they stared at him.
Her wardrobe also changed from the last time Lin Ye saw her.
Gone was the raggy cloth and light armour that he remembered her wearing at the Halloween town. She was now wearing a gold t-shirt under a black, dull, leather jacket and black denim jeans. He could also spot some plates of armour on her shoulders, knees and around her chest area.
It was safe to say, she did some shopping when he last saw her.
But that did not surprise him all too much to see.
What did was how different her... body was.
Her skin had more colour to it, her eyes did not have any bags underneath them and she did not look like she was about to fall down at any moment like how she used to.
She was healthier than before.
Under his mask, Lin Ye's expression softened at this.
"You must be Operator Snow," Lin Ye called her.
Lin Ye noticed that his voice was more muffled now. This was a godsend to him because he really did not want to force his voice to not sound like his. The last thing he wanted was for Yuki to know he was Lin Ye. The best outcome for him was that she just considered him a nameless Doctor.
"... Yes," Lin Ye noticed how her eyes narrowed at him. He thought his cover was blown but she did not mention it so he was still in the clear.
"Come in." Lin Ye held out his hand to the chair in front of him, "You can take a seat."
The Oni nodded at him and walked towards the chair in front of him.
As she sat down on the chair, Lin Ye was about to commence Operation Snow Fall.
Objective: Not getting Snow work under Rhodes Island.
He did tell her to not go and find him, but she did the opposite, and now she was here
It was not like there were no other places for her to work. Of all company that wanted to work for why did she have to choose Rhodes Island?
She wanted to god damn find him.
Hell Nah!
Did he want to have Snow by his side? Yes! Of course!
However, she was not Snow anymore. She was not his pet. She was her own person now. She had a life now and him being it was not something that was good for her.
Look how much misfortune he brought for himself and others around him.
If he did that to Snow...
He did not know if he could ever forgive himself for that. So for the best of both of them, he needed to make sure Yuki did not join them.
"So? Do you want to join us, Operator Snow?" Lin Ye put down the resume in front of them, "Or do you prefer I address you by your name, Miss Yuki?"
This was his first step. He wanted to make sure that Yuki really remembered her past life as Snow. If she did not, at the very least he could consider letting her join but he needed to be careful when he was around her. If she remembered... He needed to get her far away from him as far as possible.
Yuki looked surprised at his question. Her face softened as she thought about this.
"... Snow," She muttered out her answer loud enough for him to hear, "I like Snow better."
"..." Lin Ye paused at seeing this. Then he sighed in his mask, "If you say so, Miss Snow."
... Fuck.
"I have to warn you," Lin Ye started his mission, "There might be some facts that you know about us that are not right."
In her seat, Snow raised a brow at him, "What do you mean?"
"Well if you heard of us getting upgrades then you are right. However, that is not the whole story," Doctor tapped on the table with his finger, "With the upgrades we got our budget is now tight. This means for a couple of months your salary might need to be cut down in half."
"Hmmm," Snow hummed at what he just said.
"I hope that is not a problem," Lin Ye smirked under his mask, "If so, you are allowed to - ."
"It's fine."
Just as he was about sure of himself he did it, Snow had to smack him back to reality with her reply.
Lin Ye needed a few moments to recover from his prior shock.
"Are you sure?" Lin Ye hoped she would say no.
And like always, the universe gave him the opposite of what he wanted.
"Yes," She nodded at him, not bothered by all of this, "You can pay me by the healthcare that you can offer. That is a way that Rhodes Island is known to pay their workers."
Damn... She did her research,
".. I see," He slowly nodded. He was stubborn, so he prepared some backup plans, "You must be fine with us not providing an allowance for you. I can understand that you-."
"I understand," She nodded, "You don't need to worry. I can pay for myself."
"..."
He did not know what to say.
Snow.... My dear, dear Snow. Please value yourself more! Don't just agree on all of that!
As Lin Ye was shouting in his mind, Snow had something on her mind also.
Her mind went on a trip to memory lane as she remembered what she did after she got away from the escort who wanted to bring her back to Higashi at the Victoria Port.
As a few days passed, she got a call from her family. After learning she was cured, they asked her to come back. They wanted to get her married to Ying Jie. From the little that she met that man, Snow really did not want to do that. So she did not come back and ran even further away from her country and Yan.
And what she did was the right choice.
A few days after she got away, Snow got news of the death of the said prince whom she should have married. He died from a sudden rogue Catastrophe that happened at Chang'an.
Although that was the news given to the public, Snow knew there was more to this, However, she did not care. It had nothing to do with her. If that prince did die, it was more freedom for her then.
However, her family was stubborn. They still wanted her to come back. So she made an offer. Snow will find a job, and they would not bother her anymore. Although they were reluctant at first, after they knew they could follow her movement by who she was working for, they finally agreed with her.
Snow knew they were trying to stalk her. That was why she wanted to join Rhodes Island. From what she knew, Rhodes Island had amazing power behind them. This made her easy to hide from her family because Rhodes Island promised that they could hide any information about them from anyone. Although her past was something she did not enjoy, Snow would be an idiot if she did admit it gave her a lot of benefits. From her upbringing, Snow had a lot of education in different types of studies. And one of them was in medicines. So working at a pharmacist company was something she could do easily.
That and she got the news that there was an amazing psychologist that was working at the company. With that new information in her hands, Snow raced towards the company. When they did the test on her, based on them, she passed with flying colours. After that, she immediately asked about this famous psychologist of them. At the mention of this person, all of them smile and asked what was his name. Although it was brief, the man told her who he was, and so he told them his name. She also asked if she could meet him.
They confirmed that Lin Ye was working with them, but she needed to be an employee to meet him.
With that, her determination of getting into the company rose.
That was why she was sitting and doing this interview with this person.
Talking about the person who was interviewing her, from what she was told by the employees here, this man in front of her was the Doctor. This meant that the man was almost the boss of the whole company. She expected a lot of things about this man.
But after talking with him for a while, she noticed something strange about him.
It was like he was deliberately trying to make her not join them. And his voice. Although muffled it sounded... familiar to her.
This was enough to make her raise a brow at him.
Just as she was about to ponder more on this, the man seemed to want to ask more of her.
"Miss Snow," Lin Ye leaned closer to her, "What do you think about doing overtime?"
Lin Ye was now desperate. When he was about to give up a sudden strike of an idea hit him like a bullet to the brain. The worst thing any worker could be given.
Overtime.
He remembered how dead Ansel was when he was giving this torturous thing one time. He looked like a dead man walking. So Snow should, no, must be put off by his off-.
"I can do that," She nodded, "It gets me to learn more about this company if I work longer."
"..."
Lin Ye's mind temporary shut down just by hearing her reply. Then it slowly boots up. And the first thing that came into his empty mind was a shout.
Snow! Do you not have any common sense?! This company is going to use you! No, not just companies, people are going to use you!
As he was too busy wrapping his mind around how ridiculous Snow was, the woman in front of him narrowed her eyes at him.
When Lin Ye asked her just now, he was so desperate that time, he did not notice how loud his voice was.
This made his voice come out clearer.
This made the speculation that Snow had more confirmation now.
Just to make sure, she came up with an idea.
"Seeing how you are suggesting some horrible situation for me to work in," She leaned in closer to the masked man, "Are you going to drug me like last time."
"That was a mist-,"
Lin Ye managed to catch himself before he could finish his sentence. However, that was enough for Snow to hear.
Without even hesitating, Snow reached out to the man and pulled back the hood that was hiding his face.
Her golden piercing eyes stared into his shaken blacks.
"I knew it," Her eyes narrowed at him, "I finally found you."
... Shit.
{Rhodes Island's Psychologist}
Draft: Jaq
Proofread: Discord
Edit: Jaq