A Noble’s Duty

27 minutes later.
The outskirts of 「Sun Street」 in Downtown District 10.

It was an upscale residential district for the wealthy and powerful, second only in Guild City to Uptown’s 「Moon Street」, home to the Five Great Houses and the nobility.
The rising bourgeoisie. A class that had risen from the medieval middle class to early modern capitalists, and further still into the nobility of a new age.

And yet this world still had nobles, and kings as well. It even had mages. Beyond that, it had demons and fairies too─.

───
Dark Camelot — Guild City is set in a gothic industrial city where magic and technology collide.
While the Five Great Houses that rule the city protect magical tradition, the rising guild bourgeoisie threaten the status of the Great Houses through magitech that breaks down the boundary between life and machinery.
Nor can one leave out the criminal organizations of the slums that dominate the black market.
In this city of chaos and opportunity, will you be able to obtain what you desire?
───

Without thinking, Solomon recalled the explanation written in the TRPG rulebook when it first described this world. It was exactly as it said.
A city of chaos and opportunity. Right now, Solomon was crossing through that city.

[A strange man is crossing the streets of the city in noir style, his coat fluttering behind him. He probably thinks he looks a bit hard-boiled, doesn’t he?]
‘Please just shut that mouth.’

Along with that nonsense echoing in his head.

“Oh, you came.”

At that moment, the man seated before the fountain rose to his feet. He was dressed in a neat suit that didn’t look especially out of place on the street. Only then did Solomon realize that the man’s outfit was not particularly suited for ‘infiltration.’

“Let me make one thing clear. I haven’t said I’m going yet.”
“I see.”
“I only came to hear you out.”

That familiar parrot-head, Mihail Cromwell, was there. With a fedora pulled low over his head, he exuded an aristocratic dignity so lofty that even calling him bourgeois felt insufficient.

“I hear Baron Gould has already laid a trap and is planning to chop our heads off nicely together and stuff them as decorations for his mansion.”
“Right. The information leaked.”

Mihail, the Second-Grade Bladesman of the Sword Watch, said with a frown.

“Even so, nothing changes. ─Because that is justice.”
“Most people call that suicide, not ‘justice.’”

Solomon said.

“There’ll be plenty of chances to kill Baron Gould even if not now. Is there any reason to go along with him while he’s waiting inside a trap?”
“Because now is the only time.”

Mihail replied.

“Under the protection of a Great House, Baron Gould will flee the city into royal territory. So long as we remain ‘phantoms’ bound to this city, this is our only chance to kill him.”
“What reason is there to kill him that badly?”
“Because he is someone fit to be killed.”
“I saw the contents of the commission. In the end, it looks like nothing more than a political struggle between the bourgeoisie and the nobility.”

Solomon sneered.

“Right. It is true that the City Council wants Baron Gould removed for political reasons. And at this point, that objective has already been achieved.”
“The objective’s already been achieved?”
“There aren’t many bourgeois bold enough to remain in the city after becoming a target of the hotel.”

Removal did not necessarily have to mean killing. Simply disappearing was enough.

“Then from the start, the fact that the commission leaked too……”
“Right, that’s how they do things. Since there’s no guarantee the same thing won’t happen to them, they all make sure to take out insurance in advance.”
“So they do know their lives are precious.”
“They know it far too well, and that’s the problem.”

Mihail spat that out with a sneer. Which was precisely why Solomon understood it even less. At this point, even if Solomon gave up the commission, it would mean the objective had already been achieved.

“Then if the objective’s already been achieved, is there any reason to kill him at all?”
“Didn’t I already say.”

Even so, Mihail shook his head.

“I merely serve this city’s order out of a noble’s duty. I do not take orders from the bourgeoisie.”
“From the sound of it, it doesn’t seem like the nobles want that either.”

Hadn’t he just said that the ones helping Baron Gould flee were the Five Great Houses and the noble faction of Uptown? Baron Gould’s crime, after all, was collusion with that very 「Ancient Council」 faction.
Not even the bourgeoisie behind the commission were exceptions.

“They are not nobles.”
“……What?”
“What is a noble?”

At the unexpected question, Solomon blinked.

“Is one called noble simply because the blood flowing from birth is noble? Is a person’s nobility and baseness really decided by nothing more than a single bloodline flowing through the body?”
“Nice words. But I didn’t come all the way here just to hear a lecture on morality.”
“It is action.”

Unbothered, Mihail continued saying what he wanted. It seemed he was no less of a my-way type than Violet.

“One does not become noble by birth. One becomes noble through action, and ceases to be noble through action. Our lives are defined solely by our actions.”

Our lives are defined solely by our actions. It was certainly a plausible-sounding thing to say. Unfortunately, Solomon had not come all the way here just to hear plausible-sounding words.

“─A certain girl was murdered. And in a truly miserable way.”

That was when Mihail said it.

“After she was killed, she was thrown away in a garbage heap. It was a crime the Sword Watch should have handled, but in the end no investigation was carried out. It was quietly buried under pressure from the City Council, even though there was more than enough ‘evidence’ to catch the criminal.”
“……”
“Does such a criminal deserve to become noble simply because he holds the title of ‘baron’? Should those who shelter such a criminal truly be called nobles just because the blood in their veins is said to be noble?”
“He’s someone fit to be killed.”

Solomon answered.

“But the world is full of people fit to be killed, and hell is too small. If you tried to hunt them down and kill them one by one, even the Nine Hells wouldn’t be enough.”
“I agree. I’m not so lacking in sense that I can’t tell that much.”

So he could understand that much, then. Before Solomon could even be shocked by that fact, Mihail rose to his feet and spoke.

“That is exactly why a chance like this cannot be missed.”
“……”
“It’s about time.”

Watching him, Solomon asked back.

“Why commission me of all people?”
“That day.”

Mihail answered.

“When the victim was abducted by Ripper, you reached the place before I did.”
“……”
“And you carried out the proper justice.”

In the end, the neighbor next door survived. The criminal, Ripper, paid for his sins at the hands of Chairman Țepeș.

“In you, I saw the bearing of a noble.”
“……Too bad you found out I’m actually a lowborn bastard.”
“No, even now I believe in your nobility.”

Mihail said.

“In any case, walking into a trap of one’s own will is not an easy decision. Nobility is not foolishness.”
“No, you say that even though you know it?”

Solomon was once again stunned. He was shocked that something unexpectedly sensible had just come out of the man’s mouth.

“You act out nobility in your own way. I will act out nobility in mine.”

Saying only that, Mihail turned his back on Solomon without hesitation.

“─Because that is justice.”

To enter knowing it was a trap. Or to refuse to enter knowing it was a trap.
He meant neither.

To carry out nobility each in one’s own way. That was the justice Mihail spoke of, and a noble’s duty, noblesse oblige.

But as he watched Mihail Cromwell’s back recede, Solomon didn’t move until the very end.

Some time later, Baron Gould’s mansion. Even in District 10, where Downtown’s bourgeoisie gathered, it was a place unmatched in sheer luxury and extravagance.
And the ‘trap’ Baron Gould had laid in that mansion was called by the world by a somewhat different name.

The Golden Soirée.
In the mansion lobby, decked out in luxurious marble, gold, and jewels, quite a few bourgeoisie had gathered and were indulging in a feast of excess that did not end for days and nights. Even those belonging to factions hostile to Baron Gould were no exception.
And people of that level would never show themselves without protection. There was, of course, the Sword Watch, which had effectively become the dog of the City Council and the bourgeoisie, their private armed force. Beyond that, there were individually hired strongmen in case of emergency. Among them were even contractors specially hired under the name of Hotel Snark for private security.

Baron Gould proudly cried out as he looked at the gigantic chandelier hanging above the lobby.

“Invited bourgeoisie! Behold the star that will shine down upon you tonight, a star more beautiful than the starlight in the night sky, the Star of Bethlehem!”

In the end, the peak of all those spotlights was shining down on one single pot-bellied bourgeois.

This was Baron Gould’s trap. A trap didn’t have to be stretched out secretly in the dark like a spiderweb. The more eyes, the better. The more people, the better. Because in the end, those bourgeois bastards had nothing in their heads except their own lives.

In the end, Baron Gould’s trap was a fortress. Not darkness, but light. A fortress that illuminated the mansion’s interior with radiance bright as the sun so that not even a rat could hide, and made anyone lose the nerve to even attempt an assault.

At the mansion entrance, even now, quite a few bourgeoisie were letting in guests who had received invitations.
Though it was said that Baron Gould had been pushed out in the City Council’s power struggle, paradoxically that also meant he had once stood that high within the Council. And so, to pick up even the last scraps from Baron Gould, quite a few bourgeoisie flocked in like moths with fire in their eyes.

Mihail, the Second-Grade Bladesman of the Sword Watch, was there as well. Openly, without even attempting to hide.

“May I see your invitation?”
“I do not have one.”

At Mihail’s answer, the guard scratched his head as if flustered.

“My apologies, sir, but without an invitation, to the Baron’s party……”
“I am a Second-Grade Bladesman of the Sword Watch, hired for the private security of a certain bourgeois.”

As he said that, Mihail showed his bladesman badge without any intention of concealing it. A bladesman. One of the Sword Watch’s unquestionable elite armed forces, the strongest they had.

“Oh, my apologies. Please, go right in.”

Without being stopped any further, Mihail succeeded in infiltrating Baron Gould’s extravagant mansion. Pulling his fedora low, he immediately began surveying the structure of the mansion’s interior.

An open design in which a wide first-floor lobby connected up to the second floor by Y-shaped stairways. The second-floor balcony wrapped around the first floor as if encircling it, and snipers armed with ranged weapons such as automatic crossbows had been stationed at each pillar.

‘They’re not Sword Watch.’

He could tell the moment he saw them. They were a private mercenary corps. And besides them, the strange nonhuman races standing silently at the sides of several bourgeoisie. They were not there for Baron Gould, but as strong protectors the bourgeoisie had each kept at their own side.
Though they might not exist to protect Baron Gould, there was no doubt that they would not ‘tolerate’ disorder breaking out here.

After grasping the situation, Mihail took a silent deep breath. Nothing changed.

There was someone fit to be killed, and this was the only chance to kill him. He had never intended to survive in the first place. Nor would the name Cromwell, one of the proud Five Great Houses of Guild City, protect him. Even so, Mihail silently steeled himself.

After doing so, he took the small explosive device he had prepared in advance and set it beneath a table. He had no intention of causing casualties. In the first place, the explosive was not powerful enough to kill anyone. In a sense, it was little more than an excessively flashy and noisy firework.
At the very least, it would be more than enough to turn the Golden Soirée, overflowing with the bourgeoisie’s vanity and extravagance, into utter chaos.

Tick-tock.
At the end of the device, the timer began to move.
10, 9, 8…… 3, 2…… 1.

“Boom.”