Haunting House

The underground passage stretched so far its end was nowhere in sight.

Humidity rose thicker and more stifling than outside. Just because he was indoors like Hotel Snark didn’t mean he could take off his gas mask. He could clearly sense the ‘air of death’ hanging here.

Even the rats that occasionally scurried through the dark, damp underfoot carried none of the warmth of living creatures. They were like rat ghosts, or some kind of translucent souls you could see through.

Then, he heard the faint sound of wind brushing overhead.

When he glanced up, he saw a ventilation shaft covered with a rusted metal lid. It was fairly high. Solomon could climb up using the hook wire and magnet spikes, then cut the metal cover with the portable laser cutter. For the record, they all had ‘Ancient’ slapped onto their names.

‘So it wasn’t just rusted iron.’

He’d thought it was just rusted metal, but looking closer, it was a type of metal that had held a black, dark sheen from the beginning. It was even fixed in place as a whole with no screws.

[Insight success! Shadow Mithril]

There was a reason they’d given him this. It was probably a material the existing Webweaver Kit couldn’t cut. And the vent itself extended straight upward, so even getting in wouldn’t be easy without special equipment. Fortunately, that didn’t really apply to Solomon right now.

“Wow, you’ve really become a full-on thief, huh? Your mother must be so proud.”

“……”

As Solomon climbed the vent in silence, the fairy flapped his wings lazily and added that. Solomon forced himself to ignore it, pushing down his rising blood pressure.

After climbing for a while, the ventilation shaft shifted from vertical to horizontal. Solomon crawled forward and crossed through. The dampness and moldy stink faded, and the smell of old furniture and parchment stabbed at his nose.

Solomon moved straight through the vent and looked down at the interior scenery beneath an iron grate where light and shadow crossed.

‘No trace of people.’

All Darkvision showed him were endless rows of shelves and books. He couldn’t see anything else. There weren’t even any windows.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t see beyond the walls, even though he wasn’t outside the effective range. Was the wall itself treated with some kind of magic? Before long, an Insight roll gave him the answer.

[Insight success! Walls that cannot be peered through with see-through magic]

That didn’t change anything. Solomon moved immediately.

The grate was also a fixed structure with no screws to remove, like before. Solomon cut it again with the laser cutter bearing the blessing of the Ancients, and was about to jump down.

“Wait.”

The fairy Oberon broke his silence and stopped him, in a voice unusually subdued for him.

“■■■—!”

That chilling wolf howl from earlier echoed again. And it was very close. Before long, something like a hunting dog’s silhouette appeared, as if phasing through the wall.

‘A Black Hound!’

Solomon swallowed his breath.

The hound phased through the wall without any trouble. It also passed through the bookshelves just as easily, circled the room a few times, then vanished by phasing back through the wall the same way.

“That thing…”

“Did you already forget this place is the black sons-of-bitches wraiths’ mansion? What? You gonna play the gentleman and make a living off it?”

The fairy added.

“Don’t go near those things. Up close, your invisibility spell and whatever else won’t mean shit. And don’t even think about going for the back of the head, either.”

As expected, it wasn’t easy. The small blessing was that, one way or another, the fairy in front of him was worth entrusting his lifeline to.

“Don’t tell me those hounds patrol the mansion constantly.”

“Don’t worry too much. When they come, I’ll warn you in advance.”

“You can tell when they’re coming?”

“Yeah. Those black sons-of-bitches stink like wraiths.”

Did that mean he could smell it?

“Believe it or not, people tell me I’m even more of a son-of-a-bitch than dogs.”

“……”

Whether that was something to brag about was questionable, but Solomon didn’t bother to push back. Thinking about it, it seemed accurate.

Either way, Solomon managed to jump down safely. He immediately started scanning the room and gathering information.

Countless books overflowing on the shelves. It didn’t feel like a good idea to look carelessly, but Solomon carefully picked up one book and opened it.

[Insight failed]

Squiggly letters he couldn’t even tell what they said. If he couldn’t understand the script, then no matter how many favorable Insight modifiers he stacked, it was useless.

“Ah, my eyes! It’s porn about King Arthur and Mordred!”

Right then, Oberon gasped in horror behind Solomon.

“And that huge bastard king is the bottom!”

The moment Solomon heard that, he hurriedly put the book away again.

“You can read this?”

“What, you think a fairy can’t even read Fairy?”

“I want to find something useful. Aren’t there any valuable books here?”

“All I hear is the wailing, howling, and screaming of trees.”

“……”

“Books these days have no roots, no roots. Back in the day, there was even a time when tree spirits competed to offer themselves as sacrifices for books.”

The fairy Oberon spoke as if longing for it.

“Back then, everyone was screaming to be cut down first, so how did it end up like this? Was it after metal type came out…? Whoever invented it, that bastard probably fell into hell.”

It was a whatever story from the old days. Solomon silently left it behind and approached a closed door.

Because Darkvision didn’t work on it, he couldn’t tell what was on the other side. Aside from the hounds, he couldn’t rule out running into someone right away.

Click, click!

Solomon immediately pulled out the Nightfall automatic crossbow stowed on his belt. Then he took out every bolt cartridge he’d loaded in advance. The cartridges had a separate slot where poison could be inserted to inflict status effects, and he took out the vial of ‘Doom Poison’ he’d prepared and let a few drops fall in.

Drip, drip.

Only a few drops. He couldn’t see them. While invisible, it was something he could only do by feel.

‘This should be enough.’

He loaded three bolt cartridges infused with Doom Poison into the Nightfall crossbow. He set the multi-shot slider to one shot. He didn’t know the poison’s effects exactly yet, but one thing was certain. It wasn’t ordinary poison.

Creeeak.

He carefully opened the door. A straight corridor stretched ahead. Again, there was no sign of people. Solomon moved carefully, but without hesitation, across the interior of the old-fashioned mansion.

— Hhkk, sniff…

Then, from one of the doors lining the corridor, he heard a sound. It was different from the hound’s howl. It was sobbing.

At first it was a woman’s sobbing. Before long, sobbing from both men and women could be heard from the other rooms as well. Like the stereotype of weeping ghosts.

“This sound…”

“Souls mortgaged to those bastards.”

Oberon said it like it was someone else’s problem.

“Well, it’s all self-inflicted, so don’t worry about it. Selling their soul because they’ve got nothing else to sell.”

“…Sell their soul?”

“Yeah. Unless the person explicitly consents to a geas, no one can ever bind a soul. Not even a Great King of the Nine Hells.”

He added in a sharp, heavy voice that didn’t fit the usual druggie fairy.

“Because you can only soil your soul with your own hands.”

“So it’s possible with your own hands.”

“Right. The one and only way to strip a soul of its freedom is to throw it away with your own hands.”

The words continued with a cold sneer.

“Giving up freedom by free will. Isn’t that ironic?”

[The Haunting House is a renowned family of mediums and necromancy… and at the same time, a family of loan sharks. And souls are one of the forms of repayment they most enjoy receiving, along with flesh.]

The narrator’s explanation continued. Solomon frowned in silence.

Even if he didn’t know the details, was that sobbing the fate of debtors who ‘sold their souls’? And this mansion itself was a holding place for souls that had fallen into their grasp.

“Then does that mean Dr. O’Neill’s soul being held here also means he stripped his soul of its freedom with his own hands?”

“Right. I don’t know what he got in exchange for trading his soul like a rice cake, but there are no exceptions.”

Honestly, what Dr. O’Neill got in exchange for trading his soul like a rice cake was whatever. What bothered Solomon was the sheer existence of the powerful figures gathering around Dr. O’Neill.

‘For one, the one who handed over that request wasn’t Lord Bernier.’

The Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub. And when he carried out that mission, a mage belonging to Uptown’s Five Great Houses had even shown himself in person.

Even after Solomon dealt with him, the City Council and the swordsman Violet were still obsessed with Dr. O’Neill’s existence, just like the Five Great Houses. The situation wasn’t over yet.

‘What the hell is inside his head?’

At this point, it couldn’t be helped that he was curious purely as a ‘player.’

「They said it’s something that could flip the City Council upside down. It wouldn’t end with just a few guys in fancy hats stepping down…」

Back then, the necromancer belonging to District 4’s Necropolis Guild had said that. After thinking that far, Solomon kept moving.

Whether he liked it or not, the answer to that curiosity would be waiting ahead.

Before long, Solomon reached the corner at the end of the corridor.

The corridor bent at a right angle there, cutting off his view, but as he drew closer he could clearly feel the air change.

A sense of openness. The cramped corridor ended, and an open hall was revealed beyond stairways and galleries that connected up and down.

“!”

Solomon carefully stayed along the wall, hid behind a marble pillar, and quietly spied on the scene.

Under the dimming chandelier light, two silhouettes stood out. A man and a woman, both in aristocratic, old-fashioned robes. It wasn’t hard to guess they were mages of Haunting House.

‘They’re gathered like that, suspicious as hell. Looks like they’re plotting something.’

Even as his heart dropped the moment he saw them, Solomon stayed calm behind the pillar and watched their movements. Maybe it was for the best. Rather than wandering the mansion with no information, hearing something from them could give him a lead.

“What happened to Dr. O’Neill’s soul?”

“Well, right after his death, his soul stayed in ‘Hell’ for quite a long time—”

A woman asking for a status update, and a man reporting as he answered.

“It seems he underwent fairly high-level torture by the demons during his stay… and due to the shock of falling into Hell, he doesn’t seem able to recall his memories easily.”

[Clue acquired! Falling into Hell]

“That’s unfortunate. Should we have retrieved it sooner?”

“And I must speak carefully… but regarding him, the Great King has proposed a deal.”

An unexpected name. Solomon quietly swallowed his breath.

“A deal?”

“Yes. He claims to know the information inside O’Neill’s head… and in exchange for telling it, he demanded a certain cooperation.”

“Cooperation. What did that sly demon bastard demand?”

The robed woman who seemed to be the superior asked coldly.

“It seems he is searching for a soul. One whose life or death isn’t even clear.”

“The Great King of Hell is looking for a soul when he doesn’t even know if it’s alive or dead?”

“Yes. And the soul he is searching for happens to be—”

“Stop dragging it out and say it.”

“Most blasphemously…”

The male mage reluctantly opened his mouth, in a very cautious voice.

“It seems to be… the soul of that bastard child the patriarch of House Bale is said to have had with a prostitute.”