Nox’s fingers brushed the tip of my ear, then hovered near my neck before pulling away.
The tension made me swallow hard. What was this atmosphere all of a sudden?
"Are you nervous?"
"What?"
"I’m saying, don’t say things like that so carelessly."
I had been so distracted by his touch on my hair that I missed what Nox said. When he slowly lifted his eyes, our gazes locked.
"What if I misunderstood you?"
He smiled gently. His low chuckle snapped me back to reality.
I almost got swept away.
Nox pulled back quickly, as if nothing had happened, just as Harrison approached us.
"Miss, how about we head up to the rooftop for a discussion?"
As he spoke, Harrison cast a deliberate glance at Nox. Nox returned his gaze with a serene smile, but somehow, sparks seemed to fly between them.
Watching their silent standoff, I asked Harrison, "Why the rooftop, though?"
Harrison finally turned his attention back to me.
"Didn’t they say the people here farm on the rooftop? If we’re going to assess the spoils, it’s best to thoroughly check what they have. Also, since we’ve taken control of this place, we need to leave our mark."
"Our mark?"
I tilted my head in confusion. Harrison nodded, his expression unreadable.
"Let’s go up first."
Fine. We’ll talk once we’re up there.
The people we were supposed to meet were Nick, the camp’s acting leader, and Jeffrey, who would be in charge of the hotel’s security moving forward.
To get to the rooftop, we had to pass through the fifth floor. As soon as we arrived, we spotted Jose wandering the hallway.
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh, Sir Ethan seemed to be... disciplining the monsters, so I gave him some space," Jose replied nonchalantly, resting a crossbow on his shoulder.
Disciplining monsters?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
We all had the same thought as we drifted toward the room where Ethan was. Inside, his voice carried out clearly.
"Miss Cherry doesn’t like you, you idiot. And she likes my face better than yours."
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What... kind of insane dialogue was that?
Everyone turned to look at me. My face burned with embarrassment. They say you can’t keep things private, even inside a sealed jar.
What the hell is he doing now?
Fanning my flushed face, I stepped into the room. Ethan had apparently been busy wiping out the monsters trapped in Elliot’s room.
The scene inside was gruesome, almost too horrific to look at. The monsters were annihilated, and there were no survivors.
Ethan turned to face us, unfazed. In his hand was what appeared to be a severed head, mid-transformation into a monster. Judging by the black hair, it seemed to belong to Elliot.
Ethan tossed the head onto the floor and gestured toward it.
"Don’t scold me too much. I just had to tell this idiot what he needed to hear."
He grinned with a glint of madness in his eyes.
"Miss Cherry likes handsome faces, right? That means she likes me the most, doesn’t it?"
Well, um, yeah. That logic was oddly convincing despite its strange delivery. Ethan was undeniably handsome, and I did like handsome faces.
Ethan was one of the most attractive men in the entire Kingdom of Greydon. Even though he avoided social gatherings, noblewomen would still light up every social season trying to track him down.
As I mused, I felt a burning gaze. Ethan was staring at me intently, silently pressuring me to respond. I had no choice but to answer.
"Fine. Sir Ethan’s appearance is my type."
Among the characters in Trapped Love, Ethan was definitely my favorite.
"Why the past tense?"
"Because there’s Harrison."
"The attorney is a married man, isn’t he?"
"Weren’t we just talking about looks?"
"You’re saying my face loses to his?"
All eyes shifted to Harrison, who stood next to me with his arms crossed. A faint trace of satisfaction flickered across his face. What the—was he actually proud?
Ethan glared at Harrison with burning eyes but shrugged after a moment.
"If Miss Cherry says so, then it must be true."
What was up with this guy? His sudden obedience to everything I said was baffling.
"I’ll do whatever Miss Cherry wants," he added, his tone almost reverent.
And with that, our Ethan truly seemed... different now.
Harrison, unfazed, massaged his temple before addressing us.
"Let’s head to the rooftop."
We had already wasted too much time. In the end, both Ethan and I followed Harrison quietly up to the rooftop.
*****
Harrison successfully concluded the negotiations.
The agreement involved exchanging personnel for joint reconnaissance missions, and the Brunel villagers consented to the plan, which would soon be implemented.
Weapons and food supplies were left behind to ensure the camp’s residents could survive for at least two or three weeks. The rest would be taken to Happy House.
In truth, the success of the negotiations owed much to the submissive attitude of Nick and the camp’s key members toward me. They genuinely regarded us as saviors.
To them, I wasn’t merely someone who had inherited control of the Sinclair Hotel; they saw me as its rightful owner. This sentiment wasn’t limited to Nick and Jeffrey but extended to everyone in the camp.
Their blind reverence caught me off guard.
What kind of horrors did Elliot put them through to make them this way?
That question was answered when I witnessed the pile of corpses in the infamous second-floor storage room.
The nauseating smell I’d noticed earlier came from those bodies.
I felt like throwing up as I stood at the entrance, pinching my nose.
A large hand suddenly covered my eyes. It was Harrison.
"The guards and Lord L were merciless with those who resisted them," Jeffrey explained.
His words clarified why Jeffrey had shown no reaction to the sight of his dead comrades in Elliot’s room.
I pulled Harrison’s hand away from my face.
"And you? Did you kill anyone with your own hands?"
Jeffrey fell silent for a moment before answering.
"I am a hypocrite. I’m sorry. I stood by and let it happen. I knew they were punishing dissenters, but I only realized a few days ago that they were killing innocent people. I haven’t been with this camp for very long."
Nick vouched for Jeffrey’s claim, explaining that he, as part of the search party, had rescued Jeffrey while he was wandering in Kintner.
Hearing that, a question popped into my head.
"What were you two doing before all this?"
"I was a janitor at the Sinclair Hotel," Nick said, a bit sheepishly.
Jeffrey added, "I was a hackney carriage driver."
Hackney carriages were horse-drawn carriages or cars that operated like taxis. Nick chimed in with more information.
"Ah, thanks to Jeffrey, the hotel ended up with a car."
"A car? But Kintner doesn’t have any cars, does it?"
"He’s from Westmore," Nick explained.
Westmore.
At the mention of that name, everyone turned to Jeffrey, hoping he might know something about the place.
"Westmore is my hometown, but I actually lived in Hondorp. That’s where I operated the hackney carriage," Jeffrey said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
"And just before the world ended? Were you in Hondorp then too? Never went to Westmore?"
"Why do you ask?" Jeffrey looked at me curiously.
"Because the first coachman to spread the virus in Brunel came from Westmore. They said the route to that place was cut off."
"Ah."
Jeffrey fell silent, seemingly lost in thought as he recalled the events. After a moment, he spoke.
"Westmore is a fortress. I suspect someone realized the gravity of the situation early on and closed the gates, sealing off the city."
Westmore was indeed surrounded by the Rutinnus Barrier, a circular defensive wall with only two entry points. If those gates were sealed, the city would become impenetrable.
Since Westmore was the only passage from the capital, Benton, to southern Greydon, its closure would have turned Benton into an isolated island.
However, this was all speculation. Jeffrey didn’t have any concrete information.
We decided to burn the bodies from the storage room on the rooftop. While the corpses were being moved, we returned to the lobby.
*****
The secret passage to Happy House would be revealed to only one person—Nick. Since future exchanges were planned, he needed to know about it.
The spoils would be transported through the passage, a task Harrison and Jose would handle.
The rest of the group would travel above ground to maintain the illusion. Even if the existence of the underground passage was eventually revealed, it couldn’t be exposed so easily for now.
The challenge was figuring out how to move through the monster-infested terrain.
"Is there a way to safely travel between Kintner and Brunel through all those monsters?"
"Yes, there is," Jeffrey said with a confident nod.
His response was unexpected. Was there really a safe route to Brunel?