Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

There was one more Burden I hadn’t thought of.

The world feels muffled.

It’s not quiet. The sound of bubbles popping, something being crushed, teeth grinding, writhing screams.

Noises that are not much different from those above ground echo in my ears. Only, all of it sounds distant, like when you’re underwater in a pool.

I wonder if my voice sounds the same.

“Can you hear me?”

“…”

Dersia did not answer.

She merely furrowed her brows as she watched the leaves and stones moving very slowly around me.

“Where exactly are you right now?”

It was a vague question to answer, so I asked again with more detail.

“Hmm. How do I appear to you?”

“Nothing has changed. In my view, you’re still standing in the same place, in the same way.”

Dersia paused for a moment, then let out a quiet hum as she looked at a stone next to me, shaped like a blade and moving ever so slightly.

“…Though it doesn’t seem that way in reality.”

“Yes.”

I deliberately touched that stone.

My skin made contact. But there was no blood. Instead.

-Crackle!

The stone turned into dust so fine that I couldn’t even make out its particles, and it slowly sank.

That should be impossible. If this were truly the Deep Sea, it shouldn’t sink, it should gradually rise.

Only then was I able to answer the question.

“This, if I had to describe it, would be something like a superimposition of worlds… I suppose.”

“…”

I nodded and looked at Dersia with surprised eyes.

Meanwhile, I looked around. This place is the Deep Sea.

However, I could also see the physical world where Dercia was standing overlapping with it.

It was Fifty-fifty. It was enough to understand what had happened.

“The buoyancy of the Deep Sea and the gravity of the real world applying at the same time… You must’ve experienced it yourself, haven’t you? The idea of imposing Burdens on each other’s worlds that you were trying to do, Dersia-nim, seems to have been inspired by this phenomenon-”

“Jern. Get out of there immediately.”

Dersia interrupted with an urgent expression.

“I don’t know how you did it, but manifesting your Inner World is something you mustn’t do. It’s something I never considered because it should’ve been impossible in the first place, and yet how.”

“Oh.”

I cut her off too, answering her confused face with a proud smile as I asked,

“Is it beyond your expectations?”

“…Jern. This isn’t the time to discuss such things.”

As she stepped forward with her right foot, I asked with a slightly more serious expression than before,

“If you take that step, I’ll consider it your loss.”

“…”

Only then did Dersia realize and clenched her teeth silently.

She knew I had no intention of stopping the match.

“I understand what you’re worried about. If this Entanglement of Laws collapses, I’ll be devoured by the Deep Sea and reduced to a mere phenomenon.”

The moment that dust on the ground starts to rise, when the laws of the Abyss Realm press down on those of the real world and declare victory.

I will become part of the Deep Sea. Defeat, disappearance, death. All of that.

Recalling that feeling from the tower, that blend of despair and euphoria, was enough to give me goosebumps.

Dersia frowned and tried to persuade me.

“If you understand that much, then we can still talk. The Entanglement of Laws is a problem, yes, but the real issue is the Burden. This is on a completely different level from the playful Burdens up to now. You’ll be crushed to death in less than a second.”

“But I’m alive.”

“…”

“Contrary to what you’re saying, I’m perfectly fine.”

“…..”

Dersia examined me with an eerie look, as if the thought had finally reached her.

Of course, what she said wasn’t wrong.

It’s different from last time. Unlike the Burden I experienced before, this one feels like looking through a transparent glass wall placed over the world.

My small world separates me from the Deep Sea. Even though I’ve summoned the world known as the Deep Sea here, it feels as if I’m seeing it from inside a diving suit.

Yes, a diving suit. That’s exactly what it feels like.

My small world. Too small to be called a realm, yet too much to be called merely small.

It is the boundary that separates me from the Deep Sea. Should I call it Water Barrier?

Inside the Water Barrier, even the deep sea creatures didn’t notice me. They approached out of curiosity, as if seeing something strange, and observed me a little, but it seemed they didn’t recognize me as prey or as one of their own.

Like those exploratory robot that sometimes appear in documentaries. I wondered if that’s how they perceived me.

If I stepped outside the Water Barrier, well.

They’d react just like last time.

“…I don’t understand it, but at least I can tell the method you’re using isn’t normal.”

Before I knew it, Dersia had regained her composure and objected.

It wasn’t nitpicking. I really was pushing the Burden I was receiving onto the Water Barrier.

And the Water Barrier isn’t invincible.

The world that had barely reached 2-Star had already begun to collapse.

“That’s true.”

When I raised my hand, I could feel the faint boundary between the deep sea and myself gradually shrinking.

The miracle wouldn’t last much longer.

“But then again, the method you’re using isn’t exactly proper either, Dersia-nim, is it?”

“Enough with the wordplay. This is about distinguishing safety from danger.”

“And which side is really the dangerous one?”

I stared at Dersia.

I could tell. All the water pressure and currents currently being used were happening without any Burden.

A 2-Star Dersia? I could literally tear her apart with just a flick of my finger.

“Go ahead and try.”

Dersia gave a faint smile and raised her hand.

“I know you won’t. I don’t know how you summoned it, but you wouldn’t be foolish enough to draw power from it as well.”

“…”

That, too, was the truth. If I used even once, whether it be a current, water pressure, or even the sense of current, anything at all, the golden Entanglement of Laws that the Water Barrier had granted me would collapse.

I would be completely exposed to the Deep Sea and die.

Even so, I hadn’t given up. Seeing my resolve, she clicked her tongue and reached into her coat.

“If you still insist on maintaining the format of a duel, very well. Let me be the one to save you.”

“Please be quick. No matter how I try, I can’t last more than a minute in this.”

“Then give up quickly.”

Out came a filthy fountain pen. Its nib was warped and broken, and just by holding it, thick, viscous ink dripped down, staining the floor.

Separate from that, I realized something.

That pen itself was a separate world.

…Was that what Ciel was worried about? Thankfully, it seemed Dersia didn’t feel any Burden when handling her own fountain pen.

“Once you pass 2-Star-”

“The water pressure you’re using now is also excessively powerful for 2-Star magic. I won’t accept objections.”

“…”

I can’t even use that anymore.

If there was an opening, it was now. I charged forward before Dersia could raise the inky pen.

As long as the Water Barrier protected me, the current Burden, was low.

It was bearable.

“…!”

A few steps in, I suddenly felt a chill down my spine and rolled to the side.

“Hm?”

Why did I do that? Even before I understood, I realized.

[?]

A long line had been drawn across the body of an innocent shark.

Dersia, who was watching it, muttered as if surprised.

“I can’t see it clearly, but it was cut. Jern, that wasn’t your body, was it?”

“…It wasn’t.”

“Is that so? Then confirm it.”

Without the slightest hesitation, Dersia flicked her fountain pen.

Slash- The shark’s body was split in two.

[…????]

The poor shark was sliced in half before it could even realize it, and with a blank expression, it was crushed and died.

Other deep sea creatures that had come swarming devoured the shark. Watching that, I asked in disbelief,

“Why are you killing an innocent shark?”

“Shark? Are there even sharks among the deep sea creatures you speak of?”

“Well, it had some tentacles, so maybe not quite a shark…”

“…So you can see them now.”

Dersia, now with a serious expression, raised her fountain pen again.

It looked different from before. If that line was drawn across my body, that would be the day I die.

“Get out before it becomes more dangerous.”

“…”

She had no intention of going easy on me.

No matter how capable I was, if that line was drawn, I’d have to admit defeat.

It would be the same as a sword pressed to my throat.

“Kh…!”

The line didn’t appear just by swinging it.

It was drawn anyway. No matter where I tried to run, dozens of lines blocked my path.

I had no idea, what kind of world was this?

The moment she draw a line, and it splits things apart? Kills them?

Is that a world? Then what kind of world is it?

It felt like I had become a character in a painting drawn by an artist. I couldn’t even grit my teeth and approach. I spent some time running away and doing what needed to be done, and time eventually caught up.

The first was that only a few dozen seconds remained until the Water Barrier ended.

The second.

“It’s been drawn.”

“…”

Dersia calmly spoke, looking at my hand.

With the body of an eleven-year-old, it was impossible to dodge lines drawn across space without restriction.

“Come out now. Jern, you’ve lost.”

“It hasn’t been drawn yet.”

“There’s no way I wouldn’t recognize what I’ve marked with my own color. I can see the line on your hand.”

Dersia lowered the hand holding the pen.

But she didn’t put it away. It was a declaration that she could cut at any moment.

“I apologize for using such a rough method. It wasn’t something I should’ve done to a child like you. However, even for me, I cannot simply endure the Burden of the deep sea directly.”

“Oh, are you receiving it now?”

“You summoned it. I don’t feel much right now aside from seeing you vaguely distorted and slight difficulty breathing, but…”

Dersia looked around.

She still wouldn’t be able to fully see my world. But based on what I’d told her, and with the Burdens showing a world shaped by knowledge, she would be perceiving a form of it.

“So this is where you’ve been living.”

“Yes.”

“…”

Her brows trembled slightly.

“I don’t quite understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why you would think of anything else here. Why you believe you can apply the standards of the human world… I don’t get it.”

“?”

“A person stranded on a deserted island who freezes to death because they’re afraid to light a fire, don’t you think that’s stupid?”

“I don’t live on a deserted island.”

I slowly walked toward Dersia.

“…Stop.”

I ignored the warning and kept walking.

“Dersia-nim. You’ve been mistaken from the start.”

“Mistaken about what?”

“Me enduring inside the Deep Sea is just a means. Surviving, all of it. I can’t live here forever, can I?”

“What?”

“I want to escape.”

“-”

I spoke my true feelings to her, who was struck speechless.

“Someone stranded on a deserted island would wish for a sail more than flint. Even if they have to send up smoke signals every night, that’s far better than living there forever. I’ll get out of here someday too.”

“…”

“So, I would appreciate it if you could show me a way to endure here- not a way to live.”

I slowly reached out my hand.

“Because if I stay a cannibal, then escaping would be pointless.”

“Please don’t do this. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You know how to make me back down, don’t you?”

“…It will hurt.”

“If I wasn’t ready for that, would I have fought a 9-Star wizard?”

Her hesitation ended the moment my hand touched her neck.

-Zzzt!

A line was drawn, and the world collapsed. Two disasters occurred at once.

I should have been split in half, compressed in the Deep Sea, turned into a human-shaped meatball.

But I wasn’t.

[-….]

“What…!”

Her expression twisted as she saw that I was unharmed.

I smiled and said,

“There were a lot of jellyfish around here.”

“…?”

Dersia didn’t understand.

That the line she drew hadn’t actually been on my arm, but on something above it.

There was no way she could’ve known. I clutched the pitifully burst jellyfish and made the most of the two seconds it bought me.

-Thud!

“Ah.”

Dersia’s neck was much slimmer than I expected.

Slim enough for the hand of an eleven-year-old child to grip.