The screen in the sealed room seemed somewhat outdated, casting a green glow.
It illuminated the man whose head was covered in wires, making him look eerie and terrifying.
The maid Niya had already been scared out of her wits.
But before she could crawl up the stairs, she was swallowed by a crowd rushing down from above.
At their head was the middle-aged butler, followed by a group of well-dressed men and women in suits.
Niya cowered fearfully among the crowd. She knew these people often came and went from the castle, and were all wealthy tycoons in the outside world.
Yet when they reached the deepest level of the basement, they all stopped in their tracks, frozen stiff and afraid to make a sound.
Only the man with wires all over his head continued chewing his beef slowly, faint grinding sounds coming from between his teeth.
The middle-aged butler stood at the front of the group, his eyes wide.
Though he had received the electronic notification that the door had opened, he still could not believe what he was seeing.
Nine years.
The young master, hailed as a once-in-a-century prodigy, had locked himself in this basement and never once stepped outside.
Not even on the day the master and mistress died.
Yet the family had not declined because of it. The invention patents the young master passed out through the crack beneath the door had multiplied the family's assets by more than a thousandfold, with their businesses spreading across the globe.
The butler still remembered.
Nine years ago, the young master had ordered him to build this basement, filling it with thirty of the most advanced computers available at the time, along with a power supply guaranteed never to fail.
But unexpectedly, the young master had cut off