The Devil’s Cage

Even though Kieran was almost 10 meters away from the body and even had a window in between them, he noticed the unusual point the moment he laid eyes on the body.

Based on his simple memories, Saint Brilliant High School’s main academic building wasn’t that high, there were only 5 floors in total and with similar height, it wasn’t hard for the body to turn bloody and mushy.

The moment of impact and scratches was enough to damage the body but it was certainly impossible for a fallen body to break apart into pieces like a doll.

5 floors of height weren’t capable of such force of impact, even more so…

”It was sliced off by sharp blades?”

Kieran’s eyes glanced over the cuts between the severed limbs and body. The cuts were clean and smooth, there weren’t any signs of tearing the flesh being torn apart.

Kieran then went towards the roof right away. His senses picked up the scent of a sub mission.

To save time, Kieran didn’t go up the stairs traditionally. He tiptoed on the handle of the stairs and his hands would cling on the handle of the upper floor, he pulled himself up and leaped over a whole floor with a single motion.

Kieran was like a long-armed ape, climbing up the stairs with utmost nimbleness and swiftly arrived at the roof after a couple rounds of climbing.

Though the surprising thing was, the door that leads outside to the roof was locked! With two separate locks!

Kieran activated [Tracking] and scanned the place. Other than his own prints, there wasn’t anyone else’s, not even a slight bit of tracks were left behind nor were there blood stains that he was concerned about.

”Interesting,” Kieran muttered. He pulled out [Deceiver’s Key] and easily picked two of the lock with Musou level [Lockpicking].

Kieran then walked out the door carefully and all of a sudden, a set of footprints appeared within his sight under [Tracking].

The new set of footprints didn’t originate from where Kieran came from but it appeared out of thin air in the middle of the roof. There weren’t signs of the prints arriving, only leaving towards the edge of the building and eventually fell off the building.

Kieran unconsciously looked up into the sky.

”It came from the sky?” He guessed.

Kieran then quickly cleared the traces he left behind and turned back down to where the body had fallen.

There was already a group of students surrounding the body.

Even if they were held back by school security, the terrified students couldn’t hide their curiosity in their heart, trying to have an extra look by popping their heads.

Cries of shock sounded from the students from time to time, accompanied by a boastful description of the situation. Such words instantly caused more commotion among the students and their curiosities spiked even higher following the commotion.

The students became agitated with their spiked curiosity, if security didn’t shout at the students, holding them back, the agitated ones might have run up to the body.

Although none of the students went up, under the atmosphere surrounded by curiosity and fear, whispers sounded between ears.

”It happened again!”

”He is that sports student from class 1-2!”

”I heard he had just gotten selected into the regionals competition!”

”Just like the leader of the Occult Society said, dazzling lights attracted not only good luck but bad ones as well!”

”I hope the bad luck won’t come to me!”

”You are just a normal guy, why would you attract bad luck?”

”Damn it, you are also a normal guy, why are you criticizing me!”

...

The way the wealthy students conversed spiked Kieran’s attention.

During his school days, he was as good as an invisible man, although he was envious of the small groups of students, he couldn’t alter his background as an orphan. There wasn’t a chance for him to join a group, to begin with. He tried a few times before, trying to blend in but failed eventually, thus leading him going his own way since then.

Now, Kieran would never want to join one of them but it didn’t stop him from getting useful pieces of information from the conversation.

”It happened again? Seems like it’s not the first time! That Occult Society they mentioned…”

Kieran mentioned the society that sounded like a club of sorts for students in his heart.

He then quickly left the scene because he already heard police sirens arriving.

While having all sorts of weapons on his back, he wouldn’t want the police to list him as a suspect for murder. It will be best for him to temporary hide his personal belongings and weapons.

...

The old academic building of Saint Brilliant High School.

It was only a 2 level building made entirely out of wood. Most parts of the building were used as a storeroom of sorts and only a portion of the rooms were used as the teacher’s dorm.

Though, other than Kieran the newbie teacher, no one was staying there.

Firstly, the conditions there were too poor, the school couldn’t even provide stable electricity and water supply, even the toilet was a public one, located outside the building in a secluded spot.

During the dead silent night and pitch black environment, it would be a haunting scene sending chills down one’s spine.

Though, Kieran was fine with all of it.

After hiding away his obvious equipment, he patiently waited for the police to pay him a visit.

In fact, he already picked up footsteps heading his way.

The screeching noises from the old and disrepair wooden flooring were very loud.

Dong, Dong Dong!

The door was knocked. Kieran opened the door and saw a slightly chubby middle-aged man with a half bald fashion greeting him.

”Mr. 2567, this is Inspector Oaker!”

The middle-aged man introduced the elderly man behind him.

The elderly man was wearing long ragged pants, underneath his brown vest was a gray shirt together with a cap on his head and a wrinkled face.

While Kieran was examining him, Inspector Oaker was also sizing up his surrounding out of occupational habits and finally landed his eyes on Kieran.

”Hello, Mr.2567!” The elder inspected extended his hand.

”Hello,” Kieran replied with a smile.

The handshake broke off moments later, yet Oaker’s fingers touched the part between Kieran’s index finger and thumb and the tip of his middle finger.

Oaker concealed his actions very well but it couldn’t escape Kieran’s senses.

”Mr. 2567 here is our newly hired teacher. You know after those incidents happen, a lot of the teachers decided to leave, so we needed more teachers to maintain the teachings in the school. So, it is impossible Mr. 2567 here is related to those incidents!” The middle-aged man said.

Based on Kieran’s simple memory, the half bald middle-aged man was Saint Brilliant High School’s dean of students and it was him that recruited Kieran into the school.

”Fret not, I’m just following procedures.”

Inspector Oaker revealed a kind smile on his loosen face, trying to comfort the dean and Kieran. Though the words that came after didn’t sound comforting at all.

”Mr. 2567, you are really young eh? Where did you teach before this school? Didn’t you hear? There has been three… No, four including the latest one just now, suicide incidents happened here in Saint Brilliant? Two of them jumped off the roof, one hanged himself and another one sliced her wrist.”

The dean’s face was frightened when the inspector uttered the words from his mouth. It sounded threatening and was trying to probe Kieran’s reaction.

”That’s enough, Inspector!” The dean halted the inspector loudly.

The dean’s voice even echoed in Kieran’s room, filling every inch within the four walls.

Crack!

Suddenly, a crack appeared on the window and spread out like a spider web before breaking into pieces.

A formless force burst through the window, firing the shattered glass like arrows towards the three of them.