Chapter 296: The Goods

Chapter 296: Chapter 296: The Goods

This was the first time Seraphina Sinclair felt that being able to hear Sunflower’s thoughts was not a good thing.

Its voice carried a rare, raw confusion and a hint of... barely perceptible loss.

Sunflower’s disc-like head turned slightly, its twin pupils seeming to scan between Seraphina Sinclair’s Silver Moon Earrings and the empty mantelpiece, searching for that familiar figure—the Auric Young that had always fluttered around it, unabashedly expressing its affection.

Seraphina Sinclair froze.

With her back to Sunflower, her fingers unconsciously brushed against the cold silver moon on her earlobe.

Inside the earring’s spatial storage, the jet-black, deathly still ring and the lifeless golden metal lay quietly.

She hadn’t expected Sunflower to ask—or rather, to even remember Auric Young.

The little guy was usually a buzzing nuisance, circling Sunflower endlessly, but most of the time, all it earned was an impatient swat from Sunflower’s leaves.

Sunflower, too, had always said in its thoughts that it found the little guy annoying.

Their relationship, in Seraphina Sinclair’s eyes, had seemed more like a one-sided case of harassment and being harassed.

But it turned out... Sunflower wasn’t being honest with its feelings.

Not only did it remember Auric Young, but it had also sensed its disappearance.

Seraphina Sinclair opened her mouth to say something, but her throat was terribly dry.

"...It’s gone."

In the end, Seraphina Sinclair just forced out those two words in a raspy, almost inaudible whisper.

No explanation of the process, no description of the horror, no mention of her own guilt or the hollow void she felt in that moment.

Just a statement of fact.

She didn’t want to dwell on the sorrow. It was pointless.

The pressure of survival and the need to plan for the future were already heavy enough burdens; there was no need to add the weight of emotional explanations.

Besides, explaining to Sunflower why Auric Young had sacrificed itself would, in a way, be like reliving that moment of powerlessness and loss for herself, a wound she wasn’t yet ready to touch.

And Sunflower couldn’t understand human words anyway. Like a child, it just kept asking with innocent confusion in its mind, ’Why is it gone?’

Seraphina Sinclair remained silent for a long moment, saying nothing more.

She walked over and gently placed the cloth bundle, which contained the solidified remains of Auric Young, next to Sunflower’s pot.

Her movements were gentle, imbued with an almost ritual-like solemnity.

Sunflower’s thoughts stopped in an instant.

Its leaves brushed lightly against the cloth bundle. It didn’t ask again. Its head turned slightly, its twin pupils seemingly fixated on the bulge beneath the fabric.

A silent understanding flowed through the room.

Sunflower rustled its leaves, brushed them gently against Seraphina Sinclair’s hair, and then drooped down again.

Its sadness was plain to see. Its head hung low, and even its leaves seemed listless, no longer holding their usual proud stance. It stopped swaying, simply gazing quietly at the small cloth bundle beside its pot, for inside slept its noisy, yet important, friend.

Seraphina Sinclair sat quietly on the floor for a while. She suddenly realized that here, in this little mobile cabin, the three of them had long since formed a tiny, yet very real, symbiotic ecosystem.

Losing any single part would break the balance, leaving a clear void and a distinct pain.

But there were still three lives in the cabin now.

Seraphina Sinclair, Sunflower, and the Gloom Hatchling.

Seraphina Sinclair’s gaze shifted subconsciously to the Gloom Hatchling.

Like her, Sunflower had been wary of the Gloom Hatchling’s presence from the very beginning. Neither of them could ever truly accept this creature that would one day kill them both.

For the current Seraphina Sinclair, this was undoubtedly a good thing.

In the future, when the Gloom Hatchling disappeared, or died right before Sunflower’s eyes, Sunflower wouldn’t be too heartbroken.

After a moment of melancholy, Seraphina Sinclair tore open a meal ticket and, while waiting for the food to arrive, opened the Zone channel to check on the latest situation.

Although the players in the Zone channel seemed to have realized something was up, the need for Expansion Crystals wasn’t urgent for them yet, so everything was still relatively stable.

The meal appeared silently on the stone table, its aroma filling the air.

Seraphina Sinclair picked up her utensils with unhurried movements, as if the clamor of the outside world was merely background music for her dinner.

She was only halfway through her meal when the sharp chime of a private message sounded.

This time, the sender was [Zane Pierce].

Seraphina Sinclair’s eyebrow twitched. ’Is this brute here to play lobbyist? Or to declare war?’

She opened the message.

[Zane Pierce]: Boss Ford! Good time to talk?

’His tone is surprisingly polite, even a little cautious? That’s rare.’

[Blacktiger Ford]: Go ahead.

[Zane Pierce]: Ahem, you know about those bastards hoarding supplies and jacking up the prices, right? I’ll be straight with you, I can’t stand it! It’s so fucking shameless!

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t reply, waiting for him to continue.

[Zane Pierce]: They’ve approached you, I know. That bitch Artemis must have laid out the pros and cons for you, trying to get you to keep your mouth shut. I knew all along that broad wasn’t the saint the Zone channel makes her out to be, and now she’s not even bothering to pretend!

[Zane Pierce]: Maybe what she said has some truth to it, but I, Zane Pierce, don’t buy that shit! What "consolidating resources"? It’s bullshit! They’re just sucking everyone dry to line their own pockets! Boss, I may have a foul mouth, but I’m not stupid. This group of theirs is powerful. If they pull this off, they’ll dare to do it with any important resource in the future. Will there be any way for us lone wolves to survive then?

[Zane Pierce]: So, I want to ask you, Boss... are you interested in hitting them where it hurts?

Seraphina Sinclair stopped chewing.

’This is... unexpected.’

[Blacktiger Ford]: Oh? How?

[Zane Pierce]: Simple! They’re hoarding, right? So we rob them! I have an idea of who’s involved and who’s holding the goods! They’re teaming up? We’ll team up too, find an opportunity, and take them all out! We’ll split the crystals we steal, fifty-fifty!

Zane Pierce’s words carried a brutish, direct ruthlessness that was perfectly in line with his character.

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t reply immediately.

’Whether we team up or not can be decided later. The key point is this:’

Zane Pierce’s proposal was simple and crude, carrying with it a certain primal, predatory satisfaction.

[Blacktiger Ford]: You know exactly who they are and who has the goods? Is your information reliable?

[Zane Pierce]: Of course! I, Zane Pierce, didn’t get where I am today just by being a brute.

[Zane Pierce]: That idiot Seaview was tight-lipped when recruiting, but for those who were already in, they had to be given the details. This is intel my inside man dug up!

[Zane Pierce]: Five people are leading it. Besides Seaview and Artemis, there’s also Mountainwind, Cloudmute, and Nathan Kane. All five of them are rank one in their own Zones, so they already have some prestige. The rest of the members are all high-ranking too—they don’t even take anyone below rank twenty. They’re damn picky! If my guy wasn’t already on good terms with Cloudmute, he probably wouldn’t have been able to get in!

[Zane Pierce]: The goods are currently concentrated in the hands of Artemis and Cloudmute. One is the brains of the operation, and the other has strong defense and storage capabilities. Everyone else agreed to it.