Chapter 231: Do We Know Each Other?

Chapter 231: Chapter 231: Do We Know Each Other?

"Do we know each other?"

Seraphina Sinclair swore she only asked the question out of pure curiosity.

But when the other man heard those five short words, he reacted as if he’d suffered the greatest insult imaginable. He trembled violently, his fingers tightening around the foldable military knife he had bought from Seraphina Sinclair as rage boiled over into murderous intent.

He exploded with a near-frenzied desperation, roaring as he lunged at Seraphina Sinclair!

"Go to hell!"

His movements were clumsy and full of openings, driven entirely by a surge of resentment.

Anger could indeed grant courage, but it was far more likely to cause harm.

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t even move from her spot. Just as he rushed in, she sidestepped, then raised her foot and kicked him squarely in the abdomen.

The kick was packed with power. Zeke the Passerby’s forward momentum came to a dead stop. His body bent like a shrimp as he flew back two or three meters, crashing hard onto the unyielding floor of the arena.

"GACK—"

He curled into a ball, his stomach churning violently. He dry-heaved uncontrollably, unable to even scream in pain, and the foldable military knife slipped from his grasp, clattering to the side.

Seraphina Sinclair slowly walked over and looked down at his face, which was twisted in agony.

"So we don’t know each other, then," she said, her tone flat and devoid of emotion. "But it doesn’t matter."

Zeke the Passerby struggled to lift his head, his eyes a mixture of excruciating pain, fear, and thick resentment.

He tried to say something, but all that came out was a strangled gasp.

The kick had clearly pushed him to the absolute limit of pain.

Seraphina had lost all desire to investigate, along with her curiosity.

Although the man hadn’t said a word, she strangely understood the entire situation.

There’s no such thing as love without reason in this world, but there is certainly hate without reason and jealousy that defies all logic.

Zeke the Passerby lay with his head tilted back. The intense pain made his head ring, but he was still conscious, his thoughts still relatively clear.

’Why? Why is she so strong? Why does she get to take first place time and time again? Why does she get to live so freely and at ease, as if all the crises and hardships are nothing to her? Why is everyone’s attention always focused on her! Why is it that the moment she appears, she becomes the center of attention! Why?!’

’My name might be Zeke the Passerby, but I refuse to be a mere passerby my entire life! I clearly have what it takes to be a protagonist. I’ve already led my team to victory in dungeons. So why did I only get an A-level rating? Why is *she* always S-Class?!’

Zeke the Passerby stared up, his vision blurred by the pain. But Seraphina Sinclair’s calm, indifferent figure, looking down on him from above, was branded into his eyes like a red-hot iron, searing his very soul until it trembled.

He wouldn’t accept this!

Everything he had done was for the sake of dragging this lofty person down from her pedestal!

Even now, the resentment that had driven him this far still surged through his veins like venom.

He glared at Seraphina Sinclair, and with every last ounce of his strength, he squeezed out broken, venomous words from between his clenched teeth: "You... don’t get cocky... Sooner or later... everyone will betray you... and you’ll die a miserable death..."

Seraphina Sinclair quietly watched his pathetic, dying struggles and listened to his unoriginal curses, her expression not wavering in the slightest.

She even found it a little boring.

"Are you finished?"

she asked softly, her tone as casual as if she were asking about the weather.

Then, she raised her foot and mercilessly brought her sole down on Zeke the Passerby’s neck.

"Then be on your way."

Seraphina applied a little pressure.

"CRACK."

The crisp sound of bone breaking was piercingly loud in the silent arena.

The final, venomous look in Zeke the Passerby’s eyes froze on his face. His body twitched twice, then went completely still.

[Arena Duel Concluded]

[Winner: Blacktiger Ford.]

[Calculating rewards... Transferring the deceased’s supplies...]

A brilliant light enveloped her once more.

In the final second before the scene before her vanished, Seraphina lowered her gaze and gave him one last look.

’Did he really think a big shot like her wouldn’t bother with an ordinary survivor? That he could provoke her again and again and still get away unscathed?’

’Did he think being the underdog put him on the moral high ground?’

’Naive.’

Seraphina wasn’t someone who cared about her reputation.

In this dog-eat-dog world, strength was the only ticket. Worrying about anything else was just a burden.

When her vision cleared again, Seraphina found herself looking at the cluttered interior of her mobile cabin.

The system had transferred all of Zeke the Passerby’s supplies onto the floor of the mobile cabin. His possessions were numerous and miscellaneous, and since the system didn’t sort them, they were naturally strewn everywhere.

The waiter and Lucky, and even Sunflower, all seemed rather disdainful of the supplies.

Seraphina was silent for a moment, then hesitated before sitting back down at the stone table.

Nothing in the world was more important than eating!

"All taken care of?" the waiter asked with great interest. "From the looks of it, you used an arena token, right? What happened?"

Seraphina never realized the waiter was so talkative.

She shot it a look, gesturing with her eyes for it to set out the food. She was ready to eat.

Although the waiter was curious, it had been in this line of work for a long time. It knew exactly what to do and when, and what its customer needed, with perfect confidence.

After arranging the still-warm dishes, it turned to Seraphina with keen interest.

But Seraphina was like a block of wood now, scooping up her food one spoonful at a time, eating with intense focus.

The waiter, bored, turned its head and began to scan the items that had suddenly appeared in the mobile cabin.

Most of the supplies were basic materials, or else things like mineral water and compressed biscuits.

It was clear the original owner of these things hadn’t been very wealthy.

As the waiter thought this, its gaze suddenly fixed on one particular item.

It stared for a long moment, then let out a soft "Hm?"

Seraphina was focused on her meal and didn’t look up at the sound, only asking indistinctly, "What is it?"

The waiter didn’t answer right away. Instead, it walked over to the pile of junk, carefully rummaged through it with its hands, and pulled something out from beneath a pile of water bottles and compressed biscuits.

Seraphina’s gaze immediately followed.

It was a palm-sized wood carving.

The wood was coarse, but the carving technique was clever. It depicted a small figure with its hands on its hips. It had no facial features, but a mouth had been carved. The upper body was bare, while the lower body was deliberately carved with a loincloth-like skirt.

It looked like a primitive tribesman performing a ritual.

The surface of the wood carving was worn somewhat smooth, though it was hard to tell if it was originally like that or if Zeke the Passerby had handled it too much.

There were dark stains along the edges of the small figure’s body, like dried blood.

Mixed in with a pile of survival supplies, the object seemed completely out of place.