Chapter 98
“Is Miss Cherry alright?”
When Eden asked, Cherry shrugged her shoulders.
“About witnessing that scene? I’m fine. Young Lord Wifend was well-known trash in social circles anyway. Besides, I didn’t get a detailed look at the wound. It was a mercy for my mental health.”
Cherry shrugged as if it were no big deal. Eden looked at her with a slightly clouded gaze. He seemed to feel pity for how composed she was.
The more Harrison listened to her words, the heavier his heart became. The fact that such a major incident had happened to Cherry without his knowledge came as a shock.
“An impoverished noble whose debts were forgiven by Chairman Sinclair… now that you mention it, I recall something of the sort. So, that happened.”
At the sound of Harrison’s grim voice, Knox asked back as if surprised.
“I thought you knew everything there was to know about Miss Cherry and the Sinclairs. I suppose there are things even a lawyer doesn’t know?”
“Ah. Back then, Harrison was busy preparing for his wedding with Sister Isabella.”
At Cherry’s explanation, both Harrison and Knox, whose buttons had been pushed, fell silent simultaneously. Cherry didn’t pay any mind to their silence and asked Charlie again.
“So, is that guy holding some kind of power in Kintne? He was like that in the past, too. He tried to play politics despite having absolutely nothing to his name.”
“He won’t stop. Al is… a terrifying man.”
Charlie carefully offered his honest opinion. It wasn’t because he was wary of Cherry, but because Al truly was a frightening person.
“If a crazy person has the power to act on their madness, that is indeed scary. I heard he served in the military for a short while before he came down to Kintne.”
At Cherry’s additional explanation, Harrison suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“My lady, speaking of which, if it was when I was preparing for the wedding, that would be five years ago. Why do you still have such detailed news about a man you met back then? You haven’t been keeping in touch with him, have you?”
“Ugh, no. Am I crazy? Why would I keep in touch with that psychopath? That guy is a total loser. He had a huge inferiority complex toward me because the Sinclairs were doing better than his noble Vernonham family.”
“Then where did you hear that news?”
“I’m curious about that myself.”
Eden Chimed in, agreeing with Harrison. Cherry looked at Eden with an absurd expression that said, ‘Why you?’ but Eden’s face remained unshaken.
However, when everyone in the room looked at him with similar expressions, Eden shrugged.
“I can be curious, can’t I? It’s just pure curiosity.”
“He contacted me first. Saying he wanted to see me after a long time.”
“He really is a crazy bastard.”
“A madman, indeed.”
“He’s definitely insane.”
Following Cherry’s answer, Eden, Knox, and Vanilla each spat out a comment in turn.
Charlie was confused. To his eyes, the humans in front of him, who were showing such intense reactions, didn’t seem particularly normal either.
‘Well, Al is trash, though.’
There was a different feel between people whose eyes were simply a bit far gone, like these people, and a piece of trash one shouldn’t associate with. Charlie concluded as much for now.
“Look here. Since things have turned out like this, how do you think this ‘Al’ fellow will act?”
Harrison asked Charlie.
“Al probably won’t give up like this.”
Cherry vehemently agreed with Charlie’s words.
“Right. That psycho won’t give up. So we have to come up with a countermeasure.”
Harrison deeply sympathized with Cherry’s subsequent words.
And so, they sent Charlie out and began a serious strategy meeting.
Kintne, 32 Norburn Street, Sinclair Hotel.
On the top floor of the towering five-story hotel sat Al, the leader of the Kintne Survival Camp.
Clamped between his red lips was an elegantly curved wooden pipe. Al, who had been staring out the window, soon exhaled a long trail of tobacco smoke. The hazy smoke filled his vision.
Al’s pitch-black hair shimmered around his shoulders. As he moved, the red earring hanging from one ear swayed along. His eyes, as crimson as the earring, watched the outside world intently.
Presently, the door opened.
“Lord Al.”
Tide, who served as Al’s right-hand man, entered and bowed to him. Only then did Al turn his back to look at Tide.
“What happened to the Brunel search party?”
“Communication has been cut off.”
Al once again exhaled the smoke held in his mouth. Tide watched the smoke filling the room, sighed, and opened the window.
“What shall we do?”
“I don’t understand. Why on earth couldn’t they occupy a single small village like Brunel? Especially when fifteen men were drafted and sent out. Didn’t we supply them with enough weapons?”
“…I find it questionable as well.”
Of course, this result occurred because they didn’t know that a group of well-trained soldiers impersonating the Royal Army would be encountered at the exact moment the search party entered Brunel, nor did they know that Cherry’s group was ruling the Brunel area.
“Who was the leader?”
“Frank Alto.”
“Did you say his older brother is here?”
“Yes. He was excluded from the search and scout parties because he is naturally frail.”
“Draft him. We’ll use him as bait.”
At Al’s instruction, Tide bowed and left the room. Al glanced at the combustion chamber of the pipe, where the tobacco leaves had almost burned away, and exhaled smoke one last time.
Whoo.
He continued to look out the window with the pipe still in his mouth.
Outside the window, monsters prowling the streets while making beastly cries were visible.
Kintne was a city slightly larger than Brunel, but it fell into the category of being very small. Furthermore, the terrain was flat with no mountains or hills, making it impossible to completely wipe out the monsters roaming Kintne.
Before this incident occurred, Al had come down to the village of Kintne while being chased by debts, and lived by dabbling in all sorts of illegal activities. Dirty work like illegal drugs and weapon smuggling. Then, he witnessed the moment the world met its end.
The moment he saw the city turned into a shambles, he thought of it as an opportunity that had come to him.
‘I can start everything anew.’
It was a golden opportunity to throw off the shackles of debt and rise as the ruler he had yearned to be, taking advantage of the collapsed social system.
In order to seize new power amidst the chaos, he first and foremost needed a ‘safe shelter’ that he controlled. What caught his eye was the Sinclair Hotel.
He utilized the weapons he had smuggled to gather comrades to join him in occupied the hotel and succeeded in taking over the Sinclair Hotel. Then, he gathered and brought in people who would become the foundation of the kingdom he would build.
But he wasn’t satisfied with just this. He couldn’t be content with merely occupying a single hotel.
Building a new kingdom. That was Al’s current goal.
And yet, to have a level of combat power that couldn’t even occupy one such village. He would have to increase the intensity of the combat training.
‘Useless lot, every single one of them.’
Al clicked his tongue and knocked back a glass of Scotch whisky he had left on the table.
This time, he really had to capture the survivors of Brunel. This was because he was severely lacking in manpower to use as slaves.
“The era of the existing nobility and bourgeoisie is over now, Charlie. I’ll give you power too. So, bring Brunel to me. Show me your worth.”
Those words he had said to Charlie Green were sincere.
He had been born a noble with the name Vernonham, but he grew up being treated as less than a mere bourgeois.
He hated weak things. His own family, Vernonham, which was poor and powerless. And Cherry Sinclair, who had no abilities whatsoever other than her family’s power.
‘The likes of Vernonham, who was ignored even by the weak Cherry Sinclair…’
Al, whose mood soured as he recalled the past, clicked his tongue. Whether it was Cherry Sinclair or the nobles, they were all a breed that acted superior based on things they were lucky enough to be born with.
But the world had changed now. A world had come where one could seize power solely through their own abilities.
Al thought that, at long last, his world had arrived.
