Chapter 118
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Reunion
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Anyway, to cut to the chase, I was caught and dragged here by Elliot.
Tied tightly to a chair in Elliot's room, I pondered the underground passage of Happy House.
The passage Ethan and I had come through led directly to the Kintne branch of the Sinclair Hotel. To think the underground passage from Happy House connected all the way to Kintne… It was astonishing.
Just as Charlie Green, who was captured in Brunel, had said, it seemed Elliot was indeed the leader here.
‘But why did the place I was in just now reek of such a foul smell?’
I was so flustered after being discovered by Elliot that I didn't even think to look around the room.
However, as if he had urgent business, Elliot had tied me up here and left for a moment. Of course, my axe had been taken, but that wasn't a major issue.
‘To be precise, I wasn't dragged here. I let myself be captured.’
I looked around the empty room and clicked my tongue. In truth, I could snap the ropes binding me if I really wanted to.
But the reason I remained still was to turn this unfortunate encounter with Elliot to my advantage. I needed to find out information about the Kintne survival camp. And I had to figure out how Elliot planned to attack Brunel.
Charlie Green from Happy House knew less than I expected. It seemed he was just a low-level grunt being used by Elliot. I needed someone else to extract accurate information from.
‘Should I just kidnap someone else and go back?’
These bastards' base of operations is the Sinclair Hotel.
When it comes to the Sinclair Hotel, I have the advantage, knowing it better than anyone else here. At the very least, I know more about the hotel's structure and systems than Elliot does.
I also reviewed what I knew about the novel, *Love in a Ruined World*.
Even if minor plot points had changed, my phone call with Aurora had confirmed that the main storyline was still progressing.
In the novel, Aurora's group visits Brunel about half a year after the world ended. I was sure the road from Westmore was blocked, but I don't know how Aurora's group got through in the original story.
I'm paying the price for skipping some of the boring middle episodes… This is why you should never skip parts of a novel, sigh.
Anyway, back then it was mentioned—
[In Kintne, where we briefly stopped, there were survivors. A great many of them. But we could not save them.
They were all addicted to ‘Badon.’
-From the novel *Love in a Ruined World*]
That's what it said.
‘Badon’ is a type of drug powder.
Consuming this powder allows one to temporarily forget the pain of their wounds. Furthermore, depending on the person, it can even cause hallucinations. In a world overrun by monsters, becoming addicted to drugs would be incredibly dangerous, wouldn't it?
And yet, Elliot turned all the survivors in his camp into drug addicts. It was probably so he could easily control them and use them like disposable tools.
The novel didn't go into detail about the Kintne arc, but it did mention that Elliot intended to use the camp's people as excellent battle shields.
‘Wait, didn't the novel say Kintne was under attack from somewhere?’
It never said who was attacking, but it did mention that the attackers were also after the Badon.
Right. It's not so strange for people to want drugs in a world like this.
‘By the way, Charlie Green didn't seem to be addicted to Badon yet.’
That means the current Elliot hasn't started distributing Badon to the Kintne survivors.
If the main plot of the novel hasn't been derailed, Elliot will acquire ‘Badon’ through some route. I don't know when that will be, but thankfully, I remember where he gets it from.
‘If he hasn't obtained the Badon yet, maybe I could use that to make a deal with him.’
I could tell him the location of the Badon in exchange for the information he has.
As I said, in a world like this, the one with the most information has the upper hand.
But that would create the slightly annoying problem of me having to take responsibility for retrieving the Badon on my way back.
‘Hmm, that's a bit too troublesome…’
After mulling it over for a while, I decided to put that idea on hold. Still, I'm sure this information will be useful later.
‘I wonder if Ethan's okay.’
He must have been flustered by my sudden disappearance. Ethan was the kind of man who would definitely search the entire hotel to find me.
There didn't seem to be any monsters in this hotel, and if he was up against ordinary people, Ethan could handle them without much trouble. Of course, he might have trouble if he were surrounded by several people with guns, but…
Even if that happened, Ethan would be fine. I trusted his abilities.
In that case, I should gather as much information as I can before Ethan comes looking for me.
Right on cue, Elliot entered the room. Once again, a tobacco pipe was wedged between his lips. He saw me and smiled, looking amused.
That damn chain-smoker, is he smiling?
But I couldn't act on my temper, so I silently watched him grin.
“Ah. Fancy meeting you here. It must be fate.”
“Do you want to meet your fate right here?”
Elliot's eyes widened at my response. Then, he burst into a roar of laughter.
“You want to kill me.”
“Whether you live or die is none of my concern.”
“Then what is our Sinclair princess interested in? You're suspicious from top to bottom.”
No, even with the world ending, I'm still a suspicious person. For some reason, I could feel a cold sweat coming on.
“You lived your life acting so high and mighty, why the change? Ah, well. With the world like this, it'd be strange not to change. The great Sinclair heiress is nothing special after all.”
What's that chain-smoking bastard babbling about? I almost forgot my goal of gathering information and threw a punch first.
“Miss Cherry… why is your first thought to hit someone?”
Then, I suddenly remembered what Ethan had said to me, and I calmed down a little. Right. Calm down for now, Cherry. I'll beat him to a pulp on my way out, after I get all the information.
I forced the corners of my lips up into a smile with all my might.
“What are you doing here?”
Elliot exhaled a puff of smoke from his pipe and answered leisurely.
“I'm building a new kingdom.”
A new kingdom? It seems Elliot has lost his mind even more since the world ended.
“How did Lady Sinclair get in here? I pride myself on our security being quite strict.”
He scanned me with his narrow eyes. It was creepy, like a small snake slithering all over my body. They were chilling eyes. A psychopath's gaze is truly different.
Enduring his unpleasant gaze, I got to the point.
“Want to exchange information? If you give me what I want, I'll tell you the flaw in your kingdom's security.”
For now, I set aside the matter of Badon, as it didn't seem useful at the moment.
Elliot's eyebrows shot up sharply. With the pipe still in his mouth, he was lost in thought for a moment. Then, after a moment, he pulled a nearby chair over and sat down across from me.
He crossed his long legs elegantly and asked.
“Alright, I'll hear you out before I kill you.”
You're the one who's going to die, you bastard.
Again, I swallowed my curses and smiled back at him.
It seemed Elliot was so relaxed because he thought he could kill someone like me in an instant if he wanted to. It was only natural, since there was no way he could know about the monstrous strength I possessed.
“Ah, wait, let me ask one thing before that. I saw the papers, too. The Sinclairs are in Brunel.”
I hesitated at Elliot's question, swallowing my words. For someone trying to find out how he planned to launch another attack on Brunel, it was a very tense question. He couldn't possibly know that I was the one who had annihilated the search party he'd sent to Brunel.
Elliot took a drag from his pipe and stared at me. The nauseating smell of tobacco brushed past my nose. That rude bastard.
He was studying my face from all angles, as if he found it fascinating.
“I thought for sure you'd be dead. How on earth is a weak little girl like you still alive?”
“You're alive, so it wouldn't be strange for me to be alive, too.”
Elliot stared blankly for a moment, pipe in his mouth, just blinking, before suddenly bursting into laughter.
“Puhahahaha!”
While he laughed like a madman, I glanced at the room's entrance. Two men who had followed Elliot in were standing guard by the door. Each of them held a rifle.
“I thought you were a boring woman, but you're not half bad.”
“Well, I find you boring and not at all okay. What now?”
For whatever reason, Elliot burst out laughing again. As if my words were the funniest thing he'd ever heard. He seemed a little crazy. What part of what I said was so funny?
Elliot gestured to the man at the door. The man handed something he was holding to Elliot. It was my weapon, the axe.
“So this is what you were carrying. It doesn't suit you.”
“You wouldn't say that if you saw how I swing it.”
Elliot didn't believe me and just scoffed. He changed the subject as if my words weren't worth listening to.
“So… did you see them?”
What?
I was a little startled by Elliot's sudden question, but I feigned composure and asked nonchalantly.
“…What are you talking about?”
Elliot let out a long stream of smoke and smiled.
“You came from Brunel, didn't you? I sent some of my boys over there, but none of them came back. I was wondering if our princess happened to see them.”
With the pipe in his mouth, Elliot stared intently at my face. It was a blatant stare, as if he were meticulously picking me apart like a fish.
I glanced at the axe in Elliot's hand. I could snap the ropes with a bit of force, and I could easily take back the axe by smacking Elliot on the back of the head and overpowering him.
Elliot was well within my reach, and if the men with rifles tried to shoot me, I could just use him as a shield.
Since it's come to this, I'll just knock Elliot out myself instead of waiting for Ethan. It'll be faster to get the information by force.