Astgenne

[Code Name] Astgenne

[Gender] Female

[Combat Experience] None

[Place of Birth] Columbia

[Date of Birth] Jul 10

[Race] Liberi

[Height] 166cm

[Infection Status]

Confirmed Infected by medical examination.

[Physical Strength] Normal

[Mobility] Standard

[Physical Resilience] Standard

[Tactical Acumen] Standard

[Combat Skill] Standard

[Originium Arts Assimilation] Standard

Rhine Lab Energy Section Researcher Dr. Elena Urbica. While aboard Rhodes Island, she will use her original name as her codename.

While she is more than capable of keeping her enemies at bay with her handmade staff and unique Originium Arts, rather than fighting on the frontlines, she prefers to provide support from the rear by working on research and machinery maintenance.

Imaging tests show the indistinct outlines of internal organs, obscured by abnormal shadows. Originium granules detected in the circulatory system. The subject is confirmed to be infected with Oripathy.

[Cell-Originium Assimilation] 4%

Signs of infection are present in Astgenne's lower right leg, near her ankle.

[Blood Originium-Crystal Density] 0.2u/L

Only a minor infection; no visible surface crystallization detected.

This operator's medical files have been granted heightened confidentiality as requested, and are filed together with Operator Astesia's files. Staff members should take extra care when modifying these files. —Anonymous high-clearance Medical operator

This isn't Astgenne's first time aboard Rhodes Island. She contracted Oripathy when she was caught in an accident during one of Rhine Lab's experiments. She then came to Rhodes Island with her sister and they became operators together. After a period of rest, it was found she was in stable condition, so she went back to work at Rhine Lab's Energy Section. On the surface, Astgenne was the one who requested to be sent to Rhodes Island again, but it seems to have been related to another accident at Rhine Lab, as well as a staff change at the Energy Section. She won't be returning to Rhine Lab for some time, and will instead be working and living aboard Rhodes Island. With PhDs in both electrical engineering and engineering, she had already worked with the Rhodes Island workshop and our Logistics operators during her last stint, and so it took her hardly any time to readjust to life here. From this, it's obvious that HR's concerns about her mental state are completely unnecessary.

'I know she's run into a bit of trouble at Rhine lately, but she dropped by to say hello the moment she came back, and the next day she brought the designs for a bunch of custom lab equipment she wanted to order. She's got a big project, from the looks of it. Heh, with that kinda momentum, give her half a day and she'll have finished what'd take me an entire year. I'd bet my hammer on that.' —Anonymous Elite Artificer

The Urbicas descend from a long line of Gaulish astrologers who emigrated to the Columbian South after being ostracized by the orthodox astrologers there, and thus unwittingly escaped the destruction of Gaul. They are now an enormous family that possesses significant social prestige, and the sisters Astesia and Astgenne are among the family's newest generation.

Their parents had an arranged marriage, but nonetheless loved each other deeply, and it wasn't long after their marriage before their mother became pregnant. Their father then used his astrological research to predict their future, and found that they might only have a single child in this lifetime. As such, he picked a grandiloquent name for their only daughter: Astesia.

Which is why he was completely blindsided when on the day his wife gave birth, they ended up with two baby girls. Regardless, he was overjoyed, and named his unexpected younger daughter Astgenne in the hopes that, just like the stars, she would come to be the genesis of the family's good fortune.

Astgenne has been fond of learning from a young age. Although she does not possess her sister's ability to intuit and learn by inference, she made up for it with hard work and diligence. Because of this, even during their childhood her Originium Arts were far more radiant than her sister's, and her mastery of astrological lore flabbergasted even their father. In his words, she 'could've become a pillar of the family's bright future alongside her sister.'

But she didn't.

Astgenne first started to change because of a broken astrolabe. She came upon her parents, two experienced astrologers, throwing out an astrolabe that could still be repaired in favor of buying a new one. That was when she discovered how impractical the knowledge she had been studying truly was. She couldn't tell her parents, 'we can still use this if we get it fixed,' so instead she brought it back to her room, poured over a few instruction manuals and assembly guides, took it apart, talked to the craftsman who made it, and finally repaired it after tinkering with it for a few months. She then showed the globe to her sister, who happily took it, praised her handiwork, and shared candy with her. But when she showed it to her parents, she was met with only cold, harsh responses:

'Why did you waste your time on this hunk of junk?'

'Astgenne, I want you to spend your time on things that matter.'

She quietly went back to her room and looked at the rows and rows of astrological literature on her shelf. Then, she looked out the window at the endless nomadic city plates, and that was when she finally realized.

It didn't matter how well she knew the stars' periods, or how confidently she could tell those around her about their distant, impractical changes. This field of study does not benefit the lands whatsoever. If she continued to study her family's pointless chicanery, she would simply become a stargazing con artist who couldn't even fix her own equipment. What she really wanted to master was the thing that could truly make the world a better place. What her father saw as useless trash.

Science.

From that day forward, Astgenne lost interest in the astrology lessons from her parents and teachers. Instead, she shifted her focus to her classes at school. She tried to use her good grades to prove that she made the right choice, but her parents' disdain toward this only made her more stubborn. Considering her temperament, if it weren't for Astesia calming her down, she probably would've immediately left home without a second thought. In the end, after she received an acceptance letter from a university and made sure that she had enough savings and a stable source of income, she moved out for good, never to return to the home that had tormented her for so long. To prepare herself for a new life, she also gave herself a new name when she enrolled at college: Elena.

She didn't want to be an illusory, insignificant star. She wanted to become a shining light.

As the land's leading tech company, Rhine Lab's hiring standards are stringent enough to discourage most would-be applicants. Even Elena, with her double degrees, wouldn't be worth mentioning in that corporation full of people with master's degrees and PhDs doing odd jobs. Fortunately—or at least some would say so—she had a good teacher. Even in college, she had already been participating in Rhine Lab Energy Section Director Ferdinand's experiments. Seizing this opportunity, Elena worked and studied under the industry groundbreaker for years, at last becoming his proud protégé. It goes without saying how painstaking and laborious this process was. Ferdinand had several dozen researchers working under him, and the students he taught as a guest lecturer likely numbered in the thousands. Naturally, Ferdinand took notice of Elena due to her academic accomplishments, but what really made him take a liking to her was her decisiveness and quick response under extreme circumstances.

A few years prior, a disastrous liquid Originium leak occurred in the Energy Section's laboratories. At the time, the main Energy Section members were working away from Rhine HQ, and the Defense Section dealt with the incident according to their contingency plan. However, the leak affected other departments, and there were multiple experiments that, once shut down, had to have their materials disposed of lest they become an even more dangerous problem, which greatly slowed the rescue process. If it weren't for Elena, who was merely an intern at the time, taking on the responsibility to explain to Defense Director Saria the situation at the accident site and even leading the rescue, Ferdinand would likely have had an even greater mess on his hands. Of course, thinking only of saving others, Elena headed into the high-risk environment without a full set of safety equipment, and this left her infected with Oripathy. As for her sister Astesia, Elena brought her into a safe house when the accident occurred, but after they made physical contact, Astesia began to show signs of developing sympathetic Oripathy. They were then transported to Rhodes Island for treatment together.

'We have yet to understand the specific causes of developing sympathetic Oripathy. It's only in recent years that we've even identified cases of this exceedingly rare form of infection. We have managed to narrow down a few commonalities though: the patients are all the identical twins of an already infected patient, with whom they've learned and used the same kind of Originium Arts since childhood. They also all shared a close emotional bond, and experienced a strong emotional fluctuation when they came into physical contact with their newly infected twin. And, speculatively, time and space may also play a factor, as in all cases the patients had physical contact with their twins within hours of their infection. So far, we have not found any cases where this occurred after more time had passed, or where a patient suddenly became infected from afar.'

'How many cases have there been?'

'Just one on the landship, and two reported from our branches across the lands.'

'That's way too few. Even trying to speculate based on that sample size may be overzealous.'

'This sort of infection is rare to begin with. We can only work with the data we have.'

'I know you're in a hurry to get results, and to give the people suffering out there a treatment plan, but please. You're not usually this reckless. Look, we have plenty of cases where an Infected infects others with Originium Arts because of their emotional outbursts, and we also have cases of patients becoming infected after prolonged exposure to their family members.'

'Well, that just lends credence—'

'It means that every single guess of yours can be accounted for by other special cases.'

'...... (Annoyed sigh)'

'Oripathy is not a normal disease. The kind of logic that works with other diseases doesn't apply here.'

'...I won't give up.'

'Of course you won't, but before that, I want you to come up with a treatment plan for these patients.'

'All done. Three files on your desk, all ready to go.'

'Thanks, good work.'

'Anything else?'

'I'm just thinking that if science and logic can't explain these patients' Oripathy, then maybe it's time for a different approach.'

'What do you mean?'

'I heard the Rhodes Island case comes from a family of astrologers. Maybe common logic won't work here, maybe we need to appeal to the supernatural. Their father once predicted that he would only have one daughter. What if his prophecy wasn't wrong?'

'You're still just making wild guesses... but if you're so sure about this, do as you please.'

—Selected excerpts from a meeting between high-clearance medic operators, Medical Department Meeting Room

Elena used to think of her mentor, Ferdinand, as a strict teacher who nonetheless respected people's autonomy. However, during the 'Site 359 Incident' she began to see her parents in him—a distrusting control freak who uses his position to harass others. Once, she'd done everything she could to escape from people like that, and now, after drifting about for over a decade, she found herself in the same hole as before. Which is why, at that very moment, she decided to cut ties with her boss/mentor and later requested a transfer to Rhodes Island, back to where her sister was. Only here could she calm down and think about her future. She is very lost right now. Her research had all come to nothing thanks to Ferdinand's sudden disappearance and the changes happening to the Energy Section. Her ten years of hard work have been frozen with no hopes of restarting anytime soon. She must feel like an Originium slug breeder who opened the door one day to find all the slugs missing. She may remember all the technical details, but even if it's replicable, Rhodes Island simply does not have the resources she would need. Besides, she is an operator now. She has new responsibilities and missions, and so much more to do...

But from another perspective, Elena also feels that life isn't as painful as it used to be. Her new life, new encounters, and the diverse array of personnel aboard Rhodes Island will support her in her many insignificant but productive research projects. Rhodes Island's administrator also seems very efficient and professional. This time, she's made sure that this Doctor is trustworthy. And most importantly, she gets to live right by her sister in the dorms now.

She's finally home.

As everyone knows, Astgenne is quite critical of her family's astrological traditions. Sometimes, she can be so critical that she gets flicked in the forehead by her sister. Yet there is one thing she has to admit. The training she received as a child did benefit her a little.

The Urbica twins' Originium Arts may originate from the same source, but nonetheless unfold quite differently. Astesia's Arts emphasize complexity, while Astgenne's focus on simplicity. Sometimes, all she has to do is wave her staff a little, and the silk-like energy beams can lift your spirits for an entire day. With such a flashy baseline, naturally they can also paralyze wrongdoers. What's less obvious is that as long as she adjusts the parameters correctly, even the seemingly harmless energy beams can immediately become intensely focused, enough to send a stalwart Forte to the hospital for half a month.

Astgenne loves hanging out at the workshop. She may not be a professional artificer, but as someone who often makes use of their services, her professionalism is beyond doubt. Sometimes, she also uses the workshop to tinker with her own things. If she's not fixing her own staff, she's usually adjusting her sister's astrolabe. In the past, she used to do this for her in exchange for pocket money, but now it is a symbol of their close relationship. They may walk different paths, but the sisters continue to encourage and depend on each other. Without Astesia's prudence and thoroughness, Astgenne can be reckless. But without Astgenne's decisiveness and perseverance, Astesia can be quite indecisive, too. They are different, and they depend on each other. Perhaps that's the best way to sum up these twins' relationship.