The Ace
That midnight, Solomon looked over the request the skeleton hotelier had delivered.
It was the same job that had gotten the previous occupant of the neighboring room killed before he could finish it.
Target Elimination Request
Issuer: Selene Family, Grocery Street
Target: "Priest of Pain," Enforcer Captain of the hostile orc gang 'Wild Fist'
No questions, no hesitation. Just kill the target. The kind of job that was refreshingly straightforward.
Priest of Pain…?
Aside from that blood-chilling name, the issuer was also no stranger to him.
The Dark Elf mafia. The Selene Family.
Before carrying out the request, locate the Selene Family mansion on Grocery Street.
Solomon had visited the place once before, back when he accepted the request from the so-called “Honorable One.” The image of those Dark Elf mafiosi was not easily forgotten, whether in a good way or a bad one.
Better than going in completely blind, I guess.
He burned the destination into his memory, then simply lay down on the bed. Either way, he had no reason to turn down the job.
The Five Great Families, the bourgeois, Beelzebub…
Over the past few days, Solomon had been thrust into the games played by the most powerful figures in the city. He was no longer an outsider to the power struggles of Guild City.
Because all of this was ultimately his story.
My story.
A narrative belonging to the man named Solomon that no one could deny. Like it or not, he had a duty to take responsibility for it.
That was why he needed to grow stronger. He needed the stature of a true powerhouse, one who wouldn’t flinch before the city’s so-called elite. A request like this was the perfect stepping stone.
The next dawn, Solomon opened his eyes and immediately began checking the gear he would need for the request.
The Ghostwhale Bone Blade, the Nightfall automatic crossbow, and the stealth coat imbued with invisibility spells.
On top of that, he packed the three remaining high-grade invisibility potions and the bottles of Ruinous Poison he had earned from the Haunting Family job. Disposable consumables, yes, but their value was immeasurable. Their lethality was proven by the fact that they could instantly kill an Uptown archmage from one of the great families.
Just in case, I should bring one of each.
He also considered the ancient webweaver kit he had obtained while working for the bourgeois, but decided to leave it behind. This request didn’t call for wilderness infiltration, covert movement, or background investigation.
Once his preparations were complete, Solomon left his room. The moment he crossed the first-floor lobby—
“Y-you!”
A familiar voice stopped him. When Solomon turned his head, an unexpected face was floating there. Or perhaps it was no longer unexpected. At this point it was just annoying. Mostly the latter.
“Dr. O’Neil…”
The voice belonged to Dr. O’Neil in his ghostly state, neatly dressed in a hotel uniform and drifting with a bluish glow.
“Mr. O’Neil, is that any way to speak to a guest!”
Beside him floated another uniformed hotelier ghost, scolding him in the tone of a senior training a new hire. It seemed the “Doctor” title had already been dropped.
“M-my apologies, Supervisor Herbert, sir!”
“You should be apologizing to the guest, Mr. O’Neil!”
“……”
“……”
An awkward silence settled over them. It looked like the hotel had found the wandering soul a new job after all, just as promised.
“My apologies, Mr. Solomon. As a new hire, his training is still—”
“It’s fine. Really.”
“Thank you for your understanding.”
As the man who had sent O’Neil to the afterlife in the first place, Solomon had nothing to say. He mumbled something noncommittal and quickly made his escape, crossing the lobby corridor into the wide, open interior space.
Rule 7. When leaving the premises, you may exit to any location within Downtown’s 20th District via the Room of Doors.
The mysterious room was packed with countless doors floating in midair, like something out of a René Magritte painting. Without hesitation, Solomon walked between the many doors and opened the one closest to his destination.
Downtown 8th District. Grocery Street.
Two- and three-story red-brick houses, milkmen hurrying through narrow alleys, and the faint scent of freshly baked bread in the air.
In a way, this was the place in all of Guild City that smelled most like actual human life.
Caw!
Solomon sent several shadow spirits soaring into the sky through the Black Bird Spirit Bracelet and crossed through Grocery Street. The deeper he went, the more Dark Elves wearing fedoras and dark brown coats stood out. What felt especially strange was how their eyes changed when they glanced at him.
Their gazes now carried a subtle mix of fear and wariness, the clear desire to avoid getting entangled with him at all costs.
They were actively avoiding eye contact and giving him a wide berth without any overt threats or provocation.
It was hardly surprising.
The Solomon standing here now was no longer the rookie who had first accepted a request from the Selene Family. So much had changed since that day that it was impossible to list it all. His level had reached 5. His equipment had undergone massive upgrades. He had acquired an array of new shadow spells as a shadow mage. And if you bundled all of it together, it could be summarized in two words.
Presence.
The figure of Solomon walking through these streets no longer looked like some half-baked mercenary. He looked exactly like what he was: a contractor of Hotel Snark, the Hotel of Assassins.
With a creak, Solomon finally stepped into the Selene Family’s grand mansion located in the heart of Downtown. A wide front yard and a meticulously maintained garden came into view, filled with blooming blue-black flowers.
As he headed straight for the iron gate at the mansion’s entrance, the doors opened by themselves.
It was an old-fashioned mansion reminiscent of a medieval noble’s castle, completely at odds with an era of interlocking gears and steam pipes that ran like blood vessels.
“Welcome, Mr. Solomon.”
While Dark Elves who appeared to be Selene Family members watched him warily from every direction, a gnome who looked like the butler approached and spoke.
“The boss has been expecting you.”
“My, my.”
Inside the matriarch’s office in the Selene Family mansion.
When Solomon entered, he found a silhouette seated with her back to the evening glow streaming through the window. She blinked at him with mild surprise.
“We meet again, Mr. Solomon.”
“Mistress Selene.”
Following the etiquette of the Elf mafia, Solomon formally bowed and kissed the back of her hand.
The head of the Dark Elf mafiosi who led the Selene Family.
From the expensive fur shawl draped over her shoulders to the clearly priceless obsidian earrings and every other luxury item adorning her from head to toe, she radiated elegance.
“I never imagined that you would be the ‘Ace’ the hotel was sending us.”
Mistress Selene laughed, as if genuinely astonished.
“…Ace?”
“As always, the hotel never fails to disappoint us.”
When Solomon asked in a flat tone, Mistress Selene shrugged with a smile.
“Though to be honest, the performance the hotel has shown these past few days has been… truly disappointing.”
The smile had already vanished from her lips. Solomon asked as if it were someone else’s problem.
“Disappointing?”
“Two different cleaners failed their requests in succession.”
“Wait, you’re telling me two of them got wiped out?”
Solomon frowned in disbelief. Not one. Two. And if one could become two, there was no guarantee two wouldn’t become three.
“They really dropped like flies.”
“Then, was it the day before yesterday? The hotel’s ‘Quality Assurance Officer’ came in person to apologize.”
A quality assurance officer from the business division. An in-person apology, no less. It was almost possible to feel the corporate-level headache behind the seemingly lofty image of an “assassins’ hotel.”
“They promised to send a truly reliable ‘Ace’ this time, unlike the incompetents before.”
“…I’m honored.”
There was no need to ask who this “reliable Ace different from the others” referred to. It wasn’t surprising. Still, hearing that the hotel evaluated him that way felt strangely new.
So assigning me to Room 243… was all for this.
He finally understood. It hadn’t been a coincidence that he ended up taking the neighboring room’s request. From the beginning, the hotel had moved him into Room 243 with the intention of handing him this job.
To serve as the Ace who would put an end to the string of failures.
Otherwise the timing would never have lined up so perfectly.
“Still, it’s surprising.”
“What is?”
“That the rookie from back then would show up looking this impressive.”
Mistress Selene chuckled with clear amusement.
Just as the trait description suggested, her display of goodwill toward Solomon had its reasons. The sound of dice rolling somewhere in the distance was proof enough.
“Enough with the pointless chatter. Let’s talk business,” Solomon said.
“I’d also like to know how two people ended up dead in the first place.”
“What’s so complicated about it?”
Mistress Selene chuckled again.
“They died trying to kill him. That’s all.”
“…That makes perfect sense.”
Died trying to kill him. Solomon added, dumbfounded.
“So they all got slaughtered by that orc gang’s enforcer captain?”
“Well, about that…”
Mistress Selene’s words trailed off meaningfully.
“Strictly speaking, the ‘Priest of Pain’ is not affiliated with the Wild Fist gang.”
“Not affiliated?”
Solomon tilted his head at the unexpected information.
“Didn’t you call him their enforcer captain?”
“I don’t know what made him join hands with them, but it seems he has his own agenda.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you heard of the ancient orc tribes of the Blood Moon Archipelago?”
Mistress Selene continued. Of course it was the first Solomon was hearing of it. Still, he repeated her words back in a neutral tone.
“Ancient orc tribes…”
The highest virtue of ancient orc tribal society is the proof of strength above all else.
Haven’t you heard? The ultimate lifeform that every man dreams of becoming from the moment he is born… the strongest creature on earth.
No, I haven’t.
Solomon blinked in utter confusion at the narrator’s nonsense. He should have guessed something was off the moment he heard the name “Priest of Pain.”
“At the very least, he is not the sort who belongs in a second-rate gang like the Wild Fist. On the other hand, we can’t handle it ourselves because there are ‘eyes’ watching. That’s why we had no choice but to borrow the hotel’s hand.”
“And everyone who went just died.”
“You won’t have trouble finding him. It doesn’t seem like he’s trying to hide.”
Mistress Selene handed him a document with a map drawn on it.
Lower District, Blackwater Pier 3, Dock 4-B Terminal.
“I’ll get started right away.”
“How refreshing. Our new Ace from the hotel.”
“……”
The words “safe completion” were no small matter to Solomon either.
Because that was exactly why he was taking this request.
To become stronger.
To gain the power to decide his own fate with his own hands in a city overflowing with monsters and aberrations.
The power to write his own story, by his own hand.