Devyat' Assoc. North Section 3 Rodion/Identity Story

Overview

Voicelines

Identity Story

Speaker	Dialogue
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Ya really are one weirdly dedicated gal, huh~?
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	I hardly expected you to follow me all the way out here when it's so cold out.
??? Interviewer	Consider it an extension of my… duties as a professional.
	The interviewer replies, sniffling and shuddering, one hand holding tightly onto her notepad.
	They're in one of the Backstreets of the northern part of the City, a place of an almost unending blizzard.
	Not even the poorest of the poor would dare choose this place to fall asleep.
	The child, her colleagues, and the interviewer were trudging through the snow and the cutting wind.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Hmm… I guess for how popular the Devyat' is, people don't really know the ins and outs of our work.
??? Interviewer	Yeah! Most people only know you guys as the Fixers who deliver expensive or rare items to any place in the world.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Yeah~ Safer deliveries are usually handled by those familiar corporations or Fixer Offices.
??? Interviewer	So it's gotta be a pretty dangerous job, huh? Why did you find work in this Association, if there are other options—
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Mm… 'Cuz the pay is good?
	… She wasn't lying about the pay being good, of course.
	But she also intentionally omitted the fact that Devyat' Association is often the last resort for many Fixers who are in heavy debt.
	She didn't want to go into detail about her wilder past here, of course.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	… Ooh, the wind is subsiding.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Guys! Let's take a quick break here and get something to eat.
	The child shouts at her colleagues nearby, who all sigh in exasperated unison before reaching out to open their delivery trunks.
??? Interviewer	Ooh…! So they're the famous Courier Trunk, huh?
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Yeah, well. It's a fancy name for what's just a glorified delivery trunk. It's convenient when you're carrying a lot of stuff… Hup!
Courier Trunk Poludnitsa	<Unauthorized lock release outside of delivery coordinates detected.>
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Shush! Be quiet.
??? Interviewer	Did that bag just..? Oh, it's AI-activated, huh?
	While Artificial Intelligence that has a similar sense of self as humans do have been outlawed since a long time ago…
	… simple, minor assistant-level Artificial Intelligence was still used quite often in the City.
	An example of one such Artificial Intelligence was that trunk the child was lightly tapping on.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Mmhm~ This one's called Poludnitsa. I bet most people don't know this.
??? Interviewer	Ooh, yeah, yeah! I heard some witness reports of Devyat' Fixers talking to their trunks… So they're called… Polud… nitsa… got it.
??? Interviewer	We all thought that you guys had all gone… you know, insane. Making these grueling treks day after day has to get to you, right?
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	… Had no idea that's what people think of us.
	She sighed deeply, her white breath scattering into the air, and pulled something from the trunk.
	It was smaller than a bean at first, but it grew larger as it emerged from the bag…
	… and soon grew to the size of a palm-sized energy bar.
??? Interviewer	I knew it. So those trunks weren't just any old containers!
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Yeah, we're an Association, y'know? You can stuff an item that's five times the size of this trunk into this thing.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Besides, even when transporting items that are hundreds of kilos… once we manage to stick 'em in here, we can hardly feel their weight.
??? Interviewer	Hmm… the functionalities of this bag can bend space itself, and the item's mass within is barely felt… hm… I see!
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	T-those are some complicated concepts, huh… I remember the article about Dieci South leaning a bit less on the technical side of things.
??? Interviewer	Ah, I studied science and engineering in the North. I guess that bleeds into my articles sometimes, ha ha. Even our editor reprimands me for losing track of what I'm writing.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	… W-want an energy bar or something?
Courier Trunk Poludnitsa	<Warning. Storage of unauthorized items is not recommended.>
??? Interviewer	That, uh… Poludnitsa doesn't seem to like that idea.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Eh, don't worry about it. The Association usually lets these things slide, especially if we're struggling in harsh environments.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	What really matters the most… is that we make the delivery on time.
	The interviewer easily caught on to the fact that the child's voice briefly turned dark.
??? Interviewer	What… happens if you don't make it in time?
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Ya keep salting my wound, you know that…? That's…
	That's when an aggresive sound of something rushing toward them pierced through the ambient noise.
??? Interviewer	Uhh…
Courier Trunk Poludnitsa	<Hostile forces detected. Activating Poludnitsa high-power delivery mode maneuvers.>
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Ugh. Speak of the devil, huh? I guess thieves are coming out of the woodwork now that the blizzard's somewhat subsided.
	The child stuffed the remaining half of the energy bar into her mouth, jumped up, and swung the giant delivery trunk over her shoulder.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Polu, rupture energy unlock!
Courier Trunk Poludnitsa	<Authorized. Verify that there are no items at risk near the exhaust.>
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Only stuff that's risky for me if kept alive!
	Just as she finished her sentence, a massive blade exploded out from one end of her trunk,
	which she swung against her enemies without hesitation.
??? Interviewer	Ooh…
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	… Hey, you. Ya sure it's safe for you out here? Aren'tcha scared?
??? Interviewer	Yep! This is my expertise. I've seen stuff like this pretty often.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Hard life, huh?
??? Interviewer	It also helped that my interview subjects were all very strong, which meant that I had nothing to worry about. I'm sure it's the same today!
	… That wasn't true, but the interviewer knew the right things to say to get the answers she wanted.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Hmph, look at you tryna butter me up~
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Fine, I'll let you in on some more info!
	The child does not stop swinging her trunk around even as she explains the functionalities of the Courier Trunk.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Every time! We're about to be late for a delivery! This talking trunk!
??? Thief	Kuhhh…
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Enhances our strength! Because! Bein' late for a delivery! Is dangerous!
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	So… I'm tryna get my delivery done ASAP!
??? Interviewer	I see!
??? Interviewer	So… why is it dangerous…?
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	… Um.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	Well, because you don't want to get on your boss' bad side, right? Something like that.
??? Interviewer	I-I guess so…
	The child lied.
	The less and less time they have, the greater the amount of energy expelled by the trunk.
	The energy builds and builds until it starts harming its user... and eventually, leaving nothing but the trunk in their place.
Devyat' North Section 3 Rodion	What, ya thought there was something special to it? C'mon, aren't we all motivated by our aversion to getting reprimanded by our bosses?
	But she didn't want to have to share that fact.
	Because doing so would also show her anxiety about how many users this Poludnitsa has had in the past...
	… or how she might be joining the ever-growing list of its former users.
	And the interviewer would definitely catch onto that anxiety and write it in her report. She wanted to avoid that.

World of the Devyat' Association Northern Branch Identity Stories