Quis Ut Deus

Angra Maria. The messiah who atoned for this city’s evil, and the Black Museum’s new curator, was there.

“……”

Watching that, Evangelist Gunter kicked off the ground. Backward. Leaving behind the absurd might he had shown just moments ago, he rejoined Solomon’s side. The Faceless One did the same. The one who had struck from behind Ishtar and withdrawn was now standing on this side without a trace of presence.

Two factions clearly split around the emptiness at the center of the cavity. The hotel and the Black Museum.

“Well, what choice do we have?”

The Faceless One said with a hollow laugh.

“It’s a bad look to gather like this and then say it, but there’s nothing to be done.”
“I’m glad you understand, Faceless One.”
“By the way, there’s one thing you’d better remember for sure.”
“Oh, may I hear it?”

By the time he realized it, the Faceless One’s face had changed once again. Still, it wasn’t easy to make out. It could have been the face of any man or woman, young or old, because you couldn’t see beneath the bandages wrapped tight.

But that curiosity never lasted long.

“Who is like God (Mi-ka-El)?”

The Faceless One tore the bandages off with his own hands.

“Father was always silent. And so I.”

As the bandages came undone, what was revealed beneath was…… faces. Not one, but countless faces overlapped there. Like a camera’s long-exposure technique, as if people standing in the same spot were being layered endlessly. Countless emotions and faces, crying and laughing, grieving and raging, exulting.
“I became a blade that measures the meaning of silence, and makes them scream.”

Calmly. Yet the dignity and force that rang through that voice was threatening enough to swallow even the composure Angra Maria had shown, along with Vlad Țepeș and Beelzebub. To the point that even they, without meaning to, slipped beyond their own will and felt chills of an unknown fear.

“Don’t think the silence of now will protect you for all eternity. ─Just as I did to my older brother.”

Just as he did to his older brother.
The Faceless One spoke. Vlad Țepeș deliberately bowed with exaggerated formality and offered his salute again.

“I will look forward to it, Quis ut Deus.”

Right after, a blood-red crimson mist rose along Vlad Țepeș’s feet and swallowed him and Marie Molesworth…… no, Angra Maria. When the crimson mist finally disappeared, the two of them were gone.

“Oh, how could I forget your shining spear.”

Beelzebub, too, with those final words, had his form collapse.

“The spear that once dropped the morning star, and pierced through the Red Dragon of the Apocalypse.”

His collapsing body scattered, becoming countless swarms of flies.
A brief silence fell. At the end of that silence, the Faceless One murmured softly.

“……אלי אלי.”

Ancient words no one there could understand.

“למה עזבתני.”

Father, my Father, why have You forsaken me?

Marie Molesworth’s commission was over. For Solomon, from start to finish, it was helplessness. As a witness, he couldn’t do a single thing.

“Congratulations on completing the commission, Mr. Jean, Solomon.”

Even so, in the end, their commission…… was a success.
They returned to the hotel together after finishing the job. As everyone scattered off in silence, what blocked Solomon and Jean Baudri was a skeleton hotelier clattering its bones.

“Completed?”
“The evil spirit dwelling in Miss Marie Molesworth’s body, Miss Blanc of the 13th floor, withdrew of her own accord. As a result, the commission’s terms were fulfilled, and the compensation will be paid normally.”

At those words, Solomon let out a hollow laugh. Jean Baudri did too. When it came to helplessness, the 9th-floor troll clergyman was not exempt in this situation either.

“Ten Wishmaster Medals have just been issued. Under the partner contract, three have been issued to Solomon. In addition, Solomon’s room grade has also been upgraded. Room 333.”
“……”

In the end, he received the compensation he was due, even the wish medals that Solomon at his current level couldn’t even dream of. Should he be happy about this?

“Well, at least economically, it’s not a bad outcome.”

Jean Baudri shrugged calmly.

“Frankly, in the storm of risks we took, even being alive and intact like this would be a miracle.”
“……That’s true too.”

Solomon nodded readily at the troll clergyman’s words. It really was. Marie Molesworth’s commission, from start to finish, all of it was something played on someone’s palm, and with just one finger of that palm, it could have crushed the two of them like ants and still had plenty left over.
Even in that situation, they survived without dying.

‘In the end, I did survive.’

He knew it. And even knowing it, something heavy like a lump of lead sat in Solomon’s chest with no sign of leaving.

“Our cooperation ends here. In the end, it ended up looking like this, but…….”

Jean Baudri, the troll clergyman, removed his cappello romano and offered a polite salute.

“Thanks to you, Mr. Solomon, I believe we were able to survive like this.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“We’ll meet again.”

Either way, the two men’s business ended there. Before the back of the troll clergyman walking away, Solomon stayed silent.
At the end of his silence, Solomon headed for his new room. Room 333 on the third floor. He let out a hollow laugh at that uncanny number and opened the door.

The three medals said to grant wishes were there. On the side table next to the bed.
The heart in a bottle that gave Solomon the power of a Blood Mage, and Lord Bowery’s grimoire that would guide him as a shadow mage, were there as well.
Those things made Solomon who he was now. The third-rate assassin from when he first fell into this world was gone. Even so, facing the countless monsters there, Solomon had no choice but to feel the same helplessness down to the bone.

Lucifer, Beelzebub, Vlad Țepeș, Ishtar, and finally Angra Maria…….

‘I have to get stronger.’

To survive among those monsters, the fact that this wasn’t nearly enough. No matter how kindly he looked at it, Solomon right now was only ‘second-rate’ at best. And the opponents he had to face, the opponents he had to overcome, weren’t even just first-rate.
They were top-tier, even beyond that.

Just then, Solomon’s gaze drifted to the medals said to grant wishes. Solomon didn’t hesitate. He grabbed them and left the room. To the table in the usual corner of the hotel lobby. It was the luxurious marble table covered in red velvet beneath lighting that glowed like dusk.
Ignoring the sign that said Reserved, Solomon sat down there. After sitting, he silently placed four medals from his coat on top.

A brief silence. At the end of it, a woman was sitting in front of Solomon without even a presence. It was not Yuria. It was the familiar dark elf medium who should have been at the occult shop, Hill House, in the lowland slums.

“Adina…….”
“Seeing you again so soon, Hotel’s new big shot.”

Adina, the dark elf medium, smiled as if it was nothing surprising.

“By the way, looks like you’ve got a wish you want to make pretty urgently, the moment you got them.”
“……There’s something I want to ask.”

Solomon said.

“Say it.”
“How do I survive?”

Glancing at the three Wishmaster Medals on the table.

“More specifically, how do I get the ‘strength to protect myself’ in that nest of monsters?”
“That’s a hard question.”

Adina shrugged and fell silent.

“The conflict between the hotel and the Black Museum has a long history. It’s not something a mere mortal can handle.”
“So in the end, all I can do is let go and die nice and obediently?”
“Well, that’s how it is for most mortals.”
“……I want the point.”

Adina added meaningfully.

“Human assassin.”

Human assassin. Solomon’s role among the three witnesses, along with the golden-winged fairy and the clerical troll.

“As a witness who received the God Spawn, you were there. As the human assassin, offering myrrh and becoming a being that symbolized ‘a god’s suffering and sacrifice, and death.’”
“……That’s true. Does that window dressing to fit the form mean anything?”
“It does. More than you can imagine.”

Adina said flatly.

“Myrrh has, since ancient times, been a preservative applied to corpses, and a symbol of funerals. In other words, a symbol of death.”

Even Solomon flinched at the weight of it.

“There, you took the role of myrrh, meaning a god’s mortality. As the human assassin, a symbol that brings death to an immortal. A sign of a rite that ancient is not something that fades easily.”
“……”
“In other words, you’ve already obtained the qualification.”

The qualification to kill a god.

“From today on, what will cling to the tip of your blade won’t be a human’s death. It’ll be the qualification of death.”
“……”

Adina’s violet eyes stared as if piercing through Solomon’s soul.

“The qualification of an assassin who can embody not only a mortal’s death, but an immortal’s death as well.”

In a sense, it was something beyond Solomon’s imagination.

“In the first place, to bring a God Spawn into being, you have to bear that much of a price.”
“Wait, then the witnesses besides me too…….”
“Depending on their roles, they’ll receive a baptism of symbols too. Gold (a king’s qualification) and frankincense (divinity).”

He didn’t know what effects those would bring, but at least neither of them suited Solomon right now. In that sense, Solomon’s role as a witness was as perfect as it could possibly be.

“On that point, even the Black Museum didn’t properly grasp the meaning.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fact that they gave that role to you, of all people.”
“……”
“That will become their only weakness, and the most fatal one.”

Adina’s eyes were pointed at Solomon in front of her, and yet they weren’t looking at him. Farther than that, they were already peering beyond, tinged with starlight, into a place Solomon couldn’t imagine.

“Remember this. You didn’t gain the power to kill a god. You gained the ‘qualification’ to bring a god to death.”

How he used that qualification was ultimately up to Solomon. It wasn’t like power enough to tear a god apart would just drop into his hands right away.

“So for the strength you want, there’s no need to think too grandly. Don’t look too far. Take care of what’s right in front of you first.”
“What’s right in front of me?”
“A master who’ll give you strength.”

A master who would give Solomon strength. One name came to mind. The Tower Master of the Sewer Mage Tower, Lord Bowery.

“So how much?”

At the end of the conversation, Solomon asked. Looking over the Wishmaster Medals on the table.

“Ah, I’ll let it slide today.”
“Let it slide……?”
“Because your questions weren’t things only the Wishmaster could answer. I could answer them too.”
“So there are separate questions you can ask the Wishmaster in the form of a wish?”
“Yeah. Got something else you want?”
“……”

A brief silence. At the end of it, Solomon asked.

“Lady’s whereabouts.”

Lady. A woman who, in the past, was said to have borne the head of House Bale’s bastard child and then vanished, and a legendary spy on the bourgeois side. That very bastard child asked about her whereabouts. Adina, the dark elf medium, hardened.

“I want to know her whereabouts. How many medals do I need?”

A brief silence.

“666,666.”

She answered at the end of the silence. At that absurd number, Solomon blinked in disbelief.

“Fucking expensive.”
“Because it’s information worth that much.”

After blinking, he collected the medals he’d placed on the table and rose.
He’d come here, swept up in endless helplessness, and what he had to do was obvious. Get stronger. Not some cumbersome thing far off about a god’s death, but power right in front of him, something he could gain right now.
To do that, it was time to choose the surest, simplest method.