Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

“It’s because I’m no longer useful, isn’t it! You’re trying to dispose of me!”

“…”

We stared in pity at the Fallen as he wailed and thrashed about, then waited roughly ten minutes until he calmed down.

Only then were we able to hear the full story.

“…So. You’re saying you were abandoned?”

“Y-yeah.”

From what he told us,

the Fallen currently in the Spire had been operating under the misunderstanding that they’d been cast aside.

‘I suppose that’s understandable.’

If I thought through the situation step by step, there must have been plenty of things that didn’t add up from the Fallen’s perspective either.

They were suddenly told to gather at the main base, and then a blizzard they couldn’t escape hit them. At first, they might have assumed it was just protection from a freak weather event, but thinking back to when I’d been inside the Crimson Circle, these people didn’t follow the Upper Tier unconditionally.

Not that it mattered. After hearing the whole story, Balkan grew irritated.

“So do you know where Decay went, or don’t you?”

“I-if I’m going to die anyway… gack!”

“Do you think there’s only one way to die?”

He roughly stomped on the collapsed Fallen’s neck and glared down at him.

“I can make a single hour ahead of you more agonizing than every pain you’ve endured in your wretched life. It would be very easy for me…”

“…C-can’t… breathe…”

“The next time I allow you to speak, you’d better have the information I asked for.”

Judging by the way his eyes precisely traced every vital point, it didn’t seem like an empty threat. He clearly had some experience with interrogation.

The Fallen gave a faint nod with terror-stricken eyes, and only then was he allowed to breathe again.

“H-he went back.”

“Went back? Where?”

“To the Dwind Mountain Range.”

“…?”

Balkan tilted his head, then furrowed his brow.

“The Dwind Mountain Range is the northern frontier, isn’t it? Why the hell would he go to a place like that?”

“Th-that’s where Decay used to live. The last place he gave orders from was also near the mountain range, so it’s certain.”

“Is that even possible… hmm, or maybe it is…”

Balkan seemed to find the claim odd, so I asked in his place.

“Where is the Dwind Mountain Range? The empire actually had a frontier?”

“That’s a story from several hundred years ago. Originally, the mountain range was a place where ill-mannered barbarian tribes, hostile to the empire, were always attempting to invade from. There were even lordships there. But the already terrible climate grew even worse, and after everyone perished, the lordships vanished as well.”

“Why did the lordships disappear?”

“As I said, the climate was unlivable for humans. Not just the tribes, but even the lord who’d been stationed in that harsh land to repel them froze to death. Though, come to think of it, that Decay fellow could probably withstand it.”

“…”

Against that backdrop, I recalled what Piercing Blood had once said.

‘Every Upper Tier member is a sovereign of somewhere, was it…’

Several hundred years ago.

As I was trying to fathom that span of time, Balkan’s barking voice snapped me back to my senses.

“Where exactly in that vast mountain range is he? Answer me!”

“I truly don’t know! If I did, I would have gone to find him myself, how could I…”

“I suppose that’s not a lie.”

“P-please, truly…”

“Tch, fine then.”

With a single swift stroke of his sword, Balkan severed the Fallen’s neck.

-Whoosh

It was so fast the Fallen wouldn’t have had time to feel the pain. It was the right thing to do, and I was still processing that thought when Balkan suddenly spoke to me with a displeased expression.

“…You seem quite accustomed to death.”

“Well, he was the kind who deserved it.”

“Normally, a boy your age would take even a justified death to heart.”

“Would you like me to cry? I can manage that.”

“Forget it.”

Even this short time traveling together had been enough to learn he was the kind of person who liked to pick arguments.

Just then, Brimdal, who had been silently staring down at the corpse, spoke up with an uneasy expression.

“But the Dwind Mountain Range. Even with the Fallen boy here, this doesn’t seem like something we can wrap up quickly.”

“Is it that vast?”

“It’s not just vast, it’s tall. We’d have to climb the peaks to search them properly. That’s no simple task.”

“My detection can cover the entire Capital at once. Would that still not be enough?”

“…That’s far more impressive than I expected. What you showed us in the carriage wasn’t the extent of it, then.”

At that, Brimdal fell into thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“Even so… hmm, it still won’t work.”

“Wait, even that’s not enough?”

“No. That’s why I was thinking about using mine shafts instead.”

“Mine shafts?”

“If I remember correctly, the Dwind Mountain Range is riddled with small shafts running through it like an ant colony. There were gold mines there.”

“…How do you know that?”

“You must have forgotten. I’m a Dwarf. I know every mine in this empire. But those shafts were dug by humans, so they’re short and crude. Even if you entered them, you’d eventually have to dig your way forward. At that point, it’d be less efficient than just climbing.”

“I see…”

“If only there were some clear solution… hmm…”

Watching Brimdal deliberate, I racked my brain as well.

And in my memory, I found a possibility.

“…It’s not as though there’s no way at all.”

“Oh, you thought of something?”

“There’s someone in the Capital right now who’d be useful for exactly this.”

“Someone?”

After discarding the corpse and returning to the carriage, I used Dersia’s door to fetch that plump little thing and bring her back.

“U-Undercurrent-nim…?”

“This is who I mean.”

Under the curious gazes of a Guardian Knight, a regular knight, and a great wizard, Damyu shrank like cotton candy dropped in water.

The first to point at her and voice his confusion was Balkan.

“What is this?”

“A Fallen.”

“…Why was a Fallen in the Capital instead of that Spire over there?”

“I’d captured her for experimental purposes.”

“Hieeeek…”

At those ominous words, Damyu didn’t just shrink; her feet began sinking into the snow.

“What… is that about?”

“Damyu lives within a swamp world. She can sink into the ground and dive through it.”

“I see.”

Dersia nodded as if it clicked.

“You’re planning to use that Fallen to enter the ground and pass straight through the mountain while running your Current Sense.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Everything has its use. I intended to use Damyu to travel through the inside of the mountain.

Upon hearing this, Damyu shook her head in a panic.

“I’ll die if I do that!! Passing through a mountain, I’ve never used my power that way before!!”

“You don’t need to go in. Just treat me like an object and move me through.”

“Then you’ll die, won’t you…?”

“I don’t need to breathe.”

“You’re breathing right now, though…”

“?”

When Damyu pointed at my mouth with distrustful eyes, white breath was flowing from my lips.

I stared at that breath for a moment, then clenched my jaw.

Because I knew exactly what it meant.

“…Everyone. Do any of you notice anything unusual with your bodies?”

“Unusual?”

“You should. Something beyond just the cold, something different.”

“Hmm, not really…”

Everyone tilted their heads as if they had no idea what I meant. Looking them over, I noticed that the knights were wearing their armor, and made a request.

“Sir Balkan, Sir Brimdal. Please remove your gauntlets.”

“…Our gauntlets?”

“There’s something I need to check.”

Still puzzled, the two removed their gauntlets.

And then,

“What in the… !”

“What…”

They stared in shock at their hands, stained violet.

It looked as if they’d gotten frostbite. After flexing and unflexing their fingers a few times, they asked in bewilderment.

“What is this? I don’t feel cold at all…”

“It’s the Burden.”

“But as we said before, we’re generating our own heat.”

“It’s the same logic as how that heat hasn’t freed you from the cold.”

Inside this space of Extreme Ice, everything freezes.

People, naturally, die of exposure.

Everything a person would undergo just before freezing to death,

all of that was bearing down on us under the name of the Burden.

“We’re on a time limit now. We need to move quickly.”

I’d known the Extreme Ice world was terrible, but I hadn’t realized it was severe enough to threaten even knights like Balkan and Brimdal.

As I quietly revised my assessment of Decay’s Extreme Ice, Brimdal looked at me as though he couldn’t understand.

“I follow what you’re saying. But then, why are you fine?”

“…Good question. Maybe it’s because I’m already a Fallen.”

Was it because I was already under the Burden of Deep Sea?

For some reason, Decay’s Burden didn’t seem to affect me much.

Then Brimdal glanced over at Dersia.

“Then what about the Elf?”

“?”

I looked at Dersia’s hands.

They were a pale white, and for a moment I wondered if they’d already gone necrotic, but then I remembered her fingers had always looked that way.

She seemed as unaffected as I was. Puzzled by yet another mystery, I was tilting my head when Dersia sighed and climbed into the carriage.

“I have my own means of coping. What matters right now isn’t that, but eliminating Decay as quickly as possible. If it’s this bad for two knights, I can’t imagine what the Capital must be going through.”

“I-it’s not quite this bad there yet…”

When Damyu added that nervously, Dersia shook her head.

“Which means the Capital is simply still outside the range. And Decay’s world is continuing to expand as we speak. If we don’t act properly, it will reach the same state eventually.”

“She’s right.”

Balkan, seemingly recovered from the shock, clenched his jaw as he pulled his gauntlets back on.

“I can keep moving until these fingers rot and fall off. No, even if they do rot and fall off. Let’s go.”

“Eh, it’s just a few fingers.”

“Do I really have to go…? Isn’t there something I could be doing back in the Capital???”

I grabbed Damyu by the scruff of her neck as she resisted to the very end, and loaded her onto the carriage.

Then, on an impulse, I looked at my fingers once more.

“…”

-Come to think of it, that couldn’t be right.

There was no way being of the Deep Sea was some magic key that let me endure every Burden.

The breath coming from my mouth made that clear enough. The Burden of Extreme Ice was reaching for me, too.

But why?

After a moment of thought, I ran my Current Sense deep, checking my own condition.

-Thump……thump…

I was fine. My heartbeat was a little slow, but that was all.

‘…It’s probably nothing.’

For now, I pushed the stray thought aside.

If it was helping me in the moment, that was enough.