The treasure vault’s locked down with layers of magic.
Inside, it’s all stone and silence—a rectangular chamber, fourteen meters wide, thirty long.
The walls are stacked brick. The floor’s draped in thick carpets. A long table stretches down the center, crowned by a heavy chandelier.
Tapestries line the walls. Shields and swords hang like museum pieces. Plate armor stands guard in all four corners, watching with empty eyes.
I was told it hasn’t changed a bit since the eighteenth century.
Relics are scattered across the long table, tossed into ancient treasure chests, sealed in polymer cases, submerged in tanks, locked in cages, or crammed into tiny compartments. Some elegant. Some crude.
Most of the frequently used Relics aren’t even kept here. They stay in the rooms—or the hands—of the family head and other members.
What’s left in the vault? Things too rare to risk. Too precious to use. Or too strange to make sense of.
Now, those casually placed Relics? Gone. Not a trace.
Storage compartments? Ransacked. Whole rows broken into. Some untouched.
Maybe they ran out of time. Maybe they couldn’t carry more.
What gets me is the plate armor. The four sets in the corners aren’t moving. Supposedly enchanted to attack intruders on sight.
But no signs of a fight. They’re just standing there like props.
Either the spells wore off due to poor maintenance, or someone shut them down.
If a Mage did it, that’d explain things. Doesn’t make it less annoying.
“Do your damn jobs, will you?”
I jab one with a knuckle on my way to the next level down.
Same story. Everything on the table? Gone. Armor? Still as stone.
Looks like whoever did this had the skills—and the prep—to shut down all the magical defenses at once.
I head to the lowest level. The problem child. The Dragon Chamber.
That room held a certain magical beast. A dragon. The Coral Dragon. The Akai family owes its fire techniques to that creature.
But the dragon wasn’t alive. Never was—not since I’ve known about it.
Dragons are extinct, ancient as myths.
But their remains still carry power. Still hum with mystery.
The Coral Dragon’s marrow—its bones—lay sealed beneath the estate. Still serving as the bedrock of the clan.
I descend the steps, one at a time.
It’s cold. Too cold.
Last time I was here, I could feel heat radiating halfway down. Felt like standing on the edge of a volcano.
I reach the bottom. The chamber’s massive—fifty meters wide in all directions. Ceiling climbs nearly fifteen meters.
It used to glow, wrapped in a low, reddish light. Always hot. Always alive in some strange way.
Now it’s dark. Cold and empty.
I sweep my flashlight across the floor.
Still nothing.
You can’t miss something the size of a dragon.
There’s only one conclusion: the Coral Dragon is gone.
Stolen.
“How the hell do you move something that big...?”
I check every inch of the chamber. Walls. Floor. I press my fingers to the stone, follow the edge, feel for damage or hidden doors.
Then I see it. Something small moving in the beam of my flashlight.
Black. Sooty. Fluffy.
I squint. Under the grime, I spot brown and white fur.
I freeze, heart pounding.
“…Milady Mikaela?”
“Meow? Meow~!”
She meows and bounds toward me.
That trot. That pounce. That ridiculous little bounce.
It’s her. Milady Mikaela, the estate’s VIP feline. The one who roamed the halls like she owned them.
I scoop her up and hug her tight.
The weight. The warmth. The perfect roundness. That mesmerizing fluff.
No Demon could fake this.
“Thank god. Thank god! I found a survivor!”
“Meow~!”
“Milady Mikaela, I’m so glad you’re okay. You must’ve been terrified. But it’s fine now. I’ve got you.”
I’m shaking with joy.
I haven’t lost everything after all.