English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicArknights: The Prophet of Penguin Logistics — Chapter 2
Chapter 2: What the Hell is Griffin?
“No, no, it’s not like that.”
Looking at the Lupo girl radiating an aura of absolute, crushing low pressure, Lynn offered a dry, nervous laugh. He forced his facial muscles into the most harmless, friendly expression he could muster.
“My identity verification hasn’t cleared the city’s registry yet, so my job prospects are basically zero right now. I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble Exusiai here for just a little while longer.”
“Is that so?” Texas replied, her voice entirely devoid of inflection. “Then work hard. There are plenty of professional resources available on the Lungmen network. Good luck.”
She didn’t sneer. She didn’t offer any biting sarcasm. But that flat, chilling indifference made Lynn feel infinitely worse about freeloading in this apartment.
He knew exactly who Texas was. It wasn’t just because of the sheer hostility she had radiated when Exusiai first dragged him into the dormitory, but because she was the very first person Lynn had laid eyes on after waking up in this world.
Regrettably, contrary to every cheap light novel trope in existence, their fateful meeting had not sparked any sort of ambiguous romance. Instead, fate had decided to play a cruel joke on him. Texas just so happened to be the closest confidante of Exusiai—the cheerful Sankta currently providing him with food, shelter, and a place to hide.
Their bond was absolute; it was obvious in the way they moved around each other without needing to speak. And naturally, if a highly suspicious, amnesiac stranger suddenly moved into her best friend’s home, what was a loyal partner supposed to do? She was going to probe, interrogate, and bluntly demand to know if her friend had suffered a traumatic brain injury.
What genuinely moved Lynn was that Exusiai had shielded him from all of it. She had even packed up and moved out of the Penguin Logistics collective dormitory entirely, renting this cramped apartment just to prove to everyone that he was harmless.
The price for that kindness, however, was the look Texas was currently giving him. It was less like she was looking at a human being, and more like she was studying a particularly stubborn parasite.
He desperately wanted to clear up the misunderstanding, but judging by the icy temperature of the room, that wasn’t happening today. Sweating under her gaze, Lynn retreated to the tiny kitchen, poured a cup of cheap instant coffee, and carefully slid it across the table to the expressionless Lupo.
“I really won’t be a burden for long,” Lynn promised, forcing another smile for his savior’s best friend. “The ID paperwork should process soon. Once it does, I’ll move out.”
“Eh? Burden? What burden?” a bright voice chirped from the kitchen partition. “I don’t feel burdened at all! Prophet can stay as long as he wants, I don’t mind!”
Texas didn’t even blink. “This doesn’t concern you. Eat your apple pie.”
“But Texas, you’re the one who wanted to come over to eat! Why am I eating alone?” Exusiai pouted, looking blankly between Lynn’s strained smile and Texas’s darkened expression. Unable to read the suffocating tension in the room, she innocently took a massive bite of her pastry. “Alright, alright, you two talk first.”
She ducked back into the kitchen, happily humming a Laterano hymn as she tinkered with the oven.
‘If you’re so good at making desserts yourself, why do you constantly force me to cook for you?’Lynn thought, a spike of quiet resentment piercing his anxiety as the rich, buttery scent of baking apples drifted into the living room.’Are you trying to train my culinary skills?’
Across the table, Texas picked up the mug. She took a slow sip of the terrible instant coffee, her golden eyes locking onto him.
“Tell me about your future plans,” she said blandly. “You are an amnesiac with no combat skills and no Arts. If you actually have a plan, I might be willing to help you. There is no reason for you to continue leeching off Exusiai.”
“I actually don’t mind!” Exusiai’s voice echoed from the kitchen.
“Go back to your food,” Texas snapped.
“OK, OK~” Exusiai popped her head out just long enough to shoot Lynn a thumbs-up, then instantly shrank back out of sight under Texas’s murderous glare.
Lynn cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah, well, I plan to take on some short-term odd jobs at first, just to keep myself fed. Once I have a little money saved up, I’m going to write novels.”
“Hmm.” Texas set the mug down. “If you genuinely want to publish a book, and the quality isn’t garbage, you can show it to me.”
Lynn blinked, caught off guard. “…Is that actually possible?”
“I know people in the industry. If your writing is actually worth reading, I can bypass the slush pile and hand it directly to a publisher.”
Texas reached into her jacket pocket with practiced ease, pulling out a chocolate Pocky stick and placing it between her lips. Her other hand instinctively drifted to her opposite pocket, patting the fabric. After two empty pats, she remembered she didn’t carry a lighter anymore. She lowered her hand with a faint sigh and bit down on the chocolate, her sharp eyes studying the trembling young man across from her.
“The lack of ID isn’t a dealbreaker. We can publish it under my name,” Texas continued, her tone strictly business. “As payment for my services, I will take a thirty percent cut of all royalties. But again, this entirely depends on your manuscript being flawless. If you’re truly desperate for cash, there is another option. One I personally recommend.”
“What option?”
“Join Penguin Logistics. Let the boss handle your paperwork.”
“Hmm… alright,” Lynn said slowly. “If Miss Texas really wants to read it, my outline and world-building notes are right over there in the bedroom.” He paused, his gaze drifting past her shoulder. “But, I did want to ask you a quick question.”
‘Just ask it, get the answer, and then get as far away from Exusiai’s orbit as possible,’ he told himself.
Texas picked up her coffee again, her eyes narrowing in quiet satisfaction. She was finally going to pull her naive friend out of this mess.
But then she noticed the supposed fraud across from her staring intently at the glass window behind her. Lynn squinted at the dilapidated, mostly abandoned slab-style apartment building across the street.
“Does Penguin Logistics usually send a Sniper to watch from the adjacent roof when negotiations fail?” Lynn asked hesitantly, pointing a shaking finger at the window. “His scope glare is really hurting my eyes. Could you maybe ask him to stop aiming at my head? I’m pretty sure I didn’t enlist in Griffin, right? Because that crossbow looks an awful lot like a grenade launcher.”
Texas froze. “What the hell is Griffin? Sniper? What are you talking ab—”
She caught the harsh, blinding flash of light reflecting off the windowpane behind Lynn. Her Lupo instincts flared, the muscles in her back pulling taut.
“Shit! Exusiai, cover me!”
Years of brutal underworld survival bypassed her conscious thought. Moving faster than the eye could track, Texas lunged across the table. She grabbed Lynn by the collar, hauled him out of his chair, and threw his frail body behind her own. In the same fluid motion, she drew her twin Originium swords, the glowing blades igniting with a hum as she aimed them directly at the window.
But the moment she turned, the sniper’s bolt—supercharged by volatile Originium Arts—didn’t hit the glass.
It hit the bedroom.
A furious, deafening roar ripped through the apartment. The shockwave swept out from the bedroom hallway, instantly vaporizing the walls of the room Lynn and Exusiai shared.
Because she had braced for an attack from the living room window, Texas’s directional guard was entirely useless. The concussive blast of superheated air and shattered concrete slammed into them from the side.
In the kitchen, the violent pressure wave caught Exusiai mid-bite. She let out a muffled shriek as the blast flipped her off her feet, sending her flying head-first into the open oven door.
Texas and Lynn only had a fraction of a second to curl inward before the shockwave picked them up and violently slammed them into the far wall.
The entire rental unit dissolved into a storm of pulverized drywall, shattered glass, and billowing black smoke. Debris rained down onto the Lungmen streets below, prompting screams from the evening pedestrians. A crowd rapidly formed on the pavement, pointing up at the smoking crater on the fourth floor.
‘What just happened? An earthquake?”Did a Catastrophe hit the city?!”No, that apartment just blew up! Quick, call the L.G.D.!’
High above the panicked streets, kneeling on the edge of the abandoned slab building, a figure clad entirely in black lowered his heavy crossbow. He stared through his scope at the ruined bedroom and the thick smoke pouring from the shattered apartment, then calmly tapped the earpiece of his communicator.
“The signal source has been neutralized,” the sniper reported, his voice cold and mechanical. “I kept the casualties to zero, but this should serve as an adequate lesson for Penguin Logistics.”
Static crackled in his ear before a distorted voice replied. ‘Ah, that is sufficient. Laterano citizens are notoriously troublesome to deal with, but there are certain boundaries they must learn not to cross. A slight warning is exactly what was required. Return to base.'”Understood,” the sniper said. “And the payment?”‘It will be transferred to your account. You will be satisfied.’
“Good.”
The man in black crushed the disposable communicator in his palm. He cast one final glance down at the approaching wail of ambulance sirens, then stepped backward off the ledge, vanishing smoothly into the neon-lit Lungmen night.