Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

“Calm down and explain what happened.”

“W-well…”

The man began to explain, stammering.

“After we discovered the raw material for the World-Sealing Pill last time, we attempted to manufacture the pills using that White Earth. We’d been preparing the equipment for some time, so we actually managed to produce a prototype.”

“And? Did another Upper Tier find out?”

“It seems that way…”

It seems?

I raised an eyebrow and asked again.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying at all. You’re saying you don’t even know how Piercing Blood died?”

“I was dispatched as soon as the situation was confirmed. Piercing Blood-nim was collapsed in his office, having coughed up blood…”

The man trailed off, unable to continue, then added as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

“He was holding poison in his hand.”

“…What?”

Collapsed in his office after coughing up blood. Poison in his hand.

It was bewildering, but looking at these facts alone, the circumstances pointed toward suicide.

As if reading my thoughts, the member shook his head vigorously.

“But it can’t be! There’s no way. Undercurrent-nim, you know better than anyone that Piercing Blood-nim wasn’t that kind of weak person!”

“Of course, I know that much.”

If he were to name the people furthest from suicide in this world, it would be the Fallen of the Crimson Circle.

They were like me. People who chose to struggle rather than take the much easier and simpler option of death.

Of course, their method of survival involved slaughtering others without hesitation—but at the very least, that meant they possessed an overwhelming will to live.

Especially Piercing Blood, who among all of them had been searching for any possible way to defy his fate by gaining leverage with the Upper Tier. He’d finally found a way, and then he commits suicide?

There was no way.

“I need to go see for myself. Can you guide me?”

“Yes!”

The member must have come specifically to fetch me, as he quickly mounted his horse and headed toward the ruins of a nearby abandoned city.

It seemed this area had already been claimed. When I extended my Current Sense, I could feel several members standing guard at the entrance with tense expressions.

“Everything happened so suddenly, everyone’s on edge.”

The member driving the horse whispered quietly, as if warning me.

Well, it was a situation where they might think their leader had suddenly taken his own life. It would be stranger if the atmosphere weren’t tense.

Still, the fact that there were no signs of internal division suggested Piercing Blood had managed his subordinates well.

We climbed up to the Old Castle where traces of their activity remained, arriving at a terrace where several members were conversing in hushed, serious tones.

“You’ve arrived! We apologize for summoning you so abruptly.”

“This is just… something we can’t possibly believe with our common sense…”

I raised my hand slightly to stop them and pointed at the door they were guarding so firmly.

“Did you conduct any investigation before I arrived?”

“After confirming Piercing Blood-nim’s… condition, we didn’t touch anything.”

“Good. Make sure no one enters.”

“Yes!”

There was no need to actually open the door and go inside. I had already grasped the entire situation inside through Current Sense.

But to accommodate the members who didn’t know that, I deliberately entered—then extended my Current Sense in greater detail.

“Hmm…”

Unlike the abandoned castle’s corridors that looked like ghosts might jump out at any moment, the room smelled of human habitation.

They must have set up here after finding the raw material for the World-Sealing Pill, somewhere close by. They must have done extensive research, as the walls were plastered with countless blueprints and papers detailing mixture ratios.

And in the center of it all—

Piercing Blood lay dead, slumped over his desk.

“…Tch.”

I had already reached my conclusion.

As much as I’d hoped otherwise, this was indeed suicide by poison.

There wasn’t even a faint footprint on the floor, and the windows had nails driven into them. Nails that showed no signs of having been removed.

Of course—all sorts of bizarre Fallen existed in this world, so there could be methods to enter without a trace, force-feed someone poison, and make it look like suicide.

But if this truly were a murder orchestrated by the Upper Tier of the Crimson Circle, there was absolutely no way they would have killed only Piercing Blood and left.

Every single person here knew about the raw material for the World-Sealing Pill and its location. What madman would kill only the leader and retreat? The Upper Tier weren’t that merciful.

Being an Upper Tier myself, I approached the desk stained with dark red blood and did something not exactly recommended.

Using Current, I lifted Piercing Blood’s corpse and forcibly pried open his hand.

“…Pills?”

The raw material for the World-Sealing Pill. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

What these people called White Earth was clutched tightly in his hand.

After taking a small amount, I finally examined the paper Piercing Blood had been writing on.

[This fucking shit.]

Hmm.

If this was his final message, it was certainly fitting for someone like him.

I searched thoroughly for any other dying message, but found nothing besides that short sentence.

In the end, having learned little beyond confirming it was suicide, I stepped outside and explained to the many members waiting for me.

“P-perhaps you discovered something…”

“It wasn’t suicide. It was betrayal.”

“…What???”

I met the eyes of the members staring at me in disbelief and worked through my thoughts.

These people didn’t just follow Piercing Blood—they practically worshipped him. I’d always thought that since he was constantly beating his subordinates and yelling at them, there’d be some resentment built up, but apparently not.

In the Crimson Circle, where suicide was regarded as a coward’s escape, telling the truth would only breed resentment—they’d say things like “Our leader would never do that, you’re lying!”

But I still had questions I needed to ask these people, so…

“There were marks on Piercing Blood’s wrist—the hand holding the poison—where someone had forcibly grabbed him. They tried to make it look like suicide after forcing him to take the poison, but they can’t fool my eyes. Go see for yourselves.”

“Who would dare do such a thing…!”

I chose the approach of creating a common enemy.

As they rushed into the room, I coldly watched them examine the red marks I had just created, their faces flushing with growing rage as they processed the situation.

“One of you dared to assassinate my business partner. I will find this fearless bastard and make them pay the price.”

“But why would the assassin target Piercing Blood-nim…”

“They must have gotten greedy after finding the raw material for the World-Sealing Pill. If they hadn’t been caught, they probably planned to kill all of you too and keep it for themselves. The amount isn’t enough when split among many, but for one person alone, it would last a lifetime.”

“But the Bottomless Pit where the White Earth is located—isn’t it impossible to enter without Undercurrent-nim?”

“They must have found some way in. But you—you keep bringing up other points. Do you have something to hide?”

“N-no! Absolutely not!”

Having easily seized control of the situation, I issued orders to the members caught between anger and grief.

“The raw material for the World-Sealing Pill—where do you store what you call White Earth?”

“It’s kept in the underground storage.”

True to form as Crimson Circle members, they were obsessed with underground spaces.

“Security?”

“There wasn’t any in particular. Piercing Blood-nim trusted all of us completely…”

“Who accessed it most frequently?”

“Piercing Blood-nim himself.”

“Hmm…”

Piecing together the situation:

Piercing Blood committed suicide. Leaving behind the crude final words: This fucking shit.

Judging by the scrawled handwriting, it was probably written in a fit of rage.

For someone who would do anything to survive to choose death—it wasn’t because of pain or despair. He’d likely already experienced plenty of that.

So the only explanation was that he no longer had a reason to survive.

Why would he lose that reason?

As I pondered deeply, I asked without much thought.

“Recently, was there anything different about Piercing Blood’s behavior?”

“Hmm… no, there wasn’t.”

“You’re taking a while to think. Tell me anything, no matter how trivial.”

“If we’re talking about something truly trivial, he did start drinking more frequently, and… ah, we experimented with compressing the White Earth.”

“Compressing the White Earth? What’s that?”

“This White Earth takes up quite a lot of volume, doesn’t it? So since that creates major constraints for transportation, we experimented to see how much the efficacy would change after compressing it under high pressure.”

It was a reasonable experiment. Even if the efficacy weakened somewhat, there was no way to carry dozens of tons of sand around without spatial storage.

“But it was a failure.”

“Failure? It didn’t work?”

“Yes. It didn’t just weaken slightly—it disappeared entirely. Ah…”

The member tilted his head as if something had occurred to him.

“Come to think of it, Piercing Blood-nim started drinking heavily right after that experiment failed.”

“…The remnants from that failed experiment—do you still have them?”

Something was there.

Realizing this, I pressed him, and he nodded hastily.

“There’s a small amount left. This way.”

Following him, I arrived at a courtyard filled with heavy pressing machines used to compress the White Earth.

There was some White Earth there, and…

Ordinary-looking brown soil.

“That soil is the result of compressing the White Earth.”

It amounted to roughly one sack of dirt.

I approached it directly and put some in my mouth, then frowned.

It was just ordinary dirt with no properties whatsoever.

“…”

Compressing White Earth produced ordinary dirt.

This fact drove Piercing Blood to suicide…

“Is that all? Is there nothing more detailed?”

“W-well, we made pills from it, dissolved it to make water, tried everything, but there was no effect at all. We even planted seeds in it, ground up the resulting tree to make soil, thinking maybe that would retain some effect—but nothing worked.”

“…Ah.”

Nothing worked.

Nothing had worked at all.

The moment I heard that, something deeply unsettling crawled up my spine.

“…Wait. No way.”

“Yes?”

I immediately manifested stars in my eyes and conjured wind.

The member beside me threw himself to the ground in alarm, the surrounding White Earth flew into the sky, and a wind strong enough to rattle even the pressing machines tore through the area.

But the compressed White Earth didn’t move even the slightest bit.

“You—what’s your world?”

“I-I have one where everything I drink turns to poison…”

“Drink some of that water you’re carrying and spit it onto that dirt.”

“Y-yes.”

He hastily gulped down water from his canteen, then spat onto the soil.

The soil absorbed the saliva and—

“…Huh?”

It didn’t dissolve.

Glancing at him, the member frantically drank more water and this time spat it onto the regular ground.

-Hissss!

This time, the ground melted away.

“Well, this is fascinating. I had no idea the compressed White Earth had such special properties.”

The member looked back and forth between the ground and the compressed White Earth with wonder.

“It seems my world and magic don’t work on this at all. It’s remarkably foreign soil. If Piercing Blood-nim had seen this, he would have been pleased and said it was useful…”

Looking down with a bitter expression, he murmured to himself. I shook my head.

“He probably already knew. And you’re wrong.”

“Huh?”

I stared down at that soil and recalled the words spoken by the skeleton guarding the underground place where the White Earth had been found.

The only earth remaining in the world.

I’d thought he just went mad, but now I finally understood what he meant.

“We’re the alien ones.”

It had been that way from the beginning.

…Every single one of us, without exception.