TL/ED – Miso

I knew full well that a second chance wouldn’t come.

If Decay realized he wasn’t invincible.

If he caught on that his time gap could be broken through, he would never give me a chance again.

“…I didn’t think of you as simply a child devoured by a Great World.”

And I didn’t let that chance slip by.

The final Water Pressure I had poured everything into had undoubtedly dealt Decay an unrecoverable, fatal wound. From the shoulder blade to the heart. I had literally torn away half his body.

-And yet, he was still alive.

“That elf, the one closest to becoming the next pillar of the Celestial Realm, sought out the most suitable vessel and bestowed upon it the Deep Sea… that was our assessment of you.”

Slightly sluggish, but perfectly coherent. Decay shaped words with a jaw that had been ripped away.

Considerate enough to make sure I could hear him.

Composed, even in a situation like this.

Much of the blurriness had faded. Even so, my Current Sense, strained to the point of bursting, could no longer track him.

He was still living in a timeframe far faster than mine.

No… it was more accurate to say I was the one trapped in slowed-down time.

“A suitable body, so it can endure. Because it can endure, it can wield. That alone is impressive enough…”

“…”

I watched Decay trudge closer and tried my hardest to stay on my feet, but my vision was gradually blurring and I staggered.

I could feel the level of the Water Pressure armor encasing my body dropping. I had bet too much on that last attack.

I clenched my teeth in silence and tried to plan my next move with a mind that refused to work, when Decay suddenly scowled.

“You deceived us.”

“What?”

“You were never chosen. You didn’t receive the Deep Sea according to some plan. That elf didn’t use some unknown method to accomplish what we’ve spent our entire lives doing. You sank into the Deep Sea naturally.”

“…No shit, you bastard. What, you thought my master drowned me in seawater and forced me to Fall, the way you people do it? As if I’d happily follow her around after that.”

The profanity slipped out before I could stop it. It seemed the Crimson Circle had assumed all along that Dersia was the reason I had Fallen.

Gripping my spinning head and snapping back sharply, I barely managed to steady my trembling legs when Decay murmured low and raised his hand.

“Void said he would keep you alive no matter what. That it would serve our cause.”

-…Crk-crk-crk.

A small but deeply unsettling sound began from somewhere. I looked around and slowly felt a chill crawl up my spine.

The sea was freezing over.

Of course, near Decay, chunks of ice had always been floating around just from his presence. But whereas before it had felt incidental, just seawater reacting to a coolant… this time it was entirely deliberate.

Decay was cooling the area around me.

‘Things just keep getting worse.’

I swallowed hard and quickly surveyed my surroundings. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t anticipated this scenario. Decay’s world was Extreme Ice, so even the Deep Sea wouldn’t be impossible for him to freeze.

I just hadn’t thought of a countermeasure. Since he hadn’t done it until now, I’d figured it might not be possible and left it at that.

The reason was simple.

There was no way to counter that attack.

If Decay could truly freeze the Deep Sea, it would be a hard counter to my abilities. It would be like a flame-type wizard picking a fight with me.

“But by my own judgment, you cannot come with us.”

“What’s the difference between Dersia making me and me Falling on my own?”

“Purity.”

No further answer came from Decay, who had grown far colder.

Meaning there was no need to explain to someone who was about to die. Watching the Water Pressure armor gradually freeze over, I studied him anxiously.

“…?”

And though it was hard to see clearly through the blur, I noticed that the cross-section where his body had been torn away was frozen over transparently, and I tilted my head.

I understood that he was freezing his body to stop the bleeding.

But if he could do that, he should have frozen more of himself. There were several areas he hadn’t managed to freeze, and blood was still spreading into the sea.

Why had he deliberately left those spots unchecked?

The answer could be deduced from the speed at which the Deep Sea was freezing.

‘It’s slow.’

Decay was still living in a timeframe faster than mine, but the speed at which the Deep Sea froze was remarkably slow.

At this rate, it would take a good thirty minutes before I lost all control and simply froze to death.

Considering that Decay was spending far more time than I was, that was strange. It wasn’t as though someone who had already declared he would kill me was having a sudden change of heart.

In other words, the conclusion was that the speed at which Decay could deliberately freeze the Deep Sea was absurdly slow.

But nothing would really change. It wasn’t as if those wounds would kill Decay.

If I could land one more blow, maybe, but in my current state, something like that was…

“…Ah.”

Something flashed in my mind.

I had been weighing various possibilities when I realized.

Weighing possibilities or not, there was no time to come up with another plan.

“Hm?”

The moment I made my decision, I immediately turned around and…

Fled at full power using the Current.

Unlike reality, the Deep Sea was packed with currents, so as long as I willed it, I could sprint in any direction. It was such tremendous acceleration that I couldn’t help but think it would’ve been a good contest if someone had fired a gun beside me.

Decay shrank to a tiny dot in the distance in an instant.

And then, when I turned my head, he was right in front of me.

“Slow as a turtle.”

I clenched my fist as I listened to his taunting.

In truth, from his perspective, I must have looked like a child who had just learned to swim, paddling along at a crawl.

There was no escaping Decay. That was the biggest reason I hadn’t even considered running in the first place.

I glared at Decay and shot back.

“Yeah, good for you. All prepared and everything.”

“…”

“I can’t catch you, and I can’t run from you. You can kill me whenever you want, but you can’t even handle the Burden of my world. It’s almost like… a world designed to kill me.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“What if that’s actually your role?”

Decay tilted his head as if I were spouting nonsense.

“Death’s Flashback, that’s your past, isn’t it? I saw it too, you know. If it wasn’t a lie, it looked like Void needed a vessel to contain the world of Extreme Ice, and that’s why he was searching for you.”

“That’s right.”

“Why did Void specifically prepare the world of Extreme Ice? Your father, your mother… Void tried everything to save them. As far as I know, the only ones he showed that much interest in were you and me.”

“…Are you trying to say Void created me to counter the Deep Sea?”

He lifted the corner of his mouth in a mocking smirk, as if the idea were ridiculous.

“You are certainly part of the plan. But you overestimate yourself.”

“Then why didn’t you know?”

“…?”

“You knew all about the Deep Sea’s abilities. Enough to recognize me as a Fallen of the Deep Sea the moment we met. That had to be because Void briefed you thoroughly.”

“Our original target was the Ocean. We never even hoped for the Deep Sea. Apart from the Deep Sea being a far harsher environment, its characteristics aren’t that different. That’s why I was already well-informed about you.”

“But you didn’t know everything, did you?”

I held up the ring with the Thread tied to it.

Decay stared at the ring in silence for a moment.

Proof that Puppet had merged into my Deep Sea.

When he had seen me use Puppet’s ability, his reaction had been one of disbelief.

He hadn’t known.

More precisely, Void hadn’t told him.

“Void must have known. If I’m really just a minor piece of the plan like you say, and not that important, then why did Void tell you not to kill me? Why was he so insistent on recruiting me?”

“If you were truly important, every member of the Crimson Circle would have been after you.”

“What if there’s something Void doesn’t want discovered?”

I kept my eyes on my surroundings as I cobbled words together however I could.

“What if there’s something about the Deep Sea that your side is hiding?”

“…”

“You know it too. That Void is a little too obsessed with the Deep Sea. He’s been drowning nearly every wizard he can find, and you’re telling me that’s just to accomplish some part of the plan?”

The conversation was meant to buy time, but it was something I had been thinking about to some extent.

Even recalling my memories from inside the Crimson Circle, Void had always been a bit of an odd bastard. There was no way he had revealed everything to even the Upper Tier.

After hearing me out and stroking his chin for a moment, Decay let out a scornful laugh.

“Fine, I suppose Void is hiding a thing or two from me. But, so what?”

“…”

“Surely you weren’t hoping that something so trivial would make me betray the Crimson Circle and side with you? If that’s what you were hoping for, all I can say is that I’m disappointed.”

Well, obviously.

If you betrayed your company just because your boss hid a few things, you’d have to be out of your mind. No matter how much of a den of lunatics the Crimson Circle was, Decay didn’t seem like that kind of person.

“Don’t misunderstand. Void is not the only one who dreams of the Celestial Realm’s destruction. Sometimes, there are worlds where it would have been better never to be born.”

“Tch, is that so.”

“Have you nothing more to say? Then close your eyes. At least you won’t suffer any unnecessary pain.”

“Something to say? I do, actually.”

I threw myself in the opposite direction with every ounce of strength I had.

“…A pointless effort.”

Decay followed, no matter where I went.

No matter how fast I swam, no matter how fast I fled, he was always standing right in front of me.

But the scenery around us kept changing.

[Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!]

[Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!]

Until I reached the end of the canyon filled with talking clams.

I didn’t stop swimming.

“I see…”

Only then did Decay nod with a knowing smile.

“You want me to destroy myself in this Deep Sea.”

He had apparently noticed the increased Water Pressure in the area as well.

But it was a method that would never work to begin with.

If the time spent here was short, so was the time exposed to the Burden.

Water Pressure didn’t crush all at once. Most likely, the actual time we had spent in the Deep Sea was far less than it seemed.

No matter how injured Decay was, it was nowhere near enough to crush him.

“No.”

There, I…

Released the Water Pressure armor.

The pressure that had been squeezing my entire body was gone.

“Are you a fool?”

-CRASH!

Decay tilting his head and a block of ice hurtling toward me happened simultaneously.

My sudden, irrational behavior was punished immediately. I felt a hole punch through my abdomen, no need for freezing, and my consciousness began to fade.

But without the Water Pressure armor…

I could reach other things too.

“…!” 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

-SNAP.

With all my might, an eel that came shooting like an arrow seized my hand.

This eel had not yet been hit by Decay’s thought delay. Because of that, from my perspective, it moved at an incomprehensible speed.

Decay assumed I was trying to flee and hurried to prepare another chunk of ice, but…

I had not the slightest intention of running.

“…G-go…”

The eel carried out the command flawlessly.

For the briefest instant, truly the span of a single blink…

The eel delivered me right in front of Decay.

Of course, with my already-slowed mind, reacting at that speed was impossible. I couldn’t do anything.

But…

“…Got you, you son of a bitch!”

The moment my body touched Decay.

I put Water Pressure into every space I could reach with everything I had, and…

There was enough time to bring that Burden down on ‘us’.