Mistress Selene
The conversation ended there. So did the story of some unknown person.
Yet Solomon’s tale was far from over. Somehow he had ended up accepting a new request on the spot—the final request of the dead.
‘Feels too dirty to just ignore it.’
Besides, he could not overlook the promise of some form of compensation.
In the end Solomon climbed into the cockpit and pulled the lever. The crane’s hook rose from the ground, releasing the bound dwarf.
“Puhwaaaak! Haaak!”
The dwarf vomited water as though he might faint from the pain. It was almost wondrous how much liquid a single body could expel. He was a dwarf, of course, not a man.
“Th-th-thank you! I’ll make the compensation an amount I won’t regret…!”
The dwarf bowed and scraped before Solomon. In reply, Solomon’s voice cut like frost.
“I think you’re misunderstanding something.”
Deception Roll in Progress…
“I came from the hotel on a request from someone beyond your imagination.”
“!”
“My client has no desire to see the ‘holy relic’ fall into their hands. Think about it. Why else would I have saved you?”
“Hiiik!”
At the name, the dwarf’s eyes visibly froze. Of course it was a lie. The request had come from the dead orc of the Blood Moon Tribe lying right there.
“By the way, the hotel I’m from is called Ghosttown. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it. They say there’s a kind of ‘death’ there that doesn’t end even after you die. Shall we go have a leisurely chat?”
Intimidation Roll in Progress…
“Or you could simply confess everything about the relic.”
A brief silence.
“After all, my commission is to properly recover the relic.”
Deception and Intimidation Rolls Successful!
At the end of the silence came the sound of dice—crisp, perfectly on beat.
“W-when the smuggler guild ordered me to steal the relic from the Blood Moon Archipelago…”
The sailor-like dwarf continued, trembling violently.
“C-Chairman Vlad Tepes of Megacorp Street… said he desired it…”
Downtown District 1, Megacorp Street. In Guild City, the place where the greatest megacorporations gathered—a district where the very word “guild” felt inadequate.
Chairman Vlad Tepes
“I see. This will go quickly, then. So where is the relic?”
“Y-yes, please wait! I’ll bring it out right away…”
The deception had taken root perfectly. Even while wounded, the dwarf dragged his injured body across Solomon without the slightest suspicion.
They passed the third pier’s unloading terminal. After some distance the dwarf stopped before a cargo crate and placed his hand on it.
Brass locks sealed in a hexagonal pattern. He pressed a key mechanism where springs and gears meshed with intricate precision.
Click. Clack.
Like the aperture of a camera, multiple metal blades rotated three hundred and sixty degrees and opened. Beyond them lay the “holy relic.”
A red heart suspended in a glass bottle.
“So this is the Blood Moon Tribe’s holy relic.”
“Hehe, yes. Chairman Vlad is quite the gourmet, you see…”
The dwarf bowed obsequiously at his side. Solomon said nothing as he stepped forward and stood before the pulsing organ.
Even while floating inside the glass, it throbbed with vigorous life. A heart that never rested. And he could sense it faintly—this was no ordinary creature’s heart.
Insight Successful!
“How many orcs did you kill to obtain this?” Solomon asked.
“Hehe, quite a few. Those primitive orc bastards become honeycombs after just a couple shots from an automatic crossbow!”
The dwarf smiled fawningly even through his pain. Solomon watched in silence.
He had not come this far to judge good and evil. Strictly speaking, the Blood Moon orc he had just fought was not an easily comprehensible evil either. None of that mattered.
Work was work.
Solomon stepped forward without a word and took the red heart from its glass prison. The “product” was now in his hands. Yet his commission was not to deliver it to the megacorp’s esteemed Chairman.
He turned on his heel, relic in hand.
That was when it happened.
“Oh, this is interesting.”
“A useless mayfly has gotten itself entangled.”
“……”
A man and woman in black suits stood there, without the slightest presence. And not just two—four, perhaps five. Every one of them had skin as pale as a corpse. They had clearly known this would happen.
“H-hiiik…!”
The smuggler dwarf’s face drained of all color. He immediately prostrated himself and began babbling.
“I-I delivered the relic to the contractor from the hotel as promised! P-please show mercy!”
“Hotel?”
The suited man echoed the word. A handsome blond youth who appeared to be their leader.
“Strange. Did we ever place a request with the hotel?”
“……!”
Only then did the dwarf’s gaze snap toward Solomon in fury.
“I received a request,” Solomon said, unconcerned.
“From someone far beyond anything you can imagine.”
He kept his poker face, calmly playing innocent.
“Hoo, how fascinating.”
Even now the suited group kept their hands in their pockets, composure untouched. They knew they held overwhelming superiority, and in truth they were not wrong.
“To claim it comes from someone even more ‘unimaginable’ than our Lord, Chairman Vlad Tepes.”
Open mockery. A flash of razor-sharp fangs.
Insight Successful!
Vampires.
Given the chairman’s name, it was hardly surprising.
‘Not opponents I can defeat in combat.’
Amid the salty night-sea wind and the cold gusts, Solomon’s mind had never been clearer.
“It is not too late, assassin of the hotel. Hand over the relic obediently.”
They were right. Right now, surrendering the relic was the most rational choice.
Yet he did not want to. He did not want to give it to them. Why? He could not say. No matter how he examined the situation rationally, handing it over was correct.
So why did he refuse?
‘…There was a reward.’
The compensation he would receive for breaking through this danger and completing their request.
But was that truly all? No matter how much one loved gold, it was useless in the grave. Besides, he and the dead orc had not been close enough for such loyalty. Hadn’t Solomon himself killed the orc?
It was laughable.
In his past life as a TRPG player, this was exactly the kind of play he had despised and forbidden. The incomprehensible foolishness of abandoning pure efficiency. He could not explain it.
Still, a reward waited.
And from experience, greater threats always brought greater rewards.
His thoughts ended there.
He had already accepted the request as an assassin of Hotel Snark. Once accepted, the duty was clear.
‘Shadow Mimicry, Shadow Swap.’
The moment the spells activated, Solomon’s body collapsed where it stood. Using the first-level combo, he instantly widened the distance to the farthest point his vision could reach along the pier.
A retreat without a backward glance. In a sense, the most bottom-feeder assassin move possible.
“Ha, a mere mortal resorting to such cheap tricks…!”
Watching Solomon flee with shadow magic, the suited man gave a hollow laugh.
“Do you actually believe you can escape?”
The woman in the suit laughed next. From her corpse-pale skin she bared blade-like nails and fangs.
“Want to bet who catches him first?”
Another vampire spoke. The rest bared cold fangs in unanimous agreement.
Downtown District 1, Megacorp Street. The sanctuary where the colossal guilds of Guild City gathered—guilds so enormous the word itself could not contain them.
It was the sound of Wallachia Co., the greatest among them, beginning to move.
Before long Solomon had left the Lower District docks and was sprinting through the slums.
There was no end to running. Even while dashing with the first-level combo of Shadow Mimicry and Shadow Swap, he understood.
They were following. At a speed beyond imagination, literally beyond reason.
‘Monster bastards!’
Moreover this was the Lower District slums; there was no convenient “Room of Doors” leading straight to Hotel Snark, where indoor combat was forbidden.
“Kyahahaha! You’ll have to run harder than that!”
The woman in the suit chased along the rooftops like a shadow, openly mocking his parkour. Solomon clicked his tongue in silence.
“We promised! Whoever catches him first gets one point on the next performance review!”
The instant the words left her mouth, Solomon felt a shadow accelerating directly behind him. A chilling surge of killing intent. He quickly adjusted his grip on the Ghost Whale Bone Blade and swung.
Kang!
The blood-red blade that had been rushing at his back was deflected. It was not a weapon held in the hand but a projectile formed of blood—some kind of hemomancy.
Click-clack!
Solomon had already drawn the Nightfall automatic crossbow from his quick-loader belt. He set the multi-shot slider to single fire and unleashed a silent, silenced shot without even looking.
“Pathetic tricks, little boy.”
He had never expected it to hit. Merely hindering the enemy’s movement would have been enough. Yet even that proved impossible.
“Shall we end this game of tag?”
Swish!
At that moment the sound of dice rang out. It did not sound favorable.
Immediately afterward, a pain like his bones were being carved open erupted across Solomon’s back. Blood sprayed like a fountain. He never even registered what had struck him.
“Keuk!”
His posture collapsed. He tumbled miserably across the dirt.
‘Damn it, they’re insanely strong!’
The vampire pack approached without a single disturbed breath, encircling him. Pale as corpses, emotionless eyes, sharp fangs bared.
No escape. Solomon bit his lip in silence. He still had first-level spells left. With these…
In the midst of absolute crisis, his thoughts accelerated more furiously than ever.
“—Oh my, this is something.”
A voice of peerless elegance drifted down from the night sky.
“Our ace has stumbled into an unexpected crisis.”
A dark elf radiating the dignity and grace befitting the head of an organization.
A fur shawl draped over her shoulders, obsidian earrings gleaming in the backlight—she wore extravagant ornaments from head to toe, yet none of it felt excessive.
Rather, an elegance that overwhelmed all those luxuries resided within her very being.
The true bearing of a family head—
“Mistress Selene…”
The Godmother of the Dark Elf Mafia, the Selene Family, had arrived.