Wizard of the Deep Sea

TL/ED – Miso

The Deep Sea was honest. The deeper into the Depth one descended, the more horrific it became.

To survive in such an environment, I’d had to use anything and everything. Modifying my body had been only the very beginning; beyond that, I had piled up bizarre act upon bizarre act, eating strange things, draping living creatures over my body, and more.

Even if such choices were unavoidable for the sake of survival, the more I became something slightly removed from human, the more a subtle question began to creep in.

Just how far a being had I become, changed like this?

“Hmm, Sir Jern. Honestly, this is…”

“You’re saying I’m at a disadvantage?”

A small patch of ground behind the meeting room.

Kamelot scratched his head with a slightly troubled look as he handed me the sword.

“Yes. Of course, I don’t think you’re weak, considering you brought down an Upper Tier. It’s a bit of an unpleasant thing to say, but… if His Highness were to order me to capture you while you were hiding somewhere in the city, I would tell him it couldn’t be done. Because I’d die.”

“No, I’m not that strong.”

I frowned, utterly put off. No matter how strong I might be, if a genuine Knight like Brimdal came to assassinate me, I’d be in serious trouble.

I didn’t know exactly what tier Kamelot stood at, but he certainly wasn’t heading this group of Knight Commanders just for show.

“Well, that’s just a manner of speaking. Still, the location is bad.”

Kamelot sighed, looking somewhat dissatisfied as he watched Morzan don his Armor.

“Whatever you do, at this distance you’ll be broken through.”

“Even if I’m reading the trajectory of every attack?”

“Certainly, that ability would be near invincible in a fight between Knights of equal level. However, when the gap is this wide, knowing won’t help you block it.”

“Hmm. That’s fair.”

“…If you’re pushing yourself into this because of pride, I can work out the situation for you…”

“No, that’s fine. I did push him a bit hard, but I want a definite answer.”

I grinned at Kamelot and asked.

“You heard the conditions of the Duel I agreed to with Sir Morzan, didn’t you?”

“About that too… I’m fine with it, but the other Knight Commanders won’t simply fall in line.”

“I know that much. I won’t force anything on you, Sir Kamelot. I just want you to watch this Duel carefully.”

“…Hm?”

“This may be a bit impertinent of me to say, but it seems all of you don’t truly understand just how dangerous a breed the Fallen are. As Kin to them, I’d like to educate you a little.”

Leaving a stunned Kamelot behind, I stepped out onto the crunching sand.

The blazing sunlight was hot. When I gripped the sword clumsily, drawing on what I’d learned from Brimdal, Morzan clenched his teeth.

“Sir Jern. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’ll make you realize just how foolish it is.”

“Yes. I look forward to learning from you.”

Since we were comrades anyway, I’d replied as politely as I could, but that seemed to have struck a nerve of all things.

With his face flushing even redder, Morzan cast a glance at my shoulder.

I immediately read his intent. My hair.

Did he plan to argue that cutting the ends of my hair was practically the same as cutting my head? Even enraged to the point of boiling over, he still avoided aiming at a vital spot. That was just like a Knight.

“Then… um, begin!”

The moment Kamelot called out the signal to start, still uneasy about it,

“Hah!”

the instant Morzan stepped forward, he moved to vanish from my Current Sense.

A blurring Afterimage; next, before I could even register it, he would be holding the severed ends of my hair. Having watched Knights time and again, I knew well enough that such a thing was possible.

How would I have acted before this? Probably I would have used Water Pressure to flip the entire arena over just to create some distance.

It was still a method that would work well enough. However, what I wanted to show the Knight Commanders this time wasn’t that kind of thing.

An overwhelming victory, decisive enough to truly instill alertness in them.

For that, I had to fight on the Knights’ battlefield.

“Hmm.”

I lightly closed my eyes.

In a battle where everything was decided in an instant, it was an act one should never commit, but just this once, it didn’t matter.

I recalled the last image of Morzan I’d seen before closing my eyes. That image of him charging toward my hair, however he could.

If there was one fact Kamelot didn’t know,

it was that long ago, while fighting lump, I had mastered a cheat-like technique that would make any Knight hurl curses the moment they learned of it.

‘Oh.’

When I opened my eyes again, Water Foam had come up right to the tip of my nose.

I hurriedly bent my body aside, and in response, Morzan cut through empty air.

His sword hadn’t touched my hair at all. The force it carried merely pounded the sand, meaninglessly.

“…?!”

“What…”

At the same time, the Knight Commanders who had been watching the Duel with interest wore expressions of disbelief.

“Did he just attack a spot that Sir Morzan had already dodged into?”

“…Why?”

Amazingly, the Knight Commanders’ sharp eyes seemed to have caught that brief instant.

I had dodged first, and then Morzan’s attack had followed afterward.

Looking utterly foolish, Morzan face flushed, which I’d thought couldn’t possibly get any redder, into an even deeper red, and unleashed a second strike, a third.

“Khh!”

But in the end, they all just cut through empty air.

Every attack glanced aside with just a hair’s breadth to spare. Since I wasn’t even dodging at any particularly impressive speed, it was only natural he’d be getting quite worked up.

At some point, Morzan began swinging his sword in irregular patterns. Feinting a thrust, then slashing; slashing, then suddenly striking upward.

Of course, since the Water Foam was a physically formed trajectory, I picked up on all of it.

“Haa…”

“I feel as though I’m watching… some kind of miracle.”

After I’d flowed through Morzan’s sword strikes like running water for nearly 30 minutes, the heavily breathing Morzan clenched his teeth and shouted.

“How long will you keep running! Face me fair and square!”

“I am doing just that.”

“…! Mockery!”

“…”

I turned my head away from Morzan now and shifted my gaze to the Knight Commanders watching the Duel.

“As I mentioned to Sir Kamelot beforehand, your alertness toward the Fallen is severely, gravely lacking.”

“…Sir Jern. Of course, we haven’t produced results on the scale of yours as Vice Knight Commander of the Wax Wings, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting idle.”

Jahan shook his head, his face turning somewhat stern.

“I’ve captured more than a dozen Fallen with these hands alone. The other Knight Commanders are, if anything, more than me, not less. There’s no way we’d take lightly creatures running that wild against the Empire.”

“Sir Jahan is right. If anything, the one being careless seems to be you, Sir Jern.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The Duel isn’t even over, yet you think it’s right to turn your head away? Sir Morzan still hasn’t given up.”

-Tok. A cold sword touched the back of my neck.

Morzan, still breathing heavily, stood there with a humiliated expression, sword pointed.

Naturally, a Knight was not the kind of being who would tire after swinging a sword for 30 mins.

“Well, even so, the one holding the upper hand throughout was you, Jern, so this Duel will be called a draw…”

“You’re quite right. The Duel isn’t over yet.”

I answered with a shrug.

“So about that, Sir Morzan. That alone isn’t enough. Why don’t you push the sword in a little closer?”

“…Sir Jern. Death Duels are forbidden.”

“That isn’t what I’m asking for.”

Without looking back, I took a single step forward, opening distance from Morzan.

“Now if you push the sword in again and prove that the move just now could have pierced my neck, I’ll acknowledge my defeat.”

“…I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is it you want?”

“I simply want you to take one step closer, Sir Morzan. So that you can seal my defeat.”

“If he wants it, Sir Morzan. Finish it.”

Despite Kamelot’s bewildered instruction, Morzan didn’t move.

“…Ngh!”

Writhing as if bound by something, breathing raggedly, he finally seemed to realize something and clutched at his throat.

A Knight did not tire from moving for 30 mins.

Those monsters were the kind of beings who wouldn’t shed a single drop of sweat even if they ran a thousand li.

Then why was a mere 30 minutes of Sword Dance making him sweat like rain?

“…Morzan?”

“Oh dear, it seems something is troubling him. Would you Knight Commanders like to move yourselves?”

“U-ugh…”

“Haack…!”

When I slyly invited the other Knight Commanders, they too realized something, their faces turning pale.

“M-my legs!”

“What is this… since when!”

The ability called Water Foam could only be used while the Deep Sea had been declared.

I had closed my eyes and submerged into the Deep Sea. And the space created by that had, over 30 minutes, slowly forced a burden onto the other Knights.

Just 30 minutes of strain. Only that much. Even Decay’s space, over just 30 minutes, probably wouldn’t amount to much.

However, the Deep Sea was far too deep to be compared to mere Decay.

And the Depth where I stood was far too deep as well.

“Oh dear.”

Kamelot clutched his head with a troubled expression.

“Sir Morzan looks to be suffering quite a bit. Could you release it?”

“I will.”

The release was instantaneous.

Freed, Morzan exhaled the breath he’d been holding and heaved for a long while, and the other Knight Commanders, with astonished looks on their faces, patted their bodies all over to check themselves.

“I apologize for showing you this so suddenly. However, this is what a Great World is.”

I opened my mouth calmly.

“The Fallen you’ve dealt with had only the tiniest of worlds; they’re closer to broken mages than to Fallen in the true sense. It’s only natural you can handle them easily. But if there were a Fallen on my level, the story would be entirely different.”

“What was just done to us?”

“Some time ago, you experienced that sudden weather anomaly incident. You can think of it as that, occurring in an extremely severe form in my immediate surroundings. As long as you were standing in the same space as me, even if I merely dodged and ran, you would end up being swallowed by my world and dying.”

Pausing briefly, I looked around at the dumbstruck Knight Commanders and bowed my head deeply.

“I hold the deepest respect, from the bottom of my heart, for you Knights who devote yourselves to the Empire. I do not wish to see such people being hunted down by Fallen who use Dark Arts, as I do. At least while we are dealing with the Rakshasa this time, I would ask you to heed what I say.”

After my brief self-introduction, silence fell.

It was a silence with a better atmosphere than I had expected.

“…I see.”

The one who broke the silence was Kamelot, wearing a bitter expression.

“I’m sorry. In the end, it seems I was misled by your youthful appearance.”

“Well, it can’t be helped.”

“-I intend to grant full authority to Sir Jern regarding this Rakshasa Subjugation Force.”

Kamelot looked across the other Knight Commanders and declared solemnly.

“Does anyone have any objection to this appointment?”

Fortunately, no one raised a hand.

Not even Morzan.