Chapter 19: Pillar Families

Chapter 19 - Pillar Families Despite his exhaustion, he somehow managed to text the head chef, Danzo, to tell him that he wouldn't be able to show up before falling asleep on the floor. He didn't make even it to his bed before his body finally gave up.

"Urgh!" Waking up in the midday the first thing he felt was pain from his sore muscles. Struggling to sit up, Kieran saw the screen of his watch flashing.

'A message? It must be the old man.'

Kieran only had two people on his contact list, the old man and Leora. He saw no reason why the librarian would send him a message in the middle of the night.

'Probably a reply to the message I sent earlier.'

He thought, opening up the message.

«Alright. I already found out about it from some recruits»

«I sent something to your dorm. You should take a look at it»

«It should aid your recovery. So, get back to work tomorrow»

The message ended there and Kieran stood up, the pain he felt having reduced. His recovery factor had increased after the first series of events that happened when he got to the camp.

Opening the door, he saw a plastic bag on the floor. Binging it into his room, he opened up and inside was a bowl filled with dumplings, the chef must have noticed that he liked it despite saying nothing about it.

The steam that could be seen on the top on the cover of the bowl, showed that it was still hot, it must have been delivered not long ago. The message had also come in a few minutes before he woke up.

Deciding to take a proper bath, he moved to the bathroom. When he was done with his bath and change of clothes, he sat down and took a piece of the dumpling, putting it into his mouth.

The moment he took a bite, he felt the juice burst into his mouth, foreshadowing the flavourful filling. He could feel the juice spread in his whole body, specifically the parts he felt a lot of pain. He could feel a nice and warm feeling enveloping these parts, reducing the pain.

'I was right those mutated stuffs having strange properties.'

He had felt it during the orientation but didn't pay attention to it. It wasn't really noticeable in the normal meal served in the canteen, but it was obvious in these dumplings.

'The old man must have made them himself.'

Kieran thought.

Taking a seat on the bed after devouring the bowl of dumplings, he revised the things he had learnt earlier, his thoughts slowly coming to a pause, when he got to the last parts of what the instructor, Selena, had thought them.

'Scarlet.....That's Richard's surname'

After the war and the crisis with humanity was over, the nine individuals settled down and established nine families, namely; Scarlet, Aurora, Wildearth, Adramalech family, Callahan, La morte, Dusanka, Dagon, and Silvius family.

These nine families had the heroes of humanity as their founder. They were known as the nine pillar families. The other noble families rose up after the establishment of these nine families, their founders having accomplished something substantial enough to be given the permission to create a family that could be called 'Noble'.

Most of the smaller noble families were vassals of at least one of the nine founding families, surviving as a lone family without the help of any of the founding families was almost impossible in the system that had been set up.

Almost impossible!

There were some families that had managed to survive and thrive without the support of any of the founding families. One of them was the Zexter family, the owners of Zexter corps, a family that had managed to get to the forefront of technological advancement. They were one of the two major suppliers of arms and tech to the military.

The fact that Richard's surname was Scarlet, the same as that of a pillar family only meant one thing. He was part of them, either from the main family or one of their branch families.

'Even if he's from a branch, that only makes things more complicated.'

Kieran thought.

Branch families were essentially members of the main family, only that their bloodline had been diluted from mixing with people from outside.

He had read that when an outstanding figure rose from one of the branch families, they were taken in by the main family.

This was one of the things he couldn't solve immediately, but that didn't mean he had any intention of letting Richard go. His expression colder at the thought of all he had endured from Richard for the sake of his family. Now that he didn't have that to worry about anymore, there was no way he was just going to stay still and take a beating.

Standing up, he made his way out of the room, towards the kitchen. Although the old man had asked for him to report the next day, he felt like he had recovered enough to work again.

'I can't let that CP go to waste'

He thought.

Besides, they had been cleared for the day and he was taking a break from the library to take in everything he had learnt so far. If he stayed in, all he could do was sleep. This only gave him more reason to go to the kitchen.

Inside the kitchen, Kieran encountered one of the rare moments when the head chef was out of his hole. Even more surprising, he had just finished cooking a meal and was serving it up.

'I was late!'

He thought sombrely, staring at the three cooks in the kitchen who gathered around the old man, their eyes sparkling.

'They must have learnt something great.'

He thought, feeling more disappointed. He had never seen the head chef cook before.

"What's the occasion? It's not every day you see him outside, talk less about cooking."

Kieran asked, revealing his presence surprising, previously immersed chefs.

"Kieran? The head said you weren't coming today. How are you feeling?"

Charles, one of them asked.

"I feel much better after eating the dumplings. Thank you."

He stated in his usual cold tone.

"Ugh! Yeah...that was the head chef.."

Charles said, sleepily scratching his hair.

"Thank you. It really helped like you said."

Turning around to face the head chef who was done dressing the food he was cooking, he thanked him.

"Hmph! Nice try kid, what are you doing here? I asked for you to come tomorrow."

The head chef asked only to receive no reply from Kieran. Just a blank face.

Sighing, the head chef told him,

"There's a guest in the camp, so I did the cooking and in won't be back till the next morning. The morning rush came in later than expected. The most you can do is to help them clean up."

Picking up a broomstick, Kieran left the kitchen to execute the chef's order.

SIGH!!!

Staring at the back of the kid that had just left the kitchen, the head chef sighed deeply.

It didn't take long before he completed the job and there was nothing left to do. The other cooks had already finished the job, so all he could do was leave.

'I should just take a look around the camp, maybe I'll find something interesting.'

He thought making his way out of the canteen.

Walking down the corridors of camp, this time without the aid of the map, he came across many areas restricted to recruits and areas that required a higher authority level than he currently possessed.

When he got to areas like that, a translucent barrier would appear preventing him from going further. After a series of turns and twists around the camp, he came across a corridor where he could hear faint sounds coming through.

As he got closer, the sounds became clearer and it turned out to be sounds of cheering.

CHEER!!!YEAHHH!!!

Arriving at the source, he appeared in what happened to be an open space and there seemed to be something going on in the middle, but he could see through the massive amount of people in front of him.

Curious, he struggled and pushed his way through the crowd, making his way to the front and what appeared in front of him was surprising to say the least, he never thought he'd come across something like this in the camp.

At the centre, right in front of him was a recruit pulling a heavy chain attached to what appeared to be an engine over a small pulley.

The recruit's red face only garnered more cheers from the crowd as he struggled to the engine, only to lift it up a few inches before dropping it.

At the side, another recruit could be seen collecting CP's, it looked like they were betting on the 'contestants'.

"Strange isn't it?"

A familiar voice asked.

Turning to see who it was, he was met with the beautiful face of his neighbour, Ruby.

"I definitely didn't expect so see you here."

She said.

"I decided to explore"

He replied, still in his cold tone.

"I see"

She muttered to herself.

"It is strange. I thought things like this aren't allowed."

He said answering her question from earlier.

"Well, it isn't in other camps and in the military generally, since this falls under gambling."

She explained staring at the middle of the circle where another recruit had come out to take the challenge.

"Since this camp adopted the structure of academy for the sake of competitiveness amongst the recruits, somethings like this were allowed."

"The betting is actually organised by the cap itself so the money the recruits lose go back into the camp's pocket."

'They're literally trying to make their lives miserable.'

Kieran thought silently, already losing interest in the pointless sport.

'It is a good way of gaining cp though, but it's still pointless.'

"I have no interest in this. Its Kieran."

He said turning to leave, he'd rather spend the rest of his day sleeping.

"Huh, nice name"

Ruby muttered with a slight smile as she watched him leave.