Storheil's beating continued for half an hour, the entire time the candidate just looked at the spectacle in shock and fear. Around the fifth minute Tanya wasn't even slinging curses anymore, her pretty blue eyes tinged red in anger. Eventually, after she felt his body was a sufficient collage of black, blue, and purple, she told him to enter isolation until she said he could come out. He agreed readily, afraid of even heavier beatings, and disappeared just as suddenly as he appeared. Seeing this, a still obviously annoyed but no longer enraged Tanya sighed before turning to the candidate with a twinge of regret and embarrassment in her eyes.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," she bowed in apology, "It's a superior's duty to discipline their subordinates, but I should have thought more about it before dealing the punishment in front of a child such as yourself." Her sapphire eyes and petite face clearly showing signs of exhaustion and defeat.
The candidate's response surprised her.
"It is no issue," he said with a smile, "I only hope you can give me a proper explanation to my questions." 'It's clear she's the boss.' he was thinking to himself, 'I should try to get some answers from her. She doesn't show any signs of mal-intent.'
This time it was Tanya's turn to be shocked. Rarely had a candidate been so calm in the face of her pressure, and she had certainly never seen one take the initiative to gather information from any of them. Usually they remained dazed and confused until their first return here, and certainly afraid of them even after that given their introduction to "Anima Operantium." Still on the back foot from his response, and honestly quite impressed with how put together he was, she thought it would be fine to answer his questions as long as she didn't break any of the rules.
"Out of consideration for what you had to witness, I will answer what I can." She honestly did feel quite bad about showing him such a shameful display. She felt it ruined her feminine image, and she would very much like to keep the image of herself as a prim and proper girl in his head, though she had a sinking feeling this would be something he wouldn't forget. She patted out her light gray dress before rearranging her golden blond hair and once more bowing in apology.
"Very well then, Where am I?" His first question was the same as before, but much to his disappointment he was met with the same response as before.
"Anima Operantium," the same two word response, but she continued to explain seeing his face, "I am unable to tell you more than this at the moment. Just know that if I did it might kill you down the line."
The fact that she said this with a straight face disturbed him greatly. Something about a girl that looked no more than 14 talking about his death was unsettling to him. He continued nonetheless.
"Why am I here?" the same question as before.
"For the same reasons as before I am unable to tell you anything specific for now. However I suppose it would be fine to tell you that we need you to do something for us, something that even with our power and knowledge we are unable to do ourselves."
This time he got a little bit more information, and although it wasn't too detailed, it gave him expectations for his future nonetheless.
"How did I get here?"
"We pulled you here. You fulfilled the requirements for a problem we had so we brought you to here from where you were. Unfortunately, I am once again unable to give you specifics as to how we got you here. At this point you should understand the consequences should we tell you, correct?"
She was right, he was certainly starting to piece together that there was something bigger at play and his life was not entirely under their control.
"Then could you tell me who I am? And who you are?" He certainly thought that it would be simple to answer these questions.
"Unfortunately, I cannot tell you your real name, lest you suffer a fate worse than death. However, I can tell you my name, and what it is that I do. My name is Tritania, though I would prefer you call me Tanya as it is far softer on the tongue." She smiled a little as she said this, clearly pleased with the way she introduced herself. "As for what I do." She thought about how best to answer this without violating a rule. "I suppose you could say that my job involves supervising everyone else here, as well as meting out punishment for rule violations. I also involve myself in training and developing candidates such as yourself, so I hope to leave a good impression on you for the future."
He thought he heard a bit of desperation in her voice in the last part.
However, before he could ask his next question, she stopped him with a raised hand and warned, "Any more than this would be dangerous."