The Devil’s Cage

Quiet!

Everything went quiet!

Whether it was Senile, Leonard, the invigilators who stood in front of Kieran, or the freshmen in the buses, every single one of them widened their eyes at Kieran.

Especially those freshmen in the buses who still had doubts, figuring out the proper uses of the gold and silver keys. They started to doubt their own existence.

What happened?

‘Didn’t the exam just start?

‘How come someone passed it so fast?

‘The girl in his hands is the mole?

‘Are we even taking the same test?’

Questions, doubts and messy thoughts came afloat in the freshmen’s minds.

Some of the smarter ones even ran to the bus doors, trying to kick them down using brute force.

Bang!

A heavy noise later, the doors not only didn’t even budge, but the students fell backward, holding their feet and crying in pain.

However, this particular move did not serve as a warning to the others. Instead, many of the freshmen’s eyes shone, and they started to run towards the windows.

‘The door is sturdy, but the glass window shouldn’t be that sturdy, right?’

With that thought lingering in their heads, the freshmen started to punch and kick the windows, but at the very next moment, they held their fists and feet in pain, cries resounding in succession.

“Specially-made bulletproof glass!”

The rest of the freshmen gasped and stopped their futile attempts.

They knew that with their strength and no tools, they could never break the glass.

Then, everyone shifted their attention back to Kieran outside the bus.

They looked at him in his black windcoat and started to wonder how much power he kept underneath, but they were more impressed by Kieran’s wisdom!

Finding the mole within such a short time was definitely not something a common man could do.

When strength and wisdom converged in a single person, his charms would be overflowing, and a lot of the freshmen started to look at Kieran differently.

They looked nothing like their previous selves when looking at Kieran in the student affairs office.

Humans, animals whose minds were constantly changing.

Senile saw everything and sighed in his heart, but Leonard beside him didn’t think about the other freshmen, as he was more concerned about Kieran’s performance.

“The First Seat of this year has been decided this fast?!”

With such exclamation in his mind, Leonard looked at Senile, and Senile at him. He then took a step forward and asked in a serious tone, “How did you realize Joey is the mole?”

“She is the mole?”

When Kieran heard what Leonard said, he pulled the girl in the jersey up to his surprised face to have a good look.

Her face was very common in his point of view, and he wouldn’t remember it even with an extra glance. Kieran threw her beside his feet.

Bang!

The girl in the jersey who was knocked out cold by Kieran’s slap was thrown to the ground. She moaned in pain, but that didn’t wake her up.

Kieran’s slap had obviously inflicted quite the damage on her.

“What do you mean?”

Everyone was shocked by Kieran’s question, which was an answer. They looked at him in confusion, but on the other hand, Leonard and Senile had figured out what he meant, and both their faces started to twitch.

“Didn’t the rules say to find the mole within three hours? I am sure that I am not the mole, so… Can’t I pass by taking out everyone else?” Kieran said calmly.

Quiet! Everyone plummeted into silence again, utterly shocked by Kieran’s explanation, but… after some thought, it made sense!

If one is sure that he or she isn’t the mole, and the mole is hiding in the crowd, then couldn’t he or she pass by taking out everyone else?

The thought bloomed in the hearts of those freshmen who assumed their strength was decent.

They started to size up the others around them with a weird gaze.

Right away, the atmosphere in the buses felt strange.

“Then why are you carrying Joey out?” Senile, unwilling to submit to the answer, asked.

He didn’t believe what Kiera just said was his true thoughts, there must be something else! Kieran had to have noticed some details in order to realize that she was the mole!

“I slapped her, she flew towards the bomb, I grabbed her along the way, that’s it. So where’s the dinner?”

Kieran explained simply and then asked about the thing… the food he was so concerned about.

Along the way?

Senile widened his eyes further.

Although he didn’t want to believe in coincidence, he didn’t further linger on the topic.

He knew the special freshman would not tell him the details of how he passed the test.

But…

‘You think you can get away with that? The bus has hidden cameras!’

“The welcoming dinner will be held in the temporary freshmen welcoming hall, the E5 teaching building. You can wait for the other students to…”

“No, enjoy the food while it’s fresh. It shouldn’t be waited upon.”

Kieran interrupted Senile’s words and turned around to the freshmen welcoming hall—there was a map of Theorate beside the field, which Kieran remembered with a single glance.

Looking at Kieran’s swift exit, Senile heaved a deep sigh.

“We screwed up this time,” he said.

Leonard did not reply, as he had placed his attention on the buses, where the other freshmen were engaged in messy fights.

A few seconds later, Leonard laughed bitterly in a rough voice.

“This round of examination is a complete failure.”

Unlike the first round, which tested the observation skills and courage of the freshmen, the second round was originally going to test their wits and ability to improvise, but… it failed miserably.

“Well, we do have some results though.”

Senile walked towards the bus that Kieran came from.

As he stepped on to the bus, Senile saw the unconscious shy boy and the other one with glasses and headphones. Both of them were sprawled on the little pathway of the bus like scattered trash, and the glasses of the boy with the headphones were shattered into pieces.

Senile, however, did not care about the two freshmen as he took out the hidden camera on the ceiling and played it eagerly.

Then… Senile was stunned on the spot.

The screen showed Kieran rising all of a sudden and knocking out the shy boy and the boy with glasses as fast as a clap of thunder. Joey, the girl in a jersey, was slapped and sent flying towards the bomb. Kieran grabbed her along the way before he kicked the door open.

Everything happened just as Kieran said.

After replaying the same footage a dozen more times, Senile still did not see Kieran observing or judging the situation throughout the process. He really went in rough and rashly!

“Seems like we’ve welcomed an unusual fella!” Leonard laughed bitterly.

“Hope there won’t be some big trouble,” Senile said in a muffled voice.

Then…

KABOOM!

A loud explosion entered the two examiners’ ears. Both of them stood up and turned to the source of the explosion: E5 teaching building!

The welcoming hall for this year’s freshmen!

It was also where Kieran had gone to!