The Devil’s Cage

The suspicious person was wearing a black hoodie with the hood over his head. A pair of black sunglasses hung over his nose, covering most of his face.

When he realized Kieran was approaching him, the person turned away without even hesitating.

Despite the heavy crowd, it didn’t obstruct the person from shuttling through the crowd. It appeared as though he was swimming through obstacles like fish in the water.

No doubt it must be some kind of secret technique but Kieran wasn’t slow either and was even faster than the mysterious person!

Although Kieran didn’t possess a similar secret technique, after the -1 debuff, Grand Master [Evading] still allowed Kieran to shuttle through the tight crowd, not losing any bit of speed.

Kieran was able to find the seams and gaps among the ever-changing crowd and slipped past them, along with his own Strength and Agility, he was drawing close to his target.

However, the moment the person left the crowded square, he accelerated suddenly and dashed into a street beside the square with speed regular people couldn’t have reached.

Kieran too followed behind the person dashing into the street and the moment he entered the street, his sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the edge of the person’s clothes turning into another alleyway.

Kieran let out a cold laugh in his heart as he knew deeply what the person wanted to achieve but his steps didn’t even pause.

When Kieran entered the alleyway, he immediately saw the person standing in the middle, not one but two. A male and a female.

The guy had an average body and a regular face. He was judging righteously at Kieran who had just entered the alleyway.

The lady was the person that lured Kieran there. She then removed her hood and sunglasses, revealing a slightly aged face that was smeared with thick makeup, causing one to frown unconsciously.

Kieran, however, was calm as still water.

“Donna, you are really still alive,” Kieran said with an expected tone.

“2567, are you still playing at memory loss? There’s no outsider here yet you who plotted the entire scheme still wants to play dumb?”

Donna Bar’s owner laughed and sneered at him.

“Plotted the entire scheme?” Kieran was stunned.

It wasn’t really a surprise, but he still acted like it.

Before this, when he suddenly remembered that he was also one of the guests in the Winchester House, Kieran’s heart had suddenly formed a bold guess about the incident: was he related to the explosion somehow?

The guess wasn’t without evidence either, on the contrary, there were many clues leading to it.

Why would the fake Gannett approach him and test him, eventually leading him to Donna Bar?

It was the only thing that Kieran couldn’t figure out why until now because it would seem totally unrelated to the incident.

If it wasn’t related, then did the fake Gannett play Kieran like he was some after meal joke?

Obviously, it was impossible.

Aside from the fake Gannett not being a humorous person, after Ximi Candy House’s fourth generation owner was killed and the explosion at Donna Bar, Kieran discarded the possibility.

Therefore, there must be a reason for the fake Gannett to approach him. Think about the time when he appeared!

When Kieran arranged the incidents he encountered since he entered the dungeon, the reason for the fake Gannett’s appearance was only related to one thing.

The Winchester House explosion case!

Kieran may seem to be the one caught in the explosion but the truth was, “he” was on the assailant’s side!

Which mean “he” himself had participated in the Winchester House explosion.

Although it might seem impossible, other than that explanation, Kieran couldn’t think of anything else.

Firstly, the fake Gannett should be the one behind the Winchester House’s explosion and also knew Kieran was one of the guests inside the hotel.

Given the circumstances, the fake Gannett had been approaching him carefully in a testing manner and not to kill off the sole survivor right away.

Which also meant Kieran and the fake Gannett were related!

At least they were collaborators on the Winchester House explosion.

Thinking about how the system calculated the time spent in the dungeon, it was evening when Kieran entered the dungeon at first but after that night, the system calculated it as a second day instead.

Then where did the entire day before the night go?

Kieran wouldn’t believe the system would be so obscure in this kind of arrangements, so he must have done something in the day under the system’s arrangement.

However, the things that he did in the day, the memories of his actions did not exist because of the difficulty that he was categorized in.

Therefore, the things that happened after that had gone beyond the fake Gannett’s expectations.

Kieran had lost his memories!

It caught the fake Gannett off guard and he became doubtful of him. That was why the fake Gannett would disguise himself as the real one to approach him, test him and arranged many other methods to deal with him right after the test.

However, because Kieran had killed one of the Twenty Hounds of the Elder Council, it made the other collaborator anxious and have other thoughts, thus failing on the verge of success.

Both of them were unwilling to face such failures, so they wanted to seize the final opportunity to risk it one last time.

As for what they were risking, it was the [Unknown Mystery Object] in Kieran’s bag!

That was the only thing that came into Kieran’s mind and also the only thing valuable enough to attract two mystical individuals to strike.

Of course, everything was just Kieran’s own theories and guesses, he would still need the two mystics in front him to verify some of the details.

For example, was either one of them skilled in using short knives or daggers? Or was an expert in explosives?

The verification process, however, was much easier than Kieran had expected.

Donna, the intel seller was delighted and started to explain ceaselessly.

“Your disguise is really too authentic! From buying the Winchester House to starting the business with Barney the Jackal, nothing has ever left your grasp. You used Brigal’s thieving case at Edland Museum and purposely leaked the info of his location, turning an easy thieving job into a murder and theft case that got all the headlines of the papers. Which forced Brigal to Barney, helping him to dispose of the stolen goods.”

“After that, while you leaked the information that the Dien Stone was within the stolen goods to some people, you also contacted us at Mecathy and Borjane Books, discussing how to get our hands on the Dien Stone and you also bought Ximi Candy House’s heirloom treasure, the potion that could permanently change your face. So when we began our operations, you immediately used the potion to change your face and pretended to lose your memories after we dealt with the scene at Winchester House.”

“But didn’t you think about the one big mistake that you’ve made? The greatest mistake that you’ve made was keeping the Dien Stone with you the whole time! Or did you really take me as a petty information broker. The information that I have on the Dien Stone allows me to sense Dien Stone in a certain range with my own methods!”

Donna’s sharp voice echoed the alleyway.

The entire sequence of events had started to become clear in Kieran’s mind but he continued to play coy.

“What are you talking about?” Kieran looked at Donna and the man beside her with a baffled face. His pretentious act infuriated the man.

“Still playing dumb eh? Although during the first time disguising as Gannett, you had deceived me, but now, do you think you can continue with your little pretenses?”

The man vanished from his spot as his grumble loudly.

Souu!

The wind sounded behind Kieran. He quickly tilted his body aside and a cold glaring dagger grazed his body.

Then, the wind sounded again behind him, followed by another dagger.

At the same time, the ground that Kieran was standing on started to tremble from further away.

The supposedly hard ground was waving like sea waters and more importantly, a powerful restraining force appeared on Kieran’s body, preventing him from dodging the second dagger.

Donna who was half squatting pressed her hands on the ground and mocked coldly at the immobilized Kieran.

“How can we not be prepared since you killed one of the Twenty Hounds?”

Puk!

As words echoed in his ears, the second dagger was plunged into Kieran’s back.