The Weapon Modification Ticket
The room smelled of chemicals and steam.
Solomon’s eyes snapped open on their own.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
A deliberately casual voice greeted him. His mind was still foggy. All around him, magitech devices hissed and vented steam, the distilled essence of arcane engineering. The air stung with the sharp bite of disinfectants.
“I stitched the major organs back together. Tied off the arteries that were spraying like fountains, too. Spleen, pancreas… you really don’t want the full list of what burst and how I fixed it, do you?”
Ignoring the doctor’s indifferent tone, Solomon examined himself. The body that should have been drenched in blood was clean. The fresh bandages showed not a single crimson spot.
“How long was I out?”
“Three days.”
“!”
Alarmed, Solomon sat up. Fresh blood immediately soaked through the abdominal wrap. Pain surged again, hot and vicious.
“Didn’t you hear me say I tied off the gushing arteries? Look, it’s leaking again!”
The doctor clicked his tongue in irritation.
“Plenty of lunatics chop off their own limbs for top-grade prosthetics, but you’re the first idiot I’ve seen who detonates his own organs just to install clockwork replacements! Still, if it bursts again, come see me. I’ll introduce you to a decent chop shop.”
The speaker was a middle-aged man with gray-streaked hair.
“This place…”
“Where else? The best VIP ward in District 5.”
Only then did the memories click. After the chaos in District 6 with the Biotech Guild, he had barely negotiated his way into this back-alley clinic in District 5.
After all, Hotel Snark didn’t exactly offer emergency medical service.
“So, you’ve seen my handiwork. Drop by whenever your organs decide to redecorate. Looks like that’ll be often.”
“I’m moved to tears,” Solomon muttered dryly.
He accepted the packet of unidentified medicine from the doctor and left the facility without another word.
Fortunately, his clothes had been laundered spotless. His gear was untouched as well—even the Ghost Whale Bone Blade, worth well over a hundred million krona. Its value was enough to tempt even the most disciplined.
Solomon slid the Nightfall Auto Crossbow into his quick-loader belt and shrugged on the Nightweaver Coat.
“Nice coat. Weartech, right?” the doctor remarked, as if commenting on the weather.
Solomon gave a silent nod.
“To end up with your guts pulped like that while wearing something that good… did a main battle tank run you over?”
“…Close enough.”
It wasn’t far from the truth. Solomon had just finished driving a blade into the back of that very “tank.”
He made a mental note to thank Maya later.
Regardless, Gilbert Graham was dead. And Solomon’s work was far from finished.
The low-ranking elder of the Sewer Magic Tower.
Compared to a monster like Gilbert Graham, the elder barely qualified as a task.
In truth, eliminating the low-ranking elder wasn’t even worthy of being called “work.”
Three days after killing Gilbert Graham, Solomon returned to Hotel Snark. The familiar zombie hotelier approached him immediately.
“Master Solomon, someone is waiting for you in the tea lounge.”
At first he assumed it was the Faceless One.
It wasn’t.
“It is Lord Bawry, master of the Sewer Magic Tower.”
“What?”
“Lord Bawry has requested an audience. Shall I convey your refusal?”
“…No. I’ll see him myself.”
“Understood.”
Lord Bawry, master of the Sewer Magic Tower.
As Solomon drew near the tea lounge, a stench so foul it turned his stomach saturated the air. It wasn’t the rot of corpses. It was something worse.
A stench so vile that the sewers of the lower districts seemed almost fragrant—like the very bottom of a cesspit.
He learned today that there were degrees of nausea, and that growing accustomed to one horror didn’t prepare you for the next.
The man was already there.
“!”
Black skin. Shaved head. Every inch of him—from scalp to toes—was covered in dangling piercings.
Nose, lips, ears, tongue… even his eyeballs had been studded with bead piercings that glittered like pearls.
A man whose grotesqueness defied simple description.
“Whoa!”
“…”
“I heard one of our idiots committed an unforgivable rudeness.”
The man known as Lord Bawry of the Sewer Magic Tower spoke.
“On behalf of the entire Sewer Magic Tower—including you and the one ‘above’ you—I offer my sincere apology.”
“An apology?”
“Indeed. Because…”
His voice was surprisingly polite, completely at odds with his appearance. Then—
“The bastards under me are hopeless pieces of sewer trash!!”
He shot to his feet, roaring. Even the jaded fixers nearby glanced over in surprise.
“No matter how many times I warned them!! Not to cause trouble!! They let it go in one ear and out the other! I knew it! I knew these idiot bastards would pull something like this!!”
“…”
Lord Bawry’s face flushed purple as he screamed.
Whatever else he was, the man ruled an entire magic tower. Even if it was the sewer tower, that fact remained. Still, Solomon kept his expression neutral.
“You think a few words will be enough to settle this?”
“Oh my god, oh my god!! Of course not! Absolutely not!!”
Lord Bawry laughed, the stench of a lifelong vagrant clinging to him like old garbage.
“Yo, my bro. Like I said, I came here to show my sincerity.”
“Sincerity.”
“That idiot you were planning to handle—damn it! Since things turned out this way, I bear some responsibility too.”
Whether the man was actually insane or not was beside the point. One thing was clear: he was no fool.
“So you came to take credit for cutting off a tail that was going to be severed anyway?”
“No way!”
Lord Bawry laughed and shook his head.
“I’m a real man. And a ‘real man’ knows how to repay a real debt!”
“…What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Southern 7th block of Blackwater Port. Pier 17. There’s a 20-foot black cargo container waiting.”
He held out a brass clockwork device that resembled a pocket watch.
“A real man’s real sincerity is inside! I mean it—this is the genuine article!”
It wasn’t hard to guess it was a key.
Rolling dice across a table and advancing numbers was one thing. Driving a real blade into a living person’s back was another.
You never truly understood the difference until you did it.
Just like you couldn’t know what was inside a box until you opened it.
The cargo container before Solomon now was exactly that kind of mystery.
A real man’s real sincerity…
Southern 7th block, Blackwater Port. Pier 17.
The sea breeze carried a faint salty tang. Just as Lord Bawry had said, a lone cargo container sat in the corner of the dock. Nothing else was present.
Brass locks in hexagonal formation sealed the container tight. Solomon scanned the surroundings, then inserted the key. Springs and gears meshed with a precise click.
The mechanism unfolded like a camera aperture—multiple metal blades rotating 360 degrees in perfect synchronization.
Inside was the target.
The low-ranking elder of the Sewer Magic Tower.
More precisely, his severed head resting atop a heavy tower of bundled cash.
The head had been neatly tied with a pink ribbon.
A handwritten pink card accompanied it.
How much is all this worth?
The stack of money bundles measured roughly half a meter in every dimension. It was more than enough to qualify as genuine sincerity.
Carrying this back is going to be a pain.
They had even provided the lock—perhaps suggesting he use the container as a makeshift safe.
Solomon turned toward the rest of the body.
Crows…?
A sizable flock of crows was already pecking at the corpse, as if they had been placed there from the start. Enough time had passed that they had devoured the internal organs completely, exposing white bone.
“Caw.”
One crow noticed Solomon, flew over, and landed on his shoulder. Something glinted in its beak.
A bracelet?
Solomon accepted it silently. At first glance it was an unremarkable black bracelet. But he immediately sensed the flow of magical power within it.
An accessory.
This was a game world. Equipment wasn’t limited to weapons and coats.
At minimum, a magic item.
Still, without knowing its rarity, performance, or effects—and with no guarantee it wasn’t cursed—equipping it blindly seemed reckless.
That was when he felt it.
Someone’s coming.
A presence approached from nearby. Not a trap. The figure made no attempt to hide and walked openly into view.
“You have completed the request, Master Solomon.”
“The elf from before…”
“My apologies for the late introduction. My name is Yuria.”
An elf wearing a monocle and a crisp black business suit. She was the associate of the Faceless One he had spoken with at Hotel Snark. Solomon was already thoroughly sick of the listening device planted in his head.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I saw it in a dream.”
“…?”
Yuria answered without a trace of embarrassment.
“By the way, it is perfectly safe to wear that bracelet.”
She spoke as if she had read his mind.
“In a city like this, one can never have too many eyes and ears.”
“Eyes and ears?”
“It is the Black Bird Spirit Bracelet. They may resemble ordinary birds, but they are dark spirits capable of far more.”
“Dark spirits…”
Solomon expressed his thanks and equipped the bracelet.
Flap!
The crows that had been feasting on the corpse took flight in unison. The moment they rose, they vanished completely.
Where did they go?
A few black feathers drifted down, melting like snow the instant they touched the ground. Solomon instinctively understood.
They had returned to the bracelet.
Definitely not ordinary crows.
“It will take some time to grow accustomed to them,” Yuria said. “They are not easy to command.”
“…I’ll manage.”
“What do you intend to do with Lord Bawry’s sincerity over there?”
Yuria turned her gaze to the towering stack of cash.
“…Good question.”
“Shylock Bank offers secret business accounts exclusively for Hotel Snark guests.”
“A secret fixer account?”
“Yes. Simply mention Hotel Snark when you arrive.”
She continued smoothly.
“For your future endeavors, using that bank would be wise.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Ah, and this is a separate reward from me for completing the request.”
Before Solomon could fully process everything he had gained, Yuria spoke again.
“It is a special modification ticket for auto crossbows, usable at the Deadlock Guild’s weapon workshop.”
“…You people really hand out a lot, don’t you?”
“It is bound by a geas, so there is no risk of default.”
A ticket that granted special modification rights from such notoriously inflexible craftsmen without question or negotiation.
“Before your next request, please use it on the Nightfall Auto Crossbow you currently carry. It will prove quite useful in many ways.”
“…Next request?”
“Yes. Whether you accept it is entirely up to you, Master Solomon.”
The monocled elf answered calmly.
“I am merely a broker delivering an offer. Of course…”
So she was a criminal broker like Roche. Hardly surprising.
“It is somewhat embarrassing to say, but opportunities to receive requests from me are not common.”
She spoke the word “luck” without blinking.
“Can I hear the details in advance?”
“Unfortunately, that is not possible.”
“…And the reward?”
“My rewards are always the same.”
Always the same. Was she referring to the weapon modification ticket she had just given him?
“What the client needs most.”
“You’re saying I needed this ticket?”
“Yes.”
Yuria nodded, her monocle flashing.
“I don’t recall ever thinking I needed one.”
“I did not say you needed it now.”
“…Are you running a fortune-telling business on the side?”
“It is currently open for business.”
Solomon fell silent, utterly dumbfounded.
“I’ll take the request.”
“Excellent. We can discuss the rest at the hotel.”
“…What about the head, the leftovers, and the cash?”
“I will send someone from the hotel to handle it later.”
With that, Yuria turned away. Her golden hair swayed against the black business suit, revealing the pale nape of her neck and the pointed ears characteristic of elves.
Solomon followed silently.
The cash bundles, the Black Bird Spirit Bracelet, the Deadlock Guild’s auto crossbow modification ticket…
Not to mention the “Master of Ambush” trait he had gained from defeating Gilbert Graham that day.
Each of Solomon’s new acquisitions was valuable enough that simply tallying their worth felt like work.
After walking along the dock for some time, Yuria spoke again, her back deceptively unguarded.
“How much do you know about the elf mafia?”