Chapter 99
“We don’t know when the road to Notium Street will open, or if that path even exists anymore…. I was the one who suggested it, but we have to consider the worst-case scenario.”
“Traveling above ground is equally difficult in the current situation. Besides, knowing that His Highness Theodore has Aurora with him has eased my worries a bit.”
To get from Brunel to Benton, one had to pass through Kintne, Honderf, and Westmore.
Even if they managed to pass through Kintne and Honderf safely, there was no telling what might happen in the problematic Westmore. Furthermore, the capital city of Benton was likely teeming with even more monsters, given its sheer size.
No matter how one looked at it, finding a way through the underground tunnels was the safer option.
Of course, as Eden had just honestly told Cherry, his belief that Aurora would be safe now that her presence with Theodore was confirmed served as his foundation.
“You trust His Highness Theodore a great deal.”
At Cherry’s remark, Eden nodded without hesitation. He trusted Theodore that much.
“He is a capable man. He has maintained his position as Crown Prince on his own strength, without any supporting factions.”
At the very least, the Theodore he knew would do his absolute best to protect Aurora, if only because she was Eden’s sister.
It had been the same during their days at the Royal Academy. Theodore hadn’t particularly liked the Duke of Lancaster, as the Duke was an aristocrat who fully supported Prince Lloyd.
In such a situation, Theodore could have easily harbored ill will toward Eden, the Duke’s legitimate heir, but he didn’t. He was a man with the insight to treat people as they were, rather than through the lens of prejudice.
Because of that, Theodore had been Eden’s only friend during their time at the Royal Academy. However, since Knox had always been by Theodore’s side as well, things had turned into a bit of an ill-fated relationship with him.
“More importantly….”
Eden quietly examined Cherry’s face. There was a small scratch on her cheek.
“What happened to your face?”
“Oh, this….”
Cherry answered as if it were nothing.
“I fell.”
“Where?”
“Over there, earlier?”
Cherry pointed toward the vegetable garden. Eden narrowed his eyes and scanned her appearance. Come to think of it, her dress looked somewhat dirtier and more bedraggled than usual today.
“Now that I’m conscious of it, it stings a little.”
As she spoke and reached out toward the wound, a startled Eden caught her wrist. Cherry looked up at him, equally surprised.
“It’ll get infected. Don’t touch it.”
Eden gently took hold of her chin and examined the scratch closely. Her breath tickled the tip of his nose.
Realizing belatedly that he was standing too close to Cherry, Eden slowly lifted his gaze. His eyes met her sparkling golden ones. Now that he was aware of it, he felt as if the sweet scent unique to her had grown even stronger.
To hide his flustered emotions, he lowered his eyes again, only to see Cherry’s red lips this time. Her lips twitched as if she were trying to say something. He focused on the movement of her small mouth, and then….
“Would you like to punch me in the face with your fist?”
She uttered complete nonsense.
At the unimaginable response, Eden couldn’t even think to pull away and just stared at her.
This time, a genuine chuckle escaped him. No—to be honest, he was a bit bewildered. As Cherry sometimes said, it felt like the roles had been reversed.
Before the fall of the world, the line between a criminal suspect and a police officer had been clear, but now it was completely flipped.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“The scratch stings so much that I thought I’d try to forget it with a greater pain.”
“…….”
“It’s a joke. I’m not an idiot. Don’t look at me like that.”
“I am a police officer. Not a ruffian who hits a lady. And there isn’t exactly a law saying you have to forget pain with more pain, is there?”
“Does that mean you have another way?”
Instead of answering, Eden looked down suggestively at Cherry’s red lips. Since she had flustered him with her nonsense again, he intended to tease her back.
However, when he looked at her again, she showed an unexpected reaction. Her face had turned as red as an apple the moment their eyes met.
She slowly opened her mouth.
“If you look at me like that….”
If he looked at her like that? What kind of absurd thing was she going to say now?
Eden waited for her lips to open again.
“Gah! What a surprise! There’s a kid here, so be careful. Do you own this place?”
Just then, Emmy suddenly entered the lobby, spotted them, and shouted. Both Cherry and Eden blinked and looked at each other before turning to Emmy.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Star Candy Sis. You know how I feel, right?”
Emmy winked at Cherry.
Only then did Eden and Cherry move away from each other. They had been so focused that they hadn’t even realized their faces had been inches apart until now.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Eden stepped back a couple of paces while rubbing the back of his neck. But Cherry urged him on as if her face hadn’t been flushed just a moment ago.
“Let’s go quickly. You said you found Path 2.”
I quickly changed into the clothes Emma had mended and returned to my room. Which is to say, I had gone and changed somewhere else even though I had a perfectly fine ‘my room.’
I really felt like I should move my room elsewhere. Thinking that a suspicious passage connected to all sorts of places was right by my bedside made it impossible to sleep in there at all. Besides, given the nature of a passageway, people were constantly coming and going.
I looked around at the people gathered in front of the fireplace. Jose, who had finally come down after being stuck on the roof the whole time, caught my eye. Apparently, Harrison was taking his place.
They said they switched spots because Jose was crying about how moss was going to start growing on his body at this rate. Well, Harrison was also the type suitable for keeping watch since he handled a long-range weapon like a crossbow.
Anyway, my room was noisy, crowded with everyone from the guards and the doctor to those who had been tending the garden.
Eden was standing by the door waiting for me.
I grabbed his wrist and vigorously squeezed through them to reach the fireplace. Knox glared at my hand holding Eden’s with a somewhat strange expression.
Regardless, I made a solemn declaration.
“We’ll be back.”
Then, I turned around coolly to step into the fireplace, but I tripped and stumbled. Eden quickly caught me by the waist.
“Careful, Miss Cherry.”
Flustered, I scrambled to regain my posture and nodded.
“L-let’s go.”
My waist, where his hand had touched, felt startled by the unexpected contact. Moving my joints as if they were creaking wood, I stepped into the underground passage.
I can’t deny it anymore. Eden and I are partners. And quite a well-coordinated pair at that.
I didn’t realize that Knox was watching the two of us from behind with a quiet gaze.
“Where do you think Path 2 leads?”
I asked Eden as we moved forward, lighting the iron wall torches.
To be honest, I was just as curious about Path 3, which led to the ‘Spring.’ What on earth could the ‘Spring’ be?
“……Well, I hope it leads to the capital.”
He answered in a calm voice, but I could feel the worry and hope underlying it.
Reflecting on Eden’s attitude so far, it felt like his heart was split exactly fifty-fifty. Half of him wanted to leave, and the other half didn’t.
But the latter…. I mean, the part where he somehow seemed like he didn’t want to leave this place….
Why?
Because he liked Happy House?
‘No. That’s not it.’
Even though Happy House had become a bit easier to survive in as the number of people grew and Brunel was reclaimed, it wasn’t enough for him to stay while forgetting about his sister.
‘Then is it perhaps because of me?’
Lately, he’d been making a habit of saying things like, who would stop me if he wasn’t around.
Is it really because of that? Because he’s worried about me? Or in another sense….
‘We have certainly grown a lot closer.’
It was inevitable. From the days in Brunel when I was under his suspicious gaze, to the days after the world ended when we were stuck together in Happy House. I had spent quite a lot of time alone with Eden.
If it were the world before the fall, even a fiancé wouldn’t see each other face-to-face every day like this, but I had been stuck with Eden constantly from morning till night.
So even I had grown fond of him and found myself wishing he wouldn’t leave.
But….
“I told you I prefer this. Keeping formalities. It suits us to converse with exactly this much distance between us.”
Eden had definitely said that before. That this specific amount of distance suited us.
Right. Get it together, Cherry. Even so, could Eden possibly be staying because he’s developed other feelings for me? There’s no way.
‘Let’s not have idle thoughts. This is just self-importance.’
I pushed away the useless reflections.
* * *
Path 2 was even longer than Path 1. It felt like a passage leading to an area even further away than Brunel.
Eden harbored a small hope that perhaps this path really would lead to the capital.
Cherry came into his view as she lit the iron wall torches in the passage. She seemed entirely focused on the task.
Looking at her, she was certainly a far cry from a delicately raised princess of the Sinclair family.
‘She doesn’t think to lean on others.’
That was why she tried to step forward and do everything herself. She had a tendency to be overconfident in her own strength.
Of course, she had the ability to back it up. To be honest, in terms of sheer physical strength, Eden’s was at a level that could be considered insignificant in front of Cherry.
‘But the most dangerous time is when one trusts their own strength too much.’
The current Cherry was exactly in that state. Usually, she acted as if she would do anything to survive, but when she actually needed to play it safe for the sake of her life, she didn’t hesitate to sacrifice herself.
That was why she could so easily suggest ideas like attacking Kintne.
However, Eden also agreed with the opinion that they needed to take Kintne. The meaning of this occupation, as Cherry put it, wasn’t that they would control all of Kintne like they did Brunel, but rather that they would eliminate the threat known as Elliot Ready Vernonham.
From what he had heard, Elliot was a person far too dangerous to be left alone.
“The path is getting a bit complicated. There’s another fork.”
Cherry’s troubled voice broke his reverie.
Quickly moving forward to stand at the fork, Eden paused and fell into thought along with Cherry. This time, the fork wasn’t even marked with numbers.
“They really made this like a maze.”
