I'm fourty-three years old, Matoba, [ he says wryly, an amused twist to the corner of his mouth. ] I doubt I'm going to find a new calling at this age.

[ He doesn't consider himself old. Rather, he considers himself to be a fourty-three year old with quite a bit of vitality to him. Nonetheless, he's always been set in his ways, and he has neither the time nor the money nor the energy to pursue entirely new skills.

He becomes more serious as Matoba does, though, tilting his head as he considers his words. He can't comment on the ayakishi feeling that he's the strange one - that may be the case in morphology, but he doubts he's strange in personality or pastimes - but the lack of presence of human spirits has given him great pause. To him, it's evidence that this isn't the afterlife at all. ]

But... yes, I have to agree with that. I was never a great believer in the afterlife, but one usually thinks that they'll be reunited with the dead there. Are we really to believe that out of the trillions of dead humans, we are the only ones who have made our way here? [ He shakes his head. ] Have you found any evidence that there are other cities like this one? The most I've been able to discover is that we simply can't exit the city.