Chapter 196: I Need A Drink

"Let’s go to the café then!"

Sophia’s voice was back to being light and easy on the ears. The playful rhythm had returned, though this time she wasn’t being overly goofy.

She had dusted the plaster off her clothes, smoothed her emerald locks, and effortlessly slipped back into the skin of a relaxed socialite.

Carmen stood off to the side, letting out a quiet breath as she shook her head.

Behind the wide brim of her straw sunhat, the little girl was genuinely impressed by her sister’s uncanny ability to let bygones be bygones.

Carmen knew without a shred of doubt that she didn’t possess that kind of easygoing grace.

If she had been the one trading blows with Rose, and the demon had torn down her pride with those icy, pitying barbs, Carmen wouldn’t have been able to laugh it off or walk away.

Most likely, she would have snapped and allowed herself to go all out... Which was an explosive reaction she would have deeply regretted in hindsight later.

’Haah, whatever... As long as nothing was genuinely harmed,’ Carmen thought, adjusting her hat before sliding her azure gaze over to Fredrinn.

Her sharp, supernatural senses buzzed faintly whenever she looked at him.

There was something unnatural churning beneath his human skin—a dense, predatory resonance that didn’t fit ordinary Awakeners.

He was hiding deep, dangerous secrets, but right now, she lacked the means or the leverage to unravel those mysteries.

"Yes, we will go, but... Do you really want us to show up looking like this?" Fredrinn asked, a lazy, playful grin spreading across his face.

He gestured downward with his open palm, motioning toward his own bare torso with the loose windbreaker hanging off his shoulders, and then toward Rose’s highly suggestive, skin-tight ensemble.

While her usual crimson one-piece dress was already tight enough to turn heads, her current look felt far more... raw.

She looked like a woman who had literally just tumbled out of a tangled bed after a wild night—no makeup, no jewelry, no elegant accessories, just her bare, ash-pale skin, mussed crimson hair, and a skimpy cotton tank top stretched to its absolute limit across her chest.

It was an effortless, intoxicating display of natural, lethal beauty.

Sophia didn’t care in the slightest about how breathtaking the demoness looked.

If anything, the sight of Rose only brought back the phantom ache in her ribs. But the same polite disinterest couldn’t be said about her reaction to Fredrinn.

A loud, reckless voice in the back of Sophia’s mind screamed at her to blurt out, ’Yep! Come down exactly like that!’

Yet, for once in her life, she exercised supreme self-preservation and silenced her intrusive thoughts.

She had already learned the hard way that listening to her chaotic impulses in this hotel led directly to getting kicked through concrete walls and humiliated by a succubus.

"Ah, right. Go change first. And make sure you bring the other two as well," Sophia said with a dismissive flick of her wrist, feigning complete indifference as if they were minor acquaintances she barely remembered meeting.

Fredrinn offered a polite nod, turning to guide Rose back toward the doorway of Room 308.

But as he stepped through the splintered threshold, his gaze landed on the gaping, fist-sized crater punched clean through the bathroom wall. Broken chunks of drywall, fractured marble, and shattered tiles littered the floor inside.

His easy smile twitched with mild annoyance. "I actually wanted to take a short shower first, but... sigh. Looks like we need to look for another clean bathroom on this floor."

Rose giggled, the sound light and musical as she leaned her body entirely into his side.

She wrapped her slender, pale arms around his bicep, pressing his firm muscle directly between the soft, yielding warmth of her chest.

"Just a short shower...?" she purred, puckering her lips as she tilted her chin up, looking at him through long, dark lashes with a brazenly coquettish glint in her pink eyes.

"Maybe slightly longer," Fredrinn corrected himself immediately without missing a beat, causing Rose to burst into another pleased, melodic giggle against his shoulder.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Absolute, suffocating silence descended over the corridor.

Nobody uttered a single word.

Everyone from Max and Ash to Naomi, Rhea, and Vivienne stood rooted to their spots, forced to endure the shameless spectacle of the couple openly negotiating their intimate morning schedule in broad daylight.

There wasn’t a single soul in the hallway who appreciated the unsolicited display of affection.

For the three girls standing nearest to the door, it was particularly agonizing.

Rhea’s face was already bright red from imagining what her sister Andrea was doing under the covers, Naomi looked like she wanted to spit on the floor, and Vivienne nervously adjusted her collar, staring intently at the carpet patterns, wondering if the blood could be washed if someone truly tried to...

As for Max and Ash, a deep, bitter wave of jealousy washed over their chests.

The two young men exchanged a quick, silent glance before looking down at their own frames.

Both were fit, strong, and possessed respectable Awakened abilities that ordinary survivors on the lower floors worshiped like saviors.

Normal women in the lobby treated them with deference and shy smiles.

Yet here, the pinnacle beauties of the apocalyptic world—the terrifying demoness and the wealthy, angelic nature-user—completely bypassed them to fawn over the tall, half-naked rogue with the broken blade.

’Do we really look that bad?’ the unspoken grievance passed between their eyes. ’Why the hell is the universe so absurdly unfair?!’

Whether it was the ’plot armour’ or the passive, magnetic traits of his Incubus bloodline, the reality was clear: fate had never been fair, and the apocalypse certainly wasn’t going to start balancing the scales today.

"Let’s go, Carmen. We can wait for them upstairs at the bar," Sophia announced, cutting through the thick, awkward atmosphere as she turned toward her little sister.

She pivoted on her heel, heading toward the concrete staircase leading up to the fifth and sixth floors rather than the lower levels.

"Wait, I thought we were heading down to the cafeteria..." Carmen mumbled, trailing behind her sister with small, steady steps.

She let out a weary sigh, choosing to swallow the usual sharp, sarcastic comment that was resting on the tip of her tongue.

"That’s for lunch, after our dear guests finish their very ’short’ shower," Sophia scoffed under her breath, tossing one last disdainful glare over her shoulder at Fredrinn’s door before huffing loudly.

"As for right now... I desperately need a drink."