The Runic Alchemist - Chapter 750: The Five Candidates for The Job

Chapter 750: The Five Candidates for The Job

Damian sent a memo to the House of Lords so that whatever members remained could start discussing the requirements for becoming a new member of the House. They would compile a report of the best suggestions and give a copy to each of the six heads of the Sanctum.

Damian had let the other six do their own thing and had only set one rule for the heads of Sanctum: holding a meeting every third day in which they discussed the presented issues and solutions, selecting the best solution or sending the memo back for rediscussion with added suggestions.

Sam, Souldealer, and Lucian were busy with dungeon exploration. Files and files of dungeon reports—both from the Sanctuary dungeons and the ten dungeons that the demons were exploring—were already piling up on his desk and in the storage room to the side.

All the high-level items and relics were taken from the demons. All of it was being stored in the basement where Damian had created a high-level runic safe. Evrin usually managed the internal staff and handled all management matters. Damian had given her the scanner-shaped runic tool that contained his analysis spell. She received the items, scanned them, made a copy of the item’s displayed information, and stored them safely.

Damian had too many reports to read. He couldn’t do it anymore without getting tired and bored to his bones. He needed people who could do that for him. The old man and other attendants were good, but they had been trained by Einar and Evrin to manage all the general Sanctum affairs. Making them read reports all day would be a waste of their talents.

And so Damian told Evrin to put up a notice for high-level assistant talent. His main requirements were: the ability to read and write, a basic yet decent knowledge of etiquette and history. Also, they had to be young—preferably in their 20s to mid-30s. If he was going to work them to the bone, they had to be young enough to endure it. He could make an exception of 5–10 years if the candidate showed promise.

A week ago, the notice had been put up all over the city, on the notice boards that Evrin had established long ago. A few city guards even read the notice out loud a few times a day for those who couldn’t read.

Evrin had already interviewed the applicants using the questions Damian gave her. They included topics like background, general knowledge, as well as reasoning and moral questions. It was all something Damian had made up randomly to check for any weird behaviors. He did not want questionable people going through internal Sanctum documents daily.

And finally, today was the day he received his final 10 candidates. According to Evrin, a lot of people—both of noble birth and commoners—gave answers that made her raise her eyebrows. She had to reject many of them. She even went so far as to say that if those questions had been asked in the old House of Lords, 40% wouldn’t have cleared them either.

Damian had the ten profiles in his hands. He was now going to take one final interview to select five people. He only needed two or three personal assistants, but he wanted more—he also needed to choose three representatives of his own for the House of Lords so he wouldn’t have to send messages through papers.

First was, unsurprisingly, a girl of noble background. Evrin had even mentioned that many lords saw this as a way to push their daughters toward Damian. Getting them this job meant they would be around him with plenty of chances to get close. Evrin had rejected most of them, but if a lady was proper in all aspects, she could not reject her on just this one, not a very ’unqualifiable’ factor. The best of these noble daughters had made it to the final round. Evrin had written ’Dubious motivations’ under the remarks section for this candidate.

Her name was Dame Seraphina Duskvale, a first-ranker knight from Dawnstar. She had fought in all wars—against the Empire, Faerunia, Demons. She was still part of the stationary army of the Sanctuary. She was probably here because her family told her to apply.

Not many soldiers wanted to leave the army right now. Even though the war had ended, they got to enjoy the dungeon benefits. Knights could not retire; they had to obey all orders as long as they were capable. They did, however, expect great rewards for their service.

Damian wanted to remove the noble system altogether and make knights an official salaried job instead of a title. But that would come later. For now, the soldiers were too busy to pay attention to anything else, which was why they hadn’t received many applications from the army. No one wanted a change in job—especially at this time.

Which was why Evrin’s ’Dubious Motivations’ was probably accurate.

She was quite pretty, with an athletic physique, dirt-blonde hair, and blue eyes.

Damian asked simple questions, nothing too hard—he was just trying to get a sense of her personality and nothing more. Evrin had already cleared her qualifications. Still, he had to ask:

“Why do you want the job? You will not have as many opportunities to level up as a Sanctum official as you would in the army.”

Seraphina lightly nodded, meeting his eyes, and replied clearly, “Becoming a soldier or a knight was never my dream, Lord Keeper. I fought because I had to—for my family. Now that all wars are over, I am free again to choose. The time I served as a soldier and knight has made me realize I like doing things for the betterment of our country, our people. I do not want to fight, but I still want to serve.”

Well, what could he say after that? He probably wouldn’t reject her—whatever her actual aim may have been aside from what she said. Damian had her sit in the other room as he called in another candidate.

By the end of seven out of ten interviews, Damian had already chosen four people in his mind. He had all of them wait in a separate room from the remaining three candidates.

The first of the remaining three was another noble lady—this one in her early 40s. Celestine Grayspire, widow to the Marquess Grayspire. They had no children, so after the war, she was searching for a suitable job. She had enough wealth to live comfortably, but she still wanted to do something instead of sitting idly. Being a mundane human made it hard to get a good, valuable job.

The second was a commoner girl named Agatha—a 25-year-old from a barely financially stable household. Her age and unmarried status already said a lot. In a world where girls could marry at 15, she had been working for 10 years to support her parents and a younger sibling. She was quite a bright girl; she had saved up money to buy a book and taught herself how to read in her free time to get better jobs. Her family’s situation was now a little better, but she still supported them. She was also quite pretty.

The third was a young nobleman of 23 years—Valen Highmarsh. This guy was quite quick-witted and had excellent conversational skills. The main thing, however, that sold Damian on hiring him was his class—Esper. The guy had a very unique ability to memorize a large amount of information just by looking at it. At first, Damian suspected he had just an eidetic memory, but that wasn’t the case. Valen really was an Esper—he showed Damian his status, which was something Damian checked for every pathfinder candidate. It had been stated in the notice that status checks were compulsory if a candidate reached the final round of selection.

Damian called in the eighth candidate, named Hester, and was surprised to see her. The profile already said she was a beastman—that was not what surprised him. He recognized her. She was the woman who had been with Elias and his birth mother the other day. The fox beastwoman.

Now that he saw her orange-yellow tail and the fox ears atop her head up close, Damian realized he had seen her before. She was there, at the Sunblade estate. Before he passed out after entering this world in young Damian’s corpse—she was the one who had given him a healing potion. She had probably saved his life altogether.

There was no mention of House Sunblade in her profile. In fact, it said she was living with her married sister, who also had a house in the Sanctuary. After the execution of Kazak, the last beastman from the Guardian family—when the Beastman rebellion and fear had peaked—many of them had found a home in Sanctuary. Einar and Evrin had taken strict steps to ensure that such poisonous sentiments wouldn’t fester in the city. Evrin’s identity hadn’t been revealed at the time, so many beastmen had stayed. But after her identity was revealed, half of them left. The other half simply wanted a good place to stay and gave Sanctuary a chance. They still lived there, in quite good numbers. There was even a beastman village nearby.