Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

The process of persuading Karos itself wasn’t all that difficult.

If only Brimdal hadn’t attached such a strange condition.

“You come to see me after so long just to make some weird request.”

“I’m sorry. It’s something I absolutely must do.”

Of course, I had explained everything before infiltrating Crimson Circle.

Since he understood that this matter was related to figuring out my World, he gave his permission.

However, he seemed dissatisfied with how long it was taking.

“Did you not say it wouldn’t take that long?”

“Yes, that’s true. But they’re far more wary of me than I expected.” “Hmm…”

Brimdal, who had been quietly groaning for a moment, smiled as if he was up to something.

“Well, in the end, isn’t it just a matter of defeating Karos in front of them?”

“Yes. We agreed that after exchanging a few blows, Sir Karos would withdraw on her own.”

“No.”

“Sorry?”

“No matter how lacking they may be, they are still members of Crimson Circle. They won’t be fooled that easily.”

“I think they will be.”

“Trust your master. I’ll make it a bit more convincing.”

And now.

Crunch, along with the grinding of Karos’s teeth, her afterimage was slashed apart.

‘…Maybe I should’ve stopped him a little.’

Brimdal was clearly going all out.

It seemed he had always wanted to cross swords with Karos and was now using me as an excuse to have fun.

I did not mind, but it was Karos who was put in a troublesome position.

“…”

Having exchanged one blow, she gave me a sharp glare and took a peculiar sword stance.

She twirled her greatsword and held it in reverse grip, as if it were a dagger.

Naturally, this meant she was holding the massive greatsword with just one hand, leaving the other hand free. As Brimdal watched that form, the epitome of inefficiency, he widened his eyes.

“Oh ho.”

Brimdal, like a typical knight, gripped his sword with both hands and pointed its tip at her.

From that moment on… no, from the beginning, the current sense that had always been unstable and couldn’t properly grasp the two, now only registered the plains.

Perhaps because my World had deepened, those whom I could barely perceive during battle were now completely undetectable.

And the next moment, I thought I had blinked.

“…?”

Of course, I wouldn’t make such a mistake while watching a rare duel like this.

It was simply that my sense of sight was too inadequate to capture the moment they moved.

The ear-splitting sound of metal tearing reached me slightly later. Karos had aimed for Brimdal’s throat, while Brimdal had aimed somewhere else.

Her sword.

“…”

Brimdal quietly brushed his neck.

Though not deep, he touched the hot blood flowing from the clearly visible wound and gave a short laugh.

“The World is vast indeed. Who completed a sword like you?”

“Everything I am was made by Her Highness.”

“Tsk, my Dwarves’ honor would weep. To allow the same mistake with a human twice.”

“It seems I am still greatly lacking in my duties as Her Highness’s knight.”

He glanced at me with a slight look of dissatisfaction, showing a brief opening, but Karos, instead of attacking, re-gripped her sword that had been held in reverse.

There was a long, tooth-like gouge in the blade, as if something had bitten into it.

“With this sword, I can no longer fight. It is my defeat.”

“What are you saying, there is a cut on my neck. Are you not speaking to a corpse right now?”

“Corpses cannot speak. ‘The process is more important than the result’, that’s not a phrase that applies to duels…”

With those words, Karos stepped back with a look that seemed to ask if we were satisfied now.

“I will, for now, delay the unavoidable task of decapitating that small, dreadful demon. Do not think you can hide forever.”

With words of hatred laced with bone, her figure vanished in an instant.

It was undoubtedly a retreat. A splendid performance, indeed.

Now then, how would the audience react? With that thought, I turned around.

There was Damyu, her body tied to a tree with ropes, squirming.

So I did forget something.

*

“Younger brother!”

With a bright smile, Piercing Blood spread his arms wide and tried to hug me.

More precisely, he tried. I easily predicted it and stepped back to avoid him.

“I’ve never had a hyung.”

“Is that so? Then I’ll call you hyung, Undercurrent hyung!”

This was a reaction I hadn’t expected.

“Just… just get back to the point.”

I sat down, deliberately ignoring the gazes of the other members around me who looked at me with awe and reverence.

For some reason, it was soft. When I turned my head, I saw Withered Grass grinning obsequiously, having laid down some soft moss where I would sit.

Well, maybe I should be glad the performance worked that well.

“Can I take it that I’ve passed the test?”

“Of course. But…”

Piercing Blood glanced at Brimdal, who was still standing behind me with his hands behind his back, as if frightened.

“Ho-how were you able to command such a knight? No matter how vast your Great World is, someone like that wouldn’t be easy to handle.”

“It wasn’t that difficult. With a knight like this… hmm, I could probably command about two more.”

I could hear Piercing Blood swallowing dryly from here.

Seeing a few members slowly and curiously approach Brimdal, I offered a light piece of advice.

“Well, even so, he’s not perfect, so it’s best not to provoke him. He still retains about half of his self-awareness.”

“…”

The members quickly distanced themselves from Brimdal.

Even if they weren’t Fallen, they would likely have reacted the same way if they had seen the exchange of sword strikes with Karos just moments ago.

I calmly answered Piercing Blood.

“I’ve proven my strength. Haven’t I?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Then now it’s your turn to prove yourselves to me.”

At those words, Piercing Blood’s gaze turned firm.

“…For now, yes. It’s clear you have enough strength to ascend to the Upper Tier. To be honest, I don’t think even the members of the Upper Tier could have pulled down and repelled that princess’s escort knight.”

“Then-”

“But the contract hasn’t been established yet.”

What, still not enough?

Piercing Blood quickly added when he saw my eyes sharpen.

“Undercurrent, this isn’t our issue. It’s your issue.”

“…What?”

“You still don’t know what kind of people they are or what must be done. If, after hearing this, your resolve doesn’t change, I’ll support you with everything I have. As I said, if someone who can properly communicate ascends to the Upper Tier, that alone is enough for us. If that person is someone we’re familiar with, even better.”

“So you’re telling me to explain once again how firm my resolve is. That’s a pointless task.”

“No, it’s a more concrete and realistic issue.”

Piercing Blood shook his head and sat down across from me.

“First, I would like to ask, what do you think is the biggest problem in killing Upper Tier members?”

“That’s obviously the support from other Upper Tier members.”

Even just trying to kill Lump had Decay charging in like a madman to interfere. The members of the Upper Tier were tightly bound.

Killing one meant facing two, and then three. That was the biggest issue.

However, Piercing Blood snorted and shook his head.

“That’s not something you need to worry about at all.”

“Is there a reason?”

“Those guys don’t get along. Not at all. You could say they want to kill and hate each other.”

“That can’t be right.”

That story was completely disconnected from my own experience.

“Listen carefully. The only time the Upper Tier unites is when they’re following the ‘Prophecy’.”

“Prophecy?”

“Yeah. The Prophecy written in the Original Gospel. When the plan of the Prophecy led by Void, who leads the Upper Tier, is in progress, they endure each other and cooperate, even if they despise one another. But when it’s not, they try to kill each other instead.”

“…I can’t understand that. I don’t know the details, but don’t they need each other to fulfill that Prophecy?”

“I don’t really get it either, but maybe they think if one of them dies, then that person wasn’t part of the Prophecy… something like that. It’s just a theory. Honestly, who knows what goes on in the minds of lunatics. You can think of them as psychopaths with no sense of loyalty, and it wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Hmm.”

It was hard to believe, but…if it were true, many things would be resolved.

Assuming it was true, I nodded.

“Then what exactly is the problem?”

“Those guys aren’t individuals.”

“…?”

“Mm, yeah. This is a secret, but… since we want them dead anyway, this much is fine to share.”

Piercing Blood shrugged his shoulders and spoke without reservation.

“Actually, every member of the Upper Tier has a True Name.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, they each have a separate identity. Before they were part of the Crimson Circle’s Upper Tier, they held other statuses in other nations. You could say that they came together to form the Crimson Circle.”

“…I see.”

It was surprising, sure, but I didn’t see what made it such a big deal.

“So what? Is there anything greater than being a member of the Crimson Circle’s Upper Tier?”

“Not greater, but… it’s comparable.”

“Stop circling around it and just speak clearly.”

“Mm, those guys are all powers at the national level.”

“?”

“To put it more simply, each one is the monarch of a country.”

“…??”

I blinked, looking at Piercing Blood’s indifferent expression, and asked,

“So you mean… city-states?”

“No. I mean monarchs of countries that lie far beyond the Empire’s reach, where it takes months of travel just to reach the borders. Some of those countries are even half the size of the Empire.”

“The kings of those places-”

“-are the very people who are now the Upper Tier of the Crimson Circle.”

“…???”

Dozens of questions arose in my mind.

But what came out of my mouth was just one.

“Why?”

“How would I know? I told you, who could understand the minds of lunatics?”

“No, but then why… um… uh…”

These are kings of entire nations.

What are they lacking that they form a deranged cult?

Why are they using it to stir up chaos in the Empire and create Fallen?

Couldn’t they just do that within their own nations? Or maybe they are?

“I really don’t get it. Is Lump also a monarch of some nation?”

“That guy’s just an idiot. So it’s not like he has to have land or a country, but you can’t kill Lump, can you?”

“True.”

That guy has a body that simply cannot be killed. His very being is his Burden.

“Anyway, do you understand what this all means?”

“You have to go after them when the Prophecy isn’t in progress. If the Prophecy is active, they cooperate with each other.”

“But when the Prophecy isn’t ongoing, they return to their own countries. So, the only way to fight one without facing all seven of the Upper Tier is-”

“To overthrow an entire nation.”

“Now do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

Now I understood why Piercing Blood had viewed me as just another lunatic and tried to kill me.

And why, even after seeing that I had defeated Karos, he sought confirmation once again.

Killing a member of the Upper Tier was an utterly absurd task, something like facing off against a nation with a group of maybe ten people. Not even worth a snort.

The scale was just on a completely different level. And this time, I couldn’t even rely on help from the princess. If I dragged the Empire into something like this, the Upper Tier would surely grow suspicious of me.

If I were to do it, it would have to be with Piercing Blood’s companions, and me. That was the only way.

Even if I could do it, it was still a problem. How many tens of thousands of innocent people would have to die before I could even stand in front of the Upper Tier? It was a case where the means and the end were completely disproportionate.

Seeing the look on my face, Piercing Blood gave a bitter smile, as if he had expected this.

“As I thought, Undercurrent, you’re the kind of person who would think it through.”

“…It’s definitely difficult.”

“And, thanks to that hesitation, I’ve made up my mind.”

“?

Piercing Blood stood up from his seat and looked down at me with a sly grin.

“If you’d said something like, ‘Who cares, I’ll just charge ahead anyway’, even after hearing all that, I would’ve thought you were just another unreasonable Upper Tier bastard and looked for an opening to escape.”

“You’re saying that to my face?”

“But yeah, you’re definitely sane. You hesitated because you understood just how absurd it is for a small group like ours to go up against a nation. Am I wrong?”

“Not really.”

“Then you’re trustworthy… If there were no options at all, I wouldn’t have called you hyung in the first place, hehe…”

Hearing the word “hyung” from someone who looked like he was in his fifties was almost insulting, but since it felt like something was about to be revealed, I waited.

He began writing letters on the ground with a twig.

“Actually, there’s a side path. A way to use the fact that your World hasn’t been exposed yet, to create a comfortable and safe method of assassinating a member of the Upper Tier.”

Puppet.

Piercing Blood, having written that familiar word, clenched his fist and trembled.

The other members trembled as well. Even Damyu stared at the word with a horrified expression.

“There’s just one. One Upper Tier member who rules over a country without people.”

“…”

“We call it a nation where only corpses move… So, what do you think?”

The expectation contained in that smile was-

“With your World, I’m sure you could handle it easily.”

A bit difficult to respond to.