The Devil’s Cage

If Starbeck was lost before, when he realized Kieran wasn’t by his side, his entire mind was in a state of utter stupefaction.

Especially when he saw the city guards really waving their swords around to suppress the panicking crowd after the temple priest was assassinated, Starbeck leaned back on the wall and quivered violently.

Fortunately, Kieran came back to him soon enough.

“Follow me!”

Kieran slightly frowned when he saw how scared Starbeck was, he was holding the captive with his other hand and headed towards the shadowy spot beside them; Starbeck quickly followed.

Although it was just a few seconds apart, it felt like it had been a century for Starbeck. He didn’t want to be away from Kieran at this particular moment.

They two of them went back to Charging Stable Inn without further hindrance. Kieran handed the captive to Mizelle and Pelker who arrived before them and gave his order. “Bring him and the other two of your comrades back to Mizelle’s hideout. Unless I call, don’t show your face to the public!”

“Yes, my lord!”

Mizelle and Pelker had doubts in their hearts but they would not refute Kieran’s orders, all they did was carry out the orders given to them.

“Is it that guy?”

After returning to the inn, Starbeck finally calmed himself down from the stupefied state, he pointed at the captive who was taken away and asked Kieran.

“Yup,” Kieran nodded.

Starbeck’s words were incomplete but Kieran already knew what he wanted to express.

The captive was the one within the crowd that assassinated the Thorn Temple priest before.

He had quite the technique and skill set, comparable to a common veteran player but compared to Kieran, it wasn’t enough.

The moment the assassin met Kieran, he was subdued without any resistance. If Kieran didn’t want more useful information from the assassin, he would not even spare the chance for him to strike.

“What really happened back there? Shouldn’t the assassin frame Mizelle and the others? Why was there an explosion? And that priest… all of this commotion was just to lure that priest out to a public setting?!”

Starbeck was like a curious kid asking questions non-stop and voicing his speculations at the same time.

“It seems it’s like not only us who are looking for the thieves that stole the Holy Thorn Grail, another party had their eyes on them as well. And one of them might already know, thus the explosion today,” Kieran replied.

“If one of them knew, then why still…”

Starbeck didn’t finish his words; he stopped suddenly because he knew what caused the scene to go down.

Killing the witness!

“T-The priest that was assassinated?” Starbeck stuttered as he looked at Kieran.

“It must be a pleasure for that thief to conveniently kill the priest that was blocking his way and replace him in the process. In fact, from the very beginning, this was the thief’s real goal; His partner and Mizelle in addition to the others were just pawns. In the end, he must be the only one who would benefit from all this,” Kieran said with squinted eyes.

“T-Then, what about the party that came to the scene just now?” Starbeck was still confused about something.

“Those men should be the ones who discovered the secrets of that thief, or maybe they were the other hired guns from that thief himself. But as for which it really was, how would I know? I am not God almighty, I only make up theories based on what I know and try to speculate as hard as I can!” Kieran rolled his eyes at Starbeck.

Starbeck felt awkward since he was so used to relying on people but he wasn’t upset at all.

In simple words, given how much courage Starbeck had, getting upset or angry was almost a luxury for him but Kieran didn’t let the awkwardness continue.

“Put away all those things that didn’t fit your identity and put up your servant look, go to the inn’s kitchen and cook some food up,” Kieran ordered Starbeck.

“O-Okay!”

Starbeck nodded and his instinct of following orders pushed him to his errand.

He was confused about Kieran’s order but he tried his best to fulfill Kieran’s request.

Charging Stable wasn’t a famous inn, the lodging price was cheap, so one could imagine what kind of food they served to their customers.

Though Starbeck’s objectives weren’t the ready-made food but the original ingredients.

After paying 3 copper coins, the cooking maiden was more than pleased to lend the kitchen to him. Then the cooking maiden was awestruck at Starbeck’s performance.

Performance! Starbeck who leveled his [Cooking] to Musou had an aura around him when he gripped the kitchen knife.

The cooking maiden felt like she saw a white flower image around Starbeck. She couldn’t help but rub her eyes, what she saw was Starbeck concentrating at cooking, nothing else.

“Did I see something?” The cooking maiden muttered before going out of the kitchen.

After getting an extra 3 copper coins for the day and finishing all her duties in the kitchen, the cooking maiden didn’t want to stay for any longer, she needed a good rest.

Therefore, the cooking maiden didn’t witness the magical scene of Starbeck turning the crude and common cooking ingredients into delicious cuisine, the alluring flavor filled the kitchen as he was cooking.

If the kitchen wasn’t independently separated from the inn, Starbeck might have attracted all the customers in the inn.

What Starbeck did was definitely not something Musou level [Cooking] could achieve.

Kieran who stood in the shadow witnessed the whole process. He then went into deep thought for a while before heading back to the room.

When Starbeck served the meal back at the room, Kieran was sitting on the sofa without moving a muscle.

“Not bad.”

Even though Kieran had a sniff of what Starbeck was cooking before, he still twitched his nose and praised him.

“I am only good at all these things.”

Starbeck seemed uneasy at the praise for his cooking and said in a shy manner.

While he was acting all shy, he lifted the cover on the plates.

Grill steak, oxtail soup, vegetable salad, and corn buns.

It might seem normal but there wasn’t a whole steak in the kitchen at all, all it had was some bits and few chunks of beef.

“I couldn’t find an entire piece of beef so I took a mashed potato and the bits of beef to make one myself,” Starbeck explained.

Kieran eagerly shoved up the whole piece of steak into his mouth.

“You fried the potatoes first to alter its soft nature and filled it with the bits of beef to form the shape. Then you applied butter over the steak to imitate the flavor of a real steak, really not bad.”

“Huh? There’s still some oxtail soup mixed in this?”

As Kieran was chewing, he soon realized something was different.

“Yes, because it needs to be fried two times, more juice on the steak would make the steak look fresher and more tender,” Starbeck nodded immediately and showed a smile.

He really felt happy from the bottom of his heart that Kieran could taste the difference of the steak. Likewise, Kieran was happy as well since he was able to taste such a steak.

Kieran swiftly gobbled down all the food.

After Starbeck cleaned the table and was moving back to the kitchen, Kieran looked at the inner room.

“Mister, if you don’t want to fail on the verge of success, I suggest you show yourself and have a good talk with me,” Kieran said in a calm tone.