A Damn Awesome Grimoire

Knock, knock.

The next morning, he woke to a knock.

“Excuse me, Mr. Solomon.”

The first thing he saw as he opened his eyes was a glass jar on the desk. Inside it, a heart was beating.

A mysterious artifact that had granted Solomon a full Level 3 「Blood Mage」 class. The heart in the glass jar. But since that day, the heart had been quiet, as if sleeping, making no sound at all. As if waiting for the moment it would rise again.

“I’m up.”

Solomon grabbed his robe and stepped out of his room. In the hallway outside, the zombie hotelier stood there, reeking of rotting corpse.

“What is it?”

“There is someone in the lounge who wishes to see you, Mr. Solomon.”

“I’ll head over now.”

Solomon immediately checked his outfit. He had left his gear with the tailor, but fortunately, there were casual clothes prepared in the room for him to wear. He dressed appropriately and headed to the first-floor lounge.

And waiting for Solomon in the lounge was……

“Yo yo yo, ma bro!”

It was a man giving off a different kind of stench from the corpse. A smell so foul it was like being at the bottom of a sewer. The very lord of that sewer mage tower, Lord Bowery.

“You didn’t show your face at all for days, and now you finally show up.”

He called himself Solomon’s master and godfather as a mage, yet he was a man whose face was hard to catch even once.

“Oh, bro. Everything has its time. And a ‘real man’ knows the time!”

Lord Bowery said, his black skin and shaved head gleaming along with the piercings that covered him from head to toe.

“The time?”

“The time for you to move on to the next realm as a mage.”

As he said that, Lord Bowery laughed heartily. Hearing it, Solomon realized something.

What Solomon had gained there, when Lord Bowery had shoved him into the sewer labyrinth as a “light test.”

A level up, and the Level 3 shadow spell <Black Sword>.

And the fact that Lord Bowery had appeared before Solomon at exactly this timing meant only one thing.

‘My next level is close.’

[Insight Success!]

In other words, Lord Bowery knew in some way that Solomon was about to level up.

Even if he didn’t call it ‘level’ outright, in this world it would be treated like a measure of strength, a measure of realm.

Of course, Solomon currently had a multiclass of Level 5 「Spell Assassin」 and Level 3 「Blood Mage」. Strictly speaking, the total wasn’t Level 6 but Level 9. But in any case, the Level 3 「Blood Mage」 wasn’t a normal level-up he had earned. It was more like a separate concept, closer to a ‘bonus.’

Meaning, in practical terms, Solomon was a Level 5 「Spell Assassin」 standing right before Level 6. And for Solomon, what Level 6 meant was not small.

[House Bale, Shadow Binders]

Due to the blood of House Bale flowing in Solomon’s body.

───

Innate bloodline trait 「Shadow Bloodline」

When reaching a level that is a multiple of 3, the holder of this trait……

「Enhanced Attunement」: You may Enhance Attune one shadow spell of your choice.

: (Unlocked after Level 6)

: (Unlocked after Level 9)

: (Unlocked after Level 12)

───

Along with the Enhanced Attunement embedded in <Veil of Darkness> when he reached Level 3, a new ability would be unlocked when he became Level 6. Solomon already knew that content through the rulebook, so he couldn’t help but be even more excited.

Either way, Lord Bowery had appeared for that very ‘next level.’ As the godfather of shadow mages, to guide his disciple to a higher realm.

“So what? You’re going to shove me into the sewer labyrinth again?”

“Oh, that’s not bad either.”

Lord Bowery shrugged.

“But today, I prepared something even more ‘awesome’ than that.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing how awesome.”

“Well….”

At Solomon’s shameless reply, Lord Bowery let it simmer for a moment, then suddenly bulged the veins in his neck and shouted.

“It’s just!! So!! Damn!! Awesome, it’ll!! Kill you!! Like a dog!!”

He was fairly used to that bellowing by now, so Solomon listened without even blinking.

After shouting, Lord Bowery bent down and shoved his hand into the “shadow” at his feet, as if pulling something out. What he drew from his own shadow was a book. A fairly thick old tome bound in parchment.

“What is that?”

“Oh, it’s a ‘real master’ who’ll teach bro real magic.”

“A real master?”

“A grimoire with the essence of shadow magic in it. I mean, like, properly ‘real,’ for real!”

“…A grimoire?”

Solomon frowned faintly.

“Did you already forget. I’m not a mage trained in the ‘normal way.’”

The 「Spell Assassin」 class could use magic, but it still wasn’t a mage that had received formal training. So unlike normal mage-type classes, it couldn’t learn spells through the ‘normal way’ of studying grimoires or spell scrolls.

“And it’s not like I can learn magic just by looking at an ordinary grimoire.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

At that, Lord Bowery shrugged like it wasn’t surprising.

“But this guy isn’t an ordinary grimoire. It’s a grimoire that’s dog-damn awesome!”

“…So it’s not an ordinary grimoire.”

“Damn shit, exactly!”

As he said that, Lord Bowery raised his voice.

“The idiot bastards in my tower who don’t know the M of magic will never get it! This thing exists only for you. I mean, for a properly ‘real mage’!”

With him talking like that, just how extraordinary was this grimoire? At this point, even Solomon was itching to know the value of the grimoire before him.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, let’s stop the small talk here.”

As he said that, Lord Bowery stood up.

“I don’t want to interrupt your date with the ‘real master.’”

“Thanks.”

As if his role ended there.

“Besides, these days the idiot bastards under me have been doing some real suspicious shit.”

“Suspicious shit?”

“Damn shit! I’ve been having some properly fucked days. When things go south, there might come a time I’ll need to borrow the hotel’s hand.”

As he said that, the Sewer Mage Tower Master, Lord Bowery, turned his back.

“So for that time too, I hope you reach the next realm quickly.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Without forgetting to reserve a contract for the future to come.

“……”

Solomon immediately took the suspicious parchment tome Lord Bowery had handed over and headed to his room. He still hadn’t received the gear infused with fairy magic for Cinderella. Even so, Solomon sat at the desk and set the grimoire down.

[The suspicious grimoire lying on the desk… strangely gives the feeling that it is alive. As if some unknown bug is wriggling.
Before you know it, your hand too is drawn as if unconsciously, moving toward the dry-textured leather cover.]

The narrator’s voice continued. In truth, Solomon’s hand was moving, before he knew it, toward the leather cover of the suspicious grimoire.

‘…Should I stop?’

He had enough room to stop consciously. More than anything, Solomon was unarmed without his gear right now. He had no weapon or armor to respond if a fight broke out. If he opened the grimoire and got forced into an ambush or battle, it would be the worst-case scenario.

[Oh, there is no need to worry too much. Fortunately, this grimoire is indeed radiating a very suspicious aura, but at least your ‘equipment state’ does not seem very important.]

Even so, the narrator continued. Solomon decided to trust those words. At least by his TRPG experience, in this context, the odds of that being a lie seemed low.

At the same time, the act was also a kind of experiment to test how far he could trust the game master’s ‘mastering.’ It was a risk worth taking even in the long run.

Having made his decision, Solomon opened the cover without hesitation and turned to the first page.

The moment he did, his consciousness slipped away.

“!”

His eyes opened. At first, he thought he had come to the game master’s table room. He hadn’t. But it also wasn’t like he had passed out in the hotel room and woken up.

‘Where is this…?’

After looking around, Solomon soon realized this place was different from the ordinary location.

‘Under my feet….’

In endless darkness, starlight flickered along under Solomon’s feet, forming ‘something to step on.’

Bricks underfoot flickering with starlight.

When he unconsciously took a step forward, new starlight flickered again, forming starlit bricks under his feet.

In a place where endless darkness spread in every direction, only when Solomon stepped did starlight flicker beneath him and open a path.

With each step, new starlight flickered and opened the path underfoot, and each time, the starlit path left behind kept fading away.

All around was submerged in darkness. He couldn’t even tell where he was supposed to go.

Even so, strangely, there was no hesitation in Solomon’s steps.

Because as a TRPG player, he had experienced places like this to the point of being sick of them.

‘It’s like a stage device to maximize the realm of the next level.’

In other words, unlike the five level-ups he had experienced so far, it was to flaunt the fact that reaching Level 6 carried an incomparable ‘specialness.’

Meaning, something that could be called radical would be offered, different from the ’ordinary-looking level-ups’ until now. He already knew that.

‘It’s because of House Bale’s innate bloodline trait… the Level 6 effect of 「Shadow Bloodline」.’

In other words, the effect was so radical that it warranted giving it a narrative of considerable difficulty.

If anything, Solomon was the least flustered of anyone, accepting that fact.

That was why he had even less reason to fear the grimoire Lord Bowery had given him, or this otherworldly domain now spread before his eyes.

‘Lord Bowery knows I’m House Bale’s bastard.’

Given Lord Bowery’s intelligence network, he probably knew that Solomon was House Bale’s bastard. Even so, he didn’t bring it up, and even now he pretended not to know.

There was only one reason he could think of.

‘Beelzebub.’

The fact that the Lord of Flies was more obsessed than anyone with House Bale’s bastard. Lord Bowery knew that, and at the same time, he was keeping silent to protect Solomon under their contract.

So within a master’s consideration that tried so hard to protect him, there was no reason to refuse the realm before his eyes.

Each time he took a step in the darkness, the domain underfoot shone with starlight and began to reveal a path.

To reveal his talent that could no longer be hidden.

That was when it happened.

Not beneath Solomon’s feet, but before his eyes, starlight rippled and began reconstructing a scene. Even if it was only forming outlines through starlight, Solomon could recognize what it meant without difficulty.

‘Memorial.’

That it was a reconstruction of some scene that existed in Lord Bowery’s memory or consciousness.

Before long, the starlit scene began forming an interior space and the shapes of many silhouettes.

— Bowery Bale.

At the same time, a voice was heard. Bale. The name of the very bloodline flowing in Solomon’s body.

— I hear you’ve opened the second-type bloodline singularity of 「Shadow Bloodline」.

A proving ground where that family revealed the power flowing in their blood.

The ‘second-type bloodline singularity’ of 「Shadow Bloodline」 referred to the ability Solomon would unlock at Level 6.