Wizard Of The Deep Sea Chapter 78

[ … words ]

TL/ED – Miso

Head upward. That’s what he said.

I looked up at the ceiling. As the size of the cavity was quite large, it seemed to be just under 10 meters from the floor to the ceiling, and there were no visible holes.

The easiest thing would be to use Wind Thunder to blow a large hole and go up.

However.

“…That would be dangerous.”

I rolled on the floor a few times and confirmed that the damp soil was holding together more firmly than I had expected.

Anyone who has done construction work, or even just played with dirt on a backyard hill, would know this: wet soil, no matter how firmly it’s pressed and compacted, collapses easily.

And yet, in such a deep underground place, with such a massive cavity, it should have collapsed at any moment. But even with roots sticking out like that, it maintained a stable state.

These were holding the soil together. If I were to damage that structure while creating a hole with my Wind Thunder…

The escape attempt could turn into a live burial.

“Hmm.”

But I curved my lips into a smile.

It was the perfect environment to test my ability.

I closed my eyes and spread my current sense deeply, beyond the cavity, into the underground burrow. The map of it gradually revealed itself.

“…”

The result was shocking.

There were far more fine roots than soil. Those roots, like a net, played a role in keeping this deeply dug underground burrow from collapsing.

All of this was created by Dersia. I began to get a faint idea of the extent of her ability.

A realm of miracles that transcended magic.

If one who wields magic is called a wizard, what do you call someone who manipulates miracles at will?

I didn’t bother trying to define the answer. Instead, I thrust my hand into the wall of the cavity, grabbing a handful of soil and fine roots. I focused hard on them.

Every root has a vascular system. I didn’t know what method Dersia used to control the roots, but if I could touch it, this would be the only way.

I sent a current through the vascular system of the roots I had grasped.

-Trduk, truduk… The roots snapped randomly and gathered around my hand.

I furrowed my brows. They mustn’t break.

After several failures, I gained control over far more than I had expected, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of strands of roots.

-Hudududuk…

“Did it work…”

Holding my dizzy head, I looked at the very small hole that had formed in the wall.

A small space just over 1 meter. But it was a space I had created.

I stepped inside and began to walk. As soon as I started, the path toward the cavity collapsed and was blocked, but that didn’t matter much.

As long as I could maintain this 1-meter space, there would be no problem in the process of escaping.

Breathing?

I don’t breathe.

If there was anything to worry about, it would be managing the hundreds of thousands of bundled fine roots while maintaining current sense for hundreds of meters in case of unforeseen circumstances.

That, was so easy, it was surprising.

Thanks to the precision training of current sense I had gained while learning Enhanced Mana Body from Brimdal. And the overall reduction in burden after becoming 2-Star.

Because of that, I was able to easily perform a skill I couldn’t manage before.

However.

[…? ?…]

“Huh.”

Just one thing.

There was one burden that hadn’t lessened.

But it had changed.

An eel with eyes all over its body was swimming, when it suddenly stopped near my ear.

As if it had discovered something.

[…?]

It lasted only for a very brief moment. The eel was soon swept away in a mixture of swimming and drifting.

I looked at the direction it had been pushed with an uneasy gaze.

Was this the third time?

The first was when I let my blood flow into the Deep Sea. The second was when I entered the Deep Sea myself. And now.

It was hard to dismiss it as coincidence. The way the eel’s eyes looked, each and every one of them was clearly focused on where I was.

…Probably, if Dersia could be returned to normal, the first thing I should ask about seemed to be decided.

“Haa…”

One mountain down, and there’s another ahead.

Letting out a deep sigh, I continued walking steadily.

How many minutes had passed? I was starting to feel uneasy.

There was no end in sight.

“…?”

You might think I’m grumbling after just a few minutes of walking, but the range of my expanded current sense is roughly estimated to be about 500 meters.

The deepest subway station in the world is Yonggwang Station in Pyongyang. That’s 150 meters deep.

The tallest building in Korea is around 550 meters.

A few minutes no, even just from the cavity, it should have reached the surface to be normal.

The one that wasn’t normal was Dersia.

“Damn-”

At the midpoint, something started showing up heavily in the previously quiet current sense.

If this were a radar, maybe you’d see a terrifying scene of the entire panel turning red with red dots spreading across it. When I quickly focused my current sense on the targets, I discovered two things.

First. They were indeed roots.

Second. Dersia was ‘definitely’ a shaman’s apprentice.

“Mandragora… or something like that.”

I didn’t know if that was their actual name.

But the limb-like roots that looked like tiny babies were spreading thousands of netted roots across the soil, expanding the space.

Efficient. That was my first thought.

Rather than controlling all the roots alone, she had living organisms under her command to manage them.

It’s certainly right to leave this kind of tunnel construction to a specialist. If she had help from things in the ground from the start, then even creating a burrow this deep made sense.

While feeling an urge to learn it later, I carefully avoided them. Luckily, they didn’t seem too interested in me. They seemed to be doing something… What is it?

I extended my current sense further.

-Trduk.

“…Ah.”

In the process, I made a small mistake.

Really small. One of the moving roots got connected to one of the strands of fine roots those things were emitting, and I accidentally snapped it.

In that instant.

[——–!!!!!!]

Thousands of Mandragoras turned their bodies in unison and looked at me in the blink of an eye.

I frowned slightly, but if they were just emitting fine roots, maybe it’d still be.

[Grrk- grrk- grrk-]

They immediately retracted all their fine roots.

And then. The large roots Dersia used to bind me, those roots, bigger than their own bodies, started to extend little by little.

They’re going crazy.

With a sigh, I began to chant Wind Thunder. It was close to impossible to break through all those thousands of Mandragoras.

For now, I had to retreat back to the cavity and, even if it took time, find another route.

-Kuuuung…!

There were so many roots that the ground trembled as if an earthquake had struck.

-Bang, bang, kuung…!!

And it was continuous…?

“What-”

As I was checking my escape route.

Something showed up at the top range of my current sense. Higher than the Mandragoras. Above everything.

At first, I thought I was mistaken. Because I saw ground.

The ground that wasn’t there before suddenly appeared, so I naturally assumed it was an error.

But, when I saw the ground getting closer and closer, I furrowed my brow.

“What is this…?”

Even I couldn’t understand this unprecedented situation.

Something was digging through the earth.

The kind of earth that would take dozens of excavators working nonstop for an entire day to dig through.

It was being blasted away, every second.

[…?????????????]

Even the Mandragoras seemed to feel the same way I did.

They didn’t even care about me, the foreign object, anymore, and quickly started creating a barrier of roots to block the intruder, the phenomenon, from above.

Roots reinforced harder than the compacted soil.

The digging speed was the same.

-Kwajijijik!

[…]

Only the sound was different.

The Mandragoras, who had instantly lost limbs, probably, made a quick decision.

Escape.

You might wonder how plants could escape, but these things create space with roots. Their movement through soil would be like fish in water.

They quickly extended their fine roots to grab onto surrounding rocks or other roots and fled.

Just to avoid that phenomenon.

I was still preparing to run.

To be honest, I didn’t think Azrael could do something like this. But that didn’t mean it was Brimdal either. He would’ve gone to face Dersia.

More than the Mandragoras, the being capable of doing something like that was far more terrifying.

But I was too slow.

I felt it, someone was standing above the ground.

By the time I sensed it, they had already ‘struck down’.

-Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!!!

Not a shock that dug out a surface, an action that cut through a line.

Not blowing away hundreds of meters of earth, but a pinpoint strike focused on the area where a single person stood.

With just one stomp, that being was now standing right in front of me.

“…Hmm.”

No time to flee. Current sense, ineffective.

The height of the foot, without even a 1cm margin of error. Perfect control.

The only wall between me and this unidentified monster was a 3cm-thick soil wall that would collapse with a simple reach of a hand. And it was already crumbling.

As a last resort, I considered telling Dersia, “Okay, I understand. Let’s try doing it your way.” While I was thinking.

A face appeared beyond the collapsing soil wall.

“…?”

Blonde hair, slightly torn clothes that didn’t really go well with the armor, looked about twenty years old.

She was a bizarre knight from whom I couldn’t read a single emotion, but I saw something familiar in that face.

So familiar, it was hard to recognize.

For about thirty seconds, we stared into each other’s eyes.

“Lin…”

“Oh, young wizard.”

Suddenly, the knight opened her mouth.

Her tone was extremely solemn and serious.

“Huh?”

“I am a Heaven’s Judgement Knight, summoned by the priest to save you.”

“??”

What the hell is this.

At the very least, the knight before me was definitely Linmel, even if she looked a bit older.

Azrael had, in some way, summoned a future Linmel.

No, how? Did he offer up the current Linmel as a sacrifice?

I needed to figure it out.

“Who is this priest you speak of?”

“She is the Dark Night Lightning Judgement Knight named Linmel.”

Linmel showed no disturbance at all when saying that name.

Rather, a faintly proud expression even crossed her face.

I see.

This isn’t the future Linmel, just a grown-up Linmel.

The only difference was that her mental age was still that of a child.

Feeling slightly relieved, I nodded.

“I see. Thank you for saving me, unnamed knight.”

“…Hmph! This much is nothing. I’m overflowing with power, after all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Linmel (grown-up version) repeatedly clenched and unclenched her fist with a proud face.

“Just what I said. I’m overflowing with power… it’s really amazing. I feel like I finally understand how much strength I’ve been wasting all this time. Every movement I make now, each one feels like such a precious learning experience.”

…Is she even trying to hide it?

As if realizing she had said too much, she mumbled to herself, then, seeing me watching, was startled and shook her head.

“Ahem. That’s just how strong I am. I meant you don’t need to worry.”

“I see. If it’s not too much to ask, could you assist in the upcoming battle? I have to face a powerful enemy, and it would be helpful to have a means of fighting back.”

“…I’m sorry. That’s not possible.”

Linmel suddenly lowered her voice and muttered with frustration.

“I- I borrowed the power of a demon to come here, and I had to pay a great price. So I can only remain here for a few more minutes. Because, um… to protect the world, I have to return soon.”

To translate her clumsy explanation:

There’s a time limit. It’s almost up. After that, she can’t move.

That was unfortunate, but she had already helped enough. I was able to avoid the Mandragoras and escape this easily.

“I see. There’s no need to be sorry. I’m already grateful just for the fact that you saved me.”

I bowed deeply to express my gratitude.

Even if she wasn’t a grown-up Linmel, I would have done the same. But the recipient looked flustered and hurriedly grabbed my shoulders to raise me up.

“W-what are you doing? It’s fine, so please stand… up.”

Her speech pattern was terribly lacking in authenticity. She must have only learned the sword, and probably based her idea of a knight on what she’d read in novels.

“Yes, knight.”

Still, Linmel seemed to want me to see not herself, but some other kind of knight she aspired to be, so I played along.

At that, Linmel looked incredibly happy but seemed to be trying not to show it, pursing her lips and holding back a smile, then soon returned to a solemn expression and nodded.

“I’m the one who should thank you. For always being the purpose of the priest.”

“…Excuse me?”

I tilted my head.

“I’m Linmel’s purpose?”

“That’s right.”

Linmel nodded without the slightest hesitation.

“Linmel – my disciple wishes to become a knight like you.”

“I have the personality that least fits being a knight.”

“That can’t be. The more she learned about knights, the more she became convinced that the word referred to you.”

“Sounds like she still doesn’t know what the word actually means.”

“A knight must be one who sacrifices. Did you know that?”

Linmel suddenly brought up something strange.

“No.”

“It’s the very first thing you learn when becoming a Heaven’s Judgement Knight. That the one who can willingly lay down their life for someone else is the one most fit to be a knight.”

“That’s definitely not me.”

I shook my head in disgust.

“I’m someone who can help others, but not someone who can give up my life for them.”

“That’s right. I think the same.”

Linmel lightly acknowledged it and sheathed her sword.

…Only now did I realize.

None of her movements registered at all, absolutely nothing, on my current sense.

Just like with Brimdal, or rather, on a more intricate level, she crossed the boundary of superiority and inferiority.

A being completely disconnected from the world.

A realm where no magic, no Abyss Realm magic, no anything could land a hit.

A weapon created to kill wizards, Fallen, shamans, knights, all of them.

-A perfect Heaven’s Judgement Knight.

“I think a knight should have ability, rather than just a willingness to sacrifice.”

“Ability…?”

“Yes. Not everyone can be a knight. A knight must be upright. A child holding a stick and a youth holding a sword should be clearly distinguished.”

“That’s true.”

“A person with ability who, prepared to sacrifice, can save the weak without ever getting hurt.”

Linmel looked at me and smiled like a child.

“The priest believes that is what a knight is. It’s what she realized by watching you.”

“…”

A thought held only by the young.

An innocent, hopeful belief that sacrifice is something called sacrifice because it comes unavoidably, a belief born from not knowing that.

But, maybe Linmel could achieve it.

Following the illusion that is me, creating a fairytale-like future where not even one person is lost.

I found myself nodding as if enchanted, then frowned deeply as I realized what that implied.

“Wait a second, that Dark Night Lightning Judgement Knight.”

“Yes.”

Another immediate answer.

“Doesn’t she resemble you a lot? That cold and calm and… stuff like that…”

“She absolutely does not resemble me.”

“Huh? Uh…”

“Not in the slightest. Please tell her it’d be best to stop immediately.”

“…Huh?”

A pang of guilt stabbed at my chest.

No, setting aside the fact that she thinks that resembles me…

…Was the taste that accelerated Gwallan’s hair loss entirely my fault?

*

“Uh, oh no! Something urgent just came up, I’ll be off now!”

Looking a little dejected, Linmel suddenly sprang up in surprise and leapt out of the tunnel.

She must’ve reached her time limit. As I climbed up the vertically dug tunnel, supported by roots, off in the distance, I saw Azrael snickering.

He wore a thoroughly satisfied expression. As I moved, about to rush off to rescue my master, he laughed even harder.

“What are you laughing at.”

“How could I not laugh? In less than twenty years, the title of strongest in the Empire will change. Hundreds of years the dwarf has built up, swept away in an instant. How ridiculous is that? That foolish dwarf really had that next to him and still chose you? Khahaha! What a laughable judgment, and yet, somehow I relate to it. How mysterious!”

Whether madness had taken over, or something else, Azrael clutched his belly and laughed before finally slumping down on a stump and letting out a sigh.

“Haah… When I see things like this, I feel both amused and regretful. That this is the only way we can live, our fate.”

“That’s your fate, not ours.”

What an absurd thing to say. Azrael had no right to feel regret.

He was the one who locked the elves in cages, so what the hell was he talking about?

I shot him a venomous glare filled with that meaning and turned to leave, only for Azrael to burst into laughter once again, stopping me in my tracks.

“Uhaha! You stupid fool. How old do you think those elves over there are?”

“…What?”

“I may be old now, but that doesn’t mean the others are young. Heheh…”

I tilted my head in confusion at what he was saying, but then I stopped in shock.

This wasn’t something I could just let slide.

“…You’re saying it was consensual?”

“Well, I didn’t want to do it, to be honest.”

“You mean those primitive elves weren’t like that from the start?”

“That’s right. Not until they handed over their memories to me.”

“…What were they doing before that?”

“Who knows…”

Azrael scratched his head, then looked into the air as if recalling something.

“Well… that one who tried to burn me once used to be the emperor of a nation that ruled a territory larger than the Empire. And the guy next to him, the one who yells all the time and now pours water into a cracked bucket every day wondering why it leaks, he used to be a high-ranking 7-Star wizard. And then the one next to him…”

“That’s enough.”

So, in short, this was one big, twisted game of house.

A game of house with only livestock and a master, managed by a single shaman entrusted with memories and control.

And there was only one thing I could say to that.

“No, seriously, why the hell are you living like that?”

I really, truly couldn’t understand.

Why? Why would they choose to live that way?

If it were just one crazy bastard of a shaman who, under the conviction that he must preserve the species, put a leash on all the elves, well, that’s the kind of insane tyrant behavior you could still understand. You find those types anywhere, not just among elves.

But for all the other elves to willingly put leashes on themselves and hand over control to the shaman? That was already beyond the realm of insanity.

If I had to live like that, I’d rather take my own life.

This time, Azrael didn’t brush me off with a “You don’t need to know.”

Instead, wearing a bitter expression, he let a passing insect crawl over his hand as he replied.

“It’s the price of our challenge. We paid the price we were meant to pay.”

“Challenge? What kind of challenge?”

“A challenge against ourselves.”

Again with the riddles. Just as I was about to beat it out of him with Wind Thunder, he finally opened up.

“Such a temper… It was a challenge to ask: Are we a species worth letting live?”

“What kind of dumbass challenge is that? Why would anyone need to prove they’re worth living?”

“Elves are a race that values kindness and peace.”

“Cut the bullshit right there.”

“I can’t deny it.”

Azrael and Dersia.

Though it was a survey group of only two, it was sufficient evidence to prove ‘all elves are crazy’.

Azrael shrugged, as if to say he agreed.

“In the past, we used our near-infinite lifespan, overwhelming talent, and irresistible beauty that could charm any race to rise as the rulers of this continent. That was before magic even existed.”

“Back then… yeah, we did a lot of terrible things. I won’t go into detail, but even I find it disgusting and repulsive. All the races banded together to try and exterminate us.”

“We could’ve overcome it. But, when we heard their bitter cries, full of centuries of resentment, even we were… persuaded, I suppose.”

“Someone asked: How did it come to this?”

“Originally, we too were a peaceful race living in the forests. But when we stepped out into the world and raised our hands… the blood on them felt a little too sticky.”

Azrael looked up at the sky, as if staring into a distant past.

Though he was an elf, he wore the appearance of an old man.

Unless it was by choice, just how many years had to pass to make even an elf’s skin wrinkle like that?

“I became the Keeper. The one who tests the elves.”

“I release one elf from this cage. I observe what they do, what they accomplish.”

“I judge.”

“We don’t want to live like this either. The conditions are generous. If even one, just one, elf lives their life in satisfaction- if, in my judgment, they are not broken, if a choice exists besides becoming a monster crushed under infinite years…”

“Then, I will release us. All elves will recover all their memories.”

After Azrael’s murmured declaration, silence fell.

After hearing all of that, as I blinked, I realized an obvious fact.

“Dersia, Master is the elf of this generation, isn’t she.”

“Well, calling it ‘this generation’ isn’t quite accurate. It’s already been several hundred years.”

“Were Master’s actions satisfactory by your judgment?”

“Not at all.”

“What’s the standard of judgment?”

“My own subjectivity. My personal standard, shaped by witnessing the rise and fall of all elves.”

“…”

And Dersia did not meet Azrael’s standard of judgment.

Well, it’s true, Dersia didn’t seem satisfied with her own life.

She didn’t even seem to know what she really wanted.

If even Dersia wasn’t satisfied, there was no way Azrael would pass her.

After a brief moment of thought, I asked,

“Why are you telling me all these secrets about the elves?”

“Who knows?”

Azrael gave a crooked smile.

It was an ominous, wicked grin.

“Why do you think? Take a guess.”

“No, thanks.”

It was so obvious and transparent that it wasn’t even worth guessing.

Azrael believed I might be able to restore Dersia to normal.

He judged that I might be of help in the so-called ‘liberation’ of the elves.

Let him think what he wants.

Whatever the case, the thing I had to do was clear. It had never changed from the beginning.

I needed Dersia in order to survive.

“Where is Master fighting right now?”

“Heh, see for yourself.”

“?”

-Kurung!!

Before he even finished speaking, lightning struck from a clear sky.

Dodododododok, immediately followed by a heavy downpour. It was clear, it wasn’t artificial.

Azrael looked at the sight and grinned faintly.

“Hmm, if you don’t hurry, it might be dangerous.”

“For who?”

“You’ll have to see for yourself.”

“…”

The end was approaching.

*

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