Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

After handling the Linmel matter, I returned to the Spire.

I had a lot to think about and planned to rest for a day or so, but it wasn’t long before Cheon-hwa summoned me again.

This time, it wasn’t for a mission.

“We don’t have much time, so let us resume the interpretation.”

“…With just the two of us, it’s going to take quite a while.”

Interpretation.

Ever since we discovered that Deep Sea Creatures were constantly communicating using some kind of language, Cheon-hwa had insisted this was something we absolutely had to do.

It wasn’t a bad idea. However, completely deciphering a language I knew nothing about—one that only I could hear, no less—in a short time was simply unrealistic.

And while it was fascinating, I didn’t see how being able to communicate with them would change anything.

For example, even if you could talk to starving tigers, what would that change? Begging them to spare you, pleading not to be eaten—they wouldn’t care.

Simply put, while I considered the interpretation important, I didn’t place it at the very top of my priorities.

But Cheon-hwa firmly shook her head.

“You still haven’t properly sorted your priorities. Did I not tell you before? The greatest difference between the Three Evils and other worlds is their scale.”

“Yes. I heard.”

“Then you failed to understand my explanation. That scale matches the real world exactly.”

“…That’s enormous. So how is that relevant?”

“Various races live mingled—no, mixed together in the real world. Your world is the same size, meaning there surely exist other life forms besides what you call Deep Sea Creatures.”

“?”

This was rather sudden.

As I tilted my head in confusion, Cheon-hwa tapped her fountain pen against the desk, lost in thought as she continued.

“The reason you must learn this language is because those other beings very likely maintain a similar linguistic system to these Deep Sea Creatures. Of course, immediately after falling, Water Pressure and breathing are the biggest problems, and that won’t change no matter how accustomed you become… but at least prediction becomes possible.”

I felt a sense of déjà vu from her absorbed expression.

“Come to think of it, you mentioned you’ve seen another of the Three Evils.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of world was it?”

Cheon-hwa gazed at me for a moment, then haughtily put away her fountain pen.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. What you need to focus on now is acquiring that language. That will be most directly connected to your survival.”

“No, even so, how are the two of us supposed to interpret a completely unknown language?”

This was literally like swimming through a vast, boundless ocean.

That metaphor didn’t quite fit for someone actually submerged in one, but even including Cheon-hwa’s abilities, our specialties were different. If we invested in this, forget a month—it would take at least half a year before we’d feel any real progress.

“Two of us?”

But Cheon-hwa scoffed as if amused and glanced at the leather bundles that had been beside the entrance since I arrived. The kind with people inside.

Seeing them still squirming, they were alive, at least.

“…What are those?”

When I asked with a disgusted expression, she shrugged as if telling me to see for myself. I used Water Pressure to lightly undo the bindings—

“Mmph, mmrph! Mmmmph!”

Nearly ten scholarly-looking people were bound and struggling inside.

Their faces showed nothing but despair and anguish. They didn’t seem to be wizards or Fallen, so I tilted my head in confusion. Then one of them managed to work free his gag and screamed.

“Why, why are you doing this?! I don’t have any wealth whatsoever! I’m already dirt poor—what could you possibly want with a penniless professor like me…”

“?”

Professor.

At that word, I turned to Cheon-hwa with a sinking feeling.

She showed not an ounce of shame for her actions—in fact, she was so utterly unapologetic that I felt embarrassed for even questioning her. Left with no choice, I turned my gaze to the man who’d called himself a penniless professor.

“Excuse me, but what subject do you specialize in, Professor?”

“R-right now, ancient linguistics…”

Oh, for f—

When I removed the gags from the others, they poured out similar things.

“Is this because I assigned the project to create a completely new sign language system that a gorilla of average intelligence could learn in three days and hold a conversation for more than five minutes without stopping? Anyone who attended my lectures diligently should be capable of that!”

“I, I’m over forty years old but I’ve never had a spouse, let alone anyone close to me! You won’t get anything out of me!”

Eventually, I glared at her again in protest.

“Did you really have to do this?”

“Isn’t this the fastest method? Specialized work should be left to specialists.”

It went without saying, but Cheon-hwa was a member of Crimson Circle too.

There wasn’t a trace of guilt to be found in her use of such methods, which meant explaining the situation fell to me.

With no other choice, I gathered the professors and spoke quietly.

“Greetings, professors. I am Undercurrent of Crimson Circle’s Upper Tier.”

“What…? C-Crimson Circle?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, this place is the heart of the heinous terrorist organization that the Empire is currently pouring all its resources into eliminating, and you have been kidnapped and brought here.”

Even professors who only minded their own business seemed to know the name Crimson Circle.

Several of them looked ready to faint, so I quickly added more.

“Of course, we didn’t kidnap valuable personnel like yourselves simply to drain your blood and grind you into pig feed. If you faithfully carry out your duties, once everything is finished, you will quietly wake up in the last place you fell asleep.”

“H-how can we believe that?”

“This too is truly unfortunate, but if you refuse to cooperate, valuable personnel become disposable personnel, so the pigs will feast.”

“…”

Crimson Circle didn’t actually raise pigs, but they surely understood what I meant.

Cheon-hwa whistled and applauded my skilled rhetoric. It was a horrible feeling, but if I hadn’t persuaded them with words, she might have actually cut off a few legs.

Perhaps thinking they could survive as long as they helped, the professors’ expressions turned gloomy as they slowly nodded.

“What do we need to do?”

“Well, you need to interpret a completely new language…”

About three days later.

I had no choice but to agree that kidnapping the professors had been the most rational approach.

“This must mean ‘prey.’ Didn’t that Undercurrent fellow say so himself? He said they said this when looking at the corpse.”

“No, I think it means ‘death.’ According to the observation log, Subject 89 clearly had established a close mutual trust with the deceased Subject 45. The fact that they possess emotions is patently obvious, and if they have camaraderie, there’s no way they’d use the word ‘prey’ when looking at a corpse—”

Knowing this was their only path to survival, they joined forces and began interpreting the Deep Sea Creatures’ linguistic system.

I sat in my chair, tracking with Current Sense—day and night, without missing a moment—the Deep Sea Creatures they had distinguished and even given individual designations to.

Fortunately, it wasn’t meaningless work.

“So this would be a sentence meaning ‘the time has come and the hunt is over.’ Does everyone agree?”

“Time has come. Hunt over. I agree with that much.”

They say too many cooks spoil the broth, but these were skilled cooks with their lives on the line, and they navigated without incident—

Remarkably, in just one week, they succeeded in creating a small dictionary.

They even scratched their heads apologetically while expressing regret.

“Unfortunately, starting from scratch, this is the best we can do. From here on, you’ll need to use this to attempt conversation, then tell us the results so we can analyze and add to it accordingly.”

“…That’s quite thick, isn’t it?”

“Is it? We’ve only interpreted roughly ten percent, by our estimates.”

Ten percent.

I flipped through the rather thick dictionary, taking in what that meant.

“It’s a truly bizarre and strange language. There’s no proper rules, no system, nothing. Really, it feels literally like… a language from another world.”

After sending away the dazed professors, Cheon-hwa and I were reading through the dictionary when our eyes met.

“What if something like ‘Come kill me’ is written in here? They were kidnapped, so they might have written something malicious out of spite.”

“You worry too much. If such a thing occurs, I shall ensure the revenge is thorough.”

“…”

“Well, didn’t you eavesdrop on their conversations? You would know best.”

She was right—even without fully understanding, I could tell the professors had given it their all.

Now it was time to test that sincerity.

I dug through the dictionaries, combined words, ran several experiments to create the closest approximations to the right sounds, and then—in an act closer to making sounds than speaking—called out to a jellyfish passing nearby.

[Nearby very dangerous.]

[—-?]

The jellyfish, lacking vocal organs, showed no particular reaction and simply stopped drifting, curling its tentacles.

But only for a moment. Watching it resume its drifting, I tilted my head.

“Did it work?”

“Ask one that can speak.”

That’s a bit scary.

Even when I tried to find the weakest-looking one, they all had vicious teeth and were so brutal that it gave me chills.

Still, I called out to the most manageable-looking one—an anglerfish swimming with six frog-like limbs.

[Nearby very dangerous.]

I wanted to be more specific, but with the words I knew, this was all I could construct.

The anglerfish’s reaction was clearly different from the jellyfish’s.

[….Dangerous…—-…—-?]

The creature curled all its limbs tightly and scanned its surroundings with that lantern of its. When it eventually realized nothing was there, it uttered a single word.

[Who.]

At the same time.

An unpleasant current began to envelop the area.

…Current Sense.

[Who? Who, who? Who? Who.]

Repeating the same word, the creature was sweeping its surroundings frantically with Current Sense.

I knew I was safe. If something like that could find me, I would have been devoured on my first day in the Deep Sea.

As long as I didn’t scatter something directly into the Deep Sea or enter it myself, I was safe.

[…–………]

In the end, having found nothing, the anglerfish uttered words that weren’t in the dictionary and left.

It was a chilling experience.

“…At least we know communication is possible.”

“…”

“Cheon-hwa-nim?”

Cheon-hwa had been staring intently at the shadow of the Deep Sea Creature I had created and fixed in place.

Wondering what she was doing, I asked, and after a moment of blankness, she shook her head and replied.

“It’s nothing. But yes, we’ve confirmed that communication is possible.”

“Indeed. I’m relieved this wasn’t a waste of effort.”

“…It seems we should end the first conversation here.”

“Huh?”

I had only just spoken to an anglerfish once.

Cheon-hwa, who hadn’t done anything, looked even more exhausted than I was.

She waved her hand dismissively and settled into her chair with a weary face.

“Let us discuss the details tomorrow. Today, I need to rest a bit.”

“Oh, yes.”

Had she been doing something else while I was gone?

This was the first time I’d seen her look so tired. Without objecting, I headed up to the top of the Spire.

Even so, my hearing had opened up, and the conversations of the Deep Sea Creatures began to register not as noise, but as actual words.

[….Coming. Coming…—? Go, coming….]

[Done—–done….—-]

“…”

Most of it was like that, so it was more painful than anything.

Maybe if I studied harder? I was skimming through the dictionary as I left the underground chamber when—

“U-Undercurrent-nim…!”

“…?”

The moment I emerged from the underground chamber, Damyu was waiting there, anxiously hopping in place.

I had told her I couldn’t be responsible for whatever happened if she came inside, so she must have been waiting out here. I’d had my Current Sense focused on the Deep Sea Creatures, so I hadn’t noticed.

“Did something happen? Hold on…”

Someone was kneeling beside the teary-eyed Damyu.

At first I didn’t recognize him, but it was one of Piercing Blood’s subordinates I’d seen before.

“Who are you, and why did you come alone?”

As I asked, I noticed his body trembling like an aspen tree.

Something bad must have happened.

“…Undercurrent, Undercurrent-nim…”

The trembling man looked up at me and—

“Piercing Blood-nim has… passed away…”

—turned my premonition into reality.