Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

People often said,

Dersia Aspandil, who had the highest possibility of reaching the Celestial Realm, was the greatest wizard in the Empire.

Those who walked the Path of Magic would conclude that it was a premature judgment, since one could not be ranked merely by the place one had reached.

But no one denied that she was a leading wizard, and that she continued to train even in this very moment.

However, those who knew the Elf called Dersia Aspandil gave a different answer.

“Sia-nim, you need to cultivate sociability, not magic.”

“…”

Dersia stopped turning the page and glared with a displeased expression at her servant, who had just made an impudent remark.

But the head maid, Ciel, kept poking the campfire with a poker while stabbing her with cold words.

“In the past week, how many times have you spoken to someone other than me?”

“Countless times. Do you think I remember every single one?”

“Conversations not related to magic, I mean.”

“…There is no reason to engage in unnecessary conversation. My mission is to walk the Path of Magic.”

“I once heard the saying, ‘Before you walk the Path of Magic, walk the path of humanity.’ I believe it was some Dersia-something who said that.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Dersia threw her book in anger. Ciel, without even looking, caught it skillfully and slid it back into the bookshelf before replying.

“What I am trying to say is, you should step out of the Magic Tower, get some fresh air, and talk with people. Even if you reach the peak in magic, if you are crushed to the bottom as a person, then the order of things is reversed.”

“You are tiresome. Do you know this is the 40th time you have said that?”

“If I have said it that many times, don’t you think it is about time you listen? Even my patience has its limits.”

“…As I said, I have the mission of walking the Path of Magic. You know well I have no time to exchange emotions with others.”

Dersia realized Ciel was truly intent on driving her out, so she tried appealing emotionally. But it was meaningless to someone who had resolved to drag this shut-in out of her room no matter what.

Ciel put down the duster, turned her head, and looked at Dersia with hollow eyes.

“Your mind is rotting away. It seems I must resort to force today. Please understand that raising my fist to my master comes only from loyalty.”

“…Fine, no matter how much I am indebted to you, this time you will know the difference in our levels, deep in your bones-”

Exactly five minutes later.

Dersia found herself standing absentmindedly on the Capital’s main street with nothing but enough money to buy a small castle and a shabby robe, under orders not to return for a week.

“I was only…trying to help.”

Muttering in vain, Dersia let out a sigh and began walking.

It was not that she had truly fought Ciel. Without her, Dersia would have died in some inn long ago.

To attack one’s lifesaver in earnest was something even a beast would not do, so they had settled it with rock-paper-scissors.

“So, that line about raising her fist was psychological warfare…”

Admitting defeat with admiration for Ciel’s cunning in unconsciously drawing her to scissors, Dersia headed to the house of a noble who owed her a debt.

“My-”

“Dersia-nim!! Please, stay as long as you like, whenever you like, and do whatever you please! Thank you!”

Before she could even explain her situation, the Count bowed so deeply his nose nearly touched the ground, offering the best room in his mansion.

It was only natural treatment for the Empire’s greatest wizard, so she accepted it, lay down lazily in the room, and reached for a book, only to realize there was no bookshelf.

“Tsk.”

How could there be no bookshelf in a room? Could this even be called a room… Such thoughts passed through her mind before she opened the window and leapt out.

There was a garden below, but the place where she landed was the library.

She had originally intended to grab a book and read it in her room, but while browsing she came across a rather curious one.

[How to Teach Simple Magic to Insect Familiars]

She rubbed the cover, it was freshly arrived, still warm. She sat down in a random seat, intending to read just a few pages, checked the overview, and then…

…

..

.

“Excuse me-”

“…?”

Someone had spoken to her.

When Dersia checked her biological rhythm, she realized that already an hour had passed.

It was a time when someone could very well come in.

This will become bothersome, she thought, intending to reply briefly and return to the Count’s room with her book. But then she heard a very strange voice.

“Are you… a librarian, by any chance?”

“…?”

Only then did Dersia look at the person in front of her.

Black hair, small build, still with traces of baby fat.

He was a noble child who still knew nothing of the world.

From the start, Dersia did not have such self-importance as to be angry at not being recognized, and the boy was fidgeting, waiting for her reply. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Having had little experience dealing with children, Dersia considered what answer to give.

First option, ignore him.

The boy would suffer a deep wound in his heart, but nothing else would happen, and the situation would be over.

Dersia examined the boy’s appearance.

She rarely had reason to look at a Human child, but he was cuter than she had expected. She did not particularly feel like hurting him.

Second option, declare, “How dare you call me a mere librarian”, and lecture him.

The boy would develop a trauma and live timidly for the rest of his life, and Ciel would kill her in the most horrible way.

She could not accept such a miserable future.

Third option, say she was not a librarian and leave.

That would be the most proper answer… but suddenly Dersia recalled Ciel’s quest.

Go out of the Magic Tower, get some fresh air, and meet people.

She had left the Magic Tower. That much was true.

She had gotten fresh air. That too was undoubtedly true.

Meet a person and have a conversation.

The Count, upon seeing her face, had buried his head like an ostrich and been unable to utter a single word.

That was not a conversation. The final quest had not yet been completed.

Simply saying she was not a librarian and leaving would also not be a conversation, but mere exchange of facts.

Thus, Dersia chose the fourth option.

Acknowledging it.

“My apologies.”

“Pardon?”

“I committed a discourtesy because I was told no one would be visiting today. I am Dersia Aspandil.”

Dersia lifted her skirt slightly and gave a small bow.

“How may I assist you?”

“Um, well…”

Seeing the boy flustered, Dersia for some reason felt a hint of amusement.

Perhaps he had sorted out his thoughts, for after swallowing once he asked,

“I would like to read books about the basics of magic.”

“What kind?”

“…Pardon?”

“Spirit Studies, Magitech, Elementalism, and so forth. The branches and schools of magic exceed hundreds. Which kind of basics would you like to explore?”

“Well, actually, I do not know. It has not been long since I suffered Awakening Fever.”

“Hm…?”

Dersia looked at the boy with slight surprise.

Her eyes unraveled the flow of mana, peering deep within.

The boy’s spirit was not yet accustomed at all to the world he had entered.

As he had said, he was likely a beginner wizard who had gone through Awakening Fever within the past week.

As a senior, Dersia felt a faint sense of responsibility and guided him.

“Follow me.”

Since the library was a place any noble could enter, the overall quality of books was not very high. Dersia had read only about eighty percent of the one hundred thousand books here, but she still knew where each type of book was located.

She pulled about a hundred books toward them with Telekinesis and arranged them nearby. The boy immediately opened one and read for about five minutes before frowning.

“Excuse me, but… is there nothing about how not to get hurt by magic?”

“…Pardon?”

Dersia tilted her head.

Not get hurt? By his own magic?

Why would magic try to kill its user?

“I do not understand the question. What do you mean by surviving from magic? Perhaps you studied elemental magic of the wild-flame system?”

“No, I mean those black things- hm? They are not here. Anyway, besides that, how should I say it… currents? Waves, those seem kind of dangerous.”

“Currents…? Waves…?”

Dersia asked again with a puzzled expression. The boy was speaking of concepts she had never once heard in her entire life of studying magic.

The boy then looked as though he had made some mistake, and soon bowed his head.

“…No, I must have been mistaken. Thank you for finding these for me.”

Dersia watched the boy as he gathered up the books to leave. After a moment’s hesitation, she thought, Well, I cannot return for a while anyway. Spending a little time should be fine, so she stopped him.

“Could you show me your magic once?”

“My magic?”

“Yes. I have some knowledge, so if I see it, I may understand what you are saying.”

“Magic… Magic… I don’t know if this can really be called magic, but… very well.”

The boy made an uncertain face, then lifted the books he was holding into the air.

The books did not fall.

He continued stacking the books in the air. Two, three, four…

When the number exceeded thirty, Dersia stopped him and asked,

“Isn’t it difficult?”

“No. Not at all. I can handle over a hundred.”

The books still floated without the slightest movement, so it was not mere boasting.

If true, he was an extraordinary, impossible talent of a telekinetic wizard.

But something was strange.

The boy was using magic without consuming any mana.

There was no sense of mana flow at all. It was as if he were levitating them with psychic powers.

For the first time in a long while, Dersia felt genuine interest. She pressed lightly on one of the books.

The boy did not feel any strain and only tilted his head. Dersia, again finding him a little cute, pressed the book all the way down to the floor.

“How much weight can you handle?”

“About as heavy as one book. I can also manage lighter things.”

“Could you try dropping them?”

“I can’t do that.”

“…You can’t?”

“They fall if they get far away. About fifty meters or so.”

It grew stranger.

The boy could not control the phenomenon he had caused at all.

No, was this even magic? He was using magic without using mana.

Faced with such an unusual situation, Dersia was left speechless.

The boy, watching her, soon spoke.

“It may not help, but I think of magic as the sea.”

“W-wait.”

Dersia instinctively realized what the boy was about to say and cut him off.

She looked at him with a troubled expression as the curiosity of a wizard clashed with her conscience.

Right now, the boy was speaking of Enlightenment.

The law that composes the wizard’s Inner World.

A ball placed on a hill rolls downward, water boils when heated, ice melts over time…

These are the laws that define the world.

In other words, for the world to exist, it must have laws.

And so, naturally, even in the chaotic Inner World of a wizard, there are laws that define it.

That is called Enlightenment.

To know a wizard’s Enlightenment is to know the wizard.

Thus wizards hide their Enlightenment, for the moment it is revealed, their Inner World can be interpreted.

Even for a fledgling child wizard, Enlightenment is Enlightenment.

To steal it from one who does not yet understand its importance would be vile and disgraceful.

Dersia felt a heavy conflict, but her thirst for knowledge burned at the incomprehensible phenomenon before her.

She compromised with herself in her heart.

If she heard the Enlightenment, she would never tell anyone.

Soothing her conscience, she nodded.

“…Please, tell me.”

“…Yes. I think the world is the sea, people walk above it, and wizards are those who have fallen into the sea.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, after becoming a wizard, the place I exist feels too much like the bottom of the sea. These books, rather than me holding them up with force, I think of them as floating by buoyancy.”

Dersia immediately activated her Mystic Eyes and looked at the floating books.

It was certain. Very, very faintly, the books were sinking toward the floor.

It was so faint that one would never have noticed. Even calling it “falling” felt strange.

If one had to put it into words… yes.

They were sinking.

“This might sound strange, but that’s why I don’t think wizards are much better than ordinary people. The deep sea has so many dangers, doesn’t it? I don’t even know how to survive down there.”

“…Hmm.”

“Ever since I suffered Awakening Fever, I keep seeing black figures. And it’s obvious they’re not friendly toward me, so I avoid them. And sometimes currents? Or maybe I should call them flows, keep surging at me. Last time, I even got knocked over by one and nearly got seriously hurt. I wanted to know how to deal with things like that.”

“…”

Dersia could not focus on the boy’s words.

Because her mastery of the Path of Magic, among the greatest in history, had unraveled the phenomenon and revealed the truth.

And the truth was that nature itself could, at times, be unbelievably cruel.

She realized inwardly that she should not say what she had discovered.

But she did not have enough empathy to conceal the truth.

“Um… is there some problem?”

Yet even Dersia felt a touch of pity and slowly opened her mouth.

“Most likely, your Inner World is the Deep Sea, specifically the Deep Sea among Inner Worlds.”