Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

The Emperor was the culprit trying to assassinate Sharmia.

Before surprise could even set in, understanding came first.

‘…No, so what?’

No matter how much of a mess things had been before the Princess’s time, this was still an Empire that commanded dozens of vassal states in name.

Was the Imperial Palace really built so carelessly that it would allow dozens of assassins in every month? No matter how far the old tiger had fallen into a pit of division and greed, a predator was still a predator.

Even if they allowed the intrusions, they should have uncovered the mastermind behind them long ago. The fact that they hadn’t meant…

They hadn’t dared to even try.

“Here, drink.”

“Yes…”

Regardless of the reasons, the situation was closing in moment by moment.

Sharmia didn’t dare think of refusing and politely picked up the teacup with both hands.

I clenched my teeth watching her.

The Princess would not die here. I had come from a confirmed future, and in that future, Sharmia was enduring her fate and fighting against the Crimson Circle.

So that horrific attempt would end in failure. It had to…

But how?

“Mmm…”

Her pink lips touched the hot teacup.

My Current Sense told me that the only ones standing guard outside the door were loyal Knights who obeyed the Emperor’s commands, and there was no one who could stop this direct assassination attempt right now.

Sharmia drinks the tea and collapses, then the Emperor calls the Knights and has her escorted to the hospital before declaring he will surely catch whoever poisoned the tea. Then some random servant with no connection gets caught nearby. Most likely, they’d find some marking on the servant linking them to an anti-Emperor Noble faction.

Countless futures flashed through my mind, but there was only one thing I could be certain of.

Right now, in this very moment, the only one who could save the Princess…

…was me alone.

“…?”

Sharmia noticed the tea wasn’t entering her mouth and tilted her head quizzically.

My Current had created a tiny gap between the tea and her lips, ensuring she could never swallow it.

In other words, I had intervened in the past.

The Emperor, seeing Sharmia tilt her head in confusion, asked as if in passing.

“Does it taste strange?”

“Oh, no. It’s really delicious. I think it tastes even better because you poured it for me, Father.”

It was fortunate that their relationship was poor.

Sharmia blurted out the lie in a fluster, and the Emperor narrowed his brow and nodded.

“…That’s good to hear.”

After briefly glancing down at Sharmia’s teacup, the Emperor moved his hand to his waist.

The hilt of a greatsword that looked capable of cleaving a horse in two settled into one hand.

“Has the Awakening Fever not come yet?”

“The Imperial Wizards told me I’ll probably go through it tonight.”

“I see.”

…Was it even possible to stop that?

I had miraculously gotten past the teacup without arousing suspicion, but if I blocked the sword too, it would unmistakably become an all-out confrontation. And I still didn’t have confidence I could escape with the Princess.

Even if we did escape, what would come after? Everything would only unravel.

As I clenched my fists in agitation, the Emperor suddenly let out a sigh and released his grip on the hilt.

“You will…surely become an outstanding Wizard.”

“Th-thank you.”

“I’m tired. You may go.”

“Yes…”

After Sharmia said her farewell and left, the Emperor, now alone, clutched his temples and sank into a nearby chair.

He let out a groan as if truly exhausted.

It seemed that killing his own daughter carried its own resistance, after all.

…Then why was he trying to kill her in the first place? Was he insane?

Whatever the case, I could feel the road ahead growing darker.

“Why didn’t she tell me about this…”

If the Emperor was trying to kill Sharmia, the situation became enormously complicated.

This wasn’t just any assassination attempt. The fact that it was the Emperor himself behind the assassinations meant that sooner or later, one attempt would inevitably succeed.

The death of a Princess who had awakened as a Wizard would end the world. My world.

“This is serious.”

Even as I sighed, I settled on a course of action.

At the very least, Sharmia after suffering the Awakening Fever tomorrow must not be assassinated by the Emperor.

I quietly slipped out of the banquet hall and the Imperial Palace.

There was work to be done.

***

The streets of the Empire I reached after leaving the Imperial Palace were…

Very different from what I knew.

Truly, very different.

“Gnopesian slaves for just 3 silver! They’re still young, they don’t know the language so they can’t even run away!”

“Hey, look. Doing business here is illegal.”

“Ah, I’ve prepared gifts for the guards right here.”

“…Hmm.”

I was rendered speechless watching the slave trade taking place in the middle of the plaza, and the money being slipped into the coat of the guard who had come to stop it.

At least the Imperial Palace had been more or less the same aside from the assassins, but here there were crumbling buildings, beggars scattered everywhere, and menacing mercenaries with blades on their backs strolling around with vulgar grins.

It was an absolute cesspit. And literally so, since the streets hadn’t been cleaned in what must have been years, leaving them full of filth and reeking of a foul stench.

This was the Imperial Capital?

And only a little over ten years ago at that?

The Empire before Sharmia had gotten her hands on it was rotten to the core and broken beyond measure.

Even accounting for the passage of enough time to change landscapes, wasn’t the transformation too drastic? Letting out a sigh, I simply headed toward my destination.

My Current Sense told me. In the depths of a back alley, tucked deep inside, the exact people I was looking for were there.

“Tch, I thought it was a natural-born wizard, but it was just some slave using a Magic Artifact to inflate his own value.”

“The eyes?”

“He had a star tattoo under his eyeball where you normally can’t see it. He rolled his eyes while using the Magic Artifact to show the tattoo.”

“What a psycho.”

As expected, the Crimson Circle was active even at this very moment.

Of course they’d be in the Empire too. I strode over and grabbed the two of them just as they sighed and were about to leave.

“…?”

“What the hell are you?”

As I wondered how to explain myself, I first confirmed that I didn’t recognize their faces.

In other words, Lower Tier. The same kind as Piercing Blood.

Having spent time among them, I knew how to handle their sort. It was fairly easy.

“Eyes down.”

“Guh, gack?!”

Crack!

The ones who had been glaring at me were crushed down as they were and forced to their knees.

It wasn’t all that difficult. To the two now looking up at me with eyes instantly filled with terror, I told them only what mattered.

“Why is the Lower Tier in the Capital?”

“…A-are you from the Upper Tier?”

“I don’t recall telling you to ask questions.”

“AAAGH!!”

Snap. The moment I bent a finger just enough not to pull it off, the one beside him hurriedly pulled out a Mission Book.

“W-we were just gathering natural-born wizards! We had no idea we weren’t supposed to enter the Capital, please, just this once, have mercy…”

“Hmm.”

I snatched the Mission Book and read through it.

Now for the real objective. If the Emperor was entangled with the Crimson Circle, and that was why hordes of assassins kept pouring in, this wasn’t something I could fend off without any preparation.

I was also curious about what the Crimson Circle from ten years ago had been aiming for.

As I flipped through the pages, there were no requests to infiltrate the Imperial Palace. Most were cautious approaches like kidnapping natural-born wizards and covert operations. It was clear that at this point in time, they were conducting their business discreetly.

In that case, they naturally wouldn’t have entered the Imperial Palace either.

However…

“They’re quite entangled.”

“…Pardon?”

It was unimaginable now, but several Nobles had connections to the Crimson Circle.

Right, of course there would have been some like that. If I recalled correctly, they were all houses that Sharmia had later destroyed on charges of treason.

They would be useful.

The problem was whether what I was about to do was really acceptable, but…

‘I’ve already intervened in the past.’

Having intervened once, I could do it twice.

And above all, I had to.

“Don’t breathe a word about meeting me to anyone.”

“Yes, yes!”

Leaving the Crimson Circle members scared out of their wits, I walked toward those Nobles’ estates.

The best way to prevent an assassination?

That would be to create a situation where assassination was impossible.

***

Sharmia found her father uncomfortable.

More precisely, she was afraid of him.

“…Ugh.”

“Oh my, is the water too cold?”

“No. It’s perfect.”

In a massive bath that could accommodate a hundred people, the Head Maid and the other maids were tending to her hair so it could shine as always.

Sharmia recalled her father’s cold gaze once more. A gaze so devoid of any emotion that merely recalling it made her legs go weak.

Sharmia had been raised under the eyes of hundreds of people from the moment she was born. Because of that, she could read the emotions carried in their gazes.

The helpless bewilderment they felt looking at her, the fear of making a mistake, a slight anger directed at her parents… she could read all of it.

But there was just one exception.

She could read nothing from her father’s gaze.

When she was younger than she was now, Sharmia hadn’t thought much of it. Having never seen another family, she simply assumed that was how the relationship between a father and daughter normally was.

But at the last Hunting Festival, when she saw a wolf staring at her while licking its bloodied muzzle, she felt a sense of deja vu.

Eyes devoid of any emotion, just like her father’s.

That was the kind of gaze one could have because they didn’t regard their target as a fellow living being.

From the moment she realized it was the look of someone who saw their target as closer to a tool…

…she could no longer bring herself to treat her father as a father.

“Haah…”

The Head Maid, apparently interpreting Sharmia’s expression differently, smiled and asked.

“Is even Your Highness nervous before the Awakening Fever?”

“Hmm, a little, I suppose.”

“Please don’t worry too much. You will surely become an outstanding Wizard, Your Highness.”

“Thank you.”

In truth, she felt nothing about it at all.

‘Would anything even change just because I become a Wizard…’

She was well aware that being royalty didn’t automatically make one an exceptional Wizard.

The reason daughters of distinguished houses reached that level of mastery was less about talent and more about the quality of elixirs, excellent education, and an environment engineered to leave no choice but to work hard.

Geography, etiquette, history, and all the rest including Royal Studies. Magic would simply be one more addition to that curriculum, so rather than excitement, it was more like, well.

‘It’s just going to get more tedious. I already don’t want to do what I’m doing now.’

…Those were the only bleak words that came to mind.

She was going through the motions now because she had no choice, but Sharmia sometimes indulged in a certain fantasy.

What if she deliberately lost the Imperial Succession War and was exiled to the countryside?

If she could tend to a small orchard on a little estate, pruning branches and watering the fruits each day, watching them grow as time passed.

Could there be any life happier than that?

As she smiled while painting that unlikely future, the bathroom door suddenly burst open with a bang.

Another maid, panic-stricken and clutching a piece of paper, came running in.

“H-Head Maid! We have a crisis!”

“…What is it?”

The Head Maid rushed out with a hardened expression to meet her.

“Well, the thing is…”

The maid briefly glanced at the Princess, and the Head Maid, understanding, closed the door to speak with her.

“Several Nobles in the Capital were suddenly kidnapped today! And there’s a demand saying to meet these conditions, or they’ll kidnap Her Highness the Princess as well…!”

“Calm yourself. Haven’t there been countless threats like that before?”

“B-but…the place where this paper was found…”

“…?”

“It was in Her Highness the Princess’s bedchamber…”

“…We’ll need to keep this quiet.”

“It’s too late for that…”

“Why? Who did you tell?”

“It wasn’t just Her Highness’s bedchamber… it was also found in His Majesty the Emperor’s bedchamber.”

“?”

“And that’s not all, they were just posted all over the Imperial Palace… ah, there’s one here too…”

But because the door had been left slightly ajar, she had heard everything.

Having listened to all of it, Sharmia furrowed her brow and sank into thought.

‘Assassins these days are quite bold.’

But at the same time, it was foolish.

Infiltrating the Emperor’s bedchamber was not a method of suicide anyone who actually wanted to die properly would choose.

As Sharmia was thinking along those lines, her thoughts landed somewhere.

‘…Ah, still. Maybe fewer people will come after me now…’

Of course.

She had no idea she’d hit upon the right answer.