Alec finally understood what the word "annoying" truly meant faster than the eye could register a photon. And if the writers of the Galactic Dictionary ever chose to subject themselves to the same torture he endured in less than a bloody minute, they too would come to the conclusion to wipe out the current definition and write "Tanya" in bold, using the blood pooling at their temples from pulling out strands of their hair.
"Alec, when was your first kiss?" was the first question she asked after a few minutes of silence.
For a full minute, he watched her bite her lip, her eyes wandering all over the place as her fingers fidgeted with a black slab of sorts.
Occasionally, her eyes gazed at him, her lips pursing, ready to say something, only to relax a second later. He felt her urge to speak gushing out of her frame, evident in the odd steps they took as they meandered through streams of sewage and passed massively tall iron and junk skyscrapers.
He didn't know when she gained the courage, but she couldn't stand the silence. And the first question she asked was not dumb but clearly didn't fit the atmosphere. When was his first kiss?
Truthfully, probably a thousand or two if he followed his memories. But the system had it at possibly a hundred thousand years ago. Alec Voldman? When he was sixteen.
"Sixteen," he answered.
They walked along the streets for a good two minutes, passing whores and prostitutes lining up on the street corners, dressed in something he could simply refer to as cloth. What they wore didn't deserve to be called clothes in any capacity. Little miss Tanya's lips pursed again, and he had a feeling she was up to no good.
Her eyes wandered too often to the whores and prostitutes at the corners, watching their every move, prancing about in what he aptly called loincloth, breasts bare for all to see, unless you counted the star cutouts plastered over their nipples.
He wasn't wrong.
"Have you done it before?" she asked.
Alec knew what she was referring to, and it somewhat felt odd to gather an answer and feed it to someone three thousand years his junior. True to his character, he mustered an honest answer, a blush coiling around his cheeks. "Done what?"
Tanya blushed, not expecting Alec to require further elaboration, something she didn't expect. Was he truly that clueless, or was he testing her? She couldn't fathom how someone of his age couldn't understand the implications of her words. Were they vague?
Yes.
But anyone in the 40th Century should have been able to understand. Come to think of it, Tanya realised, Alec was pretty clueless. It must have been those books. He packed too much common sense. Who didn't know what a game was? When she saw him through that lens, she understood what she needed to do next.
"Uhm," she understood that she needed to explain, but explaining the subject wasn't so simple, especially to a stranger. "You know... Sex."
"Oh! You meant that," Alec chuckled nervously, sweat dribbling around his collar. "Well, yes. And... You?"
That signaled the end of their conversation for a short while. Tanya didn't want to answer that at all.
Unfortunately for Alec, Tanya gained courage repeatedly and asked him a few more ridiculous questions that flew out of nowhere, giving him no chance to rest. She asked everything that she could think of, ranging from subtle intelligent topics to swathy and illicit topics such as his dick size, which he promptly shut down. It was honestly the most uncomfortable experience he had, unsure of what to do.
Surely the Galactic Dictionary wouldn't mind if he hacked their system and changed the definition of "annoying" to Tanya. He'd be doing them a solid in that case.
Her mouth was relentless, but nothing was a better "fuck you and shut up" than reaching their destination. Tanya kept quiet, and her aura shifted. Previously, it felt chaotic, rampant, and going all over the place, but suddenly it shifted and morphed into a cold, sharp sword at the drop of a hat.
Alex noted it down.
He had long noticed that every one of the employees at Lana's Night Out was extraordinary, at least in terms of the backwater Slums. Lana was a Tier 5 Soulburner, essentially putting her in the second realm.
Four Tiers made a Realm, and currently, to his knowledge, there were three Realms. The first four tiers were known as the Soul Formation Realm, the second set of four tiers, from Tier 5 to Tier 8, was known as the Nascent Soul Realm, and the last realm,to his knowledge, was known as the Soul Severance Realm, ranging from Tier 9 to Tier 12.
Tanya, on the other hand, was in the last tier of the Soul Formation Realm, on the verge of a breakthrough. Alec could sense it through her aura. If their assumptions were correct and Arcane truly existed, he could see the danger in keeping them around.
Mark, on the other hand, was currently a cripple, but the amount of energy flowing through his meridians indicated that he used to be an Oreburner of his level. He had once been a full-blown Tier 11 expert, but now he lingered at the 7th tier, all that potential wasted.
The Gambling Ring was a large building nestled between two towering high-rise buildings, shrouded in thick smog.
Two guards stood at the doors, clad in armored suits and sporting tinted glasses, their stone-cold faces scanning the streets. Alec could sense their aura, identifying them as no more than Tier 3 Soulburners.
This made him ponder. Soulburners were incredibly rare in the grand scheme of things, yet the sheer number he encountered in these Slums was astounding.
Upon casual inspection, he found approximately twenty individuals who were Soulburners, leading him to realize that Arcane was likely prevalent in this area.
What were their intentions? With Stardust City merely a few miles away, any action they took could potentially threaten lives.
Tanya approached the guards and presented them with a card. They moved aside, granting them passage. Throughout this encounter, Tanya remained silent. Alec couldn't help but wonder what significance this place held to render her speechless. Deep down, he began to develop a newfound respect for the venue.