Part Time Job 2

"Hmm," the supervisor hummed in deep thought after hearing Emmia's rough ideas for the truck. It had been a useful back and forth. Although Emmia was indeed talented, she wasn't polished enough yet. A lot of her ideas were brilliant yet were not cost-effective at all.

'What the girlie needs is experience...' the supervisor thought as he took a look at Emmia.

Currently, she was staring at the rough sketches that had been born out of their discussions. Keeping in mind her supervisor's advice from a few moments ago, Emmia continuously maneuvered between the various ones, mentally noting down the advantages and disadvantages of each one, how each one could be improved, and what is the order of priority of the features that the truck should include.

"Girlie, what did ye say ye'r name was?" The supervisor asked suddenly.

Startled, Emmia turned to stare at him before realising that she had been asked a question. "Emmia Sturze." She responded.

"Hmm. We had a nice discussion here. When is ye'r next shift?" The supervisor asked another question.

Prepared this time, Emmia told him, "Next Tuesday."

"Make some sketches and come that day. I'll see how much ye have improved." The supervisor commanded. "Now get going girlie. It'll be late already."

Shocked, Emmia checked the time and found that it was almost dinner time already. She had stayed around 3 hours over time.

'Seril is going to kill me...' Emmia thought with fright and ran to gather her stuff.

Before she left she managed to thank her superior for the opportunity.

"Thank you, sir, I'll definitely make those sketches with the advice that you gave me."

Emmia left with sparkling eyes. She was excited to finally do something useful in her life. Though this was most definitely a test for checking her capabilities, it was her only ticket out of automation hell that she was condemned to.

Gathering her things, and changing out of her uniform, Emmia rushed back home, hoping with all her heart that Seril wouldn't be too mad.

------

"Where the hell were you?" Seril's cold voice sounded out the moment Emmia entered the house.

Freezing, Emmia couldn't move in front of Seril's fury.

"I-i uh-" Emmia stuttered while staring into Seril's crimson eyes which seemed to dance in anger.

Seril glared at her younger sister.

"Speak." She commanded.

As if an unknown force acted on her, Emmia blurted out the truth without any room for any lies.

"I was at work..."

"Have they become so understaffed that they made you work 4 hours overtime?" Seril raised an eyebrow.

"N-no, I was talking with my supervisor about designing a car....." Emmia trailed off.

"For 3 hours?" Seril's voiced her disbelief. "Nevermind, I know how you get when you start."

After answering her own question, Seril sighed and rubbed her forehead to ease some of the stress that had accumulated. Why were her younger siblings hell-bent on killing her with stress and worry?

"Next time make sure to message me if you're staying overtime," Seril asked with a softer voice.

"Uh-huh. I'll definitely do that," Emmia readily agreed to try to get out of her elder sister's lecture as soon as possible.

"I mean it," Seril repeated in a sharper tone.

Gulping, Emmia nodded, this time engraving it into her heart.

"Haah, go eat dinner," Seril excused Emmia and returned to her workplace.

Hesitating, Emmia looked at Seril's lonely figure sitting in front of the glow of the laptop.

"Sis..... I'm sorry," Emmia apologized wholeheartedly. She did indeed feel sorry for making Seril worry so much.

Pausing, Seril turned to look at her sister with a smile, "As long as you understand. But remember to message me next time if anything like this ever happens ok?"

"Uh-huh." Emmia agreed and headed to eat her dinner.

Seril turned back to the screen with a smile. The twins usually just called her by her name, but they only used 'sis' when they really meant it. And it never failed to put Seril in a good mood.

Typing quickly to finish her work for the day, Seril started to feel dizzy. Universal energy started to gravitate toward her, slowly spiraling towards her like water spiraling down a drain in slow motion.

'Not again,' Seril thought with a storm of emotions boiling underneath. Placing the laptop onto the table, Seril soon lost consciousness.

In the kitchen, Emmia placed her empty plate into the sink and rushed out. She wanted to get started on her sketches as soon as possible. Excited, she passed the living room, where she saw Seril passed out on the couch.

She paused for a second and rushed upstairs. Getting a blanket from Seril's room, she went back down and spread it over her sister.

Tucking her sister in, Emmia then promptly rushed up and began a grind to draw a valid sketch.

------

Finishing up and turning off the lights, the supervisor, Ulmolg headed to the upper deck in the factory. There a row of offices were situated. Heading towards the only one with the light currently on, Ulmolg stopped outside the door and knocked twice. Without waiting for a reply, he opened the door and headed in.

There he saw a lanky man buried in a pile of papers. The man was soundly sleeping, not minding the stack of papers literally piled up on top of his head.

"Oye, Stickler, wake up. Ye can't sleep 'ere," Ulmolg basically shouted startling the man. Waking up, the lankly man was surprised to find a stack of paper right on his head.

"Umm, Ulmolg can you help me out?" he called out, trying his best not to scatter the papers everywhere. For reference, his hands were also buried under two separate stacks of paper.

"Aren't ye pitiful Stanie," Ulmolg snorted to Stanler before moving to help his friend and boss.

Freeing Stanler from the piles of paper, Ulmolg plopped himself down on the chair for visitors.

Stretching, Stanler looked at his friend's unusually good mood.

"What the occasion?" Stanler asked mildly.

"Why're ye covered with papers first," Ulmolg demanded.

"I think it was Aisha...." Stanler sighed.

"Ye were sleeping weren't ye?" Ulmolg pointed out.

"Maybe," Stanler admitted. "Now what happened?" Stanler asked again trying to change the conversation.

Snorting at his friend's poor attempt to change the subject, Ulmolg relented this time. But only due to his good mood.

"I found an unpolished gem 'ere." Ulmolg excitedly stated.

"Here?" Stanler asked astonished. This factory was just a branch unit of the main one located in an entirely different city. He was shocked because he didn't expect to find any talents as such. The factory was still new, and setting up its footing in the city. Thus stumbling upon a talent just by pure luck was a godsend.

"How are they?" Stanler changed his question after looking at Ulmolg's look that screamed, 'Where else are there people ya nitwit?

"They're very amateurish right now. But we can dig out the talent," Ulmolg confirmed.

"Hmmm," Stanler frowned slightly. "Don't go all in from the start. While your judgment is very important, we need to test them-"

"I've already given a test," Ulmolg cut off with a dismissive wave.

Pausing for a second, Stanler then asked, " What sort of test?"

"Oh, nothing big. Just design a proper forest crawler," Ulmolg replied while picking his ear. He was referring to the truck that he was talking to Emmia with.

Stanler felt his eye twich.

"Let me get this straight, you asked them....to design a forset crawler that even the most senior engineers would have trouble with?"

"Yep. Should be a piece of cake."

Stanler was at a loss for words. While he knew his friend was crazy about designing things, he didn't expect him to be so harsh on the potential recruit.

Sucking in a deep breath, "Ok, how is this person, maybe they already have some prior experience-"

"She's in secondary school right now. 15 I presume."

Stanler finally gave up trying to understand his friend's judging criteria.