Autophagy

Inside the meeting room, Song Lei and his four new recruits sat silently.

Jin Ru was sitting with his palms on his thighs and was looking down at the table without saying anything. Leon was leaning on the back of his chair and playing with a strand of his hair. Lukas had his arms crossed as he constantly tapped the ground with his feet. There was a deep frown on his face. Nakajima Rei, on the other hand, was calmly sitting down, sipping on a cup of tea that Song Lei had prepared. She had a faint smile on her face and was radiating an aura of calmness.

Song Lei was sitting at the head of the table, legs crossed, with one of his hands on his leg and the other on top of it. He had a serene calmness that occupied his face. For now, what he wanted was the new recruits to calm down. Even the calmest among them, Nakajima Rei had become fidgety because of the previous ordeals.

They sat there calmly for about half an hour until someone decided to break the silence.

"So? Will we have our own rooms? Or are we going to sleep out in the corridor or something?" Lukas asked in an annoyed manner.

"Hey, be polite, that guy is our leader from now on you know?" Leon whispered into Lukas' ear. Of course, even if he tried to be silent, it wouldn't go unheard by Song Lei.

"Of course," Song Lei said. "How could I be a branch leader if I didn't have rooms to accommodate you?" Song Lei said. "Follow," he gestured them to get up, before leaving the meeting room.

He led the new recruits through the eerie and dark staircases, up until the 12th floor. The 12th floor initially belonged to Lu Peng, who had been kidnapped long ago, alongside Fu Ah and Gao Jing. He was honestly a rowdy person if Song Lei had to describe. He lacked any kind of manners and acted like an asshole most of the time. He especially seemed to have a problem with Song Lei.

Song Lei was assuming that the reason was the fact that Song Lei had killed Tao Cai, which was a friend of Lu Peng. Another reason could be that Lu Peng had to take care of two floors because of him, however, Song Lei couldn't be sure.

Nonetheless, the 12th floor seemed the most reasonable place for the new recruits to reside in. The main reason behind this was its closeness to the 14th floor. Song Lei wanted to be able to go help them out any time he was needed. For that, they needed to be close to him. However, he couldn't exactly give them rooms on his own floor. He wanted to hide Kang Mirae's existence a little bit more, at least for a few days.

The 13th floor was another problem. It was honestly an enigma in Song Lei's eyes. As opposed to floor 15, which was now a clearly dangerous place, floor 13 was awkward. From what Song Lei had heard, it contained much stronger ghosts and monsters compared to the other floors. However, they were dormant. Unless disturbed, they wouldn't cause any problems and would stay in their rooms.

According to what Old Wolf had said, during the times the Heaven Alliance leader was helping him establish the branch, he had accidentally awoken one of the ghosts on this floor. Which resulted in the Alliance Leader having to fight with about five percent of his power, according to his own words. This didn't sound very problematic, however, considering how strong the alliance leader probably was, that was a horrifying amount of power. What's more, was the fact that that was only a single ghost on the floor. There were 13 more that Song Lei would have to deal with if he ever decided to do so.

This awkward spike in strength that only appeared on floor 13 was apparently caused by the belief that number 13 was a cursed number. Which made Song Lei wonder about the nature of the New World. How would the beliefs of people affect the New World?

"These should be your rooms," Song Lei said as he showed them to their rooms. They were going to be staying in rooms 1201, 1202, 1205, and 1206. He made sure to put an empty room in between so they wouldn't disturb each other in case they were to make loud noises. "I've covered every room with ghost-repellant talismans. They work pretty well but you'll have to bear the ominous looks."

"Woah... That looks... Disturbing..." Jin Ru muttered as he touched one of the talismans that were attached to the walls of the room.

Obviously, Song Lei hadn't crafted these by himself. After all, he had no idea how to do so. However, he could take away the ones that had been used to create safe rooms on the lower floors, which were abandoned now.

"You can leave your stuff in your rooms for now. Let's go back to the 7th floor," Song Lei said. After everyone left their luggage in their respective rooms before following Song Lei back to floor 7. Breezing through the talisman-covered floor, he arrived in front of room 703. After opening the door, he led everyone in.

"For now, I need you to use this place for cooking. I have prepared and put all the needed ingredients in the fridge in case you want to cook something. I've also left some packaged food here," Song Lei showed them one by one. He could see the amazement on their faces.

'Haha! Behold the power of my system!' Song Lei bragged inside his head.

"That's about it for now," Song Lei finished showing them the room that he had assigned as the kitchen. "Gather in room 1201 tomorrow at 10 a.m. I still have some stuff left to talk to you about. Until then, don't leave your rooms under any circumstance. Is that understood?" He asked. Seeing them nod without any objections, he took them back to floor 12.

After they all retired into their rooms to unpack, Song Lei sighed a deep breath of relief.

'It's hard to act like a proper leader for so long,' he thought.

'Anyways... Now that I'm done with this, I can go back to what I was doing before....'