The Devil’s Cage

As usual, words and voices started to appear.

[Entering Single Player dungeon!]

[This Single Player dungeon is an Extra Dungeon!]

[Dungeon Difficulty: 2nd dungeon]

[The Failed Great Detective: In the eyes of the people, you as the great detective are dead because you covered your friend’s escape and died with the monster. Your grave stood behind the small hut of the night watcher in St. Paolo School. With your new name 2567, you have been traveling around for quite some time and now, you’ve come back again…]

[Main Mission: None]

[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.]

[Inspecting firearms and grenades… Weapons do not match the current year, damage reduced by 50%, handgun reloading speed +1 second, sniper reloading speed +30 seconds]

[This is an extra entry, you can only choose 3 equipment and items…]

[Detected 10-times Increase Cooldown Card’s effect still remains, unable to choose any pieces of equipment and items!]

[Note 1: This is an extra entry dungeon, you can only stay for a maximum of 12 weeks]

[Note 2: Dungeon will not fail but player can still die]

[Note 3: This is an extra entry dungeon, you will not acquire any items or trigger any events that will initiate a subsequent dungeon]

…

“Second dungeon difficulty? It calculated based on the special dungeon method?”

Kieran’s eyes had a slight sense of regret.

If it wasn’t the rule that the extra dungeon would not drop any equipment, with his current power level, he would have been able to rake in a huge amount of loot.

Even though the current dungeon world’s mystical realm had deteriorated, inheritances and legacies would not be altered by time.

One needed to know, there wasn’t just one Church of Dawn, the mystical faction, in [The Failed Great Detective]’s dungeon world. Based on Kieran’s knowledge, there was another Church of Light which was ten times stronger than the Church of Dawn, and one could only imagine what inner secrets it held!

Though Kieran knew what he was after, the [Knights of Dawn Body Tempering Art] advanced skill!

As for the others, Kieran couldn’t be bothered at the moment because he only had one chance.

He knew it was one of the aftereffects of using [Extra Dungeon Entry Scroll] when he saw Note 3 and when his gaze landed on ’10-times Increase Cooldown Card’s effect still remains, unable to choose any equipment and items’, his eyes turned cold rapidly.

His killer intent was erupting but he knew the overflow of killer intent would only affect the upcoming dungeon world.

“We will slowly clear our debts, Broker.”

After he muttered softly, he took in a deep breath habitually and started to adjust his form again.

Soon, 3 minutes flashed by, the familiar blinding light and loss of gravity appeared again.

When everything returned to normal, Kieran was standing on a street.

The gloomy sky was drizzling, the people on the streets were moving fast.

Horse wagons and antique cars roared through the wet streets.

The water puddles that were splashed up by the vehicles made the pedestrians, who didn’t dodge in time, curse out loud, but the wagons and cars drove away even faster.

No one wanted to look for trouble, especially under such gloomy weather.

The pedestrians were no exceptions either, after a few more phrases of greeting the driver’s mother, they continued on with hastened steps since they knew they wouldn’t get any realistic compensation from the drivers and commuters.

Kieran gazed across the road, he saw the police box and St. Paolo School behind it.

Inside the police box, the police officer on duty was standing straight as a stick, fulfilling his duty of blocking wagons and cars that wanted to enter the school.

Behind the police box though, St. Paolo looked even quieter under the gloomy drizzle, when a series of reading entered Kieran’s ears, the quiet didn’t break, instead, it added a deeper layer of tranquility.

“Duke Wayne’s death was covered up? Or some other particular methods were used?”

The normally operating school gave Kieran guesses.

Kieran didn’t have the slightest sympathy for that noble who was obsessed with gold and eventually died because of it, but because the family he apart of and the control of the city that his family had, Kieran dared not underestimate his influence.

As the leader of the political family that controlled almost half of the city, once he was dead, the influence that followed would not be small, it might be appropriate to consider the aftereffect as a storm but the scene before Kieran’s eyes told him everything with the city was normal.

There weren’t any cries of the stork that came with the whistle of the wind, neither were there any bloody storms that washed the streets, as though Duke Wayne’s death didn’t happen at all and in order to achieve something like this, it wasn’t an easy task.

Relating the current situation with that elderly knight’s style, Kieran had guessed in his heart.

The guesses drove him into St. Paolo with hastened steps and of course, in [Undercover] mode.

It was quite different than his first time infiltrating the place where he would still have to take notice of people’s gazes and had to move along with the light and shadow, now with Transcendence [Undercover], Kieran was almost invisible by utilizing the shadowy spots, slipping through right under the police officer’s sight.

St. Paolo didn’t change at all, Kieran easily evaded the patrol squad that was led by the St. Paolo’s security captain as if it was his backyard and directly headed to the deeper part of the campus.

The wooden hut didn’t change either but Guntherson wasn’t there.

The wooden hut was spotlessly clean, it seemed like someone had been cleaning the place from time to time but the cabinet that stored the food and rations was empty of its contents.

It also seemed like no one had been living here for a very long time.

“Guntherson left?”

The thought rose up in Kieran’s mind but the moment it came up, he rejected it.

Aside from Guntherson being Sister Moni’s guardian knight, the sole point of his feelings for her would be enough for him to never leave her side.

Of course, everything was brushed over by Guntherson, stating it was just a vow but who would believe that?

As long as one wasn’t a blind man, they would know what was going on between the two.

Likewise, it also clarified that something must have happened.

“Seems like Duke Wayne’s death wasn’t as tranquil as it looked.”

It was the only reason that Kieran could come up with explaining Guntherson’s absence, it also fit the elderly knight’s character and the worst case scenario.

However, Kieran needed to know more about the current situation.

Just as Kieran was about to seek out Sister Moni for further information, footsteps sounded.

Instinctively, Kieran stood in the shadows.

After a while, an elderly sister with a hand full of white flowers came into Kieran’s sight.

Her steps were slightly slow but didn’t pause as she went straight behind the hut.

There was a graveyard behind there but calling it a graveyard would be exaggerating because it only had a single gravestone.

‘The valiant and fearless fool’ was carved on the gravestone.

It was very irregular carving and it didn’t have a precise name, neither did it state the precise time nor the person who the gravestone was for.

A single gravestone stood behind the hut looking more like a joke than the real thing but Sister Moni’s stern attitude made it so one couldn’t laugh at all.

She placed the flowers in front of the gravestone and took out a cloth, wiping the gravestone and cleaning the area.

It was conscientious and meticulous yet filled with sadness.

“Bernadette’s glory will lead you into the path to the future, do not fret, do not feel helpless…”

Kieran’s expression turned complicated when he heard the sister’s prayers.

Although there was no exact name on the gravestone, seeing the background that the system provided, how could Kieran not know that gravestone was for him?

And from the way the words were carved in and the tone, the person who made it was no other than Guntherson.

“This really is…”

Kieran was ready to come out from the shadows since he couldn’t find a precise word to describe the scene.

The single gravestone in the graveyard was already a fact, Kieran couldn’t do anything to change it but at least he could dissuade Sister Moni from wasting her futile efforts.

Though, right at that moment, messy footsteps sounded, forcing Kieran to stop his own.

His eyes turned to the source of the footsteps and he saw Chief Officer John, with a heavy face.