Headlamp Zero

The Streetlight Talon needed a little push.

While they were powerful and their adaptability were inhumane, they didn't have the amount of personnel to keep up with the ever-changing City.

As of currently, they only have around 400 members, and 100 of them were sent to other Districts all the time for third party business and reconnaissance.

It was also the reason why many small Syndicate and other individuals from the opposing group tend to slip by their eyes within their own turf.

Well, the Streetlight Talon wasn't actually meant to hold territory in the way that they currently manage. Heck, even the accumulated protection fee was only 5% of their accumulated income.

Despite all of that, they gave a low price protection fee and immediately reacted when the Nihil was rampaging within their territory. No other Syndicate within this District would do that. Most wouldn't spare any effort and just let the people die.

Then again, they weren't a group of justice freaks either.

They wouldn't save everyone.

But to everyone, they were the best that one could offer in this City.

"I might be late to notice this. Is it true that our leader is the newly infamous Phantasmal Leprechaun!?"

"Ahaha, you're correct."

"Haaa… I don't know much to say."

"Well, I believe that if we follow his order precisely, we won't be meeting any trouble."

"You said that you're Nusa, right? Which department did you come from?"

"Intelligence, and yours is engineering under Tenniel the White Rabbit, correct?"

"Yep, Neijya is the name! I'll be in your care from now on!"

"More like, we are under the care of the Phantasmal Leprechaun…"

"Definitely…"

After listening for quite a while from behind, I approached in.

"Seems like both of you are feeling energetic today."

""Y-yes, sir!""

"Don't be stiff, we're only working together for a single day. So if you have any questions, feel free to shoot it right away."

"Sir Leprechaun!"

"Yes, Nusa? Also, just refer to me as Faust."

"Sir Faust! This might be a little doubtful of mine, but are we the only personnel in your Headlamp?"

"Yepper, also both of you shall carry each of these."

"Haahaha, as expected." Neijya wanted to cry but she couldn't. "Huh, what is this document for?"

"Don't open it until I tell you so." I put my index in front of my smile. "It will be a surprise for later. As for now, let's depart to the allocated storage building. We can exchange questions and answers on the way."

We traversed the branching tunnels. Because nothing had changed and there was only an extra path added for every new location, finding the path that led to the streetlamp that would send us to the surface was not a hard task to do. Thanks to me leading, both Nusa and Neijya felt a little bit of confusion, especially since I'm not originally a member of the Streetlight Talon.

"You really know this place like the back of your hand, sir Faust," said Nusa with a small wry laugh afterwards.

"Of course, the act of memorizing itself is something that you could train. Your current Headlamp's leader had managed to sneak by a simple action, called the observation." I partially lied, obviously.

"Wait, so I can train myself to memorize things faster?" Neijya touched her cheek with her index as she threw her view to the wall.

"Talent is just something that helps people to accomplish something. The talentless would only need to maximize the efficiency of their effort to achieve the same results. I can tell that you have some trouble memorizing things with that reply alone, yes?"

"Indeed, I tend to forget things a couple times before it sticks properly onto my head."

"If I'm not wrong." Nusa gestured his finger. "You can actually try a daily exercise with a book, where you read a single page and try to cram everything inside your head until you can recite everything without looking.

"And repeat it the day after with a different content again and again so that your brain can adapt to the speed of perception."

"Eeh, isn't that time tasking?" Neijya put on a sheepish smile as she slightly tilted her head. "I can feel my brain waving a white flag by just hearing that."

"And that's, Neijya, the sign that your lazy brain needs to do such exercise," I said with a playful tone.

"Ugyeh! I'll function just fine with my current memorization ability!"

Just like that, the atmosphere between the three of us became less stiff than it was before

As soon as we reached the surface under the flickering street lamp, we immediately departed to the storage building that was marked on the map. The morning breeze and light was the only thing that a person from the Lowstreet could anticipate.

It only took two minutes for the three of us to arrive at the front of the entrance to the area of the large storage building.

"Aaaaaaaaakh…"

"Urgh…"

Neijya almost died as she planted her face to the ground. Meanwhile, Nusa was huffing and puffing like crazy and his face struck a semblance of a person that had just tasted the most disgusting food in the world.

"Hmm? What's wrong?" I innocently tilted my head. "Did a frog go into your throat?"

"Sir, Faust!" Nusa still wasn't able to recover his breathing as his wrists were against the ground. "How do you manage to stay sane…!?"

Neijya rolled, letting her face bathe in the sun as she tried to control her heartbeat. "Leader! Give both of us a time out…! HUUHah… We had just skipped a few kilometers in just a single breath…"

"You two could just walk at your own pace, you know?"

Both of them looked surprised, extremely surprised even.

"Wait." I tilted my head to the other side. "Don't tell me that both of you didn't think of that?"

I let them try to regain their composure for a while. After Neijya didn't asphyxiate anymore, she took her canteen of water and chug it down like an antidote to her poison.

Of course, I didn't just run at the outside of their pace for no reason. Both of them probably had no to little chance of getting dispatched, but they were the type who stuck to the manual that was ingrained in their brain at the early day they joined.

Because the Streetlight Talon's doctrine implored that a Headlamp should march, advance, and retreat within the distance of one and another. It was made to be that way to counter a skirmish with smokescreen and attack the key points of the battlefield with one.

Even if it didn't mattered much, it did increase the teamwork of the squad.