A Fate To Die

When Solomon climbed the ladder again and emerged from District 1’s underground reservoir, someone was waiting outside as if they had known from the start he would come here.

“Did you speak with Lord Bowery?”

It was Yuria, the elf broker with a monocle.

“…Yeah.”

“Just now, the Selene Family wired your contract payment, Mr. Solomon. Two hundred million krona.”

“The amount’s different from what I was told.”

Two hundred million krona. Even at that jaw-dropping sum, Solomon showed nothing and kept his composure, because the amount he was supposed to receive had doubled from the proposed one hundred million.

“They said the boss added a little extra as a tip, meaning they look forward to working with you.”

“…They’re generous.”

“In addition, the krona Lord Bowery left in the cargo box has been deposited. After tallying the amount, it came to a total of one hundred forty million krona, so your account has received three hundred forty million krona in total.”

Three hundred forty million. An absurd amount.

“And lastly, separate from the contract, my own commission has also been paid.”

“…Paid?”

“Accept Lord Bowery’s offer.”

Yuria said it, as if she had known from the beginning this is how it would go.

“Did you know from the start he was watching me?”

“That’s a misunderstanding.”

Yuria shook her head as she answered.

“To begin with—across all of Guild City, even counting everyone, there aren’t more than a few hundred who can evade Lord Bowery and the Sewer Mage Tower’s ‘eyes and ears.’”

“A few hundred? No…”

Solomon said, dumbfounded.

“That’s fucking… no, that sounds like a lot.”

Even so, Solomon forced himself to keep his language polite.

“Given the scale of this city, even that is a sufficiently small number.”

“……”

“That’s why in your case, Mr. Solomon, it wasn’t so much that he hid the fact he was watching you, as that it was closer to something you had no room to avoid in the first place.”

With Solomon’s current capabilities, there was no way, no matter what he did, to escape Lord Bowery’s eyes and ears.

“And in accordance with the contract, I simply provide what the contractor ‘needs most’ as compensation.”

“Why is it specifically becoming Lord Bowery’s disciple?”

“Do you know about the 「Black Museum」?”

“I don’t.”

“That’s why I’m telling you.”

“Ah, right….”

In an emotionless voice, Yuria continued calmly.

“Mr. Solomon, in the near future, you will be driven into a ‘life-threatening crisis.’”

“?”

And what followed was even more absurd.

“By them. The Black Museum’s Curator.”

“……?”

At first, he thought he had misheard. No, he heard it, and still couldn’t understand what she was saying.

“So you’re saying my life is going to be in danger? Because of that… Black Museum thing?”

“That is correct.”

Solomon was past dumbfounded. He felt like he might actually launch into the sky.

“Memorize that name.”

In the near future, he would be driven into a life-threatening crisis. It was hard to accept that he even began to doubt his own ears.

“When is ‘the near future,’ exactly? And who is this Curator? …No, how does that even happen in the first place?”

“That is all I can tell you.”

The monocled elf replied.

“And the most reliable way to escape that situation is to become Lord Bowery’s disciple.”

“Is there any guarantee what you’re seeing is one hundred percent correct?”

“I won’t say one hundred percent.”

She answered without particularly denying it.

“I simply provide what the contractor needs most as compensation. Whether they realize it or not.”

“……”

Being told he’d be pushed into a threat to his life by someone he didn’t even know. He couldn’t laugh it off, not even as a joke.

Solomon didn’t answer and stayed silent. Yes or no. In the end, he answered neither.

He simply turned his back in silence and left.

There was still too little information to decide.

“I wish you luck, Mr. Solomon.”

The elf, Yuria spoke to Solomon’s back, with no reply coming from him.

His head felt like it might burst. Solomon left District 1 and headed straight for a certain place.

“Maya.”

The black market on the border between the Lowlands and Downtown. Solomon stood in front of a rusted abandoned workshop and, for a moment, tried to think pretty, gentle thoughts.

If he didn’t, he felt like he’d blurt out, “I’m fucked,” right off the bat.

“Solomon!”

A blonde woman in a black leather jacket and worn military pants, as usual. And more than that, her golden eyes shone, eyes made capable of seeing through all things by a retinal modification procedure known as Kaleidoscope.

“I’m here to get new gear.”

“Heh. I knew it. Felt like it was about time you showed.”

Maya shrugged like it was no surprise, looking at his coat riddled with holes from the Alfheim Typewriter.

“And…”

Solomon asked carefully.

“Can I offload elven loot here, too?”

“Ah! Got it.”

The moment she heard that, Maya twisted her lips as if delighted.

“You’re trying to sell the Alfheim Typewriter, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Sure, I’ll pay pretty nicely. Thirty million krona each. How about it?”

“Thirty million. Worth more than I expected.”

“Elves’ spirit weapons are rare. People are desperate to buy them.”

‘…Does this even count as a spirit weapon?’

On second thought, it was hard to say they’re not, setting aside the spirits’ well-being and whether they lived or died.

Solomon hesitated for a moment, then took the Alfheim Typewriter out of his backpack and handed it over.

Maya took it, made a quick adjustment, tested it here and there, and continued.

“So how do you want to set up your new gear? Looking at you, you’ll need a new coat.”

“Three hundred million krona.”

Solomon said.

“How far can I get with that?”

“……”

The answer didn’t come right away. A short silence. After that, Maya asked with an expression that said she couldn’t believe it.

“You, you bastard….”

Maya stayed silent for a moment, then shouted like she couldn’t believe it.

“You’ve become a real big shot! You’re so damn cute I could die!! You little punk, you!!”

Looking exasperated and yet unable to hide how adorable she found him, Maya tried to ambush-hug Solomon. Solomon answered, dumbfounded.

“Leave the weapon and the modified Nightfall crossbow as they are. Focus on the torn coat, the undershirt, and support gear.”

No amount of money could replace the Type-A modified crossbow forged by the dwarves of Deadlock Workshop. And his weapon was a Ghost Whale bone blade worth a hundred million. Getting three hundred million didn’t mean he could just swap everything out.

Whatever he’d heard from Yuria, no, perhaps precisely because of it, nothing was going to change. He would simply do what had to be done to survive.

“Make it something that’s worth the money.”

“Heh. Leave it to me.”

Maya grinned confidently, like there was nothing to worry about.

“In Downtown District 20, there isn’t a product I, Maya, can’t get!”

“I placed an order for the armor to match the specs you asked for.”

Downtown District 19, also known as 「Steel Heart Street」.

As its name suggested, District 19 specialized in all kinds of weapons and gear, from standard-issue weapons for the military to custom equipment used by contractors.

Solomon walked Steel Heart Street with Maya, looking into new equipment.

Along the way, he sold the torn Nightweaver coat secondhand, and looked over the gear he could afford, narrowing down his options within his budget.

“When funds are comfortable like they are now, it’s actually more efficient to customize special-spec gear from each street rather than buying standard megacorp equipment.”

Maya said, with hammering and metal clanging echoing all around them.

“Then when you really have money to burn, that’s when you go back to the mega-guilds and have ‘bespoke gear’ made.”

“How much does that cost?”

“A lot of the time, they don’t trade in currency at all. Like Deadlock Workshop. You basically need a certain level of credit and results. It’s… a bit complicated.”

“I see.”

So money didn’t solve everything. Like ordering custom work from a luxury house.

It reminded him how far he still had to go. Thinking that, Solomon followed her toward a workshop in District 19.

“I’ll place the armor order later based on the specs you told me. For now, let’s get the tool kits we can buy immediately.”

“Let’s do that.”

Soon, the place they stopped at was a workshop tucked into an alley corner in District 19, suspicious and gloomy at a glance.

Weavenest Kit Shop.

The goth-styled elderly woman didn’t even pretend to look at Maya and Solomon, flipping through a gossip magazine.

Maya didn’t care. She called the woman by name and started negotiating, then soon brought out two products.

“This is the infiltration Ghost Unit Syn—Probe hacking tool.”

Maya opened two black steel cases in front of Solomon and explained what was inside.

“It’s got a multi-protocol hacking module, a surveillance-system manipulator, a communications wiretap device, and an electronic spirit core on top of that. It can neutralize even a megacorp’s Tier-3 surveillance net, and you can hijack automatons or drones, too.”

“…I see.”

Solomon pretended he mostly understood and looked at the next case. Hacking modules, camera manipulation, wiretapping. It really drove home that this era didn’t stop at steam and gears.

“This one’s the Webweaver Kit. Things a fixer can’t go without when infiltrating.”

Then, after the Ghost Unit hacking tool, she pulled out a new tool kit.

“A mechanical grappling wire, seven types of automatic spider lockpick sets, a portable laser cutter, a hydraulic spreader, and magnet spikes you can attach anywhere.”

‘That’s a lot.’

To be fair, when Solomon infiltrated the Biotech Guild, the grappling hook and lockpicks had helped him a lot. Back then, they were cheap disposables, so having pricier equipment now didn’t seem like a loss.

“Magnet spikes are especially useful where the hook can’t reach. You can use them together, too.”

More than anything, unlike when they were laid out in the case, once packed away one by one, they took up surprisingly little space. At a practical level, he could carry both sets without trouble.

“Heh. Starting to feel like a pro now?”

“Looks convincing.”

“I’ve got the armor and support gear options picked out, so I’ll send them by parcel before it gets too late.”

“Parcel?”

“Hotel Snark, Room 117, right?”

“…That hotel accepts parcels?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

Solomon blinked, dumbfounded.

After that, Solomon finished the rest of the shopping with Maya and returned to the hotel. The night was deep.

‘Life threatening….’

Ghost Town, a hotel on the boundary between life and death. Thinking about life in a place like that felt oddly ridiculous.

‘There’s no reason to refuse.’

To begin with, Lord Bowery’s offer wasn’t bad for Solomon. It just nagged at him in a strange way.

Because following someone else’s words, dancing on command with no will of his own, made him feel like a puppet.

And in a situation where someone had a knife to his throat, it wasn’t like free will was going to feed him, either.

‘…This isn’t the time to be picky.’

He couldn’t forget what he’d heard from the elf broker today. That absurd statement, so ridiculous that ‘bewildering’ didn’t even cover it.

‘Mr. Solomon, in the near future, you will be driven into a life-threatening crisis.’

‘By them, the Black Museum’s Curator. Memorize that name.’

A life-threatening crisis, the Black Museum, the Curator.

More than the idea that his future life was mortgaged, what unsettled him was that those names meant nothing to him—.

‘I don’t even remember seeing it in the setting book.’

Or maybe he’d skimmed it and missed it.

‘Just the name looks strong….’

Whether the struggle to survive meant thrashing about or dancing as someone else’s puppet, what was so important about that, really?

The next day, in a Hotel Snark room.

By the time Solomon opened his eyes, it was already evening. He must have slept straight through from exhaustion.

“E-excuse me, Mr. Solomon.”

When he opened the door, a skeleton held out a box with trembling hands, its bones clattering as if it were truly shaking in fear.

“P-please, th-this….”

“Ah, uh, okay.”

Flustered, Solomon quickly took the box from the skeleton’s rattling hands.

[※ Warning: Take special care when handling goods involving spirits and undead! No responsibility is taken if improper handling causes ascension or disappearance.]

Beneath the warning band, an unknown ominous feeling wavered from inside the box, like when he first received the Ghost Whale bone blade.

‘Express delivery.’

The sender was Maya. It was Solomon’s new gear.