Lord of the Flies
“Well, this is unexpected.”
The sound of a cane tapping the ground. A silhouette emerged from the shadows of the street.
“To think I’d see you here again.”
He wore a coat draped over his shoulders like a cape and leaned lightly on a mahogany cane topped with an intricately carved eagle’s head.
A refined black suit embroidered with gold accents. Amid his salt-and-pepper hair, a cross-shaped scar stood out above his right eye.
“!”
The moment they saw him, the mustached bourgeois and his subordinate Sword Watch froze. That was the end of it. There was no time to shout or react.
“Kuhk… kuuuhk.”
At first it sounded like something had lodged in their throats.
“Ughk… ugh…! Kuhuk!”
“Agaaaak!”
Bzzzzzzzzz!
From the mouths of every man and woman present, countless flies began to pour out.
They burst through eyeballs, erupted from noses, mouths, ears—from every orifice in their bodies an incomprehensible swarm of flies exploded outward, forming a black vortex. Like billions of locusts born from plague or unnatural weather. It was an apocalyptic scene in every sense.
Clang.
The spirit medium’s chains meant to bind Dr. O’Neil lost their strength and fell. The doctor’s soul, freed at last, did not rejoice. Far from it—his face turned a deathly leaden pallor and he began to shake harder than ever. He collapsed on the spot in utter submission.
─Ah… aaaaah…! O Great King… Your Majesty…!
The man stood there.
In the past, the man before them had introduced himself as Lord Bernier.
But the man called Lord Bernier of the City Judicial Bureau had already been dead by that point.
Consumed by the evil presence standing before them.
The Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub. The legions of lesser demons loyal to their great king swirled in a storm. They devoured the bourgeois and his hunting dogs from the inside out, bursting their bodies as they came to claim Dr. O’Neil’s soul.
“Beelzebub…”
The Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub.
Moreover, the story Solomon had heard inside the Haunting Family mansion did not end there.
“They said he’s searching for a soul. One whose life or death isn’t even clear.”
“The king of Hell is looking for a single soul that may or may not still be alive?”
“The soul of that… illegitimate child the head of the Veil Family sired with a prostitute.”
“Goddammit!”
Fairy King Oberon stepped between Solomon and O’Neil. A dazzling golden radiance swept out alongside his Jesus-style beard and hippie-like appearance.
The fairy’s brilliance collided with the hellish swarm of flies that seemed to have gathered every ugliness the world had to offer.
Writhing flies. A filthy, repulsive blackness like sewage. Every imaginable evil and disgusting thing given form. Fairy and demon. Light and darkness.
Thump.
At that moment Beelzebub lightly tapped his cane against the ground.
The countless flies that had filled the area sank as if they had never existed.
“Huuuuh…!”
With them, the golden radiance wrapped around Oberon also vanished.
“Damn, the old bastard’s power is filthy strong.”
His voice was rough; he had already burned through a considerable amount of stamina. His small wings trembled. In contrast, the great king Beelzebub’s expression showed not a flicker of emotion.
It was not difficult to feel the gap between the two.
‘He still doesn’t know who I am.’
That was fortunate. It seemed Beelzebub had not yet realized Solomon’s identity. His target was Dr. O’Neil behind Solomon, nothing more.
Why he wanted O’Neil, or the information inside the doctor’s head, was none of Solomon’s concern.
“As Curators, our role is…”
Beelzebub continued calmly.
“To collect and preserve the evil of this world.”
As a Curator of the Black Museum—the organization of evil that would threaten Solomon’s life.
“And Dr. O’Neil… holds the clue to a truly fascinating subject we have sought for a very long time, yet also missed.”
─Hiiik…!
“I see. In that case, can’t you just take him quietly and leave?”
The commission was already over. The bourgeois’s corpse, now covered by the swarm, had explicitly stated the fact before dying.
Setting aside the pathetic way those who were supposed to protect Solomon had been slaughtered, the situation had already moved far beyond anything he needed to worry about.
“Since my commission ends here, it’s none of my business anymore.”
Solomon spoke with deliberate calm. He truly felt that way. Separate from the illegitimate child’s soul the demon ultimately pursued, the information in O’Neil’s head was ultimately someone else’s problem.
That was what he thought.
“Oh, don’t be so heartless.”
Beelzebub answered in a relaxed tone.
“As you heard at the mansion, I am searching for a certain soul.”
He should have realized it sooner.
“And Dr. O’Neil is like a stepping stone in the task of finding that soul.”
“…!”
“Therefore he must remain in the hands of the Haunting Family. The spirit binders can handle a great many tasks.”
From the very beginning, none of it had been someone else’s business to Solomon.
It had been his story all along.
Now he understood. The fact that he had become entangled with them—though the elf broker Yuria bore some responsibility—was ultimately no coincidence.
A priestess is not the tragic protagonist who carries out an oracle. She is merely the messenger.
The tragedy sweeping over Solomon had poured down from a far higher place from the start.
Many things are tangled together like a skein of thread.
The Black Museum, the Lord of the Flies, what lies inside Dr. O’Neil’s head, and finally the soul of the bastard child the great king seeks.
But when we step back and observe with a calm eye, we can see that they all stem from a single thread...
“I will give you one last chance.”
Solomon maintained the highest level of composure he could muster in his entire life and kept his poker face firmly in place.
“Return Dr. O’Neil to the Haunting Family.”
─Hiiik!
“Why the hell should I?”
“For the record, this is not a commission.”
Beelzebub added.
“Nor is it a request.”
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Obedience.”
He did not conceal the overwhelming dignity befitting a great king.
“That is the only virtue I permit you.”
Solomon remained silent for a moment. Should he simply obey here? Seeing the City Council’s corpse that was supposed to protect him lying there so pathetically, it seemed wiser to bow his head before the great king.
The being before him was not even on the level of an “unbeatable foe.” He was a living disaster. No matter how terrible a calamity is, people do not call it an “enemy.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Even so, Solomon shook his head. He understood what agreeing to a demon’s temptation, cajolery, or threat meant in a TRPG world. In truth, he didn’t even need to think about TRPG rules.
Intimidation Resistance: SUCCESS!
The narrator’s voice followed.
‘As expected.’
Solomon’s prediction had been correct. The threat just now had been a trap leading straight to a death branch. There hadn’t even been the sound of dice rolling. In other words, this was not a check that required a roll.
It was a decision made by Solomon’s free will alone.
“A wise choice.”
At that moment, Fairy King Oberon flew up, flapping his exhausted wings. Even now the flies swirling from every direction could not approach, thanks to the golden radiance he emitted.
“Oh, pitiful Oberon.”
Beelzebub sneered.
“Fallen fairy king who lost your former glory and sank into ruin.”
As if he knew him well.
“Look at yourself. You truly are a sorry sight.”
“Wow, the world sure has improved. Even a fly is worrying about a fairy now.”
“……”
“Anyway, don’t worry too much. I’ve been finding my inner peace lately through meditation and mindfulness.”
Fly and fairy. At Oberon’s sarcasm, Beelzebub’s expression turned vicious for the first time.
Beneath the salt-and-pepper hair, the cross-shaped scar across his right eye. The pupil within that scar lost its light and glared at them.
It was not a human eye.
A black, dark pupil where the light that should exist was absent. A demon’s eye.
“I would advise you to watch your tongue.”
“Go fuck yourself, Your Majesty the Great King.”
Oberon flipped him the middle finger. Solomon was rendered speechless by the fairy’s astounding audacity. Beelzebub also fell silent. The quiet was so profound and eerie that the word “menacing” felt insufficient. It was not a silence that could be interpreted positively.
In that ominous silence, just as Beelzebub opened his mouth to speak—
Solomon never got to hear the answer.
Thud!
The sound came from behind the great king. The sound of an assailant striking from the rear.
Realizing what the act meant, Solomon was stunned.
‘An ambush!’
A strike delivered from behind against a defenseless enemy. It was an act so familiar it almost felt intimate.
Yet the target of that ambush, Beelzebub, was by no means an “ordinary being.” Therefore, logic dictated that the one carrying out the ambush was also no ordinary existence.
The proof was that they had approached undetected and landed a clean blow. They had literally planted a blade in the great king’s back.
Moreover, the act did not end with the physical stab.
Squelch!
The blade tip tore out through Beelzebub’s chest from behind. It was black and dark. At the same time it was different from Solomon’s own power. It was not a shadow.
It was a deeper, more endless blackness.
“Please withdraw at this point, Your Majesty the Great King.”
The assailant who had driven the blade in spoke from behind the great king. It was a voice Solomon had never heard. Beelzebub did not answer. No emotion—agitation, panic, anything—could be detected.
“……”
Right then, the great king’s body began to twist. It warped and contracted, then was sucked toward the black blade that had pierced him.
As if swallowed by a black hole. Like a planet dragged beyond the event horizon and annihilated without a trace.
No trace of the great king’s form remained. Only a blade of deep, dense blackness like a black hole existed, utterly still and calm.
“Whew. Well, well.”
The assailant holding the blade quietly looked at Solomon.
A voice he had never heard, a face he had never seen. Yet the immaculate suit looked strangely familiar.
A pure white suit without a single speck of dust.
“The Faceless One…”
“Your eye for detail has improved considerably.”
Insight: SUCCESS!
The man answered with clear amusement.
The Faceless One.
The contractor who had guided Solomon to Hotel Snark, and one of the leaders of the contractor organization that operated out of the legendary hotel.
“In this city there is no one who does not know him, and at the same time… no one who truly knows him. A giant among giants in the contractor world.”
In the past, the narrator had described the man before him exactly that way.
“You couldn’t have… actually killed him.”
Solomon began, then corrected himself. Even by common sense, that was impossible.
“Right. At best it only drives an avatar away for a little while.”
The unfamiliar man in the white suit, the Faceless One, shrugged and grumbled.
“Frankly, it’s not exactly a profitable job.”
The resident of Room 1408. The Rogue Master who lived at the pinnacle of Hotel Snark said.