Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

The emotion I felt when bursting a person open was, strangely enough, not guilt or suffering but the tangible sense of growth.

In the past, just holding an apple, not even a person, made me feel like my body would explode.

Maybe it’s because of the Water Barrier. And now with the robe added, even after blowing someone up, I felt only a slight resistance.

I can’t afford to waste it. Every time I use water pressure, the Water Barrier diminishes. From that point on, I’d suffer the same burden as before.

I never thought this would be enough to kill him in the first place.

“That hurt, you fucker…”

As expected.

-Pak! Crushed, the guy jumped back to widen the distance and smirked.

Even though he looked grotesque like a burst sack, once he spat out blood-mixed saliva around him, all his wounds healed. It was the same as when I first saw him with Dersia.

A lump of flesh patched together from human meat. He had grown into such a monstrosity.

No matter how many times I see it, it’s an appearance I can’t get used to. A sharp remark popped out along with an unconsciously grimacing expression.

“Someone who could become anything, why live as such a monstrosity?”

“Because I can become anything, so I… kuhak, ugh!”

He vomited out several swords and held them in both hands.

In mere seconds, a knight with bulky muscles and bronze skin appeared.

As the knight gradually closed the distance, he threw out a question.

“Kyrais. Do you know this man?”

“…No. Do you?”

Even his voice had changed, lower and more grand.

“He was a great knight, once the leader of a small country’s knight order. Had he wished, he could have joined the Empire and lived in luxury without lacking anything. But he was content with a small cabin and a single horse.”

“I’m not curious. What are you trying to say.”

In return, I stepped back, measuring the distance.

Lump walked toward me, indifferent to what I did.

Suddenly, he stopped, wore a dazed expression, and looked around.

“…Where am I right now?”

“…?”

“Where is this place?”

Is he messing around? I was thinking that when suddenly Lump looked up at the sky and murmured something.

“My last memory was… right. I was fighting monsters that invaded to destroy the kingdom. That was the ending I wanted. I have no regrets. But…”

-Thud.

Suddenly. He let go of his sword. The sword pierced through the desert sand and stuck there.

Instead of laughter and madness, his expression was now filled with fear and realization.

“-Wh-what am I now? Why am I turned into this monster?”

“…Are you acting?”

“Boy, where is this? Where is Ragrissa? What happened to everyone? Why, what are these memories? No, this can’t be. I would never have…”

His gestures were too real to be acting.

Trembling, Lump dropped to his knees, clutching his head with a panicked expression as cold sweat poured down.

“I-I remember the sensation. With my own hand, into the chest of my lord, whom I had to protect- I…”

“…”

“That’s more or less what happened.”

-Boom!

The Current Sense read the trajectory. The guy suddenly grabbed his sword and charged, but instead of hitting my torso, he exploded the sand.

He grinned his filthy smile again and pointed the sword tip at me.

It didn’t even take a second for him to yank the embedded sword out and hurl it at me. The title of greatest knight didn’t seem like an exaggeration.

“I’m the one stuck in this fucked-up form.”

“…Didn’t look like acting to me.”

“Well, this time I intentionally let it slip a little. But he really does that. It’s dangerous if I don’t keep the distinction clear. You’ll just have to be understanding about that part.”

“…”

“So, now that I’ve revealed my weakness, it’s my turn.”

Lump suddenly put on a serious face and threatened me.

“What are you? Why do you look just like one of our dolls?”

“Do you think there could be another explanation?”

“We threw the original into the river when he was 4 years old?”

“Guess he was lucky.”

“…Hahaha, that doesn’t make any sense though?”

He burst into loud laughter, then wiped his eyes.

“Unbelievable. No matter how much we tried to make a Fallen, they just died. But the one we casually threw into the river comes back as a Fallen who could crush me to death…? Is this what they call the twists of fate…”

“? ”

Wait, he just said he dumped me in the river?

That can’t be. Dersia clearly claimed that my world was artificially created. That damned Elf shaman also said that a Great World isn’t something easily made.

In other words, the conclusion is that Crimson Circle did something else to me.

If Lump isn’t lying, then it was likely someone of a status even he doesn’t know about.

…I’ll have to subdue him and interrogate him slowly later.

But before that, there was something I wanted to ask first.

“How many people do you have locked up in your head right now?”

“Hmm.”

If the little play from earlier was real, then that guy is, a living prison.

The people killed by Crimson Circle couldn’t even rest in peace and are being used as tools.

It’s enough to understand why Crimson Circle cherishes this monster so much.

Lump tapped his head like he was thinking.

“I haven’t counted past 100, but roughly estimating, it seems like it would be 10,000.”

“…”

“Got more questions? Let’s keep this fun Q&A going. That’ll be good for you too, won’t it?”

He seemed to have some information he wanted to extract from me.

Sure, he’d be curious. How I found where he was, how I managed to Fall, and so on.

Of course, I already had my response prepared.

“Do you remember our promise?”

“…”

“I can’t trust what you’re saying right now, so I’ll beat it out of you and take my time listening. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“…Huh, well, I’m a little pressed for time…”

A smile bloomed at the corner of his lips.

A grin so wide, it was impossible to twist it back down.

“Well, Decay can hold out a bit longer. Since I’ve worked this hard, shall I play a bit?”

It was utterly revolting.

*

“You sure you don’t want to call in reinforcements?”

Unlike before, Lump didn’t charge at me and instead scanned my hand.

He was probably wary of the water pressure. Certainly, a pressure-induced death without any warning would be hard to imagine, even for a Crimson Circle executive like him.

“This isn’t the time to worry about others.”

The goal is subduing him.

Not even necessarily to gather intel, since I can’t kill him anyway.

Even Dersia struggled with him for a long time. When it comes to regenerative ability, it’s safe to say I can’t break through.

Then, as long as it’s short of blowing him up to death…

“…Oh, ooh…!”

-Crunch…! I slowly crushed Lump’s body with water pressure.

Even in a situation where he couldn’t breathe, he looked over his body in surprise and laughed like a madman.

“Hah, hah… As expected, it’s a Great World. And one I can’t even perceive. So there are sprouts in this world that grow into a Great World without us touching them? Or…”

As he tried to probe for information, his muscles swelled.

“Huh, it’s Dersia, that bitch. She’s the one who made you Fall.”

“…”

The muscles grew endlessly.

In an instant, he became a towering figure nearly 3 meters tall, and began walking slowly through the water pressure.

I squinted my eyes. It felt like pressing down on a giant made of steel. If I weren’t in Deep Fusion state, I wouldn’t be able to restrain his movement, let alone crush him to death.

Lump nodded as if realizing something, even showing the leisure to slowly approach me.

“Looks like your so-called master figured it out too. If you want to reach the sky, you have to touch the ground first.”

I let him enjoy his delusion. Seems water pressure won’t deal damage.

Allowing further approach would be dangerous. In that case.

-Wooooong! I compressed the wind and formed a single sphere.

“…Hm? Wait, is that magic…”

Without giving the puzzled Lump a chance to react, I immediately fired.

-Kwaang! Wind Thunder, lightning of the wind, struck Lump’s abdomen precisely.

Even a body like steel can’t withstand the piercing point of a focused lance.

And yet.

“…Right?”

The next moment, transformed into a knight’s body, he withstood it easily.

Enhanced Mana Body. A body trained to withstand magic. He had mastered it.

Though he wasn’t entirely unscathed, a mere scrape was far from enough to stop someone who had been crushed to death before.

“Hmm.”

Lump smiled as if finding this all the more interesting.

“So you really are a product of a 9-Star wizard, huh. This is my first time seeing someone use magic in a Fallen state. But in this situation, that was actually a bad move. Don’t do it again.”

“…What?”

“My specialty is borrowing the bodies of strong knights. Of course I’ve mastered Enhanced Mana Body. That’s not going to help much.”

His calmly spoken words were more like advice, which left me speechless.

Giving your opponent advice in the middle of a fight, most of the time it’s just bluffing, but this time, it was a near-correct judgment. Not that I had any intention of firing Wind Thunder again anyway.

“Don’t take it too personally. It’s commendable that you came to see me alone, so I can give you at least that much advice.”

With his arms spread, Lump didn’t seem to be feeling like he was even fighting anymore.

Even after getting crushed to death once.

“I’d like to play a bit longer, honestly. But if that damned Decay really is caught by a 9-Star wizard right now…”

Lump scratched his head, sighed, and then roughly shattered the water pressure.

Now in the form of a lean, reddish-brown body, he accelerated at an incredible speed and vanished.

“…”

I was left alone in the desert night.

Lump ran away. That’s what the situation suggested, but I knew he wasn’t the kind to do that.

I quietly closed my eyes and narrowed the range of Current Sense.

Sensing widely was useless. At that speed, a scattered Current Sense like that couldn’t catch him easily.

While the cold wind froze my body, 20 seconds passed.

-Kwaang!

“Oh?”

The moment I leapt to the side, Lump shot up from the ground and sliced through the air.

He looked at me with wonder in his eyes. His expression plainly showed the question: How did you react to that?

It was thanks to Brimdal, who had drilled Current Sense into me until it nearly killed me, and once again brought the bastard into the range of water pressure.

Crunch! This time, I firmly applied pressure to his neck so I wouldn’t lose him.

The goal was to knock him out. I sealed him off so tightly that not even the smallest breath could escape.

“Hmm.”

He calmly made a humming sound in that rigid state.

“What kind of world is this? Getting crushed to death, and this murderous pressure…? Is that what it is? Never heard of it before.”

-He’s playing around.

He’s not serious. Only now did I realize this guy doesn’t actually care that much about what happens to Decay.

Or maybe he just finds playing with me more fun.

“Or… maybe? I feel like I’ve heard of it somewhere…”

Blocking his neck turned out to be meaningless.

Before I knew it, a mouth had formed on his chest, and he was speaking from it. It was an utterly grotesque sight.

I have no choice but to admit it.

This guy, water pressure alone won’t work on him.

Our compatibility isn’t good. My world is about instant death without warning, but this guy revives again and again even after dying.

If I can’t even knock him out, then water pressure has little meaning.

Of course, since he knows Enhanced Mana Body, even my Wind Thunder doesn’t affect him.

And putting all that aside, he’s a Crimson Circle executive. Who knows how many other tricks he has up his sleeve? Honestly speaking, in a 1-on-1, I don’t stand a chance.

If that guy seriously starts switching bodies to resist the water pressure and charges in for close combat, that’s when the countdown begins.

Of course.

It’s not like I came here without a plan.

“…Hmm? Is that one of our pills… wait, no.”

I took a red pearl from my pouch and swallowed it.

Then, slowly opened my mouth toward the guy who was staring at me with interest.

“Seems you’re curious about my world.”

“So you finally feel like having a little Q&A? Yeah, I’m fucking dying to know. If you want to live a bit longer, you’d better talk.”

I gave him a light answer as he grinned at me.

“The Deep sea.”

“-What?”

Is this the first time I’ve told Crimson Circle?

If this information reaches them, they might focus all their efforts on me.

Even knowing that, I explained anyway.

“I live in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean. You can’t breathe there, and if you loosen your strength even a little, you’re instantly crushed into bloody pieces. There’s no way to distinguish front from back, up from down.”

“…W-Wait. The Deep sea?”

For the first time since we met, Lump looked startled, eyes wide open in shock.

“That world can’t exist. Are you confusing it with the Ocean?”

“Then don’t believe it.”

“…”

Twitching one eye, he suddenly flinched as if he realized something.

“Th-That’s it. Water pressure. That’s how you blew me up…”

“Yeah.”

“…Ha.”

He scratched his head, then let out a sigh.

“Why the hell did you tell me that…”

The atmosphere changed.

The knights he’d turned into so far were certainly strong, but the transformation happening now was on a different level.

Scars etched themselves into his writhing fists, his face, his back, his abdomen.

All kinds of horrific and brutal scars formed, making it look as if he were killing himself.

But the reality was different. I sensed through Current Sense that Lump’s sensations were dulling.

The disruption of Current Sense occasionally shown by first-rate Heaven’s Judgement Knights.

What Lump was transforming into now meant he was a knight of that caliber.

“Now I can’t even enjoy this, you fucking bastard.”

Grumbling as if genuinely disappointed, he clenched his fist.

That one motion was enough to make it clear. The power within that fist, I could never handle it.

No matter how strong the water pressure, he would break through it and kill me. That was the kind of punch it was.

Swallowing dryly, I instead stepped forward by one pace.

“Looks like I’ll have to capture you alive after all. No more playing around.”

“What a coincidence. I feel the same way.”

“If you want to blame someone, blame your genius master who left a being like you alive. I mean, how the hell do she make the deep sea into something living? That’s just impossible. Even if you prepare for it, the pressure of the Abyss is unbearable.”

“Like you’re handling it right now?”

“What are you talking…”

Lump, about to step forward naturally, blinked and looked to his side.

“…?”

He must have seen the shape of something that just passed by.

More of a silhouette than a full shape, but still.

“…You, don’t tell me the reason you just told me was.”

Trigger.

To Lump, who seemed to have realized something, I offered a welcome greeting.

“Don’t hate it too much. It’s a fucked-up place, yeah- but it’s my home.”