Test

“Want to run from death? It’s enough for you to simply accept my job.”

In that place where endless darkness stretched beyond the horizon, inside the belly of the shadow, Lord Bowery spoke.

“By contract, I will fulfill the duties I must as your godfather, just as you fulfill your duties as my disciple!”

[In the world of mages, master and disciple are called godfather and godchild.]

“Does that include the service of keeping my head attached, too?”

“Of course! Your head has to be attached for me to teach you anything, doesn’t it?!”

Lord Bowery cackled.

“And like I said, the reason I’m protecting you is….”

“As a mage, for me to inherit your legacy.”

“That’s right. And not just any mage, either. I mean the legacy of a killer shadow mage!”

At least, that wasn’t an exaggeration or anything.

“Alright, ma brother! Since we’re talking, let’s start right away.”

“…Start what?”

“A cute and adorable test I’m giving you to see if you’re qualified to become a killer shadow mage.”

‘…A test.’

Solomon frowned without speaking.

Even so, learning magic itself was not something Solomon had any reason to see as a loss. If anything, it deserved to be called luck.

“Good, you’re quick! Then come find me at the Basilica Cistern when you have time. We’ll talk the rest there.”

“That underground reservoir in District 1?”

Before Solomon could ask again, there was a sound. Ptui. A spitting sound. It didn’t sound pleasant.

‘!’

When he realized it, it was bright again. Solomon was back. At the Dawn Skylark Tavern. Lord Bowery was gone. And Roach’s new partner with the “golden head”…

‘He died fast.’

He was sprawled out as a cold corpse on the tavern floor. His neck was cleanly cut off. And people didn’t even spare a glance for the body lying right there.

Just like they didn’t look at Solomon, who’d been swallowed by the shadow’s belly, then spat back out.

“Oh, Solomon! You’re back!”

Soon, the hog’s voice rang out. When Solomon turned, Roach looked far brighter than before, happily carving up a steak.

“Roach.”

“You really helped me out! In all sorts of ways…”

Solomon didn’t bother responding and just shrugged at Roach’s words. And beside him sat a strange woman, and even at a glance her presence felt anything but ordinary.

No way he’d found a new partner that fast.

“Ah, let me introduce her. This lady’s a contract killer who works under Lord Bowery.”

“……”

At Roach’s introduction, Solomon stared at her in silence.

“Oh my, you’re that Solomon?”

“I don’t know if I’m ‘that’ Solomon, but I am Solomon.”

“I’m Isla.”

A woman in a decidedly old-fashioned, Gothic-style dress that didn’t fit the Lowlands slums. And to make matters worse, she even had a parasol.

At least, seeing blood dripping from the tip of the parasol, he could roughly guess how she’d used it.

“…You showed up fast.”

“An abundance of eyes and ears is the mark of a good mage and a proper lady.”

She, Isla spoke without hesitation, not hiding that she was a mage.

“I heard about you from the lord. He talked so much my ears hurt.”

Was she an underground mage from the Sewer Tower as well?

“It wasn’t just rare for the lord to go on like that… it was almost the first time.”

A contract killer working under Lord Bowery, and from the way he’d personally talked about her, she must have had a clearly higher standing in the tower than the corpse over there.

“And you’re famous in a lot of ways, too.”

“That’s really kind. Even if I don’t know what they’re saying behind my back.”

“D-don’t be like that and sit down too, Solomon!”

Solomon answered, incredulous at Roach’s words.

“You were trying to kick me out earlier, and now your mind changed like a reed in the wind?”

“I-I have to make a living too! Still, I’ll say thanks…”

Roach continued as he cut his steak.

“Honestly, seeing the big sis here slice that bastard’s head off felt so damn good! Food’s just sliding right down my throat!”

“Has food ever not slid down that throat of yours?”

“Uh, l-lately it’s been sliding down a little less… Look, my belly got so skinny!”

“Yeah, your belly skin’s stuck to your back.”

Solomon replied in disbelief. Roach didn’t care and kept going.

“Anyway, Solomon, my guy! Even if you went to Hotel Snark, how can you just clamp your mouth shut and disappear like that! Huh? It’s not like we worked together for just a day or two! How can you do me dirty like that!”

Before long, Roach’s voice was closer to whining. Solomon had no choice but to shrug. Seeing the hog sniffling right in front of him, it seemed even the affection you feel for someone you hate had crept in.

“…When I have the time, I’ll take a few jobs.”

“R-really?!”

“Yeah.”

“Boo-ya!! The legendary duo is back together!!”

At Solomon’s words, Roach shouted, ecstatic.

“Hah, look at this! All the bastards who looked down on me are dead! King of Solomon is back!! We’ll show them our relationship, hot like flames!”

“Oh my, you two were that kind of couple? I like that genre.”

“…That’s a misunderstanding.”

Solomon corrected the misunderstanding flatly and stood up.

“I’ve got somewhere to stop by, so I’ll get going.”

“Yeah! But come more often! Sob—sob, it’s you, it’s always been you! Forgive me for being such a bastard! And by the way, my ass too—”

“…I got it, so please shut that mouth.”

Solomon stood up, leaving Roach clinging like he was begging. That was when.

“Bye-bye, Solomon.”

Isla, the underground mage and contract killer working under Lord Bowery, added meaningfully.

“See you again.”

Solomon headed straight for the Basilica Cistern, to keep his promise with Lord Bowery.

The underground reservoir beneath Megacorp Street in Downtown District 1.

The apex of the sewer kingdom, with pillars rising grandly like a crude pressure tank, hard to distinguish from ancient ruins at a glance.

Drip, drip. The sound of water drops falling from who-knows-where, and dampness coiling clammy around his body. In that empty place, Solomon frowned in silence.

‘You said we’d meet here. Where the hell did you run off to?’

It was wide. ‘Wide’ wasn’t enough—it was absurdly vast.

So Solomon shouted a few times in case he could hear, and he tried wandering around in his own way.

But no matter how long passed, there was no sign of Lord Bowery showing himself. No matter how much he shouted and searched, not a single living thing showed its face.

‘He said to come when I had time. Didn’t he mean right away?’

With no other choice, Solomon started climbing back up the ladder he’d come down.

Kkiik, kkik, kkiik—

The rusted ladder connecting the underground world and the surface along a sheer cliff. As he tried to climb up a height of hundreds of meters, he heard the most ominous 3D sound imaginable.

‘?’

He wasn’t even the hog, yet the fixed ladder screeched in protest, unable to bear even Solomon’s weight.

Gulp. Solomon stopped for a moment, swallowed, and looked down. It was high.

Then he looked up again. This was beyond merely “high”…

‘Damn, it’s high enough to make me swear.’

He tacked on one more nasty modifier. Solomon clicked his tongue as he thought.

‘…Feels like I can’t possibly climb this.’

So Solomon started climbing back down. He didn’t feel like proving with his own body the lesson that you can’t fall without wings.

How far down had he gotten?

At first it was ominous creaking metal, and soon a dangerous wobble he could feel against his skin. It wasn’t just ‘a bit’ dangerous. Don’t tell me.

[It’s said that the words ‘don’t tell me’ is what gets people killed….]

“No, no, wait.”

Even Solomon’s desperately shouted voice was useless.

“Just listen to me for a second—!”

Kwa-jik, kwaang!

As the fixed ladder snapped and fell, Solomon clung to it and kept his cool like a pole vaulter. As if unconsciously, his body knew, based on his high Dexterity, how to take a fall.

“Ah! You fuck…!”

Trying to steady himself to reduce the damage, Solomon instinctively spat out a curse. His foul words soon echoed through the vast underground reservoir like an orchestral symphony. No answer came back.

The only rope to the surface had snapped, leaving him a lost child in the sewer kingdom with nowhere to go.

“This is a pain in the ass….”

Guild City’s underground had gone beyond the level of ‘a place where they dug a tunnel a bit deep.’ He’d known that long ago.

[To the overly suspicious, the city’s underground suggests far more than that. Ancient ruins, writhing evils, beings hidden deep below, waiting for their time…]

The narrator’s voice echoing like it had been waiting was proof.

Even so, Solomon wasn’t too worried. This underground reservoir he’d fallen into, the Basilica Cistern. Either way, this was the Sewer Tower’s territory, the territory of underground mages.

He could wander a bit, run into an underground mage, and make it back to the surface after a peaceful negotiation. That shouldn’t be hard.

Besides, realistically, considering Lord Bowery’s “eyes and ears,” there was a 0% chance he didn’t know Solomon’s situation right now.

‘….’

After thinking that, that was why Solomon thought of one possibility.

The ladder up had snapped at the perfect timing. And Bowery was silent, even though there was no way he didn’t know Solomon had come.

Lord Bowery’s test had already begun.

“What do you mean?”

At that time.

At the City Judicial Bureau Special Task Office, Violet, a Sword Watch swordsman who’d been summoned there, asked back.

“…You’re saying Lord Bernier already died four weeks ago?”

As an unofficial Special-Grade swordsman, one of only seven in the organization.

“That’s right.”

The acting chief prosecutor, seated in Lord Bernier’s place, answered.

“According to the autopsy, it was concluded that at least four weeks had passed since his death.”

“Then who in the world was the one who gave me that classified mission…”

“Take a look at this.”

Before Violet could finish, the acting chief prosecutor handed her a document.

It was the autopsy report. Violet could easily recognize the presence of ‘that’ which practically filled the page.

“King flies—”

Not the insect called a king fly or assassin fly of the order Diptera. The name was the same, but strictly speaking, what was here didn’t belong to insects, nor even to living things.

It was a demon. Swearing loyalty to their king demon.

“That king assigned a classified mission to you and a Hotel cleaner. In the city archives, the contents and information of that mission have already been erased and vanished. Do you know anything?”

“…It was the disposal of Dr. O’Neill, the corpse collector.”

Violet answered.

“When you disposed of Dr. O’Neill, did you destroy the brain? Or annihilate the soul?”

“The mission was strictly biological termination.”

“…This is insane.”

The acting chief prosecutor’s expression hardened coldly, like he’d been hit in the back of the head.

“By now, the Haunting House’s necromancers will have seized his soul and brought it back.”

One of Uptown’s Five Great Houses.

“And since you didn’t destroy the brain, they’ll have gotten the information in his head intact, too.”

The Bale House, Shadow Binder.

The Arrowhead House, Spectral Spear Mage.

And the Haunting House, Spirit Binder.

“Lord Bernier… no, are you saying the king intended from the start to hand Dr. O’Neill’s soul over to them?”

“I can’t tell you that much.”

The acting chief prosecutor answered calmly.

“More importantly, there’s something urgent you must do.”

“…As ordered.”

Violet silently nodded. Nothing would change. She was this city’s sword. Just as a cleaner’s virtue lies in ‘solving’ rather than ‘investigating,’ her virtue was no different.

“Immediately, find the Snark contract killer who made contact with Beelzebub.”