TL/ED – Miso

‘I’ll hear the details after I get back…’

To deal with the immediate problem first, I opened the sewer entrance and stepped inside, where a soft scent of water greeted me.

Sewers are typically dirty, cramped places. That wasn’t so much a prejudice as common sense, but this one had lanterns hung along every passage and was wide enough for ten people to walk through with room to spare.

“Iabon has had problems with its water and sewage systems since long ago. Because of that, the city spared no expense on its underground facilities for the sake of easier maintenance.”

The guard handed over the torch he’d been carrying and let out a sigh.

“Normally, this would be handled by the mercenary company stationed here. I couldn’t possibly send someone the Lord specifically instructed us to look after on a simple errand like this, but…”

“Let’s just say nothing happened here. I’ll take care of it and be right back out.”

“Yes. It’s surely those wretched Earth Goblins clogging up the pipes again. I doubt they’d be any match for Sir Jern.”

“I don’t think this is the work of Earth Goblins, but… understood for now.”

“?”

By the time I finished that exchange with the puzzled-looking guard, I had already identified the problem.

No matter how long and wide these underground tunnels were, they still fell within the range of my Current Sense.

The issue was that whatever I’d detected didn’t seem like a simple, minor accident.

“Excuse me, do vagrants live in these sewers as well?” 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“Vagrants, sir? No. The water floods from time to time, so it’s not a place fit for people to live.”

“I see.”

The guard’s expression made it clear he genuinely knew nothing, which told me this was someone acting alone.

When I started walking straight toward the problem, the guard hurriedly reached out.

“Wait, sir! The inside is like a labyrinth. It’s impossible to navigate alone. A guide will be here shortly, so…”

“I have a map. I’ll be fine.”

“A, a map? There’s no way something like that exists…”

Ignoring the guard’s protests, I walked through the echoing sewers for several minutes.

The underground waterworks were indeed as complex as a maze. But they were only complex, not particularly long in total, so reaching the damaged section was easy enough.

-Shaaaaa…

“Here it is.”

In less than ten minutes, I found a severed pipe gushing water wildly onto the floor.

It was large enough for a small person to fit their torso through. The cut section bore marks that were clearly deliberate, not the result of deterioration.

This worked in my favor. I slowly lifted the pipe with water pressure, then pressed the severed section back into place.

-Clunk.

The water flow reconnected. However, since the pipe was still cut, it rattled unsteadily. Left like this, the moment I released the water pressure, it would clearly burst apart again.

After a moment’s thought, I scooped up some dirt from the surrounding area, dampened it with water, and packed it around the pipe.

Then I squeezed with everything I had.

-Crrrack…! The wet dirt was compressed in an instant under tremendous pressure. There was nothing I could do about the water still trickling out, but at least it would serve as an adhesive for a while.

“A little scratch should be fine, right?”

I marked an X on the nearby wall so others could find the spot easily, then moved on toward the next severed pipe.

Naturally, there wasn’t just one or two severed pipes. Given that this massive city had suffered a water crisis all at once, nearly dozens of pipes had been cut.

And only the most critical ones at that.

‘When are they going to show themselves?’

I’d been hoping the culprit would react when I fixed the first pipe, but so far they seemed content to just watch.

They were probably thinking it was a coincidence.

So I kept fixing pipes until they came out.

-Crrack!

-Clunk…

[Wh-what? Water’s suddenly coming out?]

[That person went in to fix it?]

[No, didn’t he go in to exterminate… something? He looks like some nobleman’s son. How would he do repairs?]

In the relatively shallow sections, I could use Current Sense to pick up the sounds of water returning to the city above and the startled murmurs of people chattering away.

By the time the number of pipes I’d fixed exceeded those I hadn’t, a reaction finally came from the other side.

A blatant killing intent, so obvious I didn’t even need Current Sense, gradually began filling the space.

But I casually ignored it and lifted the next pipe.

“Now! Fire!”

-Fwip!

Several arrows came flying out of the darkness at once.

As I perceived their flight in slow motion, I found myself genuinely startled by an unexpected development.

The arrows themselves weren’t surprising. I’d already seen them holding bows, drawing strings, and waiting with pounding hearts for their leader’s command.

What startled me was their trajectory.

‘I could stand perfectly still and these wouldn’t hit me.’

I decided to trust my Water Barrier and stay put, and sure enough, the wobbly arrows thudded uselessly into the floor.

Quite the feat. Missing a stationary target at this range. Certain now that they weren’t archers, I heard an urgent voice call for another volley.

“What are you doing?! Again, fire again!”

“Y-yes!”

-Fwbwbwk!

This time, unlike before, several arrows actually headed toward my vital points.

I nodded in admiration at their remarkable improvement, and the arrows stopped dead in the air, precisely a few meters away from me.

“Wh-what the hell is that…?”

As the bearded man stared in bewilderment at the arrows hanging motionless as if pinned to an invisible target, his subordinate swallowed hard.

“He’s… at least Fifth Circle… a high-ranking Wizard… it seems…”

“…That’s impossible! Why would a high-ranking Wizard be here?!”

They’d even managed to arrive at a rather unfavorable misunderstanding among themselves.

At this rate they’d run. Thinking it would be a pain to track down any stragglers, I took a single step forward, and the leader, who had been flinching, drew his sword with a look of resolve in his eyes.

“Today, we die here. Anyone who wants to run, get lost.”

“N-no, sir!!”

“…We’ll die together!”

-Clank! Their sword grips were sloppy no matter how I looked at it, but the spirit behind them was real.

Eight of them stepped into the lamplight. They wore grimy gray uniforms, as if playing at being martial artists. It wasn’t just their clothes that hadn’t been washed; every one of them looked filthy from head to toe.

Their hair, their beards, all growing in wild directions, radiated a kind of fanaticism I didn’t even need to read their eyes to sense. The man who’d drawn his sword first let out a battle cry and charged.

“DIEEEEEE!”

“I’ll think about it.”

-CRACK!

“Gkh-”

“K-kghh…”

All eight of them dropped their swords mid-charge and crumpled to their knees.

A few of them seemed to have had their spines bent at slightly wrong angles. I considered hauling them off as they were, but the venom that still hadn’t left their eyes piqued my curiosity.

“So are you lot what they call Earth Goblins?”

“…?”

“If not, my apologies. I’ve never actually seen an Earth Goblin before. They’re called Earth Goblins, so maybe they don’t look like regular goblins. Who knows, they might not look any different from humans.”

“You may take our lives, but you cannot insult us! We are the Martial Training Corps!”

“The Martial Training Corps. Right. That’s not just another word for a subspecies of Earth Goblin, is it?”

“Grrr…!”

The leader, who’d been resisting the most fiercely, flailed on his knees for a while before grinding his teeth and hurling curses at me.

“You may have won today. But when the time comes, when the Crimson Circle covers this world, not even your precious magic will protect you!”

“…What?”

Crimson Circle. The moment I heard that, I raised my guard a notch.

But these people weren’t Fallen. They weren’t even Wizards.

They were simply the kind of people the Crimson Circle treated as less than livestock. There was no way they could be connected in any meaningful sense.

“Who are you to pretend you’re under the Crimson Circle? You have absolutely nothing to do with them.”

“They may not know us. But we know them.”

“No, those people don’t even consider people like you human. They’d kill you on sight.”

“We know.”

The leader locked eyes with me, his gaze wild and feverish.

“But thanks to them, we were able to find hope.”

“What kind of hope?”

“The hope that one day, a world without Wizards will come.”

He ground his teeth with fervor.

“A fair and equal world, where no one stands above others simply for being born the son or daughter of a Wizard! If that world truly comes to pass, we are willing to die as many times as it takes!”

“…”

How to put it.

It felt like watching a rabbit fawning before a tiger, because the tiger promised to fight a lion for it.

Well, I supposed ignorance could lead to that. Recalling that international criminal organizations do tend to attract society’s outcasts, I let out a sigh.

“Right, so you cut this city’s pipes for the Crimson Circle? I’m sure they’ll pat you on the head and call you good boys.”

“…Watch your mouth! We did this to protect the ancient relic of Iabon…!”

When I threw in a last bit of sarcasm before handing them over to the guards, one of the Martial Training Corps subordinates couldn’t hold back and snapped.

The leader immediately shot the man a sharp glare, and the subordinate realized his slip and clamped his mouth shut.

An abrupt, unnatural silence fell. My curiosity rekindled, I poked at the leader.

“Hey, is there something down here?”

“Kill me.”

He clearly had no intention of talking. His subordinates wore equally determined expressions, so after a moment’s thought, I spoke in a casual tone.

“Since it’s come to this, let me tell you something. I actually came here looking for that too.”

“…What?”

“I’m a member of the Crimson Circle.”

I tapped around my eyes and showed him that there was no Star in them. The subordinates’ eyes went wide.

“Idiots, don’t fall for such an obvious ploy!”

But the leader of the Martial Training Corps snorted and glared at me.

“Look at our limbs bound in midair. That’s Telekinesis! He’s restraining all of us with Telekinesis alone while having a casual conversation. He’s at least Seventh Circle… a high-ranking Wizard beyond imagination. Hiding a Star in his eyes would be child’s play!”

“Ah, ahh…”

“I, I guess so…”

I scratched my cheek watching the subordinates deflate, when a thought occurred to me.

‘What if…’

No matter how gradually Deep Sea’s Burden was applied, if I dragged ordinary people like these, who were neither Wizards nor Knights, into the Deep Sea, even a few seconds could be fatal to them.

More importantly, they wouldn’t be able to see what I see.

But…

“What are you trying to…”

I gripped the startled leader’s shoulder and began shifting the Water Barrier onto him.

He had no idea what was happening, but through my eyes I could see the Water Barrier gradually layering over his body.

What would happen if he entered the Deep Sea in this state?

Could he see the same things I see?

“Open your eyes wide. I’ll show you what the Crimson Circle you worship really is.”

Water Barrier or not, he was still an ordinary person. If he was unlucky, he could burst and die.

‘Then again, if some Crimson Circle worshippers burst and die, so what…’

I didn’t feel like it would weigh on my conscience, so with a nothing-to-lose attitude, I made the transition with ease.

The next moment, the world inverted.

I looked at him with curiosity. Could he see the same things I see while inside my Water Barrier? Or would he see nothing at all, simply standing there?

“…”

At first, I thought it was the latter.

He was staring blankly into the void with no reaction at all.

Just as I was thinking it had failed and that I should at least be glad he wasn’t dead…

“Th-this is…”

Looking at the Deep Sea Creatures swimming before his eyes.

Looking at the floor, darker than pitch black.

Looking at the sky of nothing but darkness, the leader’s mouth fell open wider and wider.

“This is… this is… the w-world.”

“Oh, you can see it?”

“Y-yes! Yes! Yes! I believe you, I believe you! I believe you now!”

The leader, spouting what sounded like hymnal verses, nodded frantically.

Reverence and terror mingled in his eyes. If I left him here any longer, the man who was already unhinged would lose it completely, so I quickly returned to reality.

“Good, so now you believe I’m part of the Crimson Circle?”

“Y-yes, yesss…”

“S-sir? What happened?”

“He just vanished and reappeared…”

The subordinates asked their leader with baffled faces, but he was trembling too violently to pay them any mind.

I spoke to the panicking man gently and slowly, so he could understand.

“What is the relic?”

“…D-dirt.”

“What?”

“A treasure of the Crimson Circle called the Sacred Soil… is buried beneath this city…”

Bingo.