Elise

Solomon steeled himself and took the lead. Getting caught was no longer the issue. The moment he’d decorated the corridor with a flashy fountain of blood, it had already become irreversible.

“■■■—!”

But the ‘problem’ came sooner than he expected. As Solomon was heading down along the spiraling staircase, a hound’s howl echoed from above.

— Hiiik! Th-those bastards!

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Along with O’Neill’s soul openly panicking, Oberon spat a curse as well.

“■■■■■—!”

The first short howl immediately shifted into a cry clearly different from before. As if it were loudly announcing the situation to everything around.

Jjeojeok, jjeok.

At once, the alarm’s effect showed itself. Starting with the stairs Solomon was stepping on, the mansion’s walls and corridors, the carpet and every corner of the wallpaper… the color began to fade.

“!”

Along with the fading, as if compressing an immeasurable passage of years into a single weathering process, everything began to turn to powder and scatter.

Kugugung!

With collapse.

‘Goddamn it!’

The mansion began to crumble from the ground up. The stairs Solomon was standing on were no exception.

But strangely, Solomon didn’t fall or get buried right then. Nor did the outside scenery of Ghost Town, which should have been revealed after the interior vanished, appear.

Rather, this feeling was closer to—

‘It’s sinking!’

Submergence.

In the wrongness of it, like the whole mansion sinking underwater, Solomon barely kept his balance. Amid accelerating weathering, the mansion’s structure collapsed and vanished entirely, and no place remained that could be called a mansion.

There was only darkness in every direction.

As if the mansion had plunged wholly into pitch-black darkness, darkness spread endlessly in all directions there, to the point it couldn’t even be called ‘indoors’ anymore.

“Those fucking bastards, they did a dogshit job with the construction.”

Even then, Oberon was there. Along with O’Neill’s soul glowing bluish as it trembled in fear, wrapped in a ‘fairy light’ that shone unnaturally.

“Where is this?”

“Below… Ghost Town.”

The fairy said. Below Ghost Town.

“You might not know this, but Ghost Town is a sea city.”

On the sea. There wasn’t even time to tilt his head at that fact. Feeling chills rake down his spine, he tightened his stance at once.

Taang!

He pulled the trigger of the Nightfall automatic crossbow already coated with Doom Poison. The instant he pulled, the bolt pierced what had rushed right up to Solomon’s nose.

“■■■!”

It was a Black Hound. It had noticed Solomon’s presence and charged, making the invisibility potion’s effect feel pointless.

‘Did I take it down?!’

One bolt. As he was about to prepare the next shot, a violet hue swallowed the hound from the tip of the bolt that had pierced the Black Hound Wraith, like surgical contrast dye revealing blood vessels everywhere.

The bolt itself couldn’t strike a spirit body. What pierced and wounded the Black Hound Wraith wasn’t the bolt, but the Doom Poison smeared on its tip.

The evidence was the way the hound wraith thrashed like a creature feeling pain each time its body dyed violet.

Doom Poison.

That ominous violet dyed the Black Hound violet and silenced it, as if it had caught some unknown plague and twisted and rotted.

Just one bolt. It was absurdly easy, making his earlier worries feel pointless. Even so, it wasn’t time to celebrate.

‘!’

Before long, howls rang out from everywhere. Numbers beyond counting. The moment he heard the hounds, Solomon didn’t hesitate.

He regripped in both hands the Ghost Whale bone blade coated with the <Black Sword> spell and Doom Poison, and the Nightfall crossbow with nine shots left.

From far away, the sound of dice rolling came. By the time the sound came, Solomon was already pulling the trigger. Bang! The Nightfall crossbow’s second shot. The sound of his second ambush attack being completed in his invisible state.

Hoo-woong!

Immediately, the invisibility wrapped around Solomon broke, and his form appeared in the empty air of the darkness where there had been nothing.

Fortunately, he was wearing a gas mask for Ghost Town’s poison, so his face wasn’t visible.

— Y-you, you! Why are you here…!

‘Ah.’

But with his equipment and armament unchanged, it wasn’t a meaningful disguise.

[Anyone would find it hard to forget the person who decorated the end of their life.]

Only then did Dr. O’Neill see Solomon and recoil in shock. Only then did Solomon realize his mistake and try to play dumb.

“Hmm, why is that?”

— Why, why?! Think about what you, what you did to me…!

[Deception failed! You should deceive with something that can be deceived.]

‘For fuck’s sake.’

Even he didn’t think it sounded convincing.

— You killed me! Aaah, y-you, you did this to me! Aaah…!

“Shut your mouth, you fucking ghost bastard.”

— !

With no other choice, Solomon spat a curse.

“Go on, keep whining. I’ll let you experience what it feels like to die and become dog food.”

Like he was about to grab O’Neill by the collar and throw him into the hounds right away.

— Hi, hiik!

[Intimidation success! Dr. O’Neill’s expression turned corpse-pale! For the record, that’s not a metaphor.]

With the dice-rolling sound, the light on O’Neill’s face, already bluish, turned even bluer. For the record, it wasn’t a metaphor.

“Right, isn’t hatred solved through forgiveness and reconciliation? This is all Love & Peace.”

[For the record, forgiveness and reconciliation tend to have a particularly higher success rate when you’re aiming a blade.]

“……”

Oberon cut in from the side like it was none of his business. Then came the narrator’s nonsense. Solomon shut his mouth, dumbfounded. It wasn’t the time to care about that anymore.

Taang!

He pulled the Nightfall crossbow’s trigger again. Then he swung the Ghost Whale bone blade. At the hound charging in from a blind spot. Immediately, he pulled the trigger again. At the third one.

‘There are so fucking many.’

Solomon swallowed a curse inwardly. Even then, the Ghost Whale bone blade infused with Black Sword and Doom Poison tore apart the fourth hound’s spirit body. The crossbow sound rang out off-beat. Five.

‘At this rate, it’ll never end.’

Fighting was one thing, but the bigger problem with no end was that he had no idea where to get out.

“Hey, this way.”

Then, as if he’d been waiting for it, Oberon flew up in front of Solomon. With his hippie-styled long hair and a thick beard like Jesus fluttering, wrapped in holy fairy light, he lit up the darkness.

Solomon followed behind the fairy without delay. Then something astonishing happened. Even as the whole mansion was submerged in darkness, the interior in the darkness began to reveal itself little by little along the path he took.

As if the sunken mansion were surfacing onto land again, before he knew it, Solomon was walking through the mansion interior that should have collapsed.

Like a submarine sunk under the sea rising back above the water.

‘It’s coming back.’

Thanks to the blessing of the guide fairy there. And waiting at the end of the path was…

“Oh my, isn’t that Oberon?”

A voice was heard.

— Hic!

Dr. O’Neill made a sound behind him. A physiological reaction that was hard to imagine from a soul.

“Fairy King, my god. It’s the kennel’s little bedwetter lady!”

Oberon shot back smoothly without panicking, like someone who knew her very well.

“It feels like yesterday you were bawling because you were scared of ghosts, but now you’ve become a vicious dog dealer who squeezes even ghosts’ spines dry. Time sure is fleeting.”

“……”

Elise Haunting, a beauty with ash-gray hair. The direct line who called the Duke of Haunting Father was there.

“That rag-mouth habit of yours is the same as ever.”

Elise answered in a cold, emotionless voice.

[Insight success!]

That was when—

[It’s not that she has no emotions. If anything, it’s closer to her emotions being a bit too heavily loaded.]

‘Hoo, I’m going to shut that bastard’s mouth…’

At the narrator’s voice, Solomon swallowed a curse, feeling like he’d get cancer. So that’s why they say ‘don’t scratch a sore,’ he thought.

“You, from the look of it, are one of bourgeois’ lackeys, right?”

“Correct.”

Solomon answered without denying it. Elise continued in a cold voice.

“At a glance, you’re an assassin from the bottom of a hotel who doesn’t know his place.”

“I’d like to ask why you think that.”

“Because a contractor with common sense wouldn’t enter our family’s mansion.”

“Hard to deny.”

He agreed with that too. No matter how he looked at it, Solomon’s actions right now weren’t those of a contractor acting with common sense. The unfortunate part was that his situation had already left the realm of what could be solved with a sane mind.

‘Winning by fighting… would be impossible.’

A conclusion even an idiot could reach. He wasn’t even in a position to ambush. No, even if he could ambush, the opponent wasn’t some random great-house mage.

By the setting, the patriarchs of the Five Great Houses Solomon remembered were level 20 powerhouses.

Level 20 was practically the far edge of what a mortal frame could reach in this game.

The woman in front of him was the direct line of such a monster. It was painfully obvious that top-grade invisibility potion or whatever, and a few ambushes, weren’t enough to do anything to her.

Setting aside the fact Solomon wasn’t in a position to talk either.

‘Only one option. Run.’

The problem was that the one who had to run wasn’t just Solomon. Could he even run just because he wanted to? Solomon glanced around more coldly than ever.

“Sir Hector.”

Then Elise whispered softly. A whisper that made ridiculous magical power churned in the air within its resonance. It wasn’t hard to realize it was itself a spell.

The moment he realized it, an intangible current whipped up, and another silhouette appeared beside Elise. A black, dark soul wrapped head to toe in medieval armor.

“O knight of the swamp.”

Elise continued calmly.

“By the ancient covenant, to annihilate our enemies, we rely upon your sword.”

It was different from the spirits he’d seen so far. Not a one-sided debt or binding, but closer to a certain kind of contract formed with the respect that should be shown.

— …Very well.

With that reply, the silhouette called Sir Hector, the Knight of the Swamp, nodded.

“!”

Then the surrounding scenery warped. As if the ground under his feet were being sucked into a swamp. It wasn’t to the point of the entire mansion interior submerging like earlier, but it was close to that.

[Status Ailment! Swamp]

The narrator’s notice followed. It was exactly as it said. His whole body felt heavy, like he’d fallen into a mire and was flailing. Solomon clicked his tongue.

Step.

The Knight of the Swampt didn’t hurry. As if he knew this side couldn’t run anyway. True to his name, even in the mire, there wasn’t the slightest hindrance in his movement. Seeing that, Solomon had a gut feeling.

[Insight success! An unbeatable formidable foe]

That knight in front of him was on a different level from everything Solomon had fought so far. There was such a vast gap between them that the very concept of a fight couldn’t even properly hold.

“Do you hear something, by any chance?”

Solomon spoke without caring.

“I don’t know what nonsense you’re about to say, but you’d better end it quickly.”

“That’s strange. I can hear it clearly.”

Ignoring Elise’s uninterested voice, Solomon took something out from his chest.

Insurance the Bourgeois had made him carry in case the job failed, and a trump card that could physically ‘erase’ many problems here.

“The sound of my conscience bursting.”

“……!”

It was the Rune Stone of Grand Explosion.