Chapter 34
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: The Day the World Ended
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‘It can’t be. It can’t…’
I turned and went back inside Happy House. I headed for the banquet hall where I’d first found the wolf.
There, amidst the remains of a shattered dining table, lay a mess of torn clothing.
I wanted to run. But my feet were already moving in that direction. Slowly. Step by step.
I walked to where the clothes lay.
A neat, dark green tailored suit and a flared skirt of the same color.
Before leaving for the train station that morning, I had said goodbye to Susanna, who was packing her last things in the mansion. This was the very outfit she had been wearing.
Only then did I notice another unidentifiable corpse in a corner of the banquet hall.
The bear-like creature was the size of a small child, and something like a metal skewer was embedded in its head.
*Thud.* My legs gave out from under me, and I collapsed.
‘Was the wolf I just killed… Susanna?’
Whether it was the bear or the wolf, it seemed one of them had to be her.
I hadn’t known Susanna for very long. Half a year at most.
But she was one of the two people I desperately wanted to protect if the world were to end.
‘But I killed her. With my own hands…’
My hands tingled as if they were paralyzed.
I sat there blankly on the floor, staring endlessly at the tattered remnants of Susanna’s clothes.
‘With my own hands…’
If I hadn't asked Susanna to come down to Brunel, would she have been all right?
The novel described the entire population of the capital, except for Aurora’s group, as being wiped out, but couldn’t there have been other survivors hiding, just not mentioned in the story?
Susanna could have survived.
‘What’s the point of such what-ifs now? What’s the point…’
Something trickled down my cheek. It took me a long moment to realize it was a tear.
*CRASH—*
A loud noise from far away snapped me back to my senses. I wasn’t even given time to grieve.
The sound came from the direction of Happy House’s main gate. Monsters were still swarming outside.
I tried my best not to make a sound.
I carefully gathered Susanna’s torn dress, placed it in her room, then dragged the bear from the banquet hall and threw it into the garden.
I don’t know how I managed to do it all.
‘I have to live.’
That’s why I came here, wasn’t it?
In a daze, I repeated those words like a mantra. I hoisted Ethan, who was collapsed by the front door, over my shoulder and immediately moved inside.
To think I’d end up being the one to protect Ethan. Of course, he’d scoff if he heard me say that.
Just because the original story has been derailed, it doesn’t mean Aurora won’t meet the scientist, Ezra, right?
The ominous thought crossed my mind, but I decided to focus on the present. I couldn’t afford to lose sight of the here and now by worrying about the original plot.
For now, I laid Ethan on the bed in the room across from mine. Then I sat beside him for a moment, leaning my body against the bed.
‘This is only the beginning.’
That was why I had come down to the village of Brunel, to avoid the main characters. Because I didn’t want to go through things like this.
“They must have been very loved by God, for Him to take them so soon.”
The words Harrison had said to me as I cried in front of my parents’ graves long ago suddenly came to mind.
Right. That was it. God must have wanted to see Susanna sooner.
‘But that doesn’t change the fact that I was the one who sent her away with my own hands.’
Leaning against the bed, I buried my face in the covers and sobbed.
I couldn’t believe it. Why did this have to happen to us?
I cried and cried until I collapsed from exhaustion.
As my eyes grew heavy with fatigue, a faint image of Harrison surfaced.
‘What about Harrison…?’
Could it be that the reason he didn’t make it to the train station today was because he’d already been attacked by them?
‘No. Don’t think negatively.’
Harrison must be safe too. I can save them both. And Ethan, too.
‘I can save them. You built Happy House to survive, Cherry. You can do this.’
I kept repeating these words to myself, a form of self-hypnosis, until I finally drifted off to sleep.
***
Early afternoon on the day the world ended.
At Cherry’s request, Harrison had packed five luggage bags filled with weapons.
Perhaps because of Ethan, the police, having caught a scent of something, were inspecting carriages leaving the capital, making it impossible to travel safely by coach.
So, Harrison decided to take the train, brazenly.
The train that operated in the southern part of the Graydon Kingdom was owned by a company the Sinclair Family had invested in.
Therefore, Harrison was able to bribe someone and load the weapons into the train’s cargo hold.
This was a rather reckless and dangerous move, uncharacteristic of the usual Harrison.
“Come quickly, Harrison.”
But he had no choice, as Cherry’s urgent voice echoed relentlessly in his ears.
It was four stops from the capital, Benton, to Kintne.
And there was only one stop left to Kintne station. Just one.
The train, stopped at Westmore station, showed no signs of departing.
The police authorities had issued a directive: all roads from Westmore were being closed, and the train service was to be suspended. Everyone was to comply.
Harrison sat anxiously on the train, wondering if he should switch to a carriage.
“Aaaargh!”
Just then, a man in tattered clothes ran screaming into the train car. That was the beginning.
The man collapsed on the train floor, his body contorting grotesquely, and then he suddenly began to change.
Fur sprouted in an instant, his legs stretched out long, and three eyes appeared on his forehead. Inside his wide-open mouth, sharp, pincer-like fangs were visible. And then, it began to devour the people nearby.
“Uwaaaargh!”
“Kyaaaaah!”
From that moment on, the train car became a living hell.
More and more monstrously bizarre creatures appeared, and the number of survivors dwindled.
Fleeing people pushed and trampled one another, throwing others to the monsters as bait in their desperate escape.
The chaos blocked the train’s exits.
Harrison quickly hid under a seat. There was no way to get out.
The train floor, visible from his vantage point, was drenched in blood.
*Grrrrk.*
Harrison held his breath. He could hear a monster’s growl-like sound close by.
*Thud. Thud.*
A hairy foot passed by the seat he was hiding under.
‘It would have been good to have a weapon.’
Of all the luck, the weapons he’d brought were all in the cargo hold.
Suddenly, Harrison remembered Cherry coming to him one day, asking him to procure weapons.
“Why do you suddenly need weapons?”
“I want to protect myself.”
The very reason he was now heading to Brunel with weapons was because of Cherry’s request. It felt strangely fitting for the current situation.
On top of that…
[Exclusive Report! Heiress Cherry Sinclair takes out a 100 million gold loan for an overseas business venture! What is this phantom overseas business…!]
She had taken out a 100 million gold loan without a word to him and left for Brunel.
Then, Harrison abruptly recalled something Cherry had said.
“Harrison, actually… the world is about to end. A plague that turns people into monsters is going to spread. I’m going to Brunel to prepare for the apocalypse.”
Cherry had known. She had known the world would become like this.
‘So that’s why she suddenly bought a mansion in a rural village and started doing all those strange things.’
Harrison felt as if all the puzzle pieces were finally falling into place. He could now understand all of Cherry’s suspicious behavior.
But if that was the case, how did Cherry know about it in advance?
‘Whatever the reason, I just hope she’s safe for now.’
Asking for the full story could come later.
With her monstrous strength, Cherry might be able to overcome this situation without much difficulty, but if the number of monsters was this high, it was a different story.
‘Still, it’s a good thing she was forced to take that medicine by Chairman Sinclair.’
Cherry had been frail since birth.
Chairman Sinclair, always worried about her, had suddenly procured some medicine from somewhere.
After taking the medicine for a year, Cherry’s health improved remarkably. But the effects were so excessive that she developed incredible physical strength.
She desperately hid her power. For a woman to be strong was not considered a virtue among the upper class.
Harrison, respecting Cherry’s wishes, had never acknowledged it.
Never imagining the situation could be this dire even in the village of Brunel, Harrison calculated the right moment to escape the train, hoping the royal family and the Benton police would take swift action.
He had to hurry. Cherry was waiting.