Monster Hunt
The scream of prey echoed from far in the distance. The hunter steeled his resolve.
The resolve to hunt. The resolve not to be hunted.
The opponent wasn’t some two-bit goblin gang thug. This was a cursed test subject from the Sewer Mage Tower—a level-3 hostile lifeform.
Showing yourself openly and fighting fair was nothing short of suicide. Every class had its own proper way of fighting.
Stealth.
It wasn’t even a spell, let alone a special technique. It was simply an action. Not even an exclusive ability limited to thief-class jobs.
Erasing your presence, silencing every sound, carefully concealing your form so the enemy would never notice.
Anyone could do it.
But how well you could perform an action anyone could do was an entirely different matter.
In Dark Camelot—Guild City—the five core stats were Stamina, Dexterity, Mental Fortitude, Willpower, and Charisma.
Among them, the stat that directly influenced stealth and ambush performance was Dexterity.
When Solomon built his character, he had squeezed every last point from the other stats to push Dexterity to its absolute limit.
He sharpened his senses like never before.
Fortunately, the flooded zone ended just ahead, opening into a stretch of underground tunnel where he could plant his feet properly.
The test subject’s grotesque shrieks weren’t directed at Solomon’s presence. They were involuntary screams torn from endless, unknowable agony.
Whatever had been done to it, the creature’s pain and torment ripped into his eardrums like needles.
“Goddamn it…!”
The screams tore through his eardrums, racing along the auditory nerves and burrowing deep into the cerebral cortex. Blood was already dripping steadily from both of Solomon’s ears.
Only then did he realize this was no ordinary cry.
Level 2 curse spell: Wave of Pain.
The agony felt like an awl being driven straight into his brain. Solomon clenched his teeth. This wasn’t a tabletop anymore. Resisting this pain wasn’t entirely up to the dice.
…Or is it?
For now, he had no choice but to believe it was.
Curse Resistance Successful!
The pain gouging his mind vanished, replaced by a ringing voice. With no time to collect himself, Solomon desperately refocused his awareness.
No second chances.
He had endured it this time, but he wasn’t confident he could stay sane through the same torment again.
Even so, his movements weren’t rushed. They couldn’t be.
He had to close in on the target’s back without being detected and drive a single lethal strike home from behind.
The true flower of the thief class: ambush. The infamous backstab.
And that wasn’t all Solomon was aiming for.
Blade in the Dark
Once per day. Guarantees a melee critical hit.
The Nightfall automatic crossbow was nothing more than insurance. The ideal scenario was to stack the guaranteed critical hit on top of a perfect ambush from behind.
To end the fight with a single strike—no battle, no struggle.
Step.
The distance closed.
There were no footsteps. No breathing. Yet Solomon was there.
Right there.
At the bend in the wall. He focused every ounce of attention on the presence he sensed beyond it. Solomon’s eyes gleamed with an inorganic, obsidian darkness.
One of the three spells he had learned as a spell assassin, alongside Shadow Mimicry.
Shadow Sight.
His vision pierced the obstructing wall, revealing the scene hidden in the darkness beyond. There it was. Its back turned at a slight angle.
An emaciated frame with bizarrely elongated limbs. Slimy skin caked in sewer filth.
Where a face should have been, only a vertically split maw filled with rows upon rows of teeth. Hundreds of them, layered like a shark’s, busily tearing into something.
A human corpse…
The face was mutilated beyond recognition. The internal organs spilled out in a grotesque display. Severe decay had already set in.
There were no signs of resistance nearby. It had probably been a vagrant, hunted down and dragged here.
Solomon desperately swallowed his rising nausea and adjusted his stance. Then he took another step.
If the creature lifted its head and looked back, they would make direct eye contact. There was nowhere to retreat.
The distance narrowed once more.
Blade in the Dark, activate.
As the words formed in his mind, he felt the hilt resonate in answer. Meanwhile, the test subject remained completely defenseless, back exposed, utterly absorbed in its meal.
Seven meters. Six. Five… The gap shrank steadily.
Sounds filled the tunnel.
The rush of wastewater flowing alongside the passage. The wet smacking of the creature greedily devouring entrails. The squeaking of rats. But nowhere among them was there any sound from Solomon.
Yet he was there.
Directly behind its back.
He adjusted his grip on the hilt in silence.
The effect of ambush ignores the target’s defense and evasion, adding extra damage—
A critical hit simply doubled the final damage, no questions asked.
On top of that, the level-2 trait that granted additional damage on attacks.
Blade in the Dark combined with the Glass Cannon trait to create a maximized one-hit-kill ambush.
The math was flawless.
The problem was that all of it remained pure theory.
Because the world Solomon now inhabited was not a tabletop.
There were no visible HP numbers. No way to quantify damage with neat figures when you struck or were struck.
Even if a critical doubled the damage, what was the baseline? And what exactly was a critical hit? Blood loss? Wound depth?
Would the blood spray twice as far? Would the wound become twice as deep? Would a stab that should stop at the ribs continue on to pierce the spleen?
That was when it happened.
Squeak.
From beneath the victim’s torn jawbone, a sewer rat that had crawled up the esophagus suddenly poked its head out.
At the appearance of this surprise dessert, the test subject paused its feast and stared at the rat.
But the rat wasn’t looking at the test subject.
It was looking at Solomon. As if telling him to go fuck himself.
That goddamn Ratatouille bastard…!
Squeak.
Solomon looked at the test subject. The test subject looked at the rat. The rat looked at Solomon.
In that triangle of crossed gazes, the exact moment the creature sensed something wrong—
“!”
His body moved on instinct.
There was no longer any time to hesitate. So he chose to believe.
Not in tabletop rules, not in numbers, not in dice.
He believed in this world.
Or more precisely, in the universal law that no one escapes a knife in the back.
Throughout history, how many kings, nobles, generals, and politicians had lost sleep fearing a blade from behind?
The very fact that such people went to such lengths to protect their backs was the real world’s own proof of how devastating an ambush could be.
East or west, past or present, history was written in blood by people stabbing each other in the back and spraying crimson fountains together.
Ambush is a stupidly effective attack.
Thud!
The blade shot forward.
And then the strangest, most incomprehensible thing occurred.
The tip of the blade sank into the base of the test subject’s neck as if being sucked into a black hole.
The knife slid between the cervical vertebrae without the slightest resistance. It felt like sweeping through empty air between the joints of bone.
Slaaash!
Unknown structures and principles of bone danced at his fingertips on their own.
The blade did not stop. It kept slashing downward. With every cut, blood erupted. It sprayed with destructive force, like an ultra-high-pressure pump.
It was on a completely different level from when he had cut down the goblin gang. The difference was so overwhelming he couldn’t help but understand.
Critical ambush…!
This sensation in his fingertips, this strike—it was a critical hit exploding on top of the ambush.
An invisible current of fate seemed to push against his back. There was a distinct “force” guiding his blade.
Blade in the Dark and the Glass Cannon trait—
Someone was rolling the dice. An invisible die.
He couldn’t control the result. Solomon was no god. But he could control the preparation leading up to that roll. Just like now.
Did I finish it?!
He had taken it down in a single strike. Without any real fight. The ambush had become a true assassination. His heart raced faster than ever at that realization.
From somewhere far away, the faint sound of dice rolling echoed.
Dice sound?
That was when it happened.
Stealth Detection Successful!
A chill raced down his spine. By the time the voice rang inside his head, Solomon was already rolling across the floor.
His high Dexterity influenced not only stealth success rate but also the ability to detect hidden enemies. A kind of passive intuition or constant detection.
And the “thing” that had approached while stealthed dropped from the ceiling of the waterway like a spider.
The instant Solomon rolled aside, bizarrely long and razor-sharp limbs slammed into the spot where he had been like spears. Crunch! It had been dangerously close. He regained his stance immediately.
Damn it, there’s a second one!
There was another identical test subject. He had never been told there were two.
The spear-like limbs pierced the tunnel floor. In that position, the creature twisted its head. The vertically split maw where a face should have been opened wide. Not to bite.
The ominous magic power flickering in its throat was proof enough.
Wave of Pain!
Without hesitation, Solomon aimed the Nightfall crossbow and pulled the trigger. The corrosive bolt loaded in the first cartridge streaked toward the monster’s gaping maw.
Thump!
The scream that had risen to its throat scattered without sound. The bolt had pierced straight through the uvula.
Direct hit.
Corrosive poison spread along the bolt embedded in its throat.
Hiss—!
Skin burned as if doused in hydrochloric acid. Bubbles boiled and burst. Swollen blisters ruptured, peeling away the epidermis and spilling pus.
Yet the test subject before him did not die. It did not even stop.
With its scream dispersed, the spear-like limbs prepared to strike.
At that moment, Solomon calmly recalled the automatic crossbow’s specifications that Maya had explained to him.
“It can fire single shots or up to ten bolts in full volley. And I don’t mean burst fire—I mean simultaneous multi-shot, got it?!”
Click. Clack.
He pushed the slider beside the trigger to maximum with his thumb.
Then pulled the trigger again.
It wasn’t sequential fire. It was ten bolts launched simultaneously. Multi-shot.
The Nightfall XR-10 automatic crossbow that could unload up to ten bolts at once. Excluding the first shot, the remaining nine fired together.
Clack!
The next cartridge loaded automatically. Solomon pulled the trigger again. Another ten. Cartridge swap. Another ten. He poured out enough ammunition to turn the creature into a literal beehive.
Ratatat!
Each volley’s stopping power completely sealed the test subject’s movements. By the time all three cartridge tubes were empty—
Thirty corrosive bolts had turned the creature’s entire body into a perforated mess of boiling bubbles and ruptured blisters.
Just to be sure, Solomon flicked his wrist. The instant the empty cartridges ejected from the Nightfall, fresh spares from his quick-loader belt slid in with a metallic rattle.
He didn’t resume fire immediately. Instead, he paused and quietly adjusted the multi-shot slider down to five.
Even after being turned into a sieve by thirty bolts and half-melted by acid, the test subject was still moving.
But its movements could no longer threaten anyone. And even that didn’t last long.
Thud.
Did I get it…?
After pumping thirty bolts into it, it would have been strange if it survived. Especially with the corrosive poison on top.
Yet it had still taken that much just to push it past the threshold of death.
In other words, a properly executed critical ambush possessed killing power equal to more than thirty corrosive bolts.
The realization sent involuntary chills down his spine.
At last, the second test subject fell silent. Solomon scanned his surroundings without a word, never lowering his guard.
Two test subjects. Such critical information had either been unknown or deliberately withheld. Only one conclusion made sense.
Someone lied.
The liar was one of two parties.
The Sewer Mage Tower, which had issued the request claiming the experiment had failed and escaped. Or the pig, Roche, who had passed that request on to Solomon.
Or both.
Only now did Solomon truly understand that this underworld had no one worth trusting.
How precarious his current position was. How many suspicious bastards surrounded him, each one demanding suspicion.
“Oh, beautifully done!”
It was then that a voice rang out—without the slightest attempt to hide its presence.
“You pass.”
“!”
From directly behind him.
Until the voice spoke, Solomon hadn’t sensed even a trace of the man’s presence.
Before he knew it, the stranger was there. Less than a meter away. Exactly as Solomon had once crept up behind the monster.
A man in a crisp white suit with ash-gray curly hair.
“Just as the pig said—your skills leave no room for doubt. A talent like yours is wasted rotting away in a garbage pit like the lower districts.”
Fortunately, he displayed no hostility. Even so, Solomon kept one finger hooked over the Nightfall’s trigger while his other hand tightened its grip on the dagger hilt.
“…Who the hell are you?”
“Someone a lot higher than a pig.”
“How much higher?”
“The difference between heaven and earth.”
The man answered.