Chương 119: 32 - PINK ROOM, DARK DUNGEON

It was a cold space, made to look like a teenage girl's bedroom. There was a bed with a pink comforter, a white dresser, and boy band posters all over the walls. There was even a little pink rug on the floor that looked like it would've belonged to a pink fluffy panda if those existed. It might've in this new world, who truly knew. Despite the overwhelming amount of pink in the room, it couldn't overshadow the fact that it was a dungeon. Grey floors, grey walls, no windows.

The only view was through an abnormally large pane of plexiglass that led to more grey walls. Tyene often wondered if this place was made just for her or if it existed for some other nefarious purpose. She knew the mansion existed long before the end of the world, but her stepfather having a prison inside somehow felt perfectly normal. Though thinking about it didn't cure her boredom. So she asked German.

"Why does my stepdad even have a room like this? Can I add trafficking teenage girls to his list of crimes?" German sat on a small black chair on the other side of the glass pane. He was holding a large duffel bag, counting the loot inside. He'd pick one out, mark its type on his clipboard, and put it in a separate sealed container. Occasionally, a piece of loot would try to scurry out of the bag, but it never got far before he plucked it up and threw it into the container.

He had been at this for about an hour before Tyene asked her question. It was the first thing she'd said to him today, and yet he chose to ignore it, which left her more than annoyed.

"What are you doing there anyway?" He ignored her question a second time.

"So are you gonna let me out of here, or are you just gonna sit in the corner watching me all day like a perv?" Her voice showed her anger, but that wouldn't get her anywhere with him. So she reeled herself back in, walked over to him, and pressed her hand against the glass.

"Come on, slick. I know you can't stand seeing me locked up in here." And his pencil continued etching on his clipboard. She finally threw up her hands and fell onto the bed.

"Why do you even come down here if you're not gonna say anything… You're usually more sympathetic to me." German then spoke, not directing the diamond tattoo under his eye anywhere but his clipboard and the bag of loot.

"Usually. I still might be… if you hadn't come here to kill my employer."

"Kill?" Tyene blew through her lips.

"You must have me confused. I'm not the type to…" she trailed off when she saw German pointing to his own head.

"Right... You can read minds," she said lazily, grabbing a fluffy pink pillow to spoon. She was in a black tank top, cropped up above her thin stomach and pink pajama bottoms. Her red hair flowed the full way down her back as she laid on the bed. After about five minutes of silence, she sat back up.

"You know it was just a thought, right. Back in the civilized world, people weren't put in jail for thinking things. Even horrible things. It isn't the first time I thought about killing him, and they didn't arrest me back then."

"There's a sharp difference between an errant thought and an intention to act," German said calmly.

"Right now, you are in possession of the Loot Thief, which would allow you to remove the Collector loot from Corlander's neck, which would likely kill him instantly." Tyene then stood, suddenly full of confidence.

"You read all that from my mind, didn't you, slick. I bet there's a whole lot of other shit you saw in there when you were snooping around. Wanna give it another try? What do you see in there now?" She stared at him through the glass, intense, almost crazed. German was stuck still, unable to comprehend this woman. But looking into her mind, he saw, "too much to comprehend." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yeah. It's a little complicated. There was a time when I intended to do a lot of things. But Mitas Corlander took all that away from me…"

"You can't possibly believe—""How about I try to read your thoughts instead?" She didn't wait for a response.

"You know exactly the kind of man Corlander is. That's why you haven't told him I'm here. Because you know, as soon as he finds out about the loot I've got, the one thing in this world that can stop him… He's gonna do whatever he has to to get it out of me. But you don't want that, do you? Because you feel something for me. Because I can be there for you… in ways that he can't." She was close enough to the glass that he could see her breath slowly whiten it.

He stared at her smooth, elegant, tender hand as it touched the glass, beckoning him. His heart wanted him to reach back for it, but logic, that thing he so heavily relied on, had to prevail. He shut his eyes, gathered his things, and took off out of the thick grey door to the rest of the mansion. Tyene watched him go, sitting back on the bed.

"And German runs up the stairs, pretending to be unaffected by her words. But no matter how much he tries to hide from himself or bury his sadness in his work, he grows to realize that the moment she stepped into the building, he was checkmated." She cuddled up with her pillow, suddenly in a good mood. Ellie scanned around the inside of the Hunter's Club, taking note of all the residents. According to T'balt, they had arrived earlier than they had before, so it wasn't as developed as it was in his notes.

But she could see all the parts moving towards that eventuality. A country club that used loot as currency instead of actual money. A lot of the new people were flying themselves in, on private helicopters and riding in chauffeured vehicles. With her and Cannon being the odd ones who just walked up to the front door. She sat in the main hall, listening to a bunch of them talk about nothing and pretend that the world outside was just fine. It made her skin crawl, and she was pretending to be one of them.

"Ugh…" But she had a job to do, searching for a moderately plump redhead named Tyene. That's when she saw German emerge from the back room of the mansion. It was on the first floor, but as far as she knew, that area wasn't reserved for normal guests. He looked distraught, as much as a man like that could. He walked while barely opening his eyes, like he was catching his breath. Ellie took a mental note and walked outside.

"There aren't any signs of any prisoners," she told T'balt on the backside of the building, just around the corner from the pool.

"But they're two floors none of us are allowed to go on. The top floor, where I'm guessing Corlander lives, and the bottom. My guess is that she's on one of those two."

"Okay," T'balt had his arms crossed and was dressed in all black: black buttoned crew neck, black jeans, and a belt with a chain that looped at the hip. They were extra clothes that they nabbed with her current dress. With his short, messy black hair, she doubted he'd be visible at all in the middle of the night.

"What about German? Anything strange from him?"

"No. He disappears regularly, but usually, where he goes has a guard at the door."

"Keep an eye on him, but try to stay out of his direct vision if you can."

"Right. Because, along with teleportation and coming back from the dead, people can read minds now."

"Is something the matter?"

"It's nothing." She peeked around the corner, watching people tanning out by the pool in their bathing suits.

"I think I just need to get out of here already. I mean, look at them. They could be using all their resources to help people, but they all just pool it together to help themselves."

"I know," he said.

"You never like it here. But the quicker we find Tyene, the quicker I can get you guys out of here." She frowned at him, hating the way he spoke about her in a past life that she didn't know about.

"They're selling a tracking loot in one of the stores. It's pretty expensive, though." He took off a single-strapped backpack and handed it to her.

"Will this cover it?" She stared inside a bag filled with at least 50 new pieces of loot.

"How did you come by all this so fast?"

"This Wanderer loot might be my new favorite. I can just be anywhere I want, and there doesn't seem to be a limit on the distance. Makes it pretty useful for hunting."

"That's… overwhelming." She put the bag on herself.

"Anyway, this should be enough."

"It's not too bad. Like all loot, it does most of the work for you. It'll be the same when you get the tracker. Just think about something called the Loot Thief, and the loot will do the rest for you." She nodded, and a couple of seconds later, T'balt disappeared with a thunderous boom, causing her to flinch. She deflated a bit once he was gone.

"I hate how normal he makes all this stuff sound."

"Hey, miss!" One of the mercenaries called over to her.

"I know you said you were trying out some new loot, but please refrain from making such loud noises on the property. It disturbs the other guests."

"Yes. Sorry, of course."