The Devil's Cage

"A trap!?"

Instinctively, such a thought bloomed in Kieran’s heart because the timing of the footsteps was too coincidental.

Promptly, Kieran tightened all his muscles and shrunk his body a little, like a jaguar ready to hunt its prey.

Just as he wanted to jump out, he stopped abruptly.

He heard someone disarming their sharp weapons, followed by a series of snores from someone deep asleep.

"What the...?" Kieran was stunned.

He carefully pushed open the secret door.

The snoring had gotten even clearer without the blocking, and he saw a three layer decker bed before him.

A dorm for soldiers!

Kieran inspected his surroundings with his head up, and after swiftly confirming the storage room was turned into a dorm, he sneaked in like a cat through the secret door.

After he came out, he carefully closed the secret door on the floor. The secret door with a palm’s thickness closed down on the passage below seamlessly; a simple look from outside couldn’t distinguish it from other parts of the ground; seemed like it was specially treated.

When Kieran snuck into the soldier’s dorm, he carefully inspected the place again.

It was around 40 square meters, but because of the three-layer bed, a total of sixty men were cramped inside.

The space between the beds only allowed one to pass after moving their body sideways.

The secret door was at a corner of the dorm, or else, with the compact placement of the three layer beds, the secret door would have been pressed down.

After feeling lucky in his heart and thanking Lady Luck, Kieran slowly made his way to the dorm entrance.

The sun was already half up, the light was dispelling the darkness, shedding its warm shine on Lightning Fortress that had been through a whole night of commotion.

The morning breeze blew along Herr Mountain ridges as it moved, blowing into the nameless valley and eventually Lightning Fortress, though the dense smell of blood was not washed away.

In fact, the bloody smell spread out as the wind blew.

Kieran who was standing behind the soldier dorm entrance and took a peek outside through the seam before going back inside the dorm.

The security outside was much more tighter than he thought. Every point of interest had Prairie soldiers guarding it. With his current look, if he were to step out of the dorm, he would be instantly noticed.

When the sun rose up high in the sky, there would be no shadows for Kieran to hide in because of the path carved out through the mountain walls.

"I only have two options now! One is to camouflage myself with some Prairie outfits and get along. Second is to wait for it to turn dark!"

After some thoughts, Kieran discarded the first option.

Although the system provided him aid in the common language of the dungeon world, it didn’t include the languages of the Prairies, so even if he had an outfit to match the bunch, he would be easily spotted as well.

More so, "borrowing" a outfit that was made out of clothes and hides from the Prairies was not an easy task.

The Prairie soldiers before him were sleeping with their clothes on. He was not confident enough to remove an outfit off one of them without startling the others.

There was only one alternative available, which was to kill everyone in the dorm!

The bloody smell was lingering outside, so he wouldn’t have to worry about the smell, but he wasn’t sure about their rotation in shifts.

When someone entered the dorm, everything would be hard to conceal, thus leading to a big commotion.

It would place his plans in utmost disadvantage.

Given that he still had sufficient time to spend, Kieran chose the more steady way to approach— wait for the night again, although it might provide the Prairie invaders a good amount of rest.

......

Time passed by seconds to minutes, the sun slid down from the sky and eventually set under the mountains.

During the 12 hours spent, the Prairie soldiers in the dorm rotated their shifts twice, once every six hours and another six more hours emptied out.

Just as Kieran had expected, the numbers of the Prairie invaders were not much.

When the soldiers that belonged to that dorm returned once more for a rest, Kieran left the secret passage.

After pushing open the door like he knew the place, he dived into the shadows within the paths and headed towards the target he had set early on.

Kieran was not slacking during the six hours that were spent during the rotation of shifts.

Although it was just a door seam, it was enough for him to inspect the area in details.

Then, comparing his memories from yesterday, it was not a hard task to locate the invaders’ leader.

Kieran obviously never learned anything about troop formation, but one thing was for sure. The identity and position decided their treatment and authority.

At both sides of the mountain walls, every point of interest had Prairie soldiers guarding that spot, though there were two points had the most soldiers.

A quick glance on the outside could tell that the number of soldiers guarding those two points were extremely unusual, given that they had limited manpower.

Using the darkness as cover, Kieran initially came to the first point with the concentrated guards on the mountain wall. He placed his backpack in the shadows and leaned his body against the wall, moving past each guard with his Transcendence level [Undercover].

After passing the guards, Kieran was moving silently like a cat to enter the room.

He was grateful that he had leveled [Undercover] to Transcendence level, granting himself exceptional hiding abilities in the shadows. Otherwise, he couldn’t have made it through the path with the guards.

Kieran gripped the handle of the door and slowly opened it, preventing the pivot and the frame from producing any noise. He then snuck inside quietly after the door was opened.

When he saw the huge war machine inside the room, he raised his brow and muttered "Bad Luck!". He chose the wrong spot out of the two choices.

He leaned his body back on the wall and wanted to retreat where he came from. But just as he was about to move, footsteps came from outside the door.

Kieran quickly moved behind the door, hiding himself behind it if the door was opened.

Moments later...

Tss Gak!

The door was opened straight up with a tooth numbing screech.

Two buffed men with a tan face but reddish cheeks walked in one after another.

Both of them were wearing the cloth and hide outfit of the Prairies, had some accessories on them and were armed with swords.

Though, the one who walked in first seemed to be a higher ranking one based on his accessories. Not only he was wearing gold, but red ambers and green emeralds were around his neck as well.

After the door was closed, both men started to converse. The men who was obviosly higher ranking than the others didn’t notice there were a pair of eyes watching them from beside the closed door.

"Hurry up! Before the other tribes arrive, we must understand how these war machines work! They will be Tashi Tribe’s biggest reward for this south journey!" The man in front said with a stern tone.

"Yes, tribe master!" The person behind bowed to his orders.

Crack! Crack!

Moments later, both their neck were snapped off. They didn’t know what happened till their last breath.

Kieran then dragged the two bodies around, wanting to leave them on a side in the room, but just as Kieran laid the bodies down, a signal arrow was fired out.

Souuuuu! Pang!

The loud bang broke the silence in the middle of the night instantly.

"Sh*t! I’ve been discovered!" Kieran was shocked.

Translator’s Thoughts

Dess Dess

I like the last part, he was like Oh Shit damn !