Wizard of the Deep Sea

Maybe it was because of my inherently kind nature.

As soon as the dwarves began construction, the very first thing I did was release Brimdal from prison.

However, unlike me, Brimdal seemed to possess an inherently evil disposition. He didn’t show the slightest bit of gratitude and instead immediately started grumbling.

“So, did you get a good price for selling me out?”

"I got more than enough. Look, there's not a single dwarf guarding you anymore, right? They’re all busy working.”

"...You actually persuaded those stubborn, thick-headed idiots… Now I’m really starting to believe you’re some kind of divine being.”

I showed him the bronze dagger I had received.

"Do you know what this is?”

"No.”

"Then—don’t you feel something deeply unpleasant emanating from it?”

"Not at all. What? Is this supposed to be something special? It just feels like some crudely made dagger.

"If you don’t know, then never mind.”

I shoved the dagger, which made me feel incredibly unpleasant just from holding it, back into my pocket and sank into thought.

The dagger that killed the First Mage. I didn’t really believe that story.

Even Kaldrak had only described it as a legend passed down about the dagger—Nothing more.

But that wasn’t what I was curious about.

'How did that being die?'

The First Mage had prepared for their own death. And those arrangements had been extremely detailed. It wasn’t preparations for some hypothetical emergency. They had genuinely known they would die.

But—now I knew the truth. The First Mage wasn’t human to begin with. They were the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea. Not a fake like me, but the original.

Could a being like that really die of old age?

"What got you so bothered anyway?”

While I was lost in thought, Brimdal tilted his head, snatched the bronze dagger from me, carefully examined the blade, then frowned.

"It’s just a decorative dagger, and a horribly maintained one at that.”

"Well, it is made of brass, though…Wait, maintained horribly? They actually took pretty good care of it.”

"I am still a dwarf, you know. There’s evidence the surface was polished down once. Meaning it had rusted. And judging by how the entire thing was polished instead of just certain parts, it looks like somebody shoved it into seawater or something.”

After taking the dagger back from Brimdal, I once again fell into thought. Meanwhile, he stretched and scowled.

"Let’s just get out of here. I don’t want to spend even one more second in this awful place. What happened to the carriage?”

"We can just leave it here. I’m getting used to this now.”

As I raised my hand, water rose from the ground without me even needing to flick droplets anymore.

I stepped in first, and when I came out, I found myself back at the capital.

Just a few days ago, covering a distance like that would have been unimaginable for me.

At this point, all of my movement restrictions had practically disappeared entirely.

Brimdal stepped out of the puddle after me and twisted his face into a grimace.

"Makes me feel like I’ve been cheated out of something. Maybe I should’ve learned magic too.”

"This isn’t exactly magic, though…”

I was about to continue when a chill suddenly ran down my spine.

Without realizing it, I looked up at the sky.

The scar splitting the heavens had become far darker than before. That much was still within expectations.

But until now, the sky had at least still looked like a sky.

Something that shouldn’t be referred to as a living being, but just a place. Something that should be viewed as part of nature itself and not an individual existence.

"This is insane…”

Now, that was no longer true.

My senses as an Outer God no longer perceived the sky as a lifeless place.

The only hopeful thing was that I could still see only its outline. Like a silhouette faintly visible through fog. I could only vaguely imagine what would happen once that thing truly awakened and began to act.

I’d been working underground for so long that I hadn't noticed the changes in the sky. As I stared at the gloomy heavens, I saw storm clouds gathering.

This—was bad.

"If someone asks where you’ve been…Jern?”

"I need to check something.”

I raised my hand and created a puddle, then threw myself into it.

This time I arrived at exactly the same place, only at a different altitude.

My field of vision instantly expanded. I was now thousands of meters above the ground.

Falling straight downward and passing through the clouds, I suddenly felt something wet and sticky around my ears. I touched that area.

Blood.

Blood was trickling from my ears.

"Please be wrong, just this once.”

I sighed as I continued my freefall.

It wasn’t only my ears. As I passed through the clouds, wounds had opened all across my body, blood pouring out everywhere.

What those clouds were producing probably wasn’t rain.

A certain memory resurfaced in my mind. It was of someone I had met in Scarlet Abyss—a certain Fallen. Someone that possessed a world that made him able to control rain. A world he was most definitely stripped of after Great Void devoured him.

Even if Great Void still couldn’t perfectly control the enormous world that was the sky, it implied, however, that he had already obtained complete control over smaller, localized worlds.

30 seconds after I began my fall, I hit the ground.

-Splat!

"Uwah!”

Brimdal, who had been standing there dumbfounded, stared blankly at me as I suddenly crashed from the sky, covered in blood and flattened to a pancake from the fall.

"A-are you dead?”

"I’m perfectly fine.”

I brushed myself off and stood up. The bloodstains had completely vanished.

Only a slight dampness remained. Brimdal looked at me like I was an actual monster now and slowly began backing away.

"I’m starting to feel sorry for Scarlet Abyss having to fight something like you…”

"Brimdal, evacuate all the Knights—no. Just lock yourself in a warehouse somewhere.”

Rain would start falling soon.

I had been about to order an emergency evacuation, but then I noticed through Tide Sense that the Knights had already begun hurriedly forcing people indoors with confused expressions. I immediately understood what was going on.

This had already happened once. Without hesitation, I created a puddle on the ground and opened the door leading directly to Sharmia’s office.

"Yes, send the same order to every survivor city immediately. Tell everyone to get inside their homes and absolutely do not come out.”

"U-understood.”

Sharmia was already frantically issuing commands to her officials.

Then I suddenly appeared right beside her—to which their faces instantly turned ghostly pale.

"An assassin! Your Highness, an assass…”

"It’s fine. He’s someone I know.”

Sharmia merely glanced at me before urging the officials onward.

"Please spread the message as quickly as possible.”

"...Yes!”

The officials exchanged uneasy glances but hurriedly left the office. Sharmia let out a deep sigh before turning toward me.

"Jern, your timing is immaculate. You probably already know, but—It’s going to rain.”

"What kind of rain?”

I had already experienced it firsthand, but Sharmia undoubtedly knew far more about the effects it would have on the capital.

She continued with an extremely serious expression.

"The good news first. It won’t last long. It’ll only fall locally around the capital and a few other cities. If we endure for around 10 minutes, it’ll end.”

"And the bad news?”

"10 minutes seem more than enough time to kill everyone. Haah..."

"What did I do?”

If I existed in the future Sharmia had seen, then naturally I would’ve tried to stop it.

Since I’d returned, I clearly must’ve failed, but even failure could provide something useful.

"You tried to block the rain. But it wasn’t the kind of thing you could stop. It wasn’t just sharp. It was poison, a truly horrific neurotoxin. And if it spread through the air, that alone would kill everyone.”

"Seriously, what a filthy way to do things…”

I could picture it. I’d probably succeeded in stopping the rain itself but failed to stop people from dying.

As I frowned, Sharmia added one more thing.

"You told me to have your past self run a 'test.' I don’t know what that meant, but you said you’d understand once you heard it.”

"Right. I was just thinking the same thing. When will the rain begin?”

"In 5 minutes probably—Can it be done? If it’s impossible, I can go back again.”

"It’s fine. You should preserve your royal body.”

I gently stopped Sharmia from looking toward her dagger and hurriedly added while leaving the office.

"Tell everyone not to panic no matter what happens. Tell them everything was prepared beforehand. If you say it, they’ll believe it.”

"Ah, yes. Understood.”

I immediately spread out my Tide Sense, looking toward the cities where storm clouds had gathered.

51 in total. The citizens were already following orders and returning indoors.

'I may still lack the power to oppose the heavens entirely…’

But for something like rain…

As I felt water slowly beginning to gather, I quietly whispered.

"—Submerge."

At the same moment, several droplets of water flowed out from the ground.

The droplets became puddles. The puddles became streams, the streams became rivers, and the rivers formed lakes.

"What kind of command was tha…Huh?”

"Wh-what is this?!”

-Ruuuuumble…

The Knights running around suddenly saw a massive river beginning to flow down from the hills and panicked, yanking their horses around.

"What in the world—? Did a dam burst?”

"Wh-where the hell is there even a dam around here…?”

"Then where’s all this water coming from?”

The water pouring from the ground swelled rapidly until the people in the capital were submerged up to their ankles.

"Yes, Commander! Strange water is suddenly flooding the capital…”

"Y-yes..."

"...Yes??"

"U-understood.”

One Knight, who had just finished communicating with his commander while watching the hesitant citizens suddenly rush into their homes and lock their doors, relayed the order with a dumbfounded face.

"I-It’s a natural phenomenon. Reassure the citizens and absolutely do not leave the city.”

"Wait, what do you mean by natural phenomenon? People are practically drowning already! It’s already up to our waists! It’s obviously those Fallen bastards who are….”

"The Commander said if you don’t believe it, dunk your face in.”

"Now isn’t the time for that! We need to evacuate immediately!”

"...H-hey."

Just before the Knights themselves split into factions, one knight who had actually submerged his face in the water scratched his head in disbelief.

"I can actually breathe?”

"?"

Meanwhile, the one actually doing all this, me, was having a truly miserable time.

"Tsk, this is difficult."

I had to individually track and identify tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of people.

Then, I had to create a layer of air that would let them breathe for over 10 minutes every time one of them put their face underwater.

At the same time, I continued to pull out the Abyssal Sea and flood every city. No matter how much I’d grown, doing all of that simultaneously bordered on impossible.

'Stay calm.'

Instead of completely submerging entire cities, I revised the plan. I would just flood things up to rooftop level.

This wasn’t going to last long anyway. I only had to endure it for 10 minutes.

While forcing myself to maintain the flooded cities, the rain began to fall.

-Shaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

It was a torrential downpour.

Black rain hammered violently against the water’s surface, trying to pierce through and sink beneath it.

"...Not happening.”

Stopping those attempts wasn’t difficult.

The difficult path was ensuring that the rain couldn’t seep inside, making it continue sliding across the surface.

Still, compared to submerging all 51 cities in such a short amount of time, this was a lot easier. Grinding my teeth, I endured for 10 minutes. Then the rainfall gradually weakened.

-Patterpatterpatter…

The storm clouds parted. Sunlight began to appear. And eventually, the rain stopped altogether.

Only then did I finally breathe out in relief and turn my attention toward the people.

"What in the world was that? Did we die?”

"No, I think Her Highness did something…”

Thankfully, the death count was 0.

There were probably a few hundred people who had panicked and fainted the moment they were submerged, but none of them had been in any real danger.

"Phew..."

Even if barely, I managed to stop it. Feeling relieved, I looked up at the sky.

The clouds still hadn’t completely disappeared.

But instead of releasing more rain, they began gathering together, shifting and arranging themselves into words.

[So, there you were.]

"..."

I stared at the sentence for a long while. It was painfully clear to me who the author was.