Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

“Dark Night, that’s our target.”

When Piercing Blood carefully uttered that name, the expressions of the members darkened.

Even Damyu, who had been sitting quietly, swallowed hard. As if just uttering the name had cursed her.

Piercing Blood spoke the name Dark Night and paused to catch his breath. In that silence, a small but unmistakable sense of fear could be felt.

From their reactions alone, I could roughly grasp what kind of person she was even before any explanation began.

“She has Puppet, the same World as you.”

“My World is Puppet?”

“Yes. I’ve already come to that conclusion. Given that you can control knights like that at will, your World can’t be anything but Puppet. At least when it comes to the concept of ‘control’, there’s not a single World that can rival Puppet.”

Hearing Piercing Blood’s confident tone, I felt relieved. As long as I don’t drop any hints, they won’t have a reason to suspect the keyword Deep Sea.

The problem is, it seemed they had made a bit of a misjudgment because of that misunderstanding.

“But if she’s also a Puppet? Then there’s a chance to catch her off guard. If we’re targeting the Upper Tier, there’s no one else we can aim for.”

“Hmm…”

Well, it’s something that has to be done anyway.

I nodded but suddenly realized he’d glossed over an important point, so I asked again.

“So, what exactly is this Dark Night?”

Silence again.

After about thirty seconds, Piercing Blood clenched his teeth and opened his mouth.

“…She’s a devil.”

“Coming from you guys, that kind of statement just loses all credibility.”

“Tsk, we do understand that we’re villains ourselves. But look, all we do is kill.”

“?

Did his brain rot? I was left speechless by such an absurd attempt to rationalize things, and Piercing Blood responded with a frustrated expression.

“It’s ironic for people like us, who struggle desperately to survive, to say this, but dying isn’t such a bad thing. Honestly, if I’d had the choice, I would’ve chosen not to be born in the first place.”

“Then how about killing yourself right now?”

“Once you’re born, you have no choice but to struggle to survive. That’s what it means to be human. Anyway, back to the point. That woman turns death into not nothing, but hell.”

“Explain more.”

“Her World takes away rest from corpses.”

I tilted my head.

“You’re saying she resurrects them…?”

“Yes. They come back to life.”

“Then wouldn’t it be more accurate to call that the power of an angel rather than a devil?”

“…”

Piercing Blood’s clenched hand trembled.

As if he couldn’t hold it in any longer, he rubbed his dry face and answered.

“Fine… if we don’t dig deeper, this is meaningless. Like I said, if there’s anyone in the Upper Tier with a shred of sanity, then one of the purposes in helping you is to ensure our survival. But to be honest, fighting the Upper Tier is something that requires readiness to die. From a cost-benefit perspective, it’s fifty-fifty. You can’t separate gains from losses. I usually don’t take on missions like this. There are plenty of better deals in the world.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“The other reason I decided to work with you is to kill that bitch, Dark Night.”

So she was a woman.

I asked again as I looked at the expression that still carried fear rather than forced anger.

“Why? If she can bring people back to life whenever, wouldn’t that mean she’s someone we actually need?”

“Dark Night’s marionettes would probably rather die.”

“…?”

“This is a fairly well-known story. There was once a Fallen with the World of reading minds. Just out of curiosity, he looked into the mind of one of Dark Night’s marionettes, and then poured oil over himself and burned to death.”

“Really? Did he leave any last words?”

“He didn’t say anything. But before he died, he did tell us this, if you ever find yourself about to die, make sure your corpse is damaged. So that it absolutely can’t be used as a marionette.”

“…”

“There were quite a few people with the World of mind reading. But none could overcome their curiosity, and when they peeked into the minds of Dark Night’s marionettes, they all chose similar ends. They gave the same warning and said nothing else. Because of that, the Worlds of Mind Reading has all but vanished now.”

It was a terrible situation to be discussing such things, but in a way, it was a relief. If mind readers had still existed, I would’ve had to exert all my strength not to think about anything every time I met someone from the Crimson Circle.

Hiding such thoughts, I nodded.

“Hmm, sounds pretty nasty.”

“…If that were the only issue, it wouldn’t be a big deal.”

Piercing Blood sighed and looked down at the floor.

“Dark Night is collecting corpses from the Lower Tier.”

“Collecting?”

“Yes. Whether someone dies from Burden or in any other way. Even if they’re hacked to pieces, as long as there’s something left of their form, she brings them back as marionettes.”

“And if we told her not to-”

“Would she listen? The words of the dead mean nothing in life or death.”

With Piercing Blood giving a bitter smile and the other members still trembling in fear, I could understand why Dark Night inspired such terror.

The unknown purgatory after death.

If one were unlucky enough to die normally, and left behind a body intact enough for Dark Night to collect, then they would be forced to live forever in an inescapable purgatory.

If death is nothingness, then Burden will eventually come to an end.

But if one becomes Dark Night’s marionette?

“No matter how terrible a person I am… sometimes, just sometimes, when I see Dark Night, and see the comrades who once fought beside me standing blank-eyed at her side, something stirs inside my chest.”

“I understand.”

In the end, the death of Dark Night wasn’t just a personal wish of Piercing Blood, but a long-held desire of everyone in the Lower Tier.

I nodded, stood up, and held out my hand.

“If it’s something that has to be done anyway, then it’s better to deal with someone like her. I’ll erase Dark Night and, in the process, grant your comrades some rest as well.”

“…Heh, if you die while fighting Dark Night, you’re guaranteed a trip to purgatory. You still willing to go through with it?”

“I’ll just prepare a bomb and blow myself up.”

“You really are my kind of guy, brother.”

Piercing Blood pulled out a palm-sized spherical object with a fuse from inside his coat and placed it on my hand.

It was a joke, but this bastard…

I shoved the bomb into my pocket, then gathered the still-tense members along with the smiling Piercing Blood.

“Then let’s start putting together a more detailed plan.”

I had spent an entire year finding a way to reach the Upper Tier and gaining comrades.

And during that time, the Burden had continued to gnaw away at my body. At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to last much longer.

The subjugation of Dark Night had to proceed as quickly as possible.

“Where is she?”

“At the edge of the continent, in the eastern Manganji Kingdom.”

“Manganji Kingdom…?”

A faint memory of a history lesson from the orphanage days resurfaced.

It was that extremely distant country that occasionally imported rare herbs. I didn’t know many details, but I vaguely remembered it being a harsh land full of monsters and poisonous insects, to the point that even the Empire had no interest in it.

“I heard the land’s pretty vast…”

“That doesn’t really matter.”

Piercing Blood shrugged as he replied.

“It’s true the land is wide, but there’s practically no real people living there anymore.”

I could roughly guess what he meant.

“How many are there?”

“One million.”

“…”

But that number was beyond anything I could have expected.

“Dark Night, the tyrannical villainess and wicked ruler, killed all her subjects and forced them to live in hell. That land is now a living hell on earth.”

“That does balance things out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing important.”

If there exists a monarch who sacrifices her life for her people like a princess,

Then it makes sense that there should also be a monarch who kills all her people for herself. That’s how the world stays in balance.

“How long will it take from here?”

“At least two months. If the weather changes, three.”

“…”

I furrowed my brows.

It would take too long. Considering my ever-growing Burden and the passage of time…

By the time I arrived, I likely wouldn’t even have enough Water Barrier left to summon the Inner World once.

“Is there a faster way to get there?”

“Of course. If you request an audience with Dark Night, she’ll send a marionette to escort you to Manganji Kingdom within a week.”

“Oh? I see. Then what are the requirements to request an audience?”

“Anyone can do it.”

“…What?”

“Exactly as I said. If you’re a member of the Crimson Circle, anyone can request to meet Dark Night whenever they wish.”

“Wait, I thought the Upper Tier didn’t care about the Lower Tier?”

“That’s right. So what do you think that means?”

“…Ah.”

It finally clicked, and I nodded.

“They’re selling their bodies.”

“Correct. To be precise, they sell the rights to their future while taking World-Sealing Pills. Quite horrifying, isn’t it?”

“People actually do that…?”

“There are. Mostly idiots who just joined Crimson Circle and don’t know anything yet.”

So the idea that the Upper Tier doesn’t care about the Lower Tier was once again proven.

If an executive lures in new recruits and shoves them into a pyramid scheme, and the other executives know and still do nothing to stop it, that doesn’t just mean they don’t care, it means they don’t even see them as people.

“They’re treated just like resources.”

“Especially to Dark Night, even more so.”

Piercing Blood let out a sigh and took a sack full of World-Sealing Pills out of his bag, placing it on the table.

When he gave a signal, the other members, with determined expressions, began placing small amounts of their World-Sealing Pills, more precious than their own lives, into the sack.

“What are you doing?”

“Undercurrent. Even knowing your strength, I dare say this is an act close to gambling. To raise our odds of success even slightly, we have to bet everything we have.”

“Hmm… So I just need to throw in some more World-Sealing Pills, right?”

“There’s no need for that. We’re gathering this for your sake.”

“For me?”

“Yes. In the end, we can’t defy Dark Night. She probably already knows everything about us. Even if we tried to fight, it would only result in meaningless deaths, and we wouldn’t be much help in actual combat. So, this is the only way we can support you.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not sure it’ll mean much.”

I don’t take World-Sealing Pills often. They’re useful in combat, but I never needed to take them daily.

I was about to decline when Piercing Blood laughed loudly.

“Ha ha ha! You’re still a novice when it comes to these things. World-Sealing Pills aren’t just for ingestion, they can be used for trade.”

“Trade?”

“That’s right. Go!”

“Yes.”

The members, each carrying sacks of gathered World-Sealing Pills, hurried off in all directions.

With a puzzled expression, I asked again.

“What exactly are we trading those for?”

“Hmm, let’s start with this…”

Piercing Blood came closer and began fiddling with my robe, then suddenly looked surprised.

“Oh ho, you’ve already got a Holy Relic on you.”

“Holy Relic?”

“Yeah. I don’t know where you got it, but it’s a decent one.”

“I’ve never even heard the term Holy Relic before.”

“Of course you haven’t. Holy Relics are items used by Upper Tier members. Most people in the Lower Tier don’t even know they exist, let alone touch them… except for a few.”

Piercing Blood gave a wicked grin, then removed a pair of gloves he had and handed them to me.

“Try them on.”

As soon as I slipped on the gloves, suspiciously eyeing them, something surprising happened.

-Slllrrp… The gloves became damp, and water began dripping from them.

“Uh, huh?”

Piercing Blood was even more shocked than I was.

He hurriedly took the gloves off me, quickly wrung them out, and fumbled with them.

Then, with a dazed expression like the world had collapsed, he clutched his head.

“W-What is this? Broken? Why?”

“…”

I kept my mouth tightly shut and said nothing.

But inside, I was shocked.

Those gloves, if only for a moment, had entered my Deep Sea.

How…? As I tilted my head in confusion, Piercing Blood gritted his teeth and threw the gloves to the floor.

“Tch. I must’ve used them too long. Looks like they’re broken. I paid a fortune for them, too.”

“What are they?”

“Haa… Holy Relics are tools that absorb the Burden in your place.”

“They absorb the Burden?”

“Yeah.”

He replied while kicking the gloves on the ground, clearly displeased.

“They’re various items created during Crimson Circle’s process of developing World-Sealing Pills.”

“If that’s true, then why weren’t they distributed more widely?”

“Their efficiency was just too poor. Apparently, it’s better to take pills for a lifetime and build resistance than rely on them… Ah!”

Suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him, Piercing Blood looked at Brimdal, who had been listening to our conversation with interest.

“I see now, I made a mistake.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re currently using all your strength to control that knight, aren’t you? And in that state, you equipped a Holy Relic, of course it would absorb the Burden in your place and break. Well, Holy Relics don’t usually break that easily though…”

Swallowing hard, I looked at Piercing Blood as he nodded in realization.

The truth is, I haven’t even been using my World’s abilities.

That glove broke just from absorbing my basic Burden.

“But why was water flowing from it? Hm, does water flow in the Puppet World?”

“Well, it’s similar. So when it breaks, that’s what happens?”

“Yes. Most Holy Relics have resistance against Worlds, so if you examine them closely, it’s easy to notice. One glove wouldn’t be enough, but if you’re equipped with multiple Holy Relics, it can be a huge help in fights between Fallen.”

“So I can distinguish them.”

I picked up the glove Piercing Blood had thrown to the floor. I wanted to check what exactly was different about it.

Seeing that, Piercing Blood tried to stop me.

“Wait, don’t touch that. Burn it.”

“Why?”

“A broken Holy Relic- that is, one that was damaged while enduring Burden.”

-Crunch!

Before he could finish his sentence, the fingers of the glove suddenly disappeared.

“…receives the Burden of that World… Wait, what was that just now…?”

I quickly threw the glove into the fire.

Piercing Blood gaped, urging me for an answer.

“W-Wait? What was that just now? It looked like something got sliced off. Like it was bitten off by something.”

“It’s just your imagination.”

The sturdy robe I was wearing started to feel like a shackle.

I should probably start wearing underclothes in case this thing ever starts getting wet.