The Devil's Cage

The main entrance of Saint Brilliant High School.

The half-bald middle-aged man was hung over his neck. His suffocated face made him look extremely twisted in a bad way.

The first person who laid eyes on the body was frightened into a loud scream and the screams kept coming. Any other commoner who laid eyes on the body would scream as well.

People dreaded the things related to death or even death itself but there were definitely some exceptions.

Kieran arrived at the scene one minute after the first scream and when he saw the dean’s body being hung up, his face turned ugly.

The "identity liberation" plan that he formed included the dean as a crucial part but now given that the dean was dead, his plan failed before it even began.

It was not a memorable feeling, though Kieran was not too concerned about the failed plan.

More precisely, his ugly expression was definitely not about his premature plan, it was the fact that he was played!

The moment he saw the dean, he reacted to what happened.

The attack of the shattered glass last night seemed to have targeted everyone in the room but actually, its target was only the dean. Other than that, when the culprit noticed the unusual abilities that he possessed, the culprit purposely lured him away to the incineration house, using the soul of Ling to cloud his judgment.

Kieran wasn’t entirely sure how the culprit was related in what happened but he knew the culprit must be delighted after killing the dean smoothly, to the point that it was boasting its achievement.

Hanging up the body after killing it was quite a rare move, with the civilization level of the dungeon world, it would be considered barbaric.

Huuu!

Kieran took a deep breath, forcing himself to cool down. He knew being angry at this point wouldn’t do him any good.

"The culprit hung the body here just to boast about its achievement to me?"

After calming himself down, doubts came into his mind the first moment, trying to figure out the culprit’s motive. Based on what the culprit had done before and how it worked, the culprit shouldn’t be a reckless person.

So...

"Is it to scare a certain someone? Or deliver a message?" Kieran delved deeper into his thoughts.

Then, he quietly retreated from the gathering crowd, trying to look for any unusual points among the students.

Even though the possibility of the specific target that the culprit was after being in the crowd was extremely thin, it didn’t stop him from sizing up the crowd carefully.

’The devil is in the details.’ Kieran agreed a lot with the saying.

Even more so when he really noticed a certain clue from the crowd.

"The dean is dead!"

"Shhhhit!"

"Just like what the Occult Society had predicted!"

"The president of the Occult Society had predicted a week ago, saying that he saw the presence of death around the dean!"

"Sh*t! That’s scary!"

...

"The Occult Society?" The familiar term made Kieran squint his eyes.

He had heard the term yesterday back at the scene where the student jumped off the building.

The only different thing was, this time around he paid more attention to the term.

Seemed like he owed Occult Society a visit.

...

The death and how the dean died had caused quite the commotion in Saint Brilliant and because of the case, the school decided to close for the day.

All the teachers and students agreed to the suggestion as well.

The continuous death incidents had made the teachers nervous, as for the students...

Nervousness and fear did exist among them but every one of them couldn’t be happier for a surprise holiday, so they felt more delighted than scared.

Youth caused one to sigh, right?

Unfortunately, Kieran had passed that stage long ago. He had to become mature at an early stage of life causing him to lose the charms of the term.

Still, Kieran was delighted as well. Even if he couldn’t understand youth, he knew it would be more convenient for him now to investigate the Occult Society.

Kieran used his teacher’s identity to get the class location that the Occult Society used for its activities from the student affairs office. He then quickly shuttled across the school compound to make his way there.

Unlike the other societies in school, the Occult Society had their activity classroom in the old storeroom of the school’s gymnasium instead of the main academic building.

Kieran chose not to enter the gymnasium from the front door and after going around the handful of surveillance cameras in the school, he infiltrated the old storeroom through its window.

Surprisingly, there was someone present in the old storeroom and it even was someone he knew.

It was Kana. Yet after changing back into her school uniform, her unusual looks didn’t increase her student presence, instead, it gave out a more rebellious image.

When Kana easily beat down three to four male students that threw themselves at her and walked over step by step to the other female student in the storeroom, her rebellious image completely transformed into a school drama of "the bad student bullying the good student".

Kieran raised a brow over her actions and wanted to stop her.

He wasn’t really on the side of justice, just that he had seen the president of the Occult Society back at the student affairs office.

Tanya, a third-year student from the third class.

The picture was almost identical with her real person, a head of black hair and a pair of odd eyes the color of red and blue. Her facial features were delicate enough, just that she had the petite body that the picture couldn’t show.

A plain look at her figure couldn’t lead one to believe she was a high school student. That kind of body couldn’t even qualify as a middle schooler, at most an elementary student.

If it wasn’t for that pair of odd eyes, her petite body would cause a lot of misunderstandings but with the blue and red eyes on her, it gave her another layer of indescribable feeling.

Mysterious? Bewitching? A bit of both but not entirely correct.

It was a mixture of good and bad news for Kieran after he encountered so much seemingly correct but actually wrong incidents.

The good news was, he might be onto a new lead.

The bad news was, he might have to face more unknown elements.

Though just as Kieran wanted to enter with a flash, the scene before his eyes halted his movements.

"Listen to my call, comply to my will... Come back! From the kingdom of the dead!"

After a chant of an incantation of sorts, a giant figure appeared in the old storeroom under rays of light.

The figure had robust muscles and a strong body, a face of red with sharp teeth plus a head with horns of a goat, stabbing out of its crown. Giant bat-like wings on its back were flapping out layers of flames.

It was a devil! A real-life devil appeared before Kieran’s eyes.

Though, it would be convincing enough if the devil before Kieran had a similar presence to his but the phony devil has nothing.

Although it looked very real, after the little incident back at the teacher’s office, he knew what was happening and at the same time, Kana was not fooled by such a phantasmal image as well.

"You f**king trickster!"

Following the loud angry shout, the hot-tempered girl punched Tanya on her head.

After the punch, the petite girl who was still looking mysterious and hard to read suddenly covered her head and squatted down. She looked at Kana with teary eyes, yelling back at her loudly, "My myriad of armies from the other world will arrive soon! Kana, how dare you..."

Bang!

Before she could finish, Tanya’s head was smacked once more.

The pain shut her up but she kept glaring at Kana, muttering softly, something like "you boorish peasant! My myriad of armies will ram your home" and sorts.

Kieran was frozen when he saw the scene unfolding outside the old storeroom window.

Then, he facepalmed himself. An unknown awkward feeling assaulted his heart, causing him to barely able to see straight.

Yet, at the next moment, Kieran raised his head and fired his blade like gaze into the storeroom.