Chapter 16
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Suspicious Preparations
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"[You must not have seen the papers. There's been a lot of news about people going missing or being brutally murdered by assailants. The world is a dangerous place these days. You should be careful at night, miss.]"
‘Brutally murdered by an assailant.’
I squeezed my eyes shut.
While I was dithering, it seemed the world was steadily preparing for its own demise.
"Thanks for the update. Could you give Harrison a message for me? Tell him to bring the item I requested down himself. Ethan Duncan Lancaster is in town right now, you see? He'll understand if you tell him Ethan's investigating it."
If Ethan found the firearms, it would be a serious problem.
With so little time left, I could end up facing the apocalypse while under investigation—or worse, from inside a police station jail cell.
"[Yes. I'll pass it on, miss.]"
I hung up the receiver and took a deep breath.
‘If only Ethan would go back to the capital, all my problems would be solved.’
The immutable law of the original story. I recalled the ominous phrase and shook my head vigorously.
‘I will break the immutable law of the original story and survive, no matter what.’
To do that, I needed to be more thorough with my preparations.
On my way out of the station, I pulled a small notebook from my pocket to check the shopping list I’d written down.
‘Time to go look at furniture.’
Do you know what the most important thing is for building a great shelter?
‘Money, of course.’
I headed straight for the furniture district in Kintne.
* * *
The police station in the center of Brunel.
Ethan sat in the station, leafing through case files from Brunel and the surrounding area.
[The Westmore Urban Legend Case]
A case file from the previous year caught his eye, likely because Cherry and Vanilla had mentioned Westmore.
The Westmore urban legend case, which had started spreading last year, was well-known within the police force. A staggering ten residents of Westmore had gone missing.
Around this time last year, a report had come in about screams being heard every night from an abandoned house in Westmore.
The human screams were always followed by what sounded like the cry of a beast.
But when the police responded and searched the abandoned house, they found no trace of any person or animal.
‘Similar to the case at 61 Notium Street, yet different.’
The Notium Street case had several witnesses and, eventually, a monster, but the Westmore case did not.
There were plenty of rumors but no witnesses. That was why it was called an ‘urban legend.’
‘That's why the case was quickly buried.’
The file on the Westmore case didn't even list the address of the abandoned house where the incidents took place.
‘Tsk. To not even record the details properly... sloppy work.’
Just as Ethan was clicking his tongue in disapproval.
Hahahaha-
A burst of boisterous laughter echoed through the station. A group of townspeople were gathered inside, sharing tea and chatting.
The restaurant owner, who claimed she’d just stopped by out of boredom, suddenly brought up Cherry.
"That young lady from the abandoned house, she’s a bit strange, isn’t she?"
Once the restaurant owner started, the grocer and the bookstore owner who had come with her chimed in.
"She's always hauling things to that old house, isn't she?"
The townspeople's chatter continued. He couldn't understand why they would gather at a police station to gossip. Don't most people avoid such places?
Then again, seeing as Inspector Hans, the man in charge of the Brunel police station, had joined right in on the gossip, perhaps it wasn't so strange after all.
"She's working hard on repairs, you know. That old place is still a house, after all."
"The foundation is solid, so it should be fine if it's repaired well. It was originally a nobleman’s villa, wasn't it? Seems like the perfect place to commit a crime and hide out, don't you think?"
"Oh, my goodness. You don't think the young lady from the abandoned house could be..."
Hearing their conversation, Ethan felt a flicker of suspicion himself.
A woman like Cherry Sinclair, who drew public attention with everything she did, was more than capable of getting into trouble. And hadn't there been that recent incident with the 100-million-gold loan?
‘That was a rather big scandal.’
It was a reasonable suspicion. What if she’d gotten into some kind of trouble she couldn't handle and was now hiding out in this town?
‘She did say she was hiding her identity.’
If Brunel were a larger town, Sinclair's identity would have been exposed before long.
The press adored any news about Cherry Sinclair, after all.
But Brunel was a tiny, rural village without even a train station, and its residents were the type who had never ventured far beyond its borders.
If she had chosen this town to hide her identity, it was an excellent choice.
‘Or she could really be hiding out because of the firearms smuggling.’
Cherry was clearly at the center of the recent string of suspicious incidents, and Ethan couldn't ignore that.
He was quietly monitoring Cherry, waiting for the right moment—the moment to catch her in the act.
"Oh my, what is that?"
Just then, the townspeople began to turn their gazes toward the station's exterior.
Ethan looked up, puzzled as well. Through the open doorway, a strange sight met his eyes.
A woman was effortlessly dragging four giant, straw-stuffed scarecrows tied together with a rope.
It was none other than Cherry Sinclair, the very subject of their gossip.
Watching her, Ethan thought to himself that Cherry Sinclair was far from ordinary.
‘She certainly doesn't seem normal.’
Nothing she had done so far made any sense by his standards.
"What on earth are those scarecrows for?"
"Is she really carrying all of those by herself?"
The people inside the station started whispering as they watched Cherry. As if hearing them, she looked up.
The station door was open, so her eyes met with those of the people inside.
"Oh, everyone's gathered here. Hello."
She gave them a friendly wave and a smile.
"What are the scarecrows for?"
The grocer asked, looking around tentatively. Cherry just shrugged and replied.
"Just a bit of practice."
"Practice for what?"
"How to take a head off cleanly. It requires a bit of research, you know."
Take a... what?
The color drained from everyone's faces. Cherry quickly waved her hands in dismissal.
"Oh, don't get the wrong idea. It was a joke. Hahaha!"
She scratched the back of her head and laughed, causing the rope on her shoulder to slip. The scarecrows tumbled to the ground.
Cherry effortlessly hoisted the fallen scarecrows back onto her shoulder and bid them farewell.
"Well, I'll be on my way...!"
A heavy silence fell over the police station after she left.
The Cherry Sinclair Ethan knew was a delicate flower, one who loathed physical exertion and hardship.
He watched her retreating figure, easily carrying four large scarecrows, and thought.
‘How in the world is that a delicate flower?’
Suddenly, Ethan recalled something Cherry had said to him not long ago.
"I tend to be misunderstood. I like luxury and act childishly, always causing trouble. It makes me seem like the type who could commit a crime without a second thought, doesn't it?"
"I don't mind. I'm used to being misunderstood."
Just as she'd said, he wondered if it was all a misunderstanding.
‘Come to think of it, the weapons smuggling was Harrison Howard's doing.’
Of course, that didn't change the fact that everything about Cherry Sinclair was suspicious.
Still, one thing was clear: she was peculiar, certainly, but she didn't seem as arrogant or immature as the rumors suggested.
‘I'll have to keep watching her.’
Ethan watched Cherry's retreating figure for a moment before turning to the townspeople.
"Does the young lady from the abandoned house come into town often?"
A brief silence fell. The townspeople exchanged curious glances.
Finally, the innkeeper spoke up.
"Don't even get me started. Yesterday, she completely cleaned out the grocery store."
The innkeeper said, gesturing to the grocer standing beside him. The grocer nodded vigorously.
"And today she cleaned out the general store, I hear?"
This time, it was the general store owner who nodded.
"She bought out everything, like she was preparing for a war."
"No idea where a young lady living in an abandoned house gets that kind of money."
Hearing this, Ethan had to suppress a laugh. For Cherry Sinclair, that amount of money was practically nothing.
"So, why is our new young bachelor so interested in the lady from the abandoned house?"
"Do you even have to ask? That young lady is stunning, after all."
Ethan was rendered speechless. He had to admit, of course, that Cherry was a striking beauty.
But her looks weren't the important thing here.