The Devil’s Cage

John Dickson widened his mouth eerily.

As a spirit, although he maintained the look of a human, his organs were no longer human anymore, such as his mouth.

The edge of his mouth crossed his cheeks and reached his ear lobe, his long, thin tongue wriggling disgustingly, licking his upper lip.

Delicious!

Fear, as he expected, came from his prey, unlike those sourish prey that tasted like green apple which he hunted down when he was alive. This new prey in front of his eyes was a fatty piece of meat, or more accurately, a piece of fried meat showered in sugar!

It was eager to put this piece of meat into his mouth!

No! Not yet! It must be tastier! More fear! He ought to shower his prey with more fear!

The greedy John Dickson stared at Starbeck, raised his thick arm, and slowly reached out to touch Starbeck’s face with his finger.

“Little cutie, are you scared? Don’t be, you are scared because you don’t know me! We have time to get to know each other. I’ll slowly tear your flesh piece by piece and you will slowly become one with…”

‘Me’ failed to escape John Dickson’s freaky mouth because a blowtorch used for welding metal with extreme heat appeared above his head and…

Tsssst!

The blue flame from the blowtorch slashed over John Dickson’s body.

Starting from his head, John Dickson was split in half, but the flaming blowtorch did not stop there, further slicing John Dickson into a dozen pieces with a speed quicker than before.

The diced up body slowly vaporized and disintegrated, even the bigger chunks starting to fade.

Death! John Dickson sensed death, again, as a spirit.

Death robbed his courage and struck terror in his core.

“NOOOO!”

The scream from his soul echoed in the restaurant and clearly entered Kieran’s ears.

Kieran looked at John Dickson coldly, turning the blowtorch, which he bought from the supermarket in the afternoon, to its maximum setting and pointing it at the remaining pieces.

Tsssst!

The blue flame torched the biggest chunk and turned it into nothing.

“Let’s talk! Let’s talk! I have a lot of savings, I can give you all of them! Spare me, I won’t trouble you guys anymore!”

John Dickson’s pleading voice sounded endlessly, but Kieran turned a deaf ear and continued to torch his spirit body.

When the last big chunk of body was torched, John Dickson stopped begging and controlled the last tiny piece, struggling to wriggle away but in the end, it was engulfed in blue flames.

After John Dickson was completely burned off, Kieran heaved a breath of relieve.

It was easier than he thought!

Other than the carelessness, Starbeck took the credit for the successful kill.

Kieran looked at Starbeck.

The mimosa sat down with a pale face, panting heavily like an ox and after he noticed Kieran’s gaze, he forced a smile.

Kieran frowned and walked over.

“I said don’t force yourself.”

“I’m not forcing myself, I just want to help you,” Starbeck said with his dry voice.

The dryness in his throat was because he was overly frightened.

From the moment he heard from Kieran that the dead John Dickson might come back for revenge, Starbeck had been preparing to face the persistent dead soul.

However, facing the dead was really a difficult hurdle for him to overcome.

Even though he told himself countless times to be brave, when it was down to the real deal, Starbeck couldn’t move a muscle.

He couldn’t even utter a complete word, let alone those lines that he had prepared to stall John Dickson.

If it wasn’t because of it’s carelessness after becoming dead, they might have failed this attempt.

‘I’m too useless…’

Starbeck looked down depressingly.

Once he thought about how he was the one who suggested he be the ‘bait’, Starbeck’s embarrassment drowned him and he averted Kieran’s gaze.

A hand with a cup of water came into his sight.

Starbeck looked at Kieran blankly.

“Drink some water, you’ll feel better,” Kieran gave Starbeck the cup of water.

“Em.”

Starbeck nodded, taking the cup of water and Kieran turning around outside the bar counter.

He didn’t rant or complain, neither was he angry.

Truth be told, Starbeck did a good job already.

Kieran expected Starbeck’s performance from the start, therefore he had prepared a backup plan to compensate for the loss.

All he needed was for Starbeck to stand still, it’d be fine if he sat on the chair or ground should his legs turn to jelly.

Kieran was there to handle the situation, and he would do his best, just like what he did next.

The first customer last night, the wife that John Dickson killed, and the lady who ultimately killed John Dickson appeared in front of the restaurant again.

The street lamp flickered again.

Amy, who was unconscious beside her, moaned in discomfort.

Kieran glanced at Amy and shifted his attention to the lady.

He was much more concerned about this lady than the unlucky Amy.

“H-How did you find out?” the lady asked without moving her steps.

Kieran didn’t speak, pointing to her feet instead.

The lady was stunned and looked down at the unconscious Amy, and then her own feet after she reacted properly.

“S-Shadow! I don’t have a shadow!” she said in surprise.

So what if she borrowed Amy’s looks? Without a shadow, anyone would notice if they were careful enough.

“T-Thank you,” she thanked Kieran again.

Unlike the previous gratitude, this time she bowed officially and after she bowed, her body disintegrated into white spots, like the lights of a firefly, slowly floating away into the sky and ultimately becoming nothing.

Kieran stared at the direction where she vanished into, shock flashing over his eyes.

He wasn’t surprised because of the disintegration, he had been through a lot and it tempered his nerves as hard as steel, the little spots like this would never incite surprise in him.

The surprising thing was the weakened Origin Forces in his body received a little bit of enhancement, although it was weak!

The weakened Origin Forces were still similarly weak, before and after the enhancement, but he clearly felt it.

After he came into this dungeon world, Kieran had been working tirelessly to try to free his Origin Forces, but it was useless until now.

The meditation, breathing technique of [Knights of Dawn Body Tempering Art], and [Knights of Plague Body Tempering Art] were useless against breaking free from the suppression, even the Devil, Cardinal Sins, and Saint Thorns from his heart did not react to anything.

The Origin Forces were still in his body, he could still feel it and they were still working, but at a minimal level. The suppression power was too strong, to the point that he felt like he was pressed down into a valley by a mountain. He couldn’t even budge.

Kieran’s initial thought forced him to give up, with his weakened Origin Forces, he couldn’t have done anything useful, let alone breaking free from the suppression.

But that was before, and now?

Kieran’s squinted eyes shone brightly.

He looked at the faraway night sky once more.

The firefly light vanished, leaving only the stars hanging over the night sky, but unlike before, Kieran’s eyes on the sky became more meaningful.

“If my guess is correct…”

Realization made him return to the bar counter.

Starbeck, who had calmed down, was still too embarrassed to look at Kieran, but after awhile, when he realized Kieran was reading newspaper, he wasn’t even mad. Starbeck heaved a breath of relief.

A rather cold night breeze entered the restaurant.

Starbeck tied his apron tighter, serving another bowl of warm chicken soup beside Kieran and then walking to the entrance.

Amy curled up under the streetlamp, which had returned to normal.

Starbeck slightly hesitated at the curled up Amy. He wasn’t that cold-hearted to leave her at the roadside, so in the end, he dragged Amy back into the restaurant.

Bringing her back into shelter was the best he did, but she’d sleep on the floor.

A chair? An extra bowl of chicken soup? Or a blanket?

Impossible.

The door was closed, Starbeck put up the ‘Open’ sign at the window, and made sure it was clear from the outside before he went back to the kitchen.

Time flew as Kieran immersed himself in reading.

More than an hour later, when the clock struck midnight, Amy moaned and woke up from the floor.

She was shocked when she opened her eyes. When she realized her clothes were intact and she was in a familiar place with the lights on, she heaved a breath of relief.

However, memories began to come afloat in her mind and it froze her body. She saw ‘herself’ earlier, a version of ‘herself’ that she was disgusted and afraid of.

Then?

Her ‘other self’ grinned at her and she lost consciousness.

When she woke up, she found herself in this restaurant again.

What happened?

Amy slowly stood up by holding onto the wall. Looking at the young owner who was reading the newspaper behind the bar counter, she felt the young owner was somehow related to the freaky encounter earlier but… those were just her feelings.

She couldn’t even tell if the encounter was a real one. Amy went blank for quite a while before she asked, “What happened just now?”

“Just now?” Kieran looked at her with confusion.

“Yeah, just now, I left angrily…”

“You did not. You ran to the door angrily and then came back, unwilling to submit to the fact, you slammed the table and bought another bowl of soup. You tried to prove that I cheated you out of your money, but you drank 3 bowls in one go. Meaning my brother’s cooking is really not bad.”

Kieran pointed at the three stacked up empty bowls.

“Then how did I pass out?” Amy looked at Kieran in doubt.

“After the soup, you asked for alcohol, but I don’t sell any here. I warned you but you went on a frenzy and found my collection of good whiskey. You thought I was lying to you so you finished all my fruit whiskey, which tare very valuable, before I could explain and stop you. Then you passed out on the floor,” Kieran explained carefully.

“Is that so?” Amy was dubious, shaking her heavy head but somehow feeling as if Kieran made sense.

She really could do something like that. She was stunned for almost 20 seconds before more thoughts came to her mind.

“Why did you let me sleep on the floor?” Amy glared at Kieran, questioning his actions.

“What do you think I should do to a person that I don’t like? If you’ve paid for the soup and the whiskey you finished, I’d throw you outside on the road,” Kieran put his newspaper down and returned the question.

Amy was rendered speechless. She knew she wasn’t likable, so she had no friends at all, neither man or woman.

Although she had some acquaintances for a short period of time, as time went by and their relationship deepened, her acquaintances would leave her, like last night.

Once she thought about last night, she stomped on the floor angrily. She had try so hard to control herself, yet the bastard didn’t know how to appreciate her.

‘Hmph! Man are all pigs!’

Amy turned around and wanted to leave.

“Wait.”

The voice from behind her stopped her.

She turned around and saw Kieran with his hand out at her, she grunted arrogantly.

“You may have a decent temperament and a lot of girls may fall for you, but you are not my type and I won’t leave my phone number to a mere restaurant owner.”

“I also don’t want a drunkard’s phone number, but even a drunkard should learn to pay for her own spendings,” Kieran nodded.

Amy got stunned again, embarrassment filling her face as she asked in a shy voice, “How much?”

“300. Like I said before, the price is to set off of your beauty, everything is ten fold for you only. As for the whiskey, they are valuable but I don’t sell them so consider them a gift,” Kieran explained the reason behind the price.

“You evil merchant!” Amy looked at Kieran with gnashing teeth and Kieran pointed at the camera calmly.

“May your restaurant prosper!”

Amy took out three big notes and slammed them on the bar counter before leaving angrily.

“Thank you very much and be careful out there at night.”

Kieran received the notes, checking them for their validity before putting them into the money box.

He then sat back into his chair and started to arrange the information.

The dead in this world looked the same as when they were alive and had a very similar personality.

Could they rekindle a part of their memory through something? Or was there some other special trait that they could ‘borrow’?

Kieran frowned at the scene where John Dickson broke out from Amy’s skin.

The dead in this world were unlike the dead that he knew off in other worlds, even the recently dead John Dickson. It was very cumbersome to deal with.

Fortunately, they still shared the same weaknesses as their other counterparts, just not that obvious.

Based on what Kieran knew about the dead, his blowtorch should be able to turn them into ashes instantly, wandering souls to evil spirits included. However, despite John Dickson being sliced up into a dozen pieces, although his mobility was robbed, he was still somehow ‘alive’, and it was impossible in Kieran’s knowledge.

In Kieran’s knowledge, even the powerful evil spirit could barely survive such an attack, let alone the recently dead.

Those who could survive such an attack were considered blessed by Lady Luck cand John Dickson was surely not one.

John Dickson had nothing special kept in his hotel also—Kieran was very certain because he checked the hotel from top to bottom more than once.

Other than John Dickson, there was his wife, who also ended up as a dead soul.

Connecting all the dots together, Kieran came up with the only reasonable explanation.

“A dungeon world that benefits the ghost and spirits?” Kieran wondered.

At the same time, he solidified the guesses he had earlier.

While that was going on in his mind, a casual knock happened on the door.

Knock, Knock, Knock.