The Mechanical Era

"Alright, he is your first question. Can you tell us about your experience in leadership and management, particularly in a high-pressure environment?" Kant asks Carl, who sat on his chair straight up, locking eyes with Kant. He tilts his head and thinks for a minute, before giving a reply.

"Pretty well, I assume. I have had a long period of working with many kingdoms around the world, dating back to the early 70s, when I began my career. Though, there is this one case that is etched into my mind," Carl replied.

"I see. Can you tell me more about it?" Kant asks.

"Certainly. Back in the mid-70s, a select group of individuals, myself included, had been sent to the city of Bernsworth, to conduct an assassination of the lord there.

Our objective was simple. We were to make our way to the city of Bernsworth, assassinate the ruling lord of the city, and hoped to replace him with his degenerate son, at least temporarily.

You see sir, the assassination needed to happen within a few days before a meeting with another city, from our kingdom, to come to a trade agreement. WE hoped that if we managed to replace its leader, we could have gotten a FAR better deal.

Though at first, the plan was going smoothly; we managed to enter the city discreetly and even got close to assassinating him. However, due to a major blunder our leader had made, it all come falling apart very quickly. He soon gets captured, and we were very close to being compromised.

So, as I was next in charge, I decided the best course of our action was to flee. They had no evidence that we came from a different kingdom, and suspected that we were from some organization like Salvator Humat.

Thankfully, even during his final execution, he gave out the last names of some different groups of people, granting us some time to escape.

I formulated a plan, in which I used up a favor from a friend I had made in the city. We soon break out our leader, make our escape to the boat, and managed to leave with all of our lives intact," Carl told Kant.

"Hm... impressive. How did the deal go?"

"It went reasonably well. They did suspect we might be behind the attack, considering there was no proof, the deal went smoothly, although they were not as favorable as we wanted them to be." Carl replies.

"Was there ever a scenario when you led a group of your own to overthrow a different kingdom?"

"Yes, there was. In the early 90s, when the king died, I managed to quickly help my employer, the second prince, to take over a few cities in a matter of weeks.

I managed to conduct several coupes, overthrowing the old lords with the ones that supported the prince. It took some time to organize, as planning it took about a year before the incident occurred.

It was sort of a backup plan, instructed by his highness in case if the first prince made some... stupid decisions." Carl explained.

"That is very good.  Now, moving on to the next question. How can you protect the kingdom from external threats, like spies for instance? Do you have any example or case where you have dealt with them?" Kant questions next.

"Many times, sir. In fact, I have even helped clear out any spies within their own kingdom. However, there is one case in the 80s that I think you will find particularly interesting."

"Go on."

"In 4,987 I.C., the kingdom I had worked for had been infiltrated by a lot of spies from the neighboring kingdom, from the south. These spies gave out a lot of critical information to their employers, like financial reports, scandalous behaviors of the royal family, and such, to them.

Using the information, they managed to acquire a lot of political power over the royal family, as well as the kingdom, making it sort of like their own puppet state. Obviously, the king was not happy with his compromised position, so, he promoted me to do the job.

When I assumed the position of spymaster, which was different from grand spymaster, I was tasked with getting rid of these spies from the kingdom to cap their political leverage, as well as destroying any further information which could help them gain more leverage.

So, under these extremely unfavorable circumstances, where there is a high possibility that one of your own men could be a spy, which could jeopardize the whole plan, I had got to work.

I first gathered the most trusted agents that I knew and gave them a task. They were to spy on a few of my other, most trusted, but not as trustworthy, agents. Once they were confirmed to be clean, I gathered them around and started cleaning out the kingdom.

We first conducted a series of background checks and vetting procedures. We looked for red flags like unusual behavior patterns, financial irregularities, relatives of said individual, and so on.

We did this first to ourselves, and then out to the rest of the staff. Now, considering it would have taken a lot of time to have researched all of them, we decided to check the ones who entered during a specific period of time, which we thought would have hosted the most amount of spies.

Once we thin out the heard, we conducted espionage against said individuals. Only only I gathered a team to do so, but I also made sure to pay up civilians to give up information about them.

Soon, I managed to catch a few of them red-handed. I made sure to interrogate them, to hand out the names of the other spies. It was not easy, and I might have done a few pleas. But in the end, I managed to swoop the kingdom clean of the spies."

"Hm... Good. Very good. I always wanted someone with your particular set of skills. Now, moving on to the next few questions..." Kant goes on to ask him a dozen more questions, to determine whether he is qualified for the job.

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