Food Chain
The executor right in front of me barely managed to dodge—just as I had predicted. Using that blind spot, I sniped the final executor.
It was only possible because I had pierced through his back with a spell from the very beginning and perfectly calculated the firing path.
‘……I didn’t even know this method could be used like that.’
In exchange, Solomon’s own position had been pinpointed, and his figure was now exposed. The coat shredded by the Alvheim Typewriter and the blood-soaked shirt beneath it made it clear that his wounds were far from light.
“What about it?”
The executor before him didn’t seem to care.
“Our situation hasn’t changed one bit.”
“Oh, really?”
“Besides, I……”
No. He was desperately trying not to care.
“I-I knew it would be this bad from the start!”
“……”
With those words, tree roots burst through the slate floor and began writhing like living tentacles. It was an elf’s earth magic. Solomon didn’t panic.
Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Magic for magic.
‘.’
A wave of exhaustion washed over him as something inside his chest drained away like the tide. At the same time, darkness thicker than night descended across the entire rooftop.
Veil of Darkness
Tag — Level 2 Spell, Shadow Attribute, Enhanced Tuning (Master of the Veil)
: Unfolds a veil of darkness that treats all of the caster’s attacks within the area as ambushes.
: Inside the veil, the caster gains increased defense and evasion rates while enemies suffer reduced accuracy.
In addition to the spell’s inherent power, the unique bloodline trait of the Veil family applied its enhancement effect. This created a one-sided advantage where Solomon received no penalties, while his enemy could not benefit from any positive effects.
And that wasn’t all.
Master of Ambush
: On a successful melee ambush, add 6 extra damage.
Any melee attack delivered inside this veil would automatically receive the Master of Ambush trait.
The executor also raised his Alvheim Typewriter without hesitation, aiming straight at Solomon through the darkness.
‘The enemy’s attacks will suffer an accuracy penalty.’
Still, it was impossible to know exactly how that would affect a dark elf who possessed natural darkvision.
Ratatatatat!
The moment he pulled the trigger, fragments of fire spirits began firing at a rate of hundreds of rounds per minute.
‘Then what the hell was the point……!’
Even so, dodging hundreds of pseudo-bullets per minute with pure movement alone seemed impossible. Fortunately, there were plenty of objects on the rooftop to take cover behind.
Even then, the muzzle of the Alvheim Typewriter never stopped. The scattered fragments of fire spirits (now in the past tense) even illuminated the magical darkness itself.
It was as if the power of light was literally tearing away the veil of darkness.
“Ooh, please forgive me, Goddess of the Moon!”
He was no longer even trying to aim at Solomon. He simply sprayed the Alvheim Typewriter in every direction.
“This is the power of light, you damn spawn of darkness!!”
Along with dialogue that was utterly unthinkable coming from a dark elf.
‘Fucking lunatic……!’
Little by little, yet unmistakably, the light was peeling back the darkness. At this rate, the veil itself might actually disappear.
‘I need to stop that nonsense first.’
From behind cover, Solomon carefully adjusted his grip on the Nightfall crossbow. This wasn’t just any automatic crossbow. It was the Nightfall XR-10 (Modified)—an automated crossbow that had undergone heavy modification at the Deadlock Workshop.
The instant he used darkvision to gauge the executor’s position beyond the cover, he pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.
He felt a small pang of regret that he couldn’t benefit from the Master of Ambush trait since this wasn’t a melee attack.
“!”
By the time the executor noticed him, the trigger had already been pulled. And no sound came out. Not even the mechanical noise that should have accompanied an automatic crossbow.
Not even the sound of the bolt slicing through the air as it flew.
A completely silent shot from the moment the trigger was pulled until it reached its target.
It was thanks to the new Silence spell that had been imbued during the crossbow’s modification process.
In Guild City, where powerful individuals who could detect and dodge attacks simply by hearing the sonic boom were commonplace, the value of such silence was anything but trivial.
After all, the dark elf before him was exactly that kind of being. Which meant one of their species’ greatest strengths—their highly developed sense of hearing—was rendered virtually useless.
The crossbow bolt flew without a sound, grazing past his body by a hair’s breadth. That was enough. No sound had been made.
“This bastard, he actually modified it with Silence……!”
While the executor was thrown into confusion, Solomon shifted position once again, slipping out of his line of sight.
The wildly spraying muzzle of the Alvheim Typewriter also fell silent. By now, the tree roots around him were coiling around him protectively. Just as Solomon had expected.
‘Even if he hides behind tree roots or structures, he can’t conceal his position.’
Because Solomon could see through all of it with his x-ray vision.
In that state, he moved between the rooftop structures, circling around to target the executor’s blind spot from behind.
His hand pulled the trigger immediately. Naturally, there was no sound.
Within that silence, Solomon was slowly but surely tightening the noose around his opponent’s throat.
Like a hunter methodically slaughtering his prey.
The Silence spell had only been applied to the automatic crossbow. Yet Solomon’s movements and footsteps as he stalked the executor from behind made no sound either.
The ears of elves—including dark elves—were extremely sensitive. It would not be an exaggeration to call them an organ for an entirely new sense.
Like a bat’s echolocation, it was the core sensory organ through which their species interacted with the outside world. A detection ability that could even be called extrasensory. And yet—the sound of this crossbow could not be caught even by an elf’s hearing.
No matter how many bolts were fired, no matter how many times he changed position inside the veil, no matter how many actions he took, not a single sound could be heard.
It was as if a mute button had been pressed. The sounds that should have existed simply weren’t there.
And then, in that world of absolute silence—the first sound finally rang out.
“Caw.”
The cry of a crow that shattered the silence.
“!”
At that exact moment, Solomon had already pulled the trigger of the Nightfall crossbow.
From the front of the executor, who had turned his head to look at the crow behind him—
“Guhk!”
A sound. The sound of a throat being pierced. A direct hit. It had struck the vital point with perfect accuracy.
“Guhk, kuhk, guh……! You inferior species bastard……!”
Hisssss!
At the same time, corrosive poison dripped from the tip of the crossbow bolt. The executor couldn’t even scream as the corrosive liquid poured down his throat. Solomon didn’t miss the opportunity.
He quickly closed the distance and pulled the trigger of the Nightfall automatic crossbow once more.
—He made sure not to forget to push the multi-shot slider to its maximum setting beforehand.
Unlike before, sound now rang out. The mechanical gears inside the automatic crossbow meshed together as the trigger was pulled. The metallic grinding of cogs winding the string taut. The moment the alloy string reached peak tension, the locking mechanism released and the firing slide expelled the bolt into the outside world.
Tang!
Nine crossbow bolts screamed through the air. The Silence spell’s effect only lasted for the first shot.
It wasn’t a simultaneous ten-shot barrage. There was no longer any need for that.
‘I’ll cut off his breath for good.’
Excluding the first silent bolt, the remaining nine bolts flew all at once. The cartridge was empty. Solomon quickly swapped it with a flick of his wrist and began pouring out the remaining bolts.
Once again, countless sounds came alive inside the cold mechanical device.
Nine shots. Ten shots. Ten shots. The crossbow bolts were unleashed in multi-shot bursts. As if they intended to turn him into a honeycomb.
“……!”
Faced with a barrage of dozens of bolts, the tree roots belatedly coiled around him in protection.
‘I knew you’d do that.’
Then something astonishing happened.
The ten simultaneously fired bolts immediately changed course the moment they detected the tree roots in their path. Like guided missiles correcting their trajectory toward their target.
It wasn’t a metaphor. It was one of the techniques the dwarf masters had engraved into the weapon alongside the Silence spell—automatic homing functionality.
‘It was called something like “Mark of the Tracker.”’
With his throat already pierced and corrosive liquid pouring into him, a total of thirty crossbow bolts rained down on the dark elf executor through the protective tree roots. And each one possessed its own homing flight capability.
“Kuhk, krrgh……!”
Unable to dodge, the object in his hand fell to the ground. One was the Alvheim Typewriter. The other was a glass vial filled with red liquid.
His throat had been torn open, corrosive poison was spreading through his body, and he had been turned into a honeycomb by dozens of bolts. Even with wounds that should have caused instant death, the dark elf executor was still moving.
With desperate, barely functional movements that resembled twitching, he reached for the glass vial on the floor.
‘Healing potion!’
At the same time, a green light flickered across his body. It was likely an elf’s regeneration magic.
Every time the corrosive liquid ate away at his flesh, the wounds regenerated at terrifying speed, accompanied by that green glow.
‘He can still endure even after taking that much……?’
His tenacity for life was beyond stubborn—it was downright horrifying. Solomon clicked his tongue.
If the bastard could hold on even in this state, there was no telling what would happen if he managed to drink that healing potion. So Solomon didn’t hesitate either.
—He closed the distance completely.
The veil had not yet disappeared. According to the rules, all attacks within the veil were treated as ambushes.
And from now on, every melee ambush Solomon performed would unconditionally add 6 extra damage. It was the same as automatically rolling six extra six-sided dice.
The invisible dice, numbers, attack power, and other intangible currents were no longer merely a “hand pushing from behind.”
A small breeze had long since become a gale, and that gale was now turning into a whirlwind.
Thud!
The power added to the tip of his blade was now closer to the explosion of dynamite or the compressed air of a slaughterhouse bolt gun driving its projectile forward.
[Without even needing to wait for dawn, the Elf Slayer has slain the three vengeful goddesses who pursued him…… and overcome the curse of the three sisters.]
[It is not often one gets the chance to kill as many as three goddesses of vengeance. Through this valuable experience, the Elf Slayer realizes that he has leveled up. Wow, Level 4.]
At that moment, as if it had been waiting, the narrator’s voice rang out.
Solomon already knew. This was nothing more than the formal procedure and ritual they loved to repeat so much.
‘Level 4 now.’
Solomon silently clenched his fist. Then he picked up the Alvheim Typewriter and the healing potion that had fallen at the executor’s feet.
‘I suppose I can take these.’
After confirming that the remaining executors were properly dead, Solomon immediately uncorked the healing potion.
“Hoo……”
He leaned against the rooftop duct once more and savored the sensation of the healing potion seeping into his body. The wounds didn’t vanish with a magical *pop*. Even so, the injured areas visibly closed up and began regenerating at an accelerated pace, as if time itself had sped up.
It was as if months, even years, of natural recovery had been compressed into a single instant.
When the effect ended, only faint scars remained where the wounds had been. In the end, it was no different from magic.
‘That leaves me with one Level 1 spell slot, and the “Blade in the Dark” trait is still intact.’
Available Spell Slots
: Level 1 Spell — 1 use (⚀■■■)
: Level 2 Spell — 0 uses (■)
Blade in the Dark
: Once per day, guarantee the activation of a melee critical hit.
Cards were best saved for when they were truly needed. There was no telling what might happen before he could fall asleep.
Leaning against the rooftop duct, Solomon gazed up at the night sky. He sent the last remaining black spirit crow of the thirteen high into the air, making sure not to neglect his surveillance.
Fortunately, as long as the bracelet itself wasn’t destroyed, the black spirit crows could be replenished through rest. The same principle as spell slots.
The night was deep, and dawn was still far away. Even so, the request was now complete.
All that remained was to receive the compensation he was rightfully owed.
‘I should get some sleep quickly and raise my level too.’
After a short rest, Solomon rose to his feet without delay. He still had a long way to go.