A Chandelier Destined To Fall, Falls.

Kwaaang!
An explosion of sound alone. That was enough. The deafening blast, loud enough to make one’s eardrums ring, was more than enough to turn the mansion lobby into chaos.

“Kyaaaah!”
“It’s an explosion!”

As expected, screams rang out. The dance of the Golden Soirée, which had been in full swing just moments ago, came to a halt, and the invited bourgeois guests began milling about in confusion, unable to hide their panic.
And this happened at the very moment the masquerade, with everyone hiding their faces behind masks as they danced, was underway.

And so Mihail hid his face as well. Behind a clown who did not smile, a pierrot mask.
In that state, he cut against the flow of the panicking bourgeois without hesitation and advanced straight toward Baron Gould. Though the Baron was flustered, he remained comparatively calm, as if he had expected something like this to happen. Above all, he had a reliable ‘protector’ watching over him.
Worse still, some of the bourgeois were not simply fleeing at random, but were gathering around Baron Gould, the host of this Golden Soirée. The strong fighters assigned to protect them were no exception.

‘……This just got troublesome.’

In this situation, could he still go for Baron Gould? There was no need to take down every strong fighter protecting him. Mihail’s goal was only one thing: the neck of the man who deserved to die.

‘Can I do it?’

Wearing the pierrot mask, Mihail looked nothing like a Sword Watch bladesman. Right now, Mihail was not a bladesman who faced others openly with a sword in hand, but one taking the assassin’s method, stabbing in from behind.

Nothing changed. Mihail Cromwell didn’t hesitate.

─A girl died.
That day, when the girl was murdered, Mihail had not even been in a position to investigate the crime.

「Terminate the investigation. That is an order from above.」

If anything, he had been on the side exerting pressure from above to halt the investigation.

The next day, Mihail went, as usual, to the bakery he often visited on 「Groceries Street」 in District 8. It had been part of his routine to buy the croissants baked by the daughter at the bakery run by father and daughter together. She had been a girl who never lost her bright smile.
But that day, the bakery didn’t open. There was only the father, sobbing alone.

─The girl died.
That day, when the girl was murdered, Mihail buried her death with his own two hands into a darkness from which it could never be brought to light.

The sad clown, Mihail in the pierrot mask, crossed through the chaos among the bourgeois. The distance to Baron Gould narrowed. Pulling the thread device tied to his finger, he gripped the hilt of the knife hidden inside his sleeve.
At most, all that stood between Baron Gould and danger was a single troll that looked sluggish. It was even standing behind the Baron, not directly blocking the knife’s trajectory. As a meat shield, it could hardly be better. But a shield that could not deflect an attack meant nothing.

‘Ironbreaker.’

Mihail murmured inwardly. The Ironblood power roiled as if exploding. The ordinary act of hurling a knife with all his strength was reborn as a destructive blow carrying the absurd weight of steel.

Whooong!
Masked as a pierrot, Mihail’s knife throw flew toward the man fit to be killed. It was no ordinary throw. It carried the destructive force of dropping heavy machinery from a rooftop.

‘Reach him……!’

Mihail prayed. Then a sound rang out. It was not the sound of death piercing flesh, blood, and bone.

Kaaang!
It was the sound of iron striking iron.

“!”

It was the sound of a knife throw imbued with Ironblood power being deflected with absurd ease. Then Mihail’s knife bounced away helplessly and rolled across the marble floor.

“The uneducated……”

A voice was heard next.

“People often have a tendency to assume that a large creature must be slow and sluggish.”
“……What?”

Before Mihail could even be taken aback, the thing now standing in front of Baron Gould continued speaking.

“However, from a mathematical perspective, an increase in mass does not, in itself, lead to a decrease in speed.”

It was that same sluggish-looking troll. A troll so absurdly enormous that the word sluggish came naturally to mind the instant one saw its movements, so overwhelming was its presence.
That very troll was speaking.

“When one considers the vector interpretation of conservation of momentum, the academic consensus is rather that there is no rational basis for linking increased mass with a reduction in speed.”

Even so, that troll, neatly dressed in a custom-tailored business suit made for his body, continued speaking in a voice more intellectual and refined than anyone else’s.

“Rather, from a biomechanical standpoint, the contractile force of muscle fibers increases exponentially once they exceed a certain size. In other words, large-bodied beings like myself can, contrary to common belief, move even faster.”
“……!”
“In other words, assuming something will be slow simply because it is large……”

As he neatly adjusted the slightly crooked cuff of his suit.

“Psychologically speaking, that falls under the representativeness heuristic, a common error most people are prone to, as well as a fallacy of visual induction.”
“Kh……!”

By now, the absurdly huge troll in a suit was standing in front of Baron Gould, having deflected Mihail’s knife throw, all while speaking in a maddeningly intelligent tone.

“So you’ve finally shown up, you hotel cleaner bastard!”

At last, Baron Gould shouted as though none of this was surprising.

“Haha, look at this troll! I paid a special fortune to hire him from the hotel just for an idiot like you!”

Baron Gould shouted boastfully, and at that, the troll in the suit shook his head and corrected him.

“Oh, there are a few points that require correction on academic grounds, Baron Gould.”
“What?”
“The expenditure you made in order to hire me was by no means a vast sum.”

It was not a vast sum.

“From a microeconomic perspective, under present circumstances of high risk exposure, your decision to boldly allocate liquidity to a highly efficient risk-hedging product such as myself can be evaluated as a rational level of portfolio optimization aimed at risk avoidance.”
“What, what?”
“In other words, it was not an enormous expenditure, but a rational decision for risk avoidance and high-efficiency investment.”

At the troll’s continued explanation, even Baron Gould fell silent, blinking.

“S-so that means I spent my money well?”
“Economically speaking, yes. One could call it an ideal example of rational spending.”
“Haha, I see!”

He might not have understood the meaning, but the result sounded good, so the Baron forced an awkward but pleased smile. And in truth, it was so. To deflect a knife throw imbued with Ironblood power, and to do so belatedly after it had already been thrown, was a feat for which even the word astonishing was insufficient.
Especially when the one who had thrown it was a Second-Grade Bladesman of Sword Watch who used Ironblood power.

“Let us leave the theoretical explanation at that.”

The troll in the suit continued in an intellectual tone, standing squarely in front of Baron Gould.

“It is now time to conduct a macro-physical verification in the non-quantum domain… or, if you prefer, in the real economy.”

The troll moved at the same time as he spoke. A macro-physical verification in the non-quantum domain. What that meant was all too obvious.

The troll kicked off the ground. Just as he had said. That absurdly huge body of his did not, mathematically or physically, imply any ‘decrease in speed.’ If anything, as the troll himself had said, the opposite was true.

He was fast. Monstrously so.
Fast enough that even a Second-Grade Bladesman of Sword Watch could not register the movement at once.

Kwaaang!
The troll’s swinging fist struck Mihail squarely in the abdomen. At the same time, that single blow alone sent Mihail tumbling across the floor and flying back over a distance of more than ten meters.

“This is physics.”
“Guhk!”

A mouthful of blood poured out. Because he wore the pierrot mask, his face was still hidden. Blood streamed down beneath the mask. In pain, Mihail barely managed to steady his posture.
Even after taking a blow that would have ruptured the organs and killed an ordinary person on the spot, Mihail had only coughed up some blood. At the sight, the troll narrowed his eyes with interest.

“Oh?”

“Seize him!”

The knife hidden in his sleeve had already been thrown. Fortunately, he could see the rabble of Sword Watch men moving belatedly under Baron Gould’s orders. Mihail subdued the ones coming at him without much difficulty and snatched two swords, gripping them in both hands.

‘At least I’ve got swords now.’

Mihail adjusted his grip on both hilts and kicked off the ground. Off-beat, bolts from the snipers on the second-floor balcony came flying toward him. Leaving the whistling tear of the air at his ears, he moved as the rain of bolts pierced the marble floor.

‘That’s no ordinary troll.’

It was obvious to anyone that the troll before him was no ordinary troll. More importantly, Mihail’s goal was not to engage the troll in a fair fight. Nothing changed. Dodging the bolts fired by the snipers on the second-floor balcony, Mihail moved. Not toward the troll.

He moved far around, out of the troll’s reach, in search of the optimal angle from which to throw the swords in his hands.

Mihail threw the swords again. Two blades in succession, off-beat.

Kaaang!
The troll moved belatedly and batted away the first sword with a stubborn hand. Barely, the second sword as well.

‘Now!’

But the third blade, snatched up from a Sword Watch sword rolling on the floor and thrown at the last instant, was another matter.

Pook!
By the narrowest margin, the blade grazed the troll’s fingertips, drawing blood, then passed him and struck the target behind him. Straight into Baron Gould’s chest, where his heart beat.

“Guhk!”

Baron Gould coughed up blood in pain. At the sight, Mihail smiled in triumph behind the sad clown mask.

‘Success!’

He had never intended to make it out alive in the first place. With this, his objective had been achieved. To kill the man fit to be killed.

─At least, it should have been.

“Heh heh heh……”

And yet Baron Gould, with the blade embedded through his chest and sticking out of his back, let out a low laugh even as his heart was pierced. Without showing the slightest sign of pain.

“I told you, I really did spend my money right!”

He didn’t die even with his heart pierced. Of course, Guild City was full of monsters that would not die from something as simple as a heart being pierced. But Baron Gould was not one of them. He was no monster at all, merely an ordinary bourgeois.

“Oh, I expected as much.”

And yet he soon realized it. There was indeed a monster nearby that wouldn’t die even if a heart were pierced.

“By the way, I forgot to mention something.”

The bleeding that should have poured from Baron Gould’s chest stopped. At the same time, the troll’s suit jacket began to stain crimson.

“That I am not a brawler, but a clergyman.”
“!”

Before long, Mihail realized the troll’s divine trick.

“……”

A high-level protection spell of no less than the Fifth Circle. In other words, the troll before him was not merely a brute who knew nothing but throwing punches. Which led to the obvious conclusion: unless he took down the troll before him, killing Baron Gould, who was literally sharing life with the troll, would be impossible.

‘Damn it.’

Trolls were infamous enough already for their regenerative abilities. A clergyman capable of a Fifth Circle protection spell could, by that fact alone, wield vitality that surpassed even a troll’s. And the monster before him was both.

“Now then, shall we return to physics.”

By the time Mihail realized it, the troll had already kicked off the ground. The mosaic marble floor beneath him cracked apart and caved inward from the force as his fist swung toward Mihail.

Kwaaang!
It carried enough absurd destructive force to send Mihail flying another dozen meters the instant it landed.

It was no mere punch. It was a strike carrying monstrous force strong enough to send shockwaves sweeping across the area. Its power was so great that even the jeweled chandelier above the troll’s head, decorating the mansion like a field of starlight, swayed as though dancing.
Precariously, as if it might fall at any moment.

“The localized air pressure generated by the shockwave is affecting the lobby’s structures.”

Standing directly beneath the precariously swaying chandelier, the troll didn’t bat an eye. His lofty intellect had already confirmed that such danger was nothing more than an ‘error’ born of academic ignorance.

“Of course, the possibility that an impact of this level would result in structural collapse converges as close to zero as possible.”

And yet the troll did not realize it.
That in this world, there are times when the sound of a blade being sharpened is faster than the sound of tapping a calculator.

While no one noticed, an assassin was moving within the shadows. Invisible movement, accompanied by utter silence.

Having loosened the steel cables and anchor bolts supporting the giant chandelier, the assassin had been waiting for the right moment from the very beginning. A moment exactly like this one.

‘A chandelier destined to fall, falls.’

The assassin, Solomon, thought.

‘Because that is─falling.’

Adjusting his grip on the Ghost Whale Bone Blade, writhing with endless hunger, as he unleashed a second wingless fall.