Black Museum

As soon as he returned from the fight with the Spectral Spear Mage, he fell asleep like he’d passed out, then woke up. The clock read late at night.

‘…I slept for quite a while.’

The fatigue from the battle ran deep, so he let it be. Solomon got up and calmly checked his status.

───
Subclass: Reaper

Owned Perk — 「Inescapable Fate」
: Acquire 1 <Fate Die ⚅>

New Perk (New!) — 「Induce Excessive Bleeding」
: When a melee sneak attack succeeds, the Bleeding status lasts longer and does not fade easily.
───

There were four general-purpose rogue-type subclasses you could obtain separately from the rare archetype 「Spell Assassin」. Among them, Reaper was a secondary class focused on melee sneak attacks, and this was its new ability.

On top of that, the ‘Fated Victory’ he achieved against the Spectral Spear Mage brought Solomon many things, whether he liked it or not.

───
Trait 「Potential Big Shot」
: Gain +30 favor with the Hotel Snark faction and all clients, and gain <Big Shot Die ⚅>

<Big Shot Die ⚅>
Tag — Special Die, Non-Consumable Die
: When dealing with a faction whose affinity exceeds +30, you may add this die’s value to social interaction rolls.

Trait 「Mage Hunter」
: When attacking a mage-class opponent, add 2 damage.
───

“Excuse me, Mr. Solomon.”

At that moment, a cautious knock sounded outside the room. It wasn’t hard to guess why.

“The client wishes to see you, Mr. Solomon.”

“I’ll come out right away.”

Solomon didn’t delay and got up immediately. Late at night, with Hotel Snark’s mostly nocturnal guests, the lounge was even quieter.

“I was waiting.”

The client, Lord Bernier, was right there. With a coat draped over his elegant black suit like a cloak, both hands clasping a mahogany cane carved with an eagle’s head.

“You knew this would happen from the moment you commissioned the job, didn’t you?”

Solomon sat across from him and spoke quietly

“Hm. Care to elaborate?”

“I mean the unexpected uninvited guest.”

Solomon answered in a low, sharp voice.

“That arrowhead bastard from Uptown.”

“Oh.”

“Hm. I’m about to say something nasty right now… do I have any reason to watch my mouth in front of you?”

“There’s no need to mind your tone.”

Hearing that, Lord Bernier replied calmly.

“As for the job, I honestly apologize.”

Flecked white hair. A cross-shaped scar running across his right eye. Wrinkles that spoke of life’s tempests far more than simple age. Even so, Lord Bernier’s apology didn’t diminish his stature at all.

“Right. Well said, you damn old bastard. Didn’t think my life would ever take me onto the express train to the underworld.”

“Heh-heh, my… I’m glad you look full of energy.”

It just wasn’t a reason for Solomon to bother speaking politely.

“I don’t particularly mind you venting your anger at me. However, I came here for something more meaningful than that.”

“As if anyone would come here because they’ve got nothing better to do but drink tea.”

“As I said… you splendidly handled the situation beyond what was anticipated.”

Solomon soon regained his composure and answered. After a brief silence, Lord Bernier drew his upper body in slightly and leaned forward.

“And because of that, we can take a more positive approach to the compensation we were originally meant to discuss.”

“Let’s hear it.”

In that posture, he spoke very carefully, in a cautious, low voice, as if even here in Hotel Snark he was wary of ‘watching eyes.’

“The information you want isn’t something I can provide by my decision alone…. Therefore, by regulation, to even speak of this matter, certain procedures are required, such as approval from above.”

“So you can’t tell me? Hm. Aren’t you curious what ‘bad series’ I’ll move on to after bad words and bad thoughts?”

“You’re impatient. Please, hear me out.”

Lord Bernier continued without losing his composure.

Deugureureu….

Along with a sound echoing faintly from somewhere far off. Before long, Solomon realized it was the sound of dice. The new die he’d obtained last night, rolling.

“Even so, considering the ‘unexpected merits’ you earned, all of those procedures will be trivial anyway.”

[Negotiation Success!]

[Based on your high favor, you secured greater compensation!]

“In fact, beyond providing the information you need, you’ll receive things from us as compensation that are far beyond what you can imagine.”

Things beyond imagination.

Without a doubt, it was thanks to the <Big Shot Die ⚅> he’d just obtained last night. He never expected to benefit from it this quickly.

“Alright. Now I’m starting to have some nice, polite thoughts.”

“So I’ll provide the information right now. The rest of the compensation will be paid out in order, according to procedure.”

“Then let’s get right to it. What is the Black Museum? And what’s a Curator?”

Thump.

Lord Bernier lightly tapped the floor with his cane. With a small scraping sound, a veil of unease settled over the area.

‘A spell to keep sound from leaking out.’

There didn’t seem to be anyone nearby to overhear, and at a glance it felt like needless caution. But knowing this city’s ‘countless eyes and ears,’ Solomon understood it wasn’t pointless worry at all.

“The Black Museum… is officially a Special-Grade Designated criminal organization of Guild City.”

“So just a criminal organization?”

“That’s right. A criminal society that collects and preserves the evil of this city. The organization itself isn’t very large. The city estimates, with high probability, that it’s between twelve and fourteen people.”

A criminal society that collects and preserves the evil of the city.

“And ‘Curator’ would be what they call the members of that organization.”

“Exactly.”

Hearing it like this, it sounded like some crime ring of psychotic artists with middle-school syndrome. Not ‘sounds like’, isn’t that exactly what it is?

“So cut off innocent people’s heads to hold exhibitions and call it bloody art or something?”

“Their motives are far more complex and elegant.”

Lord Bernier said with a bitter smile.

“Either way, their methods are a small issue. Their true danger lies elsewhere.”

“What is it?”

“That their organization has demons with them.”

“…Demons?”

“Yes. Demons of the Nine Hells.”

At first, he thought it was a kind of metaphor.

“There are demons whose true names are known, Ishtar and Beelzebub, and besides them, there are three candidates believed, with high probability, to be demons or their contractors.”

“?”

Thanks to his TRPG experience, he could tell the weight those names carried the moment he heard them.

Ishtar, a goddess of Mesopotamian myth and the harlot of Babylon. And Beelzebul, Baal-zebul, Belzebuth, pronounced slightly differently, but the being those names pointed to was one and the same.

‘The Lord of the Flies.’

Only then did Solomon realize again that this world was the world of a goddamn TRPG.

‘Fucked.’

At the very least, with as many as five slots already occupied by demons or demon contractors, it wasn’t hard to guess the rest. Birds of a feather flock together. Even if it wasn’t the ‘good’ kind of flocking.

“Just curious, but is there some organization where kind-hearted angels flock together and struggle for world peace or something?”

“There was.”

“There was?”

“Regrettably, that information lies outside the scope of what you requested.”

“……”

Hearing him say it in the past tense, Solomon didn’t feel like asking further. Ignorance is bliss, after all.

‘Still….’

Then he realized. Back then, the elf Yuria had said Solomon could 100% avert the threat to his life by becoming Lord Bowery’s disciple. Was Lord Bowery some kind of demon slayer? He looked like he could chew up demons, sure, but… who knew.

‘It means an organization at that level isn’t going to grit their teeth and come after me personally.’

In other words, it was closer to the kind of threat where you just get unlucky and get hit by a truck. Though whether you could wave off getting hit by a truck driven by a demon as “just unlucky” was another matter.

“Officially, that’s all the information I can provide in response to your request.”

Lord Bernier said.

“Separately, I deposited the contract fee of 300 million krona into your account, and once internal approval is complete, additional compensation based on your merits will be provided.”

“It better not be you tossing in a few extra coins and acting like you did me a favor.”

“Oh, of course not. We value your performance more than anyone… more precisely, the value of your ‘irreversible performance.’”

Irreversible. At that meaning-laden word, Solomon frowned. He was right.

“I look forward to working with you.”

And so Solomon accepted the situation calmly.

Thump.

Lord Bernier lightly tapped the floor again with his cane. Then he gave Solomon a courteous bow and turned away. Each step made the coat draped over his back like a cloak flutter with dignity.

Then, suddenly, there was a sound. The sound of dice rolling.

‘Huh?’

No further success or failure message followed. No, thinking back, he wasn’t even sure it had really been the sound of dice in the first place.

‘Did I mishear it?’

Solomon didn’t make much of it as he stood up. Either way, it wasn’t time to hesitate.

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

‘By them. The Black Museum’s Curator. Remember that name.’

To escape the oracle of tragedy, it was time to run as far as he possibly could.

At that time.

Even late at night, this city never truly slept. More precisely, nobles and bourgeois could sleep soundly, but workers could not.

Under the night sky, heavy equipment operators digging up empty land for the city’s expansion were an example of that.

Machines driven by magitech tore into and overturned the land on the city’s outskirts to raise a new tower of gears and steam pipes.

In the process, it wasn’t all that surprising when someone’s buried corpse turned up now and then. The worker stopped the machine, climbed down briefly, and examined the body.

“Shit. Nothing but fly eggs.”

At least a few weeks had passed since their death. Black rot had begun along with the stench, and the belly was bloated with gas, like it might burst at any moment. The clothes looked fairly high-class, but not to the point you’d strip them off and sell them.

He forced down his gag reflex and rummaged through the clothes, opening a leather wallet, but it wasn’t much different. At best, there was a bundle of business cards that seemed to be the man’s.

Chief Prosecutor, High Appellate Division, Special Assignment Office of the City Judiciary Bureau, Lord Bernier.

To him, who couldn’t read, it meant nothing.

Nor did he have any idea that the countless 「flies」 clinging to the corpse, laying eggs and buzzing, were swearing loyalty to their king, the one who came from the deepest pit of the Nine Hells.