Victory

There was no longer any trace of Solomon in that place. He had fled.

Even so, both of them could see it clearly—the pathetic sight of the janitor’s back as he ran without so much as a backward glance.

Violet bit her lip in silence.

Christoph Arrowhead, Prismancer of the Magic Spear, mage of the Five Great Families, sneered. Violet offered no reply. More accurately, she no longer had the strength to speak.

Blood poured from her mouth, her nose bled, bloody tears streamed down her face, and her entire body was drenched in crimson.

The mage had stopped his assault at some point and now smiled. Even then, he kept the flickering prisms and fractal barriers dancing at his fingertips.

He spoke as though offering the lesser being one last chance.

Violet remained silent.

With those words, Christoph turned and glanced at the unconscious corpse splicer—Dr. O’Neil.

"I… suppose not…"

Violet let out a weak, bitter laugh. As if simply standing had become too difficult, she dropped to one knee. All she could manage was to use her blade as a cane to keep her collapsing body upright.

The mage stepped closer as he spoke.

The mage smiled as he continued. At first glance it resembled conversation, but in truth it was nothing of the sort. He paid not the slightest attention to his opponent’s words.

"…What are you talking about?"

The mage sneered.

"…A coward’s courage. For a noble, that’s a surprisingly open-minded view."

Fully displaying the pride of a great family and noble, Christoph continued speaking.

He spoke as if he could no longer contain the urge to voice his thoughts. His tone was that of a man who simply had to brag about his own cleverness.

"You’re talking nonsense," Violet sneered.

The Prismancer asked as if he would gladly answer every question from beginning to end.

"Hoo, is that so?"

Violet spoke with blood-stained lips, then paused to catch her breath before adding coldly.

Christoph said nothing. He could not understand. And because he could not understand, he simply shook with rage at the insult and mockery. To spit such words at him after he had deigned to give her a chance. His pride as a noble would not allow it.

Driven mad by unbearable humiliation, he prepared to drive in the final nail without hesitation.

From his fingertips, magical wavelengths split into countless colors as though refracted through a prism. He selected one and transformed it into a magic spear—

It was the exact instant the flash of death was about to pierce her.

—

Crack!

A sound rang out. The sound of something fracturing. The sound of a blow striking the man’s fractal barrier.

Courage is a virtue only the weak can display before the strong.

That is why it holds value. That is why—

It was the act of a bug.

Crack!

The blade tip, blocked by the fractal barrier guarding the man’s back, lost its path. At the same time, a spear of light shot from the mage’s fingertips, refusing to allow another strike.

The flash of death charged forward.

A blow meant to pierce the heart and drive the wedge home. That was the courage of the weak shown before the strong—and the end of that courage.

In the agony of his heart being pierced, the sound of rolling dice echoed. The end of the courage the weak had shown before the strong. The conclusion was one where he could not even struggle like a bug—his heart simply run through.

Solomon had already witnessed that ending once.

At the same time, the clock hands moved—not forward, but backward. Like rewinding a video.

Right now, Solomon once again stood behind the back of the powerful being who had driven him to ‘death.’

He had pretended to flee, then returned. More cautiously than ever, without making a sound, without revealing the slightest presence, he crept up behind his target. At the very instant he swung the assassin’s blade—

Yet the sight of Solomon looking down at the strong man’s back was nothing like a grim reaper. It was the stance of the weak before the strong, the heart of a slave facing a king.

The pain was exactly the same. The literal agony of a heart being pierced. The terror of death.

He was there once again.

The first strike had already failed. A major failure, at that. The next ambush would likely result in another ‘major failure’ with high probability. He knew the fractal barrier the opponent had deployed was not something the current Solomon could overcome. He knew it all too well.

Even so, another chance had been granted.

Can I succeed this time?

Solomon asked himself. Was it reckless? Yes. Even the current Solomon could not deny that this act was reckless. It went beyond recklessness. It was suicide.

A hundred versions of Solomon sitting at the table would have declared the action ‘foolish.’ He himself agreed.

He knew. He knew, and yet Solomon made his choice.

Courage is never something that exists for the powerful—for kings or nobles.

The clock hands had already been rewound. Solomon gripped the hilt of his blade tighter than ever.

Courage is… the only virtue the weak can display against the strong. It is not something for filth like you to prattle on about.

An invisible die. Did his current strike rest entirely on that die? He could not know. Even so, Solomon thought: even if it was only the slightest chance, it was enough. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Just a little.

Now do you understand a bit? Probably not. You will never know it in your entire life.

Here, he hoped his courage and will could change ‘fate,’ even if only by a fraction.

And so that it would not simply become the recklessness of the weak, he recalled the sensation he had etched into his fingertips from the previous failure.

It was clearly visible.

From that first strike, he had vaguely realized it. Even though it had ended in failure. Within the shining fractal structure during that failure, he had glimpsed a tiny distortion inside the beautiful recursive pattern.

The resolve of a slave with nowhere left to run—to drive a blade toward the king.

What Solomon had learned and engraved into his fingertips from that failure was not “the resolve to stab a king.”

It was a gap.

A gap through which a blade could stab a king.

How had he known? It was not something one could learn through ordinary dice rolls or experience. It was knowledge that could only be gained by having driven the blade in oneself.

Solomon trusted exactly that.

The king’s gap his instinct pointed toward.

The weak’s blade charged.

Toward the fractal barrier that he could not even be sure he could damage properly with his current strength. To pierce the shield protecting the man and reach what lay beyond.

The strongest strike this game would allow.

Reach…!

The blade tip flew forward. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠barrier meant to protect the mage revealed its geometric fractal patterns and radiated light.

Solomon’s blade raced toward the gap within that endlessly recursive, geometrically shining figure.

It was a very small gap.

A crack so minuscule that its existence would normally go unnoticed. No matter how many times it was repaired, it could never reach 100% and remained at 99.999…%. He aimed precisely for that remaining decimal point of a gap.

Whether it was Solomon’s animal instinct, knowledge gained from failure, desperate will strong enough to twist fate, or simply fate itself, he could not say. Perhaps he had simply gotten lucky.

Crack!

Regardless, his blade struck exactly into that gap. Precisely. The sensation in the hilt did not stop.

Craack. Crack.

At the same time, the geometric patterns of the fractal structure began to splinter and twist in multiple places simultaneously. Like a turtle shell cracking open.

That was why Solomon did not stop.

Because the previous strike had carried the shadow of the weak’s courage.

The ambush had succeeded. Moreover, the success of that ambush did not belong to Solomon alone.

Because the other figure was also a mage.

The shadow mimic immediately copied the ambush from behind and pierced the fractal structure once more. It was a miracle for Solomon. For the mage, it was pure catastrophe.

Not yet!

Still… it wasn’t enough to break it completely.

So a final strike was needed.

One sword to shatter the mage’s shield.

Slash!

At that moment, Violet was no longer kneeling.

There was only Schrödinger’s swordsman, wielding three blades and moving in ways not yet fixed by certainty.

"Now, fu—"

Before the words could even finish, she struck the barrier, severed the neck, and drove her sword vertically into the stump. Only then did the mage’s severed head, spinning lazily, tumble to the floor.

"Wait—sa—save—"

Only after his head had been cut off and was rolling across the ground did the man finally finish his sentence. Those were his last words.

Save—

For a man of the Five Great Families, an Arrowhead, Prismancer of the Magic Spear, a noble adorned with countless proud titles, it was an utterly pathetic end.

"Huk… huuuk…!"

Solomon’s posture collapsed as he drew in deep, ragged breaths. Not because he was wounded. The accumulated pressure from everything up to that moment had finally crashed down on him, and his legs trembled so violently he could barely stand.

The aftershock of having closed the distance at the end of a lifetime gamble, barely managing to land that single strike.

"Huk…! Huuuk, huk!"

His breathing was ragged. The breath he had held back burst out violently, as though he had been unable to breathe his entire life.

"How did you do it?"

"Huuuk, huk… what…?"

Watching him, Violet spoke calmly. Solomon gasped out a rough reply.

"Your blade clearly realized there was a ‘gap’ in his protective shield and aimed for it."

"…Yeah."

"How could you tell?"

"Trade secret."

"…Fine. Then let’s do this."

Violet said.

"I’ll tell you my trade secret as well. So I really want to hear it. How exactly did you notice the ‘gap’ inside his fractal structure?"

"…No, it’s not valuable enough information to make that trade."

"Then I suppose I’ll just have to reveal my trade secret by myself."

Violet spoke firmly. For some reason, it felt like pure curiosity on her part. He could sense it even without knowing the exact reason.

Solomon remained silent for a moment, then spoke.

"I got lucky."

"Thanks to you diligently drawing the lines."

There was not a single lie in his words. The mage’s fractal barrier was never restored to a perfect 100% from its original state. It only appeared that way. In reality, the gaps Violet’s repeated strikes had carved into it were clearly inflicting irreversible damage.

Solomon had simply driven the final wedge into that existing weakness.

"And saying it like that sounded a bit lame, so I called it a trade secret."

"Hoo."

Solomon answered calmly. It was not humility. He was simply stating the truth. Whatever Violet thought of that humility was secondary.

"Besides, I couldn’t have done it alone."

Solomon had fled, then reappeared—and closed the distance.

At the moment that looked the most dangerous. Violet had understood without needing words and dropped to her knees. To draw his attention.

This was the result. It had not been Solomon’s accomplishment alone.

"It was possible because I had a good actor."

"I see."

Solomon spoke indifferently. Violet did not seem to mind.

"As promised, it’s my turn to reveal my trade secret."

"…Is it that you’re a swordsman of that Schrödinger whatever?"

"Idiot. Do you call things everyone already knows a secret? My secret is…"

"Wait."

Solomon cut her off. He walked over to the unconscious Dr. O’Neil and stood before the corpse.

Stab!

He finished the request he had been given. Many things had gone wrong along the way, but in the end, the request was complete. He had made a proper breathing hole, after all.

Solomon was dumbfounded.

Because the single thought currently filling his mind more than anything else was this:

…Ah, I’m going to die.

It was a state of complete mental emptiness.

I’m dead.