Named Kill
The blade surged through the darkness.
It drove straight toward Gilbert Graham’s massively developed, blood-red latissimus dorsi—the back of the man who stared at him like a goblin.
A strike delivered from behind against an utterly defenseless enemy.
On top of that, the once-per-day trait Blade in the Dark activated, guaranteeing a critical hit in close quarters. Even the lucky die that increased damage on attack rolled a six.
While complex dice calculations spun through his mind, Solomon’s actual movements were brutally simple.
And spectacular.
Shrrk!
The tip of the blade slid past the thick, armor-like crimson muscle.
It wasn’t just any blade. It was the Ghostwhale Bone Blade.
Solomon’s strike found the exact gap between the lats, slicing through the fascia, carving open the thick fibrous layer, and racing toward the pectoral muscle.
Smooth and practiced, like a surgeon who had spent his entire life holding a scalpel.
The seam between flesh and bone. The blade tore through muscle fibers, dismantled connective tissue, and in the same motion ripped apart the aortic branch.
As if to say that no matter how thick or sturdy the armor, it meant nothing against an attack that exploited its seams.
The impossible “gap in the armor” was pierced with surgical knowledge and execution that flowed together with terrifying smoothness.
Blood sprayed. An enormous fountain of it.
The destructively surging crimson geyser—high-pressure like a broken pump—was both a flashy combat effect and something far more meaningful.
It was irreversible bleeding damage. The thoracic aorta had been severed, and the high-pressure blood had nowhere to go but out.
Proof that he had suffered an unimaginable amount of “damage,” enough to cause this absurd level of hemorrhage.
Quite literally, the liquid of life was pouring out in torrents.
“!”
Even so, he didn’t die. He was still alive.
Gilbert moved. Before Solomon could even pull the Ghostwhale Bone Blade free from his back.
Whoooosh!
Still seated, Gilbert twisted his upper body backward and swung a back-spinning elbow loaded with destructive force.
It wasn’t exactly a surprise attack. At the same time, even after seeing it and realizing what it was, Solomon couldn’t dodge. It was simply too fast. This must be what people meant by “knowing you’re going to get hit but still getting hit.”
His head understood, but his body couldn’t keep up.
Thud!
Gilbert’s elbow slammed directly into Solomon’s abdomen. He’d managed to twist his torso at the last moment, but it wasn’t enough to avoid the blow. Solomon’s body lifted off the ground and smashed into the wall.
“Guhk!”
Crash!
The sound of a glass cultivation tank shattering was followed by something wet and slimy pouring over Solomon’s shoulder. He quickly pushed himself up and reset his stance.
‘Activate.’
There was no time to save his remaining cards. No—failing to use them from the start had been foolish.
He cast the spell immediately. Darkness descended across the entire area.
Curtain of Darkness
Tag — Level 2 Spell, Shadow Attribute
◈ Unfurls a curtain of darkness. All attacks made by allies and enemies within the area are treated as ambushes.
◈ Inside the curtain, both allies and enemies suffer reduced accuracy, but gain increased defense and evasion.
The effect was exactly as the name suggested. Inside the curtain, “hitting” became disadvantageous for everyone, while “defending and dodging” became advantageous.
Finally, every attack within the curtain was treated as an ambush.
A fair magic that granted both advantages and disadvantages equally to friend and foe alike.
However.
When the Veil family’s unique bloodline trait Shadow Bloodline was applied, the story changed completely.
Curtain Sovereign
◈ The caster does not suffer the disadvantageous penalty (reduced accuracy) inside the curtain.
◈ Hostile targets do not receive the advantageous bonus (increased defense and evasion) inside the curtain.
◈ Hostile attacks inside the curtain are not treated as ambushes.
The disadvantages belonged solely to the enemy. The advantages belonged solely to him.
In the darkness, Solomon’s eyes gleamed like those of a nocturnal predator.
He immediately leveled the Nightfall XR-10. The firing mode was, of course, full auto. He pulled the trigger and emptied all ten bolts from the cartridge.
‘……!’
The ten crossbow bolts that slammed into Gilbert’s upper body were as ineffective as arrows striking a shield. It was impossible to tell if they had done any real damage. The stopping power of ten bolts wasn’t even enough to halt his charge. Even after swapping the cartridge and unloading another ten, the result was the same.
‘What a monstrous bastard!’
Thanks to the Curtain of Darkness, even the automatic crossbow barrage treated as an ambush had no effect.
“You fuuuuucking…! Where did this trash crawl out from?!”
Gilbert rose to his feet and charged. It felt like a rhinoceros was barreling straight at him from point-blank range.
“You pathetic loser of society…!! To dare crawl up to someone like me—a victor of this society—without knowing your place!!”
But inside the magically shrouded curtain, the disadvantages belonged entirely to him.
Reduced accuracy.
The advantages belonged entirely to Solomon.
Increased defense and evasion.
All thanks to the blood of one of Guild City’s Five Great Families flowing through Solomon’s veins.
[Veil Family — Shadow Binders]
As a result, avoiding Gilbert’s movements wasn’t particularly difficult. Moreover, the man was already staggering from his earlier wound, clearly struggling to maintain his balance.
‘Proof that the wound is already deep.’
Gilbert’s attempts to locate Solomon in the darkness were utterly futile and hollow.
“Trash belongs in the trash can! Losers belong in the trash can…!!”
Whoooosh!
Just like his empty shouts, his wildly swinging fists were no exception.
Solomon flowed past the blow like a matador, immediately circling behind him. Straight to the spot where the irreversible fatal wound from the earlier ambush had been carved.
The Ghostwhale Bone Blade was still embedded there.
Shunk!
He gripped the hilt again and slashed down without hesitation.
This wasn’t the unconscious, godlike strike from before. This was deliberate—intentionally digging into the wound to inflict maximum pain.
That was more than enough.
Shrrraaak!
Another tearing strike landed on the already mangled wound. The blade didn’t stop there. Like driving in a wedge, he pulled the trigger of the Nightfall automatic crossbow, firing bolts directly into the torn gap.
“Kuaaaaaaaaagh!!”
Screaming in agony, Gilbert thrashed about. He couldn’t even think of resisting anymore and collapsed to his knees.
‘Winner my ass.’
A “real winner” was someone like that pig Roche, who could shove two giant cheeseburgers down his throat with both hands and still have a perfectly functioning pancreas.
Not some idiot who spent his whole life working, shut away in a lab, only to die with a hole in his chest.
Gilbert Graham died because he stayed awake too diligently while everyone else was asleep in the early morning. At least in Solomon’s opinion, that was the most idiotic cause of death in the world.
Thump!
With the final wedging strike, Gilbert finally collapsed. Onto the marble floor where blood and scarlet culture fluid had pooled like a lake.
The sound of a life that had stubbornly clung on finally snapping echoed out. The bastard had been disgustingly tenacious.
He had taken down an opponent he would never have been able to defeat in a fair fight. The voice ringing in his head was proof of that.
“Haa… haa…”
It certainly wasn’t an easy opponent…. Thanks to that, the lessons sink in deeper. Growth is accelerating. An immeasurable enlightenment that cannot be measured by experience points is being felt.
Did he level up? Expecting as much, Solomon caught his breath and waited for the next message.
Unfortunately, levels do not rise so easily.
However, perhaps thanks to his mastery at striking the back of people’s heads?
While standing atop a sea of overflowing blood, he turned a fight that could never be won fairly into victory…. That enlightenment has now sublimated into the trait Master of Ambush!
From now on, you really shouldn’t show your back to this person.
“……Who the hell are you mocking right now?”
He didn’t level up. Still, it wasn’t a completely fruitless fight. It happened occasionally. After winning an especially difficult battle, the Game Master would sometimes grant a specific skill or ability at their discretion.
Besides, he already knew the Master of Ambush trait.
It was a high-cost trait that required spending a full six trait points. He didn’t just “know” it.
Master of Ambush
: On a successful melee ambush, add +6 damage.
‘Because I was planning to learn it myself right away.’
Of course, he couldn’t learn a six-point high-cost trait immediately. That was something he had planned to do once his character was more established.
Not anymore.
Could the Game Master have known that and granted it on purpose? It was a question with no answer even if he thought about it.
Regardless, the trait itself was easy to understand. There wasn’t even a special die involved. It simply added six damage, no questions asked.
It wasn’t even like getting a free die roll. It was a guaranteed maximum roll of six. Even if the number six felt small, in the world of TRPGs, it was anything but.
Then what about in this world?
What exactly did a fixed damage of “6” mean? For that matter, what did damage of 1 even represent? He had no idea.
At least, not something he needed to think about right now.
“Haa.”
Gripping the hilt again, Solomon steadied his breathing. Only then did sensation begin to return to the area around his abdomen where he had been struck. His face twisted involuntarily.
Come to think of it, Gilbert’s attack must have received the same numerical bonuses.
‘I wonder how many ribs that broke.’
The pain itself was minor. Even though it hurt enough to kill, what worried him more than the pain was the depth of the wound.
A few broken ribs could be laughed off. But a wound deep enough to rupture organs and cause severe internal bleeding could not. For now, he had no choice but to trust in the medical standards of this world.
He had been wearing the Nightweaver Coat, woven with double-layered shock-absorbing material, and still ended up like this. He didn’t even want to imagine how deep the wound would have been without the gear.
In any game, good equipment was always worth it. Especially armor directly tied to survival.
‘Let’s get out of here first and think later.’
Besides, it wasn’t over yet.
‘It’s not over until it’s over.’
With that thought, Solomon swapped the cartridge on his Nightfall crossbow.
Click!
He replaced the ten-bolt cartridge and immediately pulled the trigger again. This time, he aimed at the aquatic monsters still bound in the restraint devices underground.
It wasn’t out of pity or anything. They were going to give him experience points.
He swept the remaining monsters clean with the automatic crossbow, then left the project room.
The recent fight must have caused quite a commotion. It wouldn’t be strange if someone had noticed the intruder. Fortunately, the corridors of the confidential sector were still wrapped in the same silence and darkness, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way.
And indeed, it didn’t.
“Over here…!!”
“It’s Director Gilbert’s room!”
Voices echoed from far away. They didn’t seem to have fully grasped the situation yet.
‘No time to waste.’
Instead of returning the way he came, Solomon cut across the confidential sector’s corridor.
Following the blueprint he had memorized, he passed through several sections until he reached a door leading outside.
Whoooosh!
The moment he opened the door, cold night wind brushed across his face. He glanced downward. The ground was terrifyingly far below.
‘It’s high.’
Solomon didn’t care. He hooked a grapple where it looked suitable and let out a long rope toward the ground. After tugging on it several times to make sure it wouldn’t slip, he began rappelling down.
The rope was far too short to reach the ground. There was no convenient landing spot within jumping distance either.
Even the nearest structure’s rooftop was at least several dozen meters away in any direction—up, down, left, or right.
A distance impossible to cover with parkour. At the same time, it was just within the range where Solomon could barely activate Shadow Imitation. The rope tied to the grapple had been prepared from the start to match that exact length.
He had already thoroughly studied the escape route and the activation range of his abilities based on height differences.
He had two Level 1 spell slots remaining.
‘Shadow Imitation. Position Swap.’
Without hesitation, Solomon created a shadow imitation and swapped positions.
The sinking sensation of falling toward the bottom of the night sky. It felt like riding a roller coaster.
Before he knew it, he was standing with both feet on the rooftop of an unnamed guild facility.
Behind him, the Biotech Guild’s fortress-like building towered against the night sky. The grapple and rope he had left behind dangled precariously in the dizzying void.
Urk.
Blood surged up his throat like reflux. The wounds around his ribs and internal organs throbbed. Solomon spat out the blood and kept moving. After a few steps, his balance wavered without warning.
Fortunately, he didn’t fall. He was still breathing. So he walked. One step. Then another.
This city was overflowing with illegal doctors who worked through the deep hours of the night for fixers. Solomon had already scouted several facilities in preparation for tonight’s job.
He could head straight to the underground medical facility in District 6 right in front of the Biotech Guild.
But the opponent was the Biotech Guild—the real power in this area. If they figured out the situation and unleashed pursuers in every direction, leaving his life in their hands here would be far too dangerous.
‘I need to at least get out of District 6.’
Ideally, he would use the “Door Room” at Hotel Snark, but unlike when leaving, “Doors” that could be used to return were extremely rare.
They weren’t spread out like bus stops all over Guild City.
At that moment, Solomon ran into two city guards—Sword Watch—patrolling the street in a pair.
“!”
The moment they saw him covered in blood, unmistakable hostility flashed in the Sword Watch’s eyes.
Solomon silently adjusted his grip on the hilt of his blade and placed a finger on the trigger of the Nightfall automatic crossbow with his other hand. A short, frozen standoff unfolded in icy silence.
“Ahem. Hm, ahem.”
“Cold night, isn’t it?”
“Y-yeah, it really is.”
Fortunately… the two Sword Watch members deliberately pretended not to see him and turned their heads. They acted as if nothing was wrong, exchanging utterly trivial conversation.
Solomon also chose not to seal their mouths and simply continued on his way. Until the very end, he kept his finger on the trigger—just in case he needed to pull it.
The streets of Guild City’s District 6, shrouded in the darkness of early dawn, were as quiet and peaceful as usual.