Arcadia Lineage

"Not like you couldn't do the same."

"I could, but that doesn't mean that I will still be alive by then."

"You got some load of self loathe there, ma'am."

"Can say the same for you too, Mediator of the Hunter Gathering." She awkwardly giggled. "Lila did tell a lot of stories about her amazing teacher, I didn't expect that person to live within the District where our headquarter is stationed."

"I'm surprised that you didn't question how I got here."

"Nah, no need. My head goes by a causal logic. If someone who got access to the sacred place of this organization is the same person who could face up against the apex elite squad of an Association, then there is nothing to be questioned about."

"You seem pretty capable for someone who leads a Headlamp. Since when did you join?"

"Five years ago. The boss directly approached me in District 44."

"The Vascular of that District is full of freaks. What kind of background do you have for the old man to even recruit you directly?"

"That one is a little bit complicated."

"I won't ask further if you feel uncomfortable." I showed her a little bit of a reassuring edge of a smile that was already plastered on my face. "We have a tale of our own after all."

"Basically, you can say that I was a person who wants to live no matter what, even if nobody acknowledges it, even if I had discarded everything I latched upon."

"How about the 'you' that have been working for the Streetlight Talon for five years?"

"Pretty much grateful for everything, you can say."

"Grateful my ass." I playfully gesture my only working hand. "Someone who hasn't slept for days and was ready to lunge at the aforementioned Doppelsoldner squad is definitely not the sign of someone who's grateful."

"And you should be grateful for saying that in this sacred place where I wouldn't dare to cause a ruckus."

"I apologize, ma'am."

She giggled again, with a little bit more lighter tone than the last time. "While I deem mine as a life full of unfair hardship, it seems like yours happen to be full of incidents for that smile to be viciously impregnable."

"Of course, how old are you?"

"Haah, you know that asking a woman of her age is sinful, ey?"

"You don't give off the vibe of someone who would mind such trivial things. Heh."

"You got me there." She stroked the back of her neck as she maintained her grin. "I'm 38, old enough to have a family already, in which I don't."

"And I'm 43."

"Woah, woah, did I hear that right?" she said that with a confused frown as she screwdrived her left ear with her pinky. "You looked like an adult-like teenager with that look."

"And you look like someone in her 18 year old on leg extension procedure."

"Pfft, I drank milk a lot!" She put a V-gestured hand near her terrible wink.

"I think it's just that you're born with the gene of a giant."

"Haha. Guess that your mask is the tradeoff for living longer, huh."

"One can say that."

"Still, now that I know your age, it seems like we have the same ancestry tree of Arcadia." This two meters tall woman slightly hunched and threw a rather excited tomboyish smile at me. "Didn't know that I would meet a far away sibling in this District."

The lineage of Arcadia. The living legend of numerous folklore that was spread like a plague from generation to generation, resulting in an absurd legend being implanted to the mind of the younglings.

They were known to age slower than normal humans and were physically stronger.

Many even believed that the people under that lineage ate human flesh and drank human blood to stay young like some kind of vampire.

All of that was exaggerated, obviously.

Even with a longer lifespan, we still perceive time at the same speed with everyone else.

It is just that we suffered the pain of life for a longer duration.

Well, not like there was only one lineage that was cultivated within the City.

"I thought that was obvious." I widened my smile. "You don't know the other sign of your own kin?"

"Aside from the young looks?" She showed her embarrassed smile. "Nope, I only met with two of my own kin before meeting you."

"When you look into a mirror, what feature of your look that sometimes tells you 'Wow, that's weird' the most?"

"Hmm, I guess that would be the golden pupils in my eyes, the pupils with many layers of circles that I got since birth, kinda like a concentric scope that can zoom in and out at any moment."

"That's some weird analogy you got there." I intentionally snickered at that moment. "And what do you see in my eye right now?"

"Ah, so we do have the same eyes!"

For a high ranking member of Streetlight Talon, she was kinda dense.

"Next time, you can also use that as an extra sign for someone to happen to be within the lineage of Arcadia, ma'am."

"Referring me as ma'am would be inappropriate now, no? After the age reveal and all."

"You seem more mature than me, so I'm calling you that."

"Heeh, aren't you too humble?"

"I can say the same to you."

"Can I call you uncle?"

"I guess that's fair."

"Uncle Faust."

"Okay, I gladly take that back."

It might only be our first property interaction, but we laughed together, at one another, and possibly ourselves.

While it was fun as it lasted, I need to promote my service like a proper businessman.

"So how many people did the Yugen Extra take?"

"39 people in total." Gilga exhaled the smoke out of her lungs once again. "Those darned bastards took the opportunity while these poor lads were preoccupied and used a nasty guerilla tactics as they hunted them with sheer numbers, or so what I got from the report."

"I see, so a total of 390,000 Solus then."

"... Dare to say that one bloody more time?"

"I say 390,000 Solus for 39 heads of Yugen Extras."

"Haaahaha, you scared me. Though, what kind of bullocks are you spouting? Your left arm is dangling like a strain of noodle there, let alone man-hunting a Syndicate that is specialized with poisons."