Curse the Mainframe! 303 Fluff is Life

Things seemed to add up in the most unpleasant way.

Alec quickly moved to confirm his suspicions.

When he asked the prisoners in the cells, they all confirmed that they were indeed of the Awakening Magitype.

What did this mean? Why would someone collect people with the Awakening Magitype? Were they using them for something?

He just knew that it wasn't so simple as a slave trade.

Now, more than ever, he needed to capture someone vital to this place to confirm his suspicions.

Hopefully, Kieran would be working on that part. With him capturing the branch family members – and there sure were a lot of them for a single place – how was it possible that they didn't have any information about this place?

Alec rather suspected that the Meister that Blanche was facing off against was a Rothschild branch family member as well.

While the Meister ran past earlier on, Alec had managed to catch a glimpse with his exceptional eyesight.

The man had indeed carried many of the Rothschild features, old as he was. And when Alec said old, he meant that the man looked ancient.

But then, where was Lucielle in this place, and how did she fit in?

Did they have a separate place for those that weren't of the Awakening Magitype or something? Why the need to keep them separately?

Bunbun and Fenrir seemed to sense their master's bad mood, and they darted away after rubbing their heads on his ankle comfortingly.

What they needed to do now was not to comfort their master, but to find more evidence for him.

They'd already found so much juicy stuff on basement six. How much more would there be further down?

Instead of following after them, Alec left them to it.

Speculations were just speculations. He had to check it himself before he could come to any solid conclusions.

The arrays and seals on the bars of the cells were pathetically easy to disable for someone of his expertise, and whatever doubts he had about this place being related to Sekai's 'company' lessened a little.

Getting into the cage, the people inside scattered like mice meeting a cat, moving from corner to corner.

Alec's lip twitched.

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Kieran was having much better luck than Alec was.

From the ninth level down, he found a total of four of the Rothschild branch family members, and he'd successfully subdued them for future interrogation.

It was rather therapeutic to be able to kick them around without much problem despite his Magitype. He'd expected much more of a fight from them, but he was left a little disappointed.

For some reason, between Alec and his mother, he didn't think that there would be much problems extracting information from them.

They honestly put up so little of a fight that Kieran was more than a little suspicious.

They'd been alerted to intruders already. They weren't that stupid, and there were traps around that they were using relatively efficiently, but he was still able to take care of them.

He didn't know if it was because they were stuck down here like rats in a hole, but they didn't seem very experienced using their magic to fight, for some reason.

While it made it easier for him, but that was just it. It was *too* easy.

He trussed all of them up like chickens and left them in separate places. There were rooms on each level that the 'guards' used to relieve themselves from hearing the prisoners.

It wouldn't do for the alarms to go off, as Alec had warned them, but the guard's rooms were safe from those. Since he didn't share his uncle's apparent mastery in runes, he wouldn't be taking any chances.

However, even if they already knew that there were intruders, that didn't mean that he could be so cavalier about stealth. Kieran faded his presence more, until he was all but traceless.

By the time he hit the lowest level, Kieran frowned. There were only two more branch members that he managed to find, which meant that he'd captured six of them in total.

There were still four people that were unaccounted for. Three, if one counted the Meister that was fighting his mother. At least, he thought the Meister was a Rothschild.

Not good. They were probably somewhere else, but he had no idea whether or not the remaining people had been informed that someone found their 'hideout' or not.

If Meister that his mother was fighting was truly a Rothschild branch member, it would certainly explain why the branch family suddenly acted up after all these years.

If they had produced a Meister that could hold their own, why would they be content to be part of the branch family?

That was a possible reason why they might have attacked the main family, but it would have to be confirmed later.

The little information they'd managed to extract from the branch member that infiltrated the Rothschild family manor didn't amount to much. He hadn't been high on the totem pole, so to speak. He was just a grunt.

He looked around for any hidden doors or latches that might lead him to another path downwards, or even sideways, but no luck.

Kieran clicked his tongue.

Something wasn't adding up. Alec told them about the prisoner that had been dragged away earlier, and it hadn't looked like he would survive, but so far, Kieran hadn't found any injured prisoners whatsoever.

While these people looked bleak, they weren't physically damaged in any way, nor were they hiding their injuries. The damage was all mental.

That meant that there was at least one other place that he hadn't found yet.

As he was exploring, he made sure to dodge the traps and disable them as best he could.

Still, despite him fumbling around, there was no trace of the secret door or floor that he knew existed.

Kieran's brows furrowed. Did this mean that he had to go and interrogate one of the branch members that he'd already acquired?

But they were all knocked out cold, and there was no telling how long it would take for them to wake up.

Just as he was about to turn around and try and resuscitate one of the branch members, he heard the sound of scratching.

Kieran's brows shot up, and he immediately darted towards the place where the sound was coming from.

Going all the way back down the hallway, past all the prisoners that had been held there, he had to force himself to ignore the prisoners who were calling for him to free them, focusing on the scratching sound.

He was not at all disappointed when he realized what was making the sound.

Instead of finding a person, he found Alec's familiars right at the spot where the stairs were located.

He grabbed the bunny and wolf off the floor, raising an eyebrow at them. "What exactly are you doing?"

Kieran secretly had a soft spot for small, fluffy animals, and he always itched to touch them. Now that he had a chance, he wasn't going to let it go!

Bunbun ineffectively whacked him a few times with his paw. The bunny felt annoyed. He'd been close. He could just feel it!

But he couldn't hurt this human either because he was master's human.

Glaring at the man, Bunbun pointed at the spot he'd been scratching at, and Kieran raised his brows.

He reluctantly placed the bunny back on the ground, wondering where he was going with this.

Of course, since the purple wolf did not react in any way, Kieran continued to shamelessly cling on to him.

However, no one would have known since Kieran's face didn't change in any way to suggest embarrassment.

Bunbun continued sniffing around, looking for something.

He could smell magic, and it was close.

He ignored Fenrir, who was mentally calling him for help, so the wolf just sulked in the human's arms.

During a sudden rumble from above, the spot that Bunbun was touching seemed to knock itself loose, and the wall around next to the stairs parted smoothly, revealing a deeper entrance.

Kieran's brows shot up instantly.

He wasn't even ashamed that the bunny found the entrance instead of him.

He picked up the bunny and pressed a huge smooch to his face, ignoring the bunny's disgruntlement.

There was no one around right now. He could behave however he liked with small, fluffy animals, and no one would be the wiser.

Of course, what he didn't know was that Bunbun was indignantly sending Alec mental images, causing Alec's lips to twitch.

Dodging Kieran's further attempts at cuddling, Bunbun darted into the opened entrance, causing the Main Character's heartbeat to stutter.

Chapter end

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