Ten minutes later, Lappland left Lin Ye's office happily, holding Lin Ye's two boxes of milk biscuits in her arms.
Lin Ye sighs as he looks at the internship form left by the Lupo. He had a headache by just looking at it.
Skadi walks to his side and asks softly, "Can't this be reversed?"
"Well, not really. Orchid asked me to observe Lappland for a while. To see if there's any problem with her becoming an Operator in Rhodes Island." Lin Ye sighs and massages his temple.
"But I don't know much about her and rushing this is a total no-go."
"It seems that I made a mistake." Skadi nodded and walked forwards. "Then I'll take care of it my way."
Skadi looked back towards Lin Ye and with a serious face, she said.
"I just need to cut her down."
"... Say what now?" Lin Ye is startled by that "Why do you need to cut her?!"
"If I cut her down, then you won't have to worry about approving or disapproving her."
Skadi looks at the internship form in Lin Ye's hands, "This way Orchid will not pressure you anymore. I was the one who caused trouble for you. So, I will be the one to take care of it. Don't worry. I won't cut her to death, just enough for her compromise."
"You're kidding right... Of course, you're not, it's you." Just when Lin Ye said that, he knew that he was wrong. When has Skadi ever made jokes?
So, he hurriedly spoke to her before she would do something much worse.
"It's not that serious. I can just explain the situation to Orchid and by then, even if Lappland complains, she won't be able to do anything about it, so you don't have to cut anyone down. "
Seeing that Lin Ye's words were quite reasonable. She temporarily gave up the idea of "convincing" Lappland.
"Then why don't you go to Orchid now?" Skadi asks again.
"It's not necessary. This form is already with me anyways. So, if I think Lappland's okay, then I'll naturally give it to her. But if Lappland really does have a problem, then I won't give it to her. Simple."
Lin Ye explained.
"If that's the case. "Skadi nods, "Then why did you promise Lappland to help her approach ..."
"Texas." Lin Ye finished. He smiled,
"If I didn't say that, she would've been unwilling to give me this" he waved the form.
"But the most important thing to me is her mental state. If she wants to approach Texas properly then she has to be psychologically stable in the first place. So, I decided why not help her both mentally and socially at the same time? It's like killing two birds with one stone."
After speaking, Lin Ye saw that Skadi was looking at him quite thoughtfully.
"What's wrong?" Lin Ye asks.
"Nothing." Skadi shakes her head.
"I just think that...You're quite smart." Lin Ye smiled awkwardly from her praise.
When he was about to dismiss it and say that this was normal. Someone knocked at the door.
He thought Lappland had returned for something and turned his head to look, only to find that it was Pramanix.
"Dr. Lin." she said.
"Pramanix? What's the matter?" Lin Ye asked.
"Dr. Lin." she glanced at Skadi for a brief second before speaking with a hesitant expression on her face. "I need to ask for a favour."
She takes a deep breath, and then slowly asks "Can you...come to Kjerag with me?"
Lin Ye froze.
{Rhodes Island Psychologist}
A road in the wilderness, fifty kilometers west of Chernobog.
Amber leaves of autumn covered the road.
A riot car can be seen blocking the middle of the road with men dressed in Riot suits lying motionless around it. Blood leaked out from their bodies, staining the leaves around them with a sickening crimson hue.
Mephisto walked over one of the bodies while leaning on his cane and walked towards where W is.
"I have always felt such actions as this is a waste of time." Mephisto says, "How much money can be contained in such a car. People are killed, energy is wasted but the problem is never solved."
W opened the back door of the riot car and peered inside to see its contents. Inside were several boxes filled to the brim with money. Some of the boxes were overturned and suffered light damage during the attack but the rest remained intact.
"You're wasting your time by telling me this." W says lightly, "This is Talulah's order."
"I have never doubted her before, but this kind of efficiency is just too meagre." Mephisto walked forwards to stand beside W.
"We need money, lots of it. But this just isn't the right way. Doing this 2 more times is nowhere near enough of what we need and doing it another 10 times would not be enough either. But if we continue doing this until we finally have enough, the Ursus Empire would have long since become vigilant and we can't afford to clash with them yet."
Mephisto paused.
"Not yet at least."
W turns her head to look at him: "Then what do you propose we do?"
"You should know what I mean," Mephisto says with a smile.
"We should be able to get a stable income from the Karlan Trade CO. It's not too powerful as a company but it controls most of Kjerag's wealth. As long as we can cooperate, we won't have to steal money using this way in the future. The money we can get from the company would be more than enough to support Talulah. To accomplish her vision."
"That's great and all," W says, "But I heard that the Karlan Trade has a very special leader. Talulah doesn't think that he would agree to cooperate with us." Mephisto stabs the ground with his cane and smiles.
"If he doesn't, then change to a leader who will. There would always be a rotten fruit in any tree and Karlan Trade is no different."
He slowly began walking away from her before performing a spin. He looked at her as if all of this was just a simple game to him.
A game where he's confident he would win.
"Actually, I have already discussed this with Talulah regarding this." Mephisto said, "She has agreed to my plan."
W is a little surprised to hear that: "How is that possible? Talulah said the current focus should be..."
"The original objective remains the same." Mephisto slowly raises his hand to silence her. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly to form a sinister smirk, "We just changed the method of achieving it into something much simpler."
"That's the Karlan Trade." W stares at him, "You said it yourself, it's being backed up by a country.."
"I also said that there would always be bad fruit in any tree and I have already found it. Along with several more too."
Mephisto smiled, "It has been proven several times already that I will get what I want no matter what."
"For example, the little girl named Ifrit, right?"
Mephisto's expression froze.
Seeing the change in his expression, W smiled wistfully, "Mephisto, I advise you not to treat everyone idiots, you may regret it again."
"I never treat people as idiots." Mephisto's expression quickly recovers,
"But, this time I'm confident. I'll prove it to you, W. Let me show you how I will use just a few people to overwhelm a company...nay, a country."
W turned around and left while waving her hand dismissively "Then I wish you the best of luck."
Mephisto looked at W's retreating back and was about to say something when he felt that the temperature around him suddenly dropped.
He lowers his head and sees that the fallen leaves beneath his feet had formed a thin layer of frost. He immediately knows who was responsible for this phenomenon and turns around to see a woman dressed in white, slowly approaching him.
"Frostnova." Mephisto says, "I assume that you still want to go to Chernobog to find your saviour?"
A pair of cold eyes answers his question.
{Rhodes Island Psychologist}
Draft by Jaq
Proofread by d0d0b1rd NeverAnAuthor
Edit by Jaq