The Devil’s Cage

“This place is really as dirty and messy as Rachel said.”

Lemour the Alchemist commented on Wallway 13th when she stepped in.

Kieran did not mind at all. His first priority for a room was always its convenience, so he could get what he wanted easily; cleanliness and tidiness was second for consideration.

If the second conflicted with the first rule, it would be ignored.

“Everyone has their own habits,” Kieran said.

“Where’s the things?”

Lemour was smart enough not to argue with a man on the cleanliness of his room, as it was like arguing with a woman, asking her why she shopped so much—it was a waste of energy.

If she had such energy for arguing, might as well spend it elsewhere.

“This.” Kieran passed the little bottle of [Barrier Water] to Lemour.

The moment Kieran had gotten the bottle, he contacted Lemour.

Kieran would not just simply use an item from an unknown organization, let alone when the remark stated the potion was mixed with something he couldn’t understand.

Pak!

The cork was pulled open, and Lemour fanned the mouth of the tube with her hand as she took several sniffs.

Kieran didn’t stop her, believing in her expertise and professional knowledge. It was also the reason why he contacted her in the first place. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Interesting, interesting! I need more time to analyze it, around a week to two,” Lemour said.

“Sure.” Kieran nodded.

“100K Points, no discounts, no debt of gratitude!” Lemour quickly stated her price.

“Sure.” When Kieran was out of options, he would be quick in decisions. Of course, his heart still clenched from the pain, but it was his own problem.

The contract was signed.

Lemour the Alchemist brought [Barrier Water] away, and when she opened the door, Kieran’s sharp senses picked up the presence of Raven’s cat opposite of his room. Although he did not know where Raven was, since his cat was around, he shouldn’t be far away.

But of course, since both of them had a contract, Kieran did not speak of the cat and saw Lemour off before he went back into his room.

The Old Book Canberlanor, who had been hiding, came out.

“My lord.” A bow later, he continued reading the book [Animal Companion Training Book (Transcript)].

Since Canberlanor was temporarily in charge of teaching Fire Raven and Frost Wolf, Kieran hoped for the Old Book to do his best, so he did not interrupt him.

Kieran walked over to his only sofa, sat down, and opened his character tab.

Kieran looked at his Strength, Agility, Constitution and his highest, Spirit. Because of the energy from the Devourer, the first four of his attributes had reached a considerable level, but when he glanced over his Intuition, which was still stuck at SSS+, he gasped.

No one understood how important Intuition was more than him.

In his earlier days when he chose the path of a lone wolf, the high level of Intuition was one of the sources of his courage.

Inside a strange dungeon world where unknown dangers lurked, higher Intuition would allow him to acquire insurance and oppose this kind of lurking danger.

Besides that, Kieran knew that in order to judge how strong a person was, they key wasn’t to look at his best points, but rather, his weakest points.

Therefore, Kieran leveled up his Intuition without further thoughts.

[Used 5 Golden Attribute Points…]

[Intuition SSS+ → ZZ (New I)]

…

All five of the Golden Attribute Points that he got from the last dungeon were poured into Intuition. Kieran’s eyes, ears, nose and tongue felt a little cold as if they were smeared with mint; it was a little spicy and yet cold.

Kieran also felt a slight breeze caress his skin, and he opened his eyes.

Canberlanor was flipping through the book in his hand, and the ‘breeze’ was actually from the flipping motion.

Kieran couldn’t help but smile when he felt the ‘breeze’.

Once an attribute reached the Advance Ranks, obvious changes would occur, especially the attribute that he was very compatible with, like Spirit and Intuition.

Kieran knew he was very compatible with them a while ago.

Back then when his attributes were still around F rank and the Golden Attribute Points hadn’t come in play, his Spirit and Intuition were in F+ rank, and as he grew stronger, the uniqueness of these two attributes got more obvious.

He was looking forward to the day when his Intuition reached rank V. What would happen then?

However, now was not the time to think!

He had to prepare and adjust himself for the next step.

He wasn’t going to level up his skills with his current Points. Instead, he adjusted himself.

After realizing skills could also be leveled up through training and might, and even provide him with different types of realizations, Kieran had the thought of leveling a certain set of skills through pure training.

When his skills reached a higher level and no longer just required Golden Skill Points but also Golden Attributes to level up, it further solidified Kieran’s thoughts.

Of course, the main reason was that the current level of his core skills were at the stage where Golden Skill Points could not be of much help in leveling. Otherwise, Kieran would pour in everything he had.

As for the other ancillary skills?

Since the matter of leveling up or not would not cause massive change to his power level, Kieran wanted to experiment with them.

In the upcoming few days, Kieran didn’t leave his room.

Other than practising skills, he thought about his upcoming dungeon world, [Hero and Villain].

This upcoming dungeon world was no doubt filled with lies and deceit.

The dungeon world was known for its heroes and villains, but in fact, it housed an underworld beneath the surface.

Despite having an encounter with that world, he still wasn’t sure what was going on in that place.

But one thing was for sure: this dungeon world was extremely valuable.

Aside from the Mordin Statues that could power up Devil Force, there were many opportunities to evolve his items and equipment.

Opportunity co-existed with danger.

But because of that, the world was much more charming, wasn’t it?

Kieran was anticipating the dungeon world.

Time flew, and soon when the cooldown reset, Kieran tidied up his backpack and items, and clicked enter.

Familiar words appeared in his sight again.

[Entering single special dungeon!]

[Dungeon difficulty: 8th dungeon]

[Background: This is a wonderous world that houses superheroes and supervillains alike. They are at constant conflict because of their differing ideals. Your ‘good deed’ has earned you quite the reputation, and you are well-known by the people, but the dead villains will only attract more from outside the city. They have their eyes on the city…]

[Main Mission: Fend off those ill-intentions supervillains within 12 weeks (The more you fend off, the higher the ratings)]

[Temporary language pack disappears upon exiting the dungeon.]

[Clothing, backpack, weapons, and other items remain unchanged. Temporarily altered appearance returns to normal upon exiting the dungeon]

[Note: This is a special dungeon, so you cannot fail the main mission. If you fail, it’s game over!]

…

When the words vanished, Kieran appeared in an unfamiliar room.

It wasn’t the familiar Randletine Street 17th or the Smorewill Street 99th, which should be rebuilt.

It was a… ward? A hospital ward?

The place was white and reeked of disinfectant medicine.

Kieran was strapped to a sick bed. From shoulders to feet, six straps of leather tightly bound him down.

Kieran tested the straps with his body and realized each of them were designed very reasonably, made to seal a person’s movements on the bed.

However, the thing that Kieran hated the most was the mask on his face. It prevented him from clearly voicing his thoughts and even caused discomfort in his breathing.

Fortunately, his strength did not disappear.

His powers were still with him! His items were in the locker beside him, away from sight, but Kieran could sense them.

In simple words, he could break free by exerting little strength. However, he didn’t do it.

The vigilant Kieran wanted to know what was going on and why he was in a hospital ward.

Pak!

While Kieran was thinking, the door abruptly opened.

A buff male nurse walked in. Kieran had to slightly raise his neck to get a clear look.

“Odork?!” Kieran was surprised by the man before his eyes.

Odork, once an amateur kidnapper and a coward, liked to aggrandize himself, but after his powers had awakened, he was known as the Bloodman.

He was considered a decent subordinate after Kieran controlled him with [Mesly Ring].

However, Odork didn’t strike him as a trusty subordinate right now, as he didn’t seem to even care about the muffled noises from Kieran. Instead, he walked beside the bed and pressed a lever.

The whole bed lifted up right away, and only then did Kieran know that it was a mobile one.

Odork pushed Kieran through the door and into the corridor.

The long corridor, almost a hundred meters long, was quite narrow, only a single sick bed allowed to pass at a time. A windowless door would appear every few meters. All the doors were shut tight, and nothing from the inside was visible, nor could a single noise be heard.

The only noise in the corridor was the squeaks from the wheels beneath the mobile sick bed and the heavy breathing from Odork.

Odork, no doubt, had a weak physique. Nevertheless, he dared not slack from his job.

He pushed Kieran to the end of the corridor without pause.

At the end of the corridor was an elevator. ‘3F’ was on the display, and beside it was a garbage can, which had an ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts.

Kieran took a glance at the elevator before Odork pushed him around. The elevator was behind Kieran, and he faced the long, narrow corridor.

The other end of the corridor was absent of any windows. In fact, until now, Kieran had no idea whether it was day or night. The cold fluorescent lamps on the ceiling had no use other than shedding dim light along the way.

Tak!

A cheap one-time lighter ignited, and the smell of tobacco spread in the air.

Odork lit his cigarette and smoked it from start till end. He stuffed it in the ashtray beside him before finally pressing the elevator.

Ding!

The elevator opened up, and Kieran’s sick bed was dragged inside the fairly huge box.

The elevator looked no different from a normal one. An emergency phone was on the right panel, and beneath it were buttons displaying 1F to 6F, with an extra red button for emergency calls.

Odork extended his hand to press the 5F button, and along with the little action, he did not pay any care to Kieran, not even a glance.

When the elevator reached the fifth floor, Kieran was pushed out.

Unlike the previous third floor, the fifth floor was filled with people.

An elderly with a blanket over his wheelchair sat in front of a television at the corner; a seemingly strong middle-aged caretaker was whispering on the other side, giggles would sound occasionally.

There were young adults amongst them too, making up the majority of the people on the fifth floor.

But when Kieran was pushed out of the elevator, young adults came over from every corner of the floor, gathered around Kieran, and looked at him coldly and silently with dull expressions.

The scene spread everywhere else. The caretakers paused in their conversations, the elderly stopped watching television, and every single one of them looked at Kieran with cold gazes.

Time felt as if it had frozen.

“Get off! Get the hell off, all of you!”

Odork shouted, utilizing every inch of his muscles to carve a path out of the gathering crowd. He switched from pulling to dragging and continued forward.

As they moved forward, Kieran heard whispers from behind him.

Maniac and psychopath were what they called him.

Devil and murderer were the garnishes on top of the ugly titles.

“Let me tell you something, you better be honest later. This is one of the few chances that you have to defend yourself. I am not being empathic, I am just scared of pushing your around every day! You should be in some other place, so why’d you have to come here?”

Odork mumbled in a muffled voice as he dragged Kieran forward.

Kieran squinted his eyes quietly. He glanced at Odork again before he saw their destination, based on where they were moving: the director’s office.

Under the sign on the office door was the director’s name: Ferris.

Ferris, who was once a teacher and later a mercenary after his talents awakened. He was known as the Freezer until he was controlled by Kieran.

“Ferris, eh?”

Another familiar name appeared, giving Kieran more thoughts about what would appear beyond the office door, and just as he expected, behind the door was Chief Officer Pudder and Emma Eddie.

The chief was in his usual uniform, but Emma Eddie was different. The leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans plus the short hair were gone. She actually wore a very professional-looking attire and held a briefcase.

As Kieran was being pushed in, the two of them conversed.

“Doctor Eddie, I hope you can use your professional knowledge to help me find out whether that bastard is really crazy or if he’s faking it!”

“Very well, Chief Pudder.”

The conversation was short and simple, and it stopped abruptly when Kieran entered.

“Call for me if you need anything, I’ll be outside.”

The chief brought Odork out and closed the door.

Bang!

The bang of the slamming door echoed in the room.

Emma Eddie, who Kieran remembered as a little thug from the streets, looked at him in an elegant and friendly way.

Then…

She took a knife from her briefcase and lunged towards Kieran.

Pak!