Chapter 53: Lust Demands Her Body As Repayment
’If he’s being like that... I have a chance, don’t I? It’s his fault for being a playboy... Not mine...’
The devil in Rhea’s mind whispered, as if planting a carnivorous seed that was devouring her innocence.
Though in her defence, the innocence was already gone when she started to get interested in those ’romance’ books.
While Rhea was busy with her thoughts on the sideline, Naomi was blushing at Fredrinn’s words.
Did she want him to say those magical words seriously...?
If he asked this question a few hours earlier, Naomi’s answer would’ve been a big fat no.
But now... she wasn’t so sure.
She still felt betrayed and cheated on in her mind, but she also knew that he had no other choice than to lie to her.
After all, she knew herself and knew how stubborn she could be sometimes.
Best proven by the repeated phone calls to that unknown man in Ohio.
Normal people would’ve stopped after trying a couple of times, but she kept struggling till the other party eventually gave up.
"Stop joking." Naomi said non commitally, hiding her blushing face by dipping her head low and scrolling her phone.
She opened her files and found out the recording of the conversation she just had with that man.
She played it again.
// "Oh shi– I mean, yes. It’s just a security procedure, love. They will get their phones back first thing in the morning, don’t worry." //
She replayed that line.
// "Oh shi– I mean–" //
Naomi paused the recording and looked up at Fredrinn with a smirk hiding her flushed features.
"What do you find sus about this?" She questioned playfully.
"That he’s calling you love?" Fredrinn tilted his head curiously, "I thought you said you had no boyfriend and Richard was the one you were interested in. Sounds suspicious to me."
"..." Naomi stared at him blankly.
The clue was so obvious and yet he was picking up on that man’s weird and irritating speech?
"Don’t talk about Richard from your mouth." She harrumphed before replaying the same line, "It’s so obvious! How could you not get it?!"
Fredrinn chuckled in response, "Obviously I get it. I was just pulling your leg. The safe zone seems shady indeed, but we don’t really have a lead for another destination, do we?"
Naomi pouted before nodding, "I understand. I am just saying we should be careful."
"Yes yes." Fredrinn stretched his arms lazily, "Especially for you three. I heard beautiful girls are in the most danger in the apocalypse."
Both Naomi and Rhea blushed at his words. Who doesn’t like to be praised?
Though, his methods of complimenting were unorthodox to say the least.
But somehow, they liked the compliments from him more than the ones they have received before. These seemed more... genuine?
Naomi decided not to overthink about it lest she dives deeper in her complicated feelings about the man in front of her.
"Ahem. We have you to protect us, no?" She shot back.
"Wow, so I am an unpaid bodyguard now?" Fredrinn chuckled.
Naomi shrugged, "Yep, exactly that. Now your miss wants to sleep." she said in a teasing tone, before shooting a silent glance in Andrea’s direction, sighing inwardly.
"Sleep."
"Mhm, good night. I will call these numbers in the morning as well, but I don’t know if it would be of any use or not. In addition, my phone’s slowly running out of charge." Naomi said, nodding.
"We will look or ask around for it tomorrow. Good night." Fredrinn hummed, turning towards Rhea as he narrowed his eyes.
"No excuses now, you should rest and recover some energy too. Tough day ahead." He said in a tone that left no room for arguments.
Rhea could only nod her head slowly, despite her reluctance to close her eyes and revisit those dark memories that were clouding in her mind.
"What about you? Are you not going to sleep?" She asked softly.
Fredrinn yawned, leaning back as he rested a head on Andrea’s luscious hair, sprawled against his crotch and lap.
"Yeah. Your bodyguard is quite meticulous with his job, though he is unpaid."
A giggle slipped out of Rhea’s lips before she realized it.
With a smile, she laughed and said, "Don’t worry, Mr Bodyguard, we will find a way to repay you somehow."
[ demands host to ask for her body as repayment. ]
’No way. Some things are better left unsaid.’
Fredrinn smiled back at her and gave a look to her cardboard bedding, clearly a gesture for her to quit speaking and go to sleep.
Once she laid down obediently, Fredrinn turned away from their direction, looking at the remaining crowd of humans.
As per the orders, the unchosen and infected were separated to another section of the room, enclosed with large shelves that were moved with joint effort of Charlie, other awakeners and men.
There didn’t seem to be any progress with the infected, so Fredrinn finally had the peace he desperately desired.
’Let’s hope I don’t get disturbed again.’
He closed his eyes, sharpened his focus and tuned out all the thoughts from his mind.
In an instant, his mind began to expand and despite he was sitting with his eyes closed, he could feel the blue beads of energy drifting through the air peacefully.
It was as if he could view the world in a mesh, only silhouettes forming through the curves of the mana.
And surprisingly, the mana levels inside the room had shot up significantly.
Every dead zombie’s corpse in the room was oozing with mana. Some had more, some had less... but what remained consistent was that only human corpses had no mana within them.
’Mana is only in the zombies and awakeners but not the normal humans?’ Fredrinn thought curiously, wondering if a dead awakener would also release their mana back into the atmosphere.
Of course, he couldn’t test that theory at the moment and asking Lust was useless since he already had a running debt with it.
So he put the theory aside and opened his eyes, gazing at the stage 3 zombie’s corpse that he had destroyed savagely.
’I guess even a zombie corpse without a core isn’t completely useless.’