Orc Hunt

Lowland, Blackwater Pier 3, Docking Terminal 4-B.

The place he had to go was obvious.

It wasn’t even a place he could call unfamiliar.

Because it was also where Lord Bowery had obtained the Black Bird Spirit bracelet in the past, to show the man his sincerity.

Back in the Lowland after so long, it even felt familiar, like returning home.

Solomon immediately sent several dark spirits out from the Black Bird Spirit bracelet.

Because cargo containers weighing tens and hundreds of tons were tangled like a labyrinth in the terminal, Solomon synced with the Black Bird Spirit’s aerial vision and surveyed the area from above.

The scene of suspicious criminal groups gathering in clusters and plotting, obvious at a glance.

‘Orc gangs.’

They were doing all kinds of things.

Because every imaginable kind of crime that could happen in a maritime logistics zone was playing out.

On ground sticky with black oil, orcs in leather boots and suits were watching their surroundings with a vicious air.

Before long, the orcs opened a container and pulled out what was inside, and even at a glance it was obvious they hadn’t gotten it through “legitimate channels.”

Weapons, obviously.

Bundles of bloodstained cash, and items with even a small amount of magical power in them….

‘Smuggled goods.’

Solomon hid himself in the terminal’s shadows and watched the scene through the Black Bird Spirit’s eyes.

‘The target’s among these bastards.’

With the suit-wearing orc gangsters moving busily, it wasn’t hard to find the target.

In a sense, he stood out as much as physically possible.

The way he alone held perfectly still among the bustling orcs.

‘There he is.’

Priest of Pain.

Just like the name, it wasn’t the orc’s typical green skin.

It was blood-red.

And even by orc standards, his size was overwhelming.

A massive frame and presence that looked easily three meters tall.

Though he was dressed in a suit as well, Solomon could feel a kind of occult force from the dense tattoos inked beneath it.

‘Blood Orc.’

Just as humans have different skin colors and elves have different skin colors, orcs were no exception.

That was when it happened.

“I brought him, Priest.”

Kooong!

An orc gangster in a bloodstained shirt roughly dragged someone over and forced him to his knees in front of him.

He was so soaked in blood it was hard to make him out, but up close he was a sailor dwarf, barely still passing as a person.

“Keuk, keoheok!”

The dwarf spat bloody foam in agony.

He’d clearly already been tortured badly. Even from far away, there wasn’t a single intact-looking part.

“Speak.”

The blood-red orc in a suit, the Priest of Pain, opened his mouth toward the dwarf.

“Where did you divert the merchandise?”

Merchandise. At that word, Solomon’s ears perked up.

“I-I don’t know! Like we agreed, I just handed the cargo over under the Smugglers’ Guild’s orders….”

Just as he tried to continue.

The Priest of Pain stepped on the begging dwarf’s hand with his shoe.

Kwagik!

With the sound of fingers twisting into an impossible shape, a scream that tore the ears rang out again.

“Kkeuaaaak!”

The sound of bones breaking.

But the blood-red orc didn’t care. He pressed harder with the foot that was grinding him down, literally pulverizing his bones into pieces.

“I’ll ask again. Where did you divert the merchandise?”

“H-hiiik…!”

The Priest of Pain asked again, toward the dwarf writhing in pain.

“I-I really, really….”

“At times like this, it’s time to borrow the wisdom of our ancestors.”

The Priest of Pain flicked his head to the side, glancing at him. The wisdom of their ancestors.

“Our wise ancestors always said the water knows the answer.”

“!”

The water knows the answer.

With those words, several orcs dragged the writhing dwarf to a crane on the edge of the pier and hung him up.

One orc climbed into the operator’s cabin and worked the lever.

At the blood-red orc’s signal, the crane’s chain sank beneath the sea.

Forcing the dwarf, flailing from the hook, into the water.

Plunk!

A silence eerie enough to raise goosebumps.

In that silence, when they pulled the hook up again, desperate thrashing finally erupted. Movement that actually felt like life..

Kkiririk!

“Eogeok, eopoo, eoheok! P-Please! Spare me! I-I, eopupu, really…!”

“Five minutes.”

“W-wait…! Eobeup, eopuhp! Eogeogeok!”

Before those words could even finish, the crane lever was pulled again.

Despite the world’s most miserable struggle echoing out, the dwarf’s body sank into the water again.

‘Psycho bastard.’

Watching that, Solomon clicked his tongue.

If he charged in right now, he’d turn every other gangster into an enemy and have to fight them all.

But waiting around to see how things played out didn’t sit right either. The dwarf, whose crime he didn’t even know, weighed on his mind.

A situation where he’d have to accept risk because of a guilty conscience.

Then, an idea surfaced in Solomon’s mind.

‘Maybe this could lead to an unexpected quest, or a reward.’

In a crisis, saving someone and getting an additional quest, or an unforeseen ‘treasure’ wasn’t rare.

After thinking that far, Solomon steeled himself.

Time to move.

Not out of conscience or morality, but purely from a TRPG player’s mindset.

Thanks to the Black Bird Spirits’ aerial vision, Solomon was able to slip skillfully through the terminal’s container walls twisted like a maze.

Soon, cold night air, the terminal’s grimy oil, and the smell of the sea stabbed at his nose.

The orc gangsters had lined up and were transfixed by the night sea at the pier’s edge.

Trading bets on whether the dwarf ‘touring’ the sea would still be alive after five minutes.

‘This works out better.’

Solomon concealed his presence and crossed behind them without a sound.

Going straight for the target was one option, but he deliberately didn’t.

Solomon deliberately avoided their line of sight and looped around toward the pier’s end.

The first target was the operator in the crane cabin.

Solomon climbed the heavy machinery with the smoothness of a sliding snake, then drove a strike down through the cabin window before any sound could escape.

Kwagik!

“Keoheok…!”

The blade plunged down before he had time to resist.

A soundless death.

Even as he died, spraying blood, none of the orcs gathered on the pier noticed anything wrong.

‘Let’s see, the lever….’

After that, Solomon examined the crane lever.

He’d never operated heavy machinery before, but he figured he could at least move an obvious lever like this back and forth.

Cheolkeok!

As expected, when he pulled it, the hook that had shoved the dwarf into the water began to rise.

Thankfully, alive and not dead.

“Hu-eok! Eopoo! Eogeogeok! Eopupu!”

As the dwarf convulsed, vomiting up a lifetime’s worth of seawater, one orc gangster asked,

“…Has it already been five minutes?”

As he said that, just as eyes turned toward the crane cabin.

Solomon pulled the trigger on the Nightfall automatic crossbow.

A soundless shot, and a bolt of silence raced out.

A snipe carried out in absolute silence from trigger pull to impact.

There wasn’t even a whistling tear through the air as it flew.

It was the effect of the Deadlock Workshop’s Type-A modification, and the silence spell imbued into the crossbow itself.

“!”

Kwagik!

A soundless bolt pierced an orc’s throat, killing him instantly.

The remaining orcs all turned their heads, but Solomon was gone.

Only the corpse of the operator who should’ve been running the machine remained.

“Who’s there?!”

An orc gangster shouted in panic.

By then, Solomon had already left that spot and was moving toward the next target.

While everyone’s attention was fixed on one place, he hunted the defenseless prey, with no one watching their backs.

The distance closed in the darkness.

Puuuk!

At the edge of the pack, behind someone isolated in a blind spot.

Solomon never let a defenseless back slip away.

Without even realizing he was dead, the spark of life steadily dwindled.

Chwaaak!

Blood sprayed out like an explosion along with the sneak attack.

Hearing it, the other orcs finally tried to pinpoint his position.

‘.’

───
「Veil of Darkness」

Tag - Level 2 spell, Shadow attribute, Enhanced Attunement (Lord of the Veil)
: Spread a veil of darkness, treating all of the caster’s attacks within the area as ambushes
: Within the veil, the caster’s defense and evasion rate increase, while hostiles suffer reduced accuracy
───

Over the night terminal area, a veil darker than night itself descended.

“Shadow magic…!”

“It’s an attack!”

“Where the hell did he come from?!”

While the orc gangsters openly fired up their fighting spirit, he didn’t stop.

‘.’

A level 3 spell, Black Sword.

Inside the veil infused with shadow magic, the edge of Solomon’s blade shimmered an unusually black, dark gleam.

───
「Black Sword」

Tag - Level 3 spell, Shadow attribute
: Hone the blade with shadow magic, increasing sharpness, and add damage 4 on attack
: Double damage on ambush attacks

The combo of Veil of Darkness and Black Sword.

If every attack was treated as an ambush, the power was not something to take lightly.

An orc gangster closest to him pulled out a weapon that looked like a police baton and swung it.

Huuwoong!

But to Solomon, the movement was laughably clumsy and slow.

And even inaccurate.

It was the defense and evasion increase imbued in the level 2 spell .

And with the enemy also suffering “reduced accuracy,” it couldn’t help but feel even more pronounced.

Kwagik!

The instant he feinted a light clash, he coiled around the baton like a sliding snake and drove a strike in.

In truth, even without a spell like that, he could tell.

That this orc gangster trash in front of him could never be Solomon’s opponent to begin with.

Chwaaak!

From behind the orc who’d lost his sense of direction in the darkness, the blade plunged down again.

Blood spurted.

Other than the spurting blood, there were no screams or sounds.

A scene like watching a cruel play in a silent film.

“W-Where are you, you fucking bastard?!”

“Don’t think you’re dying easy!”

There were only two kinds there. The ones hunting, and the ones being hunted.

Solomon’s senses were sharper than ever.

That was when it happened.

Just as he waited for the moment in the darkness and was about to resume the hunt.

Solomon’s movement stopped.

Because an unknown killing intent whipped around the area beneath his feet.

‘!’

He kicked off the ground and created distance fast.

The instant he did, an absurd sight unfolded.

Chwaaak!

A pillar of blood surged up as if tearing Solomon’s to shreds.

The color of the blood didn’t matter.

Whether it was an orc’s green blood or the dwarf’s red blood from earlier, anything that could be called blood spiraled upward and pierced the veil of darkness there…

Kwagik!

“!”

[Spell resistance failed!]

It was literal.

The swirling blood pillar shattered like a spear ripping through a shield.

And with that, the blood-red orc in a suit revealed himself.

Within the raging whirl of blood, his inked tattoos blazed like flames.

“…Priest of Pain.”

“Oh. To think the hotel’s cleaner would show up already.”

As he said that, the Priest of Pain, the blood-red orc, smiled like he was enjoying himself.

“You’re definitely different from the nobodies so far. I can tell at a glance.”

“How flattering.”

There were no living subordinates around.

No, he could tell.

That blood pillar just now was a ritual performed by using the living orc gangsters’ lives as offerings.

Blood magic.

It wasn’t surprising.

At least in this world, magic was far from being some stodgy thing you studied shut up in a room.

If anything, it resembled a martial artist pursuing endless martial prowess.

He didn’t care about subordinates’ lives.

In the first place, the man in front of him wasn’t even someone formally working for the gang.

But whatever his goal was, whether it was practicing the demonic path, or anything else, it wasn’t Solomon’s concern.

A cleaner’s virtue was, in the end, to remove the problem cleanly.

“As a proud member of the Blood Moon Tribe, I offer my thanks.”

“…Thanks?”

“Pain that can’t kill us only makes us stronger.”

“Pain that can’t kill you.”

The Priest of Pain said.

Like he was addressing offerings that would be sacrificed for his sake.

Seeing that, Solomon let out a hollow laugh.

“That’s unfortunate.”

“What is?”

He said it after laughing.

“That only applies if you survive.”

As if pronouncing an unavoidable fate of death.