Corroserum

[Code Name] Corroserum

[Gender] Male

[Combat Experience] Six Months

[Place of Birth] Columbia

[Date of Birth] Apr 7

[Race] Phidia

[Height] 172cm

[Infection Status]

Medical tests have confirmed that no infection is present.

[Physical Strength] Normal

[Mobility] Normal

[Physical Resilience] Normal

[Tactical Acumen] Standard

[Combat Skill] Standard

[Originium Arts Assimilation] Excellent

Associate to Raythean Industries Experimental Prototype Engineering, serving as Assistant Director to a project group.

Currently dispatched to Rhodes Island per relevant agreements, carrying out technological exchanges as well as work in product testing, et al.

Imaging tests reveal clear, normal outlines of internal organs, and no abnormal shadows have been detected. Originium granules have not been detected in the circulatory system and there is no sign of infection. At this time, this operator is believed to be uninfected.

[Cell-Originium Assimilation] 0%

Operator Corroserum shows no signs of Originium infection.

[Blood Originium-Crystal Density] 0.12u/L

You can plainly trust Raythean Industries' control over its R&D environments. That, or at least you can trust the project teams unwilling to abuse high-risk materials in the name of increasing their project's value.

Operator Corroserum's work at Raythean Industries principally stressed technical participation in and support to the project team-internal R&D process. He, however, applied for a product testing dispatch assignment at the end of the project he recently directed, and came to Rhodes Island.

According to our investigation, a portion of Raythean Industries's project managers evaluate Corroserum's attitude towards work as 'earnest and responsible, but lacks passion.' We were initially somewhat perplexed by these evaluations, but after practical observation of Operator Corroserum's MO, we somewhat understand why they said what they did.

With a fine condition, Operator Corroserum is able to complete work assigned to him at a bewildering speed, attaining in line with required quotas, but on the flip side, he will not exceed his quotas. And after that—he'll put on his eye mask, lie back in his office chair, and begin his break at his desk full of reports just freshly inked to completion. Coworkers unfamiliar with him might misconstrue this; only related personnel actually aware of the work allotted to him know it's not because his workload is lower than others'.

But if it weren't for a necessity of duty, Operator Corroserum wouldn't lend a hand to his still-busy colleagues in his spare time, or submit proposals to improve the project. He simply takes it as granted that assigned work should be completed, whether the subject is himself or others.

When discussing the weapons he uses, Operator Corroserum displays a rare interest.

'This is a target product we're required to test as part of our collaborative project, and explaining the technological issues that tie into it is a part of and duty of my work. Of course, I won't be leaking any specific information on its purchasers.'

People admittedly have misgivings about corrosive weapons, and it's hard to imagine that Raythean Industries' technology can actually develop a corrosive able to affect multiple common metals, disintegrate their structures, cause weapons and defenses to lose sufficient dependable function, and simultaneously guarantee its harmlessness to the human body.

But Raythean has guaranteed its safety in our contract, and we've attempted our own verifications within the labs. Our results may be surprising, but reasonable: this corrosive itself by no means has sufficient corrosive power, and its customized Arts Unit provides it amplification and direction—but this is only a rational explanation drawn from combining experimental results and information provided to us by them. We have no right to reverse-engineer, and we might not even be able to.

This handling method unarguably elevates the product's safety and technological secrecy, and has effectively met the requirements issued by the buyers to Raythean: negate enemy equipment while ensuring enemy forces can be captured alive and intact.

After further communication between Operator Corroserum and Rhodes Island, we've become privy to some insider info.

During lunch break after a meeting, in Operator Corroserum's chat with the Doctor and a few operators, it was mentioned that the study of corrosion very rarely led to the development of corrosives in practice. Contrary to what many of us imagined, it's more often devoted to anti-corrosion tech and raising of product lifespan and reliability. Moreover, things aren't as cut-and-dry as that.

'Raythean Industries—no... any firm that receives orders for arms or equipment has to consider the issue of product durability, but no company would outright attempt research of anything 'long-lasting' or 'indestructible.' Granted, armies attached to higher authorities, e.g. Kazimierz's Silverlance Pegasi, don't fall under this. But in this era of rapid technological development, there's no motive for fighting forces requiring power to spend so much on custom equipment that can last for more than, say, three years. In my opinion, providing these projects with technological support is just a waste—project teams will even demand I appropriately lower the final product's durability, until it just so perfectly tips the line the stakeholders want, so they'll come and order something new next time. After running into these requirements time and time again, I stopped pointlessly squandering my care on those cheap things, and that, maybe, is why I didn't appeal to certain people. So it went until now, joining this 'Raythean Warbreaker' R&D team.'

What Operator Corroserum brought up here seemed far from under any strict NDA or classification, and we can assume the company had no reason to treat it as such, even if Rhodes Island has hit walls running into similar problems throughout its medical manufacturing pipeline and sales fronts. After all, whether in its internal or external affairs, every firm as a matter of course has its troubles and schemes. The current situation may not be requisitely optimistic, but we can only press forward through the mud with all we have.

Despite our glimpse at Operator Corroserum's discontent with portions of work he managed at Raythean via his statements, the passion he's shown the few times he's been able to practically apply a project speaks just as loudly. From his project background, we can glean his fondness of choosing assistance roles; according to him, this lets him both avoid all flavors of difficult leadership and admin, and lets him comprehensively participate in project exhibition, the role of steering project goals and core technologies perhaps something he considers his home.

After arriving at Rhodes Island, the seemingly negligent look he's projected may just be his boredom from having no place to display his talents to his heart's content.

In regards to Operator Corroserum, in our paper agreements with Raythean, we obviously only have purview for work on relevant projects. But perhaps he secretly bears other hopes, that putting him in charge of directing his people might give us a greater knowledge of him, allow him to exhibit even greater impact in his specialty fields?

Developing a weapon with corrosion as a primary means of attack requires the contents of research go far beyond corrosives and customized Arts Units.

For a weapon loaded with this corrosive, its composite materials must balance resilient makeup and good Originium Arts conductivity, another difficulty that needs overcoming.

Not just that, but after employing a nebulizer to effectively expand this weapon's attack surface and efficiency, this realizes a probability the weapon will cause accidental harm to allies, thus needing some quick and easy means of providing a defense to allied combat units. But none of this held Operator Corroserum back from wielding knowledge in his expert fields. He rapidly produced technical prototypes for a coating able to resist this corrosive, and in a short span of time, had it realized and put into practice. He explains this technology's greatest hurdle wasn't resisting the corrosive itself, but vying to make it just as harmless to the human body, in order to directly spray it on friendly equipment, lowering the upfront cost of using this weapon.

However, this project's manager later proposed another scenario: an enemy might just as well develop or steal this protective coating technology. Thus, he required Corroserum develop a corrosive that could get past this coating.

And not just that, but given the possibility this new corrosive technology could also be re-engineered or stolen, there may also be a need to proceed with developing technology that could withstand this corrosive in turn...

And following this, there might also...

Er, maybe we can try inferring at this point why Operator Corroserum chose to trial this weapon at the project's tail end, and provisionally leave a team where he could show his true strengths for once.