Arcadia Chapter 11.3

Dia, who took the bundle of lists, turned the first page. Wayne summarized the explanation of this role, which he had been waiting eagerly for a chance to quit.

Just as humans are each born with different talents, they too had different inherent talents. These could be diluted or amplified depending on the host’s disposition, but the essence would not disappear. Thus, they selected individuals among them who were physically outstanding and had a disposition that made it difficult to get along with others, and entrusted them with important tasks. Dia, who had received a transfer of experience from a host who was no different from a loafer but specialized in physical work, and was born with brute strength and an obsessive disposition, was a perfect fit for this job.

From now on, the job Dia had to do was not to fabricate a past and disguise himself as a relative to inherit each family business, but to protect his kind from external threats and eliminate risk factors. The progenitors must lead, assisted by their direct descendants, and considering the disadvantage of not being able to come out into the light, they have priority when distributing accumulated assets.

The authority to access the information of all surviving kin, and even interfere to some extent, was quite coveted, but it was also a role that most individuals avoided because it came with just as many bothersome tasks.

However, Dia was in no position to weigh the pros and cons. Having gotten a chance to get out of here sooner than expected, Dia scanned somewhere around the middle of the list with green eyes that had hardened from accumulated hatred.

Joyce Thomson, 45 years old, unemployed. The photo of an utterly ordinary middle-aged man, his residence, family relations, and daily patterns were meticulously listed over 10 pages. The X mark drawn across his page clearly taught him the essence of the role Wayne was trying to pass on. Dia, who confirmed the word ‘handled’ written at the very bottom of Joyce Thomson’s page, lifted his gaze.

“You can refuse, but I’d like you to accept. We don’t have a suitable person right now.”

Wayne, whose eyes met his, shrugged as if he couldn’t help it.

“Though if you refuse, you’ll have to endure it here longer. Oh, right. Van’s been getting a taste for dating these days.”

“…Dating?”

“Look.”

Wayne gestured to the list with his eyes. Dia, who unconsciously furrowed his brow, found Michel and Van at the end of the list. He didn’t even glance at the personal information of Michel, who was listed as missing, and went straight to Van’s page. Soon, his fingers, their joints grown stiff, twitched and then carefully pulled out the photo held by a paperclip.

“I put in a few extra photos. I thought you’d be curious.”

Van, who lacked the intelligence to judge that he should be careful, was a regular on his acquaintances’ social media. There were so many photos taken with him or where he was caught in the corner that they had been narrowed down to two. Dia, who was staring intently at those and a photo taken from a distance, looked literally as if he had been hit on the back of the head. The greater the sense of betrayal, the more the misunderstandings snowballed, the easier it was to bury the past, so Wayne let the young, green individual spread his wings of imagination as he pleased.

Wayne, who had been waiting silently for Dia, who couldn’t take his eyes off the photos of him embracing his partner, kissing his cheek, and smiling with an arm wrapped around his waist, called for the person waiting by the door.

A middle-aged woman wearing a thick suede coat that came down below her knees approached the table and gave a light nod. It was Emma, a direct descendant of the second-generation Isabel. Wayne, who yielded his seat and the explanation to her, picked up the outerwear he had taken off.

“This is Emma. Learn well. And try to listen to her a little better.”

Emma, who would become Dia’s subordinate from now on, would handle the personnel arrangements herself. Wayne turned his back on Dia, who was crumpling the photo with an expressionless yet crazy-eyed face, and left the desolate mansion.

Snowflakes, which had started pouring from a sky that had been clear until he boarded the boat, mixed with the biting wind to create a blizzard. The way here had been arduous, but the way back seemed just as daunting, and a sigh escaped him automatically. Still, his steps were light, thanks to finally having passed on the burdensome duty.

Wayne, who fastened his collar, took his phone out of his coat pocket. Thanks to Dia giving his guest the cold shoulder, he had to move up the takeoff time. His finger, which was about to contact his attendant, slipped against his will and pressed the wrong photo app. He frowned and was about to close the app, but his eyes suddenly became fixed on the most recently saved photo.

Wayne stared at the small image with a displeased expression before tapping it. Van’s face, with cute stickers plastered all over his cheeks and forehead as if there had been an event at the pub where he worked as a bartender, filled the screen.

It was a photo he had saved without realizing it while receiving occasional reports on his daily life. His gaze lingered for a long time on the face that was smiling as if happy, holding a beer bottle. It was a smile that reminded him of when he had first encountered the guy.

Cancun, where he had arrived to catch a link to Michel Clark, the flighty man who had walked right into the trap before it was even set, a few one-night stands, the host of the last specimen…

Even now, after quite some time had passed, Wayne still hadn’t found an answer to why he had shot Van in the thigh that night, not the head. He had lamented countless times that he had done something useless instead of taking the quick and easy path, but if he were to go back to that day again, he would probably…

“…Tsk.”

Wayne, who clicked his tongue, moved his finger and deleted the photo. Stepping into the blizzard, he erased the man who had been grinning in a colorful shirt from his mind. Nothing should be more important than his own kind.

A lock of hair fell onto his forehead, tickling the inner corner of his eye. Except for the period when it was too short to grasp, the reason he had always kept it long was one. Because Van liked it. It was sometimes inconvenient, but now that he had his hair neatly cut and the tickling sensation on the nape of his neck was gone, he felt as if he had lost something important. Dia, who touched the empty nape of his neck, raised his head and gazed out the car window.

The man who got out of the truck stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and started walking. The man entered the end of a residential area where the distance between houses was sparse. Dia, who had been quietly tailing him from the pub, reviewed the personal information of the first target he had memorized.

Ian Miller. A former army captain, he had worked for the laboratory and was the soldier who had left the hideous gunshot wound on his shoulder. Ian, who had narrowly survived the explosion, had returned to his hometown and was living in seclusion, cutting off contact with the outside world. His only outing was going to the grocery store and stopping by the pub on Friday nights. He had no one living with him and no neighbors he interacted with.

Dia looked at the lit window and recalled his conversation with Six, who he now called Eli. Eli was lenient with Dia, who had returned without completing his probation. Dia, who found Eli annoying for trying to act like an elder just because he had woken up a few months earlier, had been cutting off most of the conversations he initiated from the very beginning.

Around the time the date for eliminating the first target was approaching, Dia spoke to Eli for the first time. It was a question about the eliminated host.

‘Thomson? He was nice to me. One time he secretly brought a toy from outside and I got in trouble when we got caught. Ah, I kind of miss that.’

Even at the news of his host’s death, Eli smiled nonchalantly as he reminisced about the past. Dia asked.

‘Don’t you love him?’

‘Hmm? I don’t know… The host?’

The eyes, which held only pure curiosity without any intention of sarcasm, confused Dia.

He had known for a while that the feelings he had for Van were strange. The sensation that made him go against the instinct to suck the host’s nutrients dry and then discard him when the time came had been present throughout his time with him. Wayne and Chema had used their hosts and killed them with their own hands, and Eli, upon hearing that his host had been eliminated, had left a comment like “it was fun for a while.”

Dia was different. He had thought their ending would be different. He had thought that they, at least, were special. Waking up from the sweet dream, he found that they were no different from the others, nor were they special. When he predicted that even their ending would be the same, a wave of dizziness washed over him.

Dia, who squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them, found himself standing in front of the house of the soldier who had condoned and assisted the experiments. The light that had been leaking from inside the old two-story house suddenly went out. He grabbed the doorknob and held his breath.

Ian Miller was not a target who required painstaking tracking or effort in elimination or post-mortem processing. Emma, considering that he was ex-special forces, had judged him to be a suitable first target for Dia. There was probably also a desire to send Dia out as soon as possible, as his tyranny had been getting worse lately.

Recently, Dia had been annoyed to the point of exasperation. Wayne, who was quite perceptive, had arranged for Emma to have exclusive access to Van’s information for six months before leaving Greenland. Wayne had attached a plausible reason, saying it was to lower Michel’s guard by preventing a hasty approach, but Dia was not one to fail to notice that jealousy was mixed in.

However, despite being delegated immense authority, Dia could not revoke Wayne’s decision. It was because although his probation had ended, he still had a year left on his disciplinary period. Thus, Dia had lived for three months clutching the photos of Van rubbing flesh with another human, and he would have to live clutching them for three more months.

Dia, who unlocked the door and entered the house without a sound, looked down at the man sleeping with only a blanket over him. He held no particular grudge against the man who had stolen his hope completely, once with words, and another time with a bullet. Dia’s emotions were so completely focused on one person that he didn’t have enough left over to truly hate someone else.

Dia decided to consider today’s work a dress rehearsal. A dress rehearsal to go through before facing Van, whose name was at the very end of the list.

Dia stared blankly in the darkness at the man sleeping on his side. Dia, who had repeated hundreds of days of thinking of the same person every time he fell asleep and every time he opened his eyes, had a tendency to look at others with one person as the standard for everything.

Unfortunately, Ian didn’t resemble his man by a single fingernail or a single strand of hair. Van wasn’t this rugged and fierce-looking. He was a bit smaller and cuter. To the point where he worried he might die if he poked him…

Dia, who had been lost in delusion, instantly moved his body back and grabbed the man’s wrist. Ian, who had sat up at some point, had his wrist twisted, dropping the pistol.

“Kgh…!”

Dia, who kicked the pistol that fell to the floor far away with his heel, covered the man’s mouth whose arm was bent and sat on top of his body. It was a move that left no opening. Ian glared at the pitch-black shadow that had taken the superior position and struggled violently. The blanket kicked by his feet slid to the floor.

“Mmph! Mmmph…!”

Dia pressed harder on the hand covering Ian’s nose and mouth and blinked. Oops. He had left the gun in the car. When he glanced sideways, he saw that the gun that had rolled far away didn’t have a silencer. It wasn’t a problem even if he couldn’t use the gun. There had been a time when he felt confident he could kill everyone in the white room and leave. It was the same now. It wasn’t much of a hassle.

He could see Ian’s eyes widen in surprise at the force pressing down on him like a lead weight. Although Ian, who had a long military career, had a larger frame, he couldn’t reverse their positions and could only struggle.

Dia squeezed Ian’s arms and upper body with his now thicker thighs. Ian, who barely managed to free one arm amidst the pain that felt like his bones would break, tried to grab his clothes and topple Dia. As it happened, it was a futile effort.

Since it was better to have as little to clean up as possible, Dia decided to suffocate him to death like this. He immediately grabbed his neck with one hand. The touch of another person through the glove felt unpleasant.

“Kgh, kack!”

When he applied a little pressure, Ian’s breathing caught, and he kicked his knee up. Dia, who remained motionless despite the fierce resistance and stared at a spot on the edge of the mattress, listlessly waiting for the man’s breath to cease, heard the sly Van whisper in his ear.

‘Whatever happens, don’t touch people.’

Dia crushed Ian’s face into the mattress enough to make it sink deeply and muttered to himself.

“What does it matter, now of all times…”

“K-gh! Ugh…!”

“You didn’t come even when I listened to you. I didn’t kill them then.”

I could have killed them. I could have killed all the humans in that place and left.

The more he muttered to himself, the more strength went into his fingertips. A single word from Van, what was that to interfere with even taking the life of an ant? Dia blinked his eyes several times to shake off the promise he no longer needed to keep. Here, Dia made a mistake. His effort not to think, on the contrary, brought up Van’s devastated expression.

Ian did not miss the opportunity when the pressure weakened. Sucking in a little breath through his shrunken windpipe, he reached out with a trembling hand. At Ian’s bedside, there was always a gun and a jackknife. Dia realized his blunder the moment he saw the tip of the knife flying toward his eye.

“You, son of a…! Kack!”

The sharp tip of the knife lodged in the temple of Dia, who had reflexively turned his head. The blade, which would have pierced his eye precisely if not for his superior reflexes, did not come back out. It tore through the thin skin and the muscles around his green eye, deeply engraving his final struggle onto the intruder’s face. Ian tried to sit up while digging the intruder’s eye socket with the knife.

Before his blade could reach the bridge of his nose, the sound of bones snapping with a crack echoed in the dark bedroom. When he pulled out the knife that had sunk deep into the muscle, Ian’s arm dropped limply.

“Ah…”

Dia, who had accidentally broken the fragile neck bone, fumbled with his hands and covered his eye. Something was dripping.

A warm, sticky liquid soaked his cheek and seeped into the shirt wrapped around his neck. The pain followed a step behind. The pain, as if the skin of his face had been torn off completely, spread through his sensitive nerves. Dia, who couldn’t grasp the situation despite the burning pain in his ear, looked down at the soldier while covering his left eye.

The image of the target with a broken neck formed in his right eye. His chest and chin were drenched in dark red blood. But breaking his neck shouldn’t have caused bleeding. Dia, who had temporarily lost his judgment, moved away from Ian and got down on the floor.

Dia, who stomped on a drop of blood that had fallen to the floor, looked around bewilderedly. His vision was shaking uncontrollably. Dia, who came down the creaking stairs with a thud, finally found a mirror in a corner of the hallway that would reflect his upper body. He hurriedly approached the mirror and slowly took away the hand covering his left eye.

Faced with a face with flesh torn to shreds, Dia parted his lower lip, where beads of blood had pooled.

“…Uh.”

A choked gasp burst out. He wiped his cheek with a stiff hand. The black leather glove couldn’t absorb the liquid that drenched his face. Dia pushed his face toward the mirror once more. The hideous sight was captured head-on by his superior eyes, which could easily distinguish objects even in the dark.

“This can’t be… This can’t happen…”

He hurriedly threw off his gloves and wiped his face with his bare hands. The blood wouldn’t stop, and his golden eyelashes were stained with blood. Sticky blood smeared on the back of his pale hands and palms, blood spattered on the mirror, and the wound covering half of his face widened even further, revealing bright red muscle.

No matter how much he wiped away the blood and rubbed the torn area, the hideous sight in the mirror remained the same. If anything, it only became more gruesome.

Dia, his hands stained bright red, stared blankly at the mirror before stepping back. The man with the horribly disfigured face was captured in his dilated pupils.