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ArabicArknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 41
Chapter 41: My Best Girl Bro
By the time Big Sister Hoshiguma finally escorted Lucian out of the Lungmen Guard Department headquarters, the sky had already bruised into a deep, dusky twilight.
Swire had originally booked a lavish presidential suite for them. By all rights, they should have been locked in a passionate, dimly lit duel of a very different nature right now. Instead, the evening had devolved into a bureaucratic circus that couldn’t bring a smile to anyone’s face.
Hoshiguma had worn a knowing, mischievous smirk the entire time she took his official statement, thoroughly enjoying the chaos as a true Big Sister of the streets. Meanwhile, the interrogation room next door had been an absolute war zone. Swire and Ch’en were locked in a screaming match that rattled the reinforced glass. The colorful Lungmen expletives flying between the Char Siu Cat and the Rice Noodle Roll Dragon never ceased for a single second, their bickering echoing down the halls even as Lucian walked out the front doors.
According to Hoshiguma, the official L.G.D. spin on the incident was that Swire had been conducting a highly classified plainclothes undercover operation.
It was a convenient excuse. It perfectly buried the scandalous reality of a wealthy young heiress publicly kissing a man on the streets, transforming the entire fiasco into an official Guard Department sting. It gave them the legitimate authority to silence the media and confiscate the photos.
But no matter how Lucian turned it over in his head, he felt like the biggest loser in this equation.
What exactly was his role in this official report? Was he a gigolo hired by Swire for her cover, or a street pimp she had just busted? Who was going to compensate him for his completely ruined reputation?
Lucian let out a long, exhausted sigh as he finally unlocked the door to his apartment.
The living room was quiet, bathed in the soft glow of a reading lamp. Texas was curled up on the sofa, casually flipping through a magazine while chewing on a stick of Pocky.
Her Lupo ears twitched at the sound of his footsteps. She didn’t look up from the page, merely offering a flat, deadpan greeting. “Morning.”
“Texas!”
Channeling the desperate energy of Nobita crying out for Doraemon, Lucian crossed the room and shamelessly slid right onto the sofa, burying his face directly into Texas’s lap.
Suddenly taken advantage of, the Lupo girl went entirely rigid. The fur on her tail instantly bristled into a thick, startled puff.
Yet, true to her nature, her cool expression didn’t fracture. She didn’t shove him onto the floor.
She simply turned a page of her magazine and asked a calm question. “What’s wrong. Were you bullied?”
Lucian rubbed his cheek against the soft fabric of her pants, letting out a contented groan. “It’s not that I was bullied. I’m just drained. Just let me lie here and recharge for a minute.”
“Mhm.” Texas didn’t press the issue. She simply reached down and slipped a fresh Pocky stick between his lips.
Compared to the aggressively intense women constantly circling his life, Texas was an absolute sanctuary. Her quiet, steady presence made him feel incredibly grounded.
Now that all the cards were on the table, Swire was undoubtedly going to pursue him with even more terrifying enthusiasm. Lucian didn’t exactly dislike the attention—he wasn’t entirely made of stone—but the sheer velocity of it all was overwhelming.
He lightly scratched at Texas’s knee, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m already drowning in work right now. I have to run the tea shop, draw my own blood to make the blood-replenishing sugar, deliver meals to the Infected kids in the Slums, and handle the logistics company orders. And now there’s Angelina. That girl is Infected. It would be fine if she could just keep her Oripathy hidden, but I have to prepare a fallback plan just in case. I need to find time to introduce her to Old Lin. With so many things piling up every single day, where am I supposed to find the time to date?”
Even someone with his constitution had limits. His Laterano halo and unique physique meant he could drain a bag of his own blood daily without suffering physical harm, but mental fatigue was an entirely different beast.
“Hmph.” Texas let out a quiet, airy chuckle.
She lightly slapped away his wandering hand as it absentmindedly played with the edge of her pantyhose, then began running her fingers through his hair instead. “What a luxurious problem to have. But you do all these things because you genuinely like doing them, right?”
A small smile touched Lucian’s lips. “Of course. I brought this busyness on myself. It’s fulfilling.”
He didn’t hate the idea of dating Swire. But realistically, half of his reluctance came from not wanting to drag the ambitious heiress into the tabloid spotlight, and the other half was the simple truth that he had zero free time to dedicate to a girlfriend.
That was exactly why lying here on the lap of his best female bro was such a deep relief. There were no expectations.
After thoroughly warming up Texas’s lap, Lucian lazily rolled over, snagged the remote from the coffee table, and flicked on the TV.
The Lungmen News Channel, which usually dedicated its evening slot to vapid celebrity gossip or stock market trends, was currently broadcasting a grim international bulletin.
“Terrorist attacks, huh,” Lucian murmured, watching the screen.
The broadcast featured a panel of experts and a sharply dressed anchor discussing the current state of the Ursus Empire’s military strength, their tone laced with thinly veiled sarcasm.
It wasn’t exactly a shock. Ursus was the kind of brutal, unforgiving nation where going a full month without a violent uprising would be the real headline. The crushing disparity between the bloated nobility and the starving commoners, combined with their notoriously cruel, zero-tolerance purges of the Infected, left people with absolutely no way out. When you back desperate people into a corner, they become outlaws.
Lucian was used to seeing it. The recent string of bombings in Chernobog was likely just another inevitable spark in a powder keg.
But this particular broadcast held his attention, purely because he had already crossed paths with the very organization claiming responsibility.
Lucian tilted his head back to look at her upside down. “Texas, do you know a Lupo named Lyudmila?”
She shook her head, her golden eyes fixed on the screen. “Never heard of her. It doesn’t sound like a Syracusan name. Where did you hear it?”
“Right there.” Lucian pointed a finger at the television, which was currently looping aerial drone footage of Chernobog City.
The footage showed a deceptively peaceful urban sprawl. There were no rioters in the streets, painting a picture vastly different from the dense, chaotic neon alleys of Lungmen.
“I ran into some people from the Reunion Movement back in the Slums,” Lucian explained. “Their squad leader was a Lupo who goes by the codename Crownslayer. Her real name seems to be Lyudmila. She’s incredibly skilled. Definitely not your average street thug.”
“Were you injured?” Texas asked, her voice dropping a fraction of an octave.
Lucian smirked, his teasing nature flaring up. “How could I be? She’s good, but she’s still leagues away from your level. She does have a spectacular figure, though. Probably a bit older than you, a real mature Big Sister type. It was hard to tell under that baggy hoodie she wears, but the moment I grabbed her, I could feel that all the places that should be prominent were definitely promi—ouch, ouch, ouch!”
Texas’s expression remained entirely blank, but her fingers had already formed a rigid point, driving a merciless pressure-point jab directly into Lucian’s kidney. He nearly rolled off the sofa in agony.
Why did every woman he knew aim straight for the waist? What if they actually broke something vital?
Seething but lacking the courage to complain out loud, Lucian clamped his mouth shut.
Satisfied, Texas let out a soft hum and returned her gaze to the TV. “Most Lupo are of Syracusan descent. But starting around my grandparents’ generation, a lot of families who couldn’t survive the power struggles in Siracusa were forced to flee across the borders. They settled in foreign empires under assumed names. The woman you met might be a product of that diaspora. Her combat arts were likely passed down by an old wolf in her family.”
She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. “But Lupo who abandon their families also abandon their pride. They devolve from wolves into dogs.”
Lucian rubbed his aching side, remaining noncommittal. “Dogs, huh… She didn’t strike me as a stray dog. She was a highly decisive killer.”
“Do you think this Reunion Movement is unusual?”
“That depends entirely on the baseline you’re comparing them to,” Lucian said, his voice losing its usual joking lilt. “Any Infected who finally rises up in armed rebellion has already been pushed past the absolute limit of human endurance. They’ve had their last scrap of living space stolen from them before they finally decide to pick up a knife. By definition, not a single one of them can be considered ‘ordinary’.”
He spoke with a quiet, heavy sincerity that stood in stark contrast to his usual laid-back demeanor.
Texas blinked, seemingly caught off guard. She lowered her magazine, her gaze dropping to study the serious lines of his profile in the dim light.
A faint, rare smile touched her lips. She reached out, lightly poking his cheek with her fingertip. “You really are a Holy Son.”
“Huh? Was that sarcasm?”
Lucian suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed, entirely unsure of how to respond to the sudden softness in her voice.