The Devil’s Cage

Kieran wouldn’t explain it to Mou though.

Unlike Ren who he had friendly relations with, Kieran and Mou’s relationship was strictly superior and subordinate.

Likewise, Kieran knew Mou’s appearance signified important matters, otherwise, he wouldn’t dare request a meeting.

So, Kieran went straight to the point.

“What is it?”

Kieran’s voice had obvious impatience and it made Mou, who was already nervous grow more anxious. Mou then took out a small box from his pocket.

The box was wooden and was only half a palm big.

“His Majesty Artitelgar sent over an item through Funeral Society’s secret channels, saying that it must be delivered to your hands directly.”

Mou lifted the box over his head.

“Great Swamp?”

Kieran was slightly surprised but he didn’t get up. He remained in his seat and opened his hand at the box.

[Vast Remnant Eye, Telekinesis] was activated.

The small box then flew into Kieran’s hand.

The box was clean and wasn’t locked.

But Kieran was sure no one would want to open a God’s item because no one knew what it held.

More precisely, no one knew if there were any other protective measures in the box.

But in fact?

It was just a normal box without any magical presence, no mythical runes or traps.

Inside the box was nothing precious either, all it held was a paper.

Kieran opened up the paper and saw—

Tel: 338822271

“…”

Kieran went silent.

A while later he slammed the paper on the table

“Is this a phone number?”

“Why the hell is this a freaking phone number?”

…

The bedchamber of the God of Forest City in the temple had been cleaned up and rearranged.

Kieran who had dinner was inside with a calm state of mind as he picked up the phone that the attendants delivered to him earlier.

Inside the bedchamber or even the entire temple, a product of technology was extremely rare.

The God of Forest City was the stubborn kind of person who showed nothing but disdain towards technology despite technology having unconsciously changed his city.

At least the temple was running on electricity.

Kieran then dialed the phone number on the paper.

After a little wait, Great Swamp’s voice came from the other side.

“Hi, 2567, good evening.”

“Hi, Great Swamp. Never thought the Gods would use phones now.”

“Do you know how to video chat? I think next time we can communicate through video chat instead,” said Kieran, with an indescribable complication in his words.

“Video chat?”

“The research department is still testing that right now, the signals aren’t that stable though, at least still far from the clarity of talking with voice but I think we can implement it soon. I’ll give you a phone with a video call function then.”

“Oh now that you’ve mentioned it, the research department is still inventing…”

Great Swamp didn’t noticed the complications in Kieran’s heart, instead he started to ramble. He only stopped when he noticed Kieran’s silence.

“2567?”

“2567?”

“Hello? Hello, hi, howdy?”

After asking, Great Swamp smacked his phone.

“Your phone is fine,” said Kieran.

“Great. I thought the phone was broken again. Every time I call others, there is always disruption in the middle…”

Great Swamp started another long session of nagging again, if the voice weren’t so different, Kieran might thought he was talking to his friend Lawless instead.

On top of that, Kieran realized Great Swamp on and off the phone were two completely different people, he didn’t show the usual mature and firm presence through the call.

Fortunately, Kieran was quite skilled in handling “naggers”.

“Is there anything? If not, I’m hanging up,” said Kieran directly.

Kieran was kind enough to not tell Great Swamp how common people would react and the right way to deal with a stranger’s phone call, especially when the stranger was a cheating psycho claiming to be God.

“Of course there is something!”

“You killed Leaf and Many right?”

Great Swamp finally moved to the main topic before he could give full expression on the view.

“Mhmm,” Kieran nodded.

After Hayden Ow was sent to Leaf and Many City, Kieran would naturally need Great Swamp’s assist, hence he wouldn’t lie.

“Not bad but did you think about what would happen next?”

Great Swamp’s tone sounded a little sarcastic.

“If a guy slaying a God and acquiring=== his powers as well as controll of his city was enough to cause a stir, I suppose after slaying three Gods and controlling three cities, in addition to the power that each city represents will bring more attempts to test the waters before many other group up one me?” Kiera replied with a questioning tone.

“Um, something like that but there is still a twist to things, like…”

Great Swamp automatically prolonged his tone, however Kieran, with his friend Lawless as reference, would never fall for it. He quickly stayed quiet and waited for a follow up instead.

Great Swamp who prolonged his tone for a few seconds stopped after he didn’t get any reply from Kieran. The conversation then fell into an awkward silence.

Throughout the silence, Kieran still didn’t speak, the atmosphere suddenly became more awkward but this was only so for Great Swamp.

As for Kieran, he was already used to the awkwardness.

“Like you and me teaming up! Forming an alliance!”

“No longer working together based on contract but forming a real alliance—you and I, back to back, covering each other like a real brotherhood!”

Great Swamp finally spoke two seconds later.

He seemed like he didn’t go through the awkwardness and continued his topic.

Since Great Swamp skipped the awkwardness, Kieran would too.

However, Kieran had doubts towards the alliance Great Swamp mentioned.

He wasn’t doubting Great Swamp’s intentions though.

With the existence of the special contract, Great Swamp was considered the existence that Kieran had to worry the least about in the current dungeon world.

But forming an alliance somehow conflicted with Kieran’s upcoming plans.

He didn’t need fear to stop those jealous parties from making their moves against him, what he wanted was them coming at him boldly and openly.

No one would complain about too many superior fodders right?

“An alliance okay but don’t make it public,” said Kieran after some thought.

“You little brat, you better be careful.”

“Leaf and Many are just shrimps and they left their cities, but some of the other guys are different.”

Great Swamp instantly knew what Kieran was trying to achieve and he quickly reminded him.

“Different?”

“Compared to you?”

“Not the current you but you after completing our promise and contract,” ask Kieran.

“Me at that “time”? They are incomparable! It’s like two different things.”

Great Swamp even laughed lightly.

His laughter was showing nothing but disdain towards the others, despite them all being Gods in the eyes of the commoners.

“Then what are we waiting for? When are we completing the contract?”

Kieran asked with a laugh.

“The sooner, the better,” said Great Swamp.