The Undying

Rosetta S. Arrowhead, Duke Arrowhead, who stood at the pinnacle of the Five Great Houses, spoke.

“Because I have a commission I want to entrust to the human assassin.”

A commission she wanted to entrust to the human assassin. Solomon was not someone who could fail to grasp the weight of those words.

“From the look of it, you seem to know a lot of things.”
“Hehe, it’s a city where eyes and ears are always overflowing.”

Rosetta, Duke Arrowhead, shrugged and smiled.

“Especially since seeing is ultimately the act of receiving light, in that sense the eyes of us 「Spear-Sorcerer Prism Mages」…… are very special.”

She revealed without reserve the countless lights dancing along the facets of her emerald eyes. No matter how specialized House Bale, the Veil-Binders, were in intelligence work, the Five Great Houses were not fools enough to leave that role to a single house.

“I want to hear what the commission is first.”

Solomon continued calmly without showing it.

“Oh my, I forgot about that.”

At that, Rosetta smiled awkwardly and fluttered her fan. At the same time, as if waiting for this, one House Arrowhead mage in blood-red robes hurriedly held something out to them. It was documents.

“Here, will you read it?”
“……Once I read it, can I still turn back?”
“Hehe, of course. Even if you read it and then refuse the commission, that is your freedom, Solomon.”

Rosetta smiled, putting on a loveliness that suited her peer-aged appearance. Separate from the fact that, paradoxically, that very display pressed down on Solomon all the more.
‘If I read it, I won’t be able to turn back.’

He couldn’t actually tell. In this situation, Solomon’s reason was simply screaming that at him.

‘But then again, coming this far and not looking at it…….’

Even “the worst of the worst” would not be enough to describe it. So Solomon took the documents in silence and pulled out what was inside the envelope.

After seeing it, he swallowed silently.
It was a commission like usual. Killing someone who had to be killed.

───
Target Elimination Commission

Issuer: House Arrowhead
Target: The Undying
Location: Within House Arrowhead territory, underground of the 3rd Optical Spectral Processing Facility
───

The Undying.

“The commission itself isn’t difficult. They can’t even resist anymore, and no matter how many times you kill them, they just don’t die, maddeningly.”

Rosetta said with a smile. Solomon fell silent. At the end of the silence, he spoke.

“You…… believe I can ‘kill’ him.”
“That’s right.”

Rosetta Arrowhead smiled. As the head of one of the Five Great Houses, revealing without hiding the dignity befitting that name.

“The conflict between the hotel and the Black Museum, strictly speaking, isn’t something our Uptown can call 100% someone else’s problem. And to make it worse, there’s also the fact that they gave birth to a new ‘Spawn.’”
“For someone saying that, it feels like you didn’t show your face there at all.”
“Unwelcome things always happen in the world.”

Rosetta said as she sipped a cup now filled with coffee, after finishing her black tea.

“That said, you can’t go sprinkling sugar on every unwelcome thing, can you?”

After saying that, she immediately stuck out her tongue at the coffee’s characteristic bitterness and spoke.

“Th, that’s…… what it means to be an adult. Ooh…….”

More like a child than ever, sticking out her tongue at the bitter taste of coffee and not hiding her suffering.

“And I’m a wise adult who’s properly grown up enough to finish black coffee, and a beautiful lady too!”

Rosetta Arrowhead cried out proudly as she finished the coffee, unconsciously grimacing at the bitter taste. Solomon could only stare at her, speechless.

“So, I’ll be expecting it.”

With that, Rosetta rose. Countless mages in blood-red robes who attended her moved busily more than ever, guarding her as they surrounded her.

“As the human assassin, I hope you can live up to our expectations.”

That was the end of the conversation. And at the same time, not a single thing in Solomon’s story had ended.

“Room service.”

A knock sounded as if it had been waiting. Solomon opened the door without hesitation. As always, a skeleton hotelier with bony joints that looked gaunt stood there, pushing a cart.

“These are items separately requested by Duke Arrowhead, including what is provided for the commission.”
“Separately requested?”
“That’s right.”

As it said that, the skeleton hotelier calmly took out room service, piles of documents needed for the commission, and lastly added a small envelope. Paper tied with a cute pink ribbon. The moment he saw it, he knew what it was.

“What did she send?”
“……My apologies. Even I cannot know what’s inside.”

The skeleton hotelier answered.

“It is clear that under the hotel’s rules, harm cannot be done, so please lower your guard.”
“Understood.”

The hotel’s rules. Before those rules, was even the head of one of the Five Great Houses not an exception.
After the skeleton withdrew, Solomon sat down in front of the pile of room service. Needless to say, the first thing he opened was whatever ‘Duke Arrowhead’ had personally requested.

He opened the envelope. When he looked inside, he saw a small, pure-white hexagonal object. Soon, only after he pinched it between his fingers did he realize what it was.

‘……A sugar cube.’

It was so absurd it was ridiculous. Was this her idea of a message? To be honest, he couldn’t even tell how to interpret it. Especially since he had just seen her drink black coffee, stick out her tongue, and suffer.

That was when it happened. From the envelope holding the sugar cube, a tiny slip of paper with a note written on it fell out. It was so small you could miss it by accident. When Solomon silently picked it up, it was written in a very old-fashioned script.

─ When the bitterness is too strong, dissolve it in and add it.

With a hollow laugh, he put it into his pocket without a word and skimmed the next documents. He had hoped for information about the target, but ridiculously, none of it helped at all.

Only one thing was written. That Solomon’s target was 「The Undying」. In other words, they had repeated all kinds of experiments to kill him, and all of them had failed.

‘Not a damn thing useful.’

It was like that to the end. There was not a single thing that properly helped Solomon right now. Nothing changed. Since he at least learned that methods like that wouldn’t work, should he at least count that as fortunate. Who knows.

‘1 a.m. the next day.’

From the day he received the commission, the time arrived. Whether the room service helped or not, there was only one thing he had to do.
Receive a commission directly from the head of one of the Five Great Houses, and eliminate the target she spoke of.

When Solomon geared up and went down to the first-floor lobby, men and women in blood-red uniforms turned their heads toward him as if they had been waiting.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Solomon shrugged easily, but none of the House Arrowhead mages spoke rashly. As if they had been ordered not to casually speak with him.

“This way, Mr. Solomon.”

They even showed a ‘respect’ you would never normally see from Uptown mages like them. He could roughly guess the reason. Starting with the fact that he had spoken with their house head, Duke Arrowhead, Rosetta.
From the perspective of these outdated, old nobles, there was no way they wouldn’t understand what that meant.

As if accustomed to it, they passed through the hotel’s Door Room and came out through a door. He soon realized.

‘Among the many doors lined up in the Door Room, there is no door that leads to Uptown.’

There were only doors to Downtown. Was that the invisible conflict between the hotel and Uptown, between the Five Great Houses and the bourgeois.

“We have prepared a carriage.”

The House Arrowhead mages calmly pointed with their hands to the carriage outside where they had come through the door. He’d seen it before. It was the carriage he had ridden when he followed Chairman Vlad Țepeș to Wallachia Co.

Not flesh and blood and bone, but a mechanical device of brass and springs and steam pipes, with compression valves throbbing.

“A steam horse…….”

The driver, pressing down his silk hat, was the same. Beneath the hat, the shape of bronze, mechanisms, and springs flashed into view.

Nothing changed. Solomon silently boarded the mechanical carriage the driver indicated. One passenger. That was what he thought.

“Oh, well then.”
“……!”

Then he realized. There was another uninvited guest. He didn’t notice until he thought he’d already sat down.
A man was there. A man with pitch-black long hair, dressed neatly in a blood-red suit.

“We meet again like this, Mr. Solomon.”
“Vlad Țepeș…….”
“Oh, well then. You left out ‘Chairman.’”
“Fuck off.”

Solomon spat out the curse coldly.

“Is this a trap too?”
“A trap. That’s an interesting thing to say.”

Țepeș giggled.

“Mr. Solomon, do you know why traps exist?”
“So bastards like you can use them.”
“Wrong.”

Țepeș curled a finger, with the scenery outside the window behind him.

“A trap is merely a coward’s tool that ‘weaklings’ rely on when they don’t have the ability to catch prey with their own hands. Does a lion set a snare to catch a rabbit? Does an eagle use a net when it snatches a snake?”
“……”
“Do I look like a weakling who needs to use a bothersome trap and go to the trouble of ‘hunting Mr. Solomon’?”

It was arrogance beyond measure. And at the same time, he couldn’t deny it. The monster before him had no need to lay traps. If it wanted, snapping Solomon’s neck would be nothing.

“So you’re saying you didn’t come to kill me.”
“Kill you. No. I came to save you.”

Țepeș’s red eyes gleamed.

“You already know better than anyone.”
“Know what?”
“Human assassin.”

Again, that phrase.

“However you take its meaning, however much the Black Museum ‘underestimates’ that meaning, separate from that, the human assassin…… is not a symbol our organization will welcome.”
“Yeah.”

Solomon nodded vaguely, and Vlad Țepeș spoke.

“Unfortunately, I am not a god.”
“……”

Not a god. Solomon couldn’t take the meaning lightly.

“Beelzebub, Ishtar, even Miss ‘Angra Maria’ who has newly gained life, and many comrades of the Black Museum. I…… am a little different.”
“What are you saying?”
“I am a king.”

A king. A Vampire Lord.

“I’m not a god. And I am not a being that kneels at someone’s feet and submits. Why? Because that is a king’s duty.”
“……”

In Vlad Țepeș’s eyes as he said that, there was a flame even Solomon couldn’t miss. A fire of ambition and greed.

“So what do you want?”
“Carry out Miss Rosetta’s commission.”

Țepeș said.

“This is separate from the compensation Miss Rosetta provides for the commission. As chairman of Wallachia Co., as a king who reaches the pinnacle of the empire, this is the small help I offer you.”

Truly, along with an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“Surely you won’t refuse?”
“Is there any reason I should?”