Victory

Solomon was no longer there. He had run.

Even so, both of them saw it clearly. The cleaner’s back as fled without even looking back.

“Truly a bug of a man.”

“……”

Violet bit her lip in silence.

“To run off irresponsibly even while a lady suffers.”

The Spectral Spear Mage, a mage of the Five Great Houses, Christophe Arrowhead, sneered. Violet didn’t answer. To be precise, she didn’t even have the strength left to answer.

She was covered in blood. Vomiting blood, bleeding from the nose, shedding bloody tears.

“Compared to that, oh, poor lady…”

The mage had already stopped attacking and smiled. Even then, he left the prism wavering at his fingertips and the fractal barrier as they were.

“It’s such a waste for you to remain a filthy bourgeois lackey, after showing such nobility and courage.”

As if offering a chance to someone beneath him.

“……”

Violet stayed silent.

“Isn’t there another reason why you came here?”

“Oh, there is a reason.”

As he said that, he turned his head and glanced at the unconscious body splicer… Dr. O’Neill.

“As you know, whether that thing lives or dies isn’t all that important.”

“Of course…”

Violet sneered with difficulty. As if she couldn’t even stand anymore, she sank to her knees. She could barely use her blade as a cane to support her collapsing body.

“Rather than that, I’m curious about your face behind those sunglasses.”

As he said that, the mage stepped closer.

“To be honest, I was terribly disappointed.”

The mage said with a smile. At a glance it looked like a conversation, but it wasn’t. The mage didn’t listen to a single word the other person said.

“…About what?”

“I was hoping that man would show something courageous in the midst of our fight.”

“Hah. You expect a lot from a coward.”

“Just as you say.”

The mage sneered.

“Still, even a coward has a coward’s courage.”

“…A coward’s courage. For a noble, that’s a surprisingly open-minded thought.”

“No. I hate a coward’s courage. A coward’s courage is, in itself, a desecration of courage.”

Proudly flaunting the pride of a great house and nobility, Kristoff continued.

“So I was secretly looked forward to seeing the ‘coward’s courage’ he would show be thoroughly crushed.”

As if he couldn’t hold back from saying it. His voice sounded like he couldn’t help but brag about his own story.

“I didn’t expect he’d be trash that couldn’t muster even that much courage to the very end.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

At those words, Violet sneered.

“Courage never exists for the powerful, for kings or nobles.”

“Then what does it exist for?”

The Spectral Spear Mage asked back, looking ready to have every single thing explained from start to finish.

“Courage is… the one and only virtue a weak person can show against the strong. Trash like you has no right to run your mouth about it.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Do you understand now? You probably can’t. You’ll never know for your whole life.”

Violet said through blood-stained lips.

“It’s the resolve of a slave with nowhere to run, to stab a king with a sword.”

After speaking, she caught her breath for a moment, then added coldly.

“Indeed, it’s a virtue far beyond someone like you, an arrowhead.”

“……”

Violet sneered. The mage didn’t understand. He didn’t understand, and he only trembled with rage at the insult and mockery. To dare spit those words at him, after he had graciously offered her a chance. As a noble, his pride could not allow it.

His eyes rolled with an unbearable humiliation, and he tried to drive in an unhesitating wedge.

From his fingertips, the wavelengths of magical power were split into countless colors as if passing through a spectroscope, and he selected one of them to be reborn as a magical spear —

It was the very instant the flash of death was about to pierce her.

“—”

Kwa-jik!

A sound rang out. The sound of something cracking. The sound of someone striking the man’s fractal barrier.

Courage is a virtue only the weak can show before the strong.

That is why it has value. And that is why—

“Ah, truly a bug’s struggle.”

It was a buglike act.

Kwa-jik!

Stopped by the fractal barrier guarding the man’s back, the blade tip had nowhere to go. At the same time, a spear of light shot out from the mage’s fingertips, as if denying a second strike.

The flash of death surged.

A blow that pierced the heart and drove in a wedge. That was the weak person’s courage shown before the strong, and the end of that courage.

[Sneak Attack: Critical Failure!]

In the pain of his heart being pierced, the sound of dice rolling echoed. It was the end of the courage the weak showed before the strong. An ending where he could not even struggle properly, only to have his heart run through. Solomon had already witnessed the outcome of that courage.

At the same time, the clock hands moved. Not forward, but backward. Like playing a video in reverse.

[Consuming 1 <Fate Die ⚅> to attempt a Sneak Attack reroll.]

Right now, Solomon was once again standing behind the strong one who had driven him into ‘death.’

After pretending to run, he came back, more cautious than ever, killing all sound, giving off no presence at all, creeping up behind him. It was the very instant he was about to swing an assassin’s blade.

───
<Fate Die ⚅>
Tag — Special Die, Consumable Die
: If an ambush die roll results in a critical failure (fumble), you may consume this die to attempt a reroll.
: This die is classified as special and consumable, and up to 1 can be replenished on a rest.
───

Even so, the sight of Solomon looking down at the strong man’s back was far from that of a reaper. It was the gaze of the weak before the strong, the feeling of a slave standing before a king.

Even the pain remained. The literal pain of his heart being pierced. The fear of death.

He was there once again.

The first strike had already failed. A critical failure. The next sneak attack would probably fumble too. That fractal barrier the opponent had deployed was not something Solomon at his current level could do anything about. He knew that.

And yet, the chance was given once more.

‘Can I make it succeed next time?’

Solomon asked himself. Was it reckless? Yes. Even Solomon as he was now had no objection to calling this act reckless. It wasn’t just reckless. It was suicide.

—A hundred Solomons at the table would flatly call the act ‘foolish.’ Because he would have too.

He knew. And even knowing, Solomon made his decision.

“Courage never exists for the powerful, for kings or nobles.”

The clock hands had already been turned back. Solomon gripped the hilt. Harder than ever.

“Courage is… the one and only virtue a weak person can show against the strong. Trash like you has no right to run your mouth about it.”

An unseen die roll. Was his strike right now completely dependent on that die? He didn’t know. Even so, Solomon thought. Even if it was only a speck. Even a little.

“Do you understand now? You probably can’t. You’ll never know for your whole life.”

Here, he wished his courage and will could change ‘fate,’ even a little.

And so that it wouldn’t become mere reckless bravado of the weak, he recalled the sensation carved into his fingertips through the failure just now.

‘I clearly saw it.’

Through that first strike, he realized it, if only faintly. Even if it had ended in failure. The shape of the fractal structure shining in that failure. A tiny distortion glimpsed within that beautiful recursive structure.

“It’s the resolve of a slave with nowhere to run, to stab a king with a sword.”

What Solomon learned and carved into his fingertips through that failure was never ‘the resolve to stab a king with a sword.’

It was a gap.

A gap to drive a blade into the king.

How did he know? It wasn’t something you could know through ordinary dice rolls or experience. It was something in a realm you could only know by actually stabbing into it.

Solomon believed in that.

The king’s gap his intuition pointed to.

—The weak one’s blade streaked forward.

Toward the fractal barrier that, at his current level, he couldn’t even know if he could properly damage. To pierce the shield protecting the man and reach beyond it.

The strongest strike this game allowed.

‘Reach…!’

The blade tip shot out. The barrier that should protect the mage revealed its fractal geometric patterns and gave off an uncanny light.

Toward the gap in those geometrically shining shapes that repeated recursion without end, Solomon’s blade tip surged.

It was an extremely small gap.

A crack so small you wouldn’t even notice it existed. No matter how it repaired, it never became 100%, only repeating 99.999…%, and he aimed precisely for that decimal gap that remained.

Whether it was Solomon’s animal instinct, learning gained through failure, a desperate will strong enough to twist fate, or literally ‘fate,’ he didn’t know. Or maybe he was simply lucky.

Kwa-jik!

Either way, Solomon’s blade stabbed down into that gap. Precisely. The sensation in his grip did not stop.

Jjeojeok, jjeok.

With it, the fractal geometric patterns began to crack and warp simultaneously. Like a turtle’s shell splitting apart.

So Solomon didn’t stop.

Because that blow just now had a shadow that would mimic the weak one’s courage.

The sneak attack succeeded. And the success of that sneak attack didn’t end as Solomon’s success ‘alone.’

‘.’

Because he, too, was a mage.

Then the shadow mimic copied the sneak attack from behind exactly and pierced the fractal structure again. To Solomon, it was a miracle. To the mage, it was a calamity.

‘Not yet!’

But… it was still not enough. Not enough to break it with that alone.

So a final blow was needed.

Until the mage’s shield broke, one sword.

Chwaak!

At that moment, there was no Violet kneeling there.

There was only the Schrödinger swordsman unfolding movements not yet fixed within uncertainty, with three swords.

“W, w—”

Without even a gap for his words to finish, she struck the barrier, cut off his neck, and drove her blade vertically into the place where the neck was gone. Only then did the mage’s severed head, spinning, drop to the floor.

“W-wait, sp—spare—”

Only after his head was cut off and rolled on the floor did the man finally finish his words. Those were his last words.

Spare—

For a man who had talked proudly, plastered with titles—Five Great Houses, Arrowhead, Spectral Spear Mage, noble—it was an end ugly beyond belief.

“Huk, hu-eok…!”

Solomon collapsed where he stood and drew deep breaths. Not because he was wounded. It was just that the pressure up to that moment crashed down all at once, and his legs trembled beyond what he could bear.

The aftershock of staking his life, closing the distance at the end of a once-in-a-lifetime gamble, and barely landing that strike.

“Huk…! Hu-eok, huk!”

His breathing was ragged. The breath he had held in burst out, rough, like someone who had lived without being able to breathe until now.

“How did you do it?”

“Hu-eok, huk, what…?”

Violet spoke calmly as she watched him. Solomon, panting harshly, asked back.

“Your blade clearly realized there was a ‘gap’ in his barrier, and you aimed for it.”

“…Yeah.”

“How did you know?”

“Trade secret.”

“…Fine. Then let’s do this.”

Violet said.

“I’ll tell you my trade secret too. So I really want to hear it. How did you notice the ‘gap’ etched into his fractal structure?”

“…No, it’s not information worth trading like that.”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to reveal my trade secret alone.”

Violet said firmly. It felt, somehow, like pure curiosity. Even if he didn’t know why, he could sense it.

[Insight Success! She is deeply interested in the wit you showed in that desperate moment. Not because it’s useful information or beneficial, but purely out of curiosity.]

“……”

Solomon fell silent for a moment. Then he spoke.

“I got lucky.”

Solomon answered.

“Because you worked hard to draw the cracks.”

Without a hint of a lie. The mage’s fractal barrier never truly repaired back to the original 100%. It only looked like it did. In reality, the gaps carved by Violet’s repeated strikes were clearly irreversible damage accumulating on the barrier.

Solomon had only driven the final wedge on top of that.

“And saying it plainly would make me look kind of pathetic, so I just called it a trade secret.”

“Oh?”

Solomon answered evenly. It wasn’t modesty or anything. He was stating facts. Regardless of what Violet might think of that modesty.

“Besides, it wouldn’t have been possible alone.”

Solomon ran, then showed himself again— and closed the distance.

At the very moment that looked most dangerous. Violet understood the meaning without being told, and she knelt. To seize his eyes.

This was the result. Solomon didn’t achieve it alone.

“It was possible because there was a good actor.”

“I see.”

Solomon said calmly. Violet didn’t care.

“As promised, it’s my turn to reveal my trade secret.”

“…That you’re some Schrödinger whatever swordsman?”

“You idiot. Do you go around calling what any dog or cow knows a secret? My secret is….”

“Wait.”

Solomon cut her off for a moment. He walked over to the unconscious Dr. O’Neill’s body.

Pu-uk!

And he finished the job he had to finish. A lot of things had gotten tangled, but in the end, the contract was complete. He had definitely opened an air hole.

[Ah, what a marvelous result……. Before an absolute powerhouse who seemed impossible to defeat, the courage and boldness the two of you showed turned the impossible into victory. Like a triumph remembered in a great tale.]

As if it had been waiting, the narrator’s voice echoed.

[I can already hear the voice in your heart……. Thoughts like, ‘My level definitely went up, and there’s probably more than that, right? After all this trouble, there’s no way that’s just it. What kind of loot will drop?’]

“……”

Solomon was dumbfounded.

Because right now, the one thought filling Solomon’s head more than ever was this.

‘…Ah, I’m going to die.’

His mind went blank.

‘I’m going to die.’