Mazaròl Lions : Chapter 4 "Interview and Test"

If Elio wants to accept this job, he needs to change the unemployed status on his profile to employed status yet he doesn’t change it. At this moment, Elio wants to work there for a while and waits for another big company to send him a message since he is always looking for a big salary for him too. Another thought in Elio’s mind is how strange it is that this company sent him a message just a couple of minutes ago. He reads the message again and finds that he will have a test and interview tomorrow in the company which it’s far away from his apartment and the building looks small. Not only reading the message, Elio also does some research about this company, which it’s really just an average company, and doesn't really have any speciality on anything. How can this small and very average company want to invite someone like Elio who’s already worked in so many places and with his perfect profile background? “Are they mocking me or something?” Elio talks to himself frustratedly because of the invitation. But still, he really doesn’t like every single thing about the company but the message he received feels off. For the rest of the day, he debates with his own thoughts of going to this company and figures out if it is something odd or just some trolling or something like that. Oh, yeah, for the first time in a while again, Elio really goes deep in his thoughts, does a lot of research, and mostly doesn’t drink at all. The end of the day, Elio finally decides to try and check out the company because this time his curiosity won. With that, Elio sleeps earlier as well and he already prepared all of the things he needs for tomorrow. Next morning comes and Elio surprisingly is already done preparing himself. This time he also listened to Lucas' advice to pay attention to his appearance, well at least yesterday's look is already enough for him, still a bit messy but let’s hope that he would improve it. It takes around 40 minutes from his house to get to the company building by taking the subway. Now, Elio is standing in front of the company’s door. Every single research from last night is correct, this is just a small, normal, and very average company. One of Elio’s habits is judging something from the cover which means the regrets inside him probably are going to take control of him to walk away and just go back home. “Ha..” Elio sighs frustratedly and rustles his front hair “Why am I so stupid these days?” He talks to himself again. When he just wants to turn around and goes back home, someone taps him on his right shoulder which catches Elio by surprise. “Whoops! Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you or something.” The woman says. Elio quickly scans her from head to toe and looks back to her eyes. She has black hair, wears a short white t-shirt, long black pants, big round glasses, a bucket hat covering her twin braided hair, but her height.. Almost the same with Elio’s. Just from the way she looks and the way she just talks to Elio, he already gets annoyed by it. Is she one of the workers? You gotta be kidding me.. He talks inside him and rolls his eyes because of how disappointed he is right now to himself. “Are you.. The new employee who is going to have the test and interview today?” suddenly she speaks again, still locking eyes with Elio’s. Elio doesn’t say anything and just nods his head. “Oh great! I’ll lead you to where the room is!” She says excitedly and pulls Elio’s shirt which totally makes him more annoyed by her. “Oh yeah!” She turns around to look at Elio once again and Elio almost bumps into her because of it “I’m Eline, vice-manager in here!” a sudden introduction from her and that makes Elio become more pissed. Are you saying that this nerdy is my vice-manager here?! At this moment, Elio realizes his biggest mistake in his life is his curiosity to spend his time just to unlock the mystery behind why he got that message. There is no way that Elio will go back to this company tomorrow, probably he will just run away from it at lunch break. “And.. you are..?” Eline speaks again and that makes Elio snap out from his thoughts and the deepest regret of him. “Elio.” Elio replies coldly but Eline keeps putting that wide smile on her face. “Alright, Elio! Seems like you are so excited to work here!” She exclaims and turns around, dragging Elio's shirt with her again. How can I look excited when I barely move my legs to follow you? All things that are coming from Eline only makes Elio more pissed off. Elio sighs loudly, deep inside he hopes that Eline could hear it, and rolls his eyes. On the way to the interview room, there are only a few people inside the building, probably those that Elio passed through. Seems like Elio understands a bit of how important appearance is because all of the workers he saw literally dressed up almost the same with Eline. Yep, everything and everyone about this company is already testing his patience to stay for a day. They finally arrive at the front door of the interview room which makes Elio can't be thankful enough because after this he will just run away from this company. “We’re finally here!” Eline says and pulls Elio’s shirt to get closer with the door “Good luck!” and with that Eline is no longer to be found. Elio doesn’t even bother to give any replies to her. He just stands still there, questioning himself, and sighs loudly for the fourth time already this morning. Before opening the interview room, Elio takes a deep breath and calms himself down. Inside the room, there is only a small table, probably used for just a square tea table for two people, one person sitting on one of the chairs. The room is square and so small, like the side length is around 16.4 feet each side, the walls are just plain white and nothing else beside the two chairs and one table. That man is reading a book and turns his head toward Elio when he hears the door closed behind Elio. “Oh! You’re here. Please take a seat.” He says and closes his book. No response from Elio, he just bows a little and proceeds to the seat. “Open your laptop here.” He says right after Elio sits on his chair. From what this person just said to him, Elio twitches one of his eyebrows and looks at him a bit confused. Is this how interviews used to be? He doesn’t introduce himself or asks for me to do so. But for now Elio just swipes away those thoughts and opens his bag to grab his laptop out. The list said that he brought at least 2 devices for today’s interview, fortunately Elio brought three things: his phone, tab, and laptop. But for the interview, he will just use his tab and laptop since it’s more comfortable for him. When Elio is getting his devices ready, he glances over that man in front of him and he takes out a piece of folded paper inside his shirt’s pocket. Seriously, from his pocket? They really are mocking me, huh? That person, Elio’s interviewer, slides the paper from him to Elio's side. Another thing he grabs from his pocket is a stopwatch and it looks like an old stopwatch. Elio takes the note and looks at what is inside of it. Thankfully, Elio isn't expecting something big or what he’s looking for in this piece of paper. But what he sees inside of it of course makes him more pissed and glaring at his interviewer. It’s just some complicated puzzles with many different types of it and all of it relates to IT codes. For some people this might be very difficult, from 1-10 difficulties’s level it’s probably in 8, but for Elio these are less than 3.. Something doubts Elio inside his mind that he is only looking back to back at the paper and his interviewer. His interviewer doesn’t even look at him, he just reads the book that he just closed before. Elio tries to endure his anger inside and just do the puzzles that have been given to him. In a few minutes, he completes all of the puzzles and looks at his interviewer who is still into the book. “Done, sir.” Elio says and makes his interviewer close his book. “Three minutes and fifty two seconds.” He says and shakes his head lightly “Pretty disappointing if I could say.” takes another piece of paper inside of his pocket and slides it to Elio again. After giving it to Elio, he opens his book and goes back to reading it. Because of what he just said to Elio, he starts to feel something really bothering him and just realizes that his interviewer isn't looking at the stopwatch to tell how long Elio finished his puzzles test. “Ugh..” His interviewer suddenly groans and closes his book loudly “Time is already running, Kiddo.” He says while glaring at Elio. From that, Elio quickly opens the paper and scans it. It becomes a lot more difficult and complicated than before which makes Elio a bit struggling to solve it since there are some new codes inside. At this time, Elio wants to use his automatic program but he’s afraid that; first, the interviewer would notice he cheated, second, the program probably doesn’t know some of the codes are. That is why, it’s been a while that Elio works this hard to solve the code. Some people might already be desperate to do this test but not for Elio. He loves this. He loves the struggle of solving codes that he has never met in a long time because of those boring works. That is why instead of showing a desperate face, Elio smiles widely. Just a few minutes, he finally finishes the second test. “Done, sir.” Elio says to the interviewer which makes him close his book. “Three minutes and one second. If only you did it after I gave you the paper, that would be less than three minutes.” He replies, takes his glasses off, and looks at Elio. This is the first time the interviewer looks directly at Elio’s eyes. “Well.. actually I don’t really like your performance because it seems like your profile about your intelligence is just an excessive thing.” He says mockingly. Usually, some people would get pissed by it but for Elio since the tests already got his interest, he only smirks from the comment he got. “But..” He sighs loudly “They told me to let you get the last test. So let’s just make it quick” He groans when he finishes the sentence. Another piece of paper comes out from his pocket and he slides it but his hand is still covering it when it’s already on Elio’s side. “Count on ten, you may start to solve this.” He says and takes his hand off from the paper. Strangely, he doesn’t sit back on his chair, instead he walks to the wall behind his chair. That caught Elio by surprise because there is a hidden door on that wall. Right after the interviewer left the room suddenly, the bright light in this room which makes the room all white now changes a bit darker than before. Because of that, it reveals that actually the right and left side from where Elio sits right now are just glass that connect with the other rooms. Elio doesn’t see anything inside of both rooms but he feels anxious and somehow can’t predict what is going to happen next. Finally the next room lights are turned on and Elio holds his breath because of what he’s seeing right now. There is a tall water tank in each room. But something that makes it more terrifying is that there is a person in the tank with a sack over their hand and handcuffed with a chain that is connected to the top of the tank. Those two people are still conscious and punching the tank like they are trying to ask for help and escape from it. “What the hell..” Elio mutters with a panicked voice mixed with confusion and terrified. Just as counted before, ten second later, the tank starts to fill in with water. The people start to look at their feet and banging the tank faster than before. “This is not real, right..?” Elio is talking to himself and still looking at the two people beside him. Based on what he’s seeing right now, the tank fills with the water pretty quick. In Elio’s prediction, it probably needs 3 minutes to fill the left tank and 4 minutes for the right rank. “Hey! This is not funny!” suddenly he shouts because of how terrified he feels right now. Elio already shouted as loud as he could, hoping that some of the interviewers would hear him, but no response at all. Almost half of a minute passed and now Elio can hear the voice from the other side of those two people in the tank. “HELP! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME OUT OF HERE!” a female sound comes from the left room. “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! I DON’T WANNA DIE!” a male sound comes from the right room. After hearing their panicked and scared voices, there is no way that Elio still thinks all of it is just a fake or scenario from them. He quickly unfolds the paper and finds two codes that he needs to solve. Even though Elio loves to work underpressured, he never thought that he would get something like this, people’s lives are in his hands right now. What makes him more panicked is that the code, that is something that he never learned before. Elio tries to scan the whole code and finally finds some codes that he knows. The rest of it he finds and solves by his own knowledge. After 2 minutes and a half, the left tank is almost totally filled with the water and Elio finally finishes to break it. With that, the option of ‘open’ shows on his screen and he quickly presses it. Left tank opens and the person inside of it finally gets out from the tank. When the person gets out, the light at the left side suddenly goes off again. Only thing that Elio needs to do is to solve for the right side. Unfolds the second paper and he only groans loudly and desperately by looking at the codes. The right side is a lot more difficult and complicated than the first one. But there is no time for Elio to stay and he quickly scans the paper again. Before he only found at least 5 codes he knew, now he only finds 2 codes. From those 2 codes, he tries to get all of them one by one. Thankfully, Elio always knows what to do and knows how to break the codes, he quickly reaches the last 2 codes. But suddenly he no longer hears someone shouting, that makes him turn his head and find that the tank is already filled with water completely. Only a few seconds until that person can hold his breath and Elio tries to solve those two codes. Fortunately, Elio succeeds again to solve all of the codes and he quickly presses the gained access to open the tank. When the tank opened, the person inside let out a loud gasp as he let his head out of the water. Elio’s legs feel weak after more than 4 minutes of terrible and intense moments and breathes heavily. Not long after both side lights turn off, his room becomes bright and all white again. His interviewer shows up again from the hidden door, still holding the same book in his right hand and a small suitcase in the left. “You almost missed the last one.” the first words Elio gets from him. No response from Elio. “Don’t even think about changing my mind about my first judgment regarding your profile.” the interviewer continues and sits down in front of Elio again. Both sides stay silent, no words come out. Elio just sits there, still breath heavily, glares at the person in front of him. His interviewer just sits there, with the suitcase in front of him, and looks straight into Elio’s eyes. “Based on your facial expression, this must be your first time, right? Seeing people in danger and you’re the only hope for them.” The interviewer says. Elio nods his head slowly as agreement from the comment. “That’s what I was expecting before you come here.” A sudden compliment from the interviewer makes Elio feel a bit relieved. “But I still doubt your profile, the one with your high intelligence or whatever that is.” He continues. “Thank you, sir.” Elio finally speaks up with a deep voice, still a bit out of breath because of the test. Silence fills the room for a few seconds. “Well..” The interviewer starts to speak up again and sighs loudly “I think you’re lucky enough that the others saw a potential in you since you already helped us.” stands up from his seat and walks toward Elio’s side. The last words make Elio look at him confusedly. “Sorry, sir. What do you mean by helping you guys?” Elio suddenly asks and it's rare that Elio is confused about what this person did to him. “You’ll figure it out.” He continues then proceeds to open the suitcase and takes a piece of paper inside of it. “Now take this suitcase with you and we will pick you up tomorrow.” “Sorry, sir. But I-” Elio gets cut off from him by the paper that his interviewer shows right in front of him which caught him by surprise. “Good luck.” He says as throwing the paper to Elio. Welcome to Onyx Wolf The head of this paper is totally different from the company name that Elio assigned.