Curse the Mainframe! 310 The Death of Lily Cierra

Kieran was baffled by Alec's subsequent actions following the girl's death.

Instead of allowing them to peacefully let the young teenaged girl go, Alec instead hoarded her body and didn't allow them to cremate her or touch her in any sort of way.

The man didn't understand.

What in the world was his supposed uncle doing with her dead body?

Though he didn't understand, he was trying not to judge the teen.

If he was someone else, he might have harboured suspicions about Alec being a necrophile, but he knew the teen a little better than that.

Just reading his face allowed Kieran to realize that there was something afoot here, even if he had no idea what.

His mother, as compared to him, seemed wholly unconcerned with the matter, allowing Alec to do as he liked, but Kieran disagreed with her.

That was a dead body!

No matter what Alec wanted to use that body for, his morals didn't allow him to desecrate the dead.

They should allow the dead to rest in peace – as in, they should be either cremated or buried, not placed in a spare guest bedroom!

Alec was lucky that he and his mother had procured a house for them to use.

If it weren't for that, he had no doubt that whatever place Alec tried to get in to would reject them since they were bringing a dead body with them.

As Kieran stewed in both guilt and confusion, Blanche passed by him.

"Mother, are you really not going to ask uncle to cremate that girl's body?"

Blanche raised a brow. "Just let him do as he likes."

"But what could he possibly be doing with a dead body that he can't do elsewhere-!"

Blanche narrowed her eyes, but Kieran just narrowed his eyes at her. His annoying morals did not allow him to treat a body like that.

Torture, he could condone in circumstances. Pain, he himself doled it out on a daily basis. Experimenting, who hadn't experimented using their magic before?

But Kieran couldn't shake the feeling that the dead deserved their rest.

"Give it a week at least," Blanche acquiesced. Her son got hung up on the strangest things.

"A week?!" Kieran disagreed. "I bet the body is already decaying!"

Blanche frowned, not knowing what he was using that point as protest for. "Kieran, you know very well that Alec is an array master. That means that he has ways to prevent a body from decomposing."

Kieran's brows furrowed as he fought with the various voices inside his mind saying that this wasn't right at all. "Fine. One week. That's all I'm allowing. If it comes to it, I'll be the one to dispose of the body myself!"

Blanche smiled lightly at her son. In the end, it was mostly because he was worried about Alec that he was so stubborn about this.

"It can't be healthy staying by the bedside of a dead person like this," Kieran muttered under his breath. He didn't know whether or not Alec had suffered some psychological trauma from the girl's death.

Alec evidently knew the girl from a long time ago – he'd even mentioned her name.

Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to find Mason Woods within the prisoners, something that disappointed his uncle even though he didn't show it.

Kieran couldn't make heads or tails of it either. Clearly, his name was not stricken off the list, so he should still have been there.

Putting aside his other thoughts, Kieran doubled down on the multitude of evidence that had been left behind in the place.

Blanche all but walked with a bounce in her step as she walked towards the place where they were housing the prisoners.

Time for a little interrogation…

-Author only posts on w.e.b.n.o.v.e.l.-

Alec sat by Lily's bedside, his eyes tracing over the girl's deathly still features.

She appeared as if she was alive. Her skin, while a little paler than usual, didn't appear like the greying skin of a corpse, and her skin was still smooth and tender, showing no signs of rigor mortis.

If it wasn't for the fact that her chest wasn't moving at all, she would have appeared as if she was merely sleeping.

As it was, their world, Incantix, was one that contained various things in order to cast a body into stasis.

On the downside, that meant that there were many people who had no intentions of letting go of their loved ones, living with the dead body as long as they could uphold the seals on the body. As long as they were rich enough, that was.

There were even people in the world that extorted money from people that wanted to preserve the body of their loved ones, essentially becoming blackmailers and moneylenders. It was appalling.

Lily Cierra was definitely dead, despite what he thought about a Main Character easily overcoming death.

But that was not what Alec was doing.

He had not lost his mind to grief, nor had he absolved to keep her body with him forever, despite what it might look like.

He knew what Kieran was thinking whenever he looked at him with a mix of guilt and worry, but Alec had no idea how to explain it to the Rothschild.

Blanche, on the other hand, he was surprised about. She didn't react in the normal way – or rather, perhaps it was because she was a Sin that she didn't react at all.

To her, it probably wasn't anything too alarming that Alec was doing something like this. She probably thought that he was grieving for a bit and was content to allow him some of the space she thought he needed.

Unlike Kieran, who looked as if he would burn Lily's body himself if it came to it.

Alec's lips twitched a little at the thought, but he continued watching over Lily as he did his own thing.

Rather than what Kieran imagined he was doing, which was losing himself in grief next to Lily's bedside, Alec was carrying out his normal routine of reading books and crafting seals.

He could still feel the cold rage that rattled his lungs every time he took a breath, but it didn't threaten to overwhelm him like his usual rage. Instead, it sank deep down, almost dormant, waiting for a chance to erupt.

Alec too, was waiting.

Suddenly, Alec's lip twitched again. He'd sent Bunbun and Fenrir to the three that he'd pretty much ditched in the aftermath of that incident, and he could just feel it.

The lot of them were causing chaos wherever they went.

They weren't far away enough that Alec couldn't reach them should he need to, so he was content to allow them to get into trouble for the time being.

He'd already impressed on them how much they should stick together, so he was free to wait here for Lily.

Suddenly, the deathly still figure on the bed moved a little.

Pale, white digits twitched.

If Alec was anyone else, he would have screamed bloody murder at what appeared to be a dead body coming back to life before his very eyes, but he wasn't just anybody.

He was a System, and he had been harbouring a faint suspicion in his heart ever since Lily really died.

Would a Main Character die so easily? Maybe. It was possible. But from a bloody side character of all things?

Not fucking likely.

So, Alec had harboured some hope that he was right, and he was definitely being proven right at this moment.

He thanked his experience as a System seeing the various cliché plot points. Otherwise, they might have even cremated her body, stopping the apparent rebirth.

However, the question remained.

Was this Lily, or was it… someone else?

Alec fingered his daggers, thinking about it.

If it was someone else, Alec was going to kill them again. He'd rather Lily's body rested in peace than let someone use it for their own purposes.

Alec's eyes glinted coldly at the thought, but he maintained his normal 'gentle' smile.

Lily's body was moving more and more now, and her eyelids were fluttering.

Then, her eyes shot open and she lurched off the bed, drawing in a huge, gasping breath.

Chapter end

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