The Devil’s Cage

Days and weeks flew by like an arrow.

“Blade of the Daybreaker”, the Unique Title did cause a huge commotion in the big city but as Kieran refused to show himself, the matter quickly was quickly forgotten.

Some rumors even said that Kieran didn’t actually acquire the Unique Title, while some others spread the rumors of Broker having two Unique Titles as if it was the fact.

However, similar to Kieran, after the title dungeon [Blade of the Daybreaker], Broker didn’t show himself in the city anymore, as if he vanished from the game but those who really understood Broker knew it was just a temporary calm before the storm.

When Broker returned, his appearance would definitely shake the heavens and earth.

Every organization and faction was taking precautions carefully against that potential outcome, therefore the big city entered an unprecedented “peaceful period”.

Other than small squabbles between individuals, organizations and factions agreed to restrain their men without prior discussion, including Rachel’s and the guardians.

Both sides were holding back at the moment but all the veterans and high-rankers felt the anxiety of the calm before the storm.

Fisherman, J.Pearlman once again sent multiple invitations to Kieran, asking him to join Freedom Alliance.

In fact, not just Freedom Alliance, several more high-ranker organizations sent their invitations to Kieran, wanting him to join them, including the two groups that Rachel mentioned during their previous chat: Scorching City and Oath Calvary.

But all were rejected by Kieran without exception.

Strangers meant distrust.

Kieran didn’t want to spend more time and effort to get in contact with those useless organizations and people.

What he had now was enough for him.

Entrusting Lawless to sell the normal goods, he was able to set up a small selling session in Harvest Inn and for those high-value items, the small living room was also an ideal place, though there was a strange Wu around, it was still better than random strangers.

More so, after the trade with Wu, Kieran emptied his pockets. So for the rest of the time, Kieran didn’t step out of his room anymore as he trained his skills and familiarized himself with his equipment while waiting for the dungeon cooldown.

When Kieran received the notification telling him the cooldown was reset, he started his final check on his bag again.

After buying enough potions, munitions, and consumables, Kieran was left with 20K Points and 15 Skill Points after getting the profits from Lawless’ sales.

With the lack of Golden Skill Points, the few skills that Kieran had in mind to upgrade were put on hold for now and it somehow fueled his anticipation for the upcoming new dungeon.

Under the familiar light, words appeared in his vision again.

[Entering single player dungeon!]

[Dungeon difficulty: 7th dungeon]

[Background: This is a strange world, heroes and villains that exceed commoners exist and both sides were always at conflict for their respective ideals. You are an inexperienced young man who stepped into this world with an unrealistic fantasy, so “you” have paid the price…]

[Main Mission: Get minimal recognition within 6 weeks. (The higher the recognition, the higher the rating)]

[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 your seventh official dungeon. You can fail the Main Mission, but you will have to pay 700 Points as a penalty and your highest attributes will drop by 2 ranks. If your points are insufficient, the system will deduct from your equipment. If your equipment is insufficient, you will fail.]

…

The blinding light dispersed and when Kieran felt his feet on the ground, he was standing in a slightly broken alley.

The alley was very long and arrow, only two people could pass at a time and the garbage bin placed at the exit completely blocked it.

Similarly, it also blocked out people’s view of the alley.

At the deepest part of the alley where shadow enshrouded all, a body was lying down in a puddle of blood.

The body was facing down but the outfit and the physique caused Kieran to raise a brow.

The outfit was extremely similar to his temporarily altered looks and items.

The physique also closely resembled his as well.

Huuu!

After a deep breath, as he ignored the bloody stench that filled his nostrils, Kieran flipped the body over.

Despite the crown of the head being blasted off with a single shot, the remaining face was enough for Kieran to tell the body in front him shared almost 80% of his looks.

“So this is the price I paid? Realistic and cruel I see…”

Kieran exclaimed as he quickly searched the body.

He got a leather case, a cigar case with four cigars inside and the set equipment from the search and nothing else.

Kieran then touched the fatal wound on the body, inspecting the killing blow carefully.

“The hair, the skin at the back of his head have scald marks, means he was shot to death with a gun pointing at the back of his head. The splattered blood and brains mean he was shot right here but there are no footprints around…from the body or the killer…”

“Heroes and villains, that exceed common humans?”

Kieran muttered as he took another glance at the new dungeon background.

It seemed like extraordinary powers in this world were quite common to the people’s eye.

The body in front of Kieran was someone that exceeded common humans, so was the killer.

So if Kieran who had almost the same face as the dead person appeared in public, what would happen?

The answer was self-explanatory.

Potential ceaseless attacks one after another would frighten one off easily, but not Kieran.

He didn’t have an identity nor any memories in this dungeon world unless he planned to cover his face throughout this dungeon, otherwise the identity of the body in front him would be the best for him to adapt.

If it was another dungeon world, Kieran didn’t mind going the nomad way by choosing the former option but this dungeon world obviously had extraordinary powers existing in common public, if he were to cover his face throughout the dungeon, it might attract more attention and caused a bunch of unwanted troubles.

Kieran wasn’t a superhero who could wear a tight suit underneath his shirt, change his hairstyle and take away his spectacles to fool people.

Choosing to inherit the identity of the body in front of him would cause a series of predictable troubles while catching unwanted attention would cause a series of unknown ones.

Kieran chose the former option based on his habits.

He opened the leather case and found 3 hundred dollar bills and some coins together with a key and dozens of name cards of the same name.

The front side of the name card has “2567” written on it with bold fonts.

There was only the name on the card and it made it looked extremely clean. If it wasn’t for the poor quality name card and the printing error that made “2567”‘s “7” looked like “1” instead, it would definitely catch one’s attention.

Obviously, the printers of the name card worked roughly on this yet tried to imitate a really delicate look.

Fortunately, the back of the name card had an address written on it: 99th Smorewill Street.

After getting the intel he was searching for, Kieran raised the devil flame on his left hand.

Fooosh!

The devil flame then burned everything at the scene, including the body and the bloodstains around the walls, nothing was left behind.

After double checking for any other leftovers, Kieran strode out of the alley but before he walked around the garbage bin, it was toppled over.

A person that followed the toppled garbage bin, staggering to a fall in front of Kieran.